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Old 05-12-2001, 09:47 AM   #1
Memnoch
Ironworks Moderator
 

Join Date: February 28, 2001
Location: Boston/Sydney
Posts: 11,771
2nd ed. stats for the undead beholder. Read below if you don't mind finding out.
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Undead Beholder (Death Tyrant)
Death tyrants are rotting, mold-encrusted beholders. They may be shriveled, wounds exposing their internal, spherical networks of circular ribs, among the remnants of their exoskeletal plates. All sport wounds, some have eyestalks missing, or a milky film covering their eyes. They move and turn more slowly than living beholders, striking and bringing their eyes to bear last in any combat round.
An undead beholder can use all the powers of its surviving eyes, just as it did in life. The powers of 2-5 eyes (select randomly, including the central eye) are lost due to injuries or death, and the change to undeath. Although a death tyrant "heals" its motive energies through time, it cannot regenerate lost eyestalks or their powers.
Charm powers are lost in undeath. The two eyes that charmed either become useless (60%), or function as weak hold monster effects (40%). A being failing to save against such a hold remains held as long as the eye's gaze remains steadily focused on them. If the eye is turned on another being, or the victim hooded, or forcibly removed, the hold lasts another 1-3 rounds. Death tyrants are immune to sleep, charm and hold spells.
If not controlled by another creature through magic, a death tyrant hangs motionless until its creator's instructions are fulfilled (for example, "Attack all humans who enter this chamber until they are destroyed or flee. Do not leave the chamber."). If no instructions are given to a "new" death tyrant, it attacks all living things it perceives. Death tyrants occur spontaneously in very rare instances. In most cases, they are created through the magic of evil beings -- from human mages to illithid villains. Some outcast, magic-using beholders have even been known to create death tyrants from their own unfortunate brethren.
Death tyrants have no self-awareness or social interaction; they are mindless servants of more powerful masters. "Mindless" is a relative term; the once highly intelligent brains of death tyrants still use eyes skillfully to perceive and attack nearby foes. When a death tyrant is controlled by another being, consider it to have the intelligence of its controller.
Death tyrants are created from dying beholders. A spell, thought to have been developed by human mages in the remote past, forces a beholder from a living to an undead state, and imprints its brain with instructions. "Rogue" death tyrants also exist: those whose instructions specifically enable them to ignore all controlling attempts. These are immune to the control attempts of all other beings. Beholders often leave them as traps against rivals.
Human spell researchers report that control of a death tyrant is very difficult. A beholder's mind fluctuates wildly in the frequency and level of its mental activity, scrambling normal charm monster and control undead spells. A special spell must be devised to command a death tyrant.


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