Beholder

Depiction of a beholder, by Kieran Yanner from *D&D: Monster Manual*, page 28.

**Beholders** are powerful aberrations that originate in the Far Realm.

## **Description**

A beholder's body consists of a hovering head with a wide and toothy maw, an enormous central eye, and ten independently moving eyes at the end of their own eyestalks.

## **Abilities**

 ***Note:** This section does not specify the copywritten monster ability details, which are available in the* D&D *5th edition* Monster Manual*.*
* **Immunities:** The "prone" condition.
* **Senses:** Darkvision.
* **Languages:** Deep Speech, Undercommon.
* **Attacks**
	+ **Antimagic Cone:** The beholder can negate magic within a 150-ft cone in front of its central eye.
		- Also negates the effects of its own eye rays within that area.
	+ **Bite:** The beholder can bite at a target with its giant, toothy maw.
	+ **Eye Rays:** A beholder has ten different eyes attached to its head, each of which can emit a different magical ray at separately selected targets.

* Paralyzing Ray
* Fear Ray
* Slowing Ray
* Enervation Ray (necrotic damage)
* Sleep Ray
* Petrification Ray
* Disintegration Ray (force damage)
* Death Ray (necrotic damage)

* **Legendary Action:** A beholder can use one of its eye rays at the end of another character's turn.

## **Known beholders**

* K'Varn, bearing a Horn of Orcus and metal armor plating, came through a rift from the Far Realm to the ancient underground city of Yug'Voril, where he enslaved a mind flayer colony, expanded his influence to the duergar Emberhold, and began threatening Kraghammer before he was slain by Vox Machina.
* A beholder—possibly named something pronounced "Yar-voss," based on what its kuo-toa servant said as it died—occupied the sunken tomb of Purvan Suul.
* Enxanash is an eccentric beholder living in a hidden valley in the Cyrios Mountains.
* Taryon Darrington claimed to have killed a small beholder at some point in the past with help from sellswords, who "took it out into a field and sort of roughed it up" for Taryon, who then dealt the killing blow to the creature.

## **Trivia**

* Due to beholders being Product Identity of Wizards of the Coast under the Open Game License, they are replaced with unspecified extraplanar aberrations in the *Critical Role: Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting*. One adventure hook involves aberrant "Death Eyes", which sound similar to a nickname for despotic beholders, "eye tyrants", and an undead type of beholder called a "death tyrant".
* A common fan theory was that Fresh Cut Grass's former party may have been killed by a beholder, due to F.C.G. asking Ariks Eshteross specifically about one-eyed monsters. However, this was later proven false when Dancer confirmed that the party was killed by F.C.G. himself.

## **References**

1. ↑ See "The Sunken Tomb" (1x44) at 3:38:35.  A servant croaks something as it dies that Vex doesn't recognize as an Undercommon word. For contrast, other servants called to their master at 2:46:12 and chanted in reverence at 3:10:10, both times in Undercommon.
2. ↑ See *Explorer's Guide to Wildemount*, p. 62.
3. ↑ See "A Bard's Lament" (1x85) at 3:05:41.
4. ↑ See *Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting*, p. 69.
5. ↑ See *D&D: Monster Manual*, 5th ed., pp. 26–27.
6. ↑ See "The Trail and the Toll" (3x03) at 3:27:16.
7. ↑ See "A Stage Set" (3x32) at 1:04:49.

**Art:**

1. ↑  Beholder on D&D Beyond. This page contains unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Wizards of the Coast Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.
2. ↑ Fan art of K'Varn, by Stephen Oakley (source). Used with permission.