New Dragon Article: Ecology of the Fire Archon

[Banshee16]

My understanding was that the archons were never angelic furries. They were a D&D take on the animal-aspected angels depicted in writings and art during the medieval period.

So by keeping the name, but getting rid of the creatures, it's yet another instance of "out with the old, in with the new, even if the new has no inherent value".

I guess I'll have to see how these elemental beings work, and what they're like. Are they any good, or are they yet another take on "outsider wolf crossed with water elemental", "outsider wolf crossed with fire elemental", etc.....the type of "balanced yet boring" design that seemed increasingly prevalent towards the end of 3E.

Banshee

 

[I'm A Banana]

I am all for having "unalligned" as an option-- but not for ANGELS!

In 4e, "Archon" has absolutely nothing to do with "good outsider." Instead, it means "artificially created elemental-humanoid lifeform." These aren't elemental angels (which, I agree, would be pretty freakin' awesome). They're just elemental-people-golem-warforged guys. They're still pretty cool, but they're not angels.

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."

You can buy into the idea that Archons are Warriors from the Mountain of Heaven and Slayers of Demons without having to buy into the Great Wheel, Planescape, or any of that. Like how demons and devils are different variations on fiends (one is a rapacious destroyer, one is a subtle manipulator), perhaps Archons and, say, Devas are different variations on Angels (one is a warrior-caste of aggressive angels, the other is more of the "watcher and protector" type).

You don't need any kind of generic or alignment-based angels to keep Archons as Warriors from the Mountain of Heaven.

Both Archons and Guardinals partially involve the concept of "furry warriors for good." I don't think all the animal headed spirits are evocative of the Egyptian deities except by way of being "animal-headed." So it doesn't work for me in the slightest. Yes, there's more to archons than that, but some of the concepts are pretty absurd. Critters with swords for arms? Little glowing balls of light?

Ever read the Bible? Tongues of flame, halos of light, wheels of fire, creatures with swords coming out of their mouths, four-headed chimerae? This is some of the inspiration for the Archons (the Egyptian deities also figured into it, I'm sure).

Guardinals are pretty solidly animistic avatars of good, but Archons have a much stronger tradition of mythic excellence in the various Judeo-Arabic-Christian angelologies. This could have been expanded on, honed tighter, and made more clear, just like the idea of "devils are the corruptors" are being made more clear.

By comparison, this new creature they're calling a "Fire Archon" seems to have a solid concept and is visually appealing. It's only vaguely related to the previous version, and I can see how the alignment change might bother some. On the other hand, how many different categories of "good outsider" do we really need?

Alignment change? No, these are pretty much creatures that have nothing whatsoever to do with any earlier edition's versions of "Archons." Wizards is just guilty (not for the first time) of being boneheaded about name selection. Instead of giving them evocative new names, they had to go and use something with a history already because they couldn't think of anything better. That's kind of sad, but then I'm repeatedly getting the impression that names are just not what this 4e team is good at.

Just goes to show that different people have different tastes. To me, those names don't sound "seriously awesome" in the slightest. Most of them sound like good names for second or third rate monsters. By contrast, this looks like a first rate monster, so it should have a first rate name. And archon fits the bill just fine.

Not especially, if you follow the trail of the word. It means "ruler" in Greek, and was later adopted in certain forms of Judeo-Christian-Arabic angelology with awkward angel titles like "Heirarchies" and "Principalities." At the very least, the "Fire Archon" should probably be the Level 30 Terrasque of the Fire Elemental Monsters, but if the 3e stats are anything to go by, they're low-mid level threats at best.

It *sounds* cool, sure, but it doesn't really mesh entirely with "low-level armored fire people." You could make it, but when it already has a strong association with an existing, much-beloved group, why would you want to bother? Either don't use it at all, or make that group worthy of the name (like they made Devils more worthy of the title).

How do you pronounce "Chvarog?" I think it's a little absurd to constantly include unpronounceable monsters in the game. Ixitxachitl, anyone?

Let's stick to names that are easily pronounceable in English, please.

Unpronounceable? Like the Ixitxachitl? I oughtta slap you silly for such an absurd hyperbole. If you're more interested in conversation, come on down to the level of rational discussion, and tell me, briefly, how you would pronounce that word?

Betcha there's a better than 1-in-20 chance you'll get it close enough to right to not matter.

"Archon" is almost as hard to pronounce in English as "Chvarog" is (that's ARK-on, for those asking).

I wish Planescape fans would stop trying to insist their setting flavor is the be-all and end-all of D&D. Archon is a cool name that may have joined the game as part of Planescape, but it has now been repurposed. And that's fine. Or do you want everything that's imported into Core D&D from elsewhere to remain true to that source?

'Cuz I rarely hear people saying treants should go back to Tolkien's version.

Did I mention PS anywhere?

No, my argument has a lot more to do with the fact that Wizards just quite frequently blows at coming up with names, and that the old concept of Archons was not so goofy as to be un-salvagable if they applied the same logic to this as they did to the rest of the monsters.

Obviously, they didn't think it worth their time or effort.

Obviously, they need every cool name they can get.

Obviously, this leads to descisions that are kind of dunderheaded in my opinion, including "Archons are now artificially created elemental people" and "Dryads are now mini-treants."

I would not, necessarily, make the same arguments for the guardinals, or the eladrin, or the Great Wheel, or Sigil, or anything else having to do with the old editions' cosmology.

So don't mischaracterize my argument.

 

[frankthedm]

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.

Old testement angels were executors of YHWH's will. They got the job done.

And archons aren't all angels, y'know. They were servants of the Demiurge, and took on the role of both angels and demons. Being unaligned beings makes more sense.

That is the Gnostic's use of the term.

 

[The Little Raven]

Just wanted to point out: the "furry angel" concept is one tied to the Cherubim, who are believed to be derived from the Sumerian shedu or the Phoenician lammasu. In Judaic and early Christian art, Cherubim are depicted as animal beings, often drawing on the lion, ox, and eagle specifically (mentioned in the book of Ezekiel) in additional to human features.

 

[The Little Raven]

Old testement angels were executors of YHWH's will. They got the job done.

Doesn't make them good.

That is the Gnostic's use of the term.

Which is where D&D picked it up from. The only other uses of the word archon are for temporal authorities, which is a far cry from the use Gygax put them to (which is more in line with their Gnostic origins, despite the shoehorning into the alignment system).

 

[kennew142]

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.

I don't have gods in my campaign at all. At least they never appear and never intervene. While celestials, infernals and elementals exist, they have no more clue as to the nature of the divine than do any of the characters, although they may claim that they do.

I like the concept of the forge, but as a place rather than a device. Elementals that are drawn into the forge emerge transformed into archons. Devils, efreet and celestials prowl the region of the elemental chaos surrounding the forge, seeking to recruit the elemental archons for their own purposes.

I understand what you are saying about the writing style. I cringe whenever any designer tries to construct realistic dialogue. I still remember one "hypothetical discussion" between players. One of the players said his fighter was "going sword and board, man." The editor in me became nauseous. I overuse the word cool myself, but only in speaking.

I think the authors of these previews are trying too hard to sound conversational (and failing miserably). I have learned to overlook this middle-school style to get to the ideas behind the trite and puerile wording. That's what I like.

 

[Rechan]

So by keeping the name, but getting rid of the creatures, it's yet another instance of "out with the old, in with the new, even if the new has no inherent value".

Emphasis mine.

No inherent value says who?

That also implies that the Old had inherent value.

 

[JohnSnow]

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.

To be fair, I admit that calling it a "30 year old scar" is fairly said to be a bit of writer hyperbole. But I understand the point they're trying to make, and it's a good one.

However, I think you may have misread the point of that line. The "scar" referred to has nothing to do with archons and everything to do with elementals that:

"exist as neat creatures to summon or put in a dungeon and nothing more."

That's pretty much the point of elementals as conceived 30 years ago. Nobody ever worried about "what they did in their home plane" or how to reconcile "intelligent beings" with "instinctual elemental." If you're going to send people to the elemental planes, you should know how the base elementals behave there. Which D&D has NEVER addressed.

Similarly, the designers are correct when they say their mechanics are "either boring or complex. Most of them simply walk up to a PC and hit the character with a fist...The flip side of this includes mechanics such as the air elemental's whirlwind. Any mechanic that makes a person look up weather conditions in the Dungeon Master's Guide is just begging to be "forgotten" by the DM."

That's the "scar" they're referring to: elementals that don't really feel "elemental" and have mechanics that are either boring or too complex to use in play. Personally, I'd like to see the default elementals be basically "elemental beasts" of roughly animal intelligence (like the "furies" in Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series). More intelligent elementals should have a culture and function in their home plane.

To me, that would definitely be an improvement.

 

[Banshee16]

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'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 ...
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.

That's one of the major problems I'm having with 4E. It just makes the whole thing too much of a sales pitch, because frankly, I think that in many ways, the settings that came out in 3E (at least as produced by WotC) didn't hold a candle to some of those that came out in 2nd Ed. (IMO). I *liked*, those "flawed", "scarred" settings. I *liked* Dark Sun, Birthright, Planescape, and Al-Qadim. All four of those were really nice settings, IMO. Eberron's neat and all, but...

I *do* think that 3E FR was superior to 2nd Ed. FR, as it addressed many of the complaints I had about FR in 2nd. Ed.

Some of the statements coming out seem to say that the things I *like* are flawed. If they were flawed, then either one of two things will happen....they make them better, and I like the new product, or their idea of a fix is to turn it into something I don't like.

I don't know why they have to change the meaning of some of this stuff....like Eladrin. Admittedly, the new flavour seems cool. But I liked the "old" eladrin. I liked the Veil. I liked their ties to Arvandor/Olympus etc. But the new eladrin are really just rebranded Faerie-folk. And if that's the case, why do we have to call them Eladrin? It's a made-up name that was tied to a Celestial outer planar race....when really, the new Eladrin, as mentioned, are Faerie-Folk......but not the little sprites and brownies of typical D&D but the beatiful, inhuman, and sometimes terrifying creatures of Otherness.

Why not just call a spade a spade? I'd be happy if they just called them "Sidhe". Done. Easy.

In 3E, the game was built, with completely new rules that did allow us to use those rules to run older settings. I finished my Planescape campaign using 3E rules. With 4E, you basically have to throw out everything that came before because they're changing everything.

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

Emphasis mine.

No inherent value says who?

That also implies that the Old had inherent value.

It had 800 years of it.

The new meanings have....oh.....24 hours now of history now?

Same thing with dryads, which have always (with the exception of WoW) been nymph-like creatures associated with trees.....for like 2400 years. Now it sounds like they're a cross between a treant and a shambling mound, that can turn into a woman.

If you ask most people who read fantasy what a dryad is, they're going to have certain opinions of what to expect.....and most people won't tell you that they're expecting an intelligent female shambling mound/treant hybrid.

Banshee