DM Help Does Bhaal Have Angels? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Erubus

2015-10-24, 12:24 AM

So I'm working out a campaign and the first thing I need to figure out is...

Does Bhall have angels?

I need to know what to use as an equivalent so as to fill an audience viewing area. Like a stadium. Or a Colosseum.

Malifice

2015-10-24, 12:31 AM

Probably Devils. Or yugoloths. Maybe both!

Inevitability

2015-10-24, 04:41 AM

His domain is on Gehenna, so I'd say he is served by a mix of devils and yugoloths. He's LE, so probably more devils than yugoloths.

Tehnar

2015-10-24, 08:21 AM

Well Baal is the Blood Angels chapter homeworld so... :smalltongue:

Mrmox42

2015-10-24, 08:39 AM

Well Baal is the Blood Angels chapter homeworld so...

Well put, but... no. :smallbiggrin:

Devils are the way to go, with yugoloths for support.

Space Marines, renegades or not, are very very optional.

Coffee_Dragon

2015-10-24, 11:59 AM

Murder elementals.

M Placeholder

2015-10-24, 12:36 PM

Bhaal is currently dead, and so were the majority of those that resided in Khalas, the Volcano that his realm was located on in Gehenna. The entry in Faiths and Avatars states that the presence of living creatures instilled a need to kill constantly, so most of his minions were undead.

The General of Gehenna (who might not even exist) is supposedly the most powerful of all the Yugoloths, and most of the 'loths have the Blood War to worry about.

An Arena on the side of the Volcano, filled with undead and petitioners, should suffice as Bhaals own personal theater.

Inevitability

2015-10-25, 04:56 AM

Bhaal is currently dead

Actually, he's returned to life in 5e. The PHB lists him as a deity.

M Placeholder

2015-10-25, 06:25 AM

Actually, he's returned to life in 5e. The PHB lists him as a deity.

It does state that the suggested Domain of Bhaal is death and his allignment is NE, so I would just go with Undead. Lots of them.

Just checked, and it also lists Cyric, who killed Bhaal during the Time of Troubles and took over the portfollio of Bhaal. So how did Bhaal come back to life after being killed and sent to rot on the Astral Plane?

Inevitability

2015-10-25, 10:44 AM

Just checked, and it also lists Cyric, who killed Bhaal during the Time of Troubles and took over the portfollio of Bhaal. So how did Bhaal come back to life after being killed and sent to rot on the Astral Plane?

I imagine that is something we won't know until we get more FR fluff. That, or until someone pesters the developers enough.

MeeposFire

2015-10-25, 09:09 PM

Atalas

2015-10-25, 09:58 PM

I imagine that is something we won't know until we get more FR fluff. That, or until someone pesters the developers enough.

It's in some of the novels, not D&D fluff. I know he had some sort of plan that involved his mortal offspring that was the plot of one of the Baldur's Gate games.

MeeposFire

2015-10-25, 10:12 PM

It's in some of the novels, not D&D fluff. I know he had some sort of plan that involved his mortal offspring that was the plot of one of the Baldur's Gate games.

Actually that was just one of thew ways he could be brought back and there were at lest one (and I think there were more than one) way in an official source book that talked about as a possible way to bring him back to life. For one example was the river where he died still contains his essence and you could use that.

Essentially every one of the dead three had one or more plot points that could be used to bring them back in your campaigns by default.

BrianDavion

2016-05-29, 10:16 PM

turns out the plan from baulder's gate may have FINALLY come to fruition in the adventure "murder in baulder's gate" it took over a hundred years but what is a century to the divine?

Gnomes2169

2016-05-29, 10:30 PM

And hey, the thread was necroed almost as much as Bhaal!

But yeah, apparently Ardred Adrian super died (huzzah!) and the other child of Bhaal became the god reborn before rampaging through Baldur. So Bhaal is alive and murdering fools once more! Pimp-slapped the domain of murder from Cyric too, is what he did first. Left that fool a babbling insane deity and nothing more.

Good times.

Sigreid

2016-05-29, 11:35 PM

Bhaal could be listed in case you want to use him from back in the day. Many of the original set of gods remain very popular. Heck in 2e they had just killed him off but would still tell you about his clergy and the like in the books of the time.

Bhaals servants would probably be former (as in dead) assassins.

Does it matter? I think between the devs and the authors they change FR gods more often than any of the developers change their underwear.

Moosoculars

2016-05-30, 06:42 AM

I might be the minority opinion here but I would say yes. Bhaal would have Angels. Bhaal is a God and Gods have Angels. I think Bhaal would also have demons, undead etc.

Angels will kill evil creatures without remorse and so would be very useful to Bhaal. Many Angels are destroyers which fits well. Angels would not obey every command but if Bhaal gave powers to an assassin who then failed their task, Bhaal could send his Angel of death to punish the assassin for the failure. Even a Solar would slay an evil murderous assassin without question or remorse.

Gods should have Angels

JackPhoenix

2016-05-30, 07:03 AM

Moosoculars

2016-05-30, 07:15 AM

Yes i agree he wouldn't be able to create them, they have to be created by a benevolent good god, but does he have them? I would say yes. A mercenary Angel would be a good description or there could be other celestial motivation. Either way a killing destroying Angel in Bhaal's "pay" would be a thing to be feared and fits if you want it to.

If the op-er wants to justify Bhaal having an angel then I think you can to that.

Bhaal would have many evil enemies that angels would be only to happy to destroy.

Eldan

2016-05-30, 11:09 AM

Sadly, that's not how angels work anymore. They got changed from the gods' enforcers (one of very few good ideas in 4e) back to "generic good outsiderscelestials". Evil gods can't create them. I suppose Bhaal could recruit some freelance fallen angels to his cause, but that's not the same thing... they wouldn't be the extension of his will, but a bunch of mercenaries on his paycheck.

That's not a 4E change. Planescape (2E) very clearly stated that angels work for gods. Archons, Eladrin and Guardinals are good exemplars of the various planes, but angels aren't.

I always thought one of the big failings of D&D was the lack of evil angels.

JackPhoenix

2016-05-30, 11:21 AM

That's not a 4E change. Planescape (2E) very clearly stated that angels work for gods. Archons, Eladrin and Guardinals are good exemplars of the various planes, but angels aren't.

I always thought one of the big failings of D&D was the lack of evil angels.

GOOD gods. Angels weren't exemplars of their alignment, but they still were generic good outsiders. And they don't have evil counterparts, baatezu, tanar'ri and yugoloths were all exemplars of their respective flavors of evil. And angels were generic good outsiders in 3.5e, no mention of gods in their MM entry.

That's kinda what I'm talking about... evil gods have to outsource their services to demons, devils, and anyone willing to work for them, they don't have servants of their own (well, that's not strictly true, Lolth does have yochlol, Tiamat have abishai (sp?)). It makes good and evil gods fundamentally different in some way that doesn't really make sense.

I just like the idea that gods have common servant loyal to them, regardless of what they represent.

Regitnui

2016-05-30, 12:11 PM

One word, ladies and gentlemen; Erinyes. You want evil angels? Bam. Done. What better than the erinyes to serve evil gods?

Eldan

2016-05-30, 12:50 PM

I'll jsut drop this here. It's a thing I've wanted to start for a while.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?489768-BE-NOT-AFRAID-Let-s-design-alignment-neutral-angels-3-5&p=20836076#post20836076

RedMage125

2016-05-30, 01:20 PM

The events of Murder in Baldur's Gate certainly led to the resurrection of Bhaal. But that's not the only thing. During the events of the Sundering, Ao the overgod re-formed the Tablets of Fate, which delineate the gods' duties. Doing this brought back several dead deities, while not removing the deities who had arisen after the old tablets were destroyed, such as Cyric and Kelemvor.

Liira is back (previously murdered by Cyric after his ascension)
Myrkul is back
Mystra has returned
Amaunator and Lathander are somehow both present and are separate deities.

Pretty much the only FR deity who did not return was Tyche, but in a way she is present in Tymora and Beshaba.

Gnomes2169

2016-05-30, 05:52 PM

I blame the Amaunator/ Lathander thing just on the flip-flopping that poor god went through... Had to go through multiple selves before finally admitting his multiple personalities were the same god.

And in the SCAG, it explains that the current divide is more the fault of his worshipers arguing over what to call him and which aspects should be worshiped. It's quite insistent that the worshipers are at fault for the divide, not the god... Well, I mean he's totally at fault since he could tell everyone arguing to sit down, shut up and listen to him, but since when has that ever actually worked? :smalltongue:

JumboWheat01

2016-05-30, 06:12 PM

I like to think all the confusion with gods being not who they say they are, or being back from the dead, or various other things of the like, is because Ao got sick of what was happening during and around the time of the Spellplague and just hit the big red RESET button to "fix" it without reading up on what it would do.

BrianDavion

2016-05-30, 07:11 PM

the sword coast adventurer's guide also notes that after a period of divine activity the gods have settled into mostly being quiet. not silent, just not directly speaking and interacting more with signs and portants then anything. my over all read is that the last two or so centuries saw a flurry of nearly unprecidented divine interferance and that has begun to recede.