. As all of us know that the Beholders are such iconic and cool monsters and reimagining their characteristics – a floating eyeball with toothy mouth and many laser-shooting eyestalks – turned out to be a formidable and slow task. Below you can see the evolution of the concept:
(Original sizes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
Along the way all three of us have gathered different suggestions from many good Eyal citizens that have influenced more or less the thing I'm about to “unveil” (in Nagyhal's dramatic wording). Without further ado, here it is:
The Watchers (or Void Watchers)
Opabinia Ithirni (or Garn-Ithirni)
(working title)
The Watchers in this current incarnation have been brought to life by the weird interaction of my drawings and Nagyhal's extensive knowledge of all things cryptic. When I showed him these:
(Original sizes and variations: 1, 2, 3, 4)
he said “are they based on the opabinia?” As I've never heard of any such thing, a quick googling revealed to me the glory of nature's insanity
(wikipedia; pic; pic; pic)And so the de-beholdered beholder took shape.
(Original sizes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
Disclaimer: Everything that follows are my ideas and aren't discussed in full either with Nagyhal, DarkGod or ajfluffy. As such their main role is to start the discussion rolling, so everyone is most welcome to comment, criticize, etc.
. Also, the name “watchers” and their out-worldly temporal traits have been suggested by SageAcrin. Most ideas are directly related with the existing lore (if there is any 
), intentions and mechanics of the Beholder addon.The Name
It is still as hacked as hacking goes, containing our source of inspiration and some broken Sindarin, but generally they are referred to as the Watchers. Because they watch and don't behold.
Origins
Any lore regarding the watchers' origins is, to say the least, fuzzy. There are currently two schools of thought within the ranks of Eyal's sages. The first one claims that the watchers are an old race, inhabiting a distant world of our universe, who have discovered interstellar and interdimensional travel aeons ago. The other – that they are not of this world at all and are existing beyond the known universe and thus beyond space and time as we know them. Of course, both rivalling academic currents have no idea why the watchers are interested in the doings of Eyal's denizens and indulge themselves in wild and exotic speculations. On a different note, it is still considered a mystery how the fossilized remains of watchers' larvae have appeared on a distant planet, called Earth by it's clueless inhabitants.
Role, Ethics and Morality
The watchers appear to be beyond any conceptions of good or evil, but they do have their own goals and agendas (which are unknown to us). Usually their role is more of observers (and maybe chroniclers) and very seldom do they take direct coarse of action. Maybe the Spellblaze or the current events transpiring in Eyal have urged them to make a move...
Environment and Society
The watchers' society is hive-like, with distinct castes and strict hierarchy. Despite that, it appears that the individuals are still regarded and valued as such. They live in giant organic-like hives and use tools and 'machines' of organic origin, unknown if cultivated and grown or the product of advanced biotechnologies.
Growth Stages
The growth stages if the watchers are considered to be five – egg, larva, nymph, young imago and mature imago. In the last stage – the mature imago – they retain the characteristic traits of their chosen caste.
(Original size)
Morphology
The adult watchers have chitinous exoskeleton and soft, worm-like tentacles. Their specific traits are the cluster of five eyestalks located on the forehead, with a larger and taller central eye and the long proboscis, ending with a fanged mouth.
Castes
Not much is known about the exact role of the watchers' castes in their society, but to the external observer it appears that there are [EDIT]four such castes – mage-eyes fused with arcane energies, guardian eyes with spiked tentacles and pronounced jaws, mind-eyes with a huge central eye and underdeveloped body and limbs, chrono-eyes - the elite of the Watchers' society and masters of the time-space manipulations.[/EDIT]
(Original sizes: 1, 2, 3, 4).
Levitation, Eyes and Lasers
As most things connected with the watchers, it is unknown how and why they are unaffected by gravity and appear to be effortlessly floating a meter or so above the ground. One theory suggests that their innards are filled with lighter gases, which produce the levitation-like effect, but it remains unproven as there aren't any documented vivi- or dissections made. A different view comes from the milieu of the defenders of the out-worldly origin of the watchers thesis, claiming that gravity doesn't affect them, because they do not fully exist in our universe, thus being completely or partially capable to circumvent the known laws of time and physics.
Same goes with their ability to produce at will what appears to the baffled beholder (pardon the pun) different energy beams from their five protruding eyes. Of course there are once again two rivalling theories – one claiming that the beams are really produced by the unknown physiology of their eyes, channelling different elemental energies; the other – that the entities that appear as beams to us are actually aimed space-time rifts, opening momentary linear, cone-shaped or auric breaches that fuse our space-time continuum with different elemental, energy, temporal or spacial dimensions, produced (yet again) by the extra-dimensional origin of the watcher.
Starting Quests
As a newly hatched watcher larva you will start your journey within the hive, competing with the other larvae to advance your growth stages, thus evolving from larva, nymph, young imago and finally into mature imago by the end of the first zone, culminating with the trials of the elders, which will determine the caste you will belong to and giving you the task to travel to Eyal and investigate what transpires there, for even the eyes of the watcher paragons have been veiled by unknown powers, originating from within the planet itself. Fused with a mental imaging matrix that project to the minds of all around you an image of the most common inhabitant of the planet (called 'Hew-Maan' or something similarly silly), you prepare the bio-pod, that will propel you between the worlds. The travel to Eyal is uneventful until you near the planet and quite unexpectedly land upon:
Normal and alternative versions:
1) The Unhallowed Morass and the nearby Point Zero, where you're 'greeted' by a bunch of angry natives that appear to have mastered the manipulation of temporal energies. Your attempts to reason with them are not quite successful (you can imagine that you do look somewhat alien to their underdeveloped minds and the initial difficulties to tune to their peculiar psychic wavelengths didn't help either) so you are forced to fight your way to the portal leading to the planet's surface, ending with a fight with a misguided temporal warden and some weird anomalies...
OR
2) The Abashed Expanse and the nearby newly established Orbital Observatory, where you're 'greeted' by a bunch of angry natives that appear to have mastered the manipulation of arcane energies. Your attempts to reason with them are not quite successful (you can imagine that you do look somewhat alien to their underdeveloped minds and the initial difficulties to tune to their peculiar psychic wavelengths didn't help either) so you are forced to fight your way to the portal leading to the planet's surface, ending with a fight with a misguided archmage and some weird anomalies...
... resulting in your physical devolution back to the larva stage (retaining your memories, your caste and some of your basic skills and abilities) and the crash landing in some humid forested area (which you'll discover later is called Trollmire). Your journey on Eyal and the the quest to reclaim your powers and unveil the foreboding presence that resonates within the very essence of the planet thus truly begins
End of story.
I'll send these ramblings also to ajfluffy.
The discussion is on
