Beholder - Publication History

Publication History

Unlike many other Dungeons & Dragons monsters, the beholder is an original creation for D&D, as it is not based on a creature from mythology or other fiction. Rob Kuntz's brother Theron O. Kuntz created the Beholder, and Gary Gygax detailed it for publication.

The beholder was introduced with the first Dungeons & Dragons supplement, Greyhawk (1975), and is depicted on its cover (as shown in the section below). It is described as a "Sphere of Many Eyes" or "Eye Tyrant," a levitating globe with ten magical eye stalks. The beholder later appears in the Companion Rules set, in the Dungeon Masters Companion: Book Two (1984). In 1991, it appears in the Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia.

With the release of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition, the beholder appeared in the first edition Monster Manual (1977), where it is described as a hateful, aggressive, avaricious spherical monster that is most frequently found underground. Ed Greenwood and Roger E Moore authored "The Ecology of the Beholder," which featured in Dragon #76 (August 1983). Second edition supplements to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, especially those of the Spelljammer campaign setting, added further details about these classic creatures' societies and culture. Beholders feature prominently in the Spelljammer setting, and a number of variants and related creatures are introduced in the Spelljammer: AD&D Adventures in Space campaign set, in the Lorebook of the Void booklet (1989). It also appeared in the Monstrous Compendium Volume One (1989), and is reprinted in the Monstrous Manual (1993). The book I, Tyrant (1996), and the Monstrous Arcana module series that accompanies it, develops the beholder further. I, Tyrant expands the information on beholders through details of the race's history, religion, culture, settlements and psychology, and more.

Based on Tom Wham's depiction in the first edition Monster Manual, TSR artist Keith Parkinson characterized its popular appearance with plate-like armored scales and arthropod-like eyestalks. Jeff Grubb cites Keith Parkinson's artwork as the inspiration for the beholder-kin created for the Spelljammer campaign setting. The Beholder's xenophobia towards other subraces of Beholders was added after Jim Holloway submitted multiple designs for the Beholder's spelljamming ship and Jeff Grubb decided to keep them all and used xenophobia to explain the differences in design style.

The third edition of Dungeons & Dragons included the Beholder in the Monster Manual (2000) with the expanded monster statistics of this release. Beholder variants appear in Monstrous Compendium: Monsters of Faerun (2001). The beholder then appears in the revised Monster Manual for the 3.5 edition (2003). The beholder receives its own chapter in the book Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations (2005). With the release of the fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons, the beholder once again appears in the Monster Manual for this edition (2008), including the beholder eye of flame and the beholder eye tyrant. Variants of the beholder also appear in Monster Manual 2 (2009) and Monster Manual 3 (2010).