Are there beholders in Dark Sun?

[Holy Bovine]

The DM should be honour-bound to allow it, simply because it would mean your PC got to wear an awesome hat. Take a look at any of the pictures of Dark Sun NPCs (City State of Tyr is a great example, as are any pictures by Baxa) - 90% of them are wearing totally outrageous hats. The beholder-cultist hat would fit right in. Your PC would be the talk of the town based on his hat alone.

For this reason alone I'm allowing this in the OPs campaign regardless of what his actual DM says.

 

[wingsandsword]

I don't think there's anything in the 4e Dark Sun material that explicitly says "no beholders," but then again there's nothing in there that explicitly says "yeah, we've got beholders" either.

The tone and tenor of the 4e Dark Sun material seems to be "if you want it in there, it's in there," as opposed to 2e's DS model of "only what we allow."

All that being said, it's entirely up to the DM. I can't see a good reason why there couldn't be beholders. They can be exceedingly rare, exceedingly strange, and even more exotic than they are in "vanilla" D&D.

After all, if 4e can find a way to squeeze in Tieflings and Eladrin, why couldn't a good DM squeeze in beholders?

Because every D&D setting is not supposed to be the same kitchen-sink setting with the same monsters, same character classes, same spells, and same races. Athas is a world where most of the common monster races are long extinct, halflings are feral cannibals, psionics are more prominent than magic, the gods are long dead and elemental and nature cults and the worship of god-kings are the only religions, almost everyone has wild talents, there are no Paladins (try being Paladin level LG on Athas, see how long you last), and there are lots of strange and unique undead and psionic monsters roaming the land.

Part of the appeal of Dark Sun was that it was a world radically different from any other. You could go to Forgotten Realms, or Greyhawk or many other worlds for the normal, but Dark Sun was the TSR experiment in pushing the boundaries of D&D settings. The modern (3e and 4e) idea that every setting needs to have everything that is is in the core books or it is somehow unfair to the players was actually a disservice to players in the long term, because of the variety it robs them of.

 

[Sorrowdusk]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NiceHat

Can someone provide a link to pics of these hats from City State of Tyr; I cant find any images online-but this crazy hat art has my interest piqued.

 

[frankthedm]

While the background has no official beholders, I'm sure a few of the various sword and sorcery abominations probably would have visual profiles that would be close enough to fit the Funky Hat.

"The watcher beneath the silt"

 

[TarionzCousin]

Maybe you need to make your own hat and wear it to the games. I bet that would convince your DM to allow it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Good thoughts! I had a similar one. I first imagined he would meet a beholder in the desert and swear fealty to it. But since it's a desert world, he could have had terrible heatstroke, dehydration, and exhaustion that led to hallucinations. Maybe the many-eyed thing that he now worships was a figment of his imagination.

Old Monk: "If you are wandering in the deep desert and encounter a Many Eyed Spherical Being levitating before you in your path, what should you do?"

Young Monk: "Run, Master. I would run very fast."

Old Monk: "I would kill it!"

Young Monk: "I concede your wisdom."

 

[Dausuul]

As a DM, I totally endorse this idea. Do anything you can to convince your DMs* to include beholders in their version of Dark Sun. They'll thank you for it later.

As a player, I have to ask... do you really want to establish the existence of beholders in the world you're playing in?

[size=-2]*Side note: You have multiple DMs? Interesting.[/size]

 

[pneumatik]

I was a pretty big DS nerd. I'm certain that hat belongs in Athas, regardless of why or how it's there.

 

[megamania]

Possible plot-


Walk into a city-state. Several nobles wearing the beholder hats. Templars are jealous. They want some also.

They corner you and the group with a bogus law being broken. Suffer or get us some beholder hats.

Must investigate, roleplay with nobles (not easy as it sounds on Athas). Meanwhile the Alliance is now tracking you also. They corner you- "Either drop this or aid us in their destruction"

Learn Albech-Re has created them and plans on releasing them within "x" city-state as a means to destroy the city-state.


battle takes place below ground. May (or not) involve the Alliance, Templars or other parties (hat party.... these worshippers are not under a beholder's control)



Battle royal.


or..... Reaver found it, dragged in for the arena. Proved too uncontrollable and has escped the templars and they hit you with a bogus crime to hunt and kill it. Certain arena fans love it so much they wear hats to honor it.

 

[Aegeri]

If I was your DM and had asked if my players were interested in playing a Dark Sun campaign I'd be pretty annoyed, if one of the players then came to me with a frigging Forgotten Realms book, telling me he wanted to play Elminster, Drizzt or whatever else haunts this dreadful setting. I'd much rather the players telling me in advance they'd prefer playing a FR campaign.

To be fair, it is an amazing hat.