User talk:Lhynard/Projects/Celestial Restoration

Eladrin and other celestials in 5e
Regarding your question: Are eladrin mentioned in 5e?

They are! In pp. 285–286 of the Dungeon Master's Guide 5th edition, there are stats for it as an elf subrace for PCs. Incidentally, the book also refers to the plural form as eladrin. &mdash; Sirwhiteout (talk) 01:22, January 6, 2018 (UTC)

I couldn't find any mention of archons, guardinals or leShay on any 5e source so far, though. &mdash; Sirwhiteout (talk) 01:49, January 6, 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for answering!


 * Is this eladrin subrace more similar to the celestial eladrin or the 4e eladrin, in your opinion?


 * ~ Lhynard (talk) 01:51, January 6, 2018 (UTC)


 * Considering that they're basically elves that get to do misty step once per short rest (which is incidentally described as "fey step"), I'd say that's closer to the 4e eladrin. &mdash; Sirwhiteout (talk) 03:34, January 6, 2018 (UTC)
 * It's worth mentioning that Wizards is still tinkering with eladrin, with recent playtest material giving them some funky season-themed mechanics. So that might happen in a future sourcebook. --Ir&#39;revrykal (talk) 15:19, January 7, 2018 (UTC)
 * Also, on page 74 of Xanathar's Guide to Everything:

"FEY TELEPORTATION Prerequisite: Elf (high) Your study of high elven lore has unlocked fey power that few other elves possess, except your eladrin cousins. [...]"


 * This seems to indicate that 5e treats eladrin and high elves as separate, though closely related races. --Ir&#39;revrykal (talk) 15:40, January 7, 2018 (UTC)


 * Interesting. Thanks for this info! ~ Lhynard (talk) 17:11, January 7, 2018 (UTC)

Devas
Do you mind if I help out by writing up the movanic deva? I have one as an NPC in my campaign, so I figure this would be a good opportunity to get to know more about her. :) But there's no rush on it, it can wait until you've got the celestials sorted out and clarified. — BadCatMan (talk) 07:59, January 6, 2018 (UTC)


 * Go for it! I'm working from the top of the hierarchy down now. ~ Lhynard (talk) 08:34, January 6, 2018 (UTC)


 * Okay. Looking at the lore, I could do the astral, monadic, and movanic devas of 1e/2e/3e. The 4e edition is utterly different, of course, and I don't know about 5e's. — BadCatMan (talk) 08:41, January 6, 2018 (UTC)


 * Great; perfect. Devas are a type of possessed aasimar in 4e. They are already treated with separate articles, and I spent time making sure that all the links and images correspond to the correct articles. For your purposes, just link everything to Deva (angel), not to Deva, and we'll be good. (I don't really like the page name "Deva (angel)", but it's what we have for the time being.


 * FYI, in 5e, there is only a single deva type so far, but, like 1e–3e, it's back to being an angel. It seems to be an astral deva, which matches 3e, which originally only statted the astral deva. In any case, I or Sirwhiteout can fill in the 5e stuff later.


 * ~ Lhynard (talk) 09:10, January 6, 2018 (UTC)


 * By their description and purpose (silvery skin and hair, sent to the Material Plane, Feywild and Shadowfell to help others, polymorphing primarily to human and animal shapes), I'd say 5e's devas are most closely related with movanic devas, although they carry maces that are more common to the astral devas in previous editions. &mdash; Sirwhiteout (talk) 13:15, January 6, 2018 (UTC)


 * Good point ~ Lhynard (talk) 15:58, January 6, 2018 (UTC)


 * Odd. Are they called simply "devas"? Could they have merged the three kinds into one generic deva? — BadCatMan (talk) 01:35, January 7, 2018 (UTC)


 * They are simply called devas, yes. ~ Lhynard (talk) 01:49, January 7, 2018 (UTC)


 * Hmm. Actually, while the Monster Manual 5 ed. calls them simply devas, the FR 5e adventure Dead in Thay includes an astral deva named Lumalia. (She has peach skin in her promotional image, so that doesn't help.) That source might be useful to read. ~ Lhynard (talk) 08:31, January 7, 2018 (UTC)


 * So, I was able to view the stats for Astral Deva from DiT and they are almost identical with those presented for the deva in the 5e MM. There is no description of one's physical appearance though. ~ Lhynard (talk) 08:39, January 7, 2018 (UTC)


 * Lumalia definitely looks like an astral deva, having the hair, eye, and skin colour of 2nd edition, while the MM 5e's deva looks like a movanic. (A pity they seemed to have lost the dark-skinned monadic.) The MM 5e's deva's ability to change shape doesn't tell us much: all of the devas in 2e and 3e have polymorph self or change shape, only the movanics make special use of it. The Feywild and Shadowfell are new additions to the devas' mission profile, but 3e also changed the planes they were sent to. So I'd guess the 5e deva is a merged or generic deva. — BadCatMan (talk) 09:31, January 7, 2018 (UTC)


 * The updated version of Dead in Thay from Tales from the Yawning Portal drops the "astral" and describes Lumalia as simply "deva", not assigning any special traits. So in the updated adventure, she is identical to the MM 5e's deva.


 * The description from the MM 5e is pretty unequivocally that of the 2e movanics from the Monstrous Compendium Planescape Appendix (with the addition of the Feywild and Shadowfell), but, as BadCatMan says, they don't really correspond uniquely to any one of the 3e devas. I still think the 5e devas fit the description of movanics better than being their own separate type, though. &mdash; Sirwhiteout (talk) 17:38, January 7, 2018 (UTC)

Traits, Spells, & Powers
I'm a bit overwhelmed sorting through the various personalities, traits, spells, and other powers of the devas, and considering which ones to include on which pages. That is, in 2nd edition, a movanic deva has its specific personality, traits, spells, and powers, those of the deva type, and those of the overall aasimon type. Then in 3rd edition, a movanic deva has its specific personality, traits, spells, and powers, those of the deva type, and those of the overall celestial and outsider types, but it wasn't completely updated to 3.5 edition, so these differ from the angel type used for the 3.5 astral deva. And there's quite a lot of traits, spells, and powers. Some of it could be disregarded as crunchy or irrelevant, some of it now.

I'm wondering if we should include all relevant personality aspects, traits, spells, and powers on each page, or only those specific to the given creature, with the broader deva information on the deva page and the broader aasimon/angel information on the angel page. The former is complete but will have a lot of duplication, the latter requires a bit more cohesion between pages, and picking for specific information. (The same will go for a lot of broad classes of outsider, like devils and demons.) So, Lhynard, what approach were you planning on taking? — BadCatMan (talk) 09:48, January 7, 2018 (UTC)


 * I think we should include all personalities, traits, spells, etc. and explain it by saying these are individuals with various proclivities and preferences. While they my not have complete free will when on a mission for a deity, they are intelligent, can exercise discretion, and adapt their approach to a problem or people. Also, say that some have been seen with dusky skin. We are merely reporting on a limited sample of encounters with these beings and it's impossible to know all of them. &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 15:38, January 7, 2018 (UTC)


 * "We are merely reporting on a limited sample of encounters with these beings and it's impossible to know all of them."


 * Yes! This is exactly how I like to think about it. This way, we don't argue for any magical changes over time, but rather leave it up to DMs to decide which "encounters" were accurately reported. We also don't worry about being exhaustive in listed every single immunity, spell-like ability, and special attack.


 * ~ Lhynard (talk) 03:07, January 11, 2018 (UTC)


 * Personality is the easy part. My main concern was much crunch to include: much of it they only get by virtue of mechanics, so it doesn't seem directly relevant to a specific monster. Do I say "Astral devas have all the powers of aasimon/angels, the powers of devas, and..."? — BadCatMan (talk) 06:25, January 8, 2018 (UTC)


 * If there is some sort of hierarchy between these beings, then yes, I'd say that is a viable approach. I found Lhynard's "family tree" in Talk:Noble eladrin very informative. Can you use a visual aid like that to illustrate "astral devas have all the powers of aasimon/angles" etc.? &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 13:34, January 8, 2018 (UTC)


 * A tree would imply lineage or descent, which isn't the case here (at least not in any lore I'm looking at). There more like sets and subsets: astral devas are in the set of devas, which are in the set of aasimons/angels. But there is a definitely a hierarchy of powers, with astral devas having their own powers and all the powers of devas, which have all the powers of aasimons/angels. So yeah, I think it better to focus on what's specific to each creature or set, rather than what's grandfathered in due to mechanics. Thanks for the discussion. — BadCatMan (talk) 15:33, January 8, 2018 (UTC)


 * Venn diagram FTW! :-D &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 16:09, January 8, 2018 (UTC)


 * Trees don't necessarily imply lineage or descent! They are perfectly acceptable for classification themes. ~ Lhynard (talk) 03:07, January 11, 2018 (UTC)


 * I'm glad that you found the tree helpful, Movie. I was considering adding things like that to a variety of pages on the wiki where monster classifications/hierarchies are involved. ~ Lhynard (talk) 03:07, January 11, 2018 (UTC)


 * Sorry for the delay in responding!


 * This is what I try to do: For a specific subrace (or subrace of a subrace) I give the powers all the way up the chain, usually by saying something like, "Just like all true bars, a foo has the ability to woo."


 * However, I don't think it is wise&mdash;or even correct&mdash;to exhaustively list all of them. It starts to feel too crunchy for one, but the other issue is what Movie described above. I see the rules as one sage's understanding based on a limited number of encounters. For this reason, I usually only bother describing an ability if it is mentioned in multiple sources or multiple editions. For everything else, I say something like, "among other magical abilities," or "foos have a large number of inherent magical powers, the following of which have been reported by witnesses:&hellip;"


 * If there is a conflict or change over editions, I don't say, "before the Spellplague, foos had the power to cast hoo, but they lost that power after it," because this is actually speculation. In some cases, the setting actually describes the change in the rules, as for the whacky things that happened to genasi or magic, but it is wrong, in my opinion, to assume this for all rule changes. The rule change can be described by saying, "some scholars reported foos as having the ability to woo, but others instead described them as being able to hoo."


 * As an example I have not dealt with yet, sword archons have cat heads in 1e descriptions and 2e art, but they have human heads in 2e descriptions and 3e art and descriptions. I'm going to say something like, "some witnesses reported that sword archons had feline heads, but this detail is absent in other descriptions. All witnesses agree, however, that a sword archon's arms transform into swords when it attacks an enemy." I'm also going to include a speculation, in a note, not the article text, that perhaps archons, like angels, could appear in different forms to mortals. I'd rather not write, "as of 1360 DR, sword archons stopped existing with cat heads." I think we should treat such physical changes in the same way as crunch changes. The lore is far more important.


 * ~ Lhynard (talk) 03:07, January 11, 2018 (UTC)

Images of Celestials
Images of celestials

This may be useful to you, BadCat. It's all categorized. I'll be adding 2e more slowly, as there isn't a single source for those and some need to be cropped, adjusted, etc.

~ Lhynard (talk) 02:43, January 11, 2018 (UTC)