What edition first had half-celestials?

[Sword of Spirit]

I mean actual first generation children of a celestial and a mortal parent.

3e presented half-celestials, and then aasimar were descended from them.* What I need to know is what edition (and preferably what product) first presented the concept of half-celestials.


* The funny thing is that 3e seemed to imply that aasimar and tieflings were a few generations removed from their half-celestial or half-fiendish parents--which is kind of hard to make sense of. What exactly did you have between half-____ and their planetouched descendents? Did they stay "half" for several generations?

 

[Celebrim]

I can answer the question on the half-fiend template, which was descended conceptually from the Cambion and Alu-Demons of 1e AD&D (Monster Manual II, though possibly they appeared in the 'creature feature' articles in Dragon before the release of the MM2).

My guess is that the half-celestial template was introduced in 3e by way of symmetry with the half-fiend template. I can't recall a monster that was a half-celestial in the 1e/2e era. Celestials have always had notably less press than fiends. If there was such a monster, it was probably introduced by Planescape. Aasimar for example I know are Planescape in origin, and I believe in the original box set.