D&D 4E Angels in 4e: a possible future problem

[Incenjucar]

Oddly, I think they're actually hitting closer to the source mythology on this one -- I seem to recall Biblical angels scaring the living daylights out of normal people, looking like they were made of fire/too many wings/odd geometric shapes etc. The new trend for Angels appears to have put a bit of that mystique back, as opposed to just having a bunch of blonde winged dudes with swords.

Inevitables.

 

[JohnRTroy]

Actually I was only brining up the religion because Angels are more or less mostly come from the Christian faith, so I had to bring in those archetypes.

This would more likely degenerate into an alignment/ethical discussion than religions. I was brining up that anger, vengeance, etc., is not something that is incompatible with the good alignment. Which I think a lot of people don't really understand.

...to you. It makes perfect sense to some of us that an angel is a servant of a god, rather than just a servant of good.

I'm arguing from the general person's point of view, not "some of us". Angels like Demons have an expectation--a look, a behavior, etc. If things were turned around and I was on the 4e team and instead made demons become generic deital servants, I think there'd be a lot more complaints from the fans.

I'm more complaining by the general archetype being somewhat subverted--especially since "angel" was only used in 3.5 edition, so this seems like a new arbitrary thing.

 

[IanB]

What's wrong with them? They have a flavour. About one things they shouldn't have turned back, perhaps.

For many (most?) of us who went through the 1e-2e transition, the only flavor baatezu and tanar'ri have is the bad taste left in our mouths after TSR caved in to the stupid demon/devil outcry.

 

[Shemeska]

I also like the new direction of angels. I wouldn't mind seeing the term "angel" applied to a wider variety of creatures than it has in the past. (Have there ever been thrones or similarly odd angels in D&D?)

There were Throne Archons from 1988 till now when archons as a celestial exemplar race seem to have been euthanized along with guardinals.

The 4e direction with "angels" isn't a gigantic change in my mind, it's just a broadening of the term to encompass not just the 2e styled Aasimon/3e Angels but now to also include the deific servitors of neutral and evil gods who have otherwise never been catagorized together. We've got planetars of good deity Frumpy McRight, unique servitors of neutral deity Balance McNatureman, and things like Set's unique servitors, Tsung-Chiang's Linqua servitors, and heck if you stretch it there's even Apomps's Demodands (though for various reasons I would be strongly against their classification as angels given their outlook on divinity and identity as some of the oldest fiends).

 

[humble minion]

I'll cope with this. Some people will just scream about D&D no matter what (assuming they notice it - we're not as culturally relevant these days!), so it's pointless worrying about them.

But in terms of the game, I'm very happy to hear it. Tying angels down as servitors of the gods mean that they're no longer an 'objectively' good power. It's an inevitable and logical side-effect of apparent the removal of alignment-based game-mechanical effects, and that's one thing I'm entirely in favour of...

 

[Xethreau]

Agreed

Angel of Death, Angel of Vengeance, Accuser Angel...

Angels are usually obedient.

Whether they're good or not depends on your view of the deity they serve.

The word angel means "Messenger." There are angels for everything in religion, and if D&D says that the various gods have angels, then I would say "that makes sense."

 

[GreatLemur]

Actually I was only brining up the religion because Angels are more or less mostly come from the Christian faith...

I don't think that's precisely correct. I'm not going to go into it here, but they're definitely an older idea than that.

Anyway, regardless of religious history or 4e's fluff, that's pretty much what I'd been thinking fantasy RPG "angels" ought to be for years, anyway.

 

[JohnRTroy]

Regardless of the standard religious view, the media types D&D is associated with (video games, comic books, novels, etc.) are the sort that are very likely to depict angels as antagonists or neutral parties. It's the overall reaction to being demonized by official society.

Thinking about this a bit more... it makes me wonder why the designers did change the names from deva's (which has a long sense of tradition in D&D history) to angel. Especially if they were going to change the reasoning for it.

I'm a little disturbed by this now, not out of any sense of religious offense, but because I feel they are entering a woefully overused cliche' that Steven Grant has criticized . I hope the designers didn't do this just to write "those types of stories". I dislike the "angels are bastards" deconstructionist stories as I do the "fallen angels" cliche' that was used in prior editions post-Gygax. (1e Planatars and Solars could never be corrupted, which I think was more fitting the cosmology).

 

[Brig]

Actually the mythology behind angels appears well before Chritianity and Judaism. They have always been referred to as intermediaries between a god and his followers. Obeying and serving the whims of its god. This change in 4e actually puts angels bac to their mythological roots. I for one love this change and welcome it.

 

[The Little Raven]

Actually I was only brining up the religion because Angels are more or less mostly come from the Christian faith, so I had to bring in those archetypes.

Just because most modern Christians might think of angels as they appear in "Precious Moments" and all that doesn't mean we should use that view on them. In the Bible itself, they are described as performing acts of killing and massive destruction, as well as being messengers and harbingers of momentous events. While Christians may say that an angel killing all the firstborn of Egypt is a good act, since they're working for God, a lot of other people would disagree. And since Christians are not objectively right (since it's faith, not fact), then it appears that angels are only "good" when you believe they are.

And Zoroastrianism had angels before Christ.