Actually, while the dire beholder wasn't done yet, I saw that it had an antimagic field. I had imagined a beholder with a continuous antimagic field, with eye rays that functioned just fine in such an environment, and maybe a cone projected from its central eye that caused an area to emulate the planar traits of the Far Realm.
Mmmm, player nightmares. Tasty,
tasty player nightmares.
Post Script: Speaking of tasty player nightmares, I just had an
awesome idea.
It's a beholder that 'casts' living spells from its eyes in the form of rays, which engulf their victims when they strike!
Basically, each of its eyes fires a thin ray of colored ooze. That ooze turns out to be a living spell based on one of the normal eye rays for a beholder, and if the beholder's ray hits, it automatically engulfs a target during its first round of existence! Fortunately, each living ray dies after only a few rounds, but they're still darn scary in the mean time.
O, to be in the poor party that had to fight one of those things. It would just be such a fantastically warped fight:
The Party sees the beholder in the distance, and takes cover. Forming a plan to deal with the murderous aberration, they steel themselves for the horror that awaits. Then, as they begin their strike, the plan pays off! The beholder aims its disintegrating ray at the wizard, unknowing of the proof against transmutation effect on his silken armor. But then, the fight takes a turn for the worse! The wizard is engulfed in a horrible black ooze in which sickly green worms crawl! The Party has never seen anything like this!
A sickening battle ensues, with each of its members pitted against the living incarnations of the things which scare them most. When the cleric is overtaken by the antimagic ooze, all seems lost! Unlike the other oozes, it just won't dissipate!
In the end, the Party survives, but only after heavy losses. If only they had never known of such a terrible thing as a beholder at all...
It should be called the Amoebic Beholder.
