Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Beholder Syndrome Revisited

I present to you the study of one of the more active factions working to alter our world: The Beholder. Yes, the well-known abberation from Dungeons and Dragons, a creature so bizarre and wrong that it should not be allowed to exist, here or anywhere else. From beyond the void, the beholders have been assaulting the weak-willed, scared and highly emotional among us, hoping to see our society become a mirror of their own.

Beholders are well respected for their impressive powers. They hover in space, can shoot magic from eyes (which can also see in all directions at once) and even negate magic from those in their central gaze. Most intriguing, however, is the Beholders' Disintegrate Ray: Any beholder can fire an endless number of these blasts, that will destroy a 5'x5' cube of rock, dirt, or any other similar substance. While sages used to speculate on why these powerful and numerous beings hadn't used these rays to destroy the whole of the world, the answer became obvious with even limited observation: Beholders are xenophobic to the point of total insanity.

Every beholder believes that beholders are the only significant form of life, aside from those used as food. They view all other species as an afront to the creative force that birthed them, believing themselves to be the true way things should be. They will work together to annihilate outsiders, at least for a time. When beholders become dominant, they rapidly split into factions, comprised of beholder that look and act quite similar to one another. These factions destroy each other, until only one remains.

The beholders of this new group hate each other more than they ever did the ones before. Because these other beholders look similar, but not identical, to themselves, beholders consider each other to be the most worthy to be destroyed of all, as they see the small differences as intentional mockeries of their true nature. Soon, the beholders turn on each other, until none are left.

It is with this very aspect that the Beholders from the Otherwhen seek to impose themselves on our world, forcing us into ever smaller factions that engage in ever more horrific warfare, until our world is barren and shattered, a perfect environment for such aberrant beings to continue their neverending xenophobic feuds.