-Genesis 20:16
Still redoing the Monster Manuual,--FINALLY A GOOD MONSTER!
Beholders are wonderful and terrible, of course--and the several variations that the Monster Manual lists just spread the terror thin. Before you get to the actual Eye there's all these preparatory minor terrors like Spectators to worry about. Fuck that. Also, the eye-themed lair actions seem misguided.
Here's a beholder-lite (and sort of a lair action) that makes sense to me. Y'know the gas spore...
…the monster that notoriously looks just like a beholder but is hollow and filled with murder?
I assume these are bio-engineered by the beholder itself as decoys in its moist and stygian alchemical pits.*
(Also, I figure beholders--what with telekineses and no hands and therefore likely thinking of their entire environment as part of their body--are philosophers.)
But where do the Beholders themselves come from?
Do you remember that issue of Thor where he went to look for Odin's missing eye and he found it and it shot fire at dwarves and told Thor stories? Well that's obviously a beholder.
Beholders are the cast-off eyes of gods--that's why they're so rare.
When psychotic white elf alchemists get ahold of beholders, they do this with them...
*Scrap Princess has a great idea: the gas spore is a cordryceps-like fungus that takes over the eye.
OH WAIT HOLY SHIT: the Beholder itself is what happens when the fungus takes over a god's eye and the gas spore is what happens after thousands of years when it finally gets totally fungusized.
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13 comments:
Really dig the art man. Thats almost exactly what I think of when I picture a beholder. I also dig the blank stare, because, why the heck would isolationist xenophobes bother to emote?
Re: the whole series. What a great idea! Probably a premature or stupid question, but are there any publication possibilities given the legalities and/or your (still?) relationship with WOTC?
Why are you asking me?
It looks cool and I think there would be a market for it. I wouldn't spend $50 (or $10) on the current 5e offering, but I would easily spend $50 on yours.
don't ask me, ask WOTC.
Your beholder looks more beholdery than WOTC's beholder. I'm very happy your still doing these.
Look at all the beauty in its eye!
Eating the eye of a Beholder gives you a +10 bonus to Charisma for 24 hours.
Allways imagined the GasSpore as some sort of stillborn Beholder.
Wiki says "about 400" species of Cordryseps. This idea I love.
Pantheons are pretty limited, unless yer thinking Hindu, etc...that's a lot of eyeless deities running around, even with the rarity of beholders...there are cities full of them in most campaigns under-dark areas...
working on other stuff but i'll prolly keep on later
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