Celestial Pact?

[Conradine]

The vast majority of contracts and pacts with outsider are fiendish ( devil or demons ).

But what could offer a Celestial called with Planar Binding, instead?
And, more important, what could such an angel ask for his services?

[Psyren]

"Donate X to {insert good-aligned church}" would probably be the default if the angel doesn't have anything specific it needs done.

If you're looking for hook ideas, think of any typical good-aligned quest, most will probably work. Protect this village, find that missing hero, recover/dispose of this item, find and end the source of this plague, solve this murder, and so on.

[Particle_Man]

I think the Paladin class could be the result of a celestial pact. There are also various feats in Book of Exalted Deeds that could fit.

[MR_Anderson]

By nature Evil is selfish and seeking more. More power, more wealth, more souls, and to do more for others is means they need to do more for you, thus the need for a contract.

By nature Good is selfless and is generally content in what they have, seeking to better others. They will do acts for others without the need for something being done for them in return. Thus when you give free acts of kindness, you usually don’t need a contract. The motivation to return a favor is to spread the goodness.

You will find Contracts, Deals, or Covenants made between people and gods. If you are seeking more power for selfish gain good gods are not likely to empower that. Gods make deals like increase my followers or perform rituals for me, I grand powers of spells and other class features.

Celestials tend to be merely servants in one fashion or another.

[Zaq]

As for what the celestial can offer the mortal, maybe make it a rule that celestial pacts can never directly benefit the pactmaker but always have to benefit someone else. (And no mutual pacts for the benefit of someone who's also making a pact to benefit you. Archons are just as lawful as baatezu and they've thought of that.) Maybe even prevent the mortal from letting the beneficiary know about the pact, so that the mortal doesn't do this just to seek glory ("look at what I did for you!").

[Kalkra]

Canonically, the forces of Good are overall weaker than the forces of Evil, and the only reason the forces of Evil haven't crushed the forces of Good is because there's a war between the demons and devils, and other stuff like that. It might be reasonable to assume that Evil has more resources to bestow upon people, and that's one of those wasteful things they do, but the celestials are just devoting all of their resources to survival. Might not be the wisest strategy on their part, though.

[magicalmagicman]

Canonically, the forces of Good are overall weaker than the forces of Evil, and the only reason the forces of Evil haven't crushed the forces of Good is because there's a war between the demons and devils, and other stuff like that. It might be reasonable to assume that Evil has more resources to bestow upon people, and that's one of those wasteful things they do, but the celestials are just devoting all of their resources to survival. Might not be the wisest strategy on their part, though.

Never made sense to me because good has all these deities while evil is asmodeus who rivals the power of one deity.

[Kalkra]

Never made sense to me because good has all these deities while evil is asmodeus who rivals the power of one deity.

Yeah, a lot of that stuff doesn't make much sense.

[Tzardok]

Never made sense to me because good has all these deities while evil is asmodeus who rivals the power of one deity.

False dichotomy. Evil has a lot of gods too, and Asmodeus is not alone. Evil also has the other Lords of the Nine and all of those demon lords like Demogorgon, Graz'zt and Orcus. On the other hand, those also have good counterparts, like the Celestial Hebdomad and the Court of Stars.


Canonically, the forces of Good are overall weaker than the forces of Evil, and the only reason the forces of Evil haven't crushed the forces of Good is because there's a war between the demons and devils, and other stuff like that. It might be reasonable to assume that Evil has more resources to bestow upon people, and that's one of those wasteful things they do, but the celestials are just devoting all of their resources to survival. Might not be the wisest strategy on their part, though.

Canonically, the war of Good and Evil is going pretty much in the favour of Good. How do I know that? Just look at all those adventures. It's always "an evil plot to subvert the kingdom", "an evil plot to assassinate the good king", "an evil horde is attacking the country". That's because Good is supreme on the Material Plane, and Evil lurks in the cracks and on the outskirts, trying to get in. If it were the other way, if Evil were ascendent, most campaign settings would be covered by evil empires and dystopias, with Good fighting the guerilla fight.

On the Outer Planes it's the same; guardinals serve as mediators between archons and eladrin, ensuring that something like the Blood War never happens in the heavens, while their counterpart, the yugoloth, just pour gasoline on the fires of strife between devils and demons. And then there are the angels, who don't even have an Evil counterpart.

Edit: To be on topic for this thread, the reason why there are fewer celestial pacts than fiendish ones? Good is not desperate and does not need to resort to bribing mortals into taking its side.

[magicalmagicman]

False dichotomy. Evil has a lot of gods too, and Asmodeus is not alone. Evil also has the other Lords of the Nine and all of those demon lords like Demogorgon, Graz'zt and Orcus. On the other hand, those also have good counterparts, like the Celestial Hebdomad and the Court of Stars.

Demon princes and Archdevils are nowhere near a deity's power. And the stats reflect it.

Evil deities don't control demons and devils. Demons are the reason evil outnumbers good by so much.

[Tzardok]

Demon princes and Archdevils are nowhere near a deity's power. And the stats reflect it.

Evil deities don't control demons and devils. Demons are the reason evil outnumbers good by so much.

And good deities don't control celestials (except angels). I'm not sure what you are getting at.

Also, we also have stats for Asmodeus. He's not any better than Demogorgon. Why single him out and ignore the other fiendish lords?

[magicalmagicman]

And good deities don't control celestials (except angels). I'm not sure what you are getting at.

Also, we also have stats for Asmodeus. He's not any better than Demogorgon. Why single him out and ignore the other fiendish lords?

I thought deities controlled celestials.

I guess you're right about Asmodeus. So I guess a single deity can take out all demons and devils.

[Tzardok]

I thought deities controlled celestials.

I guess you're right about Asmodeus. So I guess a single deity can take out all demons and devils.

If they could, they already would have. Deities aren't very big players on the planes.

Don't forget, the planes are infinite, just like their inhabitants. No deity has infinite power, so how could, for example, Gruumsh exterminate an infinite amount of archons?

[Afgncaap5]

If called as a Planar Ally, I would have them demand a promise to perform a certain duty that would lead to great good, theoretically through ripple effects.

Honestly, demanding the players to do something really small in the future that ultimately winds up just being super far out of the way is intriguing for a couple of reasons. "On the outskirts of the town of Willingham in the kingdom of Rezasz, go destroy the sign that informs passersby of the town name." might take the players the better part of a year to reach, but might also provide just enough momentary confusion for the town to have the edge it needs to ward off the first strike of a barbarian army that's getting ready to invade and cause mass misery.