There are few things as iconic toDungeons & Dragonsas the Beholders, terrifying creatures that have tormented players since the very first edition of the game. These floating masses full of eyes are not only deadly, but most of them will actively hunt you down and kill you.

But where do they come from, why are they so evil, and why do you almost never see them working together? The Beholders have had many descriptions over the years, and while some of these questions have been answered, only one thing has remained constant: they hate everything and everyone, including other Beholders.

The beholder xanathar looking at its pet goldfish

The Beholder

The Beholder is a monster in Dungeons & Dragonsand, unlike most other creatures,it isn’t based on any pop culture reference or existing mythology.Since its inception, the Beholder has always been an original creation of the tabletop game.

Within the D&D universe,a Beholder looks like a fleshy floating sphere, with a face consisting of one massive eye and a large mouth with razor sharp teeth.The top of a Beholder has several small tendrils with eyes on the tips, or Eye Stalks as they are commonly referred to.

A beholder from Dungeons & Dragons looking menacing with its variosu eye-stalks.

The original Beholders were more spherical than the designs we have today. Nowadays, they have more carefully designed jawlines, making some of them look like floating heads.

All these many eyes arewhat give Beholders their name, and also why they are so dangerous. Each eye they have, from their central eye to the Eye Stalks, can cast spells, letting the creature cast several spells per turn.

a Bard and a Beholder at a social gathering.

Beholders, however, aren’t spellcasters, since each eye can only cast a specific spell, and they can’t learn new ones.There have been Beholder Mages in previous editions, but that requires them to negate or remove their central eye due to its anti-magic field.

The Eyes

Beholders have many variants, but the most common iteration is the one that, from its central eye,can create an anti-magic field. Running a Beholder can be just as challenging as fighting one, sincethat anti-magic field also negates the effects of the different Eye Stalks.

The little Eye Stalks arethe deadliest part of a Beholder, since the effects they do can be very devastating.The Death and Disintegration Rays can outright kill a creatureif they reduce it to zero hit points, and with the damage they do, it can be a real concern.

dungeons & dragons image showing Large Luigi running the tavern.

Paralyzed for 1 minute.

Fear Ray

You can’t approach the Beholder and attacks are made with disadvantage.

Slowing Ray

For 1 minute, speed is halved, and you can only take an action or a bonus action.

Medium necrotic damage.

Telekinetic Ray

This is how the Beholder interacts with the world, opening doors or moving objects away. It can also grapple a creature with this Ray.

Possible total petrification.

Disintegration Ray

High damage that can outright kill a creature if it is reduced to zero hit points by this. If the target is an object or a small magical construct, it gets automatically disintegrated.

Death Ray

High damage that can outright kill a creature if it is reduced to zero hit points by this.

Beholder Behavior

Beholders are solitary creatures, meant to be the biggest threat in a dungeon. In the game,they serve a similar role as Dragons, guarding their lair and the treasures inside of it from pesky adventurers that might be foolish enough to anger them.

The difference with Beholders (other than them being Aberrations instead of Dragons) is thateach of them thinks they are the perfect version of their entire species.This means that, while Beholders consider themselves to be above every other creature, they alsothink they alone are the greatest among their kind.

A rogue running from the beholder xanathar after stealing the pet gold fish

Of course,Beholders are capable of having minions, but only to give them the most inconsequential of tasks. If a Beholder is working for someone else, it is likely because the Beholder in question is being enslaved in some way, andwill take any opportunity to free itself.

Alignment

Beholders are commonly Lawful Evil, but there is a little bit of Chaos in how they work. While they will follow their own rules to the letter,their paranoia often prevents them from hatching grand plans, because no matter how Evil you are, you need some level of cooperation to, say, rule a city with an iron fist.

The most famous Beholders are the ones thatcan fight their own nature, becoming proper crime lords that control everyone from the shadows.Some have even changed their alignment, becoming Neutral or even Good, but those are merely an exception.

Dungeon & Dragons image showing a group of adventurers being stalked by a beholder

Among the most famed and exceptional Beholders, we can find:

Lair

Technically,Beholders can make any place their lair; it mostly depends on what their plans are for the surrounding area. Yetthey rarely roam open spaces, and the areas where they are most commonly found are in hidden dungeons and throughout the Underdark.

Earlier editions explained this was due tohow the Beholder hovers. The magical way in which they move can’t be dispelled, andthey can’t be knocked prone, butlarge gusts of wind could move them against their will, which leads them to prefer closed-off places to large open areas.

dungeons & dragons image showing two beholder variants, the spectator and the gaunt

Beyond that,their lairs tend to use a lot of vertical spaces, with the place they hold their valuables having little to no cover. Sincethey can see in all directions, they can hardly be surprised without the aid of cover or an elaborate distraction.

Origin And Reproduction Of Beholders

The true origin of the Beholder is a topic of debate, since each edition tends torewrite and remake how they came to be.Some have them as descendants of a Great Mother, a Beholder Goddess that embodies the perfect version of the species, while others make them failed experiments of Wizards from a different dimension.

Since they are classified as Aberrations, the lack of understanding of their origin is on point.An Aberration tends to be something out of a Lovecraftian tale, either hailing from an unknowable dimension (like the illithid) or made by forbidden experimentation (like the Driders).

Artwork of red-eyed Beholder skeleton floating in a cavern

As for how they reproduce,each edition has their own answer, which completely disregards the previous one. While only the current edition is considered canon, we have listed all forms of reproduction for the Beholder, so you can choose which one fits better for your campaign:

Beholders don’t seem to have a defined gender, hence why they can become pregnant without interacting with any other of their kind.

Beholder Variants

If you count all the editions,there are far too many Beholder variants to count, some of themnot even looking like one at all. We’ve picked the most notable ones, and mostlythe ones from the 5th edition of D&D.

Description

Gazer

A Tiny Beholder, often serving as a familiar for Wizards and Warlocks who work under a Beholder. In previous editions, they worked as newborn Beholders.

Death Kiss

In the 5th edition, they are created from a Beholder’s dream of blood loss. They are less powerful than a Beholder, but still Large in size.

Spectator

A medium-sized, Neutral version of a Beholder, often used as a hired protector of treasures and places. Ideal for low-level parties that want to face the famed creature.

Gauth

At a glance, they seem identical to a Beholder, but they are far less deadly. They are more capable of working together with other creatures (including other Gauth), and are capable of rendering a magic item useless for a period of time (although they lack an anti-magic ray).

Eye of Flame

A subspecies of Beholder that lacks many of its special abilities, but has plenty of fire-based rays to compensate. It can be just as deadly as a regular Beholder, depending on the terrain and circumstances.

Death Tyrant

One of the deadliest variants of Beholder, this Undead creature can summon hordes of zombies and prevent anyone it watches from healing. Evil Wizards could attempt to create them, but they were often made by the Evil desire of a Beholder to exist beyond death.

Hive Mother

While not present in the 5th edition yet, the Hive Mother was the most fearsome form of a Beholder, being a Huge Aberration that could command multiple Beholders and subject them to “her” will.

Running A Beholder Encounter

Beholders arerarely something you can reason with, and will often rather attack intruders instead of talking to them. When a Beholder has its lair in a place like the Underdark,it will fight to the death, since their pride won’t allow them to do anything less than that.

Beholders that rule a criminal organization or the likemight be open to negotiations, but only when they get something of larger value than what they give.They might not even honor their side of the deal, or do so in a way that still kills the other parties involved.

To give more agency to players during a fight,you can allow them to use careful attacks to remove certain Eye Stalks, or have that happen automatically if a player makes a critical hit. This way, even under-leveled characters can face this fearsome foe, as long asthey carefully plan around the strengths and weaknessesof the mighty Beholder.