Turning into a celestial ritual

[Potato disciple]

I happened to own a copy of both the Book of the Damned 2 and Chronicle of the Righteous. One thing I found absent from the latter and exiting in the former is the demonic ritual (or it's celestial equivalent, anyway). So what if I'm a devout worshipper of Cernunos and my dream is to transform into a cervinal agathion and hunt devils with him for the rest of eternity?
So let's do some homebrew, shall we:
Shamelessly copying almost exactly the steps to demonhood, I (or rather, Book of the Damned 2) came up with four steps.

1) First you choose an Empyreal Lord to worship - they should be of the celestial type you wish to end up as. Then, for a year, you have to continuously perform acts of goodness and kindness as appropriate to you celestial mentor. At the end of that year, your alignment shifts to that of you mentor. Even if you are already the right alignment, this step is still necessary in order to attract an Empyreal patron.

2) At some point during the second year, you must contact you patron using either the spells commune or contact other plane. The patron must then be noted of your desire to transform into a celestial - the spell cannot be used to ask any other questions. After this is complete, but before the year has passed, you must burn an item of significance to you in a temple desecrated to that patron. This item should not be a living person - we are good guys, after all. You need to make a DC 20 knowledge(religion) check in order to make the sacrifice correctly. If the item is also of importance to your chosen patron, the DC drops to 10 (making even someone not trained in this skill capable of making it). Once the sacrifice has been made, you permanently receive the benefits of a celestial ritual of mortification.

3) at some point after the first ritual is completed, but not always after the second is, the patron sends you a vision of a task that you must complete. This task is often of importance to the patron, and one that you have no hope of completing before you get more powerful. You must maintain your weekly devotion to your patron (making acts of kindness to strangers and praying in the appropriate temple are popular options). Once the task is completed, you will need to make a special ritual of honor to you patron - you must make a shrine to them, made with materials to honor your patron. In order to make it correctly, you need to make a DC 30 knowledge(religion) check, with a +1 bonus for each cleric of the religion helping you make it. When you successfully build the shrine, you will be permanently given the half-celestial template.

4) for most, the half-celestial template is enough. But for some who want to take it even further, there exists a fourth ritual. Each year after completing the third ritual, you must conduct a ceremony at that exact date, honoring your patron in a way appropriate to it. After that, you must make a DC 40 knowledge(religion) check, with a comulative +1 bonus per each such ceremony conducted. Once you succeed, you become a full-fledged celestial - you immediately lose the benefits of you previous race as well as the half fiend template, but can apply all your class levels to your new celestial race (for example, an elf ranger 10 can become a lilend ranger 10).
So, what do you think? Do you even think this sort of thing happens (a mortal deciding it wants to become a celestial)?
PD

[GM Rednal]

Well, I could definitely take this several ways. As a rules-based way of accomplishing a story thing, I see no particular problem with it.

If we want to get philosophical, though... XD

1) Do you think all Empyreal Lords would approve of telling people to constantly perform acts of goodness in order to get a reward? From a certain point of view, you could think of all those acts as ultimately selfish. Some philosophies hold that it's better to do good things merely because they're good. "I'm going to be EXTRA good for a special reward" could be seen as bribery on the part of the heavens - especially because people who strongly want to keep doing good in the universe can, in fact, become beings that do so. ...After they die.

2) Celestial realms probably care more about becoming a well-rounded person than infernal realms do. The normal life cycle of an Outsider includes progressing upwards through different forms, and with that can come experiences that make one better. Would Empyreal Lords necessarily support 'skipping' these formative experiences?

3) Are you sure you don't want a cap there? I mean, if someone goes "I want to become an Empyrean Angel and keep all my class levels", your 10th Level Ranger becomes CR 30 and is completely inappropriate for the game in comparison to everyone else. Some limit like "your new CR cannot exceed your old CR, and if necessary, you lose class levels" might be appropriate. (It's even worse if they want to become an Empyrean Paragon. XD Those things can be in "Smite Demon Lords with relative ease and outrank Empyreal Lords" territory even without class levels.)

[Potato disciple]

I see your points. Many of these were bugging me constantly while coming up with these rituals.
1) I think a person who does these good deeds IN ORDER to get a reward just won't please his empyreal patron enough, thus not becoming his goal alignment. Only truly good people get that little G at the end of their alignment - selfish people don't.
2) exceptionally good people, in my opinion, should already be well rounded and experienced with goodness. Showing your devotion to the upper realms is in and of itself, a sort of "formative experience".
3) you're 100% correct - I meant to include a cap on the HD of the celestial you will become. Problem is, the original cap of BotD2 is "no more HD than twice your class levels", making an 8th level fighter be able to transform into a marilith, more than TRIPLING his own CR. I think a better limit is "no more HD than half your class level", at most one-and-a-half-ing your CR. And yes, a 20th level paladin could transform into a shield archon for a total CR of 30, but 20th level paladins, man.

[GM Rednal]

Interestingly, HD is less-accurate for determining CR in monsters than it is for PCs. XD Lots of creatures have a lot of small hit dice to make it easier to hit their expected saving throws, et cetera, so CR (rather than HD) might be a better measure for the final result.

...

Admittedly, it's more of a concern if it's something you want players to have access to. XD If it's just plot for NPCs, you can do whatever.

(As for experience... *Taps chin* Well, let me put it this way. You have someone you really like and you're considering hiring them for your company... but while you're pretty sure they have potential as a manager, they don't yet have experience on the kind of scale your company operates at. Planetars, for example, are generals that lead celestial armies - and even if they were a good leader in life, asking them to instantly adapt to the wildly different tactics and weapons of Outer Plane warfare might be a bit much. On the other hand, if they spend some time *as* the sort of beings they lead, they'll know everything the members of their army are capable of when they actually do go to lead a force. No matter how much you like a potential hire, you usually want to have a period of training and teaching before they're set loose to do their job - if only so they can learn the differences between your company and their previous employment.)

[Potato disciple]

perhaps including a step in which you will need to show the qualities required for a role such as the one you will be taking as a celestial (great soldier as a solar, leader of armies as a cervinal and so on).

[Steelfiredragon]

half celestial...

well at one time in one book ( yeah it was a fr one) and another one that was pf mentioned one that turned into a half fiend.

that said I see no reason why not to ahve one that would turn pc or npc into a half celestial.

that also said...

you would be able to lose the half- outsider part too if said patron who allowed you to be infused with outsider awesomeness was not happy with your actions....