New Dragon Article: Ecology of the Fire Archon

[FadedC]

So apparently they like making arms and armor but not building towns and cities. Seems perfectly in flavor for them. Maybe worthy of a mild editing change but certainly not worth wringing your hands over. There will always be things to nitpick.

I never liked the bizarre animal headed angels myself. I don't mind gods with animal features, but that should be specific to the god and the culture and not built into every divine servent of every good god. It just seemed like the incarnation of rigtheous fury should be more awe inspiring and look less like a furry.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Sigh. I like the idea of 4e. D&D is in crying need of a new edition, as the accumulated problems of a metric ton of useless splatbooks, and there is a lot of fundamentally broken stuff just in the core books. I even like most of the 4e mechanics I've seen so far. But every time the developers open their mouths, they irritate me. They come across as bipolar children on a sugar high- everything is either awesomely cool or utterly emo, and they seem completely incapable of communicating what they're doing and why.

If they'd stop with the marketing blather and just publish mechanics, I'd be a lot happier.

Beat me to it. I want to like 4e, I know it's time for a new edition and it's important to the future of the game that the next edition remains popular.

But every time the designers spew out their fluff text it makes me nauseous to see how they've mangled it.

 

[kennew142]

Well these are pretty cool, but I'm not calling them Archons. They'll probably be servants of Imix the Archomental or the Efreet or maybe both in my 4e Planescape campaign.

I will keep the name archon. My new 4e campaign has a Hellenistic feel to it. Archon is a title for noble or ruler, so it fits very well.

All in all 4e's treatment of the Elemental Planes has me a bit intrigued, like the fact that they will supposedly be more accessible and useful for play though I will keep the structure of the Greet Wheel's elemental planes rather than the Elemental Chaos, though some ideas from that might be also integrated into Limbo.

I have to say that I have always disliked the Great Wheel. The new cosmology looks like it will be easier for designers and homebrewers to create a model that works within it.

 

[Rechan]

I knew the Guardinals were dead. James Wyatt said as much in the Monster Podcast.

Though the bit about the arcane forge might be a little too much magitech for some worlds, I generally enjoy the sprinkling of magitech, so it doesn't bug me much. They've got some potential.

I haven't read the specific article, but if it's just "A magic forge", I don't think that's necessarily magitech.

Try this on for size - a magical anvil that a God or some other Entity has. And this is where he creates living entities. He slaps a fiend and a human down on his anvil, and hits them with his Hammer of Making until they are fused together, and then purified into their final form.

I never liked the bizarre animal headed angels myself. I don't mind gods with animal features, but that should be specific to the god and the culture and not built into every divine servent of every good god. It just seemed like the incarnation of rigtheous fury should be more awe inspiring and look less like a furry.

I'm pretty sure that the Hound Archons had a reason for being dog-headed; weren't they hunters (i.e. bloodhounds), or protectors (i.e. watch dog)? Loyal and dependable?

Just saying that there might be some symbolic reason for the choice. But, I agree that animal-head = some sort of association. I'm pretty sure Anubis had a reason for being animal headed. Bast was fiercely protective, and actually a war goddess at one time, and thus a lioness - but after a time her depictions and venerations became less fierce, because domestic cats are more tender towards their offspring, she was seen as a more domesticated cat (according to Wiki).

 

[kennew142]

Once again, overuse of the word 'cool' and inherent contradictions built into the article.
....
Don't like the 'elementals weren't cool enough, partly because they were flaming or stony ogres (just punched things), and partly because we didn't inflict bad fluff on you. And clearly that needs to be fixed'. Aiieee.

I don't understand why the word cool bothers people. I use it myself - a lot. Maybe too much.

Personally, I found the flavor text to be just that - flavorful. I am looking forward to incorporating these creatures (more or less as written) in my next campaign.

There has been flavor text that I don't like - the over-reliance on intelligent design in R&C for example. I know people get tired of hearing it, but it is really easy to change. Very little of the 'flavor' text from 3e ever made it into one of my games. Luckily for me, the 4e flavor text is more appealing to me than that in 3e ever was.

 

[Voss]

So apparently they like making arms and armor but not building towns and cities. Seems perfectly in flavor for them. Maybe worthy of a mild editing change but certainly not worth wringing your hands over. There will always be things to nitpick.

Not really a nitpick. The author is directly contradicting himself. The social write up is all about war and conquest and destruction. Thats their theme. A pure force of destruction, not creation, artificially made for that purpose. If they really need something, they enslave someone else.

Then, he completely contradicts himself, and their suddenly really, really good at making things. To the point that they automagically make masterwork items.

This is just sloppy, both the writing and the proofing.


Kennew- the text for the archons themselves doesn't bother me too much. Primordials vs. the gods is a little trite, but at least its mythic. (the creature forge bothers me a bit, however). Its more the way they try to convey ideas. It falls flat, and frankly, it grates, since I'm not even sure that kids today even use that term anymore. The 'cool' thing is a product of the crappy writing style. It pops up 6 times in that article. Its time for a writing class and a complementary thesaurus.

 

[Sonny]

So if we needed a "why" for what Tharizdun did, perhaps trying to destroy the source or the archons' power was it. Perhaps Tharizdun wasn't such a bad dude before his corruption and he and the other gods were simply desperate for a win against the archon army. He was making an honest effort to beat the enemies of the gods, but he ended up making a terrible mistake and went insane or was otherwise corrupted by it. This is pleasingly dark to me ...

Ha! As soon as I read that, I thought the same thing. Oh that's why, he threw an evil and potentially devastating object into the Elemental Chaos! I do appreciate how the story team's work has been coming together so far. It's one of the unique aspects to this edition that I really look forward to learning about.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Well, FWIW I think there are going to be four types of archons - water, earth, air, and fire archons. But I don't mind them calling themselves different name (Chvarog is a pretty good one IMO).

Hahaha, I should do a poll like back in the Warlord days....

"Fire Archon or Chvarog?"

The fluff kinds of warrants them having a unifying base word for all the types of "living elementals," but that's the kind of thing that doesn't need to be "archon" at all, and could actually sound cooler if it wasn't.

I'm a fan of "Adama" or "Adamas" or "Adamae" for 'em. That's a biblical reference, and puts the creation of these creatures in a "playing god"/"frankenstein's monster" kind of light, which seems to be what the fluff is going for, since these are artificially created life-forms. You could also reference golem legend -- call them all "Yetzirah," or hyphenate it so that it ends in "emet." You could go rather generic, calling them "Elementalkin" or "Homunculi" or reference their origins calling them "Arcanasoul" or "Magecraft."

So maybe...

"Fire Archon or Adama Chvarog?"

Maybe that's a bit much, though...

"Fire Archon or Chvarog Arcanasoul?"

Hmm...kinda like that last one.

Don't like the 'elementals weren't cool enough, partly because they were flaming or stony ogres (just punched things), and partly because we didn't inflict bad fluff on you.' And clearly that needs to be fixed.

Well, they were kind of lame. I mean, they're human-intelligent creatures presumably of complex society who spend all their time....walking up to things and punching them after being summoned by wizards.

The Archoelementals started to give them some cool, but not much was ever done with those guys.

Elementals aren't being jettisoned entirely, just being given new buddies to pal around with. I'm sure the Azer will be cavorting with these guys, too. The fluff fits fine enough to give them a rationale to fight PC's (warlike and fire go together well). That's already one up on the Elementals of old.

 

[Voss]

I never actually thought of elementals as having a society. I always thought of it as wizards summoning embodiments or fragments of the basic elemental essence (embodied by the plane itself).

I just dislike the statement that they have to given some defined culture and purpose to deserve being in the game.

 

[Klaus]

Heh heh heh, "angelic furries".

Glad to see someone noticed, and good riddance.

You make baby Horus cry.

In Counter Collection 5: Summoned Creatures, I based the Hound Archon on the Egyptian breed known as the Pharaoh Hound. You can see them in this free sampler:

http://fierydragon.com/downloads/cc5_webenhancement.pdf