If you were a Beholder.........what would you ask of my players?
- Thread starter Guilberwood
- Start date
As I understand, Beholders are quite vain and most of them have a mirror in their lair. Perhaps this one only recently made this lair, or his mirror was broken, etc. A large mirror would just be perfect 
. It's mundane and not necessarily easy to get (depending on your campaign's rarity of large mirrors, transporting it to the lair without breakage, etc.).
. It's mundane and not necessarily easy to get (depending on your campaign's rarity of large mirrors, transporting it to the lair without breakage, etc.).
Guilberwood
First Post
Thanks a lot for the huge amount of replies guys.
Right now I’m worried about two things:
1- The party is literally running out of time to complete their current quest, and I don’t think they would accept any deals involving loosing even more precious time. If the bargain goes that way, I can predict my players will just charge the beast, and hope for the best. They will win the fight, I’m sure of it, but not without some serious causalities. This is my only problem with the otherwise perfect “kill my rival” suggestion
2- It has got to be something quick. Like an encounter or so, because I really can’t let one of my four players out of an entire game. I was planning on asking for something the players could give it right away, especially since for alignment reason none of them would make a pact with the beast, they’d just charge!
I know this narrows my specter of options. I really like the mirror suggestion, and the “give me a seemly useless item” one too. This last one could be used to ultimate rat bastardness, if I could think of something apparently harmless that the party could agree on, but that would create a lot of troubles in the near future, and the party would have to deal with it, and have a bitter taste in their mouth thinking “I did it”.
Another good suggestion was the sunglass….no kidding. Well, not the sunglass itself, but something that a Beholder, due to his anatomy, could not use/make/have. Something that would require 2 hands, or opposable thumbs, or even fingers…maybe playing a musical instrument..
You guys see where this is going?
Thanks again for the support...let’s keep it going, I’m loving it
See ya
Guilberwood
Right now I’m worried about two things:
1- The party is literally running out of time to complete their current quest, and I don’t think they would accept any deals involving loosing even more precious time. If the bargain goes that way, I can predict my players will just charge the beast, and hope for the best. They will win the fight, I’m sure of it, but not without some serious causalities. This is my only problem with the otherwise perfect “kill my rival” suggestion
2- It has got to be something quick. Like an encounter or so, because I really can’t let one of my four players out of an entire game. I was planning on asking for something the players could give it right away, especially since for alignment reason none of them would make a pact with the beast, they’d just charge!
I know this narrows my specter of options. I really like the mirror suggestion, and the “give me a seemly useless item” one too. This last one could be used to ultimate rat bastardness, if I could think of something apparently harmless that the party could agree on, but that would create a lot of troubles in the near future, and the party would have to deal with it, and have a bitter taste in their mouth thinking “I did it”.
Another good suggestion was the sunglass….no kidding. Well, not the sunglass itself, but something that a Beholder, due to his anatomy, could not use/make/have. Something that would require 2 hands, or opposable thumbs, or even fingers…maybe playing a musical instrument..
You guys see where this is going?
Thanks again for the support...let’s keep it going, I’m loving it
See ya
Guilberwood
Merkuri
Explorer
How about this. Have the party sign some magically enforced contract saying that they owe the beholder one favor, to be completed at a time of the beholder's choosing. When they sign, the stoned PC is let go and the party now gets to dread what the beholder will ask of them.
The beholder hasn't made up his mind yet what he wants, but he doesn't want to lose the opportunity to get something from them.
The beholder hasn't made up his mind yet what he wants, but he doesn't want to lose the opportunity to get something from them.
JRRNeiklot
First Post
The Edge said:How about amoung other the stuff, something quite mundane and aparrently wothless, but strange enough to make them really suspicous. Ask for a cut of hair from each of them, or even from everybody in the nearest town. No idea what it'd want it for, but thats what the players would wonder.
Is it just a beholder with a hair fetish? Or has he got got more sinister plans for our hair?
After all, its a beholder, you should expect monsters to think in seemingly alien ways.
This is a great idea, and to further the devious plot, have the beholder use the hair for spell components in a summon monster spell. He'd summon the pcs to do various chores, mundane stuff, like moving furniture, emptying the latrine, etc. Occasionally have them fight some horrid creature and die in horrible ways, only to return to life, back in the tavern he snatched them from via spell. Hehehehehheh
Three_Haligonians
First Post
Hmm.. let's try this:
People have suggested/seconded the notion of the Beholder requesting bits of the PC's themselves - hair strands, nail clippings, etc. So why would the Beholder want this? The answer is of course because the scrying spell states that with such a piece of the target, the Will save to negate it becomes much harder.
But why oh why would an eye tyrant scry? Simple, we've already established the arrogant, ultra-bigoted, attitudes of your average beholder. So, in its.. ahem.. eyes, there is a group of lesser beings who have managed to pose a formidable threat to its superiority and safety. If I were that beholder, I would not let that go.
However, from the last fight they had, it knows that while it might take one or two down - it would be a fight it would lose. So it grabs pieces of them, seemingly for insane reasons and while they are back on the "main adventure" with no real loss to its time sensitivity. It watches them, and plots, and plans and learns all about them.
Then, once it has all sorts of reconnaissance - it strikes, using tactics that deliberately target the weaknesses of the group, hoping to eliminate this threat to its existence.
[If you were to do this, I would suggest waiting a bit until the PCs are at a level where your average beholder isn't too much of a threat. Creatures designed by the DM to exploit the holes in PC defences are usually a little tougher to fight. At least the first time anyway]
Man, this is shaping up to be quite the "to do". I'm thinking I kinda want to be part of the party too.
J from Three Haligonians
People have suggested/seconded the notion of the Beholder requesting bits of the PC's themselves - hair strands, nail clippings, etc. So why would the Beholder want this? The answer is of course because the scrying spell states that with such a piece of the target, the Will save to negate it becomes much harder.
But why oh why would an eye tyrant scry? Simple, we've already established the arrogant, ultra-bigoted, attitudes of your average beholder. So, in its.. ahem.. eyes, there is a group of lesser beings who have managed to pose a formidable threat to its superiority and safety. If I were that beholder, I would not let that go.
However, from the last fight they had, it knows that while it might take one or two down - it would be a fight it would lose. So it grabs pieces of them, seemingly for insane reasons and while they are back on the "main adventure" with no real loss to its time sensitivity. It watches them, and plots, and plans and learns all about them.
Then, once it has all sorts of reconnaissance - it strikes, using tactics that deliberately target the weaknesses of the group, hoping to eliminate this threat to its existence.
[If you were to do this, I would suggest waiting a bit until the PCs are at a level where your average beholder isn't too much of a threat. Creatures designed by the DM to exploit the holes in PC defences are usually a little tougher to fight. At least the first time anyway]
Man, this is shaping up to be quite the "to do". I'm thinking I kinda want to be part of the party too.
J from Three Haligonians
PapersAndPaychecks said:
Beholders are evil, I doubt it would think they'll try rescue their friend or even care about them. They did run away without them after all. If a party of determined adventurers knew where my lair was, I'd disintigrate the statue and find a new lair before they came back with reinforcements.
Theres a few things to consider:
- Does the party even have access to stone to flesh?
- Does the party have access to resurrection (and a lot of diamonds)?
- Is the petrified player okay with sitting out for one (or more) adventures, if not, then making some elaborate deal to go do some quest is going to seriously suck for that player.
- Would the members of the party even be willing to aid an evil aberration even if it was to save their friend (which they ran out on already)?
At least the beholder would hide the statue and set a trap for the PCs. I can't see any way for it to deal with the PCs though because it has to figure, as soon as they get their friend back, they'll just hunt it again. To go along with the "give the beholder something" line, how about have the beholder demand the party surrenders their eyes. A blind party is less of a threat after all. Might give the party something to think about.
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