Fallen Celestials / Risen Fiends

[BOZ]

i like this idea - i don't think it should be any more rare to have fallen celestials than risen fiends.

the only thing is, that "falling" is easy, while "rising" is a challenge - or so it seems.

 

[Shemeska]

I must admit the risen ultroloth philosopher there didn't make too much sense to me.

Some additional flavor text regarding his reasons for being there, and his view of his own existance got cut. Plus, if you want some more background on the character, I can provide it. He's in the gatetown of Ecstasy in his current role as something of pennance, not that he truly requires it to be accepted by Elysium, but because he desires it. Eventually when he feels enough time has passed and he has done enough good, he'll take that step into Elysium and fully shed the last vestiges of his former existance.

Consider him an abberation, an abomination to his own kind who turned away from evil because of a single flaw, a single fragment of good that survived intact somehow within his metaphysical being through all of his various forms and tenures in each caste in the 'loth heirarchy. When he was first created as a mezzoloth, belched forth from the Gray Waste, there was the tiniest fragment of something that wasn't evil that had been present in the melting pot of rendered down soulstuff and Evil that the 'loths form from. It might have been chance, it might have been a bit of a repentant soul, a tattered shred of a guardinal's essence devoured by the Waste, or something else that wasn't quite absolute Evil, but that chance of redemption survived his transitions and "purifications" and eventually he noticed it himself, and something changed in the end. Ultimately it was a choice, and before he got to Elysium's gatetown he suffered for it, hideously so. He's perched on the cusp of becoming something else, but like his decision to turn away from Evil, he'll make that stride on his own, in his own time.

FWIW, the character shows up in my 1st storyhour as a pitiable figure, locked away in the astral prison of Pitiless by his own kind who routinely mock and torment him for what he represents. The 'loths wouldn't let him go to find redemption, nor would they kill him to spare him the agony of being locked inside a form that was by that point anathema to him. Eventually he ends up being released, his freedom being purchased in exchange for something else of apparently equal value to the Keeper of the Tower Arcane, and he makes his way to Elysium. There's a point where he walks through the portal to that plane and as the sunlight on the other side washes over him, his previous form ripples and washes away, leaving him appearing as a cervidal, but with the unique, color-shifting eyes of an ultroloth to mark him as having arrived there by a different path than most.

From that point on he never left Elysium, because the 'loths would hunt him down and kill him, but he shows up several times later to give advice from his perspective of having been a 'loth, and having been privy to so many of their secrets, albeit his "fall" from them happened to long ago those secrets are worth less now than if he'd been part of the current power structure in Gehenna, the Waste, or Carceri. He has some poignant moments, and while his history and development in the Storyhour isn't the same as the version of him that appears in Dragon 351, you might assume the same backhistory for the character in most respects.

 

[Sammael]

Now, THAT's what was missing from the article. Thank you!

 

[Celebrim]

It depends on how divorsed from the underlying theology/mythology you wish to make angels and demons.

Under orthodox theology, speaking of a 'risen fiend' is nonsense. The reason is that angels, fallen or unfallen, are spiritual beings and therefore exist outside of what we modern types would call 'the space-time continium'. When a spiritual being makes a choice, it isn't like the choice which would be made by a mortal being who experiences the universe sequentially and with imperfect knowledge. When a spiritual being makes a choice it is enternal and irrevocable. Thus, when the moment of decision came for the angels, all those that chose good are irrevocably good and incapable of falling, and all those that chose evil are irrevocably fallen and incapable of rising. The full import of thier decision was known at the moment of the choice and there is no information or experience which can possibly alter that decision. Faced with the choice, they will continually and eternally make the same choice.

Since all the angels were originally in an unfallen state, 'a risen fiend' is impossible.

While this is pretty much universally accepted as being true for the duration of time, some church scholars, for example Origen, believe that in eternal time - after time and the universe we know has stopped - that in the state after 'the end' eventually there is the possibility of redemption for all beings because Eternal time scales are beyond the capacity of any non-Divine being to foresee, and therefore is the possibility of an experience which even a spiritual being could not have foreseen. But again, this is supposed to occur in eternal time, not over any mortal scale like mere thousands, millions, or billions of years. In other words, the event would make no sense within the concept of a campaign or even campaign world.

The D&D conception of outsiders tends to make them extremely anthropomorphic - basically just humans with bumps on thier forward like some Star Trek costuming decision. Outsiders basically think and act like people, and in this conception where a fiend is basically just a bad person with an unusual body a risen fiend makes as much sense as a fallen angel. However, the more you divorse the cosmology from its mythic roots (mythic here in the sense of a powerful cultural narrative, not in a judgement of the stories truth or falsehood), I think the less power you are going to get out of using the superficial trappings of 'demon' and 'angel' in your story. I think that people will tuitively rebel against the idea of risen fiends being as common as fallen angels even if they can't explain why the concept bothers them, and I think that if you really did have as many risen fiends as fallen angels the athropomorphic decisions in D&D would stand out even more.

Contrary to some claims, I don't think a universe were nothing is alien and everything is basically human is more complex in its conception than one where alien things 'outsiders' are in thier basic nature alien.

 

[The Cardinal]

FFG's Mythic Races had the "race" Risen Demon. I've played a RD paladin back in the days of 3.0 - and it's still one of my favorite characters ever

 

[airwalkrr]

It depends on how divorsed from the underlying theology/mythology you wish to make angels and demons.

Under orthodox theology, speaking of a 'risen fiend' is nonsense. The reason is that angels, fallen or unfallen, are spiritual beings and therefore exist outside of what we modern types would call 'the space-time continium'. When a spiritual being makes a choice, it isn't like the choice which would be made by a mortal being who experiences the universe sequentially and with imperfect knowledge. When a spiritual being makes a choice it is enternal and irrevocable. Thus, when the moment of decision came for the angels, all those that chose good are irrevocably good and incapable of falling, and all those that chose evil are irrevocably fallen and incapable of rising. The full import of thier decision was known at the moment of the choice and there is no information or experience which can possibly alter that decision. Faced with the choice, they will continually and eternally make the same choice.

Since all the angels were originally in an unfallen state, 'a risen fiend' is impossible.

I don't think D&D mythology is based on anything resembling Judeo/Christion mythology. I think this was done intentionally because it is better for gaming. In D&D, angels can fall and be redeemed, and demons can turn over a new leaf and then be eaten by fellow demons. The D&D multiverse, as described in the DMG, is not one ruled by a monotheistic being who was betrayed by some angels an unimaginably long time ago. It is a multiverse created, probably cooperatively, by a host of deities with various levels of power and no "overgod" to speak of. Most demons in D&D always were demons. Most angels always were angels. Demons are not fallen angels of long ago (unless you wish to make them such, but that is not what most campaign settings assume).

 

[Bad Paper]

Nightfang spire has one

No, it doesn't. That hezrou was something your DM made up, and more power to him/her! That module becomes quite the unending slog without some homebrew spice.

 

[Storm Raven]

I don't think D&D mythology is based on anything resembling Judeo/Christion mythology. I think this was done intentionally because it is better for gaming. In D&D, angels can fall and be redeemed, and demons can turn over a new leaf and then be eaten by fellow demons. The D&D multiverse, as described in the DMG, is not one ruled by a monotheistic being who was betrayed by some angels an unimaginably long time ago. It is a multiverse created, probably cooperatively, by a host of deities with various levels of power and no "overgod" to speak of. Most demons in D&D always were demons. Most angels always were angels. Demons are not fallen angels of long ago (unless you wish to make them such, but that is not what most campaign settings assume).

It isn't exactly the same as Judeao-Christian mythology, but it does retain a big pile of the trappings, and the standard outer planes cosmology bears the fingerprints pretty clearly. Most of the devils (and some of the demons) are drawn directly from Milton. The structure of the various planes bears the markings of that mythology. In many ways, the trappings don't really fit very well once the underlying mythology is removed, which is why many elements of the outer planes seem incongruous, but those elements remain.

 

[Celebrim]

I don't think D&D mythology is based on anything resembling Judeo/Christion mythology.

I think I more or less said that. If I wasn't clear, I wasn't trying to claim that the D&D cosmology resembled the Judeo-Christian cosmology no matter how many parallels we can find between 1st edition clerical spells and Biblical miracles. What I was trying to do was show ultimately why 'risen fiends' are rarer than 'fallen angels', because while the D&D cosmology in no way resembles much anything but itself, it has borrowed heavily from many sources. In the source material that D&D is borrowing from, 'fallen angels' are more common than 'risen fiends' because 'risen fiends' don't exist. Hense, its hardly surprising that they've only been adopted in D&D cosmology at a relatively late point.

Whether its good for the game to have 'risen fiends' is a totally different question. My general feeling is that the farther away from the audiences mythic understanding of the concept that you get, the better off you are using a fresh and invented name for your concept. Otherwise, you get problems of misleading expectations. If it doesn't borrow from one of the mythic traditions we can call 'faerie', don't call it a faerie.

I think this was done intentionally because it is better for gaming.

I think there is a good deal of truth in that. Its probably also on sounder ground theologically if it doesn't pretend to model reality with any degree of closeness, so you are less likely to offend religious players.

In D&D, angels can fall and be redeemed, and demons can turn over a new leaf and then be eaten by fellow demons. The D&D multiverse, as described in the DMG, is not one ruled by a monotheistic being who was betrayed by some angels an unimaginably long time ago.

No, but in most attempts at filling in the details of the cosmology there is almost always wars in heaven and a division of the celestial race into fallen and unfallen. The thing is, attempting to explain the D&D cosmology in any sort of comprehensive and coherent way is actually pretty rare. No two descriptions are likely to be anything alike, and thus we would almost always fail when reaching for generalities. Some explanations will have a distant 'overgod' creator. Some won't. Some will have demons that were always demons, and some will have a mythic fall. I'm not convinced if we can make assumptions about what most campaigns assume about the origins of fiends, because I doubt it comes up in most campaigns.

 

[Gez]

As for A'kin being risen? He's always smiling. That must mean he's good. Really, trust him. The canonical A'kin at least is evil, evil with a smile. One of the designers of the Planescape line, I believe it was Ray Vallese came right out and said at one point something to the effect of "A'kin is so very evil, don't fool yourself."

As far as D&D goes, I tend to use mostly the "action defines alignment" rule, so unless A'kin spends all his night raping baby poodles to make up for his public kindness, he'd end up finding himself not evil anymore.

Now, actions may be good in appearance but actually evil, true. But there must be quite a backstory behind it, then; one that at the end of the campaign (or sooner, as appropriate) is revealed, otherwise it's frustrating for the players.