Layer 6 – Eyenabella – Planescape: I am the Mimir

Eyenabella

Abyss — Layer the Sixth

Also Known As: The Realm of One Million Eyes

The Nature of Evil: You are alone in this multiverse. You are unique. All others are different from you, and they hate you because you are more perfect. Hate them more. Kill them before they can threaten you, and trust not a soul.

The Chant: This place is one of the crown jewels of chaos and malevolence in the Abyss, a festering wound in the multiverse that even gives tanar’ri pause. Imagine the worst of the worst; no, worse than that, and you’re scratching the surface. The place is alive, cutter, with a mind that can only be described as deranged. I mean, just the terrain itself is a mind-boggler; cavernous tunnels that echo with the sounds of ceaseless warfare, and rivers not of water, but of ooze so vile it makes the River Styx look like a babbling brook. I hear the ground itself can watch you through its one million eyes, all belonging to the Great Mother, the alpha and the omega of the beholder pantheon, a being so vile and corrupt that even the stoutest heart would tremble at her mere mention.

A few words about names: The layer is commonly called “the Realm of One Million Eyes”. The name “Eyenabella” is the name used by beholders for the layer. And while we’re on the subject of nomenclature, the entire layer is also the realm of the Great Mother, princess of beholders.

The ever-watchful Great Mother is a being of such malice and hatred that her very gaze can burn a hole through your soul. She’s the puppet master pulling all the strings from behind the scenes, and by strings I mean eyestalks. Her eyes — both the ones embedded in the cavern walls throughout the layer and those belonging to her children, the beholders — are always watching, always waiting. Some say the body of the Great Mother is the entire layer, others that’s it’s an extension of her consciousness but she has a discrete body, albeit enormous.

Now her Eye Tyrant children, well let’s just say they ain’t the kindest beings in the multiverse. We’re talking about creatures that are a maelstrom of teeth and eyes, each one more paranoid and unhinged than the last. One thing about beholders that might surprise you is that while they hate creatures who are not beholders, they also hate most other beholders. Beholder politics is incredibly complex and violent, with factions divided mainly along racial and family lines. Chant goes that there’s usually a state of civil war between this faction and that, although the fighting tends to be conducted outside of the beholder population centres and in the tunnels. Presumably the Great Mother tacitly approved of this internecine struggle, it’s a cert she knows it’s going on. Survival of the meanest, presumably .

They say the sights you’ll stumble upon here are spectacular though — the caverns, they ain’t your usual Underdark. No, no, they open into grandiose spaces that dwarf even the grandest halls of the dwarven lords, all carved out by the disintegration rays of beholder residents. The artisans have turned disintegration sculpting into an art form, the angles, the parapets! Since they can all levitate, gravity is no object to these bashers.

There’s also this city, called Failing Sight, an ironic beacon of, well, not hope, but of something in that forsaken place. It’s built inside the corpse of a dead beholder of a size that boggles the mind, a corpse-berg floating in the middle of an abyssal sea, its central eye socket now hosting a cathedral of unholy might and darkness. I mean, the sheer audacity to build a burg in the eye of a long-dead leviathan, now that’s Abyssal-style grandeur for you!

But let’s have it right, the Realm of a Million Eyes ain’t a place for sightseeing unless you’ve got a death wish. Or you’re a beholder — with a death wish. Even hardened planewalkers steer clear of this hellhole, and for a good reason. There ain’t much to see in Eyenabelle that won’t see you first, and what sees you ain’t likely to be friendly. So do yourself a favour, cutter, and give this layer a wide berth unless you’ve got a really good reason to visit, lest you find yourself caught in the gaze of a million eyes, never to return.

Ruler and Powers of Note: The entire layer is the realm of the Great Mother, there is no room for any dissent. She’s the only power here, and she seems to like it that way. Chant goes she chased her own son, Gzemnid, from the layer long ago. Harsh, perhaps, but if you’d ever encountered his truly unpleasant personality you’d understand why. No other powers have ever dared the wrath of the Great Mother by calling this wretched layer home. Picture in your mind’s eye a being so powerful, so feared, that she sits unchallenged in a layer of the Abyss. Ain’t no small feat, I’ll tell ya. She’s not just the matriarch of those foul beholders; she’s their goddess, their beginning and end, a deity of incomprehensible might and madness, roaming in the dark tunnels of the Abyss with a loathing that could burn stars to cinders.