D&D General [Workshopping] The New Beatifics (or replacing Eladrin in the Outer Planar order)

[Twiggly the Gnome]

I'd like to construct a new group of Chaotic Good exemplars, so that I can shuffle off the Eladrin to the Feywild completely. My unifying theme is human-like beings with animal features, but not furries.

The candidates I have so far are:

Swanmay



Actaeon



Lillend



Asura



Any ideas?

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I don't know, celestial animal people niche is pretty covered with archons, guardanals, and animal lords; it seems almost conformist to make the CG ones like that. More chimerical ones like the Lillend with parts from more than one beast could be a chance to differentiate them from the other ones. Or focus on centaur-like creatures like the Briar could also work (come to think of it the Lillend is kind of a snake centaur with wings), because there aren't a lot of celestial centaur types in the LG-NG planes.

 

[Yaarel]

For the CG plane. With a name like "Arborea" (arbor "tree"), "tree people" makes sense.

This can be the Greekesque Dryad, Hamadryad, or something more plantlike, Treant or 4e Wilder. Or something similar.

A species that is a living plant (G), but is highly individualistic (C), might include both the possibility of like a human as a living statue of wood with hair of leaves, all the way to a pure animated tree, like a Treant. And anything in between. For a playable species, players choice.


Personally, I would rather the "furries" of GCG Beastland, also include human-looking with subtle animalistic features, as well as fully animal forms, and anything in between, including humanimal "furries". To some degree, Beastland already is this way.

 

[Yaarel]

I like NG Elysium as especially Human-centric, emphasizing ideal magitech utopias that integrate ecologically with nature. It is more "industrial" than Elf tree cities tend to be. More "parks" and reserves, rather than hiding within nature.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Or focus on centaur-like creatures like the Briar could also work (come to think of it the Lillend is kind of a snake centaur with wings), because there aren't a lot of celestial centaur types in the LG-NG planes.

Good call on the Bariaur



The Pegataur would be a good candidate as well

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

A species that is a living plant (G), but is highly individualistic (C), might include both the possibility of like a human as a living statue of wood with hair of leaves, all the way to a pure animated tree, like a Treant. And anything in between. For a playable species, players choice.

One idea I had was a living marble statue entwined in ivy called a Galatea.

 

[Yaarel]

The official 5e Dryad is pretty good. The "tree" flavor is overt.

Here is a male Dryad from Pathfinder

Less humanlike is also possible. I think this is an official D&D Dryad?

Add animate tree as one of the possible Dryad forms.


A simple Dryad works great for CG Arborea. And there is already Greekesque themes in that plane.

 

[Chaltab]

For my homewbrew setting I created some bee-themed celestials called the Beeyonders for the Chaotic Good plane.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Another thought is that I (and think most everyone) thinks of the pre-4e eladrin as celestial elves that can take an energy or elemental shape, but what if it was the other way around? We have celestials that look like humanoids and beasts (and in 3PP, like plants), why not celestials that look like elementals that have the ability to assume humanoid shape? You could throw in some ribbons like make the water elementals holy water, the "purifying" fire elementals have the ability to remove conditions instead of doing fire damage if they chose, and I will have to think of something for "rock and redeemer" earth elementals and "breath of the spirit" air elementals, but I think the idea is there. Plus, mephits (lowest), elementals and myrmidons (less), and genies (greater) whatever you want to call them takes care of a lot of stat blocks.

 

[Stormonu]

I suppose selkies would be too far? They are somewhat like swanmays, but become seals instead of swans.

Kitsune might also qualify too - in some tales they can be completely human in shape except for their tails.