Celestial Creation

From an early draft of Teratogenicon:

Celestials are creatures native to the Upper Planes. Many of them are the servants of deities, employed as messengers or agents in the mortal realm and throughout the planes. Celestials are good by nature, so the exceptional celestial who strays from a good alignment is a horrifying rarity. Celestials include angels, couatls, and pegasi.

A typical celestial has the following traits:

Size: any.

Alignment: Lawful Good.

Abilities: varies.

Common resistances/immunities: charm, fear, nonmagical attacks.

Senses: Darkvision.

Languages: Common, Celestial, and many other languages.

Challenge: 2d6.

Habits, diet and habitat

Celestials live in different planes to humankind and often come with a specific mission. Angels and their kind can live anywhere and do not need to eat, drink or sleep. Animal-shaped celestials, such as unicorn and pegasi, are usually more mundane in this aspect.

Appearance & Powers

A celestial’s heavenly nature manifests in their appearance, as auras of gold, shining armor, and feathered wings. When they take humanoid form, they are healthy, strong, and thin specimens. Some celestial are somewhat more mysterious and less human, as if to indicate they are somewhat superior or different from mundane beings (the last eight entries are darker than the rest; use 1d12 if you want a more traditional look).

Attacks. Celestials often carry big magic weapons with impressive special properties. Even when unarmed, their attacks are usually considered to be equivalent to magical weapons.

Some celestials can project attack with beams of radiant damage, auras of fire, and so on (spheres of energy originate on the celestial but do not affect it). Celestials without ranged attacks will often have strong defensive powers (teleportation, invisibility, etc.).

Energy. This table applies to the celestial’s attack and possibility to their features as well – fire halos, radiant wings, lighting auras, and so on.

Animals. Some celestials look like animals - examples are winged lions, golden stags, unicorns, etc. Some were actually animals once, now ascended by the contact with higher powers (in this case, their attacks will probably be unarmed – although some animals may carry weapons in their mouths or possess intelligent weapons that fight by themselves on command). Other celestials have animal features, animal motifs in their clothing, animal companions, or the ability to transform into animals. The list below contains the animals most commonly associated with celestials.

Color/metal. These colors and metals are commonly applied to celestial features – clothes, eyes, wings, hair, skin, etc.

Origins and goals

Celestials are usually created by deities, but there are other possibilities. Their goals are usually benevolent, but not always. Notice that some deities have draconic laws against insignificant sins (wearing the wrong color in a temple, eating forbidden food, etc.).

Tables

All art: copyright Peter Mohrbacher.

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