Page 49 - Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations

carefully laid plans. These creatures have information that SANE BEHOLDERS
a beholder needs or access to items it covets, and thus the Not all beholders are insane, solitary creatures with little more
beholder seeks to capture, subjugate, and eventually destroy on their minds than slaughter. Just as other races have members

the creature as efficiently as possible. Examples include who simply can’t abide by the rules of their society, so too do
humanoids, intelligent undead, mind flayers, aboleths, and beholders have outcasts. From a humanoid viewpoint, these

outsiders with 12 to 16 Hit Dice. outcasts are the few sane beholders. These creatures maintain a
Usable: These creatures pose little threat to a beholder, but hatred of other beholders, but this is a hatred born of fear rather
they possess useful abilities that a beholder can benefit from if than intolerance. A sane beholder understands that others of its

it can charm them. Examples include goblinoids, giants, grell, kind view it as the greatest threat of all, and it seeks out places
that other beholders shun. In other words, these beholders live
neogi, and outsiders with fewer than 12 Hit Dice.
CHAPTER 3 THE EYE TYRANTS beholder and are simply annoying. Beholders prefer to enslave in the societies and cities of other races.
Inferior: These creatures offer nothing of interest to a
Although these beholders might be considered sane, most
remain evil to the core. They know that they are objects of
or destroy them but don’t normally go out of their way to do
fear to other races and take pains to establish their lairs in
so. Examples include elementals, nonintelligent undead,
constructs, fey, vermin, and sentient plants.
Inconsequential: These creatures offer nothing to a secret underground chambers below a city. They make use
of their charm person and charm monster eye rays to build
beholder but a convenient source of food. Examples include a small army of loyal minions from the local population,
animals and magical beasts. and before long, they establish themselves as the shadowy
leaders of new organizations. Many of these groups func-
Relations with Other Beholders tion as thieves’ guilds, with the beholder running the show
A beholder’s typical reaction to encountering another beholder behind the scenes or through a carefully selected proxy.
is rage. If possible, the beholder directs its minions to attack Other beholder-driven groups might include religious
the other beholder and kill it, but sometimes this tactic isn’t organizations, bard colleges, wizardly schools, or even the
the best one available. In such a case, the beholder is driven government of a small city.
to attack the other beholder personally. The most common form of organization, of course, is the
Of all creatures, a beholder is perhaps the most invulner- beholder cult. These cults consist of a single beholder that
able to others of its kind, due to its antimagic cone. A combat charms a number of minions, who then take to worshiping

between two beholders is savage and ruthless, especially if the the beholder as a deity. Beholders find that being worshiped
terrain doesn’t allow one an advantage over the other. A beholder is an excellent path to self-satisfaction and delight, and they

that is able to ambush another can end the fight quickly. encourage such behavior in their minions. In many cases, a
When two beholders meet on equal ground, each rotates beholder keeps only a few select cult leaders charmed, and
quickly enough to keep its enemy in the area of its antimagic these leaders guide and influence the main body of the cult.

cone. Thus, the encounter rapidly degenerates into a frenzied That way, cult members worship the beholder voluntarily,

battle of flashing teeth and tearing flesh. Each beholder uses without being coerced into doing so by magic, which beholders

Flyby Attack to swoop in, bite its enemy, and then retreat find most rewarding.
to a point where its foe cannot escape its cone of antimagic Some beholder cultists go so far as to gouge out a portion of
with a single move action, forcing the foe to take two moves their own forehead and graft in a beholder’s eye during a foul
to escape the antimagic or retaliate in a similar swoop-bite- ritual dedicated to the Great Mother. These people become
retreat tactic. Sometimes, a beholder can use the surrounding clerics of the Great Mother, after a fashion, even though they
terrain to turn the tide of battle in its favor by using its eye themselves are not beholders. Known as ocular adepts, they
rays to attack its enemy indirectly. For example, a beholder represent the most devoted, and thus most dangerous, of
could use disintegrate rays to drop trees or cave in a roof on beholder cultists. Often, an ocular adept runs an entire cult
an enemy, or it could use its telekinesis eye ray to hurl objects and is allied with a beholder that might not live nearby at all.
at its enemy. (If the beholder uses the violent thrust form of In some cases, a dozen or more ocular adepts based in as many
telekinesis—that is, using magic only to launch the object, cities might all follow the same beholder. The beholder selects
which thereafter moves of its own accord as if it had been the location of the most powerful cult as a base of operations
thrown—the object maintains its velocity and trajectory even and rules the other branches by proxy. The ocular adept is
after it enters an antimagic cone.) detailed in full in the FORGOTTEN REALMS supplement Faiths
In the exceedingly rare cases where more than two behold- & Pantheons, but a sample ocular adept appears in the “Cult
ers meet, the resulting melee is proportionally more savage of the Hungry Eye” adventure at the end of this chapter.
and destructive. Beholders in such a fight team up against the In rare circumstances, sane beholders pool their resources

one that looks the most unusual. The beholders form groups and work together to accomplish a common goal. Such a group-
based on their similar physical features and work together ing of beholders is called a beholder cluster and consists of
to nullify the others. As each beholder falls, the groups anywhere from two to six of the creatures. Because beholders
reorganize so that the next most unique-looking beholder is are asexual and have little need for physical companionship,
the common target. these clusters are almost always focused on dominating inferior
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