Critically Misused: Celestials
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- Опубліковано 19 гру 2022
- Welcome to Critically Misused, where we discuss potentially misused aspects of Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition. This episode, we will be covering celestials, the good guys of the outer planes, as suggested by @juanisol8275. Comment below if there is a monster you’d like to see me cover.
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One of the big issues with using Celestials is their massive CR. We need more low CR Celestials.
In my homebrew world, I have a celestial species called the myrios. They're animal spirits (any animal, covered in celestial markings that can only be seen by those with a strong religious connection - for me they're mostly cats cause of some inside jokes, lol) that perform the more mundane tasks of the gods; guide adventurers on the material plane, keeping the damage of certain desecrated places at a minimum, keeping nightmares within the nightmare realm, and mischievous fey in the dream realm, providing protection over cities or other places, or acting as wise ones hidden in magical libraries/swamps/forests. They're created by the gods for that exact purpose and cannot wander from it easily (to some dismay, occasionally; they don't have free will like the mortals since they are compelled to obey their god's demands, and this has caused some who are displeased with their task to fall). Their CR's range from 2-10 so far, and are on par with the lower CR devils/demons out there in terms of power and knowledge. Their abilities for combat are mostly made of the animal attacks/ abilities strengthened by radiant damage, plus some healing effect and something specific to their task (my dream/nightmare focused myrios have the sleep, dream and moonbeam spell, for example). My party has come to enjoy them from what I gather. If anyone wants to use this idea, I'd love to know.
Lantern Archons filled that role in older editions, I believe, but they haven't been updated yet. Hopefully they get new stat blocks and art in Planescape
Yea, no joke. If you want to use Conjure Celestial when it was first released then you only have two options for the summon.
Eight years later there are only five.
Wizards Please.
Just play Savage Worlds
@@thegayerest There were also the coure eladrin and cervidnal guardinals too.
Third party publishers have been doing a good job of filling in some more celestials. When it comes to the solars I really see them as the "soldier class" of the celestials, which is a good (ad hoc) reason for them to be so boring. With a wider cast there are definitely more roles to be filled. Hopefully WoC gets the memo sometime.
In their defense, I've personally met more plants than celestials x3
I had a heavy celestial theme in one of my homebrew settings. They were good for my target audience: a table of brand new players who didn't understand d&D but where familiar with Judeo-Christian mythology. The setting called for aid from angels rather than gods, so each domain was the portfolio of a different angel. The iconography in temples and churches were as we expect, divine and beautiful humanoids, but each time the party encountered an angel, they didn't recognize it as an angel.
For example, the party made their way into the vault of the angel of healing to acquire a relic that would help them in their quest. After overcoming the trials to test if they were wise and pure enough for the artifacts, they were greeted by a guardian that appeared to be a leech-like entity clad in a white robe and mask. It simply said to them "Thou Art Worthy" before granting them the artifact and disappearing. Although the party was not sure what the thing was, it was later revealed that it was the Angel of Healing - which they only knew depicted as a beautiful creature of Mercy.
I’m currently running a campaign where Couatl are exceedingly rare but still servants of Celestial Good. They make excellent NPCs who have vast historical and religious knowledge that can serve as mentors and aid to the party.
I feel like out of all the extraplanar creature types, celestials (and maybe feys) are the ones that benefit the most from being treated individually like characters rather than like an unified group. Most other extraplanars have specific purposes or natures that are always the same, but as celestials are agents of good, and what is good/what should be done to achieve it is pretty hard to pin down, there’s a lot of room to personalize each of them.
Very good video as always! I’m late to the party, but eager to see what’s next either way!
To be honest, I often treat the info in the monster manual more as a prompt or guideline. Not much is outright said about even just angels for instance, but I like to imagine a lot. Like planetars embodying the terrifying unwavering strength of conviction or devas representing an insightful, secretive mentor who guides a young hero on their journey through indirect means.
Love seeing the view count of this channel go up every time a new vid is posted. Ya deserve it mate
I'm loving the support too. Thanks for all you've done!
might be off topic but my experience with higher being characters
is that they're usually picked for the sake of it being a "Higher being"
or just power
Yeah, stat blocks aside, I'm mostly basing the cosmology of my world on 4e. That was much more fleshed out and had real narrative depth. And for the rare occasions I need a stat block for a celestial I just adapt another monster or homebrew something.
I would not mind seeing you tackle Plants!
Lmao maybe. Most of them feel like variations on a Treent or Venus Fly Trap though
@@thegayerest yeah there's not really much to them and a good chunks of plants work more like environmental hazards rather than actual creatures.
@@TalkativeHands Well, I did cover some of the ones that aren't that recently. You should check it out
At least at my table, i discovered that slapping an angel in front of the party that is working either under or aligned with the bad guy really throws the players off, and freaks them out over the power of the angel too.
I'm trying to remember our encounters with celestials now (in a very homebrewed game world), and it feels a bit weird. It seems like they are less inherently good beings and more radiant elementals. Sun Avatar (everlasting elven rebel leader) has a humanoid personality (even though clearly is a celestial), Cat Gods (lesser deities worshiped by tabaxi) are not to mess with, though I don't know the details (one of them is my PC's patron, and DM told me my PC would know she shouldn't try to contact him), and we encountered a literal radiant elemental once, who might or might not be even sentient. The element concept is way wider in our world than in the classic, so it kinda makes sense.
Personally, I'd probably look at the various discussions regarding moral psychology, and incorporate different ideas. Ex: Tradition and Authority from Moral Foundations theory might grant particular perspectives, while Freedom would grant a vastly different idea, but neither would be wrong.
Exactly what I meant
UA-camr Pog :DDD
They should add Biblically accurate Angels to D&D, we only have the human looking ones but those would actually be the lowest ranking Angels. The higher ranking Angels look more like eldritch nightmare fuel.
Imagine the rogue stole one too many holy artifacts, so the cleric (or warlock) calls in some help to scare them straight
Edit: Phrasing
Not sure why you grouped angels and empyreans together, considering empyreans (at least in 5e) are actually pretty distinct from angels like devas, solars, and planetars. Empyreans are the children of gods but with a lot more free will than you typically see with angels, they literally influence the environment around them through their emotional state, and their divine parents go out of their way to resurrect their empyrean child after the latter dies.
Maybe this works: Because of the corruptive nature of evil, mortal souls that become fiends are often twisted into generic forms which represent basic principles of evil. But consider that some ordinary races, when born on certain upper planes, are born as celestials. Suddenly, all the elves and dwarves born on Arborea and Arcadia respectively are celestials. Perhaps it is the will of the higher powers of good that celestials should be an idealized form of mortal life, whereas evil powers wish to twist and bind them to unnatural forms. So the powers of good are not concerned with creating a bunch of new celestial forms but instead reimagining mortal beings.
That makes in Universe sense, but it's not the point I was trying to make. Good doesn't have just one form; it's as varied in nature as evil. I want to see celestials that explore the nuances of goodness, rather than just purity and radiance
I just realized something. Maybe a thematic reason to explain a lack of celestials (yes, I'm aware WoC probably just forgot old content, but it's more fun to make up lore). Fiends are an expression of evil human souls created by corruptive beings. This is true for Tenar'i (however you spell that) and Baatezu. Other fiends may have more ancient origins. The gods wanted to make a world where good and evil could evolve independently from non-divine meddling. But evil forces, naturally ambitious and unsatisfied with their limitations, broke the rules to seduce people to their alignment. To keep things fair but also avoid uprooting and micromanaging everything, the gods created certain celestials to be an equal reaction force to the encroachment of fiends. Initially, there were only a few types of celestials and fiends. But fiends would be formed based on the plethora of mortal vices as they are made from those souls. Meanwhile, the few existing breeds of celestials would only receive minor supplements because celestials like angels and pegasi and unicorns are made to just accomplish a simple goal, not from mortal souls.
Yeah, I don't think that really holds up but I thought it to be a fun thought experiment.
Glad to see you posting, I'm wondering if an Undead episode will be a fun, but are they misued?
The question I ask myself every time I think of a topic
The undead are very misused because everyone ends campaigns before they reach level 17 so nobody ever uses the Death Knight which is by far the coolest kind of undead
@@lyebatenkaitosofgluttony2452 This is true. Plus. Many don't really delve into them enough like how a surprising amount of undead are really rather sentient. Even ghouls.since you can argue that they are semi intelligent and speak common.
Or how wild it is other creatures relate to them. Corpse flowers, Myconids, yellow msuk flowers. (Three plants oddly)
Hell necromancers are known to get cadaver collectors to.. Collect corpses from large scale events. (Look some of these creatures up, they're pretty cool
@@redeveer6647 the absolutely insane amount of creative ways to use undead creatures in dnd makes me quite sad when people just use them as murder monsters
@@lyebatenkaitosofgluttony2452 That is very true.. so perhaps this is a good point to label them as "Misused" As most people use them as mindless monsters. (which granted for a few IE skeletons and zombies is true) but alot of them are alot more interesting than they're given credit for.
Infact Vampires aren't the only undead you can give personality. Mummy lords, Bone naga, hell even wights are all perfectly good examples of other undead that can be put to great use besides "Monster that walks up and hits you with something"
CAN U RECORD BETTER AUDIO PLEASE, THANKYOU