There are 11 beholders in the world.
One hive mother and 10 "normal" beholders.
The hive mother is really huge and has no more eye-stalks. Let's refer to it as "she" to differentiate her from her offsprings.
She told them she was stranded on this planet when she was young and still had her eye-stalks. In time, she grew, grew and grew. Eventually, her eye-stalks were big enough to become new beholders themselves.
Of course, she had a mission.
Dominating vast areas and lesser beings was secondary. Becoming bigger and more powerful, that was a prior claim. But still subordinate to the main objective : achieving the next step in beholder existence.
She has to create a huge beholder with 10 normal-sized beholders as eye-stalks and a huge hive-mother as the central eye. She will then return in space to find the original ur-beholder and create an other bigger beholder-being till the behoder race becomes as big as a planet so as to be able to dominate the entire universe and obliterate suns on a whim.
Of course, beholders are advanced beings. They do not grow with simple food or with time : they grow as they accumulate power.
As power comes in many forms, they can grow from multiple sources : magic, knowledge, political power (open or hidden), religion, money... Choose or use them all.
Her offspring has become true and normal-sized beholders : now, they have to help their hive-mother become a true huge central eye. They have to cooperate and unite. They have to accumulate more power than before.
What will 10 beholders be able to achieve together ?
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