Beholders are so iconic bc they’re the monster that most relates to the experience being the DM >Dreaming things into existence > Simultaneously of the world and not of the world > Observing and watching over everything > Making paranoid plan after paranoid plan about how to stop adventurers from messing up your world
I Want A Deadpool-esq Beholder That Is Perfectly Self-Aware That Their Entire Universe Is The Imaginary Game Of A Nerd And Just Looses All Fucks As A Result.XD
My DM in loot after the Beholder, included one of the trinkets: A nightcap that gives you nice dreams. Most appropriate loot I've ever found in a game.
Last encounter with a Beholder, 9th level 7 man party. We manage to navigate the Beholder lair pretty well, end up being ambushed by the Beholder, that was alerted of our presence. The final toll was 4 party members dead, one of them desintegrated, one petrified after death and broken in half. After all that terrible fight we managed to kill it. This is one of the few creatures in D&D that really scares me.
I use the aberrations, especially the Mind Flayers and the Beholders, as the minions of the Great Old Ones who send their bizarre, terrifying creatures from the Far Realm into the planes for mysterious perhaps unknowable reasons.
Brian F. The far realm in my games is a shattered space filled with the remains of parts of failed universes, like the clouds of gas and asteroids around a star newly formed. And most abberations have a place in the sci-fi cosmic horror stuff outside of that, most of whom have ties to a faction or Power that exists just outside of the reach of the 'verse, and got in via underdark portals. Even Flumphs, they're like space colonists sent by their god, and they just make the world slightly better by being there, so they're not a problem.
I have this backstory where a changeling was formed when a piece of a Elder Evil star ended up in the Material Plane, but due to their nature, could not retain it's true form and thus took on a separate, physical body with no sense of identity. The way the changeling explains things, Great Old One's are fixated on places like the Material Plane, some out of interest, some out of hunger, some beyond reason...but they are fixated. In the case of this changeling, he is part of a Black Star similarly obsessed with the Material Plane, but who also hates this compulsion and seeks to end it. As he states it: "The Black Star watches...always. It hungers, hates, and so it harms. One day, it will devour this world, the sky, and all the other stars." I based this concept on Beholders; they manifest as this form and create identities...but they're a little off. They become paranoid, egotistical, because they are these foreign invaders who cannot process this place they've entered properly.
My party encountered some Gas Spores, and thought they were Beholders. I was able to kill a bunch of them in pretty much one blow. Very easy to kill. Later, we encounter some npcs in need of some help. My character tells them - "I single handedly killed nine Beholders. Tell your friends about me!"
Here's an idea: the first Beholder arose as a byproduct of the universe trying to observe itself. What else would come into being from such an attempt, than a creature composed primarily of eyes?
Thats their whole thing tho, if a beholder dreams of death it becomes a desth tyrant a completely new creature, their dreams shape the world around them
The Beholder came about when two gods were talking and one said, "Beauty is in the eye of the biholder." the other god mistook the word 'beholder' as a noun rather than a verb, and tried to imagine what a beholder might look like. :D
I always traced their origin back to tharizdun when he was first losing his marbles, they were born of the nightmares that beset him in his growing madness and embody his ego and contempt for existence. This would be long before he became the elder elemental eye
They were intended to be an ultimate enemy. Intelligent, powerful and very difficult to defeat. If their lair is set up correctly, they can be nearly invincible.
I think when Mike uses the term "beholder," it applies to all of the variants, including spectators, eyes of the deep, etc. But then, it's your game, so you can choose how they all fit into your multiverse. :)
The Beholder is an in game manifestation of the DM and the party; the large eye and intellect representing the DM, the eye stalks the varied threats of the party.
I play a game called Tibia and they used to have Beholders too but someone complained and they had to change the name years back. Now they're called Bonelords.
it was one of the first creatures that broke the steoreotype of if you are highly intelligent, you have to be frail in body, simple looking, probably with a beard, etc. I lvoe the contrast they have, when you see it, you wouldn't think it's a highly intelligent and cunning sorcerer due to his primitive, savage appearance, you'd think oh it's just another mindless mosnter with big teeth. Then they start casting spells, talking, nullifying your magic, etc. Beholders are my all time favorite fantasy monster among all fantasy works in history, they're so unique, nobody has something remotely similar to a beholder (well, perhaps lovecraft).
Nice video, but a picture or two of a Beholder during the video would have been nice. I was watching with a really new player and we had to Google the monster afterwards.
In my game world aberrations are created through dreamers entering the dream plane. Those that enter this plane while awake allowed aberrations to enter my multiverse.
Every time a scientist observes a new aspect of science, that observation solidifies how it functions. Sadly that new scientific reality replaces the old magical one. This in-balance is how new beholders are made, so the magic is not lost. As science grows in the dnd world so shall the beholder population.
In my world, beholders are generated by surges of power occurring in Pandemonium that coalesce into a single point. Beholders are created by particularly powerful concentrations of pure chaotic energy.
Ah...I remember the first time I went to a Beholder's lair...It was a very short visit. In the end we all almost died, one guy got turned to stone, and I lost my magic shield.
The vampiric beholder, has all the abilities of a living beholder, plus all the immunities, and abilities of a vampire. Now let us discuss the spectral beholder......
Thanks Mike, nice video. I'm running a campaign in which the PCs, at the end of all the campaign, will fight against a Beholder that want to create a plane fracture and invade the material plane. You said that he doesn't have an origin, or even a plane. So, if the Beholder want to invade the material plane creating this fracture, from where does he come? Where and what is the other side of the fracture?
Think of it as a bug in the system, the universal data gets a snarl that creates something sentient. Perhaps yours came to be in another plane or was banished there?
David Ragan The idea is that my Beholder feeds on hate, and being that all the races hated each other, the Beholder feeded, and manage to create this fracture in the material plane to invade it and conquer it. I was thinking that the Behloder could be aided by the shadowfell, which is the "neighbor" of the material plane. How does it sounds?
More wariness in many cases than hate, unless he is trying to foment hatred. In which case does he have useful pawns spreading the hatred? Sounds like you might have a decent mastermind.
StylEd Men Going with the canonical Shadowfell, that plane is more about hopelessness and being devoid of emotion than the emotion of hatred. Hatred itself doesn't really have a plane AFAIR, but it might have been born amongst the furious and relentless demons in the Abyss and have now claimed, thanks to its superior intelligence, a position of power amongst them - driving lesser demons ahead of it by force.
The Far Realm is described on page 302 of the PHB, and mentioned several times before that. Still, 5e does seem to avoid explicitly linking aboleths, beholders, illithids and other aberrations to the Far Realm.
I believe the DM Guide says that aberrations are from the Far Realms at some point, but I forget the page number and don't have access to the book at the moment. I remember the link being explicitly stated at one point or another in 5e though!
My bad, the DMG version of the description, page 68, does say that "Aberrations such as mind flayers and beholders are either from this plane or shaped by its strange influence".
I imagine Mike doesn't want to dwell too much on the Far Realm, because trying to describe what it IS will take away from its mystique. Lovecraftian imagery is built upon unfathomable remoteness and alienation. So throwing out theories about what the DnD multiverse is and how it works must, for the sake of theme, skirt around the topic of the Far Realms. It's also very likely that the farther out from the prime material plane you get, and the closer you get to the Far Realms, the more that rules of magic, cosmology, and causality start to break down. Out there, the concept of "origin" for any given creature, even Beholders, may cease to apply. As if the very _question_ was nonsense, because "beginnings" and "ends" are similarly meaningless or at least removed from our understanding of them.
The idea that a being as alien as a beholder is not only sentient, but _smarter than you_ is deeply disturbing to a mind intended to relate to beings similar to itself.
Follow me on on this: Beholders dream reality to be as they want. Orks in 40k believe 'red goes fasta' and it becomes true... Just parallels there. Of course 40k Orks aren't geniuses, per se.
You these videos. Now just the very concept of an Old God from the Far Realms either residing in or kicked out of the domain of dreams becomes fun to explore. It's but a tangent of the video and yet the inspiration is messing me up.
Porque ele é propriedade intelectual da Wizards of the Coast. Isso não é exatamente uma novidade, nas primeiras edições do D&D tinham "Balrogs" no manual dos monstros, mas depois de serem processados pela família Tolkien, tiveram que mudar o nome pra "Balor".
Dreaming existance into reality oh how original. Cough "HP Lovecraft Azathoth" Cough. Way to act super original just make sure you sue the hell out of anyone that uses a tentacle eyed monster...
"Was there a god that created them?" Yes, the Great Mother. How do you not know this? The actual Beholder lore is a million times better than this 'it is all a dream' fanfiction nonsense. This is why I moved to Pathfinder, because modern DnD doesn't just ignore prior lore, they seem to despise it and try to destroy it every chance they get.
In 2e Spelljammer they were created by the gods to serve as tutors and repositories of knowledge but they almost instantly turned on each other due to hyper-xenophobia on minor differences in appearance. (I may have the details wrong, even as a Spelljammer fan this lore was always weird and confusing to me.) Official D&D lore has always been shifting and changing.
Beholders are so iconic bc they’re the monster that most relates to the experience being the DM
>Dreaming things into existence
> Simultaneously of the world and not of the world
> Observing and watching over everything
> Making paranoid plan after paranoid plan about how to stop adventurers from messing up your world
Switchlurk oh my god i feel the urge of writing a 30 pages essay now
I Want A Deadpool-esq Beholder That Is Perfectly Self-Aware That Their Entire Universe Is The Imaginary Game Of A Nerd And Just Looses All Fucks As A Result.XD
True
Eyeconic.
heeeeeeeeeey, what, good job.
eye see what you did there
You saw the opportunity, and you took it.
My DM in loot after the Beholder, included one of the trinkets: A nightcap that gives you nice dreams. Most appropriate loot I've ever found in a game.
Last encounter with a Beholder, 9th level 7 man party. We manage to navigate the Beholder lair pretty well, end up being ambushed by the Beholder, that was alerted of our presence. The final toll was 4 party members dead, one of them desintegrated, one petrified after death and broken in half. After all that terrible fight we managed to kill it.
This is one of the few creatures in D&D that really scares me.
There are things stronger than beholder
I just imagined a beholder thinking up a platypus.
That's the only explanation.
I agree
I believe the platypus thought up the beholder.
I use the aberrations, especially the Mind Flayers and the Beholders, as the minions of the Great Old Ones who send their bizarre, terrifying creatures from the Far Realm into the planes for mysterious perhaps unknowable reasons.
Brian F. The far realm in my games is a shattered space filled with the remains of parts of failed universes, like the clouds of gas and asteroids around a star newly formed.
And most abberations have a place in the sci-fi cosmic horror stuff outside of that, most of whom have ties to a faction or Power that exists just outside of the reach of the 'verse, and got in via underdark portals. Even Flumphs, they're like space colonists sent by their god, and they just make the world slightly better by being there, so they're not a problem.
That sounds like the dark realm of Dormammu in Dr. Strange. (From the movie I mean. It's been 20 years since I read a Dr. Strange comic.) Cool stuff!
I have this backstory where a changeling was formed when a piece of a Elder Evil star ended up in the Material Plane, but due to their nature, could not retain it's true form and thus took on a separate, physical body with no sense of identity.
The way the changeling explains things, Great Old One's are fixated on places like the Material Plane, some out of interest, some out of hunger, some beyond reason...but they are fixated.
In the case of this changeling, he is part of a Black Star similarly obsessed with the Material Plane, but who also hates this compulsion and seeks to end it.
As he states it: "The Black Star watches...always. It hungers, hates, and so it harms. One day, it will devour this world, the sky, and all the other stars."
I based this concept on Beholders; they manifest as this form and create identities...but they're a little off. They become paranoid, egotistical, because they are these foreign invaders who cannot process this place they've entered properly.
My party encountered some Gas Spores, and thought they were Beholders. I was able to kill a bunch of them in pretty much one blow. Very easy to kill. Later, we encounter some npcs in need of some help. My character tells them - "I single handedly killed nine Beholders. Tell your friends about me!"
Here's an idea: the first Beholder arose as a byproduct of the universe trying to observe itself. What else would come into being from such an attempt, than a creature composed primarily of eyes?
Now that's cool
That's an awesome idea. Where is your icon pic from?
My Theory: Beholders Are The Children Of Lovecraftian Horrors That Are Unknown To Even The Gods.
This is so fascinating. I never thought about them dreaming things into being.
Steven Partridge really? HP Lovecraft ripoff
Thats their whole thing tho, if a beholder dreams of death it becomes a desth tyrant a completely new creature, their dreams shape the world around them
Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder
There is no beauty in the eye of a beholder.
Literally. Beauty is trapped inside a Beholder's eye. You have to cut open his cornea and pull her out. That's your adventure hook.
The Beholder came about when two gods were talking and one said, "Beauty is in the eye of the biholder." the other god mistook the word 'beholder' as a noun rather than a verb, and tried to imagine what a beholder might look like. :D
I have one running a store in my game, gazers go out & handle advertising......because why the hell not!
I always traced their origin back to tharizdun when he was first losing his marbles, they were born of the nightmares that beset him in his growing madness and embody his ego and contempt for existence. This would be long before he became the elder elemental eye
Reminds me of High Rollers.
"Do you serve Tharizdun?"
"Ha ha ha ha ha! I AM Tharizdun."
Rob Kuntz's brother Theron O. Kuntz created the Beholder, and Gary Gygax detailed it for publication.
The original creature wasn't able to shape reality... that came later with power creep and over-the-top product developers. It's simpler to say, the development of Aberrations (later labeled as such in 3;3.5) were the result of the Cthulhu Mythos being removed from Deities & Demigods, 2nd Printing in 1980... They do not appear in any of the encounter charts in the Manual of the Planes so it's easy to surmise there is no 'lore' associated with the monster.
The creature remained unchanged through 4 editions of the original Monster Manual. There is no mention of world-bending power in the 2nd iteration's Monstrous Compendium (which only added an aquatic version). They were also absent from the Monstrous Compendium Outer Planes Appendix.
Pg10 MONSTER MANUAL
by Gary Gygax
© 1977, 1978 - TSR Games
"The beholder (eye tyrant, sphere of many eyes) is most frequently found underground, although it infrequently will lair in desolate wildernesses. The globular body of this monster is supported by levitation, and it floats slowly about as it wills. Atop the sphere are 10 eyestalks, while in its central area are a great eleventh eye and a large mouth filled with pointed teeth. The body is protected by a hard chitinous covering. The creature's eyestalks and eyes are also protected, although less well (thus the armor classes of 2 and 7 respectively). Because of its particular nature the beholder is able to withstand the loss of its eyestalks, these members are not computed as part of its hit point damage potential, and lost eyestalks w ill eventually grow back (1 week per lost member). The body of the monster can withstand two-thirds of its total damage potential, while the great central eye can withstand one-third this total, i.e. a beholder with 45 hit points can withstand 30 hit points of damage to its body before being killed; the eleventh eye can withstand 15 points before ceasing to function. Eyestalks take from 8 to 12 hit points each before being lost. The body of a beholder represents 75% of potential hit area, the central eye and the eyestalks 10% each, and the 10 small eyes 5%. Eyes: The various eyes of a beholder each have a different function. Typically only the central eye, plus 1-4 of those on stalks are able to function considering that the attack is coming from an arc 90' before the monster. If attacks come from 180' double the number of eyestalks able to function, and for 270' or 360' triple or quadruple the number. Attacks from above enable all 10 eyestalks to function, but the central eye cannot. Functions of the eyes are:
1 Charm person spell
2 Charm monster spell
3 Sleep spell 8 Slow spell
4 Telekinese 2,500 GP wt.
5 Flesh-stone ray (3" range)
6 Disintegrate ray (2" range)
7 Fear (as a wand)
8 Slow spell
9 Cause serious wound (5" range)
10 Death ray (4" range)
Nature: The beholder is hateful, aggressive, and avaricious. They will usually attack immediately. If confronted by a particularly powerful party there is a 50% chance they will listen to negotiations - either to be bribed not to attack or to pay a ransom to not be attacked, depending on the strength of the opposing party. They can speak their own language as well as that tongue known to lawful evil creatures."
There was no significant change made to the creature or the lore until the updated Monstrous Manual for 2nd Edition. Pg 21 "Beholder and Beholder-kin" when they were re-branded from criminal masterminds to cruel and alien megalomaniacal xenophobes... but still no reality bending powers. The tome even postulates on how the Beholder reproduce.
Monstrous Manual for 2nd Edition Pg22 "Ecology: The exact reproductive process of the beholder is unknown. The core racial hatred of the beholders may derive from the nature of their reproduction, which seems to produce identical (or nearly so) individuals with only slit margin for variation. Beholden may use parthenogenic reproduction to duplicate themselves, and give birth live (no beholder eggs have been found). Beholders may also (rarely) mate with types of beholder-kin."
(of special note is the Undead Beholder who is not some uber-powered beholder lich, but rather an automaton to the necromancer who reanimated it. Monstrous Manual for 2nd Edition Pg24)
It's not until 5th Edition that we see the Beholder 'elevated' to the World Bender discussed here.
The lore of the world fed to us by the developers is one thing, what you decide to do with it is another. You can make them otherworldly entities that rival the gods, or let others who cannot grasp their alien nature believe what they will.
Aren't most abberations inspired by the lovecraftian mythos? I like to believe that azathoth is the first beholder.
Jonathan Duardo they're a reflection of the Stupid God
wasnt azagtoth a Blind fiend of chaos though? something with 10 eyes is by no means a blind-fiend...
A staple in the history of D&D and tabletop games right here
*I dream and the world trembles.*
I love Beholders!!!
Beyond the great discussion, the lighting and framing of the intro and outtro are phenomenal 👌🏻. Great content, guys!
They were intended to be an ultimate enemy. Intelligent, powerful and very difficult to defeat.
If their lair is set up correctly, they can be nearly invincible.
Have you ever looked one in the eye, though? Its SO beautiful! I guess Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder!
Seven minutes explaining why Beholders are iconic when they could have just showed a beholder staring at you to prove the same point.
Beholders are also iconic because they're copywritten
No mention of the Great Mother, Hive Mothers, and eggs? Wonder where they fit in...
I think when Mike uses the term "beholder," it applies to all of the variants, including spectators, eyes of the deep, etc. But then, it's your game, so you can choose how they all fit into your multiverse. :)
The Beholder is an in game manifestation of the DM and the party; the large eye and intellect representing the DM, the eye stalks the varied threats of the party.
I play a game called Tibia and they used to have Beholders too but someone complained and they had to change the name years back. Now they're called Bonelords.
it was one of the first creatures that broke the steoreotype of if you are highly intelligent, you have to be frail in body, simple looking, probably with a beard, etc. I lvoe the contrast they have, when you see it, you wouldn't think it's a highly intelligent and cunning sorcerer due to his primitive, savage appearance, you'd think oh it's just another mindless mosnter with big teeth. Then they start casting spells, talking, nullifying your magic, etc. Beholders are my all time favorite fantasy monster among all fantasy works in history, they're so unique, nobody has something remotely similar to a beholder (well, perhaps lovecraft).
Maybe Beholders dream themselves into existence, but their existence is certainly a nightmare for many!
Nice video, but a picture or two of a Beholder during the video would have been nice. I was watching with a really new player and we had to Google the monster afterwards.
I have a theory - the beholder is a child of the Eye of Gruumsh after it was removed from Grumsh's head in battle
In my game world aberrations are created through dreamers entering the dream plane. Those that enter this plane while awake allowed aberrations to enter my multiverse.
I want to make a beholder that has tounguesinstead of eye stalks. so it would have different saliva effects
That Gray Rend nobody talks about
I feel like beholder are really a kind of dream elemental.
Every time a scientist observes a new aspect of science, that observation solidifies how it functions. Sadly that new scientific reality replaces the old magical one. This in-balance is how new beholders are made, so the magic is not lost. As science grows in the dnd world so shall the beholder population.
Can't wait to use a spectator in my next new low level campaign fufufufu 😈
Kugo You around here too Kugo? Never thought of you as a D&D nerd watching your CS GO videos!
In my world, beholders are generated by surges of power occurring in Pandemonium that coalesce into a single point. Beholders are created by particularly powerful concentrations of pure chaotic energy.
Ah...I remember the first time I went to a Beholder's lair...It was a very short visit. In the end we all almost died, one guy got turned to stone, and I lost my magic shield.
Mike Mearl's hairline is more iconic.
Now I want to play a warlock of a Great Old One who is the creator of the beholders and is currently sleeping but will awake soon...
Much better lighting for Todd!
The vampiric beholder, has all the abilities of a living beholder, plus all the immunities, and abilities of a vampire. Now let us discuss the spectral beholder......
I am starting to see a close relation between beholders and Tidus, from FF X.
Thanks Mike, nice video. I'm running a campaign in which the PCs, at the end of all the campaign, will fight against a Beholder that want to create a plane fracture and invade the material plane. You said that he doesn't have an origin, or even a plane. So, if the Beholder want to invade the material plane creating this fracture, from where does he come? Where and what is the other side of the fracture?
Think of it as a bug in the system, the universal data gets a snarl that creates something sentient. Perhaps yours came to be in another plane or was banished there?
David Ragan The idea is that my Beholder feeds on hate, and being that all the races hated each other, the Beholder feeded, and manage to create this fracture in the material plane to invade it and conquer it. I was thinking that the Behloder could be aided by the shadowfell, which is the "neighbor" of the material plane. How does it sounds?
More wariness in many cases than hate, unless he is trying to foment hatred. In which case does he have useful pawns spreading the hatred? Sounds like you might have a decent mastermind.
StylEd Men Going with the canonical Shadowfell, that plane is more about hopelessness and being devoid of emotion than the emotion of hatred. Hatred itself doesn't really have a plane AFAIR, but it might have been born amongst the furious and relentless demons in the Abyss and have now claimed, thanks to its superior intelligence, a position of power amongst them - driving lesser demons ahead of it by force.
Beholders original plane of existence was thought to be the far realm.
Beholders are like the Gundams of the D&D multiverse
I just want to say that I desperately NEED more aberration content, especially Mind Flayers, but I'll take Beholders any day as well/instead.
I think Beholder's were dreamed into existence.
damn this lore gets deep
So wait, does the Far realm not exist in 5E? Mike seemed to go out of his way to not mention it.
The Far Realm is described on page 302 of the PHB, and mentioned several times before that. Still, 5e does seem to avoid explicitly linking aboleths, beholders, illithids and other aberrations to the Far Realm.
I believe the DM Guide says that aberrations are from the Far Realms at some point, but I forget the page number and don't have access to the book at the moment. I remember the link being explicitly stated at one point or another in 5e though!
My bad, the DMG version of the description, page 68, does say that "Aberrations such as mind flayers and beholders are either from this plane or shaped by its strange influence".
I imagine Mike doesn't want to dwell too much on the Far Realm, because trying to describe what it IS will take away from its mystique. Lovecraftian imagery is built upon unfathomable remoteness and alienation. So throwing out theories about what the DnD multiverse is and how it works must, for the sake of theme, skirt around the topic of the Far Realms.
It's also very likely that the farther out from the prime material plane you get, and the closer you get to the Far Realms, the more that rules of magic, cosmology, and causality start to break down. Out there, the concept of "origin" for any given creature, even Beholders, may cease to apply. As if the very _question_ was nonsense, because "beginnings" and "ends" are similarly meaningless or at least removed from our understanding of them.
Wasn't the far realm introduced in 4th ed? if that's the case it makes sense that they do not want to remember anything from that train wreck.
All these themes ... Beholders ... Realm Spheres ... Am I seeing a Spelljammer book coming in the near future?
Beholders: What to huck at players who have gotten cocky fighting Dragons.
There is no beauty is in the of the Beholder.
D&d needs his own darwin like evolutionist character .
We're all just livin the dream.
The idea that a being as alien as a beholder is not only sentient, but _smarter than you_ is deeply disturbing to a mind intended to relate to beings similar to itself.
Very interesting.
Don't you mean....
eye-conic?
Jared Knight Haha nice
Me while casually listening, "Wait what is Mearls talking about Beholders or Smith from The Matrix?"
Follow me on on this:
Beholders dream reality to be as they want. Orks in 40k believe 'red goes fasta' and it becomes true... Just parallels there. Of course 40k Orks aren't geniuses, per se.
How do you dream if you don't exist?
what would a beholder of any good alignment look like?
So Mearls was talking about a beholder Azathoth?
I saw Badeye. Do I get a Legendary bundle? ;)
Sounds like The Chaos Gods are trying to invade another universe 😉
higher CR ones please
You these videos. Now just the very concept of an Old God from the Far Realms either residing in or kicked out of the domain of dreams becomes fun to explore. It's but a tangent of the video and yet the inspiration is messing me up.
Por que fizeram a Cipsoft tirar o nome desse bicho do Tibia? 🙄
Porque ele é propriedade intelectual da Wizards of the Coast. Isso não é exatamente uma novidade, nas primeiras edições do D&D tinham "Balrogs" no manual dos monstros, mas depois de serem processados pela família Tolkien, tiveram que mudar o nome pra "Balor".
So...Beholders and other aberrations are the backwash or scraped-slag of creative energies/materials?
It becomes rather clear mearls is refering to the dreams of the creation, or to put it bluntly he is comparing DM as original beholder
I thought that the beholders were created by the Daelkyr when they invaded Eberron. Is that not canon with the rest of the D&D multiverse?
No. Eberron was published about 30 years after beholders were invented.
yes, beholder is in d&d
Nice video but so sad that it leaves out the entire 2e book "I Tyrant" as canon. Well, except in any game I run.
Dreaming existance into reality oh how original. Cough "HP Lovecraft Azathoth" Cough. Way to act super original just make sure you sue the hell out of anyone that uses a tentacle eyed monster...
No dislikes my dudes
So, people are saying that beholders are very intelligent but, they only have an INT of 17. Most wizards have a better score then that
"Was there a god that created them?" Yes, the Great Mother. How do you not know this? The actual Beholder lore is a million times better than this 'it is all a dream' fanfiction nonsense. This is why I moved to Pathfinder, because modern DnD doesn't just ignore prior lore, they seem to despise it and try to destroy it every chance they get.
I don't recall D&D lore being set in stone.
In 2e Spelljammer they were created by the gods to serve as tutors and repositories of knowledge but they almost instantly turned on each other due to hyper-xenophobia on minor differences in appearance. (I may have the details wrong, even as a Spelljammer fan this lore was always weird and confusing to me.) Official D&D lore has always been shifting and changing.
Jay Jeckel of course they know it.
They're doing something different.
If you want to use the Great Mother, you can.
Jay Jeckel part of it is that mearls doesn't sit here and say "this is what happened" he says "this could have happened, did it dm?