# Beholder

- Creature: Aberration
- Date: 1975
- Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/beholder/

> A floating orb of flesh with one great central eye, a fanged maw and a crown of spell-casting eyestalks: D&D's most recognizable original monster, dreamed up by a player at Gygax's own table.

**Why it matters:** The beholder owes nothing to myth, which makes it the clearest sign that D&D had begun inventing its own bestiary. It became the game's legally protected emblem and gave its name to one of the defining computer RPGs of the 1990s.

## Quick answers

**Where does the Beholder come from?**
Original D&D monster created by Terry Kuntz, detailed by Gary Gygax in the Greyhawk supplement (1975)

**When did the Beholder first appear?**
1975, in Supplement I: Greyhawk (TSR).

**How did the Beholder get into games?**
Key appearances: Supplement I: Greyhawk (TSR) (1975), AD&D Monster Manual (1977), FR1: Waterdeep and the North (1987), Eye of the Beholder (Westwood / SSI) (1991) and Baldur's Gate II and the 3rd Edition Monster Manual (2000).

**Why is the Beholder significant?**
The beholder owes nothing to myth, which makes it the clearest sign that D&D had begun inventing its own bestiary. It became the game's legally protected emblem and gave its name to one of the defining computer RPGs of the 1990s.

## Origins

Nothing in mythology looks like a beholder. Folklore has plenty of single-eyed giants and many-eyed watchers, from the Cyclops of *[The Odyssey](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-odyssey/)* to hundred-eyed Argus, but the beholder is not modeled on any of them. It was invented at a gaming table in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, in the years when [Gary Gygax](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/gary-gygax/)'s Castle Greyhawk campaign had grown to more than twenty players (see [World of Greyhawk](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/world-of-greyhawk/)). One of them was Terry Kuntz, the younger brother of Rob Kuntz, Gygax's co-Dungeon Master. Terry came up with the creature; Gygax wrote it up for print.

The result appeared in 1975 in *Supplement I: Greyhawk*, the first expansion of [Dungeons & Dragons](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/original-dungeons-and-dragons/), and on its cover. The text called it a "Sphere of Many Eyes" or "Eye Tyrant": a floating globe with one large central eye and ten smaller eyes on stalks, each with its own magical power. Players soon learned what those powers were: charm, sleep, petrifying flesh to stone, disintegration, death. The central eye cancels magic in a cone, which makes the monster a direct counter to the party's spellcasters. Commentators have noted that the design seems built to test every member of the [The party](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/party/) at once.

## Into the dungeon

The *Monster Manual* of 1977, the first book of [Advanced Dungeons & Dragons](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/advanced-dungeons-and-dragons/), described the beholder as "hateful, aggressive, avaricious" and most often found underground. Tom Wham drew it as a round, fairly soft-looking ball; one later German reviewer said it looked like "a cuddly rosy ball with too many eyes." Later, TSR artist Keith Parkinson gave the beholder armored plates and jointed, insect-like eyestalks, and that became the standard design. In 1983 *Dragon* #76 ([The Strategic Review & Dragon](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/dragon-magazine/)) published "The Ecology of the Beholder" by [Ed Greenwood](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/ed-greenwood/) and Roger E. Moore. Greenwood's [Forgotten Realms](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/forgotten-realms/) gave the species its most famous individual: the Xanathar, a beholder who runs the thieves' guild beneath Waterdeep, first described in *FR1: Waterdeep and the North* (1987).

Four years later the Xanathar became the villain of [Westwood](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/westwood-studios/)'s *[Eye of the Beholder](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/eye-of-the-beholder/)* (1991), published by [SSI](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/strategic-simulations-inc/), whose looming beholder cover art *Computer Gaming World* readers voted best advertisement. That game made the creature a symbol of computer RPGs as much as tabletop ones. Beholders appear among the high-level enemies of [BioWare](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/bioware/)'s *[Baldur's Gate II](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/baldurs-gate-ii/)* (2000) and in Capcom's arcade *Tower of Doom*. Other companies borrowed the idea under other names. [Square](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/square/)'s original *[Final Fantasy](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/final-fantasy/)* (1987) included a beholder, which was renamed "Evil Eye" and redrawn for its North American release to avoid trouble with [TSR](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/tsr/). *[Heroes of Might and Magic](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/heroes-of-might-and-magic/) III* (1999) fields "Beholders" that upgrade into "Evil Eyes."

When [Wizards of the Coast](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/wizards-of-the-coast/) opened the third-edition rules under the [Open Game License](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/open-game-license/) in 2000, it withheld the beholder as Product Identity. As a result, the beholder is officially available only in D&D. The fifth edition *Monster Manual* (2014) puts one on its cover, and *Xanathar's Guide to Everything* (2017) is presented as the notes of that same Waterdeep crime lord.

## Variations

Beholders are notoriously xenophobic in the fiction, and the designers made the most of it. In the *Spelljammer* setting (1989), Jeff Grubb introduced several differently designed beholder nations in space that fight a war over "purity." According to Grubb, this happened because he liked every one of Jim Holloway's competing ship designs and needed a reason to keep them all. The supplement *I, Tyrant* (1996) and later *Lords of Madness* (2005) added a religion, the Great Mother, and a wider family of relatives: gauths, spectators, observers, hive mothers, the undead death tyrant and the tiny, drifting gazer. Eberron made beholders servants of the alien daelkyr, and the *Epic Level Handbook* (2002) introduced a "gibbering orb" as a supposed common ancestor.

Over fifty years the beholder has been a movie cameo, a theme-park puppet built by Jim Henson's Creature Shop, and a benchmark for other monster designers. Few creatures show as clearly how D&D turned from borrowing monsters to inventing them.

## Migration

- 1975: Supplement I: Greyhawk (TSR) — The "Sphere of Many Eyes" or "Eye Tyrant" floats onto the supplement's cover: a globe with a central eye and ten magical eyestalks.
- 1977: AD&D Monster Manual — Hateful, aggressive and avaricious, usually found underground; Tom Wham's drawing sets the early look.
- 1987: FR1: Waterdeep and the North — The Forgotten Realms introduces the Xanathar, a beholder crime lord beneath Waterdeep.
- 1989: Spelljammer — Keith Parkinson's armored design inspires beholder-kin and a xenophobic civil war among beholder nations in space.
- 1991: Eye of the Beholder (Westwood / SSI) — The Xanathar becomes the final enemy of a best-selling real-time dungeon crawler.
- 2000: Baldur's Gate II and the 3rd Edition Monster Manual — Beholders become high-level terrors of the Infinity Engine and are withheld from the open d20 rules as Product Identity.
- 2014: D&D 5th Edition Monster Manual — A beholder takes the cover; Xanathar's Guide to Everything (2017) is framed as the Xanathar's own notes.

## Facts

- The beholder was created by Terry Kuntz, brother of Greyhawk co-Dungeon Master Rob Kuntz; Gary Gygax detailed it for publication.
- It debuted in, and on the cover of, Supplement I: Greyhawk (1975), called the "Sphere of Many Eyes" or "Eye Tyrant."
- Wizards of the Coast kept the beholder out of the Open Game License as Product Identity, one of the few classic monsters it withheld.
- In the original Japanese Final Fantasy it appears as a beholder; the North American release renamed and redesigned it as the "Evil Eye."
- The Xanathar, villain of Eye of the Beholder (1991), first appeared in the Forgotten Realms sourcebook FR1: Waterdeep and the North (1987).
- In 2025 Universal Studios Hollywood opened a D&D attraction starring a life-size Xanathar puppet built by Jim Henson's Creature Shop.

## Sources and further reading

- [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beholder_(Dungeons_%26_Dragons))
- [Wikipedia — Greyhawk (supplement)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyhawk_(supplement))
- [Wikipedia — Eye of the Beholder (video game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_the_Beholder_(video_game))

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From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.