Beholders in Dungeons & Dragons: Xanathar and the Nightmare of the Multiverse
Introduction
Few creatures capture the imagination like the beholder. With a central eye, floating orb body, and a crown of eyestalks that unleash devastating magic, beholders have haunted dungeon corridors since the earliest days of Dungeons & Dragons. Among their ranks, none loom larger than Xanathar, the infamous beholder crime lord whose influence extends across the Forgotten Realms and beyond. In the new adventure Xanathar and the Nightmare of the Multiverse, Dungeon Masters are invited to weave these aberrations into a story that spans reality, dream, and planar chaos.
This guide dives deep into beholder lore, analyzes their role in the Nightmare of the Multiverse, and offers practical advice for designing combat and narrative encounters. We’ll examine Xanathar’s motivations, explore multiversal anomalies, and provide tips on balancing eye ray tactics, lair actions, and environmental hazards. Whether you aim to challenge epic-level parties or introduce a lone beholder as the final villain, you’ll find strategies that turn beholders into memorable antagonists rather than dreaded one-shot obstacles.
By the end of this article, you’ll have key adventure hooks, creative lair designs, variant beholder concepts, and DM best practices that keep players on their toes. Engagement-focused tips help you inject suspense, role-play haunting monologues, and reward clever problem-solving. Prepare to enter the lair of Xanathar or plunge into nightmare landscapes rife with beholder influence—and emerge with a campaign that players talk about long after the dice stop rolling.
The Lore of Beholders in the Forgotten Realms
The Origins of Beholders
Beholders are aberrations born of anti-magic and strange planar energies. Legends say the first beholder surfaced when a rift between the Feywild and Shadowfell twisted raw magic into a floating sphere of malevolent intellect. Over millennia, these aberrations multiplied, each beholder dreaming into existence legions of twisted followers and warped ecosystems around its lair. Unlike most monsters, beholders do not reproduce conventionally; they create lesser servants known as behir or bind cultists in secret worship to expand their influence.
Their alien pattern of thought centers on supremacy. Each beholder sees itself as the apex of evolution and views all other life as imperfect. As solitary predators, beholders build formidable lairs bristling with traps, minions, and magical wards. They study planar lore obsessively, seeking methods to bend reality to their will. This insatiable hunger for control explains why beholders like Xanathar venture beyond single dungeons to dominate entire criminal syndicates or tap into extraplanar gateways.
Xanathar: The Infamous Crime Lord
Xanathar rose from the sewers of Waterdeep to become one of the city’s most powerful figures. Operating from hidden lairs beneath Castle Waterdeep, this beholder controls smuggling rings, mercenary bands, and information networks. Unlike typical crime bosses, Xanathar’s paranoia is legendary; it employs an army of eyeteeth and beholderkin enforcers to monitor spies and whisperers. Every eyestalk functions as both weapon and intelligence agent, projecting disintegration or charm to ensure loyalty through fear.
In Xanathar’s domain, information is currency. He collects secrets from nobles, guildmasters, and rival lords, storing everything in arcane vaults that only a single eyestalk can access. Rumors claim Xanathar keeps a collection of dreamscape maps that chart connections between the Material Plane and the realm of dreams. This obsession foreshadows his role in the Nightmare of the Multiverse, where he seeks to manipulate dreams to reshape reality itself.
Beholders Across the Multiverse
Beyond the Forgotten Realms, beholders manifest in countless forms. Astral beings use anti-magic barriers to imprison astral giants. Void beholders siphon pure mana in the Astral Sea. Deep within the Underdark, eyeless variants prowl in perpetual darkness, guided by echolocation rather than sight. Each planar environment warps beholder physiology, altering eye ray effects and lair defenses.
This multiversal diversity makes beholders ideal villains in any D&D setting. A waterborne beholder lurking in sunken ruins can combine tentacle traps with lightning rays. A planar xenobe holder might rip open rifts to summon fiendish allies on the Material Plane. Embracing these variants adds freshness to encounters and underscores the Nightmare of the Multiverse’s theme of reality bleeding into dream and shadow.
Nightmare of the Multiverse: Plot and Beholder Roles
Plot Synopsis of the Adventure
Nightmare of the Multiverse thrusts players into a realm where dreams and nightmares shape reality. When a planar disturbance warps Waterdeep’s skyline, citizens fall into endless slumber plagued by horrifying visions. The party learns that Xanathar has discovered an artifact known as the Dream Shard, a crystalline fragment that amplifies psionic energy and allows him to project nightmares across realms.
As the party delves into dream-infused districts, they navigate shifting streets, encounter dreamspawn aberrations, and negotiate with unwilling dreamwalkers trapped between planes. Their quest leads to hidden gateways connecting the Material Plane to the Shadowfell and Astral Sea. At each nexus, party choices determine whether reality stabilizes or unravels further, culminating in a final confrontation within Xanathar’s labyrinthine lair.
Xanathar’s Role in Nightmare of the Multiverse
In this adventure, Xanathar is more than a crime lord; he transforms into a planar manipulator. Using the Dream Shard, Xanathar aims to reshape Waterdeep into a fortress of illusions—granting him absolute power by controlling citizens’ dreams. His motivations fuse greed with existential terror: he believes that if he masters nightmare magic, he can prevent every possible threat to his dominion before it arises.
Xanathar appears at key story beats both within dreams and in the waking world. Sometimes he stalks the party as a spectral form, issuing cryptic warnings or veiled threats. Other times he summons beholderkin to thwart their progress. By alternating between direct confrontation and subtle manipulation, Xanathar becomes an ever-present antagonist who drives the narrative tension forward until the climactic ritual at the lair’s heart.
Key Locations and Factions Featuring Beholders
Several locations in the Nightmare of the Multiverse highlight beholder influence. The Shattered Nexus is a dreamscape anomaly where gravity shifts unpredictably, populated by dreamspawn conjured by Xanathar’s psionic broadcasts. The Night Market floats between planes, its stalls run by beholderkin merchants selling memories and fears as currency. Within the Undercellar, Xanathar’s undercity vaults, adventurers face traps designed by beholder engineers and fight beholderkin assassins.
Factions include the Dreamwardens, a secret order of mages dedicated to policing planar incursions, and the Ghoul Syndicate, a beholder-controlled network of undead smugglers. Players can ally with Dreamwardens to learn counter-nightmare spells or infiltrate the Ghoul Syndicate to gain intel on Xanathar’s next moves. These alliances and rivalries add depth, offering multiple paths to destabilize Xanathar’s plans before the final showdown.
Designing Unforgettable Beholder Encounters
Beholder Abilities and Tactics
A beholder’s true menace lies in its eye rays. Each eyestalk unleashes a different magical effect—disintegration, petrification, fear, charm, or telekinetic shove. As a DM, use eye rays strategically rather than randomly. Target spellcasters first with the central anti-magic cone to nullify buffs. Use the paralyzing ray on frontline fighters to separate them from ranged allies. Rotate eye rays to keep players guessing.
Beyond eye rays, beholders can hover, reposition, and surround targets with minor minions. Summon behir or enchanted constructs to occupy the party’s attention while the beholder fires lethal volleys. When designing tactics, note that beholders rely on line of sight. Place environmental obstacles—pillars, trenches, mist—to create dynamic firefights where players must use cover and coordinate movement.
Balancing Challenge with Eye Rays
Beholders can overwhelm parties if unchecked. To maintain balance, adjust daily eye ray usage. Introduce lair actions that force players into disadvantageous positions without letting the beholder cast every ray in a single turn. For example, narrow corridors may collapse or walls shift, limiting eyestalk angles. Provide environmental escape routes so players can regroup rather than face total party wipe.
Consider hit point adjustments. Lower-level parties struggle with the full stat block of an elder orb. Introduce smaller beholderkin first, then escalate to the main antagonist. Alternatively, reduce the number of dangerous eye rays per round, or reroll failed saving throws on behalf of players once per encounter to preserve fun. Balancing challenge ensures memorable tension without frustration.
Environmental Hazards and Lair Actions
A beholder lair is an extension of its mind. Incorporate lair actions that reflect its personality: a paranoid beholder might seal exits or animate murals to watch intruders. A dream-touched lair warps reality—floors liquify into nightmaresap, distorting movement. Schedule lair actions on initiative count 20 to introduce sudden threats between turns.
Hazards such as anti-magic wells, gravity wells, and teleportation glyphs can disrupt player strategies. Mix active hazards—spinning laser grids, electrified walls—with passive ones—slippery floors, low visibility. Layer these dangers so players must divide resources: dispelling traps, healing allies, and dealing damage. When environmental threats and beholder tactics converge, encounters become unforgettable puzzles of strategy and teamwork.
Adventure Hooks and Campaign Integration
Urban Intrigue with Xanathar Guilds
Waterdeep’s undercity is ripe for intrigue. A string of kidnappings leads to bizarre nightly disappearances. Clues point toward the Xanathar Guild’s hideouts. Players can infiltrate illicit gambling dens operated by beholderkin, negotiate with street informants, or bribe syndicate lieutenants for intel on the Dream Shard.
Use journal entries, coded ledgers, and beholder-encrypted missives as handouts. Each clue reveals a sliver of Xanathar’s plan, escalating tension. Urban missions provide variety from dungeon crawls, rewarding social skills and investigative prowess before players face eye rays head-on.
Dreamscapes and Multiversal Anomalies
To capture the nightmare theme, send players into dreamscapes shaped by Xanathar’s mind. In one vision, corridors shift like sand dunes; in another, the party fights mirror-image foes that reflect inner fears. Use surreal descriptions—floating boulders, reversed gravity, disembodied whispers—to disorient players.
Introduce anomalies such as time loops or overlapping realities. A single action in a dream might manifest in the waking world, like a charred mark on a wall. These dream encounters reveal vital information about the Dream Shard or offer magical boons at great risk. By weaving realistic and dream sequences, the campaign blurs boundaries, reinforcing the multiverse’s instability.
Allies, Enemies, and NPCs Around Beholders
Not all beholder kin are irredeemable. Certain abominations rebel against Xanathar’s tyranny or envy his power and seek to usurp him. Introduce NPCs like Arx’kha, a sympathetic neogi who dreams of a stable realm, or Lirael, a beholderkin seer unwilling to fall prey to Xanathar’s machinations.
Allies can provide sanctuary, unique spells, or information on hidden lair entrances. Enemies might ambush the party, testing their resolve before the final confrontation. Weaving NPCs into the narrative adds moral complexity and humanizes the beholder threat, making climactic choices more impactful.
Dungeon Master Strategies for Beholder Encounters
Role-playing a Monstrous Antagonist
Beholders are highly intelligent and vain. Give Xanathar a distinctive voice—cold, measured, with bursts of manic laughter. Let it monologue before combat, delivering veiled insults about players’ incompetence. During negotiations, have it demand tribute or challenge philosophies, reflecting its godlike self-image.
Use behavioral ticks: a slight hum when plotting, occasional head tilts when amused. These details convey personality beyond stat blocks. When players succeed temporarily, show flashbacks of Xanathar’s fury in dreamflame, reinforcing the stakes before the final showdown.
Maintaining Player Tension and Pacing
Alternate combat and narrative scenes to avoid fatigue. Following a tense battle in the Dreamscape, allow downtime where players decode clues or forge alliances. Use timed skill challenges—defusing a trap before nightmare magic spreads—to keep adrenaline high.
Adjust pacing by varying scene lengths. Short, sharp dream encounters can interject terror between lengthy social encounters in Waterdeep’s courts. Building momentum toward the lair assault ensures the eventual beholder confrontation feels like the climax of a larger story rather than an isolated fight.
Adapting to Player Creativity
Players will test every loophole. If they teleport behind the beholder, have emergency lair actions—walls shifting, anti-magic fields pulsing—to thwart easy bypasses. If they try to parley, prepare alternate dialogue options and concessions that complicate alliances without ending the threat prematurely.
Embrace unscripted moments. If a player befriends a minor beholderkin, reward creative diplomacy with unique treasure or intel. These improvisations build player investment and turn a linear module into a dynamic collaborative story.
Customizing Beholders for Unique Challenges
Creating Beholder Variants and Eye Ray Mixes
Customize beholders by swapping eye rays or combining aberration traits. A frost beholder might replace the disintegration ray with a cone of cold, while a storm beholder wields lightning rays in bursts. Variant eye ray tables let you quickly roll new combinations to surprise players.
Introduce hybrid beholderkin by grafting planar traits: a shadow beholder drifts through walls, applying necrotic rays and fear effects. A faerie beholder flits unpredictably, granting it advantage on Acrobatics and charm abilities. These variants keep even veteran parties on edge.
Designing Dynamic Lairs
A beholder’s lair should reflect its intellect and obsessions. Xanathar’s Nightmare Lair pulses with dream energies—crystal stalactites hum with telepathic whispers, corridors loop back impossibly. Incorporate moving floors, shifting walls, and planar windows that open mid-combat.
Use modular room designs that you can swap in real time. A central chamber can transform from a throne room to a pit of lava in seconds. Each area should present a unique challenge—trick floors, teleport traps, or gravity wells—forcing players to adapt strategy on the fly.
Scaling Beholders for Party Levels
Adjust beholder statistics based on party strength. For a mid-level party, reduce the number of eye rays and lower hit points modestly. At higher tiers, grant legendary actions like spectral eye attacks or teleportation. Legendary resistances let beholders shrug off devastating spells, preserving their menace against powerful casters.
For epic-level play, introduce beholder spheroids—elder orbs whose lair actions can alter planar boundaries. Give them unique artifacts that grant additional abilities. Scaling ensures beholders remain formidable and engaging adversaries regardless of party composition.
Conclusion
Beholders stand among the most iconic and challenging foes in Dungeons & Dragons. In Xanathar and the Nightmare of the Multiverse, these aberrations transcend simple dungeon guardians to become architects of dream and horror. By mastering beholder lore, understanding eye ray tactics, crafting immersive lair environments, and weaving narrative hooks that span urban streets and shifting dreamscapes, Dungeon Masters can deliver unforgettable adventures.
Customization is key: variant eye rays, dynamic lair designs, and scalable stats let you tailor each encounter to your group’s interests and power level. Embrace player creativity, maintain narrative momentum, and never underestimate the dramatic power of a beholder’s gaze. With these tools, you’ll guide your party through nightmares turned reality and forge a campaign whispered about long after the final roll.
Prepare your miniatures, map out shifting corridors, and plan eye-ray cadences. The Eye Tyrant awaits—may your dice roll true and your heroes emerge victorious from the realms of dream and madness.
