half celestial ?

[da newt]

In 5e, what is a 1/2 angle called? Half fiends are Cambion, Empyrean are half gods, what's a half angel?

Aasimar are a smidge celestial, Tieflings are a smidge fiendish - but those are just a little.

[RogueJK]

While previous editions established a variety of names for different flavors of half-fiends, I don't believe there's ever been a special name established for half-celestials. There's even a template in the 3.5 Monster Manual, but it's just called "Half-Celestial" throughout.

Same in Pathfinder.

[Mastikator]

Aasimar can qualify as half celestial

[sun_flotter]

In 5e, what is a 1/2 angle called? Half fiends are Cambion, Empyrean are half gods, what's a half angel?

From what I recall, Cambions only refer to the offspring of a fiend and a human woman? It's a specific flavor of half-fiend. If you want to talk about all half-fiends, you simply use half-fiend, it might be the same thing with half-celestials?

[Unoriginal]

If the kid takes enough after the celestial parent, then half-celestial or half-[specific species name of the celestial parent] would apply. If they take more after the mortal parent then they can be qualified of Aasimar.


From what I recall, Cambions only refer to the offspring of a fiend and a human woman?

In 5e, a Cambion is the offspring of any fiend and any mortal, regardless of anyone's gender, so long as they get enough from their fiend parent.

A Devil and a human (both of any gender) can give birth to a Tielfing, if the kid takes more after the human parent.

[sun_flotter]

In 5e, a Cambion is the offspring of any fiend and any mortal, regardless of anyone's gender, so long as they get enough from their fiend parent.

My bad then! I could have sworn I saw something about different types of half-fiends and Cambions only being one type, but maybe I'm wrong


A Devil and a human (both of any gender) can give birth to a Tielfing, if the kid takes more after the human parent.
Don't Tieflings have to have less than 50% of fiendish heritage to be classified as such tho?

[Mastikator]

The PHB just says tieflings have infernal heritage. A tiefling can be born of a great number of things: ancestor made a pact with a fiend, born in an auspicious time and place, someone cursed you/your parent/grand parent, parent survived sexual encounter with succubus/incubus.

A winged variant tiefling is a strong candidate for half-fiend IMO.

Edit- lineages and heritage in 5e tends to be vague so that players have more freedom. There's really no reason to have a half celestial or half fiend when aasimar and tiefling are perfectly serviceable. The player can just choose how much of their supernatural heritage is visible.

[Unoriginal]

My bad then! I could have sworn I saw something about different types of half-fiends and Cambions only being one type, but maybe I'm wrong

Could have been in a different edition or game.



Don't Tieflings have to have less than 50% of fiendish heritage to be classified as such tho?

Not really, no, it's a question of how much fiendish power/influence you get, not who are your parents.

You can have Asmodeus as one of your parents and still only get enough Devil to be a Tiefling. You can also be born a Tiefling from two humans just because both of their grandmothers were Warlocks of Levistus.


The PHB just says tieflings have infernal heritage. A tiefling can be born of a great number of things: ancestor made a pact with a fiend, born in an auspicious time and place, someone cursed you/your parent/grand parent, parent survived sexual encounter with succubus/incubus.

Well, the last one wouldn't result in a Tiefling, as succubi/incubi are not infernal in 5e, but the rest is true.

[Mastikator]

Well, the last one wouldn't result in a Tiefling, as succubi/incubi are not infernal in 5e, but the rest is true.

Fair. Sadly 5e only connects tieflings with devils from the 9 hells.

However, in the Eberron setting a tiefling may be connected to any fiend, either native to eberron or from another plane. They can also be of the "plane touched" variant, where they're not connected to fiends but rather an intrinsically evil dimension/location. (same for aasimars)

[da newt]

A parent who survived a sexual encounter with succubus/incubus would yield a Cambion according to the MM.

A Tiefling is derived from human bloodlines that made a pact w/ Asmodeus generations ago per the PHB.

Aasimar are descended from humans with a touch of the power of Mount Celestia and bear within their souls the light of the heavens (per Volo's) and they have celestial patrons who place them in the world to champion good.

[Mastikator]

Per MpMotM "Whether descended from a celestial being or infused with heavenly power". An aasimar can be a half-celestial. Up to the player making an aasimar PC.

[strangebloke]

The closest analogy would probably be nephilim, who are giants in Jewish myths that are sometimes also half-angels, but WotC hasn't ever used that term AFAIK even though they're fine pulling on other similar ideas from Jewish mythology like Golems and Lillith and Giant Frogs.

EDIT: To be clear, Jewish myths/stories are only as tied to Judaism as fairy tales are to Christianity. I am not talking about a real world religion here.

[Joe the Rat]

On the what-do-you-call-it, I'm incliend towards hochling or himmeling, just to parallel the missed opportunity.


The closest analogy would probably be nephilim, who are giants in Jewish myths that are sometimes also half-angels, but WotC hasn't ever used that term AFAIK even though they're fine pulling on other similar ideas from Jewish mythology like Golems and Lillith and Giant Frogs.

EDIT: To be clear, Jewish myths/stories are only as tied to Judaism as fairy tales are to Christianity. I am not talking about a real world religion here.

I was thinking grigori is out of the same blending, or is that different bit of apocrypha?

[strangebloke]

I was thinking grigori is out of the same blending, or is that different bit of apocrypha?
I don't know tbh, but I'd expect that's the case.

[RogueJK]

The closest analogy would probably be nephilim, who are giants in Jewish myths that are sometimes also half-angels, but WotC hasn't ever used that term AFAIK

But Paizo did in Pathfinder, including 11-foot-tall descendants of demigod/human relationships called Nephilim.

[strangebloke]

But Paizo did in Pathfinder, including 11-foot-tall descendants of demigod/human relationships called Nephilim.

I'd expect that WotC won't ever use this term now, for the simple reason that they can't copyright it.

[Chronos]

Eh, they've used plenty of creature names they can't trademark, right up to and including "dragon".

[KorvinStarmast]

what's a half angel? You can't be half pregnant. You either are or are not. :smallbiggrin: I think it goes the same way with Angels, who like Fiends are an embodiment of an alignment yadda yadda.

Aasimar are a smidge celestial, Tieflings are a smidge fiendish - but those are just a little. Up to half?

Per MpMotM "Whether descended from a celestial being or infused with heavenly power". An aasimar can be a half-celestial. Up to the player making an aasimar PC. That's a pretty good answer. +1

I'd expect that WotC won't ever use this term now, for the simple reason that they can't copyright it. Given that Blizzard beat the tar out if it in Diablo II and Diablo III, maybe WotC has other reasons not to use it.

[Persolus]

In 5e, what is a 1/2 angle called?

I'm going to guess 45°?

[Millstone85]

I could have sworn I saw something about different types of half-fiends and Cambions only being one type, but maybe I'm wrong
Could have been in a different edition or game.VGtM has several fiends born of mortal races:

"A barghest is born to goblin parents just as normal offspring are. The creature emerges in the form of a goblin, then develops the ability to assume its true form: that of a large, fiendish canine."
"A draegloth is a half-drow, half-glabrezu demon, born of a drow high priestress in an unholy, dangerous ritual."
On the tanarukk, "The process corrupts an unborn orc of the tribe, transforming it at birth into a creature much more savage than an orc."

When these creatures were re-released in MP:MotM, the lore had been expunged of any reference to a fiendish fetus:

No indication of how barghests reach the Material Plane.
A draegloth is "infused with the fey essence" of an elf priest of Lolth.
A nondescript "subject" is ritually transformed into a tanarukk.

While I liked the original 5e lore better, I get that it invited the orc-baby problem on steroids. I am curious about what 5.5 will do with the cambion. Maybe redefine it as a tiefling who chose to fully embrace their fiendish heritage?

[JackPhoenix]

A Tiefling is derived from human bloodlines that made a pact w/ Asmodeus generations ago per the PHB.

XGtE has a table for rolling random parentage for tieflings. There's 50% chance that both parents were humans, with the infernal taint only being obvious in the child, 25% chance one parent was a human and the other was a tiefling, and 12.5% chance each that one parent was a devil and the other was either a human or a tiefling.

Interestingly enough, the table lacks the option for both parents being tieflings.