angels excerpt [Archive] - Wizards Community

angels excerpt [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
sciborg3
04-29-08, 07:05 PM i'm referring to this (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20080428a).

the new angels seem somewhat interesting, emphasizing the idea of the Astral as the spiritual over the material of the Elemental Chaos.

The aleax was much cooler than the angel of vengeance, and I can't see gods like Vecna or Nerull having these masked dudes lying around. But that is generally my problem with everyone in floating astral dominions in the first place, whereas the landscape of the Outer Planes better fit the deities residing there. Just like the "problem" of people "snickering" at fairies, this seems like an attempt to fix something no one thought was broken.

Personally I find their appearance sort of boring but meh, I won't be buying many 4e products anyway. Anyone have any cool ideas for these guys in an adventure?

now, on to the ridiculous fallacies:

When was the last time your party took on an angel?

Actually, in Faces of Evil and other Planescape supplements, you had to fight celestials, some fallen and some misguided. Dragon magazine also presented the idea that celestials might be willing to kill good mortals if it meant saving billions later.

Fighting fallen angels is far more compelling than fighting a faceless astral spectre. (i can speak in absolutes concerning "fun" too it seems)

Meanwhile, evil gods were served by . . . nobody.

Sun-Chiang had linquas, Set had his minions, Lloth had yochols, Orcus had visages...or wait do they mean that there was no mirror race to the aasimon? So basically people who whined about symmetry now complain about the lack of it. :rolleyes:

In a strange way, this arrangement meant that a demon lord such as Orcus or an archdevil such as Asmodeus could muster an army of servants and actually present a greater challenge to high-level characters than gods. Something was wrong with that picture.

Nothing was wrong with that picture, only with the misrepresentation of the past.

All those shades of niceness didn’t do much to clearly identify the various servants of good, nor did those creatures embody specific principles in the way that different sorts of fiends often did.

Again, I don't remember having a problem distinguishing between archons, guardinals, or eladrins. There was some confusion between archons and aasimon in publication.
setekh
04-30-08, 01:51 PM They are seriously suggesting that the Deities lacked the personal power to beat the Evil outsiders into submission aren't they?
I thought the whole point of the Demons was that they respected power (or atleast feared it enough to follow) and who has more power than Evil deity X.

Then again, every single 4th edition article I've read has utterly ignored the bits about 3rd that people like, playing it off as some children's game with all the finesse of a half brick in a sock.

Another point against me buying 4th edition.
(Course, I don't particularly like the mechanics either, but I want to nerd rage)
Skeptical Clown
04-30-08, 02:32 PM I like the look of 'em all right. Kind of evokes those angels from Diablo 2, although they don't look exactly the same. Makes them seem sort of alien and removed from humanity.
Kain_Darkwind
04-30-08, 04:15 PM While the flavor invokes something spiritual (and continuing on this path would thus vastly differentiate devils-fallen angels from demons-twisted elementals), the art makes them appear almost identical to the elemental archons, which is a shame.

I do hope they emphasize the difference in demons-devils based on this difference in origin rather than the "demon SMASH!" idea that had been tossed around prior. It is clear that they haven't stuck with the 'demons are ugly monsters, devils are gothic humanoids' concept either, considering that the 4e balor looks nearly identical to the previous 3e balor and the 4e pit fiend looks no less monstrous than the 3e version. In fact, the 4e versions of the monsters look almost more alike than the 3e. Which brings us back to the succubi=devil quandary. I can't believe erinyes and succubi were considered too similar to remain separate when pit fiends and balors remain distinct entities themselves.

While I don't mind moving angels to Alignment: any, does it not seem that celestials, the embodiments of Good and benevolence are gone from the game? Eladrin got turned into elves, archons got turned into elementals (and the real archons are likely gone) and guardinals were mocked and belittled enough by the 4e PR team that it is highly unlikely that they are present in the MM.

So...is there any creature out there that is largely Good, and might present encounters that don't resolve around reducing it to 0 hit points? I like divine servant angels, I don't like the idea that all of the celestials seem to be gone from the game.
Artifact
04-30-08, 06:38 PM I've enjoyed this 4e excerpt as much as I enjoyed the one on the new cosmology; that is to say, very much. I realize (and respect) that I'm apparently in the minority, but I really like this re-imagining of D&D. For whatever reason, it seems to strike a chord in me somewhere; things just feel more fantastical now.

I can appreciate the designers attempting to make goody-two-shoes angels more "adventuresome". I also like the new visuals: Less humanoid, their lower bodies trailing away into engergy; very evocative. Its almost as if the designers know what excites me, what will catch my attention.

I say "yay" on the fluff, but I'll have to wait to comment on the crunch. Based on what I've seen in the previews, I can't really say one way or the other. I'll have to wait for the core rules.
sciborg3
04-30-08, 07:10 PM If you like it, more power to you! :)
Lord_Varos
04-30-08, 07:21 PM Wait wait wait. I must have read that wrong. Formed from a sea of chaos? War between the Gods and the Primordials? Manifestations of celestial vocations? Does this not sound like a word-for-word Xerox of White Wolf Publishing's Exalted setting? It doesn't count as "re-imagining" if you're just taking from existing published material. Tell me I'm just reading it weird and that it's not as blatant of plagiarism as it seems.
Artifact
04-30-08, 07:23 PM If you like it, more power to you! :)

I liked the article and thought this might be the best place to voice my appreciation. That is, not trying to thread dump --hope it didn't come across that way ;).
sciborg3
04-30-08, 07:25 PM Not at all - I expressed my views but I did post this so people could read it for themselves. Your opinions don't have to gel with mine, at least not until I take control....but I've said too much...
Mercurius
04-30-08, 09:43 PM Wait wait wait. I must have read that wrong. Formed from a sea of chaos? War between the Gods and the Primordials? Manifestations of celestial vocations? Does this not sound like a word-for-word Xerox of White Wolf Publishing's Exalted setting? It doesn't count as "re-imagining" if you're just taking from existing published material. Tell me I'm just reading it weird and that it's not as blatant of plagiarism as it seems.

Well, to be fair, Exalted wasn't exactly unique or new in its origin, either. Primordial entities deposed by deities? See: Titans vs. Gods in Rome and Greece. It wasn't unique when White Wolf put it out, and it's not unique now. It does have more trappings that feel sorta Exalted-y, but not enough to go screaming plagarism.

As for the article itself, it gets a "meh" from me. I love classical angel aesthetics - beautiful humanoids gifted with wings and what-not. I like that. LOVE that. It's profoundly moving to me. This new design doesn't appeal to me. It's not necessarily bad, but it's not an Angel in any sense of the word. I am disappointed.

Also, am I just remembering wrong, or didn't evil deities in the Great Wheel have demons or devils serving them?
Kain_Darkwind
04-30-08, 10:10 PM Also, am I just remembering wrong, or didn't evil deities in the Great Wheel have demons or devils serving them?

Yes, actually they do. Lolth has created yochols, a unique type of demon. Hextor is known as the Herald of Hell and presumably has devils at his beck and call. Erythnul actually had a servitor creature designed for him in MM4, known as the windblades.

This is something I wrote on another board (http://dicefreaks.forumz.cc/viewtopic.php?p=7218#p7218) about how the former editions gods/divine servants was portrayed in this article.

"The writer's ignorance is pertinent because they are trying to justify these drastic changes. Now, they might have nothing to justify to you, you aren't tied very much to the backstory of previous DnD editions, you gain most of your value out of the game as a game, not a story. However, they don't really care about you, someone who will support (with money) 4e regardless of what changes they make to the game. Their concern is the possible holdouts to the previous editions. The people who still appreciate that background and flavor. They need them to get behind these changes or 4e is going to be, as a big picture issue, a flop. For all the talk about 'new blood', companies really just want 'more blood'. And it doesn't make sense to cut loose a hundred thousand fans if you aren't going to get a hundred and fifty thousand new people to replace them.

So, we establish that they do want to reach out to the fans of previous editions. People who are not wholeheartedly embracing the changes. So they need to justify why they changed something. As a concept, it makes perfect sense...tell someone why you made a change. Typically because there was an inferiority, which your change made into a superiority.

Now, a lack of 'specific divine servants' is an inferiority. So is 'gods pose less challenge to PCs than demon princes'. So is 'gods completely lack any divine servants'.

The problem is that the later two are not factual. They are either being typed by someone who hasn't even read 3e (which is a problem, if you are trying to explain why your product is better than 3e, just like someone extolling the virtues of capitalism vs communism should be well and accurately read on both systems.) or someone who is deliberately lying (which is a problem if you like trusting the companies you buy from).

Ignorant or a liar. Is there another option? And this is just indicative of the former articles like those on fire archons (bear headed angels suck, rah!) and devils (it is stupid to look humanoid and be demon. Demons smash, rah!).

You can't sell a product by being dismissive of its competition. And you shouldn't view your own previous editions as 'competition' anyways."

"In no way does this (lack of servants) indicate, as the article stated, that Orcus presented more of a challenge to PCs than an evil god. First off, I've never had a problem with using demons and devils as servants of evil gods, at all. But then, my PCs have never fought either a god or demon prince directly. Let's look at the most popular evil gods in DnD. According to Dragon magazine, Vecna, Lolth, Tharizdun and Tiamat make the list of the most popular villains in DnD.

Tiamat just got an entire book of servitor creatures with the MM4. And if you were stuck with the Monster Manual, there is nothing a pit fiend or balor can do that a great red/black/blue/green/white wyrm can't do better.

Lolth actually has a priestess in the epic level handbook, but beyond that, she has specific demon servitors that she created, the yochols. The point fails to gain any ground with Lolth....Expedition to the Demonweb Pits has a ton of demonic servitors, both specific to her and otherwise.

Tharizdun would be a good example, since he hasn't created any servitor races, but for the fact that he commands countless evil elementals. And like Tiamat, he got 4 unique avatar of elemental evil servitors in the MM4.

Vecna stands out as the least likely to have special servitors. Unless you count Kas and the other undead as servants.

So we've got the four most popular evil gods, all with plenty of monsters to draw on from the monster manuals if you wish to run a PC vs god's army game. None of them need angels. For a more obscure god (and notice they used Erythnul, rather than Lolth or Tiamat for this insane point they were trying to make), Erythnul actually does have a servitor race that he created, again in the MM4, where a ton of other divine servitor races were placed. Windblades are pretty obscure, but the fact that he does have such a race, put in a recent book from Wizards (so there is no excuse that one can't sift through 30 years of material for every single reference) just shows how little the PR folks are bothering to check their facts, statements or ideas. Hextor? Blood golems of Hextor. Gruumsh? Godblooded Orc. Kurtlemak? Dragonwrought Kobolds. I mean, as crazy as it seems, for every single core evil DnD god, I think there is actually an associated servant with that god, in a Monster Manual.

Now, don't get me wrong, remember I stand behind the idea of making a divine servitor. But I don't stand behind backing the decision with nonsense like "Gods are less of a challenge to PCs than demon princes." It is just so far divorced from any edition they've released, especially the current one, that say such a thing reeks of ignorance or deceit."
Shemeska the Marauder
05-01-08, 03:41 AM I'm inclined to say it's primarily ignorance in some of the cases we've seen so far. But even if it's less malevolent than the other possibility, you really should expect more from someone paid to design this stuff professionally. I'd accept "We didn't like X and so we're changing it to Y which we have some cool ideas for." much more readily than 'evil gods never had their own servitors' or 'guardinals got a bullet to the head' or 'isn't bytopia the NG plane' etc. It's not even that I expect a 4e writer to be aware of everything from 1e and 2e, but when stuff that gets mentioned as a reason for something in 4e is blatantly contradicted by material produced in the past year in 3.5... that's scary.

Some of the selective amnesia w/ regards to prior planar content is downright staggering.

Of course, my saying so probably precludes any chance of my writing anything planar for the DDI (which I would be open to doing) but I have doubts that it's going to actually be accepting queries within the next year and instead just doing everything by in-house designers or the small number of freelancers already working on 4e content.
sciborg3
05-01-08, 09:06 PM Hey Shemmy, the internets has been telling me you've been doing some writing for Paizo?
Shemeska the Marauder
05-01-08, 09:12 PM Hey Shemmy, the internets has been telling me you've been doing some writing for Paizo?

Yes indeed I have. http://arcanofox.foxpaws.net/shemmywrite.gif

I wrote several sections for their Pathfinder campaign setting (though at the moment I can't say which ones). And I'll be doing some work in another book (but I have several months before my deadline for that one, so right now it's just background reading and brainstorming, assuming my day job doesn't suck the life out of me this week).

The Paizo guys are teh awesome.
sciborg3
05-01-08, 09:43 PM Congrats! :D

Will you do a storyhour in the new setting? that would be cool...
Shemeska the Marauder
05-01-08, 10:17 PM Congrats! :D

Will you do a storyhour in the new setting? that would be cool...

I have to finish my current storyhours first. And at the rate I'm able to write on them recently, that's going to take at least another two years.
ripvanwormer
05-04-08, 01:33 PM Tharizdun would be a good example, since he hasn't created any servitor races, but for the fact that he commands countless evil elementals.

I'd add that the Dragon Annual #5 had an article by James Jacobs specifically focused on servitors of Tharizdun, which would be pretty obscure except that two of them appeared in the 3e Monster Manual II: the julajimus and rogue eidolon. Of course, the MMII shaved the serial numbers off, so... your mileage may vary. As originally presented, both were servants of Tharizdun specifically. I'd rather use things like nightshades and quori as Tharizdun's servants, personally. They could serve other entities, but so can angels.

That said, the new angels are cool-looking and the fact that they exist certainly doesn't mean evil gods can't have their own unique servitors in addition to the generic ones. Good deities could and have unique, non-angelic servants too.

More discussion @ Planewalker (http://planewalker.com/forums/viewThread.php?intPostID=45572)

Edit: Oh, and congrats, Shemmy!

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
sciborg3 04-29-08, 07:05 PM	i'm referring to this (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20080428a). the new angels seem somewhat interesting, emphasizing the idea of the Astral as the spiritual over the material of the Elemental Chaos. The aleax was much cooler than the angel of vengeance, and I can't see gods like Vecna or Nerull having these masked dudes lying around. But that is generally my problem with everyone in floating astral dominions in the first place, whereas the landscape of the Outer Planes better fit the deities residing there. Just like the "problem" of people "snickering" at fairies, this seems like an attempt to fix something no one thought was broken. Personally I find their appearance sort of boring but meh, I won't be buying many 4e products anyway. Anyone have any cool ideas for these guys in an adventure? now, on to the ridiculous fallacies: When was the last time your party took on an angel? Actually, in Faces of Evil and other Planescape supplements, you had to fight celestials, some fallen and some misguided. Dragon magazine also presented the idea that celestials might be willing to kill good mortals if it meant saving billions later. Fighting fallen angels is far more compelling than fighting a faceless astral spectre. (i can speak in absolutes concerning "fun" too it seems) Meanwhile, evil gods were served by . . . nobody. Sun-Chiang had linquas, Set had his minions, Lloth had yochols, Orcus had visages...or wait do they mean that there was no mirror race to the aasimon? So basically people who whined about symmetry now complain about the lack of it. :rolleyes: In a strange way, this arrangement meant that a demon lord such as Orcus or an archdevil such as Asmodeus could muster an army of servants and actually present a greater challenge to high-level characters than gods. Something was wrong with that picture. Nothing was wrong with that picture, only with the misrepresentation of the past. All those shades of niceness didn’t do much to clearly identify the various servants of good, nor did those creatures embody specific principles in the way that different sorts of fiends often did. Again, I don't remember having a problem distinguishing between archons, guardinals, or eladrins. There was some confusion between archons and aasimon in publication.
setekh 04-30-08, 01:51 PM	They are seriously suggesting that the Deities lacked the personal power to beat the Evil outsiders into submission aren't they? I thought the whole point of the Demons was that they respected power (or atleast feared it enough to follow) and who has more power than Evil deity X. Then again, every single 4th edition article I've read has utterly ignored the bits about 3rd that people like, playing it off as some children's game with all the finesse of a half brick in a sock. Another point against me buying 4th edition. (Course, I don't particularly like the mechanics either, but I want to nerd rage)
Skeptical Clown 04-30-08, 02:32 PM	I like the look of 'em all right. Kind of evokes those angels from Diablo 2, although they don't look exactly the same. Makes them seem sort of alien and removed from humanity.
Kain_Darkwind 04-30-08, 04:15 PM	While the flavor invokes something spiritual (and continuing on this path would thus vastly differentiate devils-fallen angels from demons-twisted elementals), the art makes them appear almost identical to the elemental archons, which is a shame. I do hope they emphasize the difference in demons-devils based on this difference in origin rather than the "demon SMASH!" idea that had been tossed around prior. It is clear that they haven't stuck with the 'demons are ugly monsters, devils are gothic humanoids' concept either, considering that the 4e balor looks nearly identical to the previous 3e balor and the 4e pit fiend looks no less monstrous than the 3e version. In fact, the 4e versions of the monsters look almost more alike than the 3e. Which brings us back to the succubi=devil quandary. I can't believe erinyes and succubi were considered too similar to remain separate when pit fiends and balors remain distinct entities themselves. While I don't mind moving angels to Alignment: any, does it not seem that celestials, the embodiments of Good and benevolence are gone from the game? Eladrin got turned into elves, archons got turned into elementals (and the real archons are likely gone) and guardinals were mocked and belittled enough by the 4e PR team that it is highly unlikely that they are present in the MM. So...is there any creature out there that is largely Good, and might present encounters that don't resolve around reducing it to 0 hit points? I like divine servant angels, I don't like the idea that all of the celestials seem to be gone from the game.
Artifact 04-30-08, 06:38 PM	I've enjoyed this 4e excerpt as much as I enjoyed the one on the new cosmology; that is to say, very much. I realize (and respect) that I'm apparently in the minority, but I really like this re-imagining of D&D. For whatever reason, it seems to strike a chord in me somewhere; things just feel more fantastical now. I can appreciate the designers attempting to make goody-two-shoes angels more "adventuresome". I also like the new visuals: Less humanoid, their lower bodies trailing away into engergy; very evocative. Its almost as if the designers know what excites me, what will catch my attention. I say "yay" on the fluff, but I'll have to wait to comment on the crunch. Based on what I've seen in the previews, I can't really say one way or the other. I'll have to wait for the core rules.
sciborg3 04-30-08, 07:10 PM	If you like it, more power to you! :)
Lord_Varos 04-30-08, 07:21 PM	Wait wait wait. I must have read that wrong. Formed from a sea of chaos? War between the Gods and the Primordials? Manifestations of celestial vocations? Does this not sound like a word-for-word Xerox of White Wolf Publishing's Exalted setting? It doesn't count as "re-imagining" if you're just taking from existing published material. Tell me I'm just reading it weird and that it's not as blatant of plagiarism as it seems.
Artifact 04-30-08, 07:23 PM	If you like it, more power to you! :) I liked the article and thought this might be the best place to voice my appreciation. That is, not trying to thread dump --hope it didn't come across that way ;).
sciborg3 04-30-08, 07:25 PM	Not at all - I expressed my views but I did post this so people could read it for themselves. Your opinions don't have to gel with mine, at least not until I take control....but I've said too much...
Mercurius 04-30-08, 09:43 PM	Wait wait wait. I must have read that wrong. Formed from a sea of chaos? War between the Gods and the Primordials? Manifestations of celestial vocations? Does this not sound like a word-for-word Xerox of White Wolf Publishing's Exalted setting? It doesn't count as "re-imagining" if you're just taking from existing published material. Tell me I'm just reading it weird and that it's not as blatant of plagiarism as it seems. Well, to be fair, Exalted wasn't exactly unique or new in its origin, either. Primordial entities deposed by deities? See: Titans vs. Gods in Rome and Greece. It wasn't unique when White Wolf put it out, and it's not unique now. It does have more trappings that feel sorta Exalted-y, but not enough to go screaming plagarism. As for the article itself, it gets a "meh" from me. I love classical angel aesthetics - beautiful humanoids gifted with wings and what-not. I like that. LOVE that. It's profoundly moving to me. This new design doesn't appeal to me. It's not necessarily bad, but it's not an Angel in any sense of the word. I am disappointed. Also, am I just remembering wrong, or didn't evil deities in the Great Wheel have demons or devils serving them?
Kain_Darkwind 04-30-08, 10:10 PM	Also, am I just remembering wrong, or didn't evil deities in the Great Wheel have demons or devils serving them? Yes, actually they do. Lolth has created yochols, a unique type of demon. Hextor is known as the Herald of Hell and presumably has devils at his beck and call. Erythnul actually had a servitor creature designed for him in MM4, known as the windblades. This is something I wrote on another board (http://dicefreaks.forumz.cc/viewtopic.php?p=7218#p7218) about how the former editions gods/divine servants was portrayed in this article. "The writer's ignorance is pertinent because they are trying to justify these drastic changes. Now, they might have nothing to justify to you, you aren't tied very much to the backstory of previous DnD editions, you gain most of your value out of the game as a game, not a story. However, they don't really care about you, someone who will support (with money) 4e regardless of what changes they make to the game. Their concern is the possible holdouts to the previous editions. The people who still appreciate that background and flavor. They need them to get behind these changes or 4e is going to be, as a big picture issue, a flop. For all the talk about 'new blood', companies really just want 'more blood'. And it doesn't make sense to cut loose a hundred thousand fans if you aren't going to get a hundred and fifty thousand new people to replace them. So, we establish that they do want to reach out to the fans of previous editions. People who are not wholeheartedly embracing the changes. So they need to justify why they changed something. As a concept, it makes perfect sense...tell someone why you made a change. Typically because there was an inferiority, which your change made into a superiority. Now, a lack of 'specific divine servants' is an inferiority. So is 'gods pose less challenge to PCs than demon princes'. So is 'gods completely lack any divine servants'. The problem is that the later two are not factual. They are either being typed by someone who hasn't even read 3e (which is a problem, if you are trying to explain why your product is better than 3e, just like someone extolling the virtues of capitalism vs communism should be well and accurately read on both systems.) or someone who is deliberately lying (which is a problem if you like trusting the companies you buy from). Ignorant or a liar. Is there another option? And this is just indicative of the former articles like those on fire archons (bear headed angels suck, rah!) and devils (it is stupid to look humanoid and be demon. Demons smash, rah!). You can't sell a product by being dismissive of its competition. And you shouldn't view your own previous editions as 'competition' anyways." "In no way does this (lack of servants) indicate, as the article stated, that Orcus presented more of a challenge to PCs than an evil god. First off, I've never had a problem with using demons and devils as servants of evil gods, at all. But then, my PCs have never fought either a god or demon prince directly. Let's look at the most popular evil gods in DnD. According to Dragon magazine, Vecna, Lolth, Tharizdun and Tiamat make the list of the most popular villains in DnD. Tiamat just got an entire book of servitor creatures with the MM4. And if you were stuck with the Monster Manual, there is nothing a pit fiend or balor can do that a great red/black/blue/green/white wyrm can't do better. Lolth actually has a priestess in the epic level handbook, but beyond that, she has specific demon servitors that she created, the yochols. The point fails to gain any ground with Lolth....Expedition to the Demonweb Pits has a ton of demonic servitors, both specific to her and otherwise. Tharizdun would be a good example, since he hasn't created any servitor races, but for the fact that he commands countless evil elementals. And like Tiamat, he got 4 unique avatar of elemental evil servitors in the MM4. Vecna stands out as the least likely to have special servitors. Unless you count Kas and the other undead as servants. So we've got the four most popular evil gods, all with plenty of monsters to draw on from the monster manuals if you wish to run a PC vs god's army game. None of them need angels. For a more obscure god (and notice they used Erythnul, rather than Lolth or Tiamat for this insane point they were trying to make), Erythnul actually does have a servitor race that he created, again in the MM4, where a ton of other divine servitor races were placed. Windblades are pretty obscure, but the fact that he does have such a race, put in a recent book from Wizards (so there is no excuse that one can't sift through 30 years of material for every single reference) just shows how little the PR folks are bothering to check their facts, statements or ideas. Hextor? Blood golems of Hextor. Gruumsh? Godblooded Orc. Kurtlemak? Dragonwrought Kobolds. I mean, as crazy as it seems, for every single core evil DnD god, I think there is actually an associated servant with that god, in a Monster Manual. Now, don't get me wrong, remember I stand behind the idea of making a divine servitor. But I don't stand behind backing the decision with nonsense like "Gods are less of a challenge to PCs than demon princes." It is just so far divorced from any edition they've released, especially the current one, that say such a thing reeks of ignorance or deceit."
Shemeska the Marauder 05-01-08, 03:41 AM	I'm inclined to say it's primarily ignorance in some of the cases we've seen so far. But even if it's less malevolent than the other possibility, you really should expect more from someone paid to design this stuff professionally. I'd accept "We didn't like X and so we're changing it to Y which we have some cool ideas for." much more readily than 'evil gods never had their own servitors' or 'guardinals got a bullet to the head' or 'isn't bytopia the NG plane' etc. It's not even that I expect a 4e writer to be aware of everything from 1e and 2e, but when stuff that gets mentioned as a reason for something in 4e is blatantly contradicted by material produced in the past year in 3.5... that's scary. Some of the selective amnesia w/ regards to prior planar content is downright staggering. Of course, my saying so probably precludes any chance of my writing anything planar for the DDI (which I would be open to doing) but I have doubts that it's going to actually be accepting queries within the next year and instead just doing everything by in-house designers or the small number of freelancers already working on 4e content.
sciborg3 05-01-08, 09:06 PM	Hey Shemmy, the internets has been telling me you've been doing some writing for Paizo?
Shemeska the Marauder 05-01-08, 09:12 PM	Hey Shemmy, the internets has been telling me you've been doing some writing for Paizo? Yes indeed I have. http://arcanofox.foxpaws.net/shemmywrite.gif I wrote several sections for their Pathfinder campaign setting (though at the moment I can't say which ones). And I'll be doing some work in another book (but I have several months before my deadline for that one, so right now it's just background reading and brainstorming, assuming my day job doesn't suck the life out of me this week). The Paizo guys are teh awesome.
sciborg3 05-01-08, 09:43 PM	Congrats! :D Will you do a storyhour in the new setting? that would be cool...
Shemeska the Marauder 05-01-08, 10:17 PM	Congrats! :D Will you do a storyhour in the new setting? that would be cool... I have to finish my current storyhours first. And at the rate I'm able to write on them recently, that's going to take at least another two years.
ripvanwormer 05-04-08, 01:33 PM	Tharizdun would be a good example, since he hasn't created any servitor races, but for the fact that he commands countless evil elementals. I'd add that the Dragon Annual #5 had an article by James Jacobs specifically focused on servitors of Tharizdun, which would be pretty obscure except that two of them appeared in the 3e Monster Manual II: the julajimus and rogue eidolon. Of course, the MMII shaved the serial numbers off, so... your mileage may vary. As originally presented, both were servants of Tharizdun specifically. I'd rather use things like nightshades and quori as Tharizdun's servants, personally. They could serve other entities, but so can angels. That said, the new angels are cool-looking and the fact that they exist certainly doesn't mean evil gods can't have their own unique servitors in addition to the generic ones. Good deities could and have unique, non-angelic servants too. More discussion @ Planewalker (http://planewalker.com/forums/viewThread.php?intPostID=45572) Edit: Oh, and congrats, Shemmy!