New Dragon Article: Ecology of the Fire Archon

[Cthulhudrew]

Honestly, whats going on with this garbage? I was fine with not creating things (except possibly field fortifications). Embodiment of the destructive aspects of fire, but not stupid. Interesting stuff, created for war and all that jazz. Except, for some reason, they do create things, even though they don't. In fact, they're really, really good at it. Sloppy.

That cracks me up (I glossed over that part, too, until you pointed it out.) Especially in light of their justification for creating the "new" archons:

The elementals of 3rd Edition have no needs, no clear desires or motivations, and no culture, yet they attain human Intelligence, speak, and can manipulate objects. They exist in limitless numbers on the elemental planes, but they build nothing and make no lasting impression upon the game.

So- we don't like elementals because they're ubiquitous and of human intellect, but don't build or do anything, and only hit things.

Let's replace them, then, with elementals that don't build anything, exist only to hit things, but do so in cool new ways.

Rather than- well, let's explore what these old elementals are, and do some interesting new things with them to explain these issues we had with them before.

Hm.

 

[kennew142]

At first I was really quite thrilled with the concept-- elemental Angels. This goes back to mythology, and I am always alright with the game making changes to become more in tune with real mythology. (E.g. if they said Gorgons were no longer metalic bulls, and were instead a race from which medusa was but a single member, I'd be totally ok with that).

I guess I've never understood the connection between archon and good. It always felt to me like they had grabbed a word and defined it for D&D purposes. I am not sorry to see that connection severed.

 

[Imban]

Meh. IMO, Planescape and the Great Wheel are both severely overrated. As a matter of fact, I never liked them, and I'm happy to see them bite the dust.

Current archons have precious little "traction," to borrow a term from the designers. With three "good" alignments, you need generic angels ("angels"), lawful good angel-types ("archons"), neutral good angel-types ("guardinals"), and chaotic good angel-types ("eladrin"). If you do away with the alignment system and the Great Wheel, you can cover your generic "good outsider" by just grouping them all under "angels."

From the flavor that's been revealed so far, Eladrin are now fey, Guardinials no longer exist, Archons are all evil elemental ex-footsoldiers of the Primordials, and Angels are now divine servitors - and divine, I will note, is far from limited to good. I think 4e has moved to generally eliminate all monolithic good groups in the cosmology, actually - while Bahamut certainly has Good Angels under his command, I see Bane commanding Angels himself, as well.

 

[kennew142]

I have to agree that it's a very poor choice of nomenclature, IMO. Not only are these things not what are remotely traditionally associated with Archons (in D&D terms), but they don't even really connect with the etymology of the RW term "archon" in any fashion. They're more like... Fiery Spartans, or something.

In earlier editions, we often had things like lamia nobles, salamander nobles, etc.... Archon serves the same purpose, but with a cooler ( ) sound to it.

In metaphysics, archons are powerful servants of the demiurge, but they aren't necessarily good or evil. I don't know if the designers were thinking along these lines, but the name seems fine to me.

 

[Rechan]

Some might argue that angels were never truly indicative of good, since they spent time engaging in widescale genocidal activities (destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah), murdering innocent children because of the actions of the king (slaying of the firstborn of Egypt), and turning a woman who cared about the fate of those she left behind into a pillar of salt (Lot's wife). Now, some will argue that these were good acts because they were God's will, but there are plenty of others that would argue otherwise.

This.

Angels are instruments of God's Will.

I especially expect that the God of War ain't going to have happy angels.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I guess I've never understood the connection between archon and good. It always felt to me like they had grabbed a word and defined it for D&D purposes. I am not sorry to see that connection severed.

Archons come from various Greek schools of thoughts, probably one of the first conception of Angels. In Gnosticism they were creations of the Demiurge (aka God/Satan) and weren't really a good thing, but other schools of thought like Platonism they are the servants of The Gods/God.

 

[Imban]

In earlier editions, we often had things like lamia nobles, salamander nobles, etc.... Archon serves the same purpose, but with a cooler ( ) sound to it.

In metaphysics, archons are powerful servants of the demiurge, but they aren't necessarily good or evil. I don't know if the designers were thinking along these lines, but the name seems fine to me.

Well, the thing is... these aren't powerful or regal anything. They're zerglings. That's a bit weird if you're trying to draw on the meaning of the word "archon".

 

[Khairn]

I enjoyed the article and liked the concept. Praise for the designers & 4E that I admit has been rare from me.

But the need to build the justification for the changes on the bodies of earlier editions is still a pet-peeve. I agree with John Snow above when he says

I wish Planescape fans would stop trying to insist their setting flavor is the be-all and end-all of D&D.

I'm not saying that I dont like the Great Wheel or Planescape, as I very much do. But I agree that no setting flavor is the "be-all and end-all of D&D". As gamers , we each create the worlds we want to play in, and no vision is the sole way it has to be.

That is why comments such as these from the article ...

Yet such inventions, were a band-aid on a scar over thirty years old

that refer to the vision of earlier D&D as a poorly healed wound ... tick me off. If WotC wants to sell me on 4E, great, I'm all ears & eyes. But each time they do so by saying they are fixing something that has been broken or scarred for many years, they try to raise themselves up, by casting the earlier editions, and those gamers who enjoy playing them, down.

 

[The Little Raven]

Well, the thing is... these aren't powerful or regal anything. They're zerglings. That's a bit weird if you're trying to draw on the meaning of the word "archon".

"Archon" doesn't imply regal. That's assigning something to it that doesn't exist in real world mythology. It implies "servant of the Creator." And the Creator needs things like destruction and dissolution. Just like Satan was a servant of God, as demonstrated when him and God sit down and have a chat in the Book of Job... even though God is supposed to be good, and Satan is supposed to be evil.

 

[JohnSnow]

From the flavor that's been revealed so far, Eladrin are now fey, Guardinials no longer exist, Archons are all evil elemental ex-footsoldiers of the Primordials, and Angels are now divine servitors - and divine, I will note, is far from limited to good. I think 4e has moved to generally eliminate all monolithic good groups in the cosmology, actually - while Bahamut certainly has Good Angels under his command, I see Bane commanding Angels himself, as well.

That's....a really good point.

So, angels are the direct servants of the gods. Devils are fallen angels who killed their god and were exiled from the heavens and locked away. Demons are a corrupted part of the elemental chaos.

And all other "outsiders" are more complex. Fire archons are apparently (one of many groups of?) leftover foot soldiers of the primordials.

Maybe I'm weird, but I look forward to seeing the whole setup. It sounds intriguing.