Excerpts: Angels

[Darth Cyric]

Song of Ice and fire. Sadly still in work...

Oh, hell yes.

Although Feast for Crows was a bit of a letdown (granted there were circumstances). Hopefully Dance with Dragons is a return to form for GRRM.

 

[VannATLC]

but its most entertaining and the World building and character dialogues are great.

*cough*

Till you realise that all his books are the same plot and characters, re-written, and that they are his wife's creations, at that.

*cough*

(I also loved eddings as a kid, then when I got older, realised they were crap.)

I loved GRRM style fantasy as a kid too.. but there just wasn't much of it in a school library.

 

[Plane Sailing]

pre-emptive Moderator note:

Obviously any discussion of angels is likely to refer to various real-world sources - it would be almost impossible to avoid it - but I would request that you continue to be careful in how you do so.

I'm really glad that there hasn't been any problems so far, although occasionally posts are skating quite close to the edge. As long as nobody takes someone else's post as an excuse to make value judgements about certain source material or people who hold that source material seriously, then we'll all continue along fine.

Thanks.

 

[Andor]

Not exactly as canon, but still. If the angel did exactly what God wanted, there would be no reason for the Hebrews to put blood on their doors.

Another example:

God wants Lot and his family to escape Sodom (or Gomorra, I don't remember which). To punish the city, he lets loose an angel. For their own protection, Lot and his family is adviced not to look back. Lot's wife looks back and turns to salt. Now, if God was in full control of the angel, there would be no need for that instruction. He could just tell the angel that Lot and his family is of limits for it.

I wouldn't put that interpretation on either of those stories, personally. For the 10th plauge I believe the blood on the door was to notify the angel to pass over the house in question. Afterall the Angel of Death is not noted for being big on discrimination and may not have had any other way of differentiating hebrew from egyptian.

As for Lot's wife, simply looking at the angel may have been all it took. He may not have taken the feat that allows you to be selective with your gaze attacks.

So really it's more a matter of Angels not having a magic "Good Guy" sense that lets them instantly know sides, rather than having an agenda that may differ from the god they serve. Or in other words, they can't see those blue circles around the PC's feet.

 

[DerekSTheRed]

In one of the FR novels, Kelemvor creates an angel out of a soul that is a Cyric "false." He then regrets his decision and offers him back to Cyric who makes him a reluctant angel for his cause (after a quest of course). This idea of angels serving neutral or evil gods reluctantly or not was evident in 2E and 3E. It works for 4E better IMO.

Derek

P.S. I still like the Belgariad by Eddings but his subsequent works are just re-writings of the Belgariad. No one has made mortals talking to gods so blase as Eddings.

 

[EonEdge]

I always understood a mercenary to be a paid professional soldier who when they are doing working for their current client will go find some other client to be a paid soldier for. A soldier that works for a national government and then, when their term of service is complete and they elect to not re-enlist, retires to civilian life. While both get paid, the implication is that the men and women serving various national militaries are not mercenaries in any but the most disparaging of senses. Similarly, unless the fluff material indicates that it is a widespread or common phenomenon for angels to switch which god they work for then I think the label of "mercenary" is at best misleading.

Yes it is misleading, but then the statement about "a cause worthy of thier intention" also doesn't speak mercenary to me, contradicting it's own source. I would also like to point out that in 4e, gods die. or at least they can. where do his angels go? Well I'm sure they go to work for the next closest god to thier cause.

and today they continue to act as mercenary forces for anyone willing to meet their price—be it wealth, or power, or a cause worthy of their attention

I really think that if they changed "or" to and the flavor would fit much better for alot of people. I see angels only working in capacities that further thier own ideas and goals, and you will never see an AoV who believes in "good" things working for evil deities, or the opposite.

 

[hamishspence]

Crucible, the Trial of Cyric the Mad

I got the impression the angel was one of Mask's worshippers, inadvertantly, not Cyrics. Worships a giant deity, who is really Mask in disguise, Kelemvor initially recruits him as a powerful angel of Death (seraph seems to be the term for top level servants) Later, he rethinks this, as part of his commitment to do a better job, because he is being too nice, and thus inadvertantly undermining the other gods.

 

[Irda Ranger]

(I also loved eddings as a kid, then when I got older, realised they were crap.)

Ok folks, I think that's enough Eddings-bashing. He's an easy target when you have an adult's sensitivity, but pretty much everyone liked him as a kid. Kid's books aren't "crap" because they're written for kids. I think the only problem here is people's expectations, based on the fact that Eddings' books are sold in the regular Sci-Fi/Fantasy parts of the bookstore, rather than "youth fiction", or whatever. Personally I think they're a great "gateway novel" for someone who has an interest in reading and will move on to bigger and better things one day. You know, like Piers Anthony or Robert Heinlein's "young reader" books. The fact is you just can't go straight from The Cat in the Hat to Dune.

Personally I still like going back and reading some of the better Eddings novels every now and then. It's no The Once and Future King, but it takes me back to being a kid, and the silliness of the dialog is fun.

 

[evildmguy]

I wouldn't put that interpretation on either of those stories, personally. For the 10th plauge I believe the blood on the door was to notify the angel to pass over the house in question. Afterall the Angel of Death is not noted for being big on discrimination and may not have had any other way of differentiating hebrew from egyptian.

As for Lot's wife, simply looking at the angel may have been all it took. He may not have taken the feat that allows you to be selective with your gaze attacks.

So really it's more a matter of Angels not having a magic "Good Guy" sense that lets them instantly know sides, rather than having an agenda that may differ from the god they serve. Or in other words, they can't see those blue circles around the PC's feet.

Ooo. I really like that. And it fits so well with mythology and for DND. The deity gives an angel a quest to do and the angel is literal in its interpretation of it. It can't distinguish. So then, the deity has to make sure the ones they want saved realize it.

That would be really cool!

Or only specific things, like animal's blood or some such, can stop the angel. You could use a certain gold medallion that would "buy" your way out of the angel's wrath. Then, maybe others figure it out as well, and are skipped, even though it wasn't meant for them.

edg

 

[small pumpkin man]

I am not saying this is needless symmetry (especially as I noticed the "breaks" of symmetry in a few areas.) It was, more or less, an academic exercise.
Symmetry is certainly not the main motivation here at work.

I particularly like the idea of the Archons made from "Elemental Stuff" and Angels made from "Higher Concepts".

Your point about the Archons being fought vs the Angels is a good one - I forgot that, or rather didn't remember if there was this relation between them. And it's a... "natural" symmetry - off course enemies try to have armies that can fight each other (preferably beat the other sides army).

Yeah, I was mostly just ranting. I just think alignments have as much to do with the new cosmology as Gods have to do with the Planescape factions, there's a link here and there, but they don't really have that much to do with ech other. If I was going to create some sort of "wheel" or at least arrange the planes in a square, it would be Astral Sea opposing the Elemental Chaos, as the Spiritual opposing the Physical, and the feywild opposed the shadow, as untamable life opposing inevitable death, and possibly create a new alignment system which ties into that, but that would be the start of an entire homebrew setting in and of itself.