The Great Tyrant is a new design used by one of the beholder nations in its wars with the other factions of the race. It looks like a giant cinnamon roll, with six large crystals along the rim, each 60 degrees apart. The inside of the ship is a honeycomb of passages for the beholders, while the hive mother resides in the center. The orbi are in three small chambers just off the center one. There is surprisingly little data on this ship, simply because it is so rare. Only three confirmed citings of the craft have been made, and an comparison of the markings suggests that only two of these ships exist, and they are both owned by the same nation.
Most beholder ships are 50 tons or less because of the restrictions of the orbus helm. The Great Tyrant uses a special type of helm that combines the characteristics of an orbus helm and a series helm. If five orbi are placed in one of these special helms, they can give a ship of 50 tons or more, a SR of one. The Great Tyrant is equipped with three such "terminals," giving it a SR of 3. The mere fact that the beholders have developed (or acquired) this type of technology is rather disturbing.
The crystals of the Great Tyrant are the same crystals that the beholders use in their smaller ships, for pooling their magical powers for use as a ship-to-ship weapon. During battle, each crystal has 10 beholders and function as independent weapons. It is also possible to combine the power of every beholder on the ship and run it through one crystal. This makes the ship helpless for one turn, but the result is devastating. One witness, a tradesman crewed with humans and halflings, noticed a Great Tyrant in the Grinder of Greyspace. The Tyrant was in the process of destroying a base used by another strain of beholders, and when the bulk of the fight was over, the Great Tyrant pooled all of its power to destroy the asteroid. The asteroid was the size of an Armada, and was reduced to small bits of rock. That's when the tradesman fled.
The Great Tyrant is a giant battle cruiser, and is designed to destroy other ships. That is all it is meant for, but it could be used in other ways, such as a drop ship. The ability to make both hard and soft landings could make it a very versatile craft. For this reason, the Elven Navy considers the ship a threat. If one beholder nation was to gain supremacy over the others using these ships, it could eventually threaten the elves, at least in some spheres. For the moment, the elves are watching and waiting, preferring to let the beholders wipe each other out.
