DISCLAIMER: Important stuff is bolded for skim-reading purposes
Ok, so one of the most fun things about DnD, for me, is character creation. Specifically, I love love love reading up about the lore of the various settings in DnD, like the other realms, while figuring out how to make a super compelling character that's inexplicably tied to the specific setting they come from. I'm on a journey to make a character for each of the outer planes, and maybe for the inner planes. I've made a Fighter-Warlock Chthonic Tiefling Mafioso who's patron is the top don of a Yugoloth-run criminal organization hailing from Gehenna (that's a mouthful), as well as a Druid-Cleric Aasimar who's soul is symbiotically bonded with a firefly-like collection of celestial fey spirits from Arborea which they worship. I've made a Genasi monk who was a member of an elemental pirate crew sailing the elemental chaos hoping to find their missing captain, as well as a goofy Gnome doctor obsessed with monster anatomy who ran away from and is being hunted by the Feydark. The story potential with realms outside the material plane is so immense in this game, it's amazing. But, while researching these other realms to create my lovable Aasimar character, I was faced with a serious issue:
Is it just me, or are the Upper Planes underdeveloped??
In terms of conflict and content, there is just so much more stuff to work with in the Lower Planes, and the stuff there is way more creative too. This comes down to a couple major issues that I've found in the Upper Planes' worldbuilding while researching it. Ultimately, the realms of the Upper Planes lack interesting inhabitants, compelling conflict, and obvious identities distinct from each-other. For instance:
Planar Inhabitants.
There are 5 truly evil planes in the Outer Planes, 7 if you count the Neutral-Evil planes like Acheron and Pandemonium. For each of the major 5, there's an entire category of fiends completely unique to those planes - that's right, there's more types of fiends then just Devils and Demons.
The Nine Hells have the tyrannically ambitious, yet honest, Devils. They're magically beholden to their contracts and hope to rise to the top of corrupt systems so that they may subjugate the ones beneath them.
Gehenna has the greedy, untrustworthy, and manipulative Yugoloths. They care only for self-interest, and each one is constantly scheming a mastermind plot involving everyone else they meet, including other Yugoloths; they'll work as the perfect mercenary, but they're not bound to any contracts, and will betray you if it is in their interest.
The Gray Wastes of Hades house the heartless, sadistic, yet tragic Hordlings. Souls whose individual identities have been torn away from them by the apathetic realm they hail from, now in a constantly desperate fight to remain their own person, lashing out at everybody around them with constant bullying and murder.
Carceri has the horrifically sadistic and morally repulsive Demodands. They take joy in the most sickening acts of sadism, and are predatory in every sense of the word; for this atrociousness, they were cast to the prison-realm, where they unleash their sadism on its other inhabitants as cruel wardens, eventually turning their victims just as foul.
And finally, The Abyss breeds the infinitely chaotic and indulgent Demons. These creatures believe in toppling every kind of institution in favor of indulging themselves in whatever momentary pleasures they would wish for, seeking to obliterate the future in favor of having fun in the present.
5 major 'orders' of fiends for the five major Lower Planes. This slight bit of worldbuilding does WONDERS for each plane's identity, and it gives both players and DMs MOUNDS and MOUNDS of stuff to use for the creation of interesting stories. For instance: that Tiefling Warlock I created! After Gehenna caught my interest, I read up and did tons of research on Yugoloths, being surprised that they even existed since I'd never heard of them before. After hearing about their shady natures and their identities as mercenaries and manipulators, I was able to come up with the idea of a Tiefling hailing from the gate-town of Torch who ended up joining a Yugoloth mafia, hoping to rise the ranks and eventually backstab and replace its leader as an act of revenge against them (for various plot reasons). Bim bam boom, that's a simple yet compelling starting point for a story to be developed!! Not only that, but each of these five 'orders' of fiends are distinct from each-other, both in visuals and in story. While there's some visual overlap, if you get to know each of them just a bit, you'll almost always be able to tell one of these fiends apart from another, and distinct identities are the essence of making an interesting setting that players want to interact with. The best thing you can do for a setting is to make it distinct from other settings that it will be compared to.
And yet, the Upper Planes seem to lack distinct 'orders' of Celestial. Rather than 5 major orders, there appears to be only 3 'main' types of Celestial. There's also Angels, but those can hail from any realm, and that's not good, since all the realms having these inhabitants in common makes it harder to pick out the compelling aspects of each realm individually. As we'll see, this problem with the realms having unique distinctions will be a reoccurring problem.
Working off of the Forgotten Realms wiki as the only reasonably accessible source for me about this lore, these seem to be the 3 main 'orders' of Celestial:
From the realm of Mount Celestial hails the Celestial Archons. Not much is written about these Celestials ideals or powers, but generally they were lawbringers who fought for justice and killed fiends.
From the realm of Elysium hails the Celestial Guardinals. These beast-people believe in harmonizing with nature and practicing peacefulness, relaxation, and a generally zen lifestyle, though they've also been known to go to the Lower Planes, where they fought for justice and killed fiends.
From the realm of Arborea hails the Celestial Eladrin. These fey-like celestials are the deceased spirits of good-hearted beings of the Feywild, and they are generally high-energy, intense-emotioned spirits of pure energy that believe in expressing their purest selves without shame; often, they'd go on mad dashes across the realms, having a good time until they'd meet a fiend, where they'd promptly stop everything their doing so that they can fight for justice and kill the fiend.
Do you see the issue here? At some point, all these types of Celestials get a big amount of crossover that makes it so that, depending on the story, you can just replace one for the other. That's THE LAST thing you want to be the case! You could never replace a Demon with a Devil, they'd never act even a bit alike! Same with replacing a Yugoloth with a Demodand. One is nothing like the other!! A realm's inhabitants are the ultimate entryway into telling stories regarding a realm. The easiest way to incorporate Gehenna into your campaign is to introduce some Yugoloth antagonists! The best way to make a character hailing from Carceri is to give them tons of Demodand-inflicted trauma! And thus, having uninspiring Celestials like the Guardinals, Archons, and Angels makes it really hard to incorporate them into your story. It's like all of these beings are designed to be fiend-hunting heavenly protectors, when that kind of identity is quite specific. In the case of the Guardinals, their fiend-killing natures just completely contradict with their other peace-loving traits in a way that isn't so much compelling as it is confusing. Not only that, but some of the Upper Planes are just completely abandoned, leaving players nothing to work with! It's way more difficult to think up a player character with a connection to the Beastlands when there's no designated Beastland Celestials that they can use as a jumping-off point! I guess you could use a Guardinal, but that pulls the character closer to Bytopia than the Beastlands!
In the end, the massive amounts of crossover between these Celestials makes it difficult to think up compelling stories using them, negatively impacting the Upper Planes as a whole. I had to do tons of work to figure out something compelling for my Aasimar Cleric character, it was way more difficult making that character than my Tiefling mafioso-warlock guy. So, the Upper Planes are in desperate need of more Celestials. The ones that exist need to be made distinct from each-other, and 2 new ones need to be made for Bytopia and the Beastlands.
But the problems don’t end there. The next main issue comes in the conflicts inherent to the realms.
Stories, Conflict, and Plot Hooks.
Having a clear conflict inherent to a setting’s identity will make people want to create stories in that setting. This is an inarguably true statement when it comes to DnD, with one of the main examples of this being the Tieflings. Both the Upper Planes and the Lower Planes have their own designated playable species, being the Tieflings and the Aasimar - and yet, Tieflings are played way, way more often than Aasimar are. Why? One reason why Tieflings are more liked is visual identity, which will be covered later, but another equally important aspect is the story inherent to tieflings. The story of why a tiefling is what they are or how their species has affected their life is RICH with story potential. Lots of races despise tieflings inherently, leading to oppression and bigotry both from within and outside tiefling communities. This conflict makes it easy to attach oneself to the tieflings, and it makes it easy and fun to think up stories regarding tieflings. My warlock tiefling, for instance, isn’t even from the Material Plane; he hails from the Gatetown of Gehenna, ‘Torch’, and his story is tied with that location. Torch is a place filled with organized crime, a man-eats-man world where the wealthy upper class manipulates the poorer lower class. This conflict allows for creativity to flourish, enticing people to create characters or storylines involving the Lower Planes. But the Upper Planes don’t have that.
You could have your soul stolen by the Nine Hells.
Your country could be caught in a Yugoloth conspiracy.
You could go on a rescue mission for a friend trapped in Hades.
You can try and break out of Carceri, or catch something that shouldn’t have broken out.
You could try to track down the Abyssal horde that slaughtered your town.
ETC ETC!!
Meanwhile, when it comes to the Upper Planes, each one is a kind of paradise that everybody would basically like to be, anyways. Sure, sometimes they’re a bit intense, but as a whole, the story would always rather the Upper Planes stay as it is, with the only main conflict regarding them being something attacking that status quo. That can work for stories, but it’s quite limiting, narrative-wise. This issue can be seen very well in the playable species of the Upper Planes, the Aasimar.
Aasimars don’t really have an inherent conflict or narrative attached to their identity. All the people who hate Aasimars are generally fiendish or evil, so an Aasimar won’t be outcasted from anywhere that most people would want anything to do with, anyways. They could be getting hunted down by fiends, but then, it’s the fiends that are making the Aasimar compelling, not the Aasimar itself, right? In general, the root of all of the Upper Planes’ conflict comes from the Lower Planes. Celestials are all about fighting fiends, and the Dungeon Master’s Guide lists off Fiendish schemes as the main conflicts the Upper Planes has, which makes the Upper Planes narratively passive and unengaging; you don’t really latch onto the Upper Planes, since it’s the Lower Planes that’s acting upon the world and influencing the story, while the Upper Planes simply react. In the end, the number one thing the Upper Planes needs in terms of storytelling is complexity and an active role in the world. In other words, the Upper Planes need conflict.
But even if the conflict of the Upper Planes is imperfect, the Upper Planes would see a ton more creative use if they just had their visual identities going for them. But unfortunately, the visual identity of the Upper Planes is generally vague.
Visual Identity.
What’s the #1 reason why Tieflings are played so much, but Aasimar are played so little? A big contributor is undeniably the storytelling inherent with each species, but the much simpler and more important aspect of each species is the visual fantasy being fulfilled. The design of Tieflings is amazing in DnD - the colorful skin, large horns, devilish eyes, etc. just makes for so much potential for fun and creative character design, and in the end, the reason people want to play whatever it is they want to play is to have fun with a cool character.Tieflings stand out amongst other races and are distinct in identity in several ways. Their naming convention is interesting, they’re visually eye-catching, etc. There’s multiple Tiefling lineages you can choose from, as well, allowing your Tiefling to have a closer bond to a particular Lower Plane, which does wonders for storytelling as well. But Aasimar as a species have confusing visual identities and unremarkable conventions. They’re all kind of shoe-horned into a general guardian/healing spirit kind of identity, with all of them getting healing abilities and that awakened angel state. This narrow celestial ‘guardian’ identity seems to be a recurring issue. Not only that, but visually, their appearances are shown as varying WILDLY, while at the same time not being striking and unique enough to be desirable over other species. Metallic freckles, shiny skin, luminous eyes… while Tieflings have such a strikeable balance of traits shown just with their skin color, noticeable horns, and tail, Aasimar have too broad an amount of possible design traits with so little of them being visually compelling. It leaves players and DMs without a recognizable image they can go back to when they think of this species. In the end, Aasimar’s visuals just don’t leave an impression.
But this problem is shared amongst the realms the Aasimar hail from. To give the realms credit where credit is due, they do have a number of interesting, distinct aspects, like Bytopia’s two worlds laid facing each-other or Arborea’s giant wilderness. But, in content, each one is the same kind of natural paradise, plentiful in vegetation and animal life, with blue skies and green grass. They all look too much like the Material Plane!! What’s worse, but since they’re all generally grassy paradise, they all run the risk of just looking like the Windows background. Gehenna is a realm that’s eternally placed on a 45 degree angle. Carceri is laid out like an infinite string of Russian nesting dolls. The abyss is infinite layers of foul ecosystems while the Nine Hells is a kingdom of sulfur-filled fire pits. The Lower Planes are each wildly different from each-other in design, while the Upper Planes have too much in common.
With this, it’s clear that the #1 thing that the Upper Planes needs in regards of creating a lasting impression with visual worldbuilding is simply to be crazier! The Upper Planes needs to look crazier!!
What can be improved?
So, we’ve looked at the inhabitants of these planes, the stories these planes tell, and the visual impression they and their inhabitants give. What have we learned? Well, the Upper Planes has a problem with distinct identities and compelling conflict. Each realm and each Celestial are kinda alike with each-other, and all their problems come from outside forces like the Lower Planes, rather than stories created from their own realms. The good thing is that the idea of the Upper Planes is not fundamentally broken; as we’ve been piecing apart all the Upper Planes’ issues, we’ve also been finding out how the Upper Planes could be improved!!
The major opportunities for growth in the Upper Planes’ storytelling are as follows:
Create distinct ‘orders’ of Celestials that are recognizable from each-other in story and visual.
Each of these should have a different internal idea, and an internal conflict. Guardinals have their peaceful natures - that’s a step in the right direction!
We need to improve the 3 existing kinds of Celestials, while also creating 2 more; one for Bytopia, and one for the Beastlands!
Make the realms themselves more complicated, and give them different goals.
If they all share the “defend against the fiends” goal, then overlap is going to be unavoidable. After all, it’s not like all the fiends have a “fight against the celestials” goal; instead, each realm has its own inner workings and functions to do something else. In general, each realm has to have its thing that the others don’t have.
Here’s an idea; fiends reproduce by taking mortal souls and basically transforming them within their realm into their respective soul type, leaving the souls unrecognizable and with no memories. What if celestials did the same?
Maybe take another look at how the ‘good’ planes are ‘good’ in the first place.
Make the realms and inhabitants visually impressive. BE BOLD!!!
Perhaps Elysium takes place on the backs of massive flying turtles, eternally flying through the aether, producing unimaginably wondrous fruits at the expense of devouring souls, incorporating the deceased into the flying turtle’s own being.
How can we be bold and add conflict while also preserving the idea of ‘good’ in these realms? We want the Upper Planes to be the ‘good’ realms, but we don’t want the only compelling stories to come from the ‘bad’ realms causing trouble!
And this is where I leave it up to discussion. Making a big post about a revised version of the Upper Planes is a project for another day, my friends - and before I undertake it, I want to hear your ideas on how the Upper Planes should be developed.
What would the two new kinds of Celestial look like? What kind of conflicts does a ‘good’ realm create? What kind of stories are inherent to the realm? What does ‘good’ mean in the grand scope of the Outer Planes?
I think it's a combination of negativity bias (threats are more vivid than friends) and the fact that D&D, at it's core, is very based in fighting. Unless you're playing an evil campaign (which most modules don't seem to be built for), there's not much reason to explore/dungeon delve into the Upper Planes. Part of it might be tied to the general trouble with building an interesting template for celestial characters that's as interesting as fiendish ones can be.
Everyone loves the villain, and that's because, beyond the flair and gravitas, they are far more indulgent. They indulge themselves far more, and on some level that indulgence is felt by the audience that experiences them. Angels, and other forms of celestials, much like holy knights and lore-accurate devotion paladins, are far too restrictive for the complexity and conflict potential of a whole plane.
All that said, I agree with you. There's an incredible amount of potential in the Upper Planes, just as I believe there's an incredible amount of untapped potential in the neutral planes like Limbo and Mechanus. Honestly, I think the problem is that, by its nature, conflict in the Upper Planes has to be far more specialized and rare, just like how conflict in the Realms of the Hells and the Abyss are arguably far more common than normal.
My focus tends to be on character, so I'd actually like to try and offer my own answer to your third question: Good (like Chaos for Law), should reflect its opposite. Lawful Evil Devils corrupt mortals, but always barred by the fine print. There are extremely indulgent in their desires, but there are some chains a party can use to outsmart them. Chaotic Evil Demons are all indulgence, entertaining their whims without care or restriction. There is no fine print with demons, only death and misery. If any demons have exploitable flaws, it's usually related to their impulsiveness, born from their chaotic nature. Neutral Evil Yugoloths (originally called Daemons) are actually a split bag. Originally, they existed simply to cause pain and misery. While the other fiends were entertaining their own personal desires, the ancient yugoloths simply sought the end of everything. Many modern yugoloths have become nothing but basically 'demons for hire,' but it's actually unclear if this is truly a shift in racial ideology, a front all daemons have been putting on to avoid being seen as the threat they are, or even a mix of both (older daemons are playing an act, younger ones might truly just be in it for the money). In other words, the conflict with yugoloths/daemons is that they're either not indulgent at all (Think the Lich from Adventure Time, ultimately a machine with infinite patience), or entirely so (only in it for the coin, no actual ideology to speak of).
If you wanted to take advantage of this to flesh out their planar counterparts, here's a few potential options:
Archons (LG): Naturally, they'd be the demon equivalent of Celestials, in that they are entirely impossible to create meaningful depth in regarding how they need to be handled, as a general rule. They are both disciplined and rule-bound. Generally, they aren't the type to frollick or play, not the ones that go into combat anyways. You might even treat an incursion of archons as the reverse of a demonic invasion: for an evil faction/party, the intervention of archons is just a sudden fire that burns all forces of evil that it comes into contact with, along with any forces that get in their way (a subjugated vassal state that doesn't immediately surrender, for example). Basically, imagine golden-winged 40k Space Marines, ready to kick a lich's teeth in.
Celestial Eladrin (CG): I've got to admit. Before reading this post, I did not know that celestial eladrin were the original version, before the advent of the Feywilds in 4e. The more you know. Anyways, they sit directly opposite to the devils on the alignment chart, so it makes sense for them to struggle with the indulgence/restriction divide like the devils do, but in reverse. Essentially, celestial eladrins want to do good, but they can both be easily sidetracked or go down the wrong path if their whims take them somewhere. For example, an eladrin sees a king abusing his people, and so offers aid to a champion who will lead a revolution. A charismatic fellow strikes their fancy, but it turns out this fun guy was in fact a power-hungry madman who became even worse than the king. Alternatively, they set pieces on the board to overthrow the king (weapons, said champion) but get distracted by something else that they find fascinating, and so don't see the conflict through to the end. Basically, a dealmaker who doesn't recognize/understand the ramifications of their own deal. And unlike a fey, who's ultimately just doing things for their amusement, a celestial eladrin can actually be be "beaten" by convincing them of the evil they've inadvertently caused/are causing.
Guardinals (NG): Finally, the guardinals lie directly opposite to the yugoloths/daemons, so it makes sense for them to have the divide in nature between indulgence and purpose. True guardinals are cosmic defenders of the innocent and relentless warriors against evil. They likely don't plot as much as daemons do, but make up for it with overwhelming strength or mortal support. However, as the realms grew more and more peaceful (The deposing of the Queen of Chaos, the yugoloths becoming mercenaries, the Blood War containing most devils and demons) they've grown more and more philosophical. Most new guardinals are innocent, yet horribly naive. They can fight, but almost never do. If they appear on the mortal realm, they're healers and buffers, rarely offensive spellcasters or fighters. Yet there are some guardinals, some old, others not, that still believe the shadow of the apocalypse looms just past the shadow of tomorrow, and work to prepare the world for it by any means necessary. I could even imagine a scenario where a rogue guardinal creates strife, helps a fiend's plan for a kingdom succeed, or otherwise helps evil take place, just so the survivors are strong enough for a true evil plot on the horizon.
There's also something else worth mentioning when dealing with the Upper Planes: The Gods.
For the record, as far as I understand it, ALL of the Outer Planes are functionally independent of the gods and their divine hierarchies. A disproportionate number of gods keep their demiplanes in the Upper Planes, and a surprising number of angels (who should be the true rulers of Mt. Celestia) serve divine patrons relative to devils/demons who do. Regardless, I'd personally treat the morality/ideology of the gods as separate from that of the celestial realms. Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul don't run the Nine Hells, and Shar doesn't hold dominion over the Abyss. By their nature, the alignments/personalities of gods across all planes are significantly more complex/varied, and treating the Upper Planes to 'The Realms of the Gods' only serves to make those realms as far out of reach as the gods themselves for any normal campaign. Hell, if there's anything you get out of this word dump, it's this: Give Shar a balor covered in shadows as a notable divine servant.
These are some pretty good ideas on how to play the three main celestials! One aspect of world building that I think has lots of potential for expansion is definitely how celestials are created. The fiends of the lower planes are created by taking mortal souls and transforming them in a way slightly different for each realm; this instantly draws a connection between the Lower Planes and the Material Plane, and it sets the stage for even more world building. Most of all, it makes the fiends distinct, because each one uses souls in a different way. So, what if celestials were also formed from mortal souls? But rather than a fiend taking a soul and torturing it, transforming it against its will, becoming a celestial is more of a selfless act. In the pursuit of the brand of 'good' your Upper Plane believes in, you make the ultimate self-sacrifice and give up your own soul to create a powerful Celestial capable of pursuing your ideals.
Another good idea is just to give each of the Upper Planes some kind of agenda. A goal they want to achieve that they haven't yet, distinct from the other Upper Planes' goals. Mount Celestia can strive for a lawful multiverse, while Arborea could be striving for a totally free society where people co-exist without a kind of government, total anarchist-style
I'm working on ways to completely overhaul the Upper Planes, so stuff like this is interesting to consider. Thanks for commenting!
The way I see it, the history of the Outer Planes started with a war between Chaos and an emerging Law, which then led to these forces simultaneously...
learning to work together in the Upper Planes.
keeping to themselves in Mechanus-Outlands-Limbo.
remaining in full conflict in the Lower Planes.
I imagine that archons and eladrin still scoff at each other, trading insults like "stick in the mud" and "loose cannon", but you can count on guardinals to ease tensions whenever they arise. On the contrary, the yugoloths' apparent game is to keep devils and demons locked in an everlasting war. I picture the rilmani of the Outlands assisting both the guardinals and the yugoloths in their respective approaches to keeping the balance between Law and Chaos, however reluctant the guardinals and yugoloths might be to acknowledge their shared role.
For a campaign in the Upper Planes, I could see some eladrin abusing the fact that celestials (and fiends) killed outside of their home plane will simply resurrect on it after a while (100 years according to Morte's Planar Parade) to claim that it is alright to play lethal pranks on archons found outside of Mount Celestia. The latter might in turn organize punitive expeditions against eladrin, but likewise not going as far as killing any on Arborea. It would then be the guardinals' difficult job to prevent the conflict from escalating. Failure would typically result in the involved archons, eladrin and sometimes guardinals becoming fallen celestials and being driven out of the Upper Planes, thus also removing the problem but in a saddening way.
So, what if celestials were also formed from mortal souls?
There has been much contradictory lore about how exactly "petitioners" work. But it seems that mortal souls that ascend or descend to the Outer Planes indeed now count as either celestials or fiends. Furthermore, everytime they die and thereafter reform on an Outer Plane, these souls become increasingly different from their original mortal self. I think it is fair to assume that repeated deaths would eventually turn these souls into archons, guardinals, eladrin, etc.
In the Lower Planes, the River Styx is known to accelerate this process, driving evil souls to it and then regurgitating them as the weakest fiends, notably infernal lemures and abyssal manes. However, souls (evil or not) that are bound to a devil by contract or to an evil god by faith will go directly to the Lower Planes without having their identities washed away by the Styx. I think the future of these souls as different types of fiends would then follow the "died too many times" logic.
For the record, as far as I understand it, ALL of the Outer Planes are functionally independent of the gods and their divine hierarchies. A disproportionate number of gods keep their demiplanes in the Upper Planes, and a surprising number of angels (who should be the true rulers of Mt. Celestia) serve divine patrons relative to devils/demons who do.
Are there really that many more gods in the Upper Planes than in the Lower Planes? Anyway, the 5e lore is that "Angels are formed from the astral essence of benevolent gods" (MM p15) so of course they are often found in the service of said deities. Meanwhile, archons are more directly tied to Mount Celestia itself and mainly take their orders from higher-ranked archons. They, not angels, are the celestial counterpart to the devils of Baator. What is missing is a type of fiend formed from the astral essence of malevolent gods.
Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul don't run the Nine Hells, and Shar doesn't hold dominion over the Abyss.
According to the Forgotten Realms wiki, Bane, Bhaal and Myrkul have their divine realms in Acheron, Gehenna and Hades respectively. Shar's realm is also in Hades. For examples of gods whose realms are in the Nine Hells, there is the dragon goddess Tiamat and the sahuagin god Sekolah. In all cases, the divine realm is a region of a layer of a plane, so probably regarded as small by many of the fiends there. Of course, it is the same in the Upper Planes. Mystra's Dweomerheart is but a region of Eronia, the second layer of Elysium.
So, what if celestials were also formed from mortal souls?
There has been much contradictory lore about how exactly "petitioners" work. But it seems that mortal souls that ascend or descend to the Outer Planes indeed now count as either celestials or fiends. Furthermore, everytime they die and thereafter reform on an Outer Plane, these souls become increasingly different from their original mortal self. I think it is fair to assume that repeated deaths would eventually turn these souls into archons, guardinals, eladrin, etc.
Interesting stuff to think about. I guess this revising would assume that 'mortal souls' don't quite become fiends until they're somehow 'transformed'.
That 'Eladrin pranks' idea actually opens up a door to another way we can make flawed celestial characters; making it common for them to have misguided intentions. In a way, this makes them more 'realistic' and similar to humans, which allows us human storytellers to think up more stories with them. For instance: a Celestial Eladrin knows that people generally want to stay alive, so they'll try and foster and protect life and all; but knowing that a mortal soul will pass on to one of the Upper Planes, what's really the harm in killing a few humans for a prank? It's all in good fun, and we can laugh about it with some drinks up in Arborea. Or, a Celestial Archon may suppose that any criminals, even pickpockets and jawalkers, should be jailed and put through the (quite lengthy) court system, since that's only fair. Sure, the courts in Mount Celestia are pretty fair, and they aren't corrupt, so you probably won't be put through that much, but being whisked off to a prison in the Upper Planes for jaywalking is really brutal for a mortal, and the Archons just can't seem to get that concept.
There used to be a lot more lore for all the planes, but especially the upper planes. WotC really threw out a lot of it for 5E's frankly minimalist approach to everything. They've also ignored a lot of previous celestial beings like the lillend (upper body of a winged woman, lower body of a constrictor snake with rainbow-colored scales), asuras (humanoids with wings made of fire), and numerous other types. And the Planescape setting did have antagonistic celestials like anarchist Eladrin who wanted to overthrow every form of government, even good ones, or archons that were obsessed with punishing people for breaking even the most minor laws.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Maybe they need to remake or at least add more celestial planes. It might be a little difficult to find but mythology usually has some good inspiration. Valhalla seems to be a good example. Players who find there way there could train among that heavenly legion as they prepare for doomsday. Maybe they need the knowledge or insight of a particular, legendary warrior so they travel to Valhalla to meet with him. Then he could give them a set of feats to accomplish or challenge them to combat. There are plenty of opportunities for exploration and role-play in Valhalla too. They could explore the depths of Valhalla and find Mimir's head floating in its pool or the Norns weaving their threads of fate. Maybe the dinner beast Saehrimnir escapes from his pen and the party has to round him back up so he can be eaten that night.
I think the Celestial Planes could be a lot like this. Maybe an angelic spider plays Norn in the Beastlands and weaves the fate webs. Somewhere else there is a heavenly bowerbird who decorates his nest with blue (sorrowful) memories. Pockets of role-play and exploration that could provide the players with extremely valuable assets, alliances, and knowledge.
What if one of the celestial planes paralleled Carceri but instead of being a prison it was a vault? This heavenly realm is one of the most secure places in the world and the most valuable and sometimes the most dangerous objects are stored here for safe keeping. All the gods store their artifacts in the safes of Vaultania knowing that the Vaultanians have many lidless eyes that never slumber. Maybe great and powerful knowledge is stored here true. Things that mortals may never know.
I like your example of the flying turtle plane but I'm not a fan of the turtle devouring souls. Seems counter celestial and even fiendish if you ask me but that's just my opinion.
For the aasimar race, the YouTuber Pointy Hat has a good video about it and he has the same issue with them that you do. I like the idea of them having small wings on their heads or faces. Maybe their wings cover their eyes and when they use their special aasimar powers they open their wings and reveal their eyes. And what eyes they have. Maybe an aasimar has a hole for a face. Maybe they look like a greek marble statue with a laurel wreath. There are tons of things you could do with halos.
There is actually an official WOtC book ( Worlds and Realms) that covers all the published realms as well as all the planes, spelljamming and sigil. It isn’t cheap - $50 at B&N (I got mine using a Xmas gift card) it’s written from Mordencainen’s point of view giving a few major NPCs & BBEGs and giving a sense of where it fits in the balance. It doesn’t have any actual adventures or PC facing stuff (feats, subclasses, etc) so it’s really meant for DMs and those that like some lore about every place. I’m still reading thru my copy but so far it’s worth the money to me.
Agreed on the idea of remaking the planes - these planes have lots of potential, we just gotta crack those eggs open, y'know. I'm working on a revision of all the planes right now, and I'm gathering some thoughts from this post to make it happen. I've now seen that video Pointyhat made, and it was just what I needed!
For the record, as far as I understand it, ALL of the Outer Planes are functionally independent of the gods and their divine hierarchies. A disproportionate number of gods keep their demiplanes in the Upper Planes, and a surprising number of angels (who should be the true rulers of Mt. Celestia) serve divine patrons relative to devils/demons who do.
Are there really that many more gods in the Upper Planes than in the Lower Planes? Anyway, the 5e lore is that "Angels are formed from the astral essence of benevolent gods" (MM p15) so of course they are often found in the service of said deities. Meanwhile, archons are more directly tied to Mount Celestia itself and mainly take their orders from higher-ranked archons. They, not angels, are the celestial counterpart to the devils of Baator. What is missing is a type of fiend formed from the astral essence of malevolent gods.
Thank you for that added context, that does clear up a significant amount. Sorry about that misunderstanding of angels, a misreading of the lore on the Celestial Hebdemond made me think the seven ancient paragons were angels, not archons like it clearly states. Knowing that, you're entirely right: angels are fundamentally tied to gods by nature, and there really should be a law and chaos, or at the very least an evil variation of angels, like you said.
Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul don't run the Nine Hells, and Shar doesn't hold dominion over the Abyss.
According to the Forgotten Realms wiki, Bane, Bhaal and Myrkul have their divine realms in Acheron, Gehenna and Hades respectively. Shar's realm is also in Hades. For examples of gods whose realms are in the Nine Hells, there is the dragon goddess Tiamat and the sahuagin god Sekolah. In all cases, the divine realm is a region of a layer of a plane, so probably regarded as small by many of the fiends there. Of course, it is the same in the Upper Planes. Mystra's Dweomerheart is but a region of Eronia, the second layer of Elysium.
Yes, that I was aware of. The vast majority of deities have their realms set as demiplanes in different outer planes, usually ties to their alignment. An interesting example of this is Mystra's, who's realm kept changing planes with each version. Mystryl's realm was originally in Limbo, Mystra used to live in Mechanus, and Midnight/Mystra 2.0 (the Mystra who took over after Mystra's death) lived in Elysium like you said. Interestingly, the most recent lore (which to be fair, I'm pretty sure is just Greenwood) suggests Mystra 3.0 (the one who surfaced after the death of Midnight and the Second Sundering, who's supposedly a mix of the previous three Goddesses of Magic) is mostly Mystra 1.0, yet there's no evidence her alignment's shifted back to LN, or that the location of her new realm (Dweomerheart blowing up is what truly kicked off the Spellplague) is anywhere other than Elysium. I'll admit, I just assume that's just WOTC keeping things vague, but that's probably just being ignorant.
My point was more that while these deities have homes in the outer planes, they don't hold dominion over the Outer Planes themselves, just the demiplanes each god created within them. One of Hecate's realms, Aeaea, is supposedly in the third layer of hell: Minauros. Despite that, most wouldn't argue Hecate, a goddess who's power arguably overshadowed Asmodeus before 4e (unless you go by the opinion that Asmodeus is secretly an overdeity, or some other all-powerful evil force), has any claim over the Hells over him, or even a claim over Minauros over Mammon. My own personal view on it is like a country dealing with a multinational megacorporation. The megacorporation technically has no control over the greater land of the country, and theoretically the country's actual government could kick them out. And yet, given the devastating power the megacorp wields, it makes sense the country doesn't try.
Granted, D&D gets muddy on how much the gods do/don't rule the outer realms beyond their personal domains, and the reason I picked out the Upper Planes compared to the others is because that section feels the most muddy. The Celestial Hebdemond I mentioned is called the 'generals and advisors to the gods of Celestia' in the fandom wiki, while the 3e 'Book of Exalted Deeds' makes no mention as far as I've seen on the Hebdemond having any connection to the gods at all, at most working to unite the good paladins of all faiths towards the common aim of doing good, regardless of religious beliefs.
To me at least, the best way to branch those two concepts together (knowing the lore and the origins of everything is fluid and constantly changing) is to push that 'country vs megacorporation' concept. Compared to the lower planes, where it seems to be a 'you leave me alone, I'll leave you alone' kind of deal, in the upper planes, true to its nature, sees far more cooperation. Servants of the gods and the celestial paragons work together, sometimes even advise each other. Hell, some gods (like the Triad) may have some actual stake in the control over the heavens, simply due to their reliability and trustworthiness. Yet because gods are more individualistic in nature (they are the purest definition of cults of personality), that still feels like a tenuous balance of power.
And all that's to say nothing about AO, the Faerunian Pantheon's seemingly special relationship with him compared to the other pantheons (as well as the Mulhorandi/Untheric Pantheons, though for a very different reason), The Spirit World, or the Celestial Emperor and his Celestial Empire, which seems to be an entire planar network nestled inside the Astral Sea, independent of literally everything else.
Basically, my point was that usually when people 'deal with the upper planes,' they're usually dealing with gods, godly servants, angels, etc. So, if you wanted to build out the Upper Planes themselves into something more complex, then it might be prudent to draw a line between the system of the country you're looking at, and the dozens of religious megacorporations dotting its landscape. You shouldn't just ignore the gods, but it may be better to let them take a backseat, like they *usually do when running campaigns with Demon Lords and Archdevils.
Has anyone had any ideas for celestials that could be used in the Beastlands & Bytopia? I’m wondering if I could switch up a bit for the Gaurdinals and move them to the Beastlands as that seems more fitting, but then there would be another slot to fill for Elysium.
Has anyone had any ideas for celestials that could be used in the Beastlands & Bytopia? I’m wondering if I could switch up a bit for the Gaurdinals and move them to the Beastlands as that seems more fitting, but then there would be another slot to fill for Elysium.
Has anyone had any ideas for celestials that could be used in the Beastlands & Bytopia? I’m wondering if I could switch up a bit for the Gaurdinals and move them to the Beastlands as that seems more fitting, but then there would be another slot to fill for Elysium.
Celestials tend to be considerably less territorial than fiends. While you probably won't find too many Archons in the chaotic Upper Planes, they're not as limited to "only this plane has this celestial type" the way the fiends usually are in the Lower Planes.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Has anyone had any ideas for celestials that could be used in the Beastlands & Bytopia? I’m wondering if I could switch up a bit for the Gaurdinals and move them to the Beastlands as that seems more fitting, but then there would be another slot to fill for Elysium.
As for moving guardinals to the Beastlands, I guess it would mirror how 5e moved yugoloths to Gehenna.
Yugoloths were already moved there many editions back. At least in 3ed there were already the leaders of Gehennna, but they did mention its origins from Hades.
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DISCLAIMER: Important stuff is bolded for skim-reading purposes
Ok, so one of the most fun things about DnD, for me, is character creation. Specifically, I love love love reading up about the lore of the various settings in DnD, like the other realms, while figuring out how to make a super compelling character that's inexplicably tied to the specific setting they come from. I'm on a journey to make a character for each of the outer planes, and maybe for the inner planes.
I've made a Fighter-Warlock Chthonic Tiefling Mafioso who's patron is the top don of a Yugoloth-run criminal organization hailing from Gehenna (that's a mouthful), as well as a Druid-Cleric Aasimar who's soul is symbiotically bonded with a firefly-like collection of celestial fey spirits from Arborea which they worship. I've made a Genasi monk who was a member of an elemental pirate crew sailing the elemental chaos hoping to find their missing captain, as well as a goofy Gnome doctor obsessed with monster anatomy who ran away from and is being hunted by the Feydark. The story potential with realms outside the material plane is so immense in this game, it's amazing.
But, while researching these other realms to create my lovable Aasimar character, I was faced with a serious issue:
Is it just me, or are the Upper Planes underdeveloped??
In terms of conflict and content, there is just so much more stuff to work with in the Lower Planes, and the stuff there is way more creative too. This comes down to a couple major issues that I've found in the Upper Planes' worldbuilding while researching it. Ultimately, the realms of the Upper Planes lack interesting inhabitants, compelling conflict, and obvious identities distinct from each-other. For instance:
Planar Inhabitants.
There are 5 truly evil planes in the Outer Planes, 7 if you count the Neutral-Evil planes like Acheron and Pandemonium. For each of the major 5, there's an entire category of fiends completely unique to those planes - that's right, there's more types of fiends then just Devils and Demons.
5 major 'orders' of fiends for the five major Lower Planes. This slight bit of worldbuilding does WONDERS for each plane's identity, and it gives both players and DMs MOUNDS and MOUNDS of stuff to use for the creation of interesting stories.
For instance: that Tiefling Warlock I created! After Gehenna caught my interest, I read up and did tons of research on Yugoloths, being surprised that they even existed since I'd never heard of them before. After hearing about their shady natures and their identities as mercenaries and manipulators, I was able to come up with the idea of a Tiefling hailing from the gate-town of Torch who ended up joining a Yugoloth mafia, hoping to rise the ranks and eventually backstab and replace its leader as an act of revenge against them (for various plot reasons). Bim bam boom, that's a simple yet compelling starting point for a story to be developed!!
Not only that, but each of these five 'orders' of fiends are distinct from each-other, both in visuals and in story. While there's some visual overlap, if you get to know each of them just a bit, you'll almost always be able to tell one of these fiends apart from another, and distinct identities are the essence of making an interesting setting that players want to interact with. The best thing you can do for a setting is to make it distinct from other settings that it will be compared to.
And yet, the Upper Planes seem to lack distinct 'orders' of Celestial. Rather than 5 major orders, there appears to be only 3 'main' types of Celestial. There's also Angels, but those can hail from any realm, and that's not good, since all the realms having these inhabitants in common makes it harder to pick out the compelling aspects of each realm individually. As we'll see, this problem with the realms having unique distinctions will be a reoccurring problem.
Working off of the Forgotten Realms wiki as the only reasonably accessible source for me about this lore, these seem to be the 3 main 'orders' of Celestial:
Do you see the issue here? At some point, all these types of Celestials get a big amount of crossover that makes it so that, depending on the story, you can just replace one for the other. That's THE LAST thing you want to be the case! You could never replace a Demon with a Devil, they'd never act even a bit alike! Same with replacing a Yugoloth with a Demodand. One is nothing like the other!!
A realm's inhabitants are the ultimate entryway into telling stories regarding a realm. The easiest way to incorporate Gehenna into your campaign is to introduce some Yugoloth antagonists! The best way to make a character hailing from Carceri is to give them tons of Demodand-inflicted trauma! And thus, having uninspiring Celestials like the Guardinals, Archons, and Angels makes it really hard to incorporate them into your story. It's like all of these beings are designed to be fiend-hunting heavenly protectors, when that kind of identity is quite specific. In the case of the Guardinals, their fiend-killing natures just completely contradict with their other peace-loving traits in a way that isn't so much compelling as it is confusing.
Not only that, but some of the Upper Planes are just completely abandoned, leaving players nothing to work with! It's way more difficult to think up a player character with a connection to the Beastlands when there's no designated Beastland Celestials that they can use as a jumping-off point! I guess you could use a Guardinal, but that pulls the character closer to Bytopia than the Beastlands!
In the end, the massive amounts of crossover between these Celestials makes it difficult to think up compelling stories using them, negatively impacting the Upper Planes as a whole. I had to do tons of work to figure out something compelling for my Aasimar Cleric character, it was way more difficult making that character than my Tiefling mafioso-warlock guy. So, the Upper Planes are in desperate need of more Celestials. The ones that exist need to be made distinct from each-other, and 2 new ones need to be made for Bytopia and the Beastlands.
But the problems don’t end there. The next main issue comes in the conflicts inherent to the realms.
Stories, Conflict, and Plot Hooks.
Having a clear conflict inherent to a setting’s identity will make people want to create stories in that setting. This is an inarguably true statement when it comes to DnD, with one of the main examples of this being the Tieflings. Both the Upper Planes and the Lower Planes have their own designated playable species, being the Tieflings and the Aasimar - and yet, Tieflings are played way, way more often than Aasimar are. Why? One reason why Tieflings are more liked is visual identity, which will be covered later, but another equally important aspect is the story inherent to tieflings. The story of why a tiefling is what they are or how their species has affected their life is RICH with story potential. Lots of races despise tieflings inherently, leading to oppression and bigotry both from within and outside tiefling communities. This conflict makes it easy to attach oneself to the tieflings, and it makes it easy and fun to think up stories regarding tieflings.
My warlock tiefling, for instance, isn’t even from the Material Plane; he hails from the Gatetown of Gehenna, ‘Torch’, and his story is tied with that location. Torch is a place filled with organized crime, a man-eats-man world where the wealthy upper class manipulates the poorer lower class. This conflict allows for creativity to flourish, enticing people to create characters or storylines involving the Lower Planes. But the Upper Planes don’t have that.
Meanwhile, when it comes to the Upper Planes, each one is a kind of paradise that everybody would basically like to be, anyways. Sure, sometimes they’re a bit intense, but as a whole, the story would always rather the Upper Planes stay as it is, with the only main conflict regarding them being something attacking that status quo. That can work for stories, but it’s quite limiting, narrative-wise. This issue can be seen very well in the playable species of the Upper Planes, the Aasimar.
Aasimars don’t really have an inherent conflict or narrative attached to their identity. All the people who hate Aasimars are generally fiendish or evil, so an Aasimar won’t be outcasted from anywhere that most people would want anything to do with, anyways. They could be getting hunted down by fiends, but then, it’s the fiends that are making the Aasimar compelling, not the Aasimar itself, right? In general, the root of all of the Upper Planes’ conflict comes from the Lower Planes. Celestials are all about fighting fiends, and the Dungeon Master’s Guide lists off Fiendish schemes as the main conflicts the Upper Planes has, which makes the Upper Planes narratively passive and unengaging; you don’t really latch onto the Upper Planes, since it’s the Lower Planes that’s acting upon the world and influencing the story, while the Upper Planes simply react.
In the end, the number one thing the Upper Planes needs in terms of storytelling is complexity and an active role in the world. In other words, the Upper Planes need conflict.
But even if the conflict of the Upper Planes is imperfect, the Upper Planes would see a ton more creative use if they just had their visual identities going for them. But unfortunately, the visual identity of the Upper Planes is generally vague.
Visual Identity.
What’s the #1 reason why Tieflings are played so much, but Aasimar are played so little? A big contributor is undeniably the storytelling inherent with each species, but the much simpler and more important aspect of each species is the visual fantasy being fulfilled. The design of Tieflings is amazing in DnD - the colorful skin, large horns, devilish eyes, etc. just makes for so much potential for fun and creative character design, and in the end, the reason people want to play whatever it is they want to play is to have fun with a cool character. Tieflings stand out amongst other races and are distinct in identity in several ways. Their naming convention is interesting, they’re visually eye-catching, etc. There’s multiple Tiefling lineages you can choose from, as well, allowing your Tiefling to have a closer bond to a particular Lower Plane, which does wonders for storytelling as well. But Aasimar as a species have confusing visual identities and unremarkable conventions. They’re all kind of shoe-horned into a general guardian/healing spirit kind of identity, with all of them getting healing abilities and that awakened angel state. This narrow celestial ‘guardian’ identity seems to be a recurring issue. Not only that, but visually, their appearances are shown as varying WILDLY, while at the same time not being striking and unique enough to be desirable over other species. Metallic freckles, shiny skin, luminous eyes… while Tieflings have such a strikeable balance of traits shown just with their skin color, noticeable horns, and tail, Aasimar have too broad an amount of possible design traits with so little of them being visually compelling. It leaves players and DMs without a recognizable image they can go back to when they think of this species. In the end, Aasimar’s visuals just don’t leave an impression.
But this problem is shared amongst the realms the Aasimar hail from. To give the realms credit where credit is due, they do have a number of interesting, distinct aspects, like Bytopia’s two worlds laid facing each-other or Arborea’s giant wilderness. But, in content, each one is the same kind of natural paradise, plentiful in vegetation and animal life, with blue skies and green grass. They all look too much like the Material Plane!! What’s worse, but since they’re all generally grassy paradise, they all run the risk of just looking like the Windows background.
Gehenna is a realm that’s eternally placed on a 45 degree angle. Carceri is laid out like an infinite string of Russian nesting dolls. The abyss is infinite layers of foul ecosystems while the Nine Hells is a kingdom of sulfur-filled fire pits. The Lower Planes are each wildly different from each-other in design, while the Upper Planes have too much in common.
With this, it’s clear that the #1 thing that the Upper Planes needs in regards of creating a lasting impression with visual worldbuilding is simply to be crazier! The Upper Planes needs to look crazier!!
What can be improved?
So, we’ve looked at the inhabitants of these planes, the stories these planes tell, and the visual impression they and their inhabitants give. What have we learned? Well, the Upper Planes has a problem with distinct identities and compelling conflict. Each realm and each Celestial are kinda alike with each-other, and all their problems come from outside forces like the Lower Planes, rather than stories created from their own realms. The good thing is that the idea of the Upper Planes is not fundamentally broken; as we’ve been piecing apart all the Upper Planes’ issues, we’ve also been finding out how the Upper Planes could be improved!!
The major opportunities for growth in the Upper Planes’ storytelling are as follows:
And this is where I leave it up to discussion. Making a big post about a revised version of the Upper Planes is a project for another day, my friends - and before I undertake it, I want to hear your ideas on how the Upper Planes should be developed.
What would the two new kinds of Celestial look like?
What kind of conflicts does a ‘good’ realm create? What kind of stories are inherent to the realm?
What does ‘good’ mean in the grand scope of the Outer Planes?
Please, give me your thoughts!!
I think it's a combination of negativity bias (threats are more vivid than friends) and the fact that D&D, at it's core, is very based in fighting. Unless you're playing an evil campaign (which most modules don't seem to be built for), there's not much reason to explore/dungeon delve into the Upper Planes. Part of it might be tied to the general trouble with building an interesting template for celestial characters that's as interesting as fiendish ones can be.
Everyone loves the villain, and that's because, beyond the flair and gravitas, they are far more indulgent. They indulge themselves far more, and on some level that indulgence is felt by the audience that experiences them. Angels, and other forms of celestials, much like holy knights and lore-accurate devotion paladins, are far too restrictive for the complexity and conflict potential of a whole plane.
All that said, I agree with you. There's an incredible amount of potential in the Upper Planes, just as I believe there's an incredible amount of untapped potential in the neutral planes like Limbo and Mechanus. Honestly, I think the problem is that, by its nature, conflict in the Upper Planes has to be far more specialized and rare, just like how conflict in the Realms of the Hells and the Abyss are arguably far more common than normal.
My focus tends to be on character, so I'd actually like to try and offer my own answer to your third question: Good (like Chaos for Law), should reflect its opposite.
Lawful Evil Devils corrupt mortals, but always barred by the fine print. There are extremely indulgent in their desires, but there are some chains a party can use to outsmart them.
Chaotic Evil Demons are all indulgence, entertaining their whims without care or restriction. There is no fine print with demons, only death and misery. If any demons have exploitable flaws, it's usually related to their impulsiveness, born from their chaotic nature.
Neutral Evil Yugoloths (originally called Daemons) are actually a split bag. Originally, they existed simply to cause pain and misery. While the other fiends were entertaining their own personal desires, the ancient yugoloths simply sought the end of everything. Many modern yugoloths have become nothing but basically 'demons for hire,' but it's actually unclear if this is truly a shift in racial ideology, a front all daemons have been putting on to avoid being seen as the threat they are, or even a mix of both (older daemons are playing an act, younger ones might truly just be in it for the money). In other words, the conflict with yugoloths/daemons is that they're either not indulgent at all (Think the Lich from Adventure Time, ultimately a machine with infinite patience), or entirely so (only in it for the coin, no actual ideology to speak of).
If you wanted to take advantage of this to flesh out their planar counterparts, here's a few potential options:
Archons (LG): Naturally, they'd be the demon equivalent of Celestials, in that they are entirely impossible to create meaningful depth in regarding how they need to be handled, as a general rule. They are both disciplined and rule-bound. Generally, they aren't the type to frollick or play, not the ones that go into combat anyways. You might even treat an incursion of archons as the reverse of a demonic invasion: for an evil faction/party, the intervention of archons is just a sudden fire that burns all forces of evil that it comes into contact with, along with any forces that get in their way (a subjugated vassal state that doesn't immediately surrender, for example).
Basically, imagine golden-winged 40k Space Marines, ready to kick a lich's teeth in.
Celestial Eladrin (CG): I've got to admit. Before reading this post, I did not know that celestial eladrin were the original version, before the advent of the Feywilds in 4e. The more you know. Anyways, they sit directly opposite to the devils on the alignment chart, so it makes sense for them to struggle with the indulgence/restriction divide like the devils do, but in reverse. Essentially, celestial eladrins want to do good, but they can both be easily sidetracked or go down the wrong path if their whims take them somewhere.
For example, an eladrin sees a king abusing his people, and so offers aid to a champion who will lead a revolution. A charismatic fellow strikes their fancy, but it turns out this fun guy was in fact a power-hungry madman who became even worse than the king.
Alternatively, they set pieces on the board to overthrow the king (weapons, said champion) but get distracted by something else that they find fascinating, and so don't see the conflict through to the end. Basically, a dealmaker who doesn't recognize/understand the ramifications of their own deal.
And unlike a fey, who's ultimately just doing things for their amusement, a celestial eladrin can actually be be "beaten" by convincing them of the evil they've inadvertently caused/are causing.
Guardinals (NG): Finally, the guardinals lie directly opposite to the yugoloths/daemons, so it makes sense for them to have the divide in nature between indulgence and purpose. True guardinals are cosmic defenders of the innocent and relentless warriors against evil. They likely don't plot as much as daemons do, but make up for it with overwhelming strength or mortal support.
However, as the realms grew more and more peaceful (The deposing of the Queen of Chaos, the yugoloths becoming mercenaries, the Blood War containing most devils and demons) they've grown more and more philosophical. Most new guardinals are innocent, yet horribly naive. They can fight, but almost never do. If they appear on the mortal realm, they're healers and buffers, rarely offensive spellcasters or fighters.
Yet there are some guardinals, some old, others not, that still believe the shadow of the apocalypse looms just past the shadow of tomorrow, and work to prepare the world for it by any means necessary. I could even imagine a scenario where a rogue guardinal creates strife, helps a fiend's plan for a kingdom succeed, or otherwise helps evil take place, just so the survivors are strong enough for a true evil plot on the horizon.
There's also something else worth mentioning when dealing with the Upper Planes: The Gods.
For the record, as far as I understand it, ALL of the Outer Planes are functionally independent of the gods and their divine hierarchies. A disproportionate number of gods keep their demiplanes in the Upper Planes, and a surprising number of angels (who should be the true rulers of Mt. Celestia) serve divine patrons relative to devils/demons who do. Regardless, I'd personally treat the morality/ideology of the gods as separate from that of the celestial realms. Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul don't run the Nine Hells, and Shar doesn't hold dominion over the Abyss. By their nature, the alignments/personalities of gods across all planes are significantly more complex/varied, and treating the Upper Planes to 'The Realms of the Gods' only serves to make those realms as far out of reach as the gods themselves for any normal campaign.
Hell, if there's anything you get out of this word dump, it's this: Give Shar a balor covered in shadows as a notable divine servant.
Anyways, I hope this was helpful.
These are some pretty good ideas on how to play the three main celestials! One aspect of world building that I think has lots of potential for expansion is definitely how celestials are created. The fiends of the lower planes are created by taking mortal souls and transforming them in a way slightly different for each realm; this instantly draws a connection between the Lower Planes and the Material Plane, and it sets the stage for even more world building. Most of all, it makes the fiends distinct, because each one uses souls in a different way. So, what if celestials were also formed from mortal souls? But rather than a fiend taking a soul and torturing it, transforming it against its will, becoming a celestial is more of a selfless act. In the pursuit of the brand of 'good' your Upper Plane believes in, you make the ultimate self-sacrifice and give up your own soul to create a powerful Celestial capable of pursuing your ideals.
Another good idea is just to give each of the Upper Planes some kind of agenda. A goal they want to achieve that they haven't yet, distinct from the other Upper Planes' goals. Mount Celestia can strive for a lawful multiverse, while Arborea could be striving for a totally free society where people co-exist without a kind of government, total anarchist-style
I'm working on ways to completely overhaul the Upper Planes, so stuff like this is interesting to consider. Thanks for commenting!
The way I see it, the history of the Outer Planes started with a war between Chaos and an emerging Law, which then led to these forces simultaneously...
I imagine that archons and eladrin still scoff at each other, trading insults like "stick in the mud" and "loose cannon", but you can count on guardinals to ease tensions whenever they arise. On the contrary, the yugoloths' apparent game is to keep devils and demons locked in an everlasting war. I picture the rilmani of the Outlands assisting both the guardinals and the yugoloths in their respective approaches to keeping the balance between Law and Chaos, however reluctant the guardinals and yugoloths might be to acknowledge their shared role.
For a campaign in the Upper Planes, I could see some eladrin abusing the fact that celestials (and fiends) killed outside of their home plane will simply resurrect on it after a while (100 years according to Morte's Planar Parade) to claim that it is alright to play lethal pranks on archons found outside of Mount Celestia. The latter might in turn organize punitive expeditions against eladrin, but likewise not going as far as killing any on Arborea. It would then be the guardinals' difficult job to prevent the conflict from escalating. Failure would typically result in the involved archons, eladrin and sometimes guardinals becoming fallen celestials and being driven out of the Upper Planes, thus also removing the problem but in a saddening way.
There has been much contradictory lore about how exactly "petitioners" work. But it seems that mortal souls that ascend or descend to the Outer Planes indeed now count as either celestials or fiends. Furthermore, everytime they die and thereafter reform on an Outer Plane, these souls become increasingly different from their original mortal self. I think it is fair to assume that repeated deaths would eventually turn these souls into archons, guardinals, eladrin, etc.
In the Lower Planes, the River Styx is known to accelerate this process, driving evil souls to it and then regurgitating them as the weakest fiends, notably infernal lemures and abyssal manes. However, souls (evil or not) that are bound to a devil by contract or to an evil god by faith will go directly to the Lower Planes without having their identities washed away by the Styx. I think the future of these souls as different types of fiends would then follow the "died too many times" logic.
Expanded 5e Spelljammer Cosmology
Are there really that many more gods in the Upper Planes than in the Lower Planes? Anyway, the 5e lore is that "Angels are formed from the astral essence of benevolent gods" (MM p15) so of course they are often found in the service of said deities. Meanwhile, archons are more directly tied to Mount Celestia itself and mainly take their orders from higher-ranked archons. They, not angels, are the celestial counterpart to the devils of Baator. What is missing is a type of fiend formed from the astral essence of malevolent gods.
According to the Forgotten Realms wiki, Bane, Bhaal and Myrkul have their divine realms in Acheron, Gehenna and Hades respectively. Shar's realm is also in Hades. For examples of gods whose realms are in the Nine Hells, there is the dragon goddess Tiamat and the sahuagin god Sekolah. In all cases, the divine realm is a region of a layer of a plane, so probably regarded as small by many of the fiends there. Of course, it is the same in the Upper Planes. Mystra's Dweomerheart is but a region of Eronia, the second layer of Elysium.
Expanded 5e Spelljammer Cosmology
Interesting stuff to think about. I guess this revising would assume that 'mortal souls' don't quite become fiends until they're somehow 'transformed'.
That 'Eladrin pranks' idea actually opens up a door to another way we can make flawed celestial characters; making it common for them to have misguided intentions. In a way, this makes them more 'realistic' and similar to humans, which allows us human storytellers to think up more stories with them. For instance: a Celestial Eladrin knows that people generally want to stay alive, so they'll try and foster and protect life and all; but knowing that a mortal soul will pass on to one of the Upper Planes, what's really the harm in killing a few humans for a prank? It's all in good fun, and we can laugh about it with some drinks up in Arborea. Or, a Celestial Archon may suppose that any criminals, even pickpockets and jawalkers, should be jailed and put through the (quite lengthy) court system, since that's only fair. Sure, the courts in Mount Celestia are pretty fair, and they aren't corrupt, so you probably won't be put through that much, but being whisked off to a prison in the Upper Planes for jaywalking is really brutal for a mortal, and the Archons just can't seem to get that concept.
There used to be a lot more lore for all the planes, but especially the upper planes. WotC really threw out a lot of it for 5E's frankly minimalist approach to everything. They've also ignored a lot of previous celestial beings like the lillend (upper body of a winged woman, lower body of a constrictor snake with rainbow-colored scales), asuras (humanoids with wings made of fire), and numerous other types. And the Planescape setting did have antagonistic celestials like anarchist Eladrin who wanted to overthrow every form of government, even good ones, or archons that were obsessed with punishing people for breaking even the most minor laws.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Maybe they need to remake or at least add more celestial planes. It might be a little difficult to find but mythology usually has some good inspiration. Valhalla seems to be a good example. Players who find there way there could train among that heavenly legion as they prepare for doomsday. Maybe they need the knowledge or insight of a particular, legendary warrior so they travel to Valhalla to meet with him. Then he could give them a set of feats to accomplish or challenge them to combat. There are plenty of opportunities for exploration and role-play in Valhalla too. They could explore the depths of Valhalla and find Mimir's head floating in its pool or the Norns weaving their threads of fate. Maybe the dinner beast Saehrimnir escapes from his pen and the party has to round him back up so he can be eaten that night.
I think the Celestial Planes could be a lot like this. Maybe an angelic spider plays Norn in the Beastlands and weaves the fate webs. Somewhere else there is a heavenly bowerbird who decorates his nest with blue (sorrowful) memories. Pockets of role-play and exploration that could provide the players with extremely valuable assets, alliances, and knowledge.
What if one of the celestial planes paralleled Carceri but instead of being a prison it was a vault? This heavenly realm is one of the most secure places in the world and the most valuable and sometimes the most dangerous objects are stored here for safe keeping. All the gods store their artifacts in the safes of Vaultania knowing that the Vaultanians have many lidless eyes that never slumber. Maybe great and powerful knowledge is stored here true. Things that mortals may never know.
I like your example of the flying turtle plane but I'm not a fan of the turtle devouring souls. Seems counter celestial and even fiendish if you ask me but that's just my opinion.
For the aasimar race, the YouTuber Pointy Hat has a good video about it and he has the same issue with them that you do. I like the idea of them having small wings on their heads or faces. Maybe their wings cover their eyes and when they use their special aasimar powers they open their wings and reveal their eyes. And what eyes they have. Maybe an aasimar has a hole for a face. Maybe they look like a greek marble statue with a laurel wreath. There are tons of things you could do with halos.
They don't need more Upper Planes. They just need to actually do stuff with them. Valhalla is represented by Ysgard, for example.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
There is actually an official WOtC book ( Worlds and Realms) that covers all the published realms as well as all the planes, spelljamming and sigil. It isn’t cheap - $50 at B&N (I got mine using a Xmas gift card) it’s written from Mordencainen’s point of view giving a few major NPCs & BBEGs and giving a sense of where it fits in the balance. It doesn’t have any actual adventures or PC facing stuff (feats, subclasses, etc) so it’s really meant for DMs and those that like some lore about every place. I’m still reading thru my copy but so far it’s worth the money to me.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Agreed on the idea of remaking the planes - these planes have lots of potential, we just gotta crack those eggs open, y'know. I'm working on a revision of all the planes right now, and I'm gathering some thoughts from this post to make it happen. I've now seen that video Pointyhat made, and it was just what I needed!
Thank you for that added context, that does clear up a significant amount. Sorry about that misunderstanding of angels, a misreading of the lore on the Celestial Hebdemond made me think the seven ancient paragons were angels, not archons like it clearly states. Knowing that, you're entirely right: angels are fundamentally tied to gods by nature, and there really should be a law and chaos, or at the very least an evil variation of angels, like you said.
Yes, that I was aware of. The vast majority of deities have their realms set as demiplanes in different outer planes, usually ties to their alignment. An interesting example of this is Mystra's, who's realm kept changing planes with each version. Mystryl's realm was originally in Limbo, Mystra used to live in Mechanus, and Midnight/Mystra 2.0 (the Mystra who took over after Mystra's death) lived in Elysium like you said. Interestingly, the most recent lore (which to be fair, I'm pretty sure is just Greenwood) suggests Mystra 3.0 (the one who surfaced after the death of Midnight and the Second Sundering, who's supposedly a mix of the previous three Goddesses of Magic) is mostly Mystra 1.0, yet there's no evidence her alignment's shifted back to LN, or that the location of her new realm (Dweomerheart blowing up is what truly kicked off the Spellplague) is anywhere other than Elysium. I'll admit, I just assume that's just WOTC keeping things vague, but that's probably just being ignorant.
My point was more that while these deities have homes in the outer planes, they don't hold dominion over the Outer Planes themselves, just the demiplanes each god created within them. One of Hecate's realms, Aeaea, is supposedly in the third layer of hell: Minauros. Despite that, most wouldn't argue Hecate, a goddess who's power arguably overshadowed Asmodeus before 4e (unless you go by the opinion that Asmodeus is secretly an overdeity, or some other all-powerful evil force), has any claim over the Hells over him, or even a claim over Minauros over Mammon. My own personal view on it is like a country dealing with a multinational megacorporation. The megacorporation technically has no control over the greater land of the country, and theoretically the country's actual government could kick them out. And yet, given the devastating power the megacorp wields, it makes sense the country doesn't try.
Granted, D&D gets muddy on how much the gods do/don't rule the outer realms beyond their personal domains, and the reason I picked out the Upper Planes compared to the others is because that section feels the most muddy. The Celestial Hebdemond I mentioned is called the 'generals and advisors to the gods of Celestia' in the fandom wiki, while the 3e 'Book of Exalted Deeds' makes no mention as far as I've seen on the Hebdemond having any connection to the gods at all, at most working to unite the good paladins of all faiths towards the common aim of doing good, regardless of religious beliefs.
To me at least, the best way to branch those two concepts together (knowing the lore and the origins of everything is fluid and constantly changing) is to push that 'country vs megacorporation' concept. Compared to the lower planes, where it seems to be a 'you leave me alone, I'll leave you alone' kind of deal, in the upper planes, true to its nature, sees far more cooperation. Servants of the gods and the celestial paragons work together, sometimes even advise each other. Hell, some gods (like the Triad) may have some actual stake in the control over the heavens, simply due to their reliability and trustworthiness. Yet because gods are more individualistic in nature (they are the purest definition of cults of personality), that still feels like a tenuous balance of power.
And all that's to say nothing about AO, the Faerunian Pantheon's seemingly special relationship with him compared to the other pantheons (as well as the Mulhorandi/Untheric Pantheons, though for a very different reason), The Spirit World, or the Celestial Emperor and his Celestial Empire, which seems to be an entire planar network nestled inside the Astral Sea, independent of literally everything else.
Basically, my point was that usually when people 'deal with the upper planes,' they're usually dealing with gods, godly servants, angels, etc. So, if you wanted to build out the Upper Planes themselves into something more complex, then it might be prudent to draw a line between the system of the country you're looking at, and the dozens of religious megacorporations dotting its landscape. You shouldn't just ignore the gods, but it may be better to let them take a backseat, like they *usually do when running campaigns with Demon Lords and Archdevils.
Has anyone had any ideas for celestials that could be used in the Beastlands & Bytopia? I’m wondering if I could switch up a bit for the Gaurdinals and move them to the Beastlands as that seems more fitting, but then there would be another slot to fill for Elysium.
Well, OP made a kind of follow-up thread (https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/214734-revising-the-upper-planes-adding-conflict-and) where they present their ideas, including new celestials for Bytopia and the Beastlands.
As for moving guardinals to the Beastlands, I guess it would mirror how 5e moved yugoloths to Gehenna.
Expanded 5e Spelljammer Cosmology
Celestials tend to be considerably less territorial than fiends. While you probably won't find too many Archons in the chaotic Upper Planes, they're not as limited to "only this plane has this celestial type" the way the fiends usually are in the Lower Planes.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Yugoloths were already moved there many editions back. At least in 3ed there were already the leaders of Gehennna, but they did mention its origins from Hades.