#beholderkin

Mangral, an elder gauth, High Priestess of the Great Mother. She was the first to claim visions from the Great Mother and created the cult as it is today.

Seleinuer, a young beholder, the most popular priestess of the Great Mother. She speaks a message of peace and alliance with the other species (mainly the grell and phaerims).

This one was relatively easy for me. The Gouger is a pretty straightforward creature, though I had to tinker with its feats and its abilities a bit in order to make it a challenge worth of its CR. With this, we're starting to see the end of the Beholderkin conversions. The next one should be the Overseer... and I hope to be able to work on it soon!

As always, please feel free to point out my mistakes and where I can do better.

(Oh, and if someone could tell me who the author of the picture below is, that'd help a lot too.)

Thank you! ^^

BEHOLDERKIN, GOUGER

Picture (c) Wizards of the Coast

This hideous, imposing spherical creature floats a few feet off the ground. Several eye-stalks grow from the top of its body, and four hand-like appendages twitch and dangle under it. It glares around with a single baleful eye, and an overlong, spiked tongue lolls horrifically out of its fanged mouth.

GOUGER         CR 11

XP 12’800

NE Large Aberration (beholderkin)

Init +9; Senses all-around vision, darkvision 60 ft., Perception +18

Defense

AC 25, touch 14, flat-footed 20 (+5 Dex, +11 natural, -1 size)

hp 142 (15d8+75)

Fort +12, Ref +10, Will +8

Offense

Speed 10 ft., fly 60 ft. (good)

Melee tongue +15 (1d8+9 / 17-20 / x3 plus eye gouge)

Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft. (15 ft. with tongue)

Special Attacks antimagic cone, beholder killer, eye gouge, tongue strike

Statistics

Str 23, Dex 20, Con 21, Int 8, Wis 8, Cha 13

Base Atk +9; CMB +16; CMD 31

Feats Critical Focus, Flyby Attack, Great Fortitude, Improved Critical (tongue), Improved Initiative, Lunge, Vital Strike, Weapon Focus (tongue)

Skills Acrobatics +12, Fly +12, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +8, Perception +18, Stealth +18, Survival +10; Racial Modifiers +4 Perception; +4 Bluff, Knowledge, Perception, Sense Motive and Survival vs. beholderkin

Languages Beholder, Common, Undercommon

Special Qualities naturally buoyant

Ecology

Environment any underground

Organization solitary, pair or squad (3-4)

Treasure incidental

Special Abilities

Antimagic Cone (Su) A gouger beholderkin’s central eye emits antimagic, as an antimagic field, in a 120 foot cone. The creature may not suppress this effect.

Beholder Killer (Ex) A gouger beholderkin has a +4 racial bonus on Bluff, Knowledge, Perception, Sense Motive and Survival checks against beholders and other creature with the beholderkin subtype. Likewise, it has a +4 bonus on attack and damage rolls against such creatures.

Eye Gouge (Ex) When a gouger’s tongue attack hits a beholder or a creature of the beholderkin subtype whose eyes have special abilities, the victim must make a Reflex save (DC 22) or lose the use of one of its eyes for the next 1d6 rounds. If a natural 1 is rolled on the saving throw, the loss is permanent until healed with regeneration or similar effects. There is a 50% chance that the tongue hits the central eye. If not, randomly determine which lesser eye is struck. This ability can strike the same eye more than once, in which case the loss of the eye is cumulative. The save DC is Dexterity-based.

Naturally Buoyant (Ex) A gouger's body is naturally buoyant. This buoyancy allows it to fly at a speed of 60 ft. with good maneuvrability and grants it a permanent feather fall effect (as the spell) with personal range.

Tongue Strike (Ex) A gouger’s tongue is extremely sharp and deadly. It threatens a critical hit on a 19-20 (most gougers further augment this with the Improved Critical feat) and inflicts triple damage on a confirmed critical hit.

Gougers are artificial beholderkin created long ago by an unknown third party to hunt and kill other beholders. Slightly larger than a normal beholder, the gouger is armed with an abrasive and razor-sharp tongue that it uses as a whip. It has four tiny legs under its body that enables it to skitter if forced on the ground. Because of their nature as beholder hunters, gougers have grown stronger than their brethren and can negate another beholder’s magic. They are also quite insane.

Although gougers are specialized in hunting beholderkin, they are aggressive and will eagerly prey on other creatures. It is possible for an intruder to enter a truce with a gouger by providing information about a beholder’s location, and a gouger could be interested in allying with those who are opposing a beholder. However, gougers are shaky allies at best. Once the beholder has been dealt with, a gouger will often turn against its “companions” in its bloodlust.

A bunch of random little 15mm scale sculptures I had lying around including a bunch of Beholders and Beholderkin, the cast of Startrek Voyager loosely reimagined as a D&D party, the cast of Farscape loosely reimagined as a Planescape setting D&D party, an Aboleth, two Ice Devils and a Xerfilstyx Devil.

(Commissions Open, £35 plus postage)

Image © Wizards of the Coast

[I mentioned when I discussed the beholder that I love the idea that beholderkin are dreamed into existence, so I knew I had to stat at least one variation. The death kiss has existed since 2e’s Forgotten Realms Monstrous Compendium, and has cropped up in every edition since then. The 4e version was a literal undead vampire, but this reverted back to an aberration in 5e.. I like how apologetic and shy this one looks, like it’s sorry that it has to drink all of your blood.]

Beholder, Death Kiss CR 10 NE Aberration This spherical horror is pale and leathery, with a single red eye set in its center. It has ten long tentacles, each of which ends in a bloodstained, lamprey-like maw.

A death kiss is a beholder-like horror, created when a beholder has a nightmare about losing blood. A newly created death kiss flees from the dreaming beholder as soon as possible, as these creatures have no ranged capacity and can be slain easily by a beholder on a rampage. Death kisses are blood feeding predators that leave the drained husks of their prey behind to feed scavengers. They usually hunt alone, but occasionally team up if two come across each other and neither thinks they have the upper hand.

When a death kiss attacks, it does so from ambush, lashing out with its tentacles extended to their full length. Each tentacle is tipped with a rasping, muscular mouth, and a death kiss may drink from multiple enemies simultaneously. They do this only if they are confident that prey cannot escape—otherwise they wrap a single foe in multiple tentacles and drain them dry. A death kiss is often cocky in melee—their electrically charged blood delivers painful shocks to any creature that would spill it—but flees when badly injured by spells or ranged weapons.

A death kiss can speak through any of its mouths, either one at a time or in unison, and they do so in reedy, high pitched voices. They do not intentionally collect treasure, but when slain, their brain shrinks and crystallizes into a faintly luminous red gem called a “blood-eye”. A blood-eye gem is worth the equivalent of ½ of the normal treasure value of a creature of the death kiss’ CR.

Beholders are by far my favorite monster and I’ve wanted a playable humanoid race for a while. My playable beholder is a start but I wanted more. Theirs not much info about the lensmen but I did my best to translate them.

well.. Beholders, as we all know, can incidentally warp reality when they dream, Watchers are a form of weak beholder-kin 'born' when a beholder dreams obsessively about humanoids.

Watchers are small and weak beholder-kin with a roughly humanoid appearance, created from a beholder's dreams of humanoids. They're roughly around 5ft tall, and are far less narcissistic than true Beholders. 3 eye-stalks protrude from their back, the singular eye on a Watcher's face can (with a full action, but only for a ***VERY*** small amount of time) block magic. They're still not social, but are FAR more willing to work with others than a true Beholder. Maybe @ 5th level they can float, or maybe a feat...

How do they survive their 'parent'? Either by fleeing with a great hurry, or by pleading with a monumental amount of self-deprecation.