The Death Tyrant is a zombie-like, undead subrace of Beholder, transformed into this condition when dreams of a reality beyond death become real. Once transformed, a death tyrant is still capable of using many of the innate magical abilities it possessed as a beholder. They will attack humanoid population centers and are able to transform the creatures they kill into zombies, forming armies of the dead to assist in their continuing quest to conquer all.
Death tyrants are a somewhat moderately more powerful variety of beholder, but less so than an Elder Orb or Hive Mother since they lack the ability to cast wizard spells. And like beholders, they have no damage resistances to magical or physical attacks.
Although a death tyrant is an undead creature, the creature encountered during adventuring has the appearance of an ordinary beholder.
Gameplay[]
The death tyrant will target any creature it can detect with various eyestalks, each firing a different beholder eye ray.
The creature releases one to two eye rays at a target each round. The seven different eye ray abilities focus on more direct killing, petrification, or wounding attacks. It does not use the lightning bolt, hold person, domination, disintegrate, or charm person eye rays.
The creature's Cause Serious Wounds Ray is the more damage-inflicting hive mother ray, which bypasses magic resistance and has a spell level of 6. This ray is able to bypass a Globe of Invulnerability and burn through other spell protections more rapidly. Each eye ray inflicts 5d8 magical damage. The creature will also release its Anti-Magic Ray at a specific target (usually a mage) during combat, typically within two rounds. Unlike other types of beholders, a death tyrant is unable to cast Death Spell upon seeing a summoned creature. They will only release a Paralyze Ray if a summoned creature is within visual range.
If engaged in battle a death tyrant will utilize its eye rays in the following manner:
- PC or Mage class seen: — Anti-Magic Ray
- General attacks: — Death Ray (target the party member with the highest remaining hit points)
- Summons seen: — Paralyze Ray
- HP >55: — Fear Ray (target the second closest party member to the death tyrant)
- HP >45: — Paralyze Ray (×2) (target the party member with the highest remaining hit points)
- HP >35: — Slow Ray (target the second closest party member to the death tyrant)
- HP >25: — Flesh to Stone Ray (target the third closest party member to the death tyrant)
- HP >5: — Cause Serious Wounds Ray (target the third closest party member to the death tyrant)
Since a death tyrant is actually a sort of undead remnant of a beholder, they are classified as an undead creature rather than as a monster. Although undead, they do not have any of the typical undead racial or class immunities a typical undead creature, such as a vampire or ghast would possess (this only applies to the (BEHUND01) creature). However, death tyrants do have some undead-related immunities, such as movement-modifying effects like Hold Creature and Paralyze. They are also immune to the mental effects of Charm Creature, Confusion and Domination and are unaffected by spells that induce unconsciousness.
Unlike a beholder, death tyrants are not capable of uninterrupted Free Action ability, and spells like Web, Entangle and Grease will work on these creatures. But as with all beholder types, they are immune to any kind of backstab attempt. They are also immune to damage from non-magical weapons.
Locations[]
Watcher's Keep[]
- Final Seal
- a death tyrant along with an elder orb and a hive mother are spawned as part of the fourth Green Globe scenario.
Korkorran's Maze[]
During Hexxat's ToB questline in the labyrinth's library -
- two death tyrants along with an Alhoon are found within the southwest section of the area.
The Throne of Bhaal[]
- one appears in a specific stage of the final battle with Amelyssan, as she summons a death tyrant in to battle the party, with her shouting "Come to your mistress, minions of the Abyss!" This creature (MELSUM03) is given a greater amount of protections and immunities afforded to undead creatures with the added undroppable gloves.
Gallery[]
Mod content[]
This section is about unofficial content that is only available via fan-made mods.
Mods:[]
Installation of Sword Coast Stratagems Mod and the "Tactical Challenges for BG2" component makes major changes to the Death Tyrant creature. Most of these are covered in the Mod content section of the Beholder main article.
With this mod, beholders are given different colored animations to distinguish between ordinary beholders, Death Tyrant, Elder Orb and Hive Mother varieties.
SCS assigns the RING95.ITM item to Death Tyrants, as they are classified as Undead, so they will have all the immunities as most other undead in the game.
The Death Tyrant will employ the following beholder rays: Anti-Magic Ray, Cause Serious Wounds, Disintegrate, Paralyze, Fear, Flesh to Stone, Death Ray (summoned creatures) and Death Ray (other than summoned creatures). The game difficulty selection determines if the Death and Disintegrate eye beams are used.
Depending on the player's game difficulty setting, typically additional Death Tyrant creatures will be placed with the Unseeing Eye, and in the Beholder Cave in Underdark. They will typically be two or more alongside a Elder Orb and or a Hive Mother in several areas in SoA and ToB.
Note that with the Spell Revisions mod, the Disintegrate beam will inflict massive Magical damage (35d6) with a missed saving throw with -2 penalty, and 5d6 if the save is made. The SR version does not actually process the Disintegrate effect however, so the target will not be turned to dust.
Gallery:[]
External Links[]
- Death Tyrant on the Forgotten Realms Wiki, a wiki for the Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting Forgotten Realms.