I'm creating this to discuss Celestials and their minimal numbers, along with ways to homebrew some well made new ones. Some friends and I were discussing how to best make some new Celestials, and me having a strong liking towards CG, I brought up the possibility of making a type of subset thing among Celestials similar to what Devils and Demons have: Both are fiends, but are separated by their plane of origin and their alignment. Obviously the CG and LG wouldn't have a rivalry since they're both out to do good, but there'd be some tension between the two groups. My friend is claiming that Celestials, being named after Mount Celestia (I know that isn't where the term celestial came from but for the sake of this that's what it is), are made to be almost exclusively LG, but that's what made me think that Celestial could be the term for the LG ones, and maybe Arborean or similar for the CG ones. Of course, this means there's a need for a new name for the entire monster type as a whole but for now I'm just asking: Good idea? Bad idea? Mediocre idea?

Y'know I had yet to use the forums here so I may have done some things wrong but you get the point I hope

I love the idea! Tension sounds good. Maybe a "friendly" rivalry? They have a gathering once per decade where they have a competition of sorts. It's your universe. You can do whatever you want with it.

I wasn't thinking a friendly rivalry, I was thinking more like how a Paladin may regard a Blood Hunter and vice versa. They'll respect each other on the count that they both care for the world and want to make it better, but at the same time the Paladin will question the morals of what the Blood Hunter does and the Blood Hunter will think the Paladin is a stuck up, self righteous guy and little more than that, but the competitions sound fun, especially since Arborea is the Olyimpic Glades

Instead of a Blood War, the Celestials and their chaotic brethren have an eternal intramural pick up game, The Spirit Games, or just the S-Games if you are on the chaotic side (Bc the LG view the contest as the Olympics, the CG side the X Games).

I'm stumped myself but if not in 5e, I'm surprised in prior lore there isn't some CG equivalent of Celestials.

It's funny, the alignment description for Neutral Good says 'Many celestials [...] are neutral good,' but if you look in the monster search, there are no Neutral Good celestials listed. But there are some lawful evil ones.

The problem is that most high cr celestials are based on Catholicism so maybe try to look into other religions or mythos to find a character that would be CG, Greek mythology probably wouldn't be a good place to pull from since they are mostly CN or LN, maybe go for Shintoism since there is a variety of power levels that could translate nicely to CR

Or a monster based on Huitzilopochtli, the main aztec god who needed blood sacrifices to keep the earth safe, (since we already have the couatl which is also from aztec mythology)

It's a reasonable idea. It makes sense. And the two groups obviously wouldn't be enemies, like devils and demons are, but would rather be more like... well... siblings maybe. Similar goals but different plans to accomplish those goals. Like every buddy cop movie! Riggs & Murtaugh - Xavier & Lensherr - Tommy Boy & Richard - Tango & Cash - Hoitz & Gamble.

There's a lot to work with here. This is a good idea.

I don't see why their rivalry wouldn't be just as bitter or violent as Demons vs Devils if you want to play it that way. Law and Chaos work actively against each other, and IRL religions that are supposed to be about peace and love have warred for the entirety of history. If you value Freedom as highly as Goodness, you could be just as opposed to Lawful Good as you might be to Chaotic Evil. If you wanted to set things up that way.

I think there typically aren't a lot of Celestials statted up because you're not really supposed to be fighting them in most cases. But if you wanted to have a campaign about them you are probably also interested in exploring morality and such, and having them do morally questionable things in defense of their perspective of what is right could make for a very interesting story. A lot more interesting than if everyone was friends anyway.

I did not necessarily state that they'd be friends. It'd be more like, as I had said, a respect for each other's want to do good but judging them harshly at the same time. Maybe there'd be some rivalry, but it'd be very different from devils and demons. Those two are MADE to be evil, to backstab and kill others. That's not how the side of good would do it. Maybe there could be some fun with their relations but it wouldn't be all out war

Yea I noticed the same thing. No one hangs out in Elysium, poor plane of joy

What would they be called, Arboreals! Arboreans? Arbora?

They would probably have an enemy of your enemy is your friend when they need to battle the devils/demons kind of relationship

For anyone wanting to see the first in what is yet to have more, I have remade the lantern archons and added some new lore and such to fit into what I'm going to expand into 

https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/1303293-lantern-archon

It's probably awful but I haven't made many homebrew and this is the first I'm giving to the community

Ok so the monster stat block i think is solid but i think that by what you have described it, they would make better sentries or companions than grunts. Like since the only thing thay can do is a small amount of damage I think they would make better companions to higher cr celestials or they would function as sentries that patrol and are the first to alert someone if there is something afoot (again because they don't deal much damage)

But these are meant to be celestials, beings of good, they wouldn't have a need for covert operations in the shadows or sun rays

This sort of thing requires a lot of setting based knowledge. If the setting you're in supports this sort of thing well that's a good start and the building of an entire "race" for Chaotic Good in comparison to the other corners is an interesting endeavor. I maintain though the setting is super important, as is how you treat the Alignment system as a whole.

Beyond that TL;DR : Intent is the main focus.

Continued: Case in point most treat Good Vs Evil and never stray from that. I personally treat Good V Evil and Order V Chaos. so the 4 corners are diametrically opposed to the ones opposite them, and typically do not like to tolerate the ones even on their same moral / existential line. Lawful Good for example does not like or tolerate Chaotic Good, and so on around the 9 square chart. Its worth mentioning that neutrality in that particular setting has its own pit falls on the outside of the chart and true neutrals have a lot baked into it... But this is all speaking from a homebrewed setting I've built over the last few years to accommodate that exact mentality and operation.

For something similar to a Celestial from LG / NG to CG i'd think you would simple build up regular celestials that fill in gaps between or stand aside the others in CR and ability but leaning more on their chaotic nature. Instead of being able to discern all lies etc: pick something appropriate for that alignments detail. Wild magic comes to mind as a bad example but it does enough of getting the point across. Maybe the chaotic good celestial in this case is known for creating cursed weapons for use as Hexblade warlock tools... It's not the smoothest thing or nicest for them, but Good ain't nice, and there's nothing more chaotic than creating random weapons with curses linking you to a being, willing or not, and just tossing them in the world thinking, "Oh yeah some lucky persons gonna be overjoyed they get my powers!"