All of you making biblically accurate angel jokes in the comments are gonna be really tickled in like 2 videos. (also can you tell i recorded this when i had a cold? No? good)
*looks at my own homebrew notes on running within dreams* *Looks at the Bebolder's magic universe altering dreams* *Points a sword at it's dream bubble* Imma go in there and fight it
idea creature like dragons, etc have real free will, the idea that we are able to have some choice in how we act and assumes that we are free to choose our behavior. like want to be good/nice but feed on negative emotions and found a way, to a middle ground or misfits but still a good person in heart, they're still what they are but completely different.
Story time ! I was once was a campaign where one of my teammates was a Great Old One Warlock who's mission was to find out who her patron was. She didn't remember making any deals and didn't really have any memories of her life before meeting the party. Near the end of the campaign, that centered around an on coming illithid invasion, the Warlock began to receive terrifying visions of a being locked away in a cavern deep underground with vicious monsters chasing them. We followed the signs from her visions and eventually managed to find the sundered entrance of a dungeon. We found out that illithids had been making their way through the dungeon to get at some great power at it's center. We fought through traps, monsters, and illithids until we finally got to the center of the dungeon when our Warlock finally began to put the pieces together and began to panic. But it was too late, we opened the door and at the center of the room was a slumbering Beholder. The Warlock was racked with shock an doubled over in fear screaming "Thats me!" The Beholder awoke as if from a nightmare and both it and the Warlock screamed a mind shattering scream that drove them into a frenzy. Both immediately began trying to kill the other in a desperate attempt to be the one and only. Several party members went down protecting the Warlock, the cleric had to use channel divinity twice to keep us up and even then had to use divine intervention to save the barbarian who was disintegrated almost outright. We won by what felt like the skin of our teeth. When the Beholder fell the Warlock gained all it's memories, all HER memories. It turns out she was that Beholder, or more specifically it's dream. She remembers having just eaten a group of nosy explorers and one of them had a book about adventuring through the world. She remembers thinking about adventuring as she fell asleep with a full belly. She originally intended to take a nap before continuing to aid her illithid allies in their quest to take over the surface, but she became so enthralled with her dream that she stayed asleep until now. And that is how we, including the Warlock, discovered the Warlock's patron and reached level 15! Little side story, the Warlock and the DM are the oldest players at the table and it turns out the Warlock challenged the DM to make the patron a powerful monster or DnD figure and not tell him what it was or his connection to it to test his DnD knowledge. He says throughout the game, and all the little hints he gathered along the way, he figured he traded away memories for power with an Aboleth, he didn't figure out he was a Beholder's dream until the big reveal!
"Stanley was an adventurer that sought out a beholder... Stanley stay in the predetermined adventure route. STANLEY. THIS HAS TO BE PERFECT STANLEY!!!" I see a minds eye very much being the narrator from Stanley parable.
Stanley ignored the obvious plot hook to talk with the singing goblin. Despite having nothing interesting to say, since their entire personality was thought up on the spot, Stanley decided to continue talking to the goblin.
what if the dungeon master themselves was a minds eye? they create the perfect party to go on adventures in the perfect world they came up with, but the players don’t listen. They railroad. they go off on side quests. They don’t kill the BBEG in time. then come after a certain point, the beholder snaps and goes after the party themselves.
I like the idea of beholders constantly dreaming of themselves(because of course they are) and thinking of himself better than he actually is. And when the new, better version appears, it just disintegrates the original, and takes its place
And the new one is convinced that it dreamt the imperfect one into existence by accident. Which could lead to the first escaping and the second tasking adventurers with hunting down its "inferior creation" as it is an affront to have such an inaccurate representation of itself in existence. It could promise to give them some item from its horde, fully intending to disintegrate them when they come back with proof of their success. This could lead to some fun shenanigans playing the two beholders against each other, with the party leveling the playing field so that they can come out on top (and hopefully not create a short term alliance between the two beholders so that they can exterminate the party).
It could also be funny if it was the "better version" that got disintegrated but the original was convinced that IT was the improved version, and so remains completely oblivious to its own flaws. With every disintegration of a new clone, its delusion of perfection only grows.
In addition to Large Luigi, the Spelljammer novels also featured Beth-Abz, a self described insane beholder who's madness was his love of wandering and interacting with others in a non dominating manner - IE, he was nice and considered it a mental condition.
Speaking of beholder dreams, I remember learning about that when I was a new DM going into a novice DM who wanted "CONTINUITY" and "REALISM" in his game. But, of course, my world wasn't realistic in the slightest and was just a hodgepodge of crazy, fun things that I and my players wanted to look at. So as to explain away the madness of the setting, I basically made it so that a beholder named "Behazzen" from the forgotten realms teleported into the Astral plane as a way to escape being killed by an adventuring party. He then started sleeping to get all healed up and trapped himself in an endless nightmare, which made my first ever world "Izen".
This sounds like some great old one stuff, I love it! "We journeyed into the center of creation. All the texts we found pointed at this being the first. But we were unprepared for what we found. Several of my comrades have already gone mad from the realization, and even I can feel myself slipping as it sets in. Nothing is real. Merely the dream of a slumbering god." "And I pray it never wakes."
I feel like a great start to an adventure would be putting the entire party next to a sleeping beholder, and they have to escape quietly, later finding out the beholder dreamed them to existence.
Okay, but the idea of a Beholder who is a Wizard's familiar but disguising itself as the Wizard's hat is the coolest idea ever Wait, even better idea, the "Wizard" is just a minion helping out the beholder, posing as a Wizard, but all the magic actually comes from the beholder hat.
@@cogsworther1639 Who says it has to be a wizard? It could be a warlock and the beholder is his patron. Something about having a beholder as a warlock patron sounds super fun.
So it's a Beholder... crossed with a Cyberman... but its vanity makes it more concerned with upgrading itself than upgrading "inferior" beings... BRILLIANT!!!
I like the idea of making the saying "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" very literal, and that the central eye contains something akin to the dream powers, and that someone who plunges their hands into the eye of a recently slain beholder will be granted something like a wish. Obtaining whatever they find most beautiful (I.E. a beloved work of art, a lost ally, or the surrounding area on the surface becomes the most beautiful landscape). It could then tie into the beholders' paranoia even more, because now people want to find and kill them even more than normal.
@@SerifSansSerif Imagine a *"celestial beholder"* that was created by another beholder having a bad dream about celestials. Honestly the potential variety of beholders through their weird dream based, paranoia fueled means of 'reproduction' is ridiculously fun to explore!
The Mind's Eye is such an inspired monster! I'm currently using it as the BBEG in my campaign. Thank you! Small note: Watchful Eyes gives advantage on all Perception checks. If a check has advantage, you add +5 to its passive score. So the Mind's Eye has a passive perception of 23 (10+8+5)!
Had a crazy beholder-based character idea, actually. So, a beholder attacks a city and a child with an alchemist mother is trying to hide from the disintegration rays. His mother ends up taking one hell of a gambit in using her dying breath to throw a ridiculously strong hallucinogenic and psychoactive potion at the beholder. This results in the beholder absolutely tripping balls and getting so cosmically introspective it manages to see all the way up to a higher plane of existence, and ends up showing this truth to the child. From then on, the boy vows himself to be a cleric of the one true god above all: The Great Shapes, determining the odds of the multiverse and splaying out the infinite possibilities to distinction with every roll. A 4th wall breaking cleric packed with nothing but odds-altering spells, wielding a d20 scepter.
I like the idea of a mother asking a spectator to guard her treasure, her treasure being her child. If you start as this character you're basically gonna have the best find familiar option, that isn't available but at a cost. I feel like it would prioritise protecting you, so it wouldn't scout furthermore it could be temperamental if you feed it the wrong food or something.
Spectators can conjure their own bland food; your guardian, unfortunately, has tasted the forbidden pancakes and can be no longer be satisfied with less.
I *love* Beholders. My campaign is basically a story in a story where I, the DM, play as a Spectator who has a fondness for reading stories and sharing his writing. So, he reads the campaign to the players, and every session opens and closes with the Spectator greeting and bidding farewell to the players aka the audience. This Mind's Eye monster is incredible and it looks insane. I am snagging it a 100% for my campaign
The Mind's Eye is utterly terrifying if taken to its logical conclusion. I'm imagining a wizard actively trying to teach them concepts that run antithetical to their nature, and openly telling the entity that's what they are doing. They cannot grasp these concepts so alien to them, which means they need to understand them more than anything. Empathy, humility, calm, compassion, that kind of stuff. A wizard might do this because they see the potential to create something far, far greater than themselves, a student trying to create the master.
@@styrax7280 A scholar or cleric using or convincing the beholder to create an ideal paradise or some crazy stuff could be the final antagonist of the campaign.
When you mentioned the beholder's power to warp reality and the idea that it realizes it isn't perfect, I thought of a beholder that realizes it isn't perfect and went into a state of extreme concentration, constantly changing it's form to try to be perfect but never managing it. It would give it a sort of lovecraftien appearance, constantly changing, undefinable. And maybe, it could inadvertently change it's lair around it while trying to make itself perfect. So you would have to travers an illogical, impossible and constantly changing lair to reach it's strange form. I'm not sure what it would do if it's awakened though.
@@trutwhut6550 Then it turns out that the beholder's dream went too far and he created the universe But then there was a big bang, and the process of entropy of the universe - like life itself as a process, the acceleration of entropy is a way to return everything to its place - to make everything homogeneous- perfect Okay I go too far with this
Oh, this is really nice. An idea I've had kicking around the back of my mind to use in a D&D setting someday is an "evil empire" that's actually more of a "lawful neutral empire" - everything's safe, everything's perfect, everything's orderly. The problem being that there's no place for adventure or monsters in such a place, and it's got an expansionist streak that's steadily pushing out into the wild and free frontiers. This would be the perfect thing to have at the heart of that empire as its secret ruler.
I wanted the final boss of the campaign to be a beholder, but now it’s a mind’s eye!!! It’s amazing! I’ll have him speak like a dalek with lower pitch. I can’t wait to have him say : MEDIOCRE! And PRRRZZZT desintegrate a minion right in front of the player’s!
Imagine a beholder that tries to be as friendly and nice as possible to prove to themself that they are perfect because of how “nice” they are? TLDR: Nice Guy Beholder
You can really get some mileage out of this. Since as a beholder, they would completely lack empathy. So their attempts to be "nice" would be completely self defined and motivated. Some very brave new world/matrix ai territory. "No you don't understand, this is for your own good, I'm here to save you. (Dun dun dun) From yourselves!"
Dude, this is honestly one of the best ideas I've ever seen anyone come up with concerning a [INSERT COPYRIGHT HERE]. Like seriously, I adore this, and your approach to creatures in general. Consider me subbed.
I had no clue there were so many different types of beholders! The timing was hilarious too, cause I was prepping for my LMoP session next week and was like, "What's a spectator??" And I agree, why did they make the Death Kiss so cute?! 🥺
I knew about beholders but this was the first time someone “dreamed up” such useful and character driven ways to help drive the story beyond BBEG in a dungeon!
Someday, Bill Cipher tried tomb of horrors to show even the trickster DMs from real world dimension who's boss. When it get into that room with an altar and went to the wrong room, its allignment shifted from chaotic evil to neutral good And there you have it: Pointy Hat is born
Convinced of being perfect, multiplying super easy but killing the clones, paranoia, wish for company but of blindly loyal underlings and not their equal - I think I know where Junji Ito got inspirations for Tomie from.
Here's an idea: Dream Architect. A beholder who has decided to use its dream powers to their fullest and literally melds with the dream realm. They can enter other's dreams and use that to kill them. They can warp reality unendingly, and they are incredibly difficult to kill because their lair is literally a dream.
Seen a few of your vids now, and I couldn't believe I hadn't heard about you until today. Then I see you've only been making these for about a month or so, and now it makes sense. These are fantastic ideas with some real creativity going into them. It really feels like you've thought about the topics a lot and have real passion for what you're talking about. I love the blend of mechanics and lore you've got going on. Really good work, I hope you keep it up and wish you quick growth and success, you deserve it.
That awkward moment when you realise this 'New' content creator you've fallen in love with is involved with or straight up created three Kickstarters you backed, one of which you backed the highest tier on, Dragon Stew, Hexbound and Heckna! Carnival of Horrors. Mind blown. You're a truly talented creator and I'm happy to support you ❤️🥰
Nice concept. I feel like the mind's eye should also have an 'erase flaw' attack/ability too which could be a combination of power word kill and disintegrate lol. If any creature or object in the mind's eye's main eye cone, including itself takes damage, the mind's eye rolls a wisdom save, on a failure it targets that creature. And on its next turn will attempt to erase that 'flaw'.
It should slowly turn everything into perfectly smooth spheres. Just evening out every bump or extrusion, sealing every orifice, until it's a perfect, round, default sphere with exactly 1 hp. And make it so it has to be reversed using spells like true polymorph, wish, etc. rather than healing or restoration, as it's technically removing defects in the creature or object, not actually damaging them. Just make sure that one of the rewards is a way to learn "Mould Flesh & Bone" ( something like: 5th lvl. S,M 500gp of precious gems, a handful of clay. Target: 1 willing creature you can touch. Allows you to reshape and reorganise a creatures internal and external structure, including bones, muscles, tendons, and organs. Does not allow you to increase or decrease their total mass. When cast using a 6th lvl spell slot or higher, may target two willing creatures, and when cast using a 7th lvl spell slot or higher, may be used to replace a missing limb on a willing creature with an organic, non-sentient severed limb if one is available. Changes made using this spell are considered to now be the creature's default state, and healing or restoration spells or abilities will attempt to restore it to this state.), just so that your spell caster can fix the oblate spheroids formally known as the fighter and rogue...
I had a friendly beholder in my evil campaign that the characters loved, and was my favorite to role play. I'm going to bring him back in a similar way. His favorite PC died and he disappeared, and I have a spelljammer planned where they discover that he flew into space and turned himself into a space station. But instead of being all metal, I was going to have the fleshy core of his body plugged in as the "AI"
These are legit some of my favorite videos on UA-cam right now dude. Please please please keep it up! These are so fun and inspiring to watch and my only issue with these videos is that there isn't 100+ of them for me to binge and then cry about once I finish them all and no longer have any new ones.
As someone who likes Beholders, and remembers some of their weird assortments from old lore, like thecHive Mothers, the Elder Orbs, and the Beholder Mages, i have to say I rather find this iteration you made intriguing. I don't think I would have thought to turn them into constructs, and im glad they didn't just receive some innate limited wish ability, but this is pretty cool!
The other day I decided to test this out I was leading the party on the adventure making it seem that the cause of their troubles was made by a beholder so they prepped and geared up and used locate creature, the spell led them to a Auditorium of a School that studies Cosmology/Astrology and in the center of the lobby was a floating Minds eye made to discripted as a Solar System with each of its eyes as a planet floating around in a circular motion the party just walks past to the next room ignoring the Beholder Entirely, they ended up fighting random goblin janitors and roaming students with Astronomy Majors thinking they are hiding the creature or are in cahoots with the beholder to take over the world... And I'm just laughing my ass off and shaking my head like ..u just past him bro...and he isn't even evil I made it so that there are light fixtures much like a regular beholder they can make sorta like windows allowing them to shoot eye rays. The light fixtures would heal or aid the students in their studies to help cleanse their mind of other unnecessary thoughts for better focus, so the party thought those innocent bystanders were getting healed they assumed they are definitely in league. By the time they realized what the beholder was about and where he was they ALLLLLLLL face palmed in chat u can literally feel it though the voice chat either that or I face palmed myself during that with them we anyways
it's SO COOL to hear about my little creatures making it to people's home games! I'm glad you could trick your players with the Mind's Eye, and I'm excited to here that they are already making their way onto games as neutral or good creatures!
The fact that you danced into "I, Tyrant" territory, made my heart sing. When I came upon the name "Director Beholder" in that book, my mind slipped to, "Wasn't there a musical about Directors? No, wait, that was 'The Producers'!" and I realized my life was incomplete without watching it. So I watched both the Gene Wilder one and the Matthew Broderick one in the same night. And, after I was done, my Director Beholder, Droger bi Ree, was born, and he was an amazing director, championing the production of a live outdoor performance of "Springtime for Szass Tam in Thay". His minions -- both stagehands and performers -- were dozens and dozens of Lensmen beholders (and OMG, why didn't I see Mike before now???). I retooled all of his eyestalks to be stageplay related, and likewise, his main eye was "Hold Person" just like a director yelling at everyone to stop. Then, one of the lensmen (his personal assistant) was able to cast one thing from his eye: freedom of movement. Others did different things. Damn fun encounter.
I made an interesting beholder for a campaign. He had access to a device that would show you events, past present and future, but only if you had 2 eyes(the smaller eyes did not work for this). He forced others to view things for it, but the device was damaged and drove everyone who looked insane over time. Eventually, in his frustration, he dreamed of having a second main eye, and a clone of him appeared, but their minds were linked, causing each other to only see themselves. Thus they were able to use the device, which caused them to go even more insane, also causing the central eyes to become cones of insanity(I had a d8 random action table). If you tricked them into looking at each other, they would become stunned for a time and their health was linked.
My players are about to go on a sailing quest to discover a new continent, and I'm planning to have them encounter a Minds Eye that has been asleep and dreaming of being a Pirate. Their layer will be an elegant ghost ship where the players are figuring out what's going on with the empty ship that's laden with traps and rooms where pirates just pop into existence. Then when they find the captain it will aactually be a beholder (but a pirate beholder with eye patches on a few of its eyes - party is only level 4 at this point) then while the party is fighting the beholder captain and struggling, the Minds Eye will wake up and appear to assist, and thank them for helping them defeat the older imperfect version of themself. I really love your content and enjoy the depth it brings to the game. Thank you so much and please keep it up. Also if you started a liveplay stream I'd watch ever week
Super cool idea, I’ll for sure use it at some point. Though I also got inspired to create a new one, a hydra type beholder, a beholder who dreamed they become stuck to another beholder, so when they woke up it was this malformed dual beholder with two different personalities with a dislike for each other and constantly argue over everything. They wish to kill the other one but never do so in fear of killing themselves.
Some of my favourite aspects of your videos (every single one is my favourite but like, that defeats the whole point of this comment so...) are the quotation cards with batshit credits. I sent the Freud/Hippocrates one to my D&D group chat and chaos ensued. Thank you so much for the sheer ammount of fun and creativity you manage to get into these videos!
As always, your illustrations are AMAZING! Your videos always give my inspiration to draw/make art, as well as make my own D&D characters or even think of subclasses and the like. Thank you so much! 😁
The mind's eye looked a lot like one of those astro-lab rings that keep being sold. Fits very well with the whole "I'm the center of the universe" shtick it's got going on.
Honestly this is one of the most creative ideas ive seen yet. Admittedly my bias towards adoring artificial/mechanical creatures may influence my opinion.
I love the thought of running some kind of adventure involving the party being enlisted to help a Mind's Eye destroy a Zombie Beholder made up of its old parts, like some grim fantastical Ship of Theseus.
Campaign idea: Have the campaign set in a world where everything is a variation of a Beholder (best to do a bunch of homebrewing for variations) All of the meant-to-be-good NPCs are Beholders that don't attack each other. Also have a twist right near the end of the campaign where the party finds out that the world is mearly the dream of a single Beholder
Been using this for a few months in a homebrew campaign. It's about a weird mind's eye living in the middle of the ocean and sending adventurers in weird games and challenges in exchange of promised riches (spoiler: they all die there). It does this in order to analyze how they behave and react to challenges, hoping to learn new ways to perfect itself. My players just escaped from the games, discovered what it was all about, and are now determined to fight this weird beholder right in its lair! It's getting pretty intense and my players loves it! Thanks for the idea, that was the perfect monster boss for what I had in mind('s eye, see nice pun).
I'm a DM whos been brewing a beholder campaign for a while now and I think you made the perfect creature and stat block with your Mind's Eye. I hope you don't mind if I use it in a future campaign and I also wanted to complement the work you did in this, I'm glad I found your youtube channel and am excited to see more videos from you!
Well this is an incredibly high quality video, wow. Keep this kinda thing up and the channels gonna rocket up in popularity once the algorythm gets its hands on it. Fantastic ideas, concepts, execution in the video. An attached statblock is honestly awesome, but especially with the extra detail you added for tactics/strategies it would typically use. I'm definitely gonna be making my own version from the stuff you've provided as I can see a lot of fun coming from this monster.
Commenting a bit late cause i´ve been a bit unfocused. Anyway! Great video, very fun and with great exposition and edition as always. I have to admit that I did not at all expect you to go in that direction with your creation, but It looks very cool both artistically and conceptually, together with the Somnoven-lke emontion-based Beholder and Dael Kingsmill´s ObserverI I think they are the best reinterpretations. I really thought that rather than making a new type you were going to focus on the reality-shaping aspect of their dreams as an element for combat and narrative, like an idea I once had of an anciente slumbering beholder making a nearby town be always changing and filled with quori-like monsters representing its dreams and emotions, only truly destroyed if the monster is awakened or slayed.
I loved all your videos, so creative! Also the evolution of style over time and confidence. There will be a Darlek esk minds eye coming to my campaign soon.
The illustration of the Mind's Eye beholder reminds me of the concept of the Dungeon Keepers from old 2000s games. Each dungeon is controlled by the Keeper or whatever the individual game calls it, and has a "heart". Each dungeon gathers minions builds fortresses and tries to conquer the world. If you're ever curious Dungeon Keeper 1 & 2 are cheap on steam, and War for the Overworld is a modern interpretation of the genre. Never really put two and two together but now I'm tempted to mix Beholders with Dungeon Keepers. Would be a fun way to handle things.
Holy shit I never thought I'd hear anyone mention those games again - they were great! Some cool secrets in the 1st game like capturing the toughest enemy (Avatar) and torturing him to unlock a torture chamber bonus area where you can listen to a bunch of soundbites of creatures being tortured (fun). Honestly a Beholder would make a great Dungeon Keeper
@@shanekayat3217 Try War for the Overworld! It's a solid spiritual successor to Dungeon Keeper. It even has a little multiplayer scene going on. Oh that is awesome! I haven't played 1 in so long. It's been a while since I've played 2 as well. It would and I never put two and two together! I've been trying to homebrew up a dungeon keeper species for D&D games but the Beholder is a surprisingly good baseline.
Dude, i think Wizard of the Coast should offer you to do an open expansion to their world like you already do. More stats and lore could be in a compendium like your own type of book to be sold (since you're already giving a ton away and its my bet why ppl love this channel) but in any case ppl would love to have it as a solid thing in front of em. This vids are basically more content and internalization of what worlds in a DnD setting could be, which is the blood and inspiration of homebrews, the heart and soul of most DnD campaigns. I celebrate your success and look forward for more man. Now, im just a silly game artist that likes worldbuilding and probably hasnt played more than a month in total time through all my life. I'll stop the adulations. keep up the good work man.
The reality warping feature of these guys has always been my favorite thing about them. They are my second favorite creature next to the gelatinous cube.
i always thought of myself as a beholder who was looking for perfection. I love the minds eye. Ive seen it before but I didnt know what it was.... Perfection.
I was just introduced to your channel by one of my D&D groups. I love all your videos! They are amazing and inspiring and have really helped me out of my shell as a DM. I would love love love to see a video on mimics because they are my favorite. I have seen some really neat homebrew takes on them and would be so very happy to see your thoughts on them!! Thank you for all the amazing content!!!
I saw a UA-camr once, using a tiefling artificer with mechanical arms as a beholder, where every arm was a different eye, I think that was a really good idea
I really love using the Biblically Accurate Angel visuals for a Beholder. It fits really well. Could even use the style as an artificial beholder created by some mad mage!
The Mind's Eye is a really cool idea! I have a couple suggestions I think would make it play more on-theme: - Have Perfecting/Ruining add vulnerabilities/resistances instead. That way the Mind's Eye can try to "fix" whatever just went wrong in the fight, and give the players something dynamic to play around. - Change the Lair actions into Legendary actions (1/turn). All the lair actions are things the Mind's Eye personally does, so Legendary actions fit better thematically and would reinforce that the Mind's Eye is observant and reactive. These are both minor to major buffs depending on how they're used/played around, but I think it's still a reasonable CR 11 opponent
I remember that a Zombie Beholder I found on Google Images was the mascot of my 5th grade D&D club! They are also my favorite entry in the 5e Monster Manual.
Ok I actually love the twist you created. I haven't really DM'd any games yet but the idea of making this type of Beholder as my main driving force is really making me consider it
I keep forgetting to say your at is FANTASTIC in ever sense of the word! My brain is actually SPINNING. I wish it was possible to play as a beholder ... imagine the backstory and character growth--or lack thereof--arc! Your videos are so inspiring and delightful. I'm trying to pace myself and failing. Failure's never been so much fun 😀
fun little fact that i found from a youtube commenter somewhere: beholders have 2 minds, which is why they are both xenophobic and paranoid, but also egotistical and greedy. they act as one, but it's a split personality partially combined into one. idk, just thought it was cool
Thank you for this! The Mind's Eye actually plays perfectly into a thing I was planning for an upcoming campaign. One of the players that will be in it had said they'd want to play a Hexblade Warlock originally from the Feywilds for it. So what I have so far is this: The Hexblade (not exactly a hexblade from the shadowfell, but will be functionally similar for mechanical purposes as far as the warlock is concerned) that has called out to the Warlock was really a weapon made by a now dead god with a singular purpose, to strike down a Greater Rakshasa that has ravaged and consumed many worlds in the multiverse. It was then hidden away on an artificial world that is hidden and mostly unknown to the outside by a monk who reached it through the astral plane. The monk then came upon a beholder, and through several fights with the monk it came to realize its imperfections, and gave the monk its grudging respect which the monk was then able to use to overcome the beholder's ego and teach him a way that would lead to self mastery (in the way of the drunken master). Through this, the beholder has gained some measure of control over its dreams by entering a deep meditative state, and has even been able to stave off its paranoia and become somewhat closer to neutral (or maybe even good). When the monk sensed that the end of his life was coming, he passed on his sacred duty to guard the weapon to the beholder and await the day for one it has found worthy of wielding it. The body of the dead god floating in the astral plane will have one of the copies this beholder made of itself to seek it out and witness to the gods rebirth when the time comes.
just when I was looking for a secret overlord antagonist for one of my player's backstories, the mind's eye lands (almost) perfectly in front of me. Thank you this is an amazing concept
This is a really solid channel; you're doing a great job! The vids are entertaining and informative. The editing is appreciated. I sent this one to a dm buddy who particularly enjoys beholders
Just watched minds eye beholder! I’m clearly a fan now. I’m also a Dermatologist who encounters “Body Dysmorphia Disorder” frequently. Your poor beholder with focus on every perceived flaw and clinging desperately to anyone who promises help, but rejects them just as energetically when they are disappointed….. it’s really good RP fodder. Love it all!
0:24 It’s a departure by the Long Winters. This song popped up in my Spotify recommended years ago and has been floating around my liked songs ever since. Never expected to hear a random reference to it though. Love it!
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
All of you making biblically accurate angel jokes in the comments are gonna be really tickled in like 2 videos. (also can you tell i recorded this when i had a cold? No? good)
Oooooh! Heck yeah creepy celestials/aasimars, that´s my jam
The reason i clicked was because the minds eye looked like a biblically accurate angel
Nice
*looks at my own homebrew notes on running within dreams*
*Looks at the Bebolder's magic universe altering dreams*
*Points a sword at it's dream bubble*
Imma go in there and fight it
idea creature like dragons, etc have real free will, the idea that we are able to have some choice in how we act and assumes that we are free to choose our behavior. like want to be good/nice but feed on negative emotions and found a way, to a middle ground or misfits but still a good person in heart, they're still what they are but completely different.
I'm imagining a bard casting vicious mockery on a beholder once and it going down an insane spiral of chaos because it sees a single flaw
That would be so cool to do as a dm but would be completely traumatizing to the players
I'm so glad they DID actually bring back Large Luigi. He's just chilling in the new Spelljammer module.
Story time !
I was once was a campaign where one of my teammates was a Great Old One Warlock who's mission was to find out who her patron was. She didn't remember making any deals and didn't really have any memories of her life before meeting the party. Near the end of the campaign, that centered around an on coming illithid invasion, the Warlock began to receive terrifying visions of a being locked away in a cavern deep underground with vicious monsters chasing them. We followed the signs from her visions and eventually managed to find the sundered entrance of a dungeon. We found out that illithids had been making their way through the dungeon to get at some great power at it's center. We fought through traps, monsters, and illithids until we finally got to the center of the dungeon when our Warlock finally began to put the pieces together and began to panic. But it was too late, we opened the door and at the center of the room was a slumbering Beholder.
The Warlock was racked with shock an doubled over in fear screaming "Thats me!" The Beholder awoke as if from a nightmare and both it and the Warlock screamed a mind shattering scream that drove them into a frenzy. Both immediately began trying to kill the other in a desperate attempt to be the one and only. Several party members went down protecting the Warlock, the cleric had to use channel divinity twice to keep us up and even then had to use divine intervention to save the barbarian who was disintegrated almost outright. We won by what felt like the skin of our teeth. When the Beholder fell the Warlock gained all it's memories, all HER memories. It turns out she was that Beholder, or more specifically it's dream. She remembers having just eaten a group of nosy explorers and one of them had a book about adventuring through the world. She remembers thinking about adventuring as she fell asleep with a full belly. She originally intended to take a nap before continuing to aid her illithid allies in their quest to take over the surface, but she became so enthralled with her dream that she stayed asleep until now.
And that is how we, including the Warlock, discovered the Warlock's patron and reached level 15! Little side story, the Warlock and the DM are the oldest players at the table and it turns out the Warlock challenged the DM to make the patron a powerful monster or DnD figure and not tell him what it was or his connection to it to test his DnD knowledge. He says throughout the game, and all the little hints he gathered along the way, he figured he traded away memories for power with an Aboleth, he didn't figure out he was a Beholder's dream until the big reveal!
That is serious long term planning, sounds fantastic.
AWESOME!!!
Very nice Idea
What a unique story. Inspiring.
Now I just want to know the aftermath
"Stanley was an adventurer that sought out a beholder... Stanley stay in the predetermined adventure route. STANLEY. THIS HAS TO BE PERFECT STANLEY!!!"
I see a minds eye very much being the narrator from Stanley parable.
This sounds like a cool idea for a warlock
Stanley ignored the obvious plot hook to talk with the singing goblin.
Despite having nothing interesting to say, since their entire personality was thought up on the spot, Stanley decided to continue talking to the goblin.
Oh my GOD YES
Yes yes
what if the dungeon master themselves was a minds eye? they create the perfect party to go on adventures in the perfect world they came up with, but the players don’t listen. They railroad. they go off on side quests. They don’t kill the BBEG in time. then come after a certain point, the beholder snaps and goes after the party themselves.
I like the idea of beholders constantly dreaming of themselves(because of course they are) and thinking of himself better than he actually is. And when the new, better version appears, it just disintegrates the original, and takes its place
And the new one is convinced that it dreamt the imperfect one into existence by accident. Which could lead to the first escaping and the second tasking adventurers with hunting down its "inferior creation" as it is an affront to have such an inaccurate representation of itself in existence. It could promise to give them some item from its horde, fully intending to disintegrate them when they come back with proof of their success.
This could lead to some fun shenanigans playing the two beholders against each other, with the party leveling the playing field so that they can come out on top (and hopefully not create a short term alliance between the two beholders so that they can exterminate the party).
It could also be funny if it was the "better version" that got disintegrated but the original was convinced that IT was the improved version, and so remains completely oblivious to its own flaws. With every disintegration of a new clone, its delusion of perfection only grows.
>How beholders evolve~
So basically that scene from Age of Ultron, but with more eyeballs? I like it
It sounds like leveling yourself up only using cloning technology
In addition to Large Luigi, the Spelljammer novels also featured Beth-Abz, a self described insane beholder who's madness was his love of wandering and interacting with others in a non dominating manner - IE, he was nice and considered it a mental condition.
Speaking of beholder dreams, I remember learning about that when I was a new DM going into a novice DM who wanted "CONTINUITY" and "REALISM" in his game. But, of course, my world wasn't realistic in the slightest and was just a hodgepodge of crazy, fun things that I and my players wanted to look at. So as to explain away the madness of the setting, I basically made it so that a beholder named "Behazzen" from the forgotten realms teleported into the Astral plane as a way to escape being killed by an adventuring party. He then started sleeping to get all healed up and trapped himself in an endless nightmare, which made my first ever world "Izen".
Love it!
That's a cool concept
That is actually a killer setting idea.
This sounds like some great old one stuff, I love it!
"We journeyed into the center of creation. All the texts we found pointed at this being the first. But we were unprepared for what we found. Several of my comrades have already gone mad from the realization, and even I can feel myself slipping as it sets in. Nothing is real. Merely the dream of a slumbering god."
"And I pray it never wakes."
All it was just part of Aizens plan
I feel like a great start to an adventure would be putting the entire party next to a sleeping beholder, and they have to escape quietly, later finding out the beholder dreamed them to existence.
The party members make it to a nearby village explaining the problem only to mysteriously evaporate before the townsfolk.
Wait a minute... Giant single eye on the middle of a floating body... Pointy hat is a beholder!!!
His other eyes must be hidden under his hat!
Okay, but the idea of a Beholder who is a Wizard's familiar but disguising itself as the Wizard's hat is the coolest idea ever
Wait, even better idea, the "Wizard" is just a minion helping out the beholder, posing as a Wizard, but all the magic actually comes from the beholder hat.
@@cogsworther1639 Who says it has to be a wizard? It could be a warlock and the beholder is his patron.
Something about having a beholder as a warlock patron sounds super fun.
@@thornangel16 Yooooooooo I LOVE this
Probably a spectator which is why he is so chill and just shares his knowledge with us.
So it's a Beholder... crossed with a Cyberman... but its vanity makes it more concerned with upgrading itself than upgrading "inferior" beings... BRILLIANT!!!
What's a cyberman
@@joelsanchez9998 a classic Doctor Who villian
@@kahlinwhatley8640 thanks
Normal beholders are pretty damn close to daleks, only solitary.
Angelic Minds Eye: *Be Not Afraid.*
Imagine one having a theatre where they bring their dreams to life... calling it a, “Mind’s Eye Theatre” 👁🎭
Okay, but the music for the encounter needs to be just exclusively Dream Theatre songs.
Yawn
I like the idea of making the saying "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" very literal, and that the central eye contains something akin to the dream powers, and that someone who plunges their hands into the eye of a recently slain beholder will be granted something like a wish. Obtaining whatever they find most beautiful (I.E. a beloved work of art, a lost ally, or the surrounding area on the surface becomes the most beautiful landscape). It could then tie into the beholders' paranoia even more, because now people want to find and kill them even more than normal.
You may not like it, but this is what biblically accurate beholders look like.
No those are biblically accurate angels
@@trevorgreenough6141 r/whooosh
OPHANIM!!
you mean not beholders TM
@@SerifSansSerif
Imagine a *"celestial beholder"* that was created by another beholder having a bad dream about celestials. Honestly the potential variety of beholders through their weird dream based, paranoia fueled means of 'reproduction' is ridiculously fun to explore!
The Mind's Eye is such an inspired monster! I'm currently using it as the BBEG in my campaign. Thank you!
Small note: Watchful Eyes gives advantage on all Perception checks. If a check has advantage, you add +5 to its passive score. So the Mind's Eye has a passive perception of 23 (10+8+5)!
you are absolutely right! I forget about that rule all the time
Had a crazy beholder-based character idea, actually. So, a beholder attacks a city and a child with an alchemist mother is trying to hide from the disintegration rays. His mother ends up taking one hell of a gambit in using her dying breath to throw a ridiculously strong hallucinogenic and psychoactive potion at the beholder. This results in the beholder absolutely tripping balls and getting so cosmically introspective it manages to see all the way up to a higher plane of existence, and ends up showing this truth to the child. From then on, the boy vows himself to be a cleric of the one true god above all: The Great Shapes, determining the odds of the multiverse and splaying out the infinite possibilities to distinction with every roll. A 4th wall breaking cleric packed with nothing but odds-altering spells, wielding a d20 scepter.
Damn...
Didn't know Deadpool went to church.
I like the idea of a mother asking a spectator to guard her treasure, her treasure being her child.
If you start as this character you're basically gonna have the best find familiar option, that isn't available but at a cost.
I feel like it would prioritise protecting you, so it wouldn't scout furthermore it could be temperamental if you feed it the wrong food or something.
Spectators can conjure their own bland food; your guardian, unfortunately, has tasted the forbidden pancakes and can be no longer be satisfied with less.
I *love* Beholders. My campaign is basically a story in a story where I, the DM, play as a Spectator who has a fondness for reading stories and sharing his writing. So, he reads the campaign to the players, and every session opens and closes with the Spectator greeting and bidding farewell to the players aka the audience. This Mind's Eye monster is incredible and it looks insane. I am snagging it a 100% for my campaign
The Mind's Eye is utterly terrifying if taken to its logical conclusion. I'm imagining a wizard actively trying to teach them concepts that run antithetical to their nature, and openly telling the entity that's what they are doing. They cannot grasp these concepts so alien to them, which means they need to understand them more than anything. Empathy, humility, calm, compassion, that kind of stuff. A wizard might do this because they see the potential to create something far, far greater than themselves, a student trying to create the master.
Me, with chatGPT
I had a similiar idea: what happens when a spellcaster manipulates the dreams of a beholder?
@@styrax7280 A scholar or cleric using or convincing the beholder to create an ideal paradise or some crazy stuff could be the final antagonist of the campaign.
Great way too get a DM too nuke your party if you roll poorly 😂 but I love the concept.
When you mentioned the beholder's power to warp reality and the idea that it realizes it isn't perfect, I thought of a beholder that realizes it isn't perfect and went into a state of extreme concentration, constantly changing it's form to try to be perfect but never managing it. It would give it a sort of lovecraftien appearance, constantly changing, undefinable.
And maybe, it could inadvertently change it's lair around it while trying to make itself perfect. So you would have to travers an illogical, impossible and constantly changing lair to reach it's strange form.
I'm not sure what it would do if it's awakened though.
Probably just keep trying to reshape everything into perfection
So exactly what the video described?
@@trutwhut6550 Then it turns out that the beholder's dream went too far and he created the universe
But then there was a big bang, and the process of entropy of the universe - like life itself as a process, the acceleration of entropy is a way to return everything to its place - to make everything homogeneous- perfect
Okay I go too far with this
Oh, this is really nice. An idea I've had kicking around the back of my mind to use in a D&D setting someday is an "evil empire" that's actually more of a "lawful neutral empire" - everything's safe, everything's perfect, everything's orderly. The problem being that there's no place for adventure or monsters in such a place, and it's got an expansionist streak that's steadily pushing out into the wild and free frontiers. This would be the perfect thing to have at the heart of that empire as its secret ruler.
i just tought about that when i thought on the status of a lichruler in dnd...
I immediatly thought about:" There is no war in Ba-Sing-Se." Like there are flaws but they aren't shown to any outsiders.
"Roll that beautiful bean footage!" TAZ balance is my favorite campaign podcast ever
I wanted the final boss of the campaign to be a beholder, but now it’s a mind’s eye!!! It’s amazing! I’ll have him speak like a dalek with lower pitch. I can’t wait to have him say :
MEDIOCRE! And PRRRZZZT desintegrate a minion right in front of the player’s!
Desintegrate
Desintegrate
Desintegrate
EXTERMINATE
I can hear that.
Imagine a beholder that tries to be as friendly and nice as possible to prove to themself that they are perfect because of how “nice” they are?
TLDR: Nice Guy Beholder
We had them in a campaign. He was a librarian. Very nice dude but had we attacked first it would have been OVER
You can really get some mileage out of this. Since as a beholder, they would completely lack empathy. So their attempts to be "nice" would be completely self defined and motivated. Some very brave new world/matrix ai territory.
"No you don't understand, this is for your own good, I'm here to save you.
(Dun dun dun)
From yourselves!"
M’holder
@@pike7090HAHAHAHA
Dude, this is honestly one of the best ideas I've ever seen anyone come up with concerning a [INSERT COPYRIGHT HERE]. Like seriously, I adore this, and your approach to creatures in general. Consider me subbed.
The amount of effort you put in to make sure we get a drag race reference in each episode is just *chef's kiss*
I had no clue there were so many different types of beholders! The timing was hilarious too, cause I was prepping for my LMoP session next week and was like, "What's a spectator??" And I agree, why did they make the Death Kiss so cute?! 🥺
I knew about beholders but this was the first time someone “dreamed up” such useful and character driven ways to help drive the story beyond BBEG in a dungeon!
Someday, Bill Cipher tried tomb of horrors to show even the trickster DMs from real world dimension who's boss. When it get into that room with an altar and went to the wrong room, its allignment shifted from chaotic evil to neutral good
And there you have it: Pointy Hat is born
Convinced of being perfect, multiplying super easy but killing the clones, paranoia, wish for company but of blindly loyal underlings and not their equal - I think I know where Junji Ito got inspirations for Tomie from.
A homebrew campaign set in a time period much like our own where beholders are now just really self absorbed tik-tokkers
Here's an idea: Dream Architect. A beholder who has decided to use its dream powers to their fullest and literally melds with the dream realm. They can enter other's dreams and use that to kill them. They can warp reality unendingly, and they are incredibly difficult to kill because their lair is literally a dream.
Seen a few of your vids now, and I couldn't believe I hadn't heard about you until today. Then I see you've only been making these for about a month or so, and now it makes sense. These are fantastic ideas with some real creativity going into them. It really feels like you've thought about the topics a lot and have real passion for what you're talking about. I love the blend of mechanics and lore you've got going on. Really good work, I hope you keep it up and wish you quick growth and success, you deserve it.
That awkward moment when you realise this 'New' content creator you've fallen in love with is involved with or straight up created three Kickstarters you backed, one of which you backed the highest tier on, Dragon Stew, Hexbound and Heckna! Carnival of Horrors. Mind blown. You're a truly talented creator and I'm happy to support you ❤️🥰
Nice concept.
I feel like the mind's eye should also have an 'erase flaw' attack/ability too which could be a combination of power word kill and disintegrate lol.
If any creature or object in the mind's eye's main eye cone, including itself takes damage, the mind's eye rolls a wisdom save, on a failure it targets that creature. And on its next turn will attempt to erase that 'flaw'.
Call that ability CTRL+Z
It should slowly turn everything into perfectly smooth spheres. Just evening out every bump or extrusion, sealing every orifice, until it's a perfect, round, default sphere with exactly 1 hp.
And make it so it has to be reversed using spells like true polymorph, wish, etc. rather than healing or restoration, as it's technically removing defects in the creature or object, not actually damaging them.
Just make sure that one of the rewards is a way to learn "Mould Flesh & Bone" ( something like: 5th lvl. S,M 500gp of precious gems, a handful of clay. Target: 1 willing creature you can touch. Allows you to reshape and reorganise a creatures internal and external structure, including bones, muscles, tendons, and organs. Does not allow you to increase or decrease their total mass. When cast using a 6th lvl spell slot or higher, may target two willing creatures, and when cast using a 7th lvl spell slot or higher, may be used to replace a missing limb on a willing creature with an organic, non-sentient severed limb if one is available. Changes made using this spell are considered to now be the creature's default state, and healing or restoration spells or abilities will attempt to restore it to this state.), just so that your spell caster can fix the oblate spheroids formally known as the fighter and rogue...
I had a friendly beholder in my evil campaign that the characters loved, and was my favorite to role play. I'm going to bring him back in a similar way. His favorite PC died and he disappeared, and I have a spelljammer planned where they discover that he flew into space and turned himself into a space station. But instead of being all metal, I was going to have the fleshy core of his body plugged in as the "AI"
These are legit some of my favorite videos on UA-cam right now dude. Please please please keep it up! These are so fun and inspiring to watch and my only issue with these videos is that there isn't 100+ of them for me to binge and then cry about once I finish them all and no longer have any new ones.
As someone who likes Beholders, and remembers some of their weird assortments from old lore, like thecHive Mothers, the Elder Orbs, and the Beholder Mages, i have to say I rather find this iteration you made intriguing. I don't think I would have thought to turn them into constructs, and im glad they didn't just receive some innate limited wish ability, but this is pretty cool!
The other day I decided to test this out I was leading the party on the adventure making it seem that the cause of their troubles was made by a beholder so they prepped and geared up and used locate creature, the spell led them to a Auditorium of a School that studies Cosmology/Astrology and in the center of the lobby was a floating Minds eye made to discripted as a Solar System with each of its eyes as a planet floating around in a circular motion the party just walks past to the next room ignoring the Beholder Entirely, they ended up fighting random goblin janitors and roaming students with Astronomy Majors thinking they are hiding the creature or are in cahoots with the beholder to take over the world... And I'm just laughing my ass off and shaking my head like ..u just past him bro...and he isn't even evil I made it so that there are light fixtures much like a regular beholder they can make sorta like windows allowing them to shoot eye rays. The light fixtures would heal or aid the students in their studies to help cleanse their mind of other unnecessary thoughts for better focus, so the party thought those innocent bystanders were getting healed they assumed they are definitely in league. By the time they realized what the beholder was about and where he was they ALLLLLLLL face palmed in chat u can literally feel it though the voice chat either that or I face palmed myself during that with them we anyways
it's SO COOL to hear about my little creatures making it to people's home games! I'm glad you could trick your players with the Mind's Eye, and I'm excited to here that they are already making their way onto games as neutral or good creatures!
I was looking for some inspiration for a new character to add and when I saw this I thought it was perfect for this scene so I was it's destiny
The fact that you danced into "I, Tyrant" territory, made my heart sing.
When I came upon the name "Director Beholder" in that book, my mind slipped to, "Wasn't there a musical about Directors? No, wait, that was 'The Producers'!" and I realized my life was incomplete without watching it. So I watched both the Gene Wilder one and the Matthew Broderick one in the same night.
And, after I was done, my Director Beholder, Droger bi Ree, was born, and he was an amazing director, championing the production of a live outdoor performance of "Springtime for Szass Tam in Thay". His minions -- both stagehands and performers -- were dozens and dozens of Lensmen beholders (and OMG, why didn't I see Mike before now???).
I retooled all of his eyestalks to be stageplay related, and likewise, his main eye was "Hold Person" just like a director yelling at everyone to stop. Then, one of the lensmen (his personal assistant) was able to cast one thing from his eye: freedom of movement. Others did different things.
Damn fun encounter.
This is easily the coolest D&D channel I’ve ever found, man. Keep up the quality. You’re doing god’s work for the community.
I made an interesting beholder for a campaign. He had access to a device that would show you events, past present and future, but only if you had 2 eyes(the smaller eyes did not work for this). He forced others to view things for it, but the device was damaged and drove everyone who looked insane over time. Eventually, in his frustration, he dreamed of having a second main eye, and a clone of him appeared, but their minds were linked, causing each other to only see themselves. Thus they were able to use the device, which caused them to go even more insane, also causing the central eyes to become cones of insanity(I had a d8 random action table). If you tricked them into looking at each other, they would become stunned for a time and their health was linked.
I'm in love with this design. You're videos are honestly so fun and interesting to watch!
My players are about to go on a sailing quest to discover a new continent, and I'm planning to have them encounter a Minds Eye that has been asleep and dreaming of being a Pirate. Their layer will be an elegant ghost ship where the players are figuring out what's going on with the empty ship that's laden with traps and rooms where pirates just pop into existence. Then when they find the captain it will aactually be a beholder (but a pirate beholder with eye patches on a few of its eyes - party is only level 4 at this point) then while the party is fighting the beholder captain and struggling, the Minds Eye will wake up and appear to assist, and thank them for helping them defeat the older imperfect version of themself.
I really love your content and enjoy the depth it brings to the game. Thank you so much and please keep it up. Also if you started a liveplay stream I'd watch ever week
Super cool idea, I’ll for sure use it at some point. Though I also got inspired to create a new one, a hydra type beholder, a beholder who dreamed they become stuck to another beholder, so when they woke up it was this malformed dual beholder with two different personalities with a dislike for each other and constantly argue over everything. They wish to kill the other one but never do so in fear of killing themselves.
I think these have become the most entertaining videos on UA-cam for me. They're fun, engaging and really well thought out.
the mind's eye is so beautiful I may never recover
Some of my favourite aspects of your videos (every single one is my favourite but like, that defeats the whole point of this comment so...) are the quotation cards with batshit credits. I sent the Freud/Hippocrates one to my D&D group chat and chaos ensued. Thank you so much for the sheer ammount of fun and creativity you manage to get into these videos!
I like this mind's eye. It look like a biblical angel.
As always, your illustrations are AMAZING! Your videos always give my inspiration to draw/make art, as well as make my own D&D characters or even think of subclasses and the like. Thank you so much! 😁
A beholder that's aware of their flaws and tries to fix them is possibly the most beholder thing a beholder could behold
The mind's eye looked a lot like one of those astro-lab rings that keep being sold. Fits very well with the whole "I'm the center of the universe" shtick it's got going on.
Honestly this is one of the most creative ideas ive seen yet.
Admittedly my bias towards adoring artificial/mechanical creatures may influence my opinion.
I love the thought of running some kind of adventure involving the party being enlisted to help a Mind's Eye destroy a Zombie Beholder made up of its old parts, like some grim fantastical Ship of Theseus.
Campaign idea:
Have the campaign set in a world where everything is a variation of a Beholder (best to do a bunch of homebrewing for variations)
All of the meant-to-be-good NPCs are Beholders that don't attack each other.
Also have a twist right near the end of the campaign where the party finds out that the world is mearly the dream of a single Beholder
I had the same idea. I'm gonna go for a Prismatic Beholder, a Behelder and a small community of Lensmen.
Azathoth
The campaign ends with a solar eclipse, letting then finally see the Sun's eye stalks. Then the planet is disintegrated and everyone wakes up...
Been using this for a few months in a homebrew campaign. It's about a weird mind's eye living in the middle of the ocean and sending adventurers in weird games and challenges in exchange of promised riches (spoiler: they all die there). It does this in order to analyze how they behave and react to challenges, hoping to learn new ways to perfect itself. My players just escaped from the games, discovered what it was all about, and are now determined to fight this weird beholder right in its lair! It's getting pretty intense and my players loves it!
Thanks for the idea, that was the perfect monster boss for what I had in mind('s eye, see nice pun).
I'm a DM whos been brewing a beholder campaign for a while now and I think you made the perfect creature and stat block with your Mind's Eye. I hope you don't mind if I use it in a future campaign and I also wanted to complement the work you did in this, I'm glad I found your youtube channel and am excited to see more videos from you!
Probably the best twist you’ve made that I’ve seen so far Ego turned to doubt turned to determination
Well this is an incredibly high quality video, wow. Keep this kinda thing up and the channels gonna rocket up in popularity once the algorythm gets its hands on it. Fantastic ideas, concepts, execution in the video. An attached statblock is honestly awesome, but especially with the extra detail you added for tactics/strategies it would typically use. I'm definitely gonna be making my own version from the stuff you've provided as I can see a lot of fun coming from this monster.
I should be sleeping but I found your channel and now I'm watching as many videos as I can before falling asleep because they're so good.
Commenting a bit late cause i´ve been a bit unfocused.
Anyway! Great video, very fun and with great exposition and edition as always. I have to admit that I did not at all expect you to go in that direction with your creation, but It looks very cool both artistically and conceptually, together with the Somnoven-lke emontion-based Beholder and Dael Kingsmill´s ObserverI I think they are the best reinterpretations.
I really thought that rather than making a new type you were going to focus on the reality-shaping aspect of their dreams as an element for combat and narrative, like an idea I once had of an anciente slumbering beholder making a nearby town be always changing and filled with quori-like monsters representing its dreams and emotions, only truly destroyed if the monster is awakened or slayed.
I love you for actively pushng intent and content to anyone and everone. To you, really everyone is a princess.
baldur's gate 3: dont worry bro,the spectator is friendly
me:
I love this so much honestly, you've got me thinking of beholder campaigns on top of all the other campaign ideas lodged in my head.
With the edits with Regina George as a beholder, I got the urge to make a female beholder that’s literally Regina George
Please make the burn book be ex minions that the players killed but really was all set up by the beholder
I loved all your videos, so creative!
Also the evolution of style over time and confidence.
There will be a Darlek esk minds eye coming to my campaign soon.
The illustration of the Mind's Eye beholder reminds me of the concept of the Dungeon Keepers from old 2000s games. Each dungeon is controlled by the Keeper or whatever the individual game calls it, and has a "heart". Each dungeon gathers minions builds fortresses and tries to conquer the world. If you're ever curious Dungeon Keeper 1 & 2 are cheap on steam, and War for the Overworld is a modern interpretation of the genre.
Never really put two and two together but now I'm tempted to mix Beholders with Dungeon Keepers. Would be a fun way to handle things.
Holy shit I never thought I'd hear anyone mention those games again - they were great!
Some cool secrets in the 1st game like capturing the toughest enemy (Avatar) and torturing him to unlock a torture chamber bonus area where you can listen to a bunch of soundbites of creatures being tortured (fun).
Honestly a Beholder would make a great Dungeon Keeper
@@shanekayat3217 Try War for the Overworld! It's a solid spiritual successor to Dungeon Keeper. It even has a little multiplayer scene going on.
Oh that is awesome! I haven't played 1 in so long. It's been a while since I've played 2 as well.
It would and I never put two and two together! I've been trying to homebrew up a dungeon keeper species for D&D games but the Beholder is a surprisingly good baseline.
Dude, i think Wizard of the Coast should offer you to do an open expansion to their world like you already do. More stats and lore could be in a compendium like your own type of book to be sold (since you're already giving a ton away and its my bet why ppl love this channel) but in any case ppl would love to have it as a solid thing in front of em.
This vids are basically more content and internalization of what worlds in a DnD setting could be, which is the blood and inspiration of homebrews, the heart and soul of most DnD campaigns. I celebrate your success and look forward for more man.
Now, im just a silly game artist that likes worldbuilding and probably hasnt played more than a month in total time through all my life. I'll stop the adulations. keep up the good work man.
The reality warping feature of these guys has always been my favorite thing about them. They are my second favorite creature next to the gelatinous cube.
i always thought of myself as a beholder who was looking for perfection. I love the minds eye. Ive seen it before but I didnt know what it was.... Perfection.
La calidad del contenido que estás generando es… una locura. Lo amo
Muchas gracias!!! 😊
I was just introduced to your channel by one of my D&D groups. I love all your videos! They are amazing and inspiring and have really helped me out of my shell as a DM. I would love love love to see a video on mimics because they are my favorite. I have seen some really neat homebrew takes on them and would be so very happy to see your thoughts on them!! Thank you for all the amazing content!!!
omg it's the hat man!!
I saw a UA-camr once, using a tiefling artificer with mechanical arms as a beholder, where every arm was a different eye, I think that was a really good idea
I really love using the Biblically Accurate Angel visuals for a Beholder. It fits really well. Could even use the style as an artificial beholder created by some mad mage!
If you are running an Neutral or Evil campaign, have them be the beholder equivalent for Celestials.
Dude, the memes, the information, this is top tier content right here :D
Personally, I like Dragon’s Dogma’s aesthetic of a beholder. Don’t know why, looks more monstrous and weirder than the traditional ones.
Wolves hunt in packs.
The Mind's Eye is a really cool idea! I have a couple suggestions I think would make it play more on-theme:
- Have Perfecting/Ruining add vulnerabilities/resistances instead. That way the Mind's Eye can try to "fix" whatever just went wrong in the fight, and give the players something dynamic to play around.
- Change the Lair actions into Legendary actions (1/turn). All the lair actions are things the Mind's Eye personally does, so Legendary actions fit better thematically and would reinforce that the Mind's Eye is observant and reactive.
These are both minor to major buffs depending on how they're used/played around, but I think it's still a reasonable CR 11 opponent
0:10 man, talk about prophetic.
I remember that a Zombie Beholder I found on Google Images was the mascot of my 5th grade D&D club! They are also my favorite entry in the 5e Monster Manual.
Okay bill cipher
Dude, I love these videos. Please keep this level of quality.
I have a question: if a mind's eye becomes artificial does that mean the beholder becomes an ophanim?
Ok I actually love the twist you created. I haven't really DM'd any games yet but the idea of making this type of Beholder as my main driving force is really making me consider it
Dont you mean, they're the most.... Eyeconic monsters?
I keep forgetting to say your at is FANTASTIC in ever sense of the word!
My brain is actually SPINNING. I wish it was possible to play as a beholder ... imagine the backstory and character growth--or lack thereof--arc!
Your videos are so inspiring and delightful. I'm trying to pace myself and failing. Failure's never been so much fun 😀
fun little fact that i found from a youtube commenter somewhere: beholders have 2 minds, which is why they are both xenophobic and paranoid, but also egotistical and greedy. they act as one, but it's a split personality partially combined into one. idk, just thought it was cool
Just found your videos while researching Githyanki, and am just loving all them and your presentation and art
Great job!
Can’t believe your intro made me remember Bean Dad again, truly a wild time to be tuned into the McElroy properties
Thank you for this! The Mind's Eye actually plays perfectly into a thing I was planning for an upcoming campaign. One of the players that will be in it had said they'd want to play a Hexblade Warlock originally from the Feywilds for it. So what I have so far is this:
The Hexblade (not exactly a hexblade from the shadowfell, but will be functionally similar for mechanical purposes as far as the warlock is concerned) that has called out to the Warlock was really a weapon made by a now dead god with a singular purpose, to strike down a Greater Rakshasa that has ravaged and consumed many worlds in the multiverse. It was then hidden away on an artificial world that is hidden and mostly unknown to the outside by a monk who reached it through the astral plane. The monk then came upon a beholder, and through several fights with the monk it came to realize its imperfections, and gave the monk its grudging respect which the monk was then able to use to overcome the beholder's ego and teach him a way that would lead to self mastery (in the way of the drunken master). Through this, the beholder has gained some measure of control over its dreams by entering a deep meditative state, and has even been able to stave off its paranoia and become somewhat closer to neutral (or maybe even good). When the monk sensed that the end of his life was coming, he passed on his sacred duty to guard the weapon to the beholder and await the day for one it has found worthy of wielding it. The body of the dead god floating in the astral plane will have one of the copies this beholder made of itself to seek it out and witness to the gods rebirth when the time comes.
just when I was looking for a secret overlord antagonist for one of my player's backstories, the mind's eye lands (almost) perfectly in front of me. Thank you this is an amazing concept
This is a really solid channel; you're doing a great job! The vids are entertaining and informative. The editing is appreciated. I sent this one to a dm buddy who particularly enjoys beholders
The mind’s eye art is gorgeous! Good job!!
Oh I love this! This beholder variant is amazing! Kudos for that creative idea.
Just watched minds eye beholder! I’m clearly a fan now. I’m also a Dermatologist who encounters “Body Dysmorphia Disorder” frequently. Your poor beholder with focus on every perceived flaw and clinging desperately to anyone who promises help, but rejects them just as energetically when they are disappointed….. it’s really good RP fodder. Love it all!
Body dysmorphic disorder? I’m not near a textbook (aka don’t want to google and think too hard about work).
0:24 It’s a departure by the Long Winters. This song popped up in my Spotify recommended years ago and has been floating around my liked songs ever since. Never expected to hear a random reference to it though. Love it!
I have never commented on anything before but i’ve gotta say i love your videos, i hope you continue to skyrocket in subscribers :)
All your videos have been fun to watch and are well researched. Thank you for adding your voice to this hobby we all love so much!!
That art is absolutely gorgeous
I absolutely love the Minds Eye twist to the Beholder and want to add that into a future adventure. Absolute gold there.