Overview
Belchorzh is an invisible beholder that guards the Vault of the Beholder on Level 3 of the Tomb of the Nine Gods. Acererak used a wish spell to render the creature permanently invisible as part of the tomb’s defenses. The beholder’s aberrant influence has transformed this level of the tomb, causing distinctive purple mold with surveillance capabilities to grow throughout the area.
Abilities and Tactics
Surveillance Network
The alien growth covering Level 3 serves as Belchorzh’s surveillance system. Purple mold that smells like rotting corpses sprouts from floors, walls, and ceilings throughout this level. Tiny eyeballs emerge from the mold to observe intruders, allowing Belchorzh to see through them and track the party’s movements.
The mold acts defensively when damaged: destroying any patch with fire, necrotic, or radiant damage causes the nearest intact patch to sprout an eyestalk that fires a random eye ray (roll d10 on the beholder stat block) at the nearest character before disappearing.
Invisibility
Belchorzh remains invisible due to Acererak’s wish spell. This invisibility can be ended by:
- A successful dispel magic (DC 19) cast on the beholder
- Contact with an antimagic field
The Iron Sphere Trap
Belchorzh controls a key element of the vault’s defenses: a 6-foot diameter hollow iron sphere that hovers 20 feet above the floor, concealed under a black silk drape. The sphere has been disguised with Nystul’s magic aura to register as an evil aberration to detection magic.
The beholder can use its telekinetic eye ray to remove the drape, activating the sphere’s powerful magnetic field. When active, the field:
- Pulls creatures in metal armor to the sphere, restraining them
- Attracts unsecured metal weapons and objects
- Imposes disadvantage on ranged attacks using metal ammunition (missed shots stick to the sphere)
- Automatically hits with any metal weapon attack, though the weapon becomes stuck
The sphere can be neutralized by:
- Covering it with the black drape (temporary)
- Dispel magic (DC 16) to remove the Nystul’s magic aura, permanently deactivating the magnetic field
- Antimagic field contact
- Destruction (AC 20, 100 HP, Large object, resistant to nonmagical physical damage, immune to poison and psychic)
Location
Belchorzh hovers at the top of area 44B, a 50-foot-high domed chamber with a perfectly reflective marble floor. The floor is magically slick (DC 10 Dexterity save to avoid falling prone), and creatures shoved across it slide until hitting a wall. The chamber contains nine treasure-filled alcoves and one hundred candles that burn indefinitely while inside the vault.