Homebrew Beholden Species Details
When an eye tyrant's influence over its territory suddenly weakens, its thoughts turn to how to reestablish control. If the nature of its loss of power is rooted in politics or public opinion, the beholder may reach the conclusion that ruling from the shadows is no longer sufficient to maintain its grip on the region — that it needs a public presence.
Intelligent as a beholder is, it knows it can't simply introduce itself to the public without an ensuing uprising. Paranoid as a beholder is, it can't bring itself to trust any of its humanoid underlings with its true intentions or to competently represent its interests as a spokesperson. The beholder may become obsessed with finding a solution — a way to mingle with humanoids in order to wrest back its political power without exposing itself to being hunted down. This obsession can eventually impact the beholder's dreams.
A beholden is brought into being when a beholder dreams of being human. Unlike the mindless and only vaguely humanoid beholder-kin known as lensman, beholden possess mental faculties on par with their beholder creator and resemble humanoids much more closely. They are essentially humanoids with heads that resemble a beholder. Though many stalks sprout from their heads, only four of them end in an eye. The rest act as a facsimile to hair. Their skin varies in texture and color as widely as the beholders that dreamed them into existence.
Beholden Traits
As a beholden, you share certain traits in common with others of your kind.Ability Score Increase
Your Constitution, Intelligence, and Charisma scores each increase by 1.
Age
Like true beholders, beholden are fully matured from the moment they come into being and can live for up to 120 years.
Alignment
Beholden are literally dreamt up to integrate with humanoid society. Though they share many of a beholder's psychological traits, they are greatly subdued, becoming little more than irritating personality quirks. They strongly tend toward lawful alignments and are most often neutral.
Size
Beholden are about the same size and build as humans. Your size is Medium.
Speed
Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Aberration
Your creature type is aberration, rather than humanoid.
Darkvision
You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Disruption Ray
You can use your action fire a ray of disruptive energy from your central eye. One creature you can see within 60 feet of you must make a Dexterity saving throw. The DC for this saving throw equals 8 + your Intelligence modifier + your proficiency bonus. On a failed save, one of the target's magic items loses all magical properties until the start of your next turn. If the object is a charged item, it also loses 1d4 charges. The DM determines the affected item randomly, ignoring single-use items such as potions and scrolls.
You can use this trait a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
Eye Rays
You know four cantrips of your choice, which can be from any spell list. For you, the chosen cantrips have a casting time of 1 action and a range of 60 feet. A cantrip you cast with this trait takes the form of a ray fired from one of your eyestalks. If the cantrip normally requires you to make an attack roll, it instead requires a Dexterity saving throw. If the cantrip can normally affect multiple creatures, your version can only target one creature you can see within range. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for these cantrips.
Perceptive
You have proficiency in the Perception skill, and your proficiency bonus is doubled when determining your passive Wisdom (Perception) score or when you make a Perception ability check.
Languages
You can speak, read and write Common, Undercommon, and Deep Speech.
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