D&D 5E Celestials in 5e

[Paul Farquhar]

If the players aren't going to fight it, it doesn't need a stat block. Given that D&D is largely focused on good (or evil hating neutral) PCs, having lots of stat blocks for good monsters is a waste of space.

 

[Mecheon]

having lots of stat blocks for good monsters is a waste of space.

Spoken like someone who hasn't had to break into the Heavens to drag someone back, kicking and screaming, into the world of the living

 

[Chaosmancer]

If the players aren't going to fight it, it doesn't need a stat block. Given that D&D is largely focused on good (or evil hating neutral) PCs, having lots of stat blocks for good monsters is a waste of space.

And what if they summon it as an ally to fight with them?

Or they go on a quest to rescue one, and they want it to help them fight the big bad?

Or they encounter one combatting a great evil and aid it, getting a quest to end a threat?

Or any number of plot threads, tactics or heck, evil campaigns that are made much easier by the fact that you have statblocks for the other side of the equation.

Honestly, the DnD world sometimes feels a little 2D at times. Fey and Celestials get very little lore and stats, but you can get and read into tome's worth of Demons or Devils or Yugoloths. It gives the impression that there is barely anything in the Feywild or the Celestial realms. They are just wispy and unimportant compared to the highly detailed and mapped out layers of the Abyss or Nine Hells.

 

[gyor]

And what if they summon it as an ally to fight with them?

Or they go on a quest to rescue one, and they want it to help them fight the big bad?

Or they encounter one combatting a great evil and aid it, getting a quest to end a threat?

Or any number of plot threads, tactics or heck, evil campaigns that are made much easier by the fact that you have statblocks for the other side of the equation.

Honestly, the DnD world sometimes feels a little 2D at times. Fey and Celestials get very little lore and stats, but you can get and read into tome's worth of Demons or Devils or Yugoloths. It gives the impression that there is barely anything in the Feywild or the Celestial realms. They are just wispy and unimportant compared to the highly detailed and mapped out layers of the Abyss or Nine Hells.

Exactly, there are host of good uses for Celestials and that is before you count Fallen Celestials, of which 5e has many examples. And even Good PCs can find themselves on the wrong side of Good Celestials over a major disagreed over what constitutes the greater good, even to the point of battle.

 

[Hriston]

I’m not really familiar with the treatment that has been given to celestials over the years. The extent of my experience is reading the 1E monster books, which includes the typical angelic celestials: devas, planetars, and solars (MM2), which I think cover the concept of biblical winged angels pretty well. I haven’t paid very much attention to how 5E has handled this, so my response may be a little off-topic, but I think to populate the upper planes with a full range of denizens, the biblical tradition is a bit too narrow, offering up only the type of LG servant types we tend to see.

I would look to Fantasy literature to add variety, and personally, I think Tolkien is a good place to start. In the Silmarillion, a wide array of beings of an angelic order are described that go beyond the typical winged messenger. Here’s a rough draft of the profiles and alignments that I can imagine such celestials having:

Air, sky, rulership, superiority, speed of thought and flight, poetry (these are very close to the typical angels) — LG

Stars, planets, light, spiritual fire — LG

Earth, hidden knowledge, craft — NG

Growing things, plants, animals, life — NG

Wilderness, the hunt, far travel — CG

Valor, bravery, bodily strength — LG

Sleep, dreams, visions, inspiration — CG

Death, fate, doom — N

Loss, sorrow, healing — NG

Water, music — CG

I’m not very widely read in Fantasy, Tolkien being one of my primary touchstones. Does anyone else know of some fantasy literature that presents angelic beings in a non-traditional way?

 

[MechaTarrasque]

5E has a huge giant problem with Celestials.

There's a reasonable argument to be made that we don't really need a lot of stats for them, nor do we need the same sort of detail on their society that we might with Devils or Modrons or the like. I'm totally okay with that. But we should have SOME sort of idea of what is supposed to be going on, because it's clearly changed dramatically since previous editions!

For example, 5E made a completely boneheaded and bizarre decision to make it so Good-aligned gods, no matter how dodgily Good or how Chaotic or whatever, have utterly dutiful hard-LG Angels/Celestials serving them (never mind that there's potentially a limit to how dutiful any LG being can be compared to an LN one).

And everyone else, all the N and E gods, even the LN gods (which are very common, and have often had angel-adjacent beings serving them in previous editions), have... NOTHING AND NO-ONE.

No, they do not have devils and demons (not as a matter of course - the books actually go out of their way to point out devils/demons serving evil gods are the exception, not the rule). They don't have anyone else either. Modrons etc. don't seem to be serving Neutral gods either.

It's bizarre. And it seems like someone just put this in without examining the consequences, or how this changes things. And this is seems very representative of how 5E has dealt with Celestials in general - carelessly and thoughtlessly.

Go read any of PG Wodehouse's Jeeves the Butler novels, then:

1) You are welcome. No need to gush. I know I have immeasurably improved your life and hopefully your imagination.

2) I am pleased that you now know exactly how a LG angel would serve a CG (or even deity

Actually there is one race that kind of serve a similar function to Angel's, but for Evil Cosmic powers, including Gods, and that is the Succubi and Incubi. The Bi (as I call the collective Succubi/Incubi race) serve pretty much any evil (and possible a few none evil Gods and powers like Sharess), with arch fiends like Grazzt and Gods like Asmodeus given example.

And they make good servants for evil Gods because they are good shape shifters, they can at will shift in and out of the Ethereal Plane making them excellent spies and messengers and assassins, they can charm at will including while hidden in the Ethereal Plane, and can communicate with someone they have charmed from and any distance and plane (making them argueablely the most powerful Telepaths in the game). They also have flight and Darkvision.

The one thing they don't have is more powerful versions of themselves or Soldiers, but a smart DM can still make them extremely dangerous, more then most monsters of their CR. Or just add a Template to them.

And Asmodeus has regular Devils, Tiamat has Abashi Devils, Lloth has Ylothcols Demons still, in addition to Succubi.

Another advantage is that unlike most fiends Succubi and Incubi can be bred to increase their numbers or bred to produce Cambions.

For Generals of Evil Gods you can just use Empyreans, apparently Evil Gods can give birth to Empyreans as well as none evil Gods (Auril and Thym two evil Gods of Cold had an Evil Empyrean Daughter in 5e). Yes they are Celestials, but they aren't normal Celestials, they are Titans, a type of Quasi God, and they already blur the line between fiend and Celestial as is. Still that leaves rank and file evil outsider soldiers for evil Gods as a blank.

The Bi have 20 charisma which makes a nice warlock (and since the evil gods are likely to have the fiend type [like Tiamat], no reason they can't make fiend patron warlocks, and those evil gods who aren't fiends are probably aberrations, so GOO patron warlocks for them, or some kind of war god, hexblade anyone?). Low level warlocks are pretty straightforward as casters go: small number of known spells and small number of slots available for an encounter vs. the PC's, so you are adding versatility and some power without a lot of extra work for the DM. Paladins require a little more thought, so I would save the oath of tyranny/oathbreaker/oath of treachery Bi for the underboss

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I know I mention this in pretty much every celestial thread, but I figure if anyone reads even a single Jeeves the Butler story, it would be obvious how LG angels could serve NG and CG gods. That doesn't mean that I don't think there should be more NG and CG celestials, because I really do want that.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I’m not really familiar with the treatment that has been given to celestials over the years. The extent of my experience is reading the 1E monster books, which includes the typical angelic celestials: devas, planetars, and solars (MM2), which I think cover the concept of biblical winged angels pretty well. I haven’t paid very much attention to how 5E has handled this, so my response may be a little off-topic, but I think to populate the upper planes with a full range of denizens, the biblical tradition is a bit too narrow, offering up only the type of LG servant types we tend to see.

I would look to Fantasy literature to add variety, and personally, I think Tolkien is a good place to start. In the Silmarillion, a wide array of beings of an angelic order are described that go beyond the typical winged messenger. Here’s a rough draft of the profiles and alignments that I can imagine such celestials having:

Air, sky, rulership, superiority, speed of thought and flight, poetry (these are very close to the typical angels) — LG

Stars, planets, light, spiritual fire — LG

Earth, hidden knowledge, craft — NG

Growing things, plants, animals, life — NG

Wilderness, the hunt, far travel — CG

Valor, bravery, bodily strength — LG

Sleep, dreams, visions, inspiration — CG

Death, fate, doom — N

Loss, sorrow, healing — NG

Water, music — CG

I’m not very widely read in Fantasy, Tolkien being one of my primary touchstones. Does anyone else know of some fantasy literature that presents angelic beings in a non-traditional way?

Most of the fantasy I have read use Biblical Angels (which aren't even biblical because the angels int he bible can get freaky) and they generally turn out to be evil or totalitarianly "pure".

A lot of modern fantasy writers like making anyone who tells you "this is the only true path towards being good" into the bad guys.

 

[gyor]

Most of the fantasy I have read use Biblical Angels (which aren't even biblical because the angels int he bible can get freaky) and they generally turn out to be evil or totalitarianly "pure".

A lot of modern fantasy writers like making anyone who tells you "this is the only true path towards being good" into the bad guys.

"Biblical Angels" are really drawn from Greek Mythology and Hellenistic religion. There are a bunch of Gods that resemble the common Angel look. Pagan Philosophers like Proclus and Iamblichus wrote about Angels and Archangels and they appear in the Chaldean Oracles.

 

[Hriston]

I would suggest these types of celestial, based on alignment/plane:

LG — angel
NG — eudaemon, agathodaemon, or maybe just daimon?
CG — genius