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proxylynn · 10 months ago

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My take on D&D's Behir.

"An excerpt from the tome Creatures of the Wilderlands, by the sage and explorer Radamust: One of the most malevolent creatures I have ever encountered is the Behir. Having nearly fallen victim to its depredations on two separate occasions, I have endeavored to learn more about this wild and curious beast, which is occasionally mistaken for a wingless dragon by the uneducated. A Behir is unmistakable to the learned, once you have seen it.

It is a twelve-legged serpent, with each foot bearing three toes that end in razor-sharp talons. These talons are hooked like a raptor's but are designed for slashing, not grasping, prey. The body is covered in bandlike scales from light to dark blue in color with grayish tints along the edges. The underside is also light blue and composed of a vertical row of banded scales. The upper scales are very hard and tough and, if treated correctly, can be made into serviceable armor.

The head is long, and the narrow mouth is filled with many sharp teeth. Two backward-curving horns project from the rear of the skull, each black in color and 3-4' in length. Upon beginning my investigation, I discovered there was more than one species, each with its own special abilities and wildly divergent habitats."

[I've always had a fondness for the monsters of DnD, got a 2nd edition monster manual from a friend as a kid and I would read it for hours. (still own it) But after nabbing a copy of the 5th edition of the monster manual and looking it up online, my favorite beast is one of the most confusing and broken in terms of lore/design.]

Meet...The Behir...as represented in each edition.

[As you can see, it's quite the difference and doesn't match up with descriptions. But this isn't so bad, creatures go through redesigns and often art in the manuals doesn't line up with descriptions. This is common. So...What's the new description sound like?]

"A Behir was often mistaken for a wingless blue dragon. It had a long, snake-like body and could slither on the ground like a snake, but it also had six pairs of legs upon which it could walk or climb if it chose to do so. Each of a Behir's twelve feet contained three clawed toes. They began life with six or eight legs and grew additional legs as they aged. They grew about 8 feet (2.4 meters) per year.

Behirs had thick, armored scales, much like a dragon. Their scales were colored in variations of dark blue, being lighter on their undersides.

They had long narrow heads, crocodilian in shape, with curved, black horns on the top, which were used for preening. Behirs were born horn-less. Their mouths were full of many sharp multi-colored translucent teeth that were valued for their gem-like beauty, and their bones were crystalline."

[Okay...But this isn't what's shown either. If anything, this matches the older art and not the new sleek noodle boy. Don't get me wrong, I like the design, I adore snakes. But Behirs are not snakes. If anything, they are slightly draconian as they were made to kill dragons and speak Draconic naturally. Speaking of which, this brings up the next confusing part...The lore.]

"In times long forgotten, giants and dragons engaged in seemingly endless war. Storm giants created the first Behirs as weapons against the dragons, and Behirs retain a natural hatred for dragonkind. A Behir never makes its lair in an area it knows to be inhabited by a dragon. If a dragon attempts to establish a lair within a few dozen miles of a behir's lair, the Behir is compelled to kill the dragon or drive it off. Only if the dragon proves too powerful to fight does a Behir back down, seeking out a new lair site a great distance away."

[This sounds really awesome on paper, right? Yet...A massive flaw appears when you compare a Behir to a Dragon. Let's say that an adult behir is fighting a young red dragon. Both are roughly the same CR, with the behir at 11 and the young red dragon at 10.

Already, the young red dragon has some noticeable advantages. Its armor class is higher, it has marginally higher hit points, and it can fly 80 ft. per turn. The behir and young red dragon have the same Strength, but the behir is much faster than the dragon, Dex and land-speed-wise. Still, the dragon has a much higher Constitution.

But where the dragon really wins is its superior Intelligence. Sure, the behir has better self-preservation instincts with its higher Wisdom, so it knows when to run. But if the dragon has already out-thunk the beast, chances are the behir won’t even be able to escape. Keep in mind, this is just the young red dragon. Adult dragons and ancient dragons could easily avoid getting killed by behirs.

Another issue is size. Behir's stand at 5ft on all their legs and 20ft when they rear back on their hindmost eight legs, 4,000 pounds, and reach 40-60ft in length. They have the classification of Huge and can swallow creatures smaller than they, particularly medium and larger mammals such as boars, though they will also attack humans, ogres, and elves.]

[Now let's look at the common Behir's natural comparison, a Blue Dragon. (I say common Behir because lightning blue is the basic one but there are 2 rare variants that are only mentioned once...desert behir and jungle behir...if also compared to dragons I'd guess a fire red and poison green)]

Wyrmling- Medium Young - Large Adult - Huge Ancient - Gargantuan Greatwyrm - Gargantuan

Up to 85 feet long and 160,000 pounds; wingspan up to 80 feet

[No way a Behir is taking a Dragon down. So...What's the deal? How are Behir made to combat Dragons and still attack dragons now if they aren't suitable for it? This is where there are two theories that would help the lore a bit if Dungeon Masters want to use Behirs.

Theory 1: Current Behir are not the true Behir as made by the giants and have evolved to live in a world after the great war. The idea is that Behirs used to be a lot bigger, tougher, and smarter than they are now. Once the dragons were mostly depleted, they had to adapt to a world with fewer natural enemies. More than likely, the biggest of the Behirs were killed off quick, seeing as they were just as dangerous as the dragons. Those that did survive were those that were better at hiding and capable of finding other food sources. Years went by and they shrank down from their Gargantuan size of yore to their modern Huge size. Additionally, they lost a lot of their mental edge, trading strategic smarts for survival instincts.

Theory 2: They were never meant to fight adults and were made to lower the number of dragons by going after the babies. Behirs weren’t designed to fight the big guys; they were baby eaters. The behir’s swallow attack works only against Medium or Smaller targets. Any dragon over the age of five years is going to be Large or bigger. However, the wyrmlings and eggs are perfectly sized for the behir’s dislocated jaw. Behirs were trained to go into dragon lairs, slink through the stones, and eat the babies and unhatched eggs. This kept the dragon population in check. And if mom or dad caught them doing this, the behir used its lightning breath to scare them off and flee with its awesome speed and climbing ability. Being a neutral evil monstrosity, it’s not too hard to imagine this being the case.]

[So with all these broken conflicting points, can Behirs work? Yes, I think so. But things have to be cleared and some parts retooled once key parts are made official. Behirs have been around since the beginning and are of the first dragon-slaying monsters. There should be consistency given. The old lore on how they function as creatures is so damn interesting, it's a shame you'd have to dig super hard in old magazines to find it...Which I did because I am the lore queen and can be insane about it when I hyperfixate on something I love.]

[And like that, we reach the part where I get to be a big old nerd (more so than I have been so far) and bust out my take on a common lightning Behir.]

[I tried to incorporate aspects of the lore and art. Gave it a dragon/crocodile-style head, two black horns, banded belly scales, thick armored back scales, long slashing talons that can also grip, multi-colored translucent teeth (might need to zoom in for that), and I liked this idea of the tongue glowing slightly as a lure for prey while in caves (for quick snacks) but it gets brighter when firing a blast attack.

Aside from looks, I also want to mix that lore into the Behir Statistics. This is the current stats for Behir for DMs to use in games.]

[And this is more in line with what I'd use for a lore-based Behir sheet. This is based on a D&D Monster Analysis by The Bountiful Mimic, he does amazing content.]

[I'd also add a conflict resolution move if a party encounters a Behir but isn't able to battle it, so to avoid needless character slaughter from this new powerful beast, let's look at the lore again.]

"Behirs possess the capability to negotiate but only do so if they believe that for some reason they cannot take what they desire. Those who must frequently travel through a Behir's territory find that offering large amounts of food (such as a cow or a horse) along with a healthy amount of self-deprecating flattery is a good way to keep a Behir from attacking. Additionally, perhaps owing to some draconic ancestry, Behirs have a fondness for treasure, coveting silver to the exclusion of all other offerings."

[So this means if your stats are high and you have a nice chunk of silver or maybe a mount or two you don't mind losing, you could save you/your party's ass from a potential game-ender. I'm thinking to pull this off you'd need to have the Intelligence of 10 and Charisma of 16, you need to put in the work to barter with this bad boy or you risk being in the belly. I'm also not sure if a Bard could seduce a Behir but, you know, Bards are gonna Bard and a Behir is able to be charmed into being a companion (The Lamia noble Transtra kept a Behir named Uliss as a companion, although she had to charm it to do so) but that has to be done constantly or you risk it turning on you.

All in all, this was a nice but way too long deep dive into a not-often-used monster that could use some love...and maybe some tender work on its history. As of late the newest use of Behirs in pop culture is Balder's Gate 3, the beast itself doesn't show up which is sad but you can get a Behir Blue Dice skin and Behir Scales. Behir Scales is an Alchemical Ingredient. Three are needed to extract Sublimate of Behir Scales, which is used to make Flashblinder. Thank you for your time in reading this. This was fun. ^_^]

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