Did ‘Goblin Slayer’ Just Drop A ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Easter Egg?

There are various RPG references scattered throughout Goblin Slayer (such as the fact that character’s names are just their class, for example), but the latest episode features one of the closest references to popular tabletop role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons yet.

As Goblin Slayer and his party have a run-in with a monster they name “Giant Eyeball,” fans couldn’t help but notice its resemblance to famous Dungeons and Dragons monster, Beholder.

As part of their search in the labyrinthian caverns underneath a major city, Goblin Slayer and the others come across a room with a magical mirror guarded by a giant floating eye. This eye features multiple smaller eye tentacles branching off of it, and has the ability to disintegrate things in its sight with deadly precision. They eventually defeat the monster by locking it into a protection spell and setting on a flour-based explosion, but the impression had been made.

Dungeons & Dragons fans immediately noticed its shared likeness with the Beholder monster, which has been depicted in pretty much the same fashion as this “Giant Eyeball” across the various editions of the game. Though it does lack the “toothy maw” of the famous game monster.

According to the official description for the monster in the Dungeons & Dragons guide, “A beholder’s spheroid body is covered in chitinous plates, scales, or leathery flesh. Its great bulging eye sits above a wide, toothy maw, while the smaller eyestalks that crown its body twist and turn to keep its foes in sight…its central eye emits a broad field of energy that can nullify the magic of its foes, while its eye stalks blast those foes with a host of powerful effects.”

The Giant Eyeball here had deadly effect spells of its own, and attacked in pretty much the same fashion. So fans got not only a taste of the Dungeons & Dragons series, but an example of how a fight with a Beholder could go in that game as well.

Goblin Slayer was first created by Kumo Kagyu with illustrations provided by Noboru Kannatsuki back in 2016. The light novel series tells the story of Priestess as the naive girl goes adventuring with a party in their fantastical world. However, things go south when the group is ambushed by Goblins. With her party slaughtered, Priestess is saved by a hero known as Goblin Slayer whose goal in life is to eradicate the goblin race with extreme prejudice.

Produced by WHITE FOX, the anime is directed by Takaharu Ozaki (Girls’ Last Tour). Hideyuki Kurata (Made in Abyss, Read or Die) will handle the series composition and is writing the scripts with Yousuke Koroda (My Hero Academia). Takashi Nagayoshi (Girls’ Last Tour) is designing the series’ characters, and Mili is composing the opening theme.