I was just thinking about something the other day, and it's probably a topic that's been rehashed several times. However, it seems to me that there is a potent lack of the celestial in most adventures. Granted, detailing things that characters are more likely to interact with (i.e., fiends as adversaries) seems like a better investment of time for the designers and time for the DMs and players who would have to read about the celestials. But I'm not even really advocating detailed maps on the cities of the Seven Mounting Heavens or the Twin Paradises, as one finds with places such as Mephistar on Cania in FCII.
I'm more interested in the subject of celestials playing roles in adventures themselves. Fiends are common. Fiends are easy to integrate. Adventures need villains to be overcome, and no one serves this purpose better than fiends. It's almost their deifinition. The adventurers come in, slay an unequivocally evil foe and don't have to deal with sticky moral questions, save the city and walk away (rich) heroes.
Celestials are trickier to implement. Ideally, they're on the same side as the party. They're also very strong and potent creatures. Thus, one runs into the issue of Deus ex Machina or simply overshadowing the party with the actions and presence of the angel or eladrin or whatever.
However, there's something to be said for the cinematic imagery and storyline that can be created using the celestial. A pillar of pure light bursts from the sky, and all good souls who view it are filled with comfort, while the wicked quake in fear. Within this beam descends a beautiful, gentle, winged being who will right wrongs, protect the weak and the innocent, and generally make everything better.
Or even the extreme satisfaction that one can derive from a scene in which some scheme, irredeemable villain has persecuted the protagonists time and again, only to finally come face to face with an avenging angel and be dealt a powerful blow of justice.
Angels can serve to convey feelings of comfort and safety to the party, as well as clear beacons of "this is the right thing to do!" And, they have a certain "righteous badass" quality to them when they lay the smackdown on evil.
But again, the problem becomes handling their interaction with the party and making sure there isn't too much overlap.
What I'm looking for is advice on how to implement celestials into adventures successfully, where the creatures themselves get to show off and be as integral to the plot as any fiend, while still letting the party do their thing and not step on toes.
I'm not specifically planning anything or possessing any agenda to make such an adventure. I just wanted to throw this out to the general community to see what could be developed.
I'm envisioning a campaign centered around freeing or allowing celestials back into the world, after fiends have found some way of imprisoning/sealing them out. The heroes must go through a series of quests and discoveries and finally must release said celestials upon the armies of darkness, while the heroes bring the ultimate BBEG/fiend to justice.
You know, as a potential "failsafe" I can see at the endpoint of a given storyline having two fairly tough fiendish encounters. If the PCs have trouble with the first one, after, say, four rounds a celestial shows up and nails the fiend. After putting the party back together, you can use the celestial to warn them of what is coming and let them "gear up" for the last encounter with fresh healing and foreknowledge of what is coming up, but for whatever reason, mortals have to defeat the main villain (perhaps its because of some foolish mortal behavior that the fiend is free, so mortals must be the ones to banish it).
In this manner, its still the PCs doing the main "heavy lifting," but you have a built in way to use a celestial to help out the PCs if they don't manage to move through the "henchmen" encounter as easily as they normally could.
You could also use Celestial's as messenger's to the Cleric's from their Diety. Kind of a "Ok, things are rough, I understand, here's what help I can offer you"... que CELESTIAL.
Just because the cleric is using the Prayer spell doesn't mean their Diety is the one to actually show up and answer the call. I mean Diety's are pretty busy with everyone praying to them, the Dieties playing their own games, etc.
Just my 2cp.
Granted, its not exactly the same thing, but its similar . . . the cleric of Helm in my Mistledale campaign had dream warnings/visions delivered by a Justicator several times in the campaign.
I'm more interested in Celestials as opponents. Let's say there's a powerful plague infesting the lands, a plague so Gods-cursed and horrible that every cleric, paladin or druid that attempts to cure it through magical means runs the risk of contracting it themselves. Investigating the causes of this blight via spells, theology, etc. the characters eventually hit upon the idea of these mythical bandages that were said to be capable of curing any malady, no matter how dreadful, with merely a touch. However, the celestial beings keep this miraculous artifact under lock and key. And here's the kicker: They want the plague to continue.
Fugitive fiends from the prison plane so vile and horrid that the celestials have to watch them personally have escaped, possessing mortal hosts in lieu of true bodies. They move from soul to soul without regard to their host, forcing them to do terrible things or just tainting their unwitting host with their presence. Since they can basically move from body to body as they like, the only real solution is to drastically reduce the world's population and limit where the creatures can flee. The celestials rationalize that the better and more saintly humans will go where they belong in the afterlife anyways and that the rest are already doomed. Beings with tremendous lifespans that don't even breathe or eat don't understand the big hubbub about life as a human (or elf or dwarf) and see no reason to waste their efforts when they can simply wait for the fiends to come to them.
Naturally, this works best in a campaign with a very loose or non-existent alignment system. There could be a small faction that is horrified by the fire and brimstone faction that originated the whole thing. And perhaps the PCs would need to secure fiendish aid to reach those coveted bandages behind the celestials' backs. Maybe if the PCs capture these horrid demons and devils and return them to their crystalline prisons, the angels will agree to stop the entire mess.
There are lots of reasons to introduce Celestials:
1. To get infromation from someone who died
2 Some component or rare material - celestial mithral for example - is needed to make the uber item you are planning - need a celestials help to get it.
3. The cure to some demonic plague is found only in healing herbs founds on the slopes of some celestial mountain - need a celestial guide/aide.
4. An especially potent feat or PrC requires training in a celestial master.
5. You need to clear up a curse or a blight on the family honor.
6. Forces of evil have an insidious plot to send agent to eliminate, weaken, sicken, contaminate, bring war to etc. some part of celestia and the party has the information - but the bad guys have blocked the celestials ability to recieve communication/detect the plot.
7. Spells are not being given to the worshippers of a given faith/pantheon - party is on a quest to investigate and return magic to the priests.
8. A Celestial has broken ranks and is trying to create a new cult to the god he serves - the established church is upset.
9. A celestial is trying to unify two cults - politcs and intigue result.
10. A celestial has fallen and seeks redemption.
11. A bad guy has bound a celestial into an item to power it - he seeks release.
12. A celestial has taken it upon himself to act as judge for a group of people - the results would be bad for them.
Anyway lots of ways to incorporate them into the game - sages, counsellors, guardians - depends a lot on how high the level of magic is in your campaign - and how powerful you want the celestials to be.
In one of the campaigns I´m playing in (set on Mystara), the demon lord Alphaks has imprisoned a celestial (named Betarion) beneath a volcanic island and secured the prison on the elemental plane of fire with several seals. One of the main campaign objectives is to free this celestial, but it is a long-term goal.
Betarion was one of the main servants of Alphatia, the primary enemy of Alphaks - both were emperors of the Empire of Alphatia in the past.
Stefan
well, in my classic game; meaning the long running one; the appearance of celestials to demons is probably about 1 to 5; but the party is composed of very selfish good guys and a few evil peeps, of course they are on their way to talk to the Prime Solar; ie the oldest and first created one, right now to get permission to enter a valley that he has cloaked and actively guards. They have traveled to the Happy Hunting Grounds as well as layer 37 of the Abyss.
The other party I run is to low level to have built up much faith or deeds to have attracted the attention of either side.
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Supernatural vs. Natural - As the party gains experience and advances in fame, reputation, and power, they attract the attention of some celestial servants who see them as a chance to usher in the new redeemed world order where all the planet will be turned into a paradise city of ivory, gold, and diamond, with harp muzak echoing from the lofty spires of twinkling gems. Where the good servants of the celestials can walk the gleaming streets and play in the perfectly kept parks of a heaven on earth.
Huzzah! says the paladin.
Blessed be! says the cleric.
WTF??? say the druid and ranger.
Screw that boring crap! says the barbarian.
Hmm, all those gems are gonna kill the market. says the rogue.
Just because it's a good thing to help celestials, dosesn't mean that it's not going to cause strife within the party . . . The members of the group more concerned with the natural world may be definitely split with the goals of the heavenly would-be benefactors.
BTW, I was touched by an angle once . . . it was pointy and it hurt. I was lucky I didn't loose an eye.
Gavgoyle, you scared me! I thought I misspelled the thread's title. :)
Thanks for all the input so far. I was thinking more along the lines of celestials that serve as the informants/guardians/aides/etc. The fallen angel story is good and compelling, but wasn't quite what I was wondering about.
Celestials as foes is an interesting idea, but on one hand, it kind of feels like an attempt to involve them in the game, and how are monster manual entries invovled in the game? Combat. Obviously, the PCs are the good guys, so to involve celestials, one must make them foes. At least, that's what it often feels like to me, and while that's not necessarily bad/wrong, I was just wondering about ways to make celestials as present in the game as fiends, and still retain their classic roles.
I suppose in the future I'll just be more liberal with the appearance of angels and other such goody-goodies. I also like the idea that the celestials could be doing something good, like trying to bring heavan to earth, but it still clashes with other people, either Neutrals who like things the way they are, or sects like druids who don't want to see the balance destroyed, even for eternal bliss.
I was running my group - now almost 8000km distant, since I moved :( - through the City of the Spider Queen module about a year ago. While in the city of Maerimydra, the cleric of Ilmater had the brilliant idea to summon a greater planar ally. A planetar named Hanael answered the call...and she certainly laid down some whoop-ass on the drow of the Undying Temple.... I don't think the party would have survived the rest of that module without her.
I ran an campaign where angels and demons placed a big part in the setting. At first, historically, the celestials began helping out in the human world, since they could not morally stand the suffering of innocents and the evils corrupting the mortal world. To counteract that, the evil outsiders would send their representatives to stir up trouble and nurture the selfish and violent nature of people. Eventually, the situation grew to a blatant war between deities that used the material world as its battleground and threatened to tear the very world apart.
Realising that the entire conflict would be in vain if the human race was annihilated, the only solution was for the deities to seal an agreement that more or less prevented extraplanar beings from entering the material world unbidden, unless by powerful magic or great faith (in other words summoning and calling spells).
In game terms, if you let celestials run around saving the world, it overshadows the player characters' achievements and makes a really boring world to adventure in. It creates a utopia, which is pleasant to live in but not an interesting place to hack and slash. Thus, you can generally assume that any celestial or fiend who acts in the material world will do so very subtly, in order to act without raising suspicion from their opposite number on the material plane, and in order to avoid confounding the natural order the material world with their very presence.
I incorporate Celestials into my game this way:
A dead character requires the willing sacrifice of an outsider of 1-step away or matching alignment.
makes for some great roleplaying.
I also have an adventure in the works involving celestials and an expiriment gone wrong (its all hush hush you know ;D )
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16
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A few years ago I ran an epic style campaign in which the PC's primary patron was a greater celestial.
The factions of celestials and fiends had once long ago been engaged in a terrible war. When the war ceased there were rules laid down. These rules were like Geas and not able to be circumvented by mere whim and were laid on all the hosts of heaven and hell.
One of the principle rules was non-interference in mortal affairs and of course both sides had loosened those bonds somewhat but the angels didn't do as well as the demons. So it was often the patron sending them here or there to thwart the other sides "cheating" stretching her own bonds to do so.
The PCs had a blast as she would do showy world shaking, magic stuff but would still depend on these little guys to do the real work. She also provided each PC with a unique minor artifact that would help. neither her special gear or her favors really tipped the game too much in the PCs favor because the bad guys cheated bigger and I always knew what both sides were up to.
Also any time the PCs began to lean on thier patron too heavily there was another esoteric rule or oath preventing her from helping in a big way. Often once the PCs achieved a moderate level of success she could sweep in and lend a small hand.
My players loved the game and never seemed to feel over shadowed.
This is probably redundant, but: For those who are running on the theme of mutual agreement between heaven and hell of non-interference, this can be bolstered within the gameworld and still leave more fiends for fighting than celestials for Deus ex Machina-ing by pointing out that the fiends cheat. They want to find loopholes and cause suffering. The celestials know that doing such things is wrong and would only result in more strife, thus they don't do it.
Okay, that's pretty obvious and you probably already have something like that in place, but it took just a second for it to sink into my head, so I just thought I'd throw it out for the general public.