New Dragon Article: Ecology of the Fire Archon

[TwinBahamut]

Am I the only who hears "Archon" and thinks "Glowing ball of light that shoots lightning, and is formed by merging two templar together?"

Or should I take this to the "I like video games in my D&D" thread?

I was wondering when someone would mention that!

I guess I will try to sum up some of the facts of this issue, since there seems to be confusion:

1) What seems to be universally agreed upon is that the distinction between Angels and Archons in previous editions was nearly nonexistent. This is something that needs to be fixed.

2) While it is less agreed upon, a lot of people don't like the use of the word "Archon" as it seems to be used n 4E.

3) While some don't seem to realize it, saying that Archons have to be either identical to the old Archons or like the new Fire Archons is a false dilemma.

I would prefer Archons to remain as celestials, but be further differentiated from the Angels and made into something more unique and interesting, just as how Devils and Demons were made different. Maybe leave angels as the human-like, benevolent servants of the gods, and make Archons more alien and unknowable. Making them the servants of the Primordials is a good idea, but make them powerful celestials, not grunt elementals. I want Archons to be a mix of the most bizarre and alien versions of angels from mythology (the kind with many arms, blazing wheels, wings covered with eyes that shot beams of flame and fatigue) combined with the Angels from the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion and the wierd angel-demon things from the videogame Shadow Hearts. They should be the divine paragons of alien ideals, almost lovecraftian in design (but not quite), who champion the causes of primordial gods who care little for the needs and desires of mortals.

A Fire Archon should be a mass of wings sticking out at odd angles, covered in blazing eyes. Its core should be hidden in a mass of fabric covered in arcane words, bound by red-hot chains left from the days of the war between gods. It should sing a song that hopes for the death of the world in flame, and all who gaze into its thousand eyes will be burned to ash.

I think that would be much more appropriate and interesting than some mass-produced flame elemental soldier that is vaguely allied with the Efreet.

 

[Relique du Madde]

You know...

Why is it necessary to name these broad categories at all? I mean, besides "we've always done it that way."

Why do we need more granular terms for the general category of 'divine servant beings' than just "angels" or even "divine servants"?

People keep forgetting "angels" is a broad category of being which can be subdivided into Seraph, Cherub, Ophan, Throne, Dominion, Principal, Powers, Archangels and then into Malakh (the general everyday angel we think of). Generally speaking, I think only the that Malakhim should not have any preconceived role but instead have a striker (avenging), controller (???), leader (messenger?), and defender (guardian) variants while the other chior of angels (ie archangel and charabim) would have a preset uniform role.

Wierd thing is that most of the chiors of angels seem to be controllers, although I do think you can work them so that two types of angels could fall into each combat role assuming that the Malakhim are wild cards and have no universal role.

 

[Banshee16]

Rechan, what do you think is common and popular fantasy?

I'm curious too. I read Narnia when I was 8, and knew of other references to Dryads etc. My parents used to have set of encyclopedias called "Richard's Topical Encyclopedia's", and I remember devouring the entire Green mythology section, among others, when I was about 10.

Then there was Magic Kingdom for sale, Xanth, and a myriad of other series. They all had references, and some of this stuff was written back in the 70's and early 80's.

Everyone was reading that stuff back in the day. Piers Anthony was hugely popular, though I don't see nearly as much of his stuff now.

Banshee

 

[Dormammu]

Gygax wasn't a worldbuilder.

...

There's nothing wrong with that approach, but let's be clear about what he was doing. Gary was providing a "framework" for fantasy roleplaying. That's all. He was most emphatically not providing a ready-to-play game.

OK, whichever word you want to pick. The result is the same. His system mechanics were lousy (and while we could give him a pass for the era he wrote them in, he lost that benefit of the doubt with Lejendary Adventures or whatever it was called). But his choices for what things to include, whether they be tools for a toolkit or a world of some kind, were vastly superior. And that's because he was taking mythic stuff rather than making things up from wholecloth (mostly). The latter is very hard to do. If it were easy, a lot of people would be making money as fantasy novelists, because it's certainly a more fun job than working at the Gap.

 

[Bishmon]

I didn't like the old archons.

I don't think I like the new archons.

Meh.

 

[I'm A Banana]

If the elementals we were kicking to the curb with 4e were gnomes, undines, salamanders, and sylphs, then I might be a little sadder, but they're not - they're far less interesting than any of those things.

And just to again assert that it's not about sacred cows, I'm totally on board with this statement. I've never been a huge fan of "it's a tongue of flame!" "it's a wave with eyes!" "it's a vague mound of earth!" style D&D elementals. They're too simplistic. They get the job done for summoners (who need simplistic things), but as adversaries themselves, they have little deapth. If you ramp up the action by just throwing huge ones at the party, then they're little different from other thuggish-type monsters.

If 4e makes the elementals more magical constructs and/or massive forces of nature, I'll be quite a bit happier with them.

I would prefer Archons to remain as celestials, but be further differentiated from the Angels and made into something more unique and interesting, just as how Devils and Demons were made different. Maybe leave angels as the human-like, benevolent servants of the gods, and make Archons more alien and unknowable. Making them the servants of the Primordials is a good idea, but make them powerful celestials, not grunt elementals. I want Archons to be a mix of the most bizarre and alien versions of angels from mythology (the kind with many arms, blazing wheels, wings covered with eyes that shot beams of flame and fatigue) combined with the Angels from the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion and the wierd angel-demon things from the videogame Shadow Hearts. They should be the divine paragons of alien ideals, almost lovecraftian in design (but not quite), who champion the causes of primordial gods who care little for the needs and desires of mortals.

A Fire Archon should be a mass of wings sticking out at odd angles, covered in blazing eyes. Its core should be hidden in a mass of fabric covered in arcane words, bound by red-hot chains left from the days of the war between gods. It should sing a song that hopes for the death of the world in flame, and all who gaze into its thousand eyes will be burned to ash.

I think that would be much more appropriate and interesting than some mass-produced flame elemental soldier that is vaguely allied with the Efreet.

I would also love this with every part of my body, and twice on Sundays.

 

[JohnSnow]

I would prefer Archons to remain as celestials, but be further differentiated from the Angels and made into something more unique and interesting, just as how Devils and Demons were made different. Maybe leave angels as the human-like, benevolent servants of the gods, and make Archons more alien and unknowable. Making them the servants of the Primordials is a good idea, but make them powerful celestials, not grunt elementals. I want Archons to be a mix of the most bizarre and alien versions of angels from mythology (the kind with many arms, blazing wheels, wings covered with eyes that shot beams of flame and fatigue) combined with the Angels from the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion and the wierd angel-demon things from the videogame Shadow Hearts. They should be the divine paragons of alien ideals, almost lovecraftian in design (but not quite), who champion the causes of primordial gods who care little for the needs and desires of mortals.

Okay, that's a bit wordy, but I think you finally (kind of) attempted to answer the question I've been asking for four pages, which is "what is it about archons that people find distinctive?"

So, if I hear you correctly, "archon" for some reason that I (and most others) don't comprehend, is tied in with the notion of "champions of primordial gods." That sounds rather particular to gnostic beliefs, but whatever.

So essentially, if Cthulu were a god in D&D, his servants would be archons? Is that an accurate assessment? 'Cuz I fail to see how that's in any way related to any previous versions in D&D. So clearly, completely reimagining them is fine. You just don't agree with the way WotC did it. Would that be accurate?

So people who agree with this disagree with the notion that an outsider in service to a primordial god is not a "celestial?" Or is it the "creation forge" aspect? Or what?

What "alignment" are gods "who care little for the needs and desires of mortals?" Do they even live on celestial realms? And if they do, how are they different from every other god? In your conception, where do the "primordial gods" live? I think WotC designers decided to locate them in the elemental chaos...which makes archons outsiders that were in the service of primordial gods - but no longer are.

I guess I'm still not seeing the distinction.

 

[Scribble]

Depends on how close you want to take the gnostic association. If the "archons" were general servants of gods (which I'd have no major problem with), you could take that to mean that these gods are really false pretenders. This ties in with 4e's philosophy on gods being killable at epic level: the gods are just very powerful beings, not true personifications of forces.

They weren't either. They were servants of the demiurge. A god, but not really the right god... Because he keeps tryin (possibly through no real ill will towards us) to keep a man down.

If the "archons" were general enemies of the gods, they would have to work for a pretender. But they don't do that, either. They work for themselves.

Which again is why I say they took the story a step further. The primordial (demiurge) lost. Now his forces are scattered into different uses.

So good riddance. What about the archon with scrolls for wings, or the archon that wielded a grand trumpet or the archon who judged the guilty and the innocent, or the ones that resembled balls of light straight out of biblical reference? The old archons were mostly a race that resembled semi-biblical angels, and the parallels between them and the devils of the Nine Hells seems intentionally drawn. With the story of the devils being officially "fallen angels" now, those archons are needed now more than ever.

When I say "Dog Headed" I'm referring to all of the Archons. Dog Headed is just easier to say.

This new thing is cool, but it doesn't need to take an inappropriate name to be cool. Halflings are cool and their name sucks in every edition that they weren't called Hobbits in.

I don't believe it's inappropriate. I believe it's more appropriate.

Created by the antithesis of the D&D gods? Really? Because I got the impression that they were created in magical forges by anyone who wanted to.

"In an ancient time, when the world had hardly been formed, primordial beings battled the gods for control of creation. In this cataclysmic conflict, the deific host marshaled armies of angels and cadres of exarchs, and though the primordials could call forth titanic beasts and their giant children, they could not muster a true military to face their enemies. To match their foes, the consummate creators gave being to a means by which elemental creatures could be recreated -- reshaped and hammered into soldiers. The warriors formed through this process were the first archons.

They were formed to fight the gods. And again, now a long time later the primordial lost. Its forces are scattered, and the means by which it used to create its forces is known, and used by people in a world full of people who can actually do magic stuff.

As far as the Primordials bit goes...maybe...but they're not celestial beings, servants, or messengers of the Primordials. They are free-willed, autonomous, and associated with their own actions, not the actions of their creators. They're not from a higher plane or invested with more divine energy. They're on fire....but I'd imagine water archons would be damp and earth archons will be dusty, so it's not really sounding like they're celestial beings at all. Elemental beings.

When I said celestial I meant in the non D&D sense. As in beings that are from another plane of existence. Perhaps I should have been more clear.

Unless the Primordials are strongly associated with the elements (which is entirely possible, and would be pretty cool), I'd say the association is pretty weak. Still, it could be made stronger....Possibly something I can buy. Possibly they considered what the word meant. Still a little potentially weak, put possibly not as boneheaded as I assumed based on the reasons given in the article.

I get the feeling that's exactly what the primordials are... Associated with the prime elements that make up the universe.

And there's still the niggling detail of "what do you call your good celestial armada?" then. "Angels" would be fine, but then what are your god-servants, if they have a generic name, to be called? A bit of a snowball effect.

I'd say depends on the god? Why have a generic catch all?

 

[The Ubbergeek]

the whole thing remind me vaguely of the islamic theology.... and I like it.

 

[TwoSix]

Okay, that's a bit wordy, but I think you finally (kind of) attempted to answer the question I've been asking for four pages, which is "what is it about archons that people find distinctive?"

Archons should have a much higher CR (or level, in 4e terms) than a generic flame soldier will. High level = high specialness.