Planetar

Planetars were an order of angels inhabiting the Celestial Planes. Truly awesome beings, they were defenders of truth and avengers of the fallen righteous. They were messengers of the gods and mighty generals of celestial armies. They were also known to help powerful mortals on missions of good, particularly those that involved battles with fiends. Along with solars, they were the most powerful of the celestials, apart from the celestial paragons.

Planetars were known to be in service to the deities Deneir and Ilmater.

Description
A planetar usually appeared as a handsome, powerful, and muscular humanoid creature  with opalescent   emerald skin. They had opalescent white-feathered wings,    stood between about 8  and 9 feet (2.4 to 2.7 meters) tall, and weighed about 500 pounds (230 kilograms). They were typically bald.

Not all planetars appeared like this, however. For example, the Shards, the planetars in service to Selûne had long, flowing blue hair and pearly white skin.

Personality
All planetars were good. Their particular ethical bent depended on the deity that they served.

Planetars gave off a sense of strength and confidence. They inspired goodness in others by the power of their deeds, not their words.

Planetars loved battling fiends and slew every truly evil creature set in their path.

Biology
In addition to their truesight, the eyes of a planetar could see in total darkness, low-light conditions, and even into the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums. With the latter two senses they had a visual range of and  respectively.

As outsiders, planetars were not dependent upon their environment for survival.

Reproduction
On rare occasions where a planetar would take a mortal lover—which was known to have occurred in particular with some of Selûne's Shards —his or her aasimar descendants would often have emerald skin or the traces of white feathers at the shoulder, as evidence of the celestial heritage.

Abilities
In addition to the magical powers common to all angels, planetars could pray for and cast divine magical spells like the most powerful of clerics. Beyond this, they had innate access to a wide range of powerful magics, for which they did not need to pray. These included but were not limited to the ability to restore victims from ailments and raise the dead. They could create a barrier of magical blades,     trigger a massive earthquake,     send waves of exhaustion over their enemies, charm large groups of monsters at the same time, call down a column of divine fire,      and stun with only a single word. Several times per day they could transform themselves into nearly any creature or object. They could commune directly with their deity. Whenever they desired, they could create a continual flame of light;  turn invisible;    smite fiends with a burst of holy power; remove curses,      diseases,  and fear;     dispel magic;     and even speak with the dead. Planetars had control over weather    and could call down rain to quench a thirsty field or a plague of locusts to punish the wicked.

They bore all of the immunities and resistances of other angels and were surrounded by the same protective aura of good. Furthermore, they could only be permanently harmed by magically evil attacks;    they could regenerate from any other injuries.

Planetars could see in the dark and in low-light,  and they always saw things as they truly were,     being able to see invisible and shapechanged creatures and objects,     hidden traps,   and evil auras. They could always sense when someone was lying.

The great wings of planetars allowed them to fly at great speeds with excellent maneuverability in the air.

Planetars, like all other angels, could use magic to speak any language. They could also communicate telepathically within 100 feet (30 meters).

As with other aasimon, planetars could not be permanently slain unless on their home plane. If their bodies were destroyed anywhere else, their life forces would return to their home plane, where their bodies would reform over a period of 40 years.

Combat
Despite their vast array of magical powers, planetars were more likely to wade into melee with their powerful, two-handed greatswords  or bastard swords  —especially with swords known as celestial blades, which glowed with radiant light and were engraved with the holy symbol of the deity that the planetar served. It was said that only a planetar could wield such a sword,   which damaged enemies with holy radiance.

Society
Planetars, who numbered more than a hundred, were found on the slopes of Mount Celestia, on the pastoral fields of Bytopia, in the forests of the Beastlands, and on other Upper Planes.

As celestial stewards, planetars directly served the good deities. One or a few served as the right hand of a minor deity, while larger numbers served the major deities. They were only sent to other planes to aid the most powerful and faithful of their deities' servants. Only the most perilous of missions were assigned to them, such as rescuing a mortal cleric from the grips of a pit fiend or recovering a stolen artifact from the lair of an arcanaloth. On such missions, they usually acted alone.

A planetar succeeding at a mission had a small chance of being promoted to the status of a solar.



Notable Planetars

 * The Shards, a group of seven female planetars in service to Selûne, who were composed of moonlight and fire.
 * Resounding Justice, a planetar sent by Tyr to battle Krysus Vaant and who also fought in the Procession of Justice.
 * Fazrian, a fallen planetar who was called into Undermountain by an adventuring cleric of Torm but became obsessed with cleansing the corruption in the Terminus Level and fell from grace.

Appearances

 * Novels:
 * The Gossamer Plain
 * The Fractured Sky
 * The Crystal Mountain


 * Adventure Modules:
 * Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage


 * Computer Games:
 * Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition
 * Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal
 * Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark
 * Neverwinter