This little friend comes packaged with a small book entitled “Guide For Training Your New Beholder” and is attributed to the author Dame Beatrice J. Delacroix the 3rd. This tiny tome expounds upon the ways to care for your Beholder, creating a domain for your Beholder and, of course, adventuring with and taming your Beholder.

The good Dame Delacroix the 3rd is also very clear in her information booklet that there are no refunds of any kind, and once you take possession of the Beholder it is very much your own problem.

“Dame Beatrice J. Delacroix III’s Guide for Training Your New Beholder” is an accompanying booklet for an officially licensed light-up Beholder figurine. It’s also quite possibly the most hilariously enjoyable project I’ve worked on.

Working with the Dungeons & Dragons team at Wizards of the Coast and my editor Brit Brooks-Perilli at Running Press, I was given a lot of freedom to have fun writing this guide about training your brand new (and very disgruntled) Beholder pet, and, well… it goes just about as well as you’d imagine.

This might be a relatively small story in the overall Dungeons & Dragons world, but it’s a thrill to get to introduce fans to Dame Beatrice J. Delacroix III, her granddaughter Pip, and their menagerie of dangerous creatures. “Dame Beatrice J. Delacroix III’s Guide for Training Your New Beholder” is a 32-page mini guidebook that walks you through your early days with your new Beholder, how to set up its new home, tips for feeding and care, and offers tons of advice for what to do when (not if!) things go awry.

Obviously, working in the Dungeons & Dragons world—which has been a huge part of my life since adolescence—has been an absolute treat. Dame Beatrice J. Delacroix III and Pip have already stolen my heart (along with a few… let’s call them unregulated living curiousities), and with any luck this won’t be the last you see of them.