Alternatives to fiends and celestials? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Alternatives to fiends and celestials? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Wauthan
12-04-07, 09:49 AM I was rummaging around in the Eberron forums when it struck me. Who could possibly know more about "monster makeover" then the denizens of Monsters' Lair?

Long story short. In my current Eberron campaign I can't get the standard appearance of fiends and celestials to work as intended. They seem out of place to say the least, and what was supposed to be... well... I guess I was hoping to create a scary encounter for my players but it turned into a complete parody.

The problem is that their appearance is 1.) not subtle enough 2.) too well known and 3.) not unique to themselves.

To make matters worse the force of Neutrality is represented by the abominations (much thanks to the PR efforts of Thiloq and Dragx) which makes the fiends look like palefaced amateurs in comparison.

So if I can't have my fiends to look like dire beastmen, tentacled elder evils or horned men with kick-ass moustaches then what CAN they look like? I guess since in Eberron the rakshasa is the *evil* I could use an indian and southeastern theme but at the moment that doesn't make much sense. Might not know enough about the mythologies in question though.

This confusion of course pushes the celestials into the makup room as well. They are defined as the opposite of fiends. But somehow wolfpeople with backwards feet doesn't feel very aweinspiring. I could just make them appear like humans with an otherworldy feel to them, but that's a bit like gluing pointy ears on teenagers and calling them elves.

Hope that you can help me out for at the moment I'm at wits end.
Igfig
12-04-07, 11:33 AM I'm not sure about Eberron, but one of the main tenets of Plansecape is that the planes and their inhabitants are shaped by belief. That means that most outsiders, especially the alignment ones, are shaped by the minds of Material people.

If you're willing to mess with sizing rules a little, you could just have all of the devils your players encounter look just like humans or other humanoids (perhaps with a variant of reflective disguise), and roleplay the difference. If the PCs make their Will save or Spot check, they catch a glimpse of horn or glowing eyes, or something even creepier like raw muscle or translucent cysts. Just hint that they're so horrific that to view their actual form is to invite nausea and hemmorhaging, and your PCs imaginations will do the rest. This will take some skill at acting, though. Even a weak sentient demon, say an imp, is the equal of any big-time crime lord in plotting and scheming. Every interaction with them should be a Xanatos Gambit (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit).

Demons are a different matter, though. They aren't big on the whole "face-to-face manipulation" thing. What they are, in fact, is simply the scariest thing you can imagine, the monster that wants nothing other than to eat you and feast on your pancreas. Remember when you were a kid, and there was a monster lurking in your closet or under your bed, just out of sight but always ready creep up when you weren't looking and suck the marrow from your bones? That was a demon.
Obyriths are what you get when you fear spiders and scorpions and slugs and other creepy-crawlies. They're like aberrations, but without any need at all to correspond to physics or good sense. They aren't as random or arbitrary as Far Realm/Xoriat creatures, though: Far Realmers are the way they are because they're from a place where anything can happen, and usually does; obyriths are the way they are because they are trying to scare us as best they can.
Loumaras cater to our fear of mind-control and insanity. Being possessed by a loumara is a lot like being schizophrenic, except that the voices really are there in your head.
Tanar'ri are your more bread-and-butter kind of visceral mindblowing terror. It's likely that your closet monster had either a humanoid or bestial shape, especially if you watched horror movies as a kid. Freddy, Jason, Samara, any other slasher movie killer makes a great demon.

Celestials are still pretty good, I'd say, but if you want to make them even more serious, I suppose you could wrap them in wings as black as night, eyes aflame with holy fire, and of course the requisite flaming swords. Oh, and no sense of humour.
Talisman
12-04-07, 01:19 PM :coolcthul Why, thank you! [bows]
:behold: And that's "aberration," not "abomination!"

So, you're saying the fiends and celestials are too generic? Or that your players don't take them seriously? That latter can be a problem in an RPG where everything's statted, and the toughtes monster in the universe is only 2' tall in real life.

I suggest making the fiends mostly human, but with subtle changes. Red eyes. Sharp teeth. Clawed hands. A whiff of some unnerving odor about them. Dealing with a disguised fiend should feel like dealing with a slimey, untrustworthy, but extremely powerful corporate lawyer--the sort of person who could make your life a living hell, and is considering doing it even as they casually chat with you.

Decide on a theme for each type of outsider--devils, demons, angels, eladrin, etc--and stick with it. Actively avoid using that theme for anything else. For instance, you might decide that all devils have jet-black eyes, jaggedly-pointed ears, and fingers with one extra knuckle. Nothing else should have these traits (unless it's something deliberately masquerading as a devil).

As Igfig noted, demons usually aren't subtle. Some sort of illusory disguse or alternate form would work for the more intelligent ones, but when the gloves cme off, turn 'em into creatures of nightmare. Eother focus on one aspect for each demon, or do what midieval scholars did--combine the parts of various unassociated animals for maximum shock value.

Example: The vrock is a classic bruiser demon. You could scrap the vulture motif and focus on how tough and indestructable it is. Give it a hairy, scaled hide, bulging, tree-trunk limbs, and heavy, oversized claws and fangs. Describe its "screech" as an earthshaking roar, its dance of ruin as a bone-rattling stomp of its massive limbs. Description is everything here.

Alternately, you could keep the vulture head, but give it membraneous, batlike wings...horse-hooves for hind feet...a whipping snake tail...and clawed, mantislike forearms.

A lot depends on your players. Some will find the mishmash approach humorous, while others--especially if you reinforce how alien and wrong this thing looks--will view it with respect.

Another point: despite my blather about description, don't neglect game stats. A god way to reinforce how dangerous something is is to introduce an NPC or pool of NPCs (say, the elite guard of [town]) and demonstrate that, while they may not be PC-caliber, they're decently tough and skilled. Arrange for the PCs to respect them somehow.

Then, when the fiend shows up, casually kill a few of them.

Moving on to the celestials...making them otherworldly humans seems a little racist for Eberron. I always envisioned angels as appearing as idealized members of whatever race was viewing them. Thus, an orc would see a tall, powerful orc warrior with gleaming tusks, while a dwarf would see a burly dwarvan paladin with a magnificent beard. I like the black wings and eyes of flame--they're not mortal, after all.

For the eladrin, take the concept of fey to the extreme. Wildly exaggerated features; time seeming to slow in their presence; minor magical effects happening spontaneously; etc.

Good luck.
asurademon
12-05-07, 01:11 AM Another idea for celestials is to model them off the choirs in real world angelic lore.

Guardinals could modeled after cherubs, which appear as various winged beasts. The more strange alien ones have four wings and four faces those of an eagle, ox, lion, and man, maybe underneath all those wings is a human-like body, or maybe a flurry of wings and faces is all there is to them. Sometimes their wings are covered in eyes, so they can see all around themselves at all times.

Then here's some other choirs you could borrow appearances from (not an exhaustive list)

Seraph: fiery serpents with feathery white wings, or extremely beautiful humans with six wings

Ophan: Wheels of eyes and light, very alien looking indeed

Some really scary demons and devils could also be modeled after these. Just imagine a churning wheel of sharp tooth mouths, and eerie light.
Wauthan
12-05-07, 12:34 PM Thanks for all your help guys. Your advice was enough to break my writers block.

After a lot of flipping through books, comics and old notes I sat down to watch the local science channel. The current show was about survival in extreme conditions, and what happens, in detail, to the human brain when the proverbial s!t hits the fan. Inspiration just struck me dead on, like a goldplated brick with a touch of lemon. The mood of that show was exactly the mood I wanted the my fiends to create.

After some intense midnight writing I think I managed to put together a struggle between good and evil that my players will never see coming. Heck, if it works out like I hoped I might even dare to post them in these hallowed halls of horror. ;)

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Wauthan 12-04-07, 09:49 AM	I was rummaging around in the Eberron forums when it struck me. Who could possibly know more about "monster makeover" then the denizens of Monsters' Lair? Long story short. In my current Eberron campaign I can't get the standard appearance of fiends and celestials to work as intended. They seem out of place to say the least, and what was supposed to be... well... I guess I was hoping to create a scary encounter for my players but it turned into a complete parody. The problem is that their appearance is 1.) not subtle enough 2.) too well known and 3.) not unique to themselves. To make matters worse the force of Neutrality is represented by the abominations (much thanks to the PR efforts of Thiloq and Dragx) which makes the fiends look like palefaced amateurs in comparison. So if I can't have my fiends to look like dire beastmen, tentacled elder evils or horned men with kick-ass moustaches then what CAN they look like? I guess since in Eberron the rakshasa is the evil I could use an indian and southeastern theme but at the moment that doesn't make much sense. Might not know enough about the mythologies in question though. This confusion of course pushes the celestials into the makup room as well. They are defined as the opposite of fiends. But somehow wolfpeople with backwards feet doesn't feel very aweinspiring. I could just make them appear like humans with an otherworldy feel to them, but that's a bit like gluing pointy ears on teenagers and calling them elves. Hope that you can help me out for at the moment I'm at wits end.
Igfig 12-04-07, 11:33 AM	I'm not sure about Eberron, but one of the main tenets of Plansecape is that the planes and their inhabitants are shaped by belief. That means that most outsiders, especially the alignment ones, are shaped by the minds of Material people. If you're willing to mess with sizing rules a little, you could just have all of the devils your players encounter look just like humans or other humanoids (perhaps with a variant of reflective disguise), and roleplay the difference. If the PCs make their Will save or Spot check, they catch a glimpse of horn or glowing eyes, or something even creepier like raw muscle or translucent cysts. Just hint that they're so horrific that to view their actual form is to invite nausea and hemmorhaging, and your PCs imaginations will do the rest. This will take some skill at acting, though. Even a weak sentient demon, say an imp, is the equal of any big-time crime lord in plotting and scheming. Every interaction with them should be a Xanatos Gambit (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit). Demons are a different matter, though. They aren't big on the whole "face-to-face manipulation" thing. What they are, in fact, is simply the scariest thing you can imagine, the monster that wants nothing other than to eat you and feast on your pancreas. Remember when you were a kid, and there was a monster lurking in your closet or under your bed, just out of sight but always ready creep up when you weren't looking and suck the marrow from your bones? That was a demon. Obyriths are what you get when you fear spiders and scorpions and slugs and other creepy-crawlies. They're like aberrations, but without any need at all to correspond to physics or good sense. They aren't as random or arbitrary as Far Realm/Xoriat creatures, though: Far Realmers are the way they are because they're from a place where anything can happen, and usually does; obyriths are the way they are because they are trying to scare us as best they can. Loumaras cater to our fear of mind-control and insanity. Being possessed by a loumara is a lot like being schizophrenic, except that the voices really are there in your head. Tanar'ri are your more bread-and-butter kind of visceral mindblowing terror. It's likely that your closet monster had either a humanoid or bestial shape, especially if you watched horror movies as a kid. Freddy, Jason, Samara, any other slasher movie killer makes a great demon. Celestials are still pretty good, I'd say, but if you want to make them even more serious, I suppose you could wrap them in wings as black as night, eyes aflame with holy fire, and of course the requisite flaming swords. Oh, and no sense of humour.
Talisman 12-04-07, 01:19 PM	:coolcthul Why, thank you! [bows] :behold: And that's "aberration," not "abomination!" So, you're saying the fiends and celestials are too generic? Or that your players don't take them seriously? That latter can be a problem in an RPG where everything's statted, and the toughtes monster in the universe is only 2' tall in real life. I suggest making the fiends mostly human, but with subtle changes. Red eyes. Sharp teeth. Clawed hands. A whiff of some unnerving odor about them. Dealing with a disguised fiend should feel like dealing with a slimey, untrustworthy, but extremely powerful corporate lawyer--the sort of person who could make your life a living hell, and is considering doing it even as they casually chat with you. Decide on a theme for each type of outsider--devils, demons, angels, eladrin, etc--and stick with it. Actively avoid using that theme for anything else. For instance, you might decide that all devils have jet-black eyes, jaggedly-pointed ears, and fingers with one extra knuckle. Nothing else should have these traits (unless it's something deliberately masquerading as a devil). As Igfig noted, demons usually aren't subtle. Some sort of illusory disguse or alternate form would work for the more intelligent ones, but when the gloves cme off, turn 'em into creatures of nightmare. Eother focus on one aspect for each demon, or do what midieval scholars did--combine the parts of various unassociated animals for maximum shock value. Example: The vrock is a classic bruiser demon. You could scrap the vulture motif and focus on how tough and indestructable it is. Give it a hairy, scaled hide, bulging, tree-trunk limbs, and heavy, oversized claws and fangs. Describe its "screech" as an earthshaking roar, its dance of ruin as a bone-rattling stomp of its massive limbs. Description is everything here. Alternately, you could keep the vulture head, but give it membraneous, batlike wings...horse-hooves for hind feet...a whipping snake tail...and clawed, mantislike forearms. A lot depends on your players. Some will find the mishmash approach humorous, while others--especially if you reinforce how alien and wrong this thing looks--will view it with respect. Another point: despite my blather about description, don't neglect game stats. A god way to reinforce how dangerous something is is to introduce an NPC or pool of NPCs (say, the elite guard of [town]) and demonstrate that, while they may not be PC-caliber, they're decently tough and skilled. Arrange for the PCs to respect them somehow. Then, when the fiend shows up, casually kill a few of them. Moving on to the celestials...making them otherworldly humans seems a little racist for Eberron. I always envisioned angels as appearing as idealized members of whatever race was viewing them. Thus, an orc would see a tall, powerful orc warrior with gleaming tusks, while a dwarf would see a burly dwarvan paladin with a magnificent beard. I like the black wings and eyes of flame--they're not mortal, after all. For the eladrin, take the concept of fey to the extreme. Wildly exaggerated features; time seeming to slow in their presence; minor magical effects happening spontaneously; etc. Good luck.
asurademon 12-05-07, 01:11 AM	Another idea for celestials is to model them off the choirs in real world angelic lore. Guardinals could modeled after cherubs, which appear as various winged beasts. The more strange alien ones have four wings and four faces those of an eagle, ox, lion, and man, maybe underneath all those wings is a human-like body, or maybe a flurry of wings and faces is all there is to them. Sometimes their wings are covered in eyes, so they can see all around themselves at all times. Then here's some other choirs you could borrow appearances from (not an exhaustive list) Seraph: fiery serpents with feathery white wings, or extremely beautiful humans with six wings Ophan: Wheels of eyes and light, very alien looking indeed Some really scary demons and devils could also be modeled after these. Just imagine a churning wheel of sharp tooth mouths, and eerie light.
Wauthan 12-05-07, 12:34 PM	Thanks for all your help guys. Your advice was enough to break my writers block. After a lot of flipping through books, comics and old notes I sat down to watch the local science channel. The current show was about survival in extreme conditions, and what happens, in detail, to the human brain when the proverbial s!t hits the fan. Inspiration just struck me dead on, like a goldplated brick with a touch of lemon. The mood of that show was exactly the mood I wanted the my fiends to create. After some intense midnight writing I think I managed to put together a struggle between good and evil that my players will never see coming. Heck, if it works out like I hoped I might even dare to post them in these hallowed halls of horror. ;)