Let’s write a short post about the great 1985
Citadel Beholder, for no reason other than there’s not much stuff
out there about it.
This baby was sculpted by Nick Bibby, and looks
exactly like the original beholder in the Monster Manual – not those
newer, meaner beholders-on-steroids we see these days. The transparent base is
long gone – I wasn’t quite careful in the late eighties and nineties – but I
might give it a fire bat or black dragon base and get that beholder flying again.
One of the ten eyestalks has broken off, and
I honestly don’t remember if it broke while in storage, or if the clumsy
14-year-old me tried to bend one eyestalk and snapped it. But the missing eye
is still cool. It gives this beholder a sort of “battle scar” feel, and when I
eventually fling it on the table in my current First Edition AD&D game, the
players will automatically wonder out loud, “Which of the deadly powers is
gone? Please let it be the death ray! Please let it be the death ray!”
I have no intention of twisting or bending
the 9 remaining stalks, because in my humble opinion, beholders look way cooler
when they “stretch” all of their eyestalks, like in this awesome picture from
the CM3 adventure Sabre River (see the archives for a full post about
this killer module: 04/05/2015).
Reminds me of a cobra’s neck hood, or the
Australian frilled dragon with that collar around its head. Mean.
From the same short-lived Citadel AD&D line,
I’m also lucky enough to have kept the amazing troll and the gorgeous owlbear. To
think that these little guys are now over 30 years old!
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