Evil devine messagers

[PMDM]

Now, we all should know that the Archons are the good counter parts to Devils, as Eladrin are to Demons, and Guardinals to Yugoloths.

The problem then becomes the angels. They fit in fine with the God-PlanerBeing conflict. Angels are the messangers and servents of gods. So they usually don't get involved in the affairs of the over arching multiverse. It's much more common to see an angel on the Prime Material Plane (the main campaign worlds). At the same time, it should seem impossible for angels to act as diplomats for their patron god to the ruler of the layer of heaven that the god may hold his realm on.

Do the fiends have their version of an angel? I don't mean a fallen angel, but a DEVINE servent of a evil god, who crusades on the Prime worlds for their unholy master.

If they don't exist, what do you think they would look like? My first thought was "grim reaper", but that doesn't make much logical sence. What do you guys think?

[Jayabalard]

generally:
-divine = good
-Infernal = evil

[PMDM]

I mean divine as in godly. Not benevolent.

[Toliudar]

I have always considered the archons etc as taking the place of "angels". They're outsiders, immortal, and usually directly connected to a specific outer plane - and, presumably, one of the gods there. Angel.

So I would use demons, devils, cambions and the like as the infernal and abyssal messengers and servants of evil gods. Why not?

[jamroar]

I have always considered the archons etc as taking the place of "angels". They're outsiders, immortal, and usually directly connected to a specific outer plane - and, presumably, one of the gods there. Angel.

So I would use demons, devils, cambions and the like as the infernal and abyssal messengers and servants of evil gods. Why not?

Angels/Aasimon and Archons are just seperate races of outsider, not specifically divine heralds.

As for evil gods, I think they have individual fiends or other outsiders on retainer or bound for that purpose (as Planar Ally). Exactly what the outsider is depends on the whim of the deity, probably something thematically appropriate to its portfolio.

Some deities create their custom outsiders from their faithful dead for that purpose. (e.g. Lolth with her yochlol)

Others cheapskates might use their own divine aspects as their herald.

[PMDM]

I've always seen the Angels as servants of gods. But I could be just adding my own ias to them. In any case, is their an opposite to the angels on the planes?

[SpiderBrigade]

Hmm, maybe creatures important to the evil god (kobolds for Kurtulmak, etc) with the Fiendish template?

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

generally:
-divine = good
-Infernal = evil

It's actually more like Profane=Evil.
Infernal is more commonly specific to Lawful Evil. [/nitpick]

[PMDM]

So D&D doesn't allready have one of these guys? Maybe I just need to make one.

It shouldn't be a template, it should be a new base creature.

[lord_khaine]

actualy. angels are just really powerfull outsiders as well, and though most proberly serve some good cause or deity, they only difference betveen them and fx the archons, is that archons are lawfull, and angels can have any good alligment.

as for specific heralds, then i belive most gods have their own special servant to call on for that.

[draca]

PMDM, I think I have to chime in with the others here. There is no outsider known as "Angel" in D&D; not that I've ever read anyway. Gods do have messengers, and the beings they use for that purpose could be called "angels" if you define that as a job function and not a being. In that case, yes the evil gods can have "angels" or as they are historically known "demons": evil messenger counterparts for evil gods - again defined as a job function, not a type of being. What beings they use for these positions is up to the god.

As for what they’d look like, I think the answer would be “YES.” They’d looks like whatever outsider type they are, or whatever their god has made them to be. I personally like the idea of black winged humanoid beings with an aura of evil, and shaded eyes. So if I were and evil god, I’d make my divine messengers look like that. Or I’d just use Incubi & Succubi … but then, people would probably be too distracted by their Seksay Hawtness to pay much attention to what they are saying… and thus, they wouldn’t be as good as messengers, except when I Want to trick people. “Sign here, and you’ll get those fabulous riches Mr. Durman. What? What’s that clause about your soul? I wouldn’t worry about that.”

Edited for: (not enough wordiness)

[Iku Rex]

There is no outsider known as "Angel" in D&D; not that I've ever read anyway.

There's always that obscure "Monster Manual" book.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/angel.htm

[PMDM]

Hmm... the problem is that all the evil names are allready taken. Fiends, Demons, Devils. I'm thinking "The Damned", but that gives off a grungy feel, and I want these guy to be as impressive as angels.

Maybe I could adapt the vampires as messangers of gods. Yeah. That could work well. The only logical problem is that you can crerate more vampires, by sucking people's blood, correct? Or am I messing something up. But I can counter that ith angels able to make more angels out of unbelievers. In fact, that could create an interesting moral conudrum. The angels/vampires could probably access their "real life memories" though a god, or high planar being. Fallen Angels and Risen Vampires could be fairly common.

[Amphimir Míriel]

Hmm... the problem is that all the evil names are allready taken. Fiends, Demons, Devils. I'm thinking "The Damned", but that gives off a grungy feel, and I want these guy to be as impressive as angels.

How about "The Harbingers"?

It has the same underlying meaning of "Angel", i.e. Messenger, and it sounds evil and foreboding.

You could even create 3 different levels of them (roughly equivalent in power to Astral Devas, Planetars and Solars), to use as different levels of Evil Messengers or Ambassadors...

[Jayabalard]

actually, if you look at the way the languages are broken out:
-Celestial = Good outsiders, lawful/chaotic doesn't matter
-Infernal = Lawful evil outsiders.
-Abyssal = Chaotic evil outisders.

Angels are celestials; there isn't a direct evil equivalent since the bad guys don't work together as well as the good guys do (they don't even speak a common language). The closest that you get are devils and demons, depending on where the diety falls on the law/chaos axis.

[PMDM]

I even change that in my homebrewed campaigns, to just fiendish. But that's not the point. My next campaign will feature a complete isolationism culture on all of the planes, and the goal is to ty and get them to mesh back together again. To do that, the gods will intervene. The gods mainly just need a race of creatures for themselves. I've set the angels for the good gods, I think I'll set the Harbringers as the evil side.

[Diggorian]

I'm not sure evil gods have a direct angel equivalent as they dont seem to generally give a lemure's butt for their followers.

I can see Devils and Yogoloths having a messenger, some form of low HD subject of theirs, to drop a juicy plot hook for their high level worshippers: "Go fetch this from there and I'll give you this hellish trinket that'll be an artifact on this plane. Do it quick and we'll reserve a middle management position for you ... in hell."

Demons though, you gotta summon them up and make some kind of deal and hope they dont ask for your sauteed liver in exchange (even making you do the cooking while your Con bleeds away).

[Devils_Advocate]

As the terms are used in D&D:

"Divine" just means god-related or spiritual or whatever. The term may often be used in reference to spellcasting provided by some higher power. So, Good and Evil deities both have divine realms; Good and Evil clerics are all divine spellcasters, as are druids; etc.

"Unholy" means divine and Evil, or possibly [Evil]. "Holy" can mean divine and Good, or it can mean divine and Good or Neutral, but sometimes it might be (mis)used to just mean divine. So Pelor and Boccob both have holy symbols and Hextor has an unholy symbol, but referrences to "a holy symbol" might be taken to include unholy symbols in a passage that clearly refers to all clerics, including Evil ones. Like how "turning undead" is sometimes used as a catchall phrase that's assumed to include destroying, rebuking, and commanding undead too. And then you've got spells like Holy Smite and Unholy Blight.

(The terminology may be just a wee bit clunky. But, eh, whatcha gonna do?)

Planewalker.com has a bit to say about the aasimon. It looks like they were set apart as servants of the gods as opposed to just really Good dudes, although I don't know whether this distinction is still spelled out in any 3rd Edition material.

Having some sort of undead as minions of Evil deities sounds like it might be interesting. As it happens, I was thinking recently about how Evil gets fiends and undead and Good only gets celestials, and how that seems a little unfair. (Deathless are just weird. I thought that undead were different from every other type of creature because they were powered by negative energy instead of positive. So how the heck do you make positive-energy undeadish things? With no small degree of difficulty, I suppose.) I guess I didn't really think about how angels don't have an exact Evil counterpart. Good also gets asuras, which are like angels, except more more concentrated on righteous asskickery. Hey, wait, I thought that focussing on retribution against the wicked was why St. Cuthbert was Lawful Neutral instead of Good... except in Living Greyhawk, apparently. I guess they sort of can't quite make up their minds on how to handle that.

And Law has inevitables. Chaotic Neutral doesn't really get anything special, but then I don't think that Limbo really pushes any sort of agenda, so I guess they don't need any... um, alignment... promoting... guys. Yeah.

I rambled a bit there.

[Pronounceable]

In planescape cosmology every alignment has its own pets: archons, guardinals, eladrins are Good, they are called celestials or angels (there's no "Angel" critter in DnD as someone has said). Baatezu, tannarri and yugoloth are Evil and called fiends. And modrons, rilmani and slaadi are Neutral (modrons seem to have been named inevitables for some reason in 3.x). Slaad are natives of Limbo and are chaos personified. But I know nothing of rilmani save their name.

Clasically, (evil) gods are smaller fish in the Lower Planes having domain over some portion of a plane and its inhabitants. The real big fish are infamous demon lords, the Lords of Nine, General of Gehenna etc. who control entire planes and truly infinite number of followers.

Back to topic: Gods have followers on the planes as well as on Prime. They send their faithful who usually live at their domain to minor errands like visiting Prime. They can't just order some schmuck on the plane to do their bidding, even in Elysium (that'd compromise said schmuck's freedom). This is doubly so in Lower Planes where the schmuck's boss might send some boys to mess up your boys.

So any evil outsider alignment compatible with the god is suitable to be said evil god's messenger.

[TwistedCable]

(there's no "Angel" critter in DnD as someone has said).

Really? I'm sure Astral Devas, Planetars and Solars would be surprised to realise they don't actually exist in DnD

[bosssmiley]

In planescape cosmology every alignment has its own pets:

The Guvners prefer the term "Alignment Exemplars".

modrons seem to have been named inevitables for some reason in 3.x).

Sorry, nope. The Modrons are still around (notably in Dragon #354) but seem to be fighting a holding action against the rising power of the Formians on Mechanus. The Inevitables are odd. They seem to have come out of nowhere to enforce the rules of the universe. Maybe the Fraternity of Order built them, maybe not.

The DiceFreaks' fantastic Lawful Project has done some really interesting work tying together the Vaati, the Wind Dukes of Aqaa (yeah, them who made the Rod of Seven Parts), the Protectars ("Minis Handbook" IIRC), the Parai, the Modrons, the Formians and the Inevitables together with the concept of a Mandate of Heaven in Mechanus. Google for it sometime, you won't be disappointed.

They also make the Slaad a bit more than demon-lite giant frogs.

But I know nothing of rilmani save their name.

And that's just the way they like it.
The "Planescape MC2" download on the paizo.com website has a section on the Rilmani. They come across as a bit Moorcockian in their 'the balance must be maintained at all costs' mindset.

[puppyavenger]

For anyone who doesn't know this
ANGELS ARE IN THE MONSTER MANUAL

[Pronounceable]

All right, great! Great! Rewrite: There's no "Angel" critter in planescape setting. Happy now?

Good to hear that modrons didn't "magically" become some sort of weird police force scouring the planes for transgressions. Modrons are among the coolest, most imaginative critters in PS. Fomorians? Meh. Inevitables? Oh, come ON!

I know DiceFreaks. I'm unsure about them though, after having seen Lady of Pain statted up all nice and legal (as a CR 207, no less) I can't be sure whether they should be given Nobel for Outstanding Geekery or repeatedly hit on the head with a shovel. Their main philosophy is very solid though (philosophy and DnD in the same paragraph? What has the world come into?).

[PMDM]

I would like to see Dickfreak's work. Do you have the link to Her Serinity's stats? Anyway, let's get back on topic. Harbringers. What if they were like the creatures from Eternal Darkness? They could change their apperance, and they were all very creepy.

[jamroar]

Sorry, nope. The Modrons are still around (notably in Dragon #354) but seem to be fighting a holding action against the rising power of the Formians on Mechanus. The Inevitables are odd. They seem to have come out of nowhere to enforce the rules of the universe. Maybe the Fraternity of Order built them, maybe not.

Not really, the Maruts at least have been around forever as cosmic enforcers. They just added the rest of them and grouped them under a new name.