Page 38 - Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations

eholders are perhaps the most deadly of the great EXTERNAL ANATOMY Illus. by D. Kovacs
aberration races. They are certainly one of the most A beholder’s body appears, on the outside, quite simple.
distinctive and unusual in appearance. It consists of a single sphere about 8 feet wide, but it’s not
The original beholders are said to have been unusual to find a specimen slightly smaller or even much

spawned on one of the Outer Planes by a primal entity as larger. A beholder’s natural buoyancy cuts down on its
powerful as a deity. This creature has no name, and its children weight somewhat, but their bodies are still dense and
have no need to generate one for it. To others, it is known compact. An 8-foot-diameter beholder typically weighs
only as the Great Mother, a name granted more for the fact anywhere between 4,000 and 5,000 pounds.
that the creature spawned the entire beholder race from its A beholder’s skin has the strength of steel. Apart from

very flesh than for any real certainty that it is female. From the specialized skin of the eyelids and along the jaws,
the Great Mother, the beholder race and its various kin have beholder skin is singularly inflexible. Coloration and

propagated to the other planes with great success, for few can texture varies widely from one beholder to the next.
stand in the way of such destructive creatures. Some beholders have smooth, almost shiny skin of a
Although the information in this chapter is presented as single drab color, while others have brightly colored or
fact, beholders are alien creatures in body, mind, and soul. even striped or spotted skin that seems to be comprised
Even Iphegor of the Ebon Mirror might not have divined all of thick, bony interlocking plates. Each beholder
of their secrets, nor recorded everything he discovered in his thinks of itself as the true form spawned eons ago by
Codex Anathema. the Great Mother, and any variations exhibited by
other beholders are taken to be marks of inferiority.
The flesh of a beholder’s eyestalks is tough and

BEHOLDER ANATOMY fibrous, but unlike the skin that covers its body,

Although beholders might look like relatively simple crea- this skin is quite flexible. On most beholders, each

tures, they are in fact complex and alien in nature. Some of eyestalk is smooth and rubbery, almost like a tentacle.
their features and internal organs have similar shapes and Again, there can be much variation. Some beholders
functions to those found in other creatures, but many of them have segmented eyestalks similar to a worm’s body,
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are wholly unique to these terrible monstrosities. while others have articulated, almost insectlike