Bezhuldaar

From LSWiki

Bezhuldaars:

The bezhuldaar species is widely feared, being full of both power and cruelty. The peoples of the world often misrender the race's name as 'beholder', for reasons which will soon become apparent. The bezhuldaars, for their part, commonly refer to the peoples of the world as 'the prey races'.

Bezhuldaars are bizarre in form, consisting of a roughly spherical main body with a gaping mouth featuring double rows of sharp carnivore's teeth and armoured in chitinous plates. The main body's diameter falls within about the same range as a man's height. Dominating this bulk is a massive central eye. Atop the main body is found an array of ten jointed, flexible stalks, each bearing another, small eye.

The source of the widespread terror of bezhuldaars has much to do with their innate magickal abilities. First and least, they are natively able to propel their legless bulk through the air, controlling their flight by will alone. Stories traditionally used to frighten little children out of wanting to become adventurers center on their further abilities. Each of the ten eyestalks reportedly bears a different deadly ability, with the precise set of powers being unique to a particular bezhuldaar, though some are more common than others -- for example, the frequently used bezhuldaar death ray. The large central eye, for its part, projects a field that suppresses magick, often changing otherwise powerful magicians into just another prey animal.

These powers might perhaps be less fearsome in a less unpleasant race. Unfortunately for those they come into contact with, however, bezhuldaars are renowned for their cruelty, ruthlessness, and taste for the raw flesh of other sentient beings. To the typical bezhuldaar, other living beings are either threats, potential slaves, or dinner.

The origins of the bezhuldaar race are a matter of more than a little controversy. Some accounts relate bezhuldaars speaking of themselves having been spawned -- personally -- by an entity they call Bezhuul. Whether this individual is divine or monstrous in nature, or both, is extensively debated, as is whether it is the true source of the bezhuldaar race. A significant school of thought asserts that bezhuldaars were sorcerously created, as is the case with so many species of such weird and unnatural appearance. Fuel for this theory is found in the fact that all creditable accounts of bezhuldaars speaking to others have them fluent in, if not relying entirely on, the Zadjalin language, which is pointed at as evidence of drow involvement. However, those waters are further muddied by the fact that bezhuldaars are generally fluent in a range of tongues, displaying a native aptitude for language that seems bizarre in a race so uninterested in social interaction; nearly every theorist on bezhuldaar origins finds a way to make that tidbit into supporting evidence for his position. Further conjecture holds that the power of the bezhuldaar central eye, in particular, indicates that the race was designed for the assassination of mages, which tends to point back to the drow. In any event, the truth of the matter is not common knowledge, and certainly the species shows as much zest for drow flesh as any other fare.