Harvesting the Beholder: Use Your Eyes

Harvesting the beholder you just slew can be a source of fun and profit. Lairs of Etharis codified the salvage system. As I noted in my previous article, I have some concerns about the way they do it. Here, I’ve focused on the beholder, an inconic, inhuman entity. I’ve also provided a recommended list of consequences for harvesting the parts of a beholder.

Components: Beholder central eye vitreous humor, beholder beam eyes

Beholder Items:

• Potion of Antimagic Field – When you drink this potion you gain the effect of Antimagic Field for 1 minutes (no concentration required).  The potion is made from the vitreous humor of a beholder’s central eye.  It is a clear liquid, only distinguishable from water by its viscosity.
• Beholder Eye Bomb – The dried eyeball from the end of a beholder eyestalk.  You can use an action to throw the eye up to 60 feet.  All creatures within a 10 foot radius must make a DC 13 Dexterity save or suffer the effect of the specific type of eyebeam the eye produced. If the effect deals damage, the creature takes half on a successful save.  The eye bomb crumbles to dust when it is used.

Harvesting the Beholder:

• Central Eye Vitreous Humor – The central eye must be intact at the time of death in order for the vitreous humor to be harvested. The DM should determine if the means of death was sufficiently gentle to keep the eye from rupturing.  The eye must be pierced with a non-magical implement, and the humor must be drained into clean containers. Exposure to magical items or substances will inactivate the vitreous humor.  Make a DC 15 Medicine or Surivial check.  On a success, roll 1d4.  One unit of the potion acts as a Potion of Antimagic Field
• Beholder Beam Eyes – A beam eye must be intact at the time of death in order to be successfully harvested.  Roll a d10 to determine the number of eyes left undamaged.  Roll on the beholders beam table to determine which eyes the remaining ones are.  The eye can be harvested by cutting it loose from the end of the eyestalk.  This requires a DC 15 Medicine or Sleight of Hand check.  On a success, an intact eye is collected.  On a fail, the eyeball ruptures and the PC who made the check is subjected to the effect of the eye with no saving throw. Each extracted eye can be dried to create a beholder eye bomb.

Consequences:

• All beholderkin will be hostile to the players if they detect the presence of any items crafted from another beholderkin or are informed of the event.
• If the beholder was the leader of a faction, the faction hires professional assassins to avenge the mutilation of their boss.
• Some individuals may find collecting the body parts of sentient beings to be morally questionable.  Others may regard it as incredibly heroic.  The DM should determine how individual NPCs respond to this action by the players.