What is the purpose of a beholder?

[the_david]

A long time ago I watched a terrible movie in which the main character distracted a couple of beholders by tossing a rock in some bushes. For some reason these beholders seemed to be guarding a location, although it might have been some random encounter to establish a weak link to the title of the movie.
Now I don't think a standard beholder would work as a guard, although some kind of beholderkin might fit that role. I've been reading up on beholders lately (and the Eye King template for Pathfinder.) and I was wondering what kind of goals and motivation a beholder might have. As far as I can tell, beholders are just evil for the sake of evil, and even though some of them are great thieves guild masters and slave lords they don't have any motivation beyond greed. The only thing that stands out about them is that they're xenophobic toward their own kind.

Is this really all there is to a beholder? What are some good beholder stories?

[NOhara24]

As far as I can tell, beholders are just evil for the sake of evil, and even though some of them are great thieves guild masters and slave lords they don't have any motivation beyond greed. The only thing that stands out about them is that they're xenophobic toward their own kind.

Is this really all there is to a beholder? What are some good beholder stories?

You can look at it that way, or you can look at it like Beholders and intelligent and independent enough that each individual is capable of having their own motivations for doing things. *shrugs*

[Fouredged Sword]

A long time ago I watched a terrible movie in which the main character distracted a couple of beholders by tossing a rock in some bushes. For some reason these beholders seemed to be guarding a location, although it might have been some random encounter to establish a weak link to the title of the movie.
Now I don't think a standard beholder would work as a guard, although some kind of beholderkin might fit that role. I've been reading up on beholders lately (and the Eye King template for Pathfinder.) and I was wondering what kind of goals and motivation a beholder might have. As far as I can tell, beholders are just evil for the sake of evil, and even though some of them are great thieves guild masters and slave lords they don't have any motivation beyond greed. The only thing that stands out about them is that they're xenophobic toward their own kind.

Is this really all there is to a beholder? What are some good beholder stories?

Beholders are a joke on the phrase "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." That is the literal truth of how they where envisioned. They are all narcissistic anti-social megalomaniacs who see themselves as the idea of beauty and everything else as ugly abominations that should be shunned or destroyed. They can be manipulated in the short term by appealing to their ego, but in the long term they will tire of dealing with other beings and attempt to kill whoever enters their territory (wherever the beholder happens to be). Beholders do not even like OTHER beholders, as minute differences in appearance send each other into fights over who is the true pinnacle of creation.

[Telonius]

They're basically Daleks. Not a Beholder, or an impure Beholder? EXTERMINATE.

[legomaster00156]

They're basically Daleks. Not a Beholder, or an impure Beholder? EXTERMINATE.
"Beholders have no concept of EL-E-GANCE!"
"This is obvious."

[DrMotives]

They were more of a big fixture in Spelljammer, where beholders were one of the main races with their own style of ships. The lore, as I recall, was that while a single beholder ship was powerful and ambitious, they're hatred of other beholder with minor cosmetic differences kept them from being as big a threat as illithid, scro, or neogi, the other Spelljammer main "bad guy" races. So there were ships of them, operating as slavers, merchants, or pirates, depending on the personality of the beholders in a given crew. They do have control monster as an eye-ray after all. But they tended to attack other beholder ships enough to keep their own numbers and power down, so there weren't huge beholder nations, more like gangs, pirate crews, or thief guild size organizations headed by tyrant-kind. Honestly, I think they were created by Gary Gygax's tradition of just making weird monsters because he liked them.

[the_david]

You can look at it that way, or you can look at it like Beholders and intelligent and independent enough that each individual is capable of having their own motivations for doing things. *shrugs*

Maybe I should rephrase my question. I can't picture beholders as anything but badly written super villains. (Such as Megamind, although Megamind actually subverted the trope.) Xanathar managed to expell a bunch of beholders from Undermountain and he runs a thieves guild, that's it... There is nothing epic about one of the most epic beholders. (33 racial hit dice and some sorcerer levels.)
Is that what beholders are supposed to do? Do evil things for the sake of being evil and because the story needs a antagonist?

[Nerd-o-rama]

They're freaky, dangerous abominations. There's a lot of those in the Monster Manual, Beholders are just of a slightly more jarring juxtaposition between horrific shape and darkly-comical-until-they-disintegrate-you motivations compared to say, Illithids or Aboleths.

[Darth Ultron]

They're basically Daleks. Not a Beholder, or an impure Beholder? EXTERMINATE.

This.

Out of the Game-they are a cool, powerful, iconic monster with lots of powers.

In game-They are Daleks :)

The average beholder, as per the Monster Manual, is a hermit that lives in a spot. Beholders are very often ''boss monsters'' as they can charm others...and have lots of powerful magic too.

Multiverse wide....they are Daleks. The ''two'' main beholder types (''stick like eye stalks'' and ''French drain hose'' eye stalks) hate each other and EXTERMINATE!

[DrMotives]

Is that what beholders are supposed to do? Do evil things for the sake of being evil and because the story needs a antagonist?

Sometimes you just want a cliché.

[Fouredged Sword]

Is that what beholders are supposed to do? Do evil things for the sake of being evil and because the story needs a antagonist?

Not for the sake of evil, for the sake of exalting themselves as the ideal. Other races do not matter because they are lesser. Other Beholders do not matter because they are inferior. The only thing that matters is themselves. They will work only to acquire what they desire though the easiest most convent manner. All other creatures are ether threats to be eliminated or tools to be used.

[the_david]

Somehow I'm starting to get the idea that Beholders are superior beings that have the ironic flaw of being hold back by their own egotism. I still have no idea what to do with them, but at least it's something.

I'm not a Doctor Who fan. Sorry guys.

[Telonius]

Somehow I'm starting to get the idea that Beholders are superior beings that have the ironic flaw of being hold back by their own egotism. I still have no idea what to do with them, but at least it's something.

I'm not a Doctor Who fan. Sorry guys.

Daleks are a major enemy in Doctor Who's universe. They're extremely dangerous, have a ray gun that disintegrates pretty much anything (much like a Beholder), and the newfangled ones can fly. They're extremely dangerous, and live for killing. Here's the 9th Doctor's explanation of why they do what they do.


Van Statten: There has to be something it wants.
The Doctor: What's the nearest town?
Van Statten: Salt Lake City.
The Doctor: Population?
Van Statten: One million.
The Doctor: All dead. If the Dalek gets out, it will murder every living thing. That's all that it needs.
Van Statten: But why would it do that?
The Doctor: Because it honestly believes they should die. Human beings are different, and anything different is wrong. It's the ultimate in racial cleansing...

[Millstone85]

They're extremely dangerous, have a ray gun that disintegrates pretty much anything (much like a Beholder), and the newfangled ones can fly.And a dalek's true fleshy self, hidden inside the flying miniature tank, can be summarized as a single eye amidst a mass of tentacles, which furthers the resemblance with beholderkin.

[Endarire]

Beholders are jocks that seem to be everywhere to ruin the nerds' fun. They're ugly, smelly, powerful, and seemingly everywhere. And they hate casters!

http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll59/GladArt/Beholder-1.jpg

[Segev]

The classic beholder is a "lair boss" type monster. Whether they lair up in a city (and control it or a subset of its culture through magical domination) or in the wilderness, they kill or drive off anything they can't control.

They are a spooky horror (silent, floating ball of eyes with massive magical power that can act from a distance or from hiding) and they are a terrible foe (enough actions per round to single-handedly turn the action deficit equation around on the PCs). They are intelligent enough to excuse tactical and even strategic brilliance and planning, but their peculiar sort of madness allows them to make classic villain blunders entirely believably. (They literally have compartmentalized minds, with the part that processes senses having an urge to protect the ego of the one that does the rational planning, so it censors the sensory input in order to hide failures and magnify victories. This works out okay while the Beholder is 'winning,' but the more things go wrong, the more the part of the Beholder that makes plans is fed false information about how well things are working until it is literally divorced from reality.)

Their primary role is as a solo boss monster, from a gameplay standpoint.

[ATHATH]

Some of the types of Beholderkin are quite interesting- Spectators, for example, are TN and are summoned (created?) by mages to guard things.

[Arbane]

Has anyone ever tried beating a Beholder with onion juice? All those eyes...

[AnimeTheCat]

So, I saw these videos recently and I really enjoyed them. I can't speak to their accuracy or correctness, but they helped me to think of beholders as something more than just evil to be evil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CRIFPSIZbI

[Thurbane]

If you want some "official" insight, Lords of Madness has some quite extensive discussion in the culture and motivations of Beholders and their kin.

[Darth Ultron]

Is that what beholders are supposed to do? Do evil things for the sake of being evil and because the story needs a antagonist?

Yes?

But then this is true of any race.

[Delicious Taffy]

Having read this, I now refuse to use a beholder as anything other than a floating eyeball Dalek.

[Pex]

A long time ago I watched a terrible movie in which the main character distracted a couple of beholders by tossing a rock in some bushes. For some reason these beholders seemed to be guarding a location, although it might have been some random encounter to establish a weak link to the title of the movie.
Now I don't think a standard beholder would work as a guard, although some kind of beholderkin might fit that role. I've been reading up on beholders lately (and the Eye King template for Pathfinder.) and I was wondering what kind of goals and motivation a beholder might have. As far as I can tell, beholders are just evil for the sake of evil, and even though some of them are great thieves guild masters and slave lords they don't have any motivation beyond greed. The only thing that stands out about them is that they're xenophobic toward their own kind.

Is this really all there is to a beholder? What are some good beholder stories?

That's not being fair to beholders. That movie was the first "Dungeons & Dragons" movie. It was incredibly bad not only in its unrealistic vision of D&D for those who know it, but also had bad acting and direction. Beholders were not the only thing to be treated so poorly in scope.

[the_david]

That's not being fair to beholders. That movie was the first "Dungeons & Dragons" movie. It was incredibly bad not only in its unrealistic vision of D&D for those who know it, but also had bad acting and direction. Beholders were not the only thing to be treated so poorly in scope.

My point was that the movie got them wrong, but I don't know how to get them right either. Even Profion seems to have more motivation to be a villain than the average beholder.

[Braininthejar2]

My headcanon is that they've been created this way by their goddess, as a sort of investment - they worship her as an embodiment of the idea of "beholder", but each of them considers itself a perfect beholder, regardless of evidence - so in a way, their every egotistic boast is like a prayer. That makes them all irreparably insane, but they are blessed with enough firepower to survive regardless.


(Now for canon, this "believe regardless of evidence" part is a fact - they have two main parts in their brain, one emotional and one logical, and all new data goes through the emotional part first - a beholder is physically incapable of registering facts that conflict with its established prejudices.)

[Fouredged Sword]

(Now for canon, this "believe regardless of evidence" part is a fact - they have two main parts in their brain, one emotional and one logical, and all new data goes through the emotional part first - a beholder is physically incapable of registering facts that conflict with its established prejudices.)

So they act like everyone else who is basically in the same boat.

[the_david]

My headcanon is that they've been created this way by their goddess, as a sort of investment - they worship her as an embodiment of the idea of "beholder", but each of them considers itself a perfect beholder, regardless of evidence - so in a way, their every egotistic boast is like a prayer. That makes them all irreparably insane, but they are blessed with enough firepower to survive regardless.


(Now for canon, this "believe regardless of evidence" part is a fact - they have two main parts in their brain, one emotional and one logical, and all new data goes through the emotional part first - a beholder is physically incapable of registering facts that conflict with its established prejudices.)

I'm wondering what a brain damaged beholder would be capable of. Brain damaged in the emotional part of the brain, ofcourse.

[Segev]

I'm wondering what a brain damaged beholder would be capable of. Brain damaged in the emotional part of the brain, ofcourse.

The Xanathar - the beholder who is the head of the Waterdeep thieves' guild - is known for having his emotional mind for whatever reason actually give the full input to its rational mind. It operates much more like a sane, ordinary, sapient monster than most beholders.

Depending on the brain damage, the emotional part could be near-dead and just transmit directly, or it could be totally insane and transmit nothing to the rational part. It probably would not be good for the beholder under most circumstances. Getting brain damaged in exactly the right way to increase performance is...near impossible.

[Braininthejar2]

If you have any cool ideas though, feel free to contribute to the 101 atypical abberations thread :smallsmile: