This is about what should be the role of the OTHER half of the Outsiders. We've got the Tanar'ri, the oft ignored Yugoloths, and the Baatezu. However, what is the adventuring potential of Celestials? How do you roleplay the Outer Planar embodiments of Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic Goodness?
What kind of conflicts can they provide?
Ah yes, but one of the most interesting aspects of Planescape is that just because you're good and they're good, it doesn't mean you'll be on the same side of, say, the issue of a gate-town sliding, or some such.
Planescape deceives common beliefs by principle and first impressions are treacherous. Fiends become friendly, succibi chaste.
What about really evil or disgusting angels? Can such exist? Why would an angel turn evil? Does the end justify the means? And who decides what is good and what bad?
The Old Testamental angels are simply God’s messengers. What if the messenger does not agree with the message he delivers?
Remember the Sodom incident. What happens when an angel has to face a moral dilemma?
And how is byronesque rebellion to be judged?
Angels in literature are mostly tragic heroes, as far as I know. They don’t have to be any more predictable than fiends. (Apropos, Tolkien’s elves have more in common with traditional angels than with the pagan natural spirits of that name. He said so himself, I think.)
These are my (rather random) thoughts about this topic. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Well Trias is a nice example from Planescape: Torment.
Also Baalzebul.
Planescape deceives common beliefs by principle and first impressions are treacherous. Fiends become friendly, succibi chaste.
Planescape can change common belief, but the Outer Planes are also made of belief. I was speaking of the usual Celestial, thats all. 
However along your train of thought, why is it that fallen angels have become great leaders of the Abyssal and Infernals, however risen fiends appear weaker than their evil counterparts?
Planescape can change common belief, but the Outer Planes are also made of belief. I was speaking of the usual Celestial, thats all.
However along your train of thought, why is it that fallen angels have become great leaders of the Abyssal and Infernals, however risen fiends appear weaker than their evil counterparts?
I tend to think that most Angels go for quality over quantity. Most Angels that fall are very powerful and very quickly dominate those around them because Heaven works to create powerful ones. Demons and Devils that convert tend to be of the weaker variety as well.
Of course, I always viewed the Friendly Fiend as rather powerful myself.
A'kin is stated to be thoroughly evil and not risen in the least. No one's sure why he's always so *nice*, but he seems to hate it.
As for roleplaying celestials, I'd say each should have a certain virtue. A PC hound archon could, for example, always be perfectly honest. Perfectly. The questing eladrin could take mercy to extremes, never harming a helpless foe. Of course, these are just personality traits, and unless very self-conscious or trying to justify something, they wouldn't go around declaring themselves champions of Truth and Mercy.
Fallen Celestials become so powerful when they fall to evil because fallen angels leading the legions of hell is a central theme of Christian mythology (even if it doesn't come up much in the actual Bible), and Planescape has always been a setting that embraced mythology. Also, DMs and designers tend to not know what to do with good characters so they turn them evil.
I thought the Friendly Fiend was revealed as Neutral?
I would just say ignore whatever cannon says about A'kin. Leave his alignment a mystery to the PCs. If he's important in the campaign, pick whichever one makes most sense or whichever is most dramatic. As a DM, I highly doubt I'd play him the same way in any two campaigns.
It would be cool to see someone seriously roleplay a highly and proactively good protagonist. Refraining from doing evil deeds is one thing (i.e., "don't torture anyone or kill a helpless foe"), but what about when doing good significantly crimps the character's lifestyle? How many people would give money they need themselves to a starving beggar? ('He'll just spend it on drugs or something...') What if an adventurer has to choose between joining his friends on a potentially lucrative adventure, or stay in town and heal the sick? And what happens to the character when evil or selfish persons deliberately abuse his generosity?
Playing a celestial trying to do good on, say, a typical Prime would be hard. Not only would you have actively evil berks making trouble, you'd have legions of the ordinary selfish and disinterested to contend with. ('Give all that money to the poor when I could redecorate the house??')
I think highly Good characters have a lot of potential, but I can't really remember seeing a lot of them (I'm thinking specifically of the 'dedicate one's entire life to helping others' variety) in D&D. Lots and lots of the "put on your sword and smite evil" type, though.
Fiendish nature is self centered, angels are built rather selfless. I mean that fiends are possessed with themselves, angels with a higher aim. Twisted angels and fiends seem to keep these characteristics.
Also, if you don’t bother with morals any more, you have many more degrees of freedom in your actions.
Actually, that's pretty typical behavior in our games. I recall one of our player character sessions where the PCs actually asked to skip out on a contract that was their next adventuring session because the Cleric and Paladin wanted to heal the sick at the village they'd just saved (that had been ravaged by plague).
I gave them bonus EXP.
The best way I can think of to roleplay celestials is by trying to understand what is "Good", without resorting to a particular religion's point of view. I've decided that Good is defined by Compassion.
When I roleplay a truly good Celestial, I play them as a compassionate creature. While they can get angry, they cannot hate. They view the Fiends in the same way that a sibling would view a convicted serial killer - to be punished, but hopefully eventually redeemed.
Fiends on the other hand, cannot feel compassion at all. They cannot love, merely lust (Love derives from Compassion).
This leads to the stereotypical lines:
EVIL FIEND: Your feeling toward these weaklings is your weakness (cannot understand compassion)
GOOD CELESTIAL: My friends give me the strength to defeat you!
etc.
This means that the rare fiend that becomes tainted with some good and learns to care for other creatures will quickly become an outcast. After all, no one cares about him/her. Likewise, the celestial that is tainted with evil and learns to hate will be similarly cast out.
Now I have to figure out the analogues for Law and Chaos...
Some considerations i would make....
Playing do gooders is very challenging. When you play the chaotic evil type, your character can do anything and just say "i did it because i wanted it". You generally roleplay to do things you couldn't do in real life and bashing skulls or murdering is easier in RPG.
Playing good is neither rational toward yiur aim: if you have a moral dilemma you may take a decision that will hamper your progress and if you spare an enemy he may stab your back.
This is why, while many players think good characters are a stupid bunch, I think they are the most challenging ones: they don't need to be stupid but they have something more on their schedule (helping others, giving good examples....) than just solving quests abd killing villains. Their need to avoid unnecessary killings may lead to original solutions to problems. But they need a bit of support from the other players, otherwise it could come to a "hey, lead your paladin somewhere else while we attend to our matters" style of playing.
About celestials, two things
First: a 2ED book about playing celestial charecters was published. It was not a true Planescape book (no Planescape art and all) but should be fully compatible.
Second: I think celestials PG would generally be in not-so good terms with their high-ups: after all they are outside their home plane and pobably they're not under a god's mission (they've joined a party wich generally isn't). Like their mortal counterpart, celestial adventurers should stand out from their celestial crowd.
I think that the Law/Chaos alignment is more likely to simply destroy someone who diverts from their philosophy than to cast them out. For example, rogue modrons are hunted down and destroyed in order to add their energy back to the pool from what I recall. They would consider it highly illogical to simply cast out a modron and lose that energy. Slaadi might be a little more complicated than that...
Also, awhile ago I saw somewhere a thread about a parallel of the blood war in the upper planes. It was a celestial cold war, in which espionage and preventative arms races against one another were the undertones whenever LG and CG interacted or worked together. It wasn't a hatred for each other, just a fear that the other was more likely to fall from good and so cautions had to be taken. It was a wonderful idea imo.
The first thing about Celestials is to remember they don't come from Heaven. Everyone forgets that.
In Planescape they come from Ysgard, the plane of glory and kinship with your warrior bands or Bitopia with its clever games of wit, trades and crafts. All the Upper Planes are different and more importantly they are filled with the souls of good people, Celestials aren't naive in the ways of mortals even before they leave their home.
Conflict comes from several points.
Does a Celestial have the right to tell others who is right and who is wrong? Over the eons angels have fell, can a devil rise? Should evil be slayed or taught to be good, is it more Good to try and convert evil to good reguardless of the cost to yourself?
Many Celestials are under the banner of a God, are they truely good or did they just get the best spot on Mount Celestia all those millienia ago? If their god makes a mistake, are they worth following? What if your god dies?
Long ago the Pact Primeval was formed, the Devils now torture sinful souls... What if your god sent a hated foe to the Nine Hells and his sin is no longer considered such (perhaps he stole the gods lover from him), do you free him against the gods wishes?
A Celestial's constant struggle is this, Evil can imploy any tactic it needs to win. Celestials must remain holy.
As for how to roleplay them, just roleplay someone who wants to amount to the kind of person others think they are. Good guys. :mrgreen: