Looking through the Monster Manuals I have found their selection of Celestials to be exeedingly spare. If you want a nature god's servitor, you're fine. They have lots. Otherwise you're left with a few choices, none of which is particularly compelling--balls of light, guys with wings for arms, etc.
Thumbing through the gods of the D&D Core Rulebook (not to mention Faiths and Pantheons) I wish I knew what, for example, the divine servants of Boccob were like or Fharlanghn, or Olidammara. How are Tyr's servants different from Ilmaters?
Such topics could fuel an entire line of articles.
P.S. On a related note while there are entire books written on the Standard Cosmology's planes there's next to nothing on the planes of the Forgotten Realms. I would love to know what some of these planes are anyway--The House of the Triad? The Barrens of Doom and Despair? The Gates of the Moon? Each could be an article of its own. I would love it!
i think we may have put in a query regarding celestial creatures... if not, then we ought to. ;)
I usually do it the easy way by taking existing outsiders of the deity's alignment and changing their appearance and abilities as necessary. Moradin, for example, probably wouldn't be big on lantern archons, but he'd likely have astral devas. These astral devas would be lawful aligned, would have the appearance of stoic dwarves with a supernaturally noble countenance, and would wield warhammers instead of maces. They might appear as if made of steel, stone or gems, to represent that Moradin forged them. You might go further and swap out his flight for some ability more fitting of Moradin and dwarvenkind, and limiting his Change Shape to the form of dwarves only.
If I have time to prepare, the celestial template can do wonders as well.
Still, an article that talks about the deities heralds and provides examples of what that deity sends to the Material Plane to answer planar ally spells has potential for a good article.
Didn't the Boccob and Olidammara articles have unique planar allies?
I don't remember if they were NPC's or examples for clerics using that spell.
Still, an article that talks about the deities heralds and provides examples of what that deity sends to the Material Plane to answer planar ally spells has potential for a good article.
Exactly. I guess I'm not stating a problem. I don't have difficulty creating new material on my own. What I've got is curiousity. Good articles fill blank spaces that already exist in a setting, casting the lantern into the unseen shadows of a world. I'm hungering for some official word from the guys at Dragon who I trust to give me something both autoritative and creative. Until then I can continue to do what I always have and fudge my way along until the truth be known.
I'm a fan of angel mythology, so I guess I could do worse than send in a query.
I agree, we need new celestial creatures.
Some from 2E still need to be converted. I think there's the Light aasimon, mortai, tuen' rin, and one eladrin I think and some others I can't think of right now. But also I think brand news one, too. Like they did with the article on the 5 new mind monsters.
Prime example, the Word Archon. Though it was for Truename magic, good example of introducing new celestials to the game.