Nolzur's Marvelous Unpainted Minis: Beholder

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Beholders are among the few creatures that can shape reality in their vicinity. In addition, beholders don’t truly sleep when they rest. Instead, a beholder’s mind remains semiconscious even as it dreams. As a result, on rare occasions when a beholder dreams of another beholder, the dream-reality becomes warped and takes on physical form, becoming another actual beholder. To call this process reproduction would be inaccurate, because in most cases the old and new beholders fight to the death—a fact for which the rest of the world is thankful. Inhuman Intellect A beholder often has one or more pets in its lair, mainly because (for whatever reason) it enjoys the company of such creatures. Pets are usually of low intelligence and are kept around because of their combat abilities, entertainment value, or trop hy status.

A beholder in its lair has access to so many resources that it can often vanquish invaders without directly confronting them. Devious and hidden traps are liable to be lurking around every corner, and might be blatantly obvious in some places, yet no less lethal. In similar fashion, a beholder might station some of its minions in a prime spot for an ambush, or it might send forth a bunch of its servants to overrun a group of enemies that have been weakened by traps and other hazards. Every beholder has minions, and can always acquire more, so the master of the lair doesn’t hesitate to send its underlings into the fray. Outside Combat A beholder uses its fear ray to psychologically torture and interrogate a prisoner until the creature loses the will to resist. Slowing Ray Using miniatures is as useful in modern roleplaying games and tabletop wargaming as it has always been. It gives both a visual and tactile element to playing and you get the chance to paint the miniatures, which for me I find quite therapeutic.The Monsters Listingintroduces several new types of beholder-kin. A death kiss is usually the result of a nightmare about blood, such as what a beholder might experience after an encounter with a vampire or after being severely wounded in battle. Gazers are “born” out of a poisoned or ill beholder’s feverish dreams, in which its sense of perspective and scale is warped. A spectator (see the Monster Manual) is a kind of lesser beholder summoned from another plane of existence to watch over something, such as a treasure hoard. A gauth hails from the same plane as spectators, or one that overlaps it enough that they can take advantage of a flawed attempt to summon a spectator. Although true beholders can be found on a spectator’s or gauth’s home plane, the creatures’ actual place of origin is unknown (whether another plane, a world beyond the stars, or some stranger location), and spectators and gauths aren’t believed to originate from dreams as other beh olders do. Physical Characteristics If a beholder’s retinue were likened to an army, the grunts would be represented by its lesser minions, intelligent creatures that can talk and usually live in large groups. They handle menial tasks for the beholder such as hunting, scouting, and guarding the lair. Greater Minions

The main living area that the beholder uses is filled with objects that the creature enjoys looking at, such as art, statues, and its latest spoils of victory. The floor is uneven and difficult for intruders to navigate. Minions usually guard the entrances to thi s chamber. Escape Tunnels A beholder often sets aside a chamber to hold captives that it chooses not to kill. The simplest kind of prison, easy enough for a beholder to create, typically consists of 20-foot-deep holes disintegrated into the floor, sometimes covered with a wood or metal grating. A prisoner is stripped of weapons and magic items, thrown into one of the holes, and guarded by minions at all times. Sanctum As described in the Monster Manual, a beholder’s use of its eye rays in combat is random, governed by die rolls instead of by choice. This rule is an abstraction, designed to keep the beholder’s opponents unsure of what rays will be coming next (and, not incidentally, to prevent the monster from using its most lethal eye rays at every opportunity). The rule also makes the creature easi er to run.Most of the beholders in the world live apart from others of their kind, and they like it that way. When a solitary beholder dreams another beholder into existence, the creatures’ basic nature often means that the first thing they do is try to destroy one another. A solitary beholder lairs within a cave system or a ruined structure, either one of its own making or a place the creature took over after killing or driving off the beholder that gave it birth. A trophy is a treasure that a beholder cherishes as evidence of its power, or serves as a remembrance of victory over its enemies, or evokes another sort of positive reaction from it. The preserved corpse of a rival beholder (or any parts it can recover from a battle) would certainly be a prized trophy, as would be the skull of a defeated dragon, the clothing of a famous adventurer the beholder killed, or art objects that are pleasing to its alien senses. A beholder usually has the location of all its trophies memorized and immediately senses if something is missing or out of place. A beholder can fine-tune its death ray or enervation ray so that it can “zap” the smallest of targets and deal only a small amount of damage (though usually still enough to obliterate what it touches). For example, to guard against magical spying, a beholder might use either ray to eliminate all common vermin (bats, rats, spiders, and so on) from its lair. Telekinetic Ray It may seem old school with modern online map tools and VTT gaming and online gaming brings a lot to the table, with the convenience, the quality of maps and the fog of war created. But sometimes you just can’t beat the old school miniatures on a map experience. These classic, iconic monsters look great anyway even simply as display models, but using them adds another dimension to play, helping players to visualise an encounter. The organization’s grunt-level employees—thieves, slavers, and ordinary thugs—work for the Xanathar Guild because it pays well. They don’t necessarily know their leader is a beholder; they just know the boss is powerful, dangerous, and doesn’t tolerate mistakes. Although previous Xanathars carefully guarded the facts of their true nature and allowed only a handful of their lieutenants to know the truth, the current Xanathar treats the matter more like an open secret. All of its lieutenants, as well as many mid-level members of the guild that the Xanathar trusts, know that the guild is run by a beholder.

When the dreamer awakens, it treats the newborns as extensions of its own self in other bodies, and therefore isn’t consumed with an urge to kill them. This united group of identical beholders doesn’t truly have a hive intelligence, but their personalities and goals are so similar that they can predict and assume each others’ behavior, much as especially close human siblings can. The original beholder is usually the dominant one and takes a leadership role. A hive consists of three to ten beholders, plus whatever minions the y control. Death Tyrants

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A beholder that has amassed many trophies might set aside an area in its lair dedicated to their display. A trophy gallery is often a long chamber decorated with mementos taken from creatures the beholder has slain. Niches and pedestals hold smaller objects, while larger objects are suspended from the ceiling or left freestanding in the room. To prevent minions from handling or trying to steal trophies, the more favored and valuable items are kept on high shelves, accessible to the flying beholder but out of reach of anyone on t he ground. Leaving the Lair