The beholder is a fictional monster in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. It is depicted as a floating orb of flesh with a large mouth, single central eye, and many smaller eyestalks on top with powerful magical abilities.
The beholder is among the Dungeons & Dragons monsters that have appeared in every edition of the game since 1975. Beholders are one of the few classic Dungeons & Dragons monsters that Wizards of the Coast claims as Product Identity and as such was not released under its Open Game License. Beholders have been used on the cover of different Dungeons & Dragons handbooks, including the fifth edition Monster Manual.
Publication history Unlike many other Dungeons & Dragons monsters, the beholder is an original creation for D&D, as it is not based on a creature from mythology or other fiction. Rob Kuntz's brother Terry Kuntz created the Beholder, and Gary Gygax detailed it for publication.
Dungeons & Dragons (1974–1976) The beholder was introduced with the first Dungeons & Dragons supplement, Greyhawk (1975), and is depicted on its cover (as shown in the section below).Gygax, Gary and Robert J. Kuntz. Supplement I: Greyhawk (TSR, 1975) It is described as a "Sphere of Many Eyes" or "Eye Tyrant", a levitating globe with ten magical eye stalks. The beholder later appears in the Companion Rules set, in the Dungeon Masters Companion: Book Two (1984).Mentzer, Frank. Dungeons & Dragons Set 3: Companion Rules (TSR, 1984) In 1991, it appeared in the Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia.Allston, Aaron, Steven E. Schend, Jon Pickens, and Dori Watry. Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia (TSR, 1991)
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition (1977–1988) With the release of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition, the beholder appeared in the first edition Monster Manual (1977), where it is described as a hateful, aggressive, avaricious spherical monster that is most frequently found underground. Ed Greenwood and Roger E. Moore authored "The Ecology of the Beholder", which featured in Dragon #76 (August 1983).Greenwood, Ed, and Roger E Moore. "The Ecology of the Beholder". Dragon #76 (TSR, 1983)
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition (1989–1999) Second edition supplements to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, especially those of the Spelljammer campaign setting, added further details about these classic creatures' societies and culture. Beholders feature prominently in the Spelljammer setting, and a number of variants and related creatures are introduced in the Spelljammer: AD&D Adventures in Space campaign set, in the Lorebook of the Void booklet (1989). It also appeared in the Monstrous Compendium Volume One (1989),Cook, David, et al. Monstrous Compendium Volume One (TSR, 1989) and is reprinted in the Monstrous Manual (1993).Stewart, Doug, ed. Monstrous Manual (TSR, 1994) The beholder was featured on an AD&D Trading Card (1991). The book I, Tyrant (1996),Allston, Aaron. I, Tyrant (TSR, 1996) and the Monstrous Arcana module series that accompanies it, develops the beholder further. I, Tyrant is a supplement focused on beholders, and builds on the known information about beholders by expanding on elements such as their history, religion, culture, habitations and behavior.
Based on Tom Wham's depiction in the first edition Monster Manual, TSR artist Keith Parkinson characterized its popular appearance with plate-like armored scales and arthropod-like eyestalks. Jeff Grubb cites Keith Parkinson's artwork as the inspiration for the beholder-kin created for the Spelljammer campaign setting. The Beholder's xenophobia towards other subraces of Beholders was added after Jim Holloway submitted multiple designs for the Beholder's spelljamming ship and Jeff Grubb decided to keep them all and used xenophobia to explain the differences in design style.Grubb Street, Friday, April 18, 2008: Beholder – "So when I asked for beholder ships, he [Jim Holloway] gave me a wide variety. And we decided to use ALL of them, and since they were radically different we decided that beholders were xenophobic and hated other beholders. And since various artists over the years made beholders look doughy, crab-like, tentacled, and a variety of other shapes, the idea of different species of beholders (all looking different) made sense."
Dungeons & Dragons 3.0 edition (2000–2002) The third edition of Dungeons & Dragons included the Beholder in the Monster Manual (2000) with the expanded monster statistics of this release.Cook, Monte, Jonathan Tweet, and Skip Williams. Monster Manual (Wizards of the Coast, 2000) Beholder variants appear in Monstrous Compendium: Monsters of Faerûn (2001).Wyatt, James, and Rob Heinsoo. Monstrous Compendium: Monsters of Faerun (Wizards of the Coast, 2001) Epic Level Handbook (2002) introduces the Gibbering Orb, a purported common ancestor of the beholder and gibbering mouther.Andy Collins and Bruce R. Cordell. Epic Level Handbook (Wizards of the Coast, 2002)
Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 edition (2003–2007) The beholder appears in the revised Monster Manual for the 3.5 edition (2003). The mindwitness was a sample creature of the half-illithid template using a beholder as the base creature, featured on Wizards of the Coast's website on August 14, 2003. The beholder receives its own chapter in the book Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations (2005).Baker, Rich, James Jacobs, and Steve Winter. Lords of Madness (Wizards of the Coast, 2005)
Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition (2008–2014) With the release of the fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons, the beholder once again appears in the Monster Manual for this edition (2008), including the beholder eye of flame and the beholder eye tyrant.Mearls, Mike, Stephen Schubert, and James Wyatt. Monster Manual (Wizards of the Coast, 2008) Variants of the beholder also appear in Monster Manual 2 (2009), and Monster Manual 3 (2010).Mearls, Mike, Greg Bilsland, and Robert J. Schwalb. Monster Manual 3. Renton, Washington: Wizards of the Coast, 2010
Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition (2014–present) The beholder appears along with the more powerful undead death tyrant and the spectator in the 5th edition Monster Manual (2014).Mearls, Mike, Stephen Schubert, and James Wyatt. Monster Manual, pp. 26–30 (Wizards of the Coast, 2014) Additionally, a zombie beholder also appears under the "Zombies" section later in the book. Volo's Guide to Monsters (2016) provides more detail on beholder culture and contains stats for the death kiss, gauth and gazer beholder-kin. The half-illithid mindwitness also makes an appearance in this book.Volo's Guide to Monsters (Wizards of the Coast, 2016) The book Xanathar's Guide to Everything (2017) contains various notes written from the perspective of the beholder known as Xanathar. Xanathar is also one of the possible villains adventurers can face in the adventure module Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (2018).
Description
A beholder is an aberration comprising a floating spheroid body with a large fanged mouth and single eye on the front and many flexible eyestalks on the top. It is protected by chitinous plates.
Each eye of a beholder possesses a different magical ability; the main eye projects an anti-magical cone, and the other eyes have different spell-like abilities (disintegrate objects, transmute flesh to stone, cause sleep, slow the motion of objects or beings, charm animals, charm humans, cause death, induce fear, levitate objects, and inflict serious wounds). Many variant beholder species exist, such as "observers", "spectators", "eyes of the deep", "elder orbs", "hive mothers", and "death tyrants". In addition, some rare beholders can use their eyes for non-standard spell-like abilities; these mutant beholders are often killed or exiled by their peers. Beholders wishing to cast spells like ordinary wizards relinquish the traditional use of their eyestalks, and put out their central anti-magic eye, making these beholder mages immediate outcasts.
In 4th edition, different breeds of beholders have different magic abilities. Beholder Eyes of Flame only have Fear, Fire, and Telekinesis Rays; Eyes of Frost are the same, with fire replaced by frost. The Beholder Eye Tyrant is mostly unchanged from traditional beholders, but the Death Ray causes ongoing necrotic damage rather than an instant kill, and the Disintegration Ray does not automatically kill its target.Dungeon Master's Guide (2008) Other beholder types each have their own set of abilities. In this edition, the beholder's central eye no longer cancels out magic, instead dazing or giving some vulnerability to its victim.
Society
Beholders are extremely xenophobic. They will sometimes take members of other, non-beholder races as slaves; however, they will engage in a violent intra-species war with others of their kind who differ even slightly in appearance. This intense hatred of other beholders is not universal; the most prominent exceptions are Hive Mothers, who use their powers of mind control to form hives with other beholders and beholder-kin. Beholder communities in the Underdark often, when provoked, wage war on any and all nearby settlements, finding the most resistance from the drow and illithids.
Beholders worship their insane, controlling goddess known as the Great Mother, though some also, or instead, follow her rebel offspring, Gzemnid, the beholder god of gases.
Some beholder strains have mutated far from the basic beholder stock. These are aberrant beholders, of which there are numerous different types. These aberrants may have differing abilities and/or appearances but the unifying feature among beholders and the various aberrant beholders seems to be a simple, fleshy body with one or more grotesque eyes.
Campaign settings
Forgotten Realms
Beholders are especially prominent in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, where they infiltrate and seek to control many sectors of society—many beholders are allied to the Zhentarim and some work with the Red Wizards of Thay. Beholders also compete to control the Underdark from where most of them originate, with their base of power in the City of the Eye Tyrants, Ootul.
A beholder known as "The Xanathar" controls Skullport's influential Thieves Guild; "The Xanathar" is the title of the thieves guild leader, passed from one to the next. The book Dungeons & Dragons Lore & Legends (2023) highlighted that Xanathar dates "back to the very origins of the Forgotten Realms, detailed first in module FR1: Waterdeep and the North" (1987) and noted that the character has made appearances outside the tabletop game "in comic books, and even in the 1991 SSI game Eye of the Beholder".
Spelljammer According to Ken Rolston, the beholder and the mind flayer "win starring roles as intergalactic menaces" in Spelljammer, and notes that the beholders, "with their abundant magical powers, are perhaps the most formidable warrior race of the universe, but fortunately they are too busy slaughtering one another to present a big threat to other spacefaring races".
Beholders in the Spelljammer campaign are common antagonists, like the deadly neogi and sadistic illithids. However, one thing prevents them from being the most dangerous faction in wildspace: the beholders are engaged in a xenophobic civil war of genetic purity.
There are a large number of variations in the beholder race with some sub-races having smooth hides and others chitinous plates. Other noticeable differences include snakelike eyestalks or crustacean like eyestalk joints. Some variations seem minor such as variations in the size of the central eye or differences in skin colour. Each beholder nation believes itself to be the true beholder race and sees other beholders as ugly copies that must be destroyed.I, Tyrant p 36, TSR 1996