In a campaign I'm currently playing my warlock successfully prevented an innocent person being punished for a crime they didn't commit and had the real criminal successfully apprehended, an angel oversaw the trial and throughout they were reasonable and polite... But after the angel found them guilty... They left a glowing bloody crater in the criminals place...
One bit that's overlooked is that Angel's are supposed to not just be powerful but super intelligent. They know exactly how their choices will affect others. They are all Chessmasters by design with only God surpassing them. They wouldn't be Wrath incarnate unless the situation really is that dire.
very helpful. my party just gave Bahamut the Crown Of Neverwinter so they could get the current ruler off their backs, and not one member pondered what could possibly go wrong, so now they're definitely in for a situation.
Ever since I was a kid and I got into magic the gathering I've been sort of obsessed with angels. They're depictions of angels as lesser sort of deities are so specific and evocative. I've always wanted to do a campaign where the party is indebted to an angel who's moral compass begins to skew a bit more wrathful than merciful and where they have to ultimately decide whether they're doing the right thing.
I love that you use Goku as an example. I have a running theory that with super, the higher planar beings like Berus, Whis, and the grand supreme ki are mirrored with Vageta, Goku, and Gohan. All being trained in the ways of Destruction, angelic, and grand supreme powers. Vageta mirrors Berus for destruction, Goku mirrors Whis for angelic, and Gohan mirrors the grand supreme ki. All embodying different versions of divinity.
You know, I love this vision of good angels and what it means to be good. It's a very cool concept. It's also very far away from the calm and unshakeable demeanour that is attributed to angels in most classic depictions. Granted, so is their wrathful depiction. Cetainly, forgiveness was an important point to list, however. Angels should not stomp you into the floor or bodybag you like a cop. They should tell you what you're doing and why it offends their Deity. Letting you choose whether to stop doing it or keep going. And if they really can't abide by it, they will weep as they annihilate you. That is the angel I offer up in return for your concept of the angelic. They themselves experience dulled emotions, if any, but they know full well what all those around them are feeling, and they will extend an olive branch to them, an aid to help, but an aid that must be taken to work. They don't always fully understand mortal actions, even though mortal hearts are open to them, and so they might not be as upfront or obvious with their offers as they might mean to be, or perhaps they are just as open as they intent because you need to reach for it that far to really get to where you need to be to benefit from their guidance, but it's further away than you would like. Angels, in my mind, are alien. Not extraterrestrial, just with little to no attributes you would expect in mortal souls. But they are utterly well-meanin and do, in their coldness, show as much warmth to the world as they can possibly muster. They love. But not usually any thing in particular, rather, they love everything. They love the world. They love what it is to be alive. Even if they themselves aren't quite. They are not jealous of what others have that they cannot, they just want others to be well with what they do have. They are not frightful of anything, because they have seen everything before in some form or another - and because they trust their Deity has their best interest at heart, trusting that even if anything bad should ever befall them, it is for a reason. That is why they forgive. Because even if you were to kill one of them, they feel only your guilt over doing it. And they don't want you to feel guilt over something that they wholeheartedly accept. Because they would not have died to you, if their Deity did not know it was just. If it wasn't exactly what had to happen. Being an angel, in my eyes, is a very sad existence, because their whole purpose and disposition is coloured by a need to be there, always, for the creatures of their world, the will of their Deity, and never for themselves. They are truly selfless, in every sense of the word, they hardly even hold a concept of a self. And maybe that is just how they are. How they like to be. But from a mortal sight, you can't help but imagine their demeanour must hide some true sentiment, some motion or feeling, some resentment for their Deity or their station in life, some fear of what their life is going to amount to or what their Deity may demand. But there simply aren't any of these things. Their only joy is knowing others are in joy, their only catharsis the catharsis of another, their only wrath is the wrath that is enacted through them, they know none of their own. That is my concept of angels. And I don't think they represent virtue. Other than in the ancient Greek sense proposed by the stoics.
I think that people go for the basic "rigid enforcer of arbitrary standards" characterization because most people hate the idea of being found wanting. So instead of looking for something that might challenge them to think about themselves and others, they want a quick and easy, obviously wrong enemy they can smack down and feel superior to without any need for that messy self-reflection.
I am wrapping on a 3 year Sword Coast campaign and plan on Etharis being our next setting. I have just finished the Grim Hollow Campaign guide and it is phenominal! These videos have been great resources and provide additional inspiration! Thank you!
Super helpful that this is uploaded when it was. My Grim Hollow campaign is in its last handful of months left. Doing some fun stuff with 2 of the Arch Seraphs and having the Paladin need to make some very tough roleplay decisions. Thanks!
i actually want to suggest that rather than being the smite happy we often see that angels might take an approach similar to how the Christian Bible describes Jesus of Nazareth, accepting of "sinners" because they see themself as needing help while judgmental of the religious since they believe they are morally superior
Jesus' attitude was a bit more nuanced than that. Jesus didn't criticize the Pharisees because they believed in God, but because they were blatant hypocrites who twisted God's word to benefit themselves. Don't forget that Jesus did have a civil conversation with Nicodemus, a *Pharisee,* and told another "You are not far from the Kingdom of God." Jesus also has no issue with judging the wicked. After all, He did inform His Disciples that at the last day, He will condemn those who did not provide for "the least of these", and thus did nothing for Him. He also rebuked the five thousand He had fed with five loaves of bread and two fish for following after Him simply because they believed He would provide them with more food. Then there's His treatment of Demons, the most unholy beings in all of creation, to whom Jesus commands to be silent, depart from Him, and of course casts out of the people they possessed. Yes, there *is* room for compassion when it comes to how an Angel is portrayed, but they should *absolutely* be ready and willing to lay down the law when the situation calls for it, regardless of who or what stands to be judged.
Angel idea for Ravnica: one leaves the Boros Legion, ends up a century or so down the line with a human husband and a pair of kids (Aasimar in game terms, I suppose). Everyone thinks she's harmless, right up until some corruption has her children taken from her and placed in an orphanage (Patron guild irrelevant). She follows the rules to get them back, right up to the point that the instigator simply refuses to return them. Doesn't give a reason, just refuses, which would force a month of delays while leaving them free. Angel's legal council looks down at his papers for a split second, and when he looks up, there is a humanoid ash shadow on the wall behind where the instigator was standing. No noise, no heat flash, just gone. "I tire of this folly." Suddenly she and the other mothers of stolen children have their kids back. The Azorius hand down a slap on the wrist punishment, which is all they dare, which she complies with completely. And there the matter uneasily rests.
I mean...it depends on the god they serve and the kind of angel they are tho, right? Like an angel of vengeance for a spiteful god would absolutely have the "all are guilty, all will repent" sort of vibes. Also depends on monotheism or polytheism, I'd guess.
I have only put two angels in my games thus far and have had some amazing rp each time. They were both bound by unwaivering duty. The first, was placed as a defender of this underground city by his god as a favor to the necromancer the party was after. When the party tried to lie past the planetar, he merepy gave a quizical look. "Why do you lie?" And it turned into an impromptu character therapy session. The angel was bound to defend, but was solumn at the suffering that the refugees that made this town were undergoing. There was so much compassion. Yet he was bound to defend. When the players promised they meant no harm and meant it, he let them pass. The second was an angel of death summoned as a guardian by a badguy priest while he was in the giant's catacombs. To raise reinforcements for the army. They came across a weeping woman, who lamenting the grief, and loss of mortals. Yet when the party approaches she declares she can let non pass beyond, and asks the party what brings them to this place. Nit being forthcoming, they try and lie about it (this angel diesnt have divine awareness) so she asks if they seek absolution, which the warlock almost agreed to until the eldritch knight says "i think she just asked if you want her to kill you." "Oh, then no." When it became clear that they needed to get past her, boy was it a great fight. I used the ost for Sister Friede in Dark Souls 3 for the boss fight, and it was glorious.
I’ve always tended to take an alignment is a spectrum approach. For my planar beings, something about their alignment is getting turned up to 11, but not necessarily the whole thing. So my angels are all lawful good, but some are more LAWFUL good, some are more lawful GOOD, and some are fully LAWFUL GOOD. This feels more natural to me because mercy and justice can at times be mutually exclusive ideals. Where a celestial being falls on this basically boils down to which ideal do they prioritize when the two are mutually exclusive? This basically opens up either avenue for conflict with celestials. A morally grey party might force a lawful GOOD angel’s hand, leaving it with no choice but to oppose the party’s actions, and a good party of a merciful disposition might run afoul of a celestial who sees their acts of mercy as allowing evil to persist, and if they insist on doing things like protecting the person they’ve taken prisoner from summary judgement by the righteousness of the heavens, then they must be dealt with, preferably (usually anyway) non-lethally, as they themselves aren’t deserving of the full smite treatment, but if it comes down to kill the evildoer or spare the party, well, collateral damage. Also opens up the avenue for a celestial pact warlock of a benevolent disposition to run into conflict with their patron (and really, what warlock player *doesn’t* want conflict with their patron at some point?) If they made the mistake of assuming that just because a being is a celestial, they will be aligned in ideology, but they happened to bind to the super righteous smitey Angel as opposed to the peace, love, and happiness Angel.
Loved this video! Gave me a lot of inspiration and food for thought for a player of mine going through a Celestial transformation at the moment that's definitely a smite first ask questions later kind of cleric.
I have 6 godlike characters that are super important in my setting. One of them is a warlock of the great old ones. Like all of my other godlike characters, he is pretty kind, but, contrarly to them, his alignement is chaotic-neutral, so he don't really give in morality, he does what he think is the best. Because of that, celestials don't really like him, but he doesn't care at all and the worst part is that his patreon is really powerful and actually knows and cares about him, and because of that, no one, not even the celestials can actually kill him. And again, among all of my few godlike characters, he is the youngest
I do also like the "passive" celestials like Unicorn, Pegasus, and Couatl from the base Monster Manual. People often forget they exist thought I do believe that if your party is fighting or hunting a unicorn, you might be on the wrong side of morality and ethics hahah. And in that case, a flight of angels would be on your tail. And in MTG, many of the game's settings have various dangerous celestials: Ravinca has militant battle angels and cruel deathpact angels, Innistrad has 4-6 different flights of angels that are aligned with the phases of the moon (including one flight that consorts with demons), Kaldheim has Valkyrie as their angels. And many more across the different planes.
I have to admit, Goku as an angel is not at all what I expected, but I could really see that being a fun thing to do, right down to the halo above his head as he communicates with his allies from heaven via a Sending spell next to a deity. Interestingly though, I'd be keen to explore how a full celestial might respond to seeing a Downcast on the material plane.
The Angels are lawful first and good second. They have no problem with the devils, but will go absolutely ballistic over a demon. The other celestials are the ones that you describe. An angel will look down his nose at chaotic good celestials while respecting a devil’s loyalty to its superiors. I once played a Drow half-succubus that went to the prime to hunt down evil souls to consume before they ever got near the hells or the abyss. That was a particularly wild game because I was pissing off angels, devils and demons alike. The DM had to make a rule that neutral outsider halfbreeds could be infernal or celestial because of that character, meaning neutral outsiders could smite either good or evil, but not both. If it weren’t for the fact that the DM and all of the players were fans of Spawn, Constantine, Good Omens, Hellboy and In Nomine, that campaign would have been horribly short. After the second near-TPK the party was nothing but half-outsiders determined to keep every full outsider off the prime material. I can tell you one thing for certain from that campaign. When a half-celestial paladin smites evil, he REALLY smites evil. He hit like a ton of bricks when he walloped a pit fiend as I drained the life out of the wizard who summoned it.
Night turned to day at the end of my last campeign. Every PC was a vampire, yet they didn't burn. The BBEG had neatly succeeded in destroying every gameworld ever by killing yugrasil. PC destroyed the ritual barrier at the round before he succeeded. Villan Iis consumed in a pillar of white and gold flame. 200 foot avatar of death strikes. One of the PCs has become the everchosen of chaos and a lord of hell, they've had a horrendous mortal and vampirism life. They were offered a clean slate a chance at eternal happiness. PC said no the angel looked at him mournfully and made similar offers to other PCs.
My current campaign is a world on the brink. Angels are gathering the desperate, testing the masses first through a harsh pilgrimage, then through temptations of comforts and plenty. Those who pass are invested with celestial power as paladins and clerics. They are gathering the holy and devout into an army set for a final confrontation with the demonic forces of the abyss, with whom they are in constant tug of war with over the planet. They are, however, mostly concerned with a shard of ultimate evil hidden on the world. They are testing my players in two groups, to see who is worthy of taking charge of the shard, and taking it away, to another world if need be. For if the abyss can take the shard, it would empower it two fold.
I think this is slightly off base. The first question that has to be answered is what is the angel there to do? Angels and other direct servants of good gods are not here to hang out--they are sent with a mission, and are a direct manifestation of that god's will in the prime world. Is it to establish whether or not a god will destroy a city? Is it there to test a group of mortals or is it there to deliver a message? They are not at all like jedi---if anything they have a higher calling, and their concerns are not mortal ones. Even for Lawful Good deities---are they truly moved and motivated by human suffering? Or are mortals so short lived that it our suffering simply doesn't register most of the time? When you look at ancient pantheons---we range from play things to tools and anything in between. When you pause and really think about the divine will and concerns vs human will and concerns--it's night and day. Apollo was a god of healing and physicians, and he was also a god of plagues. What might be so important that Apollo would send an angel to accomplish? And what additional powers might Apollo imbue the angel with to accomplish this mission? That's what's missing in this video.
If you aren't particularly good spontaneous character history generation, and you want a unique angel for your campaign my tip to you to create an action is to create a character sheet for a lawful good, lawful neutral, or neutral good character, of hit dice equal to the angel you want it, using the stats of the angel as the base stats for the character. This will allow you to customize the angel, the apply the angel on top of it? this will help you define the roles and motivations for your angel, and give them more to their toolbox than being "High damage glass cannon"
I can imagine a few options for changing things up with angelic antagonists or NPCs. You could have a situation where angelic beings themselves are experiencing civil conflict. The pantheon they serve is divided on the issue of what is truly righteous, or their god or gods is dead, imprisoned or missing, and so they no longer share a unity of interpretation when it comes to what is good, and different factions have emerged that have differing attitudes on how to deal with the foibles and failings of humanity, some being all about the smiting and punishing, others more interested in the control and manipulation of mortals toward their notion of what is 'good', and maybe yet others wishing simply to abandon humanity to its fate and preserve angelic kind with an isolationist doctrine. Perhaps the various factions have a limited scope of action on the material plane, and so need mortal agents to advance the interests of their faction, agents like the Party. The tragedy and terror of such an angelic civil war is that all sides genuinely believe that what they are doing is right and good, and among all of them will be at least some angels with the absolute certainty that their cause is so righteous that it represents an absolute moral imperative whose pursuit allows them certain... leeway when it comes to 'lesser' moral concerns such as killing mortals, innocent or otherwise, that get in the way of their goals. The message here is that simply believing yourself to be good and morally justified in your actions is not necessarily any guarantee that you won't do harm to others nor that your actions will be universally seen as good by other people. There is no threat more monstrous than the fanatic who cannot conceive that their actions, however brutal, could actually ever be wrong. The party must decide how to navigate the situation -- which angelic faction to side with, if any. How to mitigate the carnage of a war between divine beings that is spilling over into the mortal world - that sort of thing. Another option is to go with the idea that a powerful angelic being like a Solar has been somehow bound to the will of mortal clerics and priests who seek to unleash its power to smite 'evil doers' (as the priests define that notion, possibly including people whose only 'crime' is not to share the cleric's exact creed, or who are considered somehow 'impure' in the priests' eyes due to something like their heritage or social station) with little concern for the innocents caught up in the ensuing conflagration. The clerics are so far gone in their belief that they are righteous that they are quite prepared to enslave an angelic being through profane magics to ensure that their notion of morality is imposed upon mortal kind by whatever means necessary. The Party might stumble across the aftermath of an attack by this 'destroying angel' and initially hunt down what they think is a powerful and dangerous fallen angel, only to discover the the angel is imprisoned, has been forced to kill in the name of the obsessions of mortal clerics, and now is fearful that it is being corrupted by such vile deeds and wishes only to be spared the continuation of such horror. Perhaps the torment of the angel is so abominable that it is corrupting the surrounding lands, spreading plagues of madness through the populous and causing people and animals to be warped into monstrous forms and the dead to rise due to the abomination of the cleric's crimes, side effects the Party has seen and fought first hand. Does the Party try to free the Solar, accepting that it might subsequently go insane and become a threat again in its own right? Or do they listen to its pleading and end its suffering permanently by the means its shares with them to free it from its torment (a means that may itself be morally ambiguous at best, since the creation or procurement of a weapon able to permanently kill an angelic being might require the Party to do very questionable things), but in the process unleash other unforeseen consequences and have to answer to the wrath of other angels who aren't so understanding as to why such a drastic course of action was necessary?
Suppose one thing to consider is free will? The idea of humanity in a lot of Christian teaching is we have free will where many other beings such as angels simply do not. So to an extent they embody what ever god wishes them to embody. So i think being unbending makes some sense but i agree they should be more signs of hope. Perhaps the best way to beat an angel is to ask their deity to intervene.
There's two short stories in the old Magic the Gathering novels. I forget which books, but I'm pretty sure they're in two of the following. Colors of Magic Secrets of Magic Myths of Magic Monsters of Magic Pretty sure they're not in Dragons of Magic because the stories are about celestials and not dragons. In the first story a grieving wizard from one of the white mana clans in a large city summons an angel to deliver justice and hunt down the members of the rival cult of necromancers that caused the death of his wife or something. The story is from the perspective of the angel as she hunts anyone the wizard says is guilty. With each kill the light from her aura and wings dims until her wings are black. She confronts the wizard and blames him from her fall from grace. Then she redeems herself when the rival necromancer cult summons a demon that will eat everyone else in the city over the next 3 days unless she slays the demon. The wizard watches from his shattered tower as the angel fights the demon and they both die. The second story picks up one to five years later. The wizard from the first story has matured and dealt with his grief. He is urging his fellow clan members to not repeat his mistakes. The other white mana wizards scoff and say nothing can go wrong. They summoning an avatar of justice. Nothing's wrong with too much justice... right? The wizard spends the rest of the story watching as this nine foot tall celestial Judge Dredd rip off inflicts justice on everyone that crosses its path. A smuggling ring is cleared out of the docks and the Avatar sees that a nearby street vendor is cheating his customers or acting laundering money for criminals? The avatar collapses the apartment building behind the stall on the merchant. While there are dozens of people in and around the building. This kind of thing happens five or six more times and by the end of the story the Avatar of Justice is just randomly smiting people in the streets for the most minor of infractions. Eventually the wizard both stories followed has to deal with the Justice monster when it turns its wrath on the white mana wizard clan that summoned it since they were effectively just as corrupt as the necromancers all along.
Given that there are multiple gods in most D&D settings, they are varied in their opinions as varied as their gods and even within those god's ranks, some might be too wrathful. In some of my games, there have been angelic fist fights over questions of morality. There are also many angels serving gods that would happily slaughter the innocent. They are as nuanced or as inflexible as i want them to be. The Divine can be as flawed as humanity, and the only difference is that sometimes the angel can't see it. And that is pretty dark. The Divine can be as fallible as you, and when it makes a mistake, you are pretty screwed.
My angels in my campaign are of the fallen but not the devil kind closer to the vampire kind. Vampire angels are only found in kingdom of night. Note that are still of the lawful evil kind.
Honestly, I do not believe that moral relativism is necessary for a functioning Dark Fantasy story. Yes sometimes the lines between good and evil are not always clearly defined, and it IS possible for the bad guy to have a genuine reason for his deeds while some among the righteous possess debilitating character flaws. However, that does not mean that clearly defined moral standards should or should not exist. Otherwise you end up with situations where when faced with a being who is clearly committing evil deeds-say, a Lich transforming an entire town into his undead minions-said being can simply state "From my perspective, my deeds are righteous. Who are you to judge me?"
"an angel should be like a jedi knight" omg ben that's WAY more bleak than a rigid absolutist. that's so good tho. what a perfect order of villains! "of course we had to leave your mother in slavery and then tell you, a child, it was wrong to feel bad about it, don't you understand that Hate leads to Evil? we wouldn't want you to do Evil."
Hard disagree on using Goku as an example of what a celestial should be. He is frankly the worse example to use. Look to someone like Superman for a better example. Selfless, hopeful, a proponent and defender of justice for all people- he stands as the ideal for people to try and follow to one day become.
I think don't I like this take. I don't think angels should be human, changeable characters so much as messengers and agents of higher powers. The way, I think to make it darker is to make them more alien and ineffable. The morality they serve unwaveringly seems totally beyond mortal comprehension. One day they set a pickpockets hands into neverending agony, the next they intervene to save a murderer from certain death, but they always act in a way that seems incomprehensible to the players. You can love them, you can hate them, many people choose both, but they might not care either way, they might mark you with a reward for virtue, or they might obliterate your entire city after a warning that said only 'repent, or perish'. They could immediately forgive you for fighting with them, but never forgive you for something minor and keep trying to curse you.
You want angels as antagonists and at the same time keep them good? I once DMd a short campaign when I first introduced players to angels when they had a bunch of encounters with a kind girl helping the urchins in a city. The final time they encountered her she was in her true form, slaughtering the kids and random bystanders, sobbing while muttering "I'm sorry, please run away, I'm so sorry" and begging for the party to end her, even explaining the party after being defeated that to permanently end her existence was to use her own sword to snuff her light otherwise she would had came back in a couple of hours. Encounters with angels were rare, most of the times they encountered crazed cultists that believed that the end of the world was deserved, but every time they met one was a desperate fight with an almost unstoppable force heartbroken by what they were doing. The last one begged them to remember him as Amriel, who protected young star crossed lovers and loved braiding hairs before they dealt the killing blow. When they found who caused this near apocalypse they were VERY, VERY unwilling to listen monologues.
There's two short stories in the old Magic the Gathering novels. I forget which books, but I'm pretty sure they're in two of the following. Colors of Magic Secrets of Magic Myths of Magic Monsters of Magic Pretty sure they're not in Dragons of Magic because the stories are about celestials and not dragons. In the first story a grieving wizard from one of the white mana clans in a large city summons an angel to deliver justice and hunt down the members of the rival cult of necromancers that caused the death of his wife or something. The story is from the perspective of the angel as she hunts anyone the wizard says is guilty. With each kill the light from her aura and wings dims until her wings are black. She confronts the wizard and blames him from her fall from grace. Then she redeems herself when the rival necromancer cult summons a demon that will eat everyone else in the city over the next 3 days unless she slays the demon. The wizard watches from his shattered tower as the angel fights the demon and they both die. The second story picks up one to five years later. The wizard from the first story has matured and dealt with his grief. He is urging his fellow clan members to not repeat his mistakes. The other white mana wizards scoff and say nothing can go wrong. They're summoning an avatar of justice. Nothing's wrong with too much justice... right? The wizard spends the rest of the story watching as this nine foot tall celestial Judge Dredd rip off inflicts justice on everyone that crosses its path. A smuggling ring is cleared out of the docks and the Avatar sees that a nearby street vendor is cheating his customers or laundering money for criminals? The avatar collapses the apartment building behind the stall on the merchant. While there are dozens of people in and around the building. This kind of thing happens five or six more times and by the end of the story the Avatar of Justice is just randomly smiting people in the streets for the most minor of infractions. Eventually the wizard both stories followed has to deal with the Justice monster when it turns its wrath on the white mana wizard clan that summoned it since they were effectively just as corrupt as the necromancers all along.
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In a campaign I'm currently playing my warlock successfully prevented an innocent person being punished for a crime they didn't commit and had the real criminal successfully apprehended, an angel oversaw the trial and throughout they were reasonable and polite... But after the angel found them guilty... They left a glowing bloody crater in the criminals place...
One bit that's overlooked is that Angel's are supposed to not just be powerful but super intelligent. They know exactly how their choices will affect others. They are all Chessmasters by design with only God surpassing them. They wouldn't be Wrath incarnate unless the situation really is that dire.
very helpful. my party just gave Bahamut the Crown Of Neverwinter so they could get the current ruler off their backs, and not one member pondered what could possibly go wrong, so now they're definitely in for a situation.
Cant wait to get Grim Hollow on DnD Beyond. Maybe we can get some more formidable monster stats too
Ever since I was a kid and I got into magic the gathering I've been sort of obsessed with angels. They're depictions of angels as lesser sort of deities are so specific and evocative. I've always wanted to do a campaign where the party is indebted to an angel who's moral compass begins to skew a bit more wrathful than merciful and where they have to ultimately decide whether they're doing the right thing.
I love that you use Goku as an example. I have a running theory that with super, the higher planar beings like Berus, Whis, and the grand supreme ki are mirrored with Vageta, Goku, and Gohan. All being trained in the ways of Destruction, angelic, and grand supreme powers. Vageta mirrors Berus for destruction, Goku mirrors Whis for angelic, and Gohan mirrors the grand supreme ki. All embodying different versions of divinity.
An angel would LIKE this video . . .
I'm the ArchAngel Michael. And i approve this message. 👍
You know, I love this vision of good angels and what it means to be good. It's a very cool concept.
It's also very far away from the calm and unshakeable demeanour that is attributed to angels in most classic depictions.
Granted, so is their wrathful depiction.
Cetainly, forgiveness was an important point to list, however. Angels should not stomp you into the floor or bodybag you like a cop. They should tell you what you're doing and why it offends their Deity. Letting you choose whether to stop doing it or keep going. And if they really can't abide by it, they will weep as they annihilate you.
That is the angel I offer up in return for your concept of the angelic. They themselves experience dulled emotions, if any, but they know full well what all those around them are feeling, and they will extend an olive branch to them, an aid to help, but an aid that must be taken to work. They don't always fully understand mortal actions, even though mortal hearts are open to them, and so they might not be as upfront or obvious with their offers as they might mean to be, or perhaps they are just as open as they intent because you need to reach for it that far to really get to where you need to be to benefit from their guidance, but it's further away than you would like.
Angels, in my mind, are alien. Not extraterrestrial, just with little to no attributes you would expect in mortal souls. But they are utterly well-meanin and do, in their coldness, show as much warmth to the world as they can possibly muster. They love. But not usually any thing in particular, rather, they love everything. They love the world. They love what it is to be alive. Even if they themselves aren't quite.
They are not jealous of what others have that they cannot, they just want others to be well with what they do have. They are not frightful of anything, because they have seen everything before in some form or another - and because they trust their Deity has their best interest at heart, trusting that even if anything bad should ever befall them, it is for a reason. That is why they forgive. Because even if you were to kill one of them, they feel only your guilt over doing it. And they don't want you to feel guilt over something that they wholeheartedly accept.
Because they would not have died to you, if their Deity did not know it was just. If it wasn't exactly what had to happen.
Being an angel, in my eyes, is a very sad existence, because their whole purpose and disposition is coloured by a need to be there, always, for the creatures of their world, the will of their Deity, and never for themselves. They are truly selfless, in every sense of the word, they hardly even hold a concept of a self. And maybe that is just how they are. How they like to be. But from a mortal sight, you can't help but imagine their demeanour must hide some true sentiment, some motion or feeling, some resentment for their Deity or their station in life, some fear of what their life is going to amount to or what their Deity may demand. But there simply aren't any of these things.
Their only joy is knowing others are in joy, their only catharsis the catharsis of another, their only wrath is the wrath that is enacted through them, they know none of their own.
That is my concept of angels. And I don't think they represent virtue. Other than in the ancient Greek sense proposed by the stoics.
I think that people go for the basic "rigid enforcer of arbitrary standards" characterization because most people hate the idea of being found wanting. So instead of looking for something that might challenge them to think about themselves and others, they want a quick and easy, obviously wrong enemy they can smack down and feel superior to without any need for that messy self-reflection.
I am wrapping on a 3 year Sword Coast campaign and plan on Etharis being our next setting. I have just finished the Grim Hollow Campaign guide and it is phenominal! These videos have been great resources and provide additional inspiration! Thank you!
Thanks for watching! We're excited for your group to explore Grim Hollow. 😄
Super helpful that this is uploaded when it was. My Grim Hollow campaign is in its last handful of months left. Doing some fun stuff with 2 of the Arch Seraphs and having the Paladin need to make some very tough roleplay decisions. Thanks!
Glad it could help!
i actually want to suggest that rather than being the smite happy we often see that angels might take an approach similar to how the Christian Bible describes Jesus of Nazareth, accepting of "sinners" because they see themself as needing help while judgmental of the religious since they believe they are morally superior
Jesus' attitude was a bit more nuanced than that. Jesus didn't criticize the Pharisees because they believed in God, but because they were blatant hypocrites who twisted God's word to benefit themselves. Don't forget that Jesus did have a civil conversation with Nicodemus, a *Pharisee,* and told another "You are not far from the Kingdom of God."
Jesus also has no issue with judging the wicked. After all, He did inform His Disciples that at the last day, He will condemn those who did not provide for "the least of these", and thus did nothing for Him. He also rebuked the five thousand He had fed with five loaves of bread and two fish for following after Him simply because they believed He would provide them with more food. Then there's His treatment of Demons, the most unholy beings in all of creation, to whom Jesus commands to be silent, depart from Him, and of course casts out of the people they possessed.
Yes, there *is* room for compassion when it comes to how an Angel is portrayed, but they should *absolutely* be ready and willing to lay down the law when the situation calls for it, regardless of who or what stands to be judged.
Angel idea for Ravnica: one leaves the Boros Legion, ends up a century or so down the line with a human husband and a pair of kids (Aasimar in game terms, I suppose). Everyone thinks she's harmless, right up until some corruption has her children taken from her and placed in an orphanage (Patron guild irrelevant). She follows the rules to get them back, right up to the point that the instigator simply refuses to return them. Doesn't give a reason, just refuses, which would force a month of delays while leaving them free. Angel's legal council looks down at his papers for a split second, and when he looks up, there is a humanoid ash shadow on the wall behind where the instigator was standing. No noise, no heat flash, just gone.
"I tire of this folly."
Suddenly she and the other mothers of stolen children have their kids back. The Azorius hand down a slap on the wrist punishment, which is all they dare, which she complies with completely. And there the matter uneasily rests.
I mean...it depends on the god they serve and the kind of angel they are tho, right? Like an angel of vengeance for a spiteful god would absolutely have the "all are guilty, all will repent" sort of vibes. Also depends on monotheism or polytheism, I'd guess.
I have only put two angels in my games thus far and have had some amazing rp each time.
They were both bound by unwaivering duty.
The first, was placed as a defender of this underground city by his god as a favor to the necromancer the party was after. When the party tried to lie past the planetar, he merepy gave a quizical look. "Why do you lie?" And it turned into an impromptu character therapy session.
The angel was bound to defend, but was solumn at the suffering that the refugees that made this town were undergoing. There was so much compassion. Yet he was bound to defend. When the players promised they meant no harm and meant it, he let them pass.
The second was an angel of death summoned as a guardian by a badguy priest while he was in the giant's catacombs. To raise reinforcements for the army.
They came across a weeping woman, who lamenting the grief, and loss of mortals. Yet when the party approaches she declares she can let non pass beyond, and asks the party what brings them to this place. Nit being forthcoming, they try and lie about it (this angel diesnt have divine awareness) so she asks if they seek absolution, which the warlock almost agreed to until the eldritch knight says "i think she just asked if you want her to kill you." "Oh, then no."
When it became clear that they needed to get past her, boy was it a great fight. I used the ost for Sister Friede in Dark Souls 3 for the boss fight, and it was glorious.
I’ve always tended to take an alignment is a spectrum approach. For my planar beings, something about their alignment is getting turned up to 11, but not necessarily the whole thing. So my angels are all lawful good, but some are more LAWFUL good, some are more lawful GOOD, and some are fully LAWFUL GOOD. This feels more natural to me because mercy and justice can at times be mutually exclusive ideals. Where a celestial being falls on this basically boils down to which ideal do they prioritize when the two are mutually exclusive?
This basically opens up either avenue for conflict with celestials. A morally grey party might force a lawful GOOD angel’s hand, leaving it with no choice but to oppose the party’s actions, and a good party of a merciful disposition might run afoul of a celestial who sees their acts of mercy as allowing evil to persist, and if they insist on doing things like protecting the person they’ve taken prisoner from summary judgement by the righteousness of the heavens, then they must be dealt with, preferably (usually anyway) non-lethally, as they themselves aren’t deserving of the full smite treatment, but if it comes down to kill the evildoer or spare the party, well, collateral damage.
Also opens up the avenue for a celestial pact warlock of a benevolent disposition to run into conflict with their patron (and really, what warlock player *doesn’t* want conflict with their patron at some point?) If they made the mistake of assuming that just because a being is a celestial, they will be aligned in ideology, but they happened to bind to the super righteous smitey Angel as opposed to the peace, love, and happiness Angel.
Loved this video! Gave me a lot of inspiration and food for thought for a player of mine going through a Celestial transformation at the moment that's definitely a smite first ask questions later kind of cleric.
Glad it was helpful! 🙂
I have 6 godlike characters that are super important in my setting. One of them is a warlock of the great old ones. Like all of my other godlike characters, he is pretty kind, but, contrarly to them, his alignement is chaotic-neutral, so he don't really give in morality, he does what he think is the best. Because of that, celestials don't really like him, but he doesn't care at all and the worst part is that his patreon is really powerful and actually knows and cares about him, and because of that, no one, not even the celestials can actually kill him. And again, among all of my few godlike characters, he is the youngest
I do also like the "passive" celestials like Unicorn, Pegasus, and Couatl from the base Monster Manual. People often forget they exist thought I do believe that if your party is fighting or hunting a unicorn, you might be on the wrong side of morality and ethics hahah. And in that case, a flight of angels would be on your tail.
And in MTG, many of the game's settings have various dangerous celestials: Ravinca has militant battle angels and cruel deathpact angels, Innistrad has 4-6 different flights of angels that are aligned with the phases of the moon (including one flight that consorts with demons), Kaldheim has Valkyrie as their angels. And many more across the different planes.
Love this. I'm playing a Downcast Bard in Etharis who has rediscovered his heritage with a Seraph transformation, so it's kinda up my alley. 😁
YES! iv been waiting for this!!
A wait well worth it, we hope!
I have to admit, Goku as an angel is not at all what I expected, but I could really see that being a fun thing to do, right down to the halo above his head as he communicates with his allies from heaven via a Sending spell next to a deity. Interestingly though, I'd be keen to explore how a full celestial might respond to seeing a Downcast on the material plane.
Great vid Ben thank you
Yes, making monsters formidable again!
An angel in a dark fantasy world will have their hands full. Every day they have to decide who/what to save and what not to.
Excellent story and encounter ideas 😊
Really cool reasons for why stuff can happen.
🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲
The Angels are lawful first and good second. They have no problem with the devils, but will go absolutely ballistic over a demon. The other celestials are the ones that you describe. An angel will look down his nose at chaotic good celestials while respecting a devil’s loyalty to its superiors.
I once played a Drow half-succubus that went to the prime to hunt down evil souls to consume before they ever got near the hells or the abyss. That was a particularly wild game because I was pissing off angels, devils and demons alike. The DM had to make a rule that neutral outsider halfbreeds could be infernal or celestial because of that character, meaning neutral outsiders could smite either good or evil, but not both.
If it weren’t for the fact that the DM and all of the players were fans of Spawn, Constantine, Good Omens, Hellboy and In Nomine, that campaign would have been horribly short. After the second near-TPK the party was nothing but half-outsiders determined to keep every full outsider off the prime material.
I can tell you one thing for certain from that campaign. When a half-celestial paladin smites evil, he REALLY smites evil. He hit like a ton of bricks when he walloped a pit fiend as I drained the life out of the wizard who summoned it.
2:14
Lotr would beg to differ
Night turned to day at the end of my last campeign. Every PC was a vampire, yet they didn't burn. The BBEG had neatly succeeded in destroying every gameworld ever by killing yugrasil.
PC destroyed the ritual barrier at the round before he succeeded. Villan Iis consumed in a pillar of white and gold flame.
200 foot avatar of death strikes.
One of the PCs has become the everchosen of chaos and a lord of hell, they've had a horrendous mortal and vampirism life. They were offered a clean slate a chance at eternal happiness. PC said no the angel looked at him mournfully and made similar offers to other PCs.
My current campaign is a world on the brink. Angels are gathering the desperate, testing the masses first through a harsh pilgrimage, then through temptations of comforts and plenty. Those who pass are invested with celestial power as paladins and clerics. They are gathering the holy and devout into an army set for a final confrontation with the demonic forces of the abyss, with whom they are in constant tug of war with over the planet. They are, however, mostly concerned with a shard of ultimate evil hidden on the world. They are testing my players in two groups, to see who is worthy of taking charge of the shard, and taking it away, to another world if need be. For if the abyss can take the shard, it would empower it two fold.
I think this is slightly off base. The first question that has to be answered is what is the angel there to do? Angels and other direct servants of good gods are not here to hang out--they are sent with a mission, and are a direct manifestation of that god's will in the prime world.
Is it to establish whether or not a god will destroy a city? Is it there to test a group of mortals or is it there to deliver a message?
They are not at all like jedi---if anything they have a higher calling, and their concerns are not mortal ones. Even for Lawful Good deities---are they truly moved and motivated by human suffering? Or are mortals so short lived that it our suffering simply doesn't register most of the time? When you look at ancient pantheons---we range from play things to tools and anything in between. When you pause and really think about the divine will and concerns vs human will and concerns--it's night and day.
Apollo was a god of healing and physicians, and he was also a god of plagues. What might be so important that Apollo would send an angel to accomplish? And what additional powers might Apollo imbue the angel with to accomplish this mission? That's what's missing in this video.
If you aren't particularly good spontaneous character history generation, and you want a unique angel for your campaign my tip to you to create an action is to create a character sheet for a lawful good, lawful neutral, or neutral good character, of hit dice equal to the angel you want it, using the stats of the angel as the base stats for the character. This will allow you to customize the angel, the apply the angel on top of it? this will help you define the roles and motivations for your angel, and give them more to their toolbox than being "High damage glass cannon"
I can imagine a few options for changing things up with angelic antagonists or NPCs. You could have a situation where angelic beings themselves are experiencing civil conflict. The pantheon they serve is divided on the issue of what is truly righteous, or their god or gods is dead, imprisoned or missing, and so they no longer share a unity of interpretation when it comes to what is good, and different factions have emerged that have differing attitudes on how to deal with the foibles and failings of humanity, some being all about the smiting and punishing, others more interested in the control and manipulation of mortals toward their notion of what is 'good', and maybe yet others wishing simply to abandon humanity to its fate and preserve angelic kind with an isolationist doctrine. Perhaps the various factions have a limited scope of action on the material plane, and so need mortal agents to advance the interests of their faction, agents like the Party. The tragedy and terror of such an angelic civil war is that all sides genuinely believe that what they are doing is right and good, and among all of them will be at least some angels with the absolute certainty that their cause is so righteous that it represents an absolute moral imperative whose pursuit allows them certain... leeway when it comes to 'lesser' moral concerns such as killing mortals, innocent or otherwise, that get in the way of their goals. The message here is that simply believing yourself to be good and morally justified in your actions is not necessarily any guarantee that you won't do harm to others nor that your actions will be universally seen as good by other people. There is no threat more monstrous than the fanatic who cannot conceive that their actions, however brutal, could actually ever be wrong. The party must decide how to navigate the situation -- which angelic faction to side with, if any. How to mitigate the carnage of a war between divine beings that is spilling over into the mortal world - that sort of thing.
Another option is to go with the idea that a powerful angelic being like a Solar has been somehow bound to the will of mortal clerics and priests who seek to unleash its power to smite 'evil doers' (as the priests define that notion, possibly including people whose only 'crime' is not to share the cleric's exact creed, or who are considered somehow 'impure' in the priests' eyes due to something like their heritage or social station) with little concern for the innocents caught up in the ensuing conflagration. The clerics are so far gone in their belief that they are righteous that they are quite prepared to enslave an angelic being through profane magics to ensure that their notion of morality is imposed upon mortal kind by whatever means necessary. The Party might stumble across the aftermath of an attack by this 'destroying angel' and initially hunt down what they think is a powerful and dangerous fallen angel, only to discover the the angel is imprisoned, has been forced to kill in the name of the obsessions of mortal clerics, and now is fearful that it is being corrupted by such vile deeds and wishes only to be spared the continuation of such horror. Perhaps the torment of the angel is so abominable that it is corrupting the surrounding lands, spreading plagues of madness through the populous and causing people and animals to be warped into monstrous forms and the dead to rise due to the abomination of the cleric's crimes, side effects the Party has seen and fought first hand. Does the Party try to free the Solar, accepting that it might subsequently go insane and become a threat again in its own right? Or do they listen to its pleading and end its suffering permanently by the means its shares with them to free it from its torment (a means that may itself be morally ambiguous at best, since the creation or procurement of a weapon able to permanently kill an angelic being might require the Party to do very questionable things), but in the process unleash other unforeseen consequences and have to answer to the wrath of other angels who aren't so understanding as to why such a drastic course of action was necessary?
😅
You are good, thank you sir
If you want a real good example of an angelic figure in a dark setting that would be Sanguineous, Lord of the 9th and Primarch of the Blood Angels
Been missing this ones for a time :) great as always.
Thanks for dropping back in! It has been a while since we've done a formidable video. 😅
Ngl I always kinda thought it was interesting that angels weren’t always… well, angelic
Suppose one thing to consider is free will? The idea of humanity in a lot of Christian teaching is we have free will where many other beings such as angels simply do not. So to an extent they embody what ever god wishes them to embody. So i think being unbending makes some sense but i agree they should be more signs of hope. Perhaps the best way to beat an angel is to ask their deity to intervene.
I had an idea of angels or getting saint hood by converting a demon or devil into something good. Just like powerful devils break angels
Watch Legion or even Constantine, it take a different angle on angels, might help give a visual on how to run them
First! Amazing content as always, Ben. :)
There's two short stories in the old Magic the Gathering novels. I forget which books, but I'm pretty sure they're in two of the following.
Colors of Magic
Secrets of Magic
Myths of Magic
Monsters of Magic
Pretty sure they're not in Dragons of Magic because the stories are about celestials and not dragons.
In the first story a grieving wizard from one of the white mana clans in a large city summons an angel to deliver justice and hunt down the members of the rival cult of necromancers that caused the death of his wife or something. The story is from the perspective of the angel as she hunts anyone the wizard says is guilty. With each kill the light from her aura and wings dims until her wings are black. She confronts the wizard and blames him from her fall from grace. Then she redeems herself when the rival necromancer cult summons a demon that will eat everyone else in the city over the next 3 days unless she slays the demon. The wizard watches from his shattered tower as the angel fights the demon and they both die.
The second story picks up one to five years later. The wizard from the first story has matured and dealt with his grief. He is urging his fellow clan members to not repeat his mistakes. The other white mana wizards scoff and say nothing can go wrong. They summoning an avatar of justice. Nothing's wrong with too much justice... right? The wizard spends the rest of the story watching as this nine foot tall celestial Judge Dredd rip off inflicts justice on everyone that crosses its path. A smuggling ring is cleared out of the docks and the Avatar sees that a nearby street vendor is cheating his customers or acting laundering money for criminals? The avatar collapses the apartment building behind the stall on the merchant. While there are dozens of people in and around the building. This kind of thing happens five or six more times and by the end of the story the Avatar of Justice is just randomly smiting people in the streets for the most minor of infractions. Eventually the wizard both stories followed has to deal with the Justice monster when it turns its wrath on the white mana wizard clan that summoned it since they were effectively just as corrupt as the necromancers all along.
This comment is a prayer to supplicate that dread angel, the youtube algorithm.
Given that there are multiple gods in most D&D settings, they are varied in their opinions as varied as their gods and even within those god's ranks, some might be too wrathful. In some of my games, there have been angelic fist fights over questions of morality. There are also many angels serving gods that would happily slaughter the innocent. They are as nuanced or as inflexible as i want them to be. The Divine can be as flawed as humanity, and the only difference is that sometimes the angel can't see it. And that is pretty dark. The Divine can be as fallible as you, and when it makes a mistake, you are pretty screwed.
Lol top notch like request
My angels in my campaign are of the fallen but not the devil kind closer to the vampire kind.
Vampire angels are only found in kingdom of night. Note that are still of the lawful evil kind.
What is the music you used for this video? I love it
Honestly, I do not believe that moral relativism is necessary for a functioning Dark Fantasy story.
Yes sometimes the lines between good and evil are not always clearly defined, and it IS possible for the bad guy to have a genuine reason for his deeds while some among the righteous possess debilitating character flaws.
However, that does not mean that clearly defined moral standards should or should not exist. Otherwise you end up with situations where when faced with a being who is clearly committing evil deeds-say, a Lich transforming an entire town into his undead minions-said being can simply state "From my perspective, my deeds are righteous. Who are you to judge me?"
"an angel should be like a jedi knight"
omg ben that's WAY more bleak than a rigid absolutist.
that's so good tho. what a perfect order of villains! "of course we had to leave your mother in slavery and then tell you, a child, it was wrong to feel bad about it, don't you understand that Hate leads to Evil? we wouldn't want you to do Evil."
Hard disagree on using Goku as an example of what a celestial should be. He is frankly the worse example to use. Look to someone like Superman for a better example. Selfless, hopeful, a proponent and defender of justice for all people- he stands as the ideal for people to try and follow to one day become.
I'll agree to disagree on Goku. But I'll hard agree on Superman!
I think don't I like this take. I don't think angels should be human, changeable characters so much as messengers and agents of higher powers. The way, I think to make it darker is to make them more alien and ineffable. The morality they serve unwaveringly seems totally beyond mortal comprehension. One day they set a pickpockets hands into neverending agony, the next they intervene to save a murderer from certain death, but they always act in a way that seems incomprehensible to the players.
You can love them, you can hate them, many people choose both, but they might not care either way, they might mark you with a reward for virtue, or they might obliterate your entire city after a warning that said only 'repent, or perish'.
They could immediately forgive you for fighting with them, but never forgive you for something minor and keep trying to curse you.
Can't like the vid... it's sitting at 777 for the last 5 months
I really think the angel should resemble the god they serve. Not generally all jedi or all lawful dumb
Cruel, petty, and naive sounds exactly like most evangelicals, to me.
You want angels as antagonists and at the same time keep them good? I once DMd a short campaign when I first introduced players to angels when they had a bunch of encounters with a kind girl helping the urchins in a city. The final time they encountered her she was in her true form, slaughtering the kids and random bystanders, sobbing while muttering "I'm sorry, please run away, I'm so sorry" and begging for the party to end her, even explaining the party after being defeated that to permanently end her existence was to use her own sword to snuff her light otherwise she would had came back in a couple of hours.
Encounters with angels were rare, most of the times they encountered crazed cultists that believed that the end of the world was deserved, but every time they met one was a desperate fight with an almost unstoppable force heartbroken by what they were doing. The last one begged them to remember him as Amriel, who protected young star crossed lovers and loved braiding hairs before they dealt the killing blow.
When they found who caused this near apocalypse they were VERY, VERY unwilling to listen monologues.
There's two short stories in the old Magic the Gathering novels. I forget which books, but I'm pretty sure they're in two of the following.
Colors of Magic
Secrets of Magic
Myths of Magic
Monsters of Magic
Pretty sure they're not in Dragons of Magic because the stories are about celestials and not dragons.
In the first story a grieving wizard from one of the white mana clans in a large city summons an angel to deliver justice and hunt down the members of the rival cult of necromancers that caused the death of his wife or something. The story is from the perspective of the angel as she hunts anyone the wizard says is guilty. With each kill the light from her aura and wings dims until her wings are black. She confronts the wizard and blames him from her fall from grace. Then she redeems herself when the rival necromancer cult summons a demon that will eat everyone else in the city over the next 3 days unless she slays the demon. The wizard watches from his shattered tower as the angel fights the demon and they both die.
The second story picks up one to five years later. The wizard from the first story has matured and dealt with his grief. He is urging his fellow clan members to not repeat his mistakes. The other white mana wizards scoff and say nothing can go wrong. They're summoning an avatar of justice. Nothing's wrong with too much justice... right? The wizard spends the rest of the story watching as this nine foot tall celestial Judge Dredd rip off inflicts justice on everyone that crosses its path. A smuggling ring is cleared out of the docks and the Avatar sees that a nearby street vendor is cheating his customers or laundering money for criminals? The avatar collapses the apartment building behind the stall on the merchant. While there are dozens of people in and around the building. This kind of thing happens five or six more times and by the end of the story the Avatar of Justice is just randomly smiting people in the streets for the most minor of infractions. Eventually the wizard both stories followed has to deal with the Justice monster when it turns its wrath on the white mana wizard clan that summoned it since they were effectively just as corrupt as the necromancers all along.