The Eye of the Beholder
% The Eye of the Beholder 
| |
|---|---|
| Base item | eyeball |
| Affiliation | |
| When carried | (none) |
| When used | (none) |
| When invoked |
|
| Base price | 500 zm |
| Weight | 1 |
The Eye of the Beholder is an artifact that appears in SLASH'EM, SlashTHEM and Hack'EM. It is neutral-aligned, and its base item is the disembodied eyeball of the Beholder. The Eye of the Beholder is one of the rewards for completing the Neutral Quest.
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Contents
Generation
The Eye of the Beholder is only generated upon killing the beholder in a way that would normally leave a corpse (i.e. any method minus disintegration or digesting). Since the Beholder is always generated in the Neutral Quest, its Eye cannot be wished for and will always revert to its base item if left in bones.
Description
Invoking The Eye of the Beholder has different effects dependent on your current luck: if invoked at -10 luck or lower, you are subjected to an instadeath, and otherwise the Eye gazes upon all non-undead monsters in the character's line of sight, reducing them to 1⁄3 of their current hit points, and a -3 penalty to luck and alignment record is applied regardless of outcome.[1][2][3] This effect does not anger peaceful monsters or reduce tameness in pets, and cannot ever kill monsters directly.
Attempting to eat The Eye of the Beholder (or any eyeball) will bring up a prompt asking if you are sure you want to do so.[4] If a character eats The Eye of the Beholder, they take 150–199 damage.[5] You can also sacrifice The Eye of the Beholder at an altar for maximum value.[6]
Strategy
The Eye of the Beholder is generally the weakest of the alignment quest artifacts: it lacks any effects outside of being invoked, and the invocation effect is of mixed viability. It can be worth keeping around to trivialize clearing out monster-filled levels and rooms such as zoos and throne rooms, though you should light up the room beforehand, e.g. with a scroll of light, wand of light or spell of light.
History
The Eye of the Beholder is partly based on The Eye of Vecna, which appears in SLASH 6, an ancestor variant to SLASH'EM. The Eye of Vecna has the same effects when invoked: it turns its icy gaze on all monsters within the character's line of sight, reducing their health to a fraction of its current amount, and attempting to invoke it with a Luck of −9 or less would instead kill the character instantly; a −3 penalty to both Luck and alignment record occurs regardless. The Eye of the Beholder retains this invoke effect, though it does not have any of the Eye of Vecna's other properties.
Origin
The name of the artifact and perhaps the entire concept are based on the aphorism, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder".
Messages
- The Eye turns on you!
- The Eye killed you upon invoking it.
- The Eye looks around with its icy gaze!
- The Eye cast its gaze upon invoking it.
- You feel a deep burning inside!
- You took damage from eating The Eye of the Beholder.
- You offer this evil thing to <your god>...
- You sacrificed The Hand of Vecna.
