What mistakes would a Beholder make as a ruler? [Archive] - Wizards Community

What mistakes would a Beholder make as a ruler? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
JulesCARV
03-15-07, 01:54 PM In my campaign world, there's a group of states that have recently broken away from the Hextorian Caliphate. They're generally small, unstable, and have a lot of problems. Some have slipped into total chaos. Some are making progress and are establishing stable, well-governed societies.

One that I'm thinking about in particular is a state ruled by a beholder.

The idea is that this state had its borders adjusted a lot while it was a member of the Caliphate, and had a lot of populations moved around, so that there are a lot of competing races and nationalities within its borders, which leads to significant instability, violence, etc. The beholder took over, calling itself a "transitional protector of the peace," promising that it would leave as soon as the conflicts were stabilized. It isn't ruling from the shadows: it lets everyone know that it's on top, although for day to day meetings with humanoids, it often employs humanoids, chief among them his seneschal.

Now, there are two traditional ways in which a beholder-ruled state might work: the "land of horrors" -- a monstrous place people live in constant justified fear, corpses are turned into zombies, torture is widespread, people are sacrificed to the Great Mother, etc, or, alternatively, the "false utopia" -- where the streets are perfectly clean, there is no crime, everyone is always smiling, there's enough food for everyone, there are no beggars, etc... but OMG it's sinister!

I've decided that I don't like either of those approaches, so I've decided to go for something a bit different: the beholder is somewhat incompetent. It's managed to hold onto the reigns of the state, but it's screwed up a lot in terms of practical governance, not by being excessively evil: just by screwing up. Now, beholders are generally quite smart, but I'm wondering what mistakes a beholder might make, which are in line with high intelligence, but also character flaws such as arrogance, vanity, etc, as well as just being rather alien and unfamiliar with humanoids on the same level that humanoids are. So far, my ideas:

-It's a poor judge of (humanoid) character. It's currently on its fourth seneschal, its first three having been corrupt, or willing to use their position to help their nationalities while oppressing others, or generally ill-suited for the job. It is often too easily swayed by those who tell it what it wants to hear.

-It doesn't really understand the conflicts among the humanoid nations within the state. It's tried approaches to solve the conflicts which were disastrous (such as, for instance, a program that attempted to force marriages between people of different nationalities).

-It's bad at dealing with pre-existing state institutions, bureaucracies, etc. For example, it tries to reorganize ministries to be more "efficient" or "rational," which results in widespread disruption, confusion, etc, and is frequently unwilling to make incremental changes within the system.

Any ideas?
Yakman
03-15-07, 02:08 PM This is a fun situation, and I would have fun with it.

The Beholder can be very vain--it enjoys being primpted and cleaned and has a host of attendants who take extreme care in making sure that it looks its best--notwithstanding the fact that everyone who isn't a beholder thinks the creature is absolutely disgusting. The Beholder points out various things about its appearance that it finds quite striking--look at the new contact on my 4th eyestalk, and see my diamond-studded grill? It spends tons of money and time on these things, and has mirrors installed everywhere in court so it can look at itself. It spends upwards of 12 hours a day getting ready for holding court.

Getting the point, the sycophants at court start mimicking the Beholder's features--getting tatoos with extra eyes, adding sleeves to their clothing, weird hairstyles.

Moreover, in its vanity, the Beholder acts a bit... well... crazy. It's style of rule is akin to RL Idi Amin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idi_amin) or Bokassa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-B%C3%A9del_Bokassa). It eats advisors it disagrees with, and people who don't jump quick enough, and has crazy titles that don't make sense:

Seneschal: Introducing his Grand Most Very High Seneschal Puissant, Steer of Steers, Minister of Pubic Woks, Ooooligtthralraks the Second of the First of the Fifth of the Many of Tie-Eyed, Usurper of Lesser Men, and Arch-Mason of the 12th Order, and the Chewer of Axes, The Great

Ooooligtthralraks: I'm not ready yet! *chomp*

It also doesn't understand that people can only do so much. For instance, it assigns enormous amounts of work to a particular person, and then when that person fails, eats them. Shortly, the only people around are morons, as anyone with any ability has either run for the hills or ended up down its gullet.
Evil DM Mk3
03-15-07, 02:47 PM All the same mistakes a normal egotistical tyrant makes, only magnified. All that will be left over are toadeying yesmen and scycophants, and when the beholder makes an error in a matter of, say national security, there will be no one to point out the error.
Thought
03-15-07, 03:13 PM He is a totalitarian governor whose laws are inhumanly strict. Kill someone? Death by torture (then eating). Have an affair? Death by torture (then eating). Steal and apple? Death by torture (then eating). Jaywalk? Spitting? Being 1 minute late? Death by torture (then eating). But there is a court system, appeals, rights of the accused, etc. Everyone is inedible until proven otherwise. The beholder opens public schools that teach the nations young in the ways of the eldritch horrors ("Now class, who can tell me what 2+2 is?" "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn." "Very good little Timmy, that is correct.") Public food programs so that any citizen of the state gets an allotment of food... that is soylent green (only everyone knows that it is people, and thus only the truly starving are willing to eat it).

Just a few ideas.
Wayett
03-15-07, 05:07 PM Well it is a villan, and it has to have some flaws...

Personality Disorder: No one is perfect, not even a beholder. He could have multiple personality disorder. He has voices in his head telling him what to do, keeping him up at night. He wants to be a ruler, not a pure lawless evil ruler, but just an evil ruler. The voices make him eat his advisors he doesn't like, or even the ones he does like, he only trusts his hypnotized guards because the voices tell him everyone is trying to get him, etc.

Thinks Too Hard: Makes traps in places they don't need to be, puts armies where their is no stratigic importance, makes laws that make no sense, all for being more protected.
i.e."The assasins could beccome invisiable and climb down the working fireplace with resistance to fire, INSTALL A POISON TRAP, AND A PIT TRAP ect.!"
"The ememy will likey come through the mountains, so we attack their, but the dwarves are crafty, so the will attack from the desert and the sea! I want all the 3rd brigade to go to the desert and the 5th to go to the sea!"
"The enemy uses wolves? Ban all dogs and druids, but they could also be useing cats and eagles! Ban all animals from our kingdom!"
As you can see I'm using extremes just to get a point across.

Basically, watch all movies with a BBEG and take some examples. Same with books. Like The midget from The Pricess Bride, he was way too cocky, and Saron from LOTR didn't plan to "what would happen if the hobbit got to mount doom?"

Praise and Ridicule are wanted. All ideas may be used.
PEACE!!
Evil DM Mk3
03-15-07, 05:31 PM Personality Disorder: No one is perfect, not even a beholder. He could have multiple personality disorder. He has voices in his head telling him what to do, keeping him up at night. He wants to be a ruler, not a pure lawless evil ruler, but just an evil ruler. The voices make him eat his advisors he doesn't like, or even the ones he does like, he only trusts his hypnotized guards because the voices tell him everyone is trying to get him, etc. You are aware that the adverige beholder is about as sane as a rubber monk in a granny hurling factory in Tooting right?
taradusis
03-15-07, 05:38 PM Multiple intelligence agencies that spy on each other,much infighting?
Yakman
03-15-07, 06:05 PM NOt just that--multiple armies with multiple generals, multiple ministers with the same functions, multiple public works projects that do the same thing.
Evil DM Mk3
03-15-07, 06:43 PM One poor guy told to spy on himslef and not let himself find out...
PoorHobo
03-15-07, 08:01 PM He is oblivious to the enemies that are right in front of him. Most of his advisors, the ones that preen him and tell him how wonderfull he is and how great he is and that all beholders should run everything. They also hate him.
Kurtulmak
03-16-07, 12:57 AM He is oblivious to the enemies that are right in front of him. Most of his advisors, the ones that preen him and tell him how wonderfull he is and how great he is and that all beholders should run everything. They also hate him.

Expanding on that, he could be oblivious to everything that's right in front of him. He's so busy with side projects and micromanagement problems that he's unable to see the painfully obvious, much more important problem looming right in front of him.
Return of the Flumph
03-16-07, 01:35 AM I think the OP is off to a pretty good start on his own. Basically, a beholder has no understanding of how humanoid society functions, and is barely even a social entity at all.

It would probably ban all religions except for the Great Mother's and only allow certain (seemingly random) people to know she exists, let alone worship her.

It does only as much public work and foreign diplomacy as it has to to stay in control. Really, all it cares about is having more and more little squishy things to bow to it and catering to its inane pastimes. Thus, it might be extremely negligent in some areas of management.

Beholders are paranoid, so it would probably construct ridiculously complicated defenses all over the place, probably with decoy palaces and decoy gas spores (think Saddam Hussein).

On the other hand, beholders are extremely good with numbers and problem solving, so the economy would probably be okay...in theory. Although its logic is sound, its other insane projects and incomprehension of how things are done on a national level would prepetually get in its way. The beholder is convinced that it is a perfect being, so it would never consider that it was doing it wrong, and it would blame other people (and eat them or turn them into stone to serve as reminders).

Unemployment would be zero. Beholders can always find something for their minions to do, as idle slaves have too much time to get ideas.
Angel Black
03-18-07, 06:30 PM ... is a state ruled by a beholder... so that there are a lot of competing races and nationalities within its borders, which leads to significant instability, violence, etc. The beholder took over, calling itself a "transitional protector of the peace," promising that it would leave as soon as the conflicts were stabilized. It isn't ruling from the shadows: it lets everyone know that it's on top, although for day to day meetings with humanoids, it often employs humanoids, chief among them his seneschal.

Now, there are two traditional ways in which a beholder-ruled state might work: the "land of horrors" ...or, alternatively, the "false utopia"...I've decided that I don't like either of those approaches, so I've decided to go for something a bit different: the beholder is somewhat incompetent... but I'm wondering what mistakes a beholder might make, which are in line with high intelligence, but also character flaws such as arrogance, vanity, etc,..

Any ideas?

"Smart" people usually makes the following mistakes:

- They assume everybody is as smart as them.
Sample:
"Mr. B" says "build a bridge over there" to Mr Smith, and the Beholder thinks that he knows he needs a strong bridge made of rocks by the best engineers around, instead of that Mr Smith command a bunch of low level experts to build an over priced wooden bridge ...

- They assume people has no feelings.
Sample:
"Mr B" says in front of all the people "that bridge was poorly made because Mr Smith is a total moron" and then make a centaur kick the guy "you imagine where".Then Mr Smith then becomes his worst enemy and swears revenge.

- They forgot "everybody needs friends"
Sample:
"Mr B" is asked to spent some gold to make a good "Spring Festival", instead he orders people to work double shift , because he knows this winter will be very rough, with no free days , and no party , people gets angry at "Mr B"

-They forgot "there is no enemy like a little one"
Sample:
Mr Smith begins a new Religion , angry people joins him. "Mr. B" don't even look at them because less than 1% of the population is in there.Some years later this religion becomes something so big that "Mr B" is forced to allow as Holidays : "Holly SpringBreak Week", a "Holly month of the Navel", a "Three Suns Festival"...

So "Mr B" can be the average CEO smart but without most of the human feelings.
JulesCARV
03-18-07, 07:09 PM Thanks, Angel Black, and everyone else who contributed to this thread.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
JulesCARV 03-15-07, 01:54 PM	In my campaign world, there's a group of states that have recently broken away from the Hextorian Caliphate. They're generally small, unstable, and have a lot of problems. Some have slipped into total chaos. Some are making progress and are establishing stable, well-governed societies. One that I'm thinking about in particular is a state ruled by a beholder. The idea is that this state had its borders adjusted a lot while it was a member of the Caliphate, and had a lot of populations moved around, so that there are a lot of competing races and nationalities within its borders, which leads to significant instability, violence, etc. The beholder took over, calling itself a "transitional protector of the peace," promising that it would leave as soon as the conflicts were stabilized. It isn't ruling from the shadows: it lets everyone know that it's on top, although for day to day meetings with humanoids, it often employs humanoids, chief among them his seneschal. Now, there are two traditional ways in which a beholder-ruled state might work: the "land of horrors" -- a monstrous place people live in constant justified fear, corpses are turned into zombies, torture is widespread, people are sacrificed to the Great Mother, etc, or, alternatively, the "false utopia" -- where the streets are perfectly clean, there is no crime, everyone is always smiling, there's enough food for everyone, there are no beggars, etc... but OMG it's sinister! I've decided that I don't like either of those approaches, so I've decided to go for something a bit different: the beholder is somewhat incompetent. It's managed to hold onto the reigns of the state, but it's screwed up a lot in terms of practical governance, not by being excessively evil: just by screwing up. Now, beholders are generally quite smart, but I'm wondering what mistakes a beholder might make, which are in line with high intelligence, but also character flaws such as arrogance, vanity, etc, as well as just being rather alien and unfamiliar with humanoids on the same level that humanoids are. So far, my ideas: -It's a poor judge of (humanoid) character. It's currently on its fourth seneschal, its first three having been corrupt, or willing to use their position to help their nationalities while oppressing others, or generally ill-suited for the job. It is often too easily swayed by those who tell it what it wants to hear. -It doesn't really understand the conflicts among the humanoid nations within the state. It's tried approaches to solve the conflicts which were disastrous (such as, for instance, a program that attempted to force marriages between people of different nationalities). -It's bad at dealing with pre-existing state institutions, bureaucracies, etc. For example, it tries to reorganize ministries to be more "efficient" or "rational," which results in widespread disruption, confusion, etc, and is frequently unwilling to make incremental changes within the system. Any ideas?
Yakman 03-15-07, 02:08 PM	This is a fun situation, and I would have fun with it. The Beholder can be very vain--it enjoys being primpted and cleaned and has a host of attendants who take extreme care in making sure that it looks its best--notwithstanding the fact that everyone who isn't a beholder thinks the creature is absolutely disgusting. The Beholder points out various things about its appearance that it finds quite striking--look at the new contact on my 4th eyestalk, and see my diamond-studded grill? It spends tons of money and time on these things, and has mirrors installed everywhere in court so it can look at itself. It spends upwards of 12 hours a day getting ready for holding court. Getting the point, the sycophants at court start mimicking the Beholder's features--getting tatoos with extra eyes, adding sleeves to their clothing, weird hairstyles. Moreover, in its vanity, the Beholder acts a bit... well... crazy. It's style of rule is akin to RL Idi Amin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idi_amin) or Bokassa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-B%C3%A9del_Bokassa). It eats advisors it disagrees with, and people who don't jump quick enough, and has crazy titles that don't make sense: Seneschal: Introducing his Grand Most Very High Seneschal Puissant, Steer of Steers, Minister of Pubic Woks, Ooooligtthralraks the Second of the First of the Fifth of the Many of Tie-Eyed, Usurper of Lesser Men, and Arch-Mason of the 12th Order, and the Chewer of Axes, The Great Ooooligtthralraks: I'm not ready yet! chomp It also doesn't understand that people can only do so much. For instance, it assigns enormous amounts of work to a particular person, and then when that person fails, eats them. Shortly, the only people around are morons, as anyone with any ability has either run for the hills or ended up down its gullet.
Evil DM Mk3 03-15-07, 02:47 PM	All the same mistakes a normal egotistical tyrant makes, only magnified. All that will be left over are toadeying yesmen and scycophants, and when the beholder makes an error in a matter of, say national security, there will be no one to point out the error.
Thought 03-15-07, 03:13 PM	He is a totalitarian governor whose laws are inhumanly strict. Kill someone? Death by torture (then eating). Have an affair? Death by torture (then eating). Steal and apple? Death by torture (then eating). Jaywalk? Spitting? Being 1 minute late? Death by torture (then eating). But there is a court system, appeals, rights of the accused, etc. Everyone is inedible until proven otherwise. The beholder opens public schools that teach the nations young in the ways of the eldritch horrors ("Now class, who can tell me what 2+2 is?" "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn." "Very good little Timmy, that is correct.") Public food programs so that any citizen of the state gets an allotment of food... that is soylent green (only everyone knows that it is people, and thus only the truly starving are willing to eat it). Just a few ideas.
Wayett 03-15-07, 05:07 PM	Well it is a villan, and it has to have some flaws... Personality Disorder: No one is perfect, not even a beholder. He could have multiple personality disorder. He has voices in his head telling him what to do, keeping him up at night. He wants to be a ruler, not a pure lawless evil ruler, but just an evil ruler. The voices make him eat his advisors he doesn't like, or even the ones he does like, he only trusts his hypnotized guards because the voices tell him everyone is trying to get him, etc. Thinks Too Hard: Makes traps in places they don't need to be, puts armies where their is no stratigic importance, makes laws that make no sense, all for being more protected. i.e."The assasins could beccome invisiable and climb down the working fireplace with resistance to fire, INSTALL A POISON TRAP, AND A PIT TRAP ect.!" "The ememy will likey come through the mountains, so we attack their, but the dwarves are crafty, so the will attack from the desert and the sea! I want all the 3rd brigade to go to the desert and the 5th to go to the sea!" "The enemy uses wolves? Ban all dogs and druids, but they could also be useing cats and eagles! Ban all animals from our kingdom!" As you can see I'm using extremes just to get a point across. Basically, watch all movies with a BBEG and take some examples. Same with books. Like The midget from The Pricess Bride, he was way too cocky, and Saron from LOTR didn't plan to "what would happen if the hobbit got to mount doom?" Praise and Ridicule are wanted. All ideas may be used. PEACE!!
Evil DM Mk3 03-15-07, 05:31 PM	Personality Disorder: No one is perfect, not even a beholder. He could have multiple personality disorder. He has voices in his head telling him what to do, keeping him up at night. He wants to be a ruler, not a pure lawless evil ruler, but just an evil ruler. The voices make him eat his advisors he doesn't like, or even the ones he does like, he only trusts his hypnotized guards because the voices tell him everyone is trying to get him, etc. You are aware that the adverige beholder is about as sane as a rubber monk in a granny hurling factory in Tooting right?
taradusis 03-15-07, 05:38 PM	Multiple intelligence agencies that spy on each other,much infighting?
Yakman 03-15-07, 06:05 PM	NOt just that--multiple armies with multiple generals, multiple ministers with the same functions, multiple public works projects that do the same thing.
Evil DM Mk3 03-15-07, 06:43 PM	One poor guy told to spy on himslef and not let himself find out...
PoorHobo 03-15-07, 08:01 PM	He is oblivious to the enemies that are right in front of him. Most of his advisors, the ones that preen him and tell him how wonderfull he is and how great he is and that all beholders should run everything. They also hate him.
Kurtulmak 03-16-07, 12:57 AM	He is oblivious to the enemies that are right in front of him. Most of his advisors, the ones that preen him and tell him how wonderfull he is and how great he is and that all beholders should run everything. They also hate him. Expanding on that, he could be oblivious to everything that's right in front of him. He's so busy with side projects and micromanagement problems that he's unable to see the painfully obvious, much more important problem looming right in front of him.
Return of the Flumph 03-16-07, 01:35 AM	I think the OP is off to a pretty good start on his own. Basically, a beholder has no understanding of how humanoid society functions, and is barely even a social entity at all. It would probably ban all religions except for the Great Mother's and only allow certain (seemingly random) people to know she exists, let alone worship her. It does only as much public work and foreign diplomacy as it has to to stay in control. Really, all it cares about is having more and more little squishy things to bow to it and catering to its inane pastimes. Thus, it might be extremely negligent in some areas of management. Beholders are paranoid, so it would probably construct ridiculously complicated defenses all over the place, probably with decoy palaces and decoy gas spores (think Saddam Hussein). On the other hand, beholders are extremely good with numbers and problem solving, so the economy would probably be okay...in theory. Although its logic is sound, its other insane projects and incomprehension of how things are done on a national level would prepetually get in its way. The beholder is convinced that it is a perfect being, so it would never consider that it was doing it wrong, and it would blame other people (and eat them or turn them into stone to serve as reminders). Unemployment would be zero. Beholders can always find something for their minions to do, as idle slaves have too much time to get ideas.
Angel Black 03-18-07, 06:30 PM	... is a state ruled by a beholder... so that there are a lot of competing races and nationalities within its borders, which leads to significant instability, violence, etc. The beholder took over, calling itself a "transitional protector of the peace," promising that it would leave as soon as the conflicts were stabilized. It isn't ruling from the shadows: it lets everyone know that it's on top, although for day to day meetings with humanoids, it often employs humanoids, chief among them his seneschal. Now, there are two traditional ways in which a beholder-ruled state might work: the "land of horrors" ...or, alternatively, the "false utopia"...I've decided that I don't like either of those approaches, so I've decided to go for something a bit different: the beholder is somewhat incompetent... but I'm wondering what mistakes a beholder might make, which are in line with high intelligence, but also character flaws such as arrogance, vanity, etc,.. Any ideas? "Smart" people usually makes the following mistakes: - They assume everybody is as smart as them. Sample: "Mr. B" says "build a bridge over there" to Mr Smith, and the Beholder thinks that he knows he needs a strong bridge made of rocks by the best engineers around, instead of that Mr Smith command a bunch of low level experts to build an over priced wooden bridge ... - They assume people has no feelings. Sample: "Mr B" says in front of all the people "that bridge was poorly made because Mr Smith is a total moron" and then make a centaur kick the guy "you imagine where".Then Mr Smith then becomes his worst enemy and swears revenge. - They forgot "everybody needs friends" Sample: "Mr B" is asked to spent some gold to make a good "Spring Festival", instead he orders people to work double shift , because he knows this winter will be very rough, with no free days , and no party , people gets angry at "Mr B" -They forgot "there is no enemy like a little one" Sample: Mr Smith begins a new Religion , angry people joins him. "Mr. B" don't even look at them because less than 1% of the population is in there.Some years later this religion becomes something so big that "Mr B" is forced to allow as Holidays : "Holly SpringBreak Week", a "Holly month of the Navel", a "Three Suns Festival"... So "Mr B" can be the average CEO smart but without most of the human feelings.
JulesCARV 03-18-07, 07:09 PM	Thanks, Angel Black, and everyone else who contributed to this thread.