4th ed excerpt: Angels

I don't mind the idea of giving aasimon/angels to evil deities as well. The whole idea that aasimon are a different kind of being who serve the deities directly while archons, guardinals, and eladrins are incarnations of the various alignments, parallel to baatezu, yugoloths, and tanar'ri nearly always creates the reaction, "So who serves the evil gods?" and it's about time that someone answered that.

Of course, as always, the author of this particular piece doesn't seem to really know very much about the topic she's writing about. Excusable, I guess, since there's so very much to know about D&D planar stuff, but one of the most jarring comments was when she claimed that no lower planar beings had anything to do with Erythnul, apparently unaware of the windblades from the Monster Manual IV, an entire race created by Erythnul, and a fine example of evil deities having minions.

Still, the main thrust of the argument is, why do good deities have a set of generic minions while the evil deities have scattered and usually less-powerful examples like windblades, Minions of Set, and linqua? And it's a good one. The real answer is that originally aasimon were the only antitheses the fiendish races had, with archons and later the eladrins and guardinals being created afterwards and causing the aasimon to stick out like a sore thumb. And I don't mind this solution at all.

And those illustrations are very cool-looking.

I don't mind if Evil (or Lawful or Chaotic) Powers have Devas, Solars and Planetars serving them. It does make for some interesting situations.

Though I can't say I'm too big on these "Angels of Valor" and "Angels of Vengeance". I'd rather them bring back the Aasimon as any alignment beings, the Solar could easily be a 27th+ level solo monster with a dumbed-down statblock, and it would still be more interesting in every way than an Angel of Vengeance which doesn't really inspire much right now.

As for Eladrin, there's 4e stats of the Bralani on one of the simplified statblocks from a DDM card. It's in http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/DDM_15Dun_RPG.zip and they're near the end of the list.

So first they turn our beloved devils into fallen angels and now they give them divine neverdowells their own evil angelic servants?
In the end 'fallen' mayhap turns out to mean 'resigned'...

Modrons are similar to tanar'ri and baatezu as they represent their plane's alignment. I think that Primus is not a god, just as the demon princes and the infernal rulers are no deities (at least in the traditional sense of pre-4th editions) and the modron hierarchy relates to Primus the same way the various arachnid demons relate to Lolth.

New Blood here, would like to know what version most bashers prefer?

(Note: Long Time Lurker posting for the first time: Hello Everyone!)

Perhaps I should post this in the eponymous thread, but if someone asked me "What do you like about the 4th Edition?" I'd answer "Each and every creative way to reconnect it with Planescape guys like Rip Van Wormer or Mechalich will come up with."

Really, I still cannot stand the flamboyant way and style of explaining the working of new things assumed by WOTC Staff; I still consider preposterous treating what has always been more a "Tinkerer Box With Many Worlds Attached" like DnD an "Oliated System With His Propietary Setting" like, let's say, a World of Darkness Game, or Deadlands, or Seventh Sea...; and all the same, if not suicidical, a clumsy marketing move to fake the non-existence of older player, ignoring a consolidated tradition in the world of fluff (especially when "older player" mean three or four years older: and how many RPG player begin their journey into darkness guided by their slightly older DM?)...

BUT as Rip said, perhaps the suggestion of diversely aligned Angels isn't a bad one.

Instead of speaking about "bad angels to throw against good party" the matter seems to me about the lacking of information about heavenly things (even in Planescape, compared to their Lower Planar counterparts). Both in the PS (true) version and in the 4th edition (false and miscreant) one Aasimon appear to be of mysterious origins, and their attempt to produce a servitor race was somewhat condemnded with the Quesar brilliant failing. Could be interesting if they became truly alien beings: perhaps the Powers tapped in energies unfathomables even to them, or Angels are a Supreme Race of beings bunded by servitude not by force, but by an absolutely unknowable nature; perhaps agents of the Balance in a totally different way than Rilmani; messengers of what lies beyond the Seventh Heaven of Mount Celestia, or, for the truly disturbed amongst us, the Far Realm.

What I hope is to see some new "Monster Angels" that could be refitted in the existing hyerarchies: perhaps, if the traditional Asimoon take their names from the Higher Spheres, new ones could became "Cthonetar, Nuclear, Telluar", Angels of the deep darkness, of the fiery planet hearts, of the tremors (I give them bad names, but that's all can I come up with, silly me!)... And I tremble thinking, if the Deva is something like a Lower planar crusader, what could be his evil counterpart... perhaps a politician, the subtle but evil ambassador of the celestial planes (Yugoloth would love him).

But at the same time, I doubt I'll see the writers at Wizards moving in this direction... I'd like more seeing a writeup by Rip, or Shemeska, or Mechalich (i'm still a big fan of yours superb tome about the Inevitables, you know?) ^_^ ...

Goodbye everyone!

It would indeed be a shame if creatures like Minions of Set or the linquas of Sung Chiang could no longer exist because Set and Sung Chiang have "angels" available to them, but I don't see why that should be.

Perhaps it should be all about the desire of Angels to fight for a deity.
They remain rare creatures with free will; they choose who they pledge to, but once they decide this, they trascend frantically, communing with the nature of the Power and His Alignement.

Not so much "a mercenary", as they put it in the 4ed excerpt (not something that struck me as particulary plausible, as a matter of ideals and, well, beliefs), but a mysterious form of free will, neither akin to the in-born qualities of Exemplars and the (more or less) boundless life of more mundane creatures we see once and then frolicking in the Prime...

Every Power could (and should) have his custom minion (even the good ones, why not?), the Angel becoming something whose service is desired, rarely lost once gained, but somewhat in need of being "conquered" by a worth deity; if Belief is the primary source of a Power's existence and the faith of followers the measure of his success, how significant may be the loyalty of a a creature with a superior grade of perfection (whatever this may mean in PS?)? And what happens when Angel born?

Just my two cents and some meditations about the idea of a "melting" of old and new...

That's a pretty good name.