Monstrous Mondays: Die Hüne

Today I want to delve a bit more into an idea I had been playing around with a little while ago, the combined pantheon of Greek and Norse mythos into a Roman-Norse syncretism. Both groups have many common features, but one that sticks out is the use of a race of giants that predate the gods that represent the forces of chaos.

In my syncretized myths these creatures are called Die Hüne, (plural. Singular: Der Hüne).  This is what I said about them before:

Die Hüne are the Titans and the Giants of both myths. Primordial beings of great power that the gods defeated but still trouble them. In this myth, the Gods fought Die Hüne and brought order out of chaos. These are not just giants and titans, these creatures are the demons of this mythology.

In my mind, they are something of a combination of giant, elemental, and demon. The Gigantes of Greek myth (not AD&D) were more monstrous creatures.  The jötunn of Norse myth likewise were more demonic. As time goes on these titans and jötunn become more and more human-looking till we have something like the giants of D&D. 

My goal with Der Hüne is to get back to those older, more monstrous giants. Given that this mythology is half-Roman, these people will have been familiar with some of the tales of Goliath, the Anakim, and others from Jewish mythology.  So maybe some of those tales entered into their thinking.

Here is how they will be used in my various D&D/OSR/FRPG games.

Erde Hüne

These creatures are also known as Earth Giants.  They are the forebearers of the Hill, Mountain, and Stone giants as well as ogres.  They stand 12 ft tall and are said to have bones made of stone.

These creatures are Chaotic Evil and have the most dealings with humans. While some certainly are stupid brutes, others are sufficiently intelligent and sophisticated enough to lead human armies. They have a taste for human flesh; both in the culinary and carnal appetites. There are some very tall, very evil humans that can trace their ancestry to one of these creatures.  We get the word "Hun" from "Hüne."

Note: These take the role of the "evil giants in the bibles and other tales" giants like the Anakim.  Though I covered some of this ground with Gog and Magog. I had Gog and Magog as a type of Balor or Baalor in my games.  Maybe I could turn up the demonic influences on them and make Gog and Magog the named Erde Hüne.  Balor are also 12' tall.  The myths about Gog and Magog certainly have them more human-looking. This would also bring them closer to the Ogre idea I originally had.  Worth thinking over to be sure and it would give me the demonic influences I want. 

I think just to be "that guy" I am going to make them 13' tall.

Meer Hüne

These giants are found in the oceans to the far north. They are related to the Frost and Sea giants. They are not the progenitors of these creatures but are the offspring of the Rime Jötunn along with the Frost Giants. Sea Giants are the offspring of the Meer Hüne.  

These creatures avoid humans but are no less evil. They have been known to wreck ships where they keep all the treasure and eat the humans aboard. In my myths, they would also be the forebearers of the Viking raiders that would swoop down and raid the villages of these people. 

Note: On Earth, these giants populate the North Sea, the Baltic Sea, and the Norwegian Sea. In my desire to have my cake and eat it too I would picture these guys looking like the stereotypical Vikings. Including "Hägar the Horrible" horned helmets, though no idea how they make such helms. 

Feuer Hüne

These creatures are made of pure living fire.  They are the generation after the Inferno Jötunn and the "older brothers" to the Fire Giants.

Note: Right now these creatures are not significantly different enough from either the Fire Giants or the Inferno Jötunn to merit another distinct monster entry.  

Äther Hüne

These creatures are massive with some towering as high as 36 feet tall. It is said their bones are made of clouds and their muscles are made of storms.  They are the progenitors of the Cloud, Storm, and Fog giants. 

Note: This is my "Jack and the Beanstalk" Giant (though in truth an evil Cloud Giant covers that readily). 

Though anytime I work on giants this image comes to mind.

This image comes from the Creationist idea that there were giants in biblical times. This speculation all grows out of Genesis 6:4 "There were giants in the earth in those days", meaning the fallen angels or Nephelim or whatever.  I spent a lot of time talking about this on my old Atheism blog, The Freedom of Nonbelief. 

Here is how I use that image above.  These are closer to AD&D heights than D&D 5e. 

1. Human
2. Stone Giant
3. Troll
4. Ogre
5. Hill Giant / Erde Hüne
6. Fire Giant
7. Frost Giant
8. Cloud Giant
9. Storm Giant

There. That is far more useful. 

How do I work through the Square-Cube Law?  Magic!

Of all these creatures I think I will develop the Erde Hüne (Earth Giants) and the Meer Hüne (Sea Giants) more. Fire and Frost are already covered well in the various jötunn of Norse myths. The progenitors of the Storm and Cloud Giants I think are also handled well by the Greek myths.

Friday Updates; Retro-Builds, DemonQuest and July is coming up.

Finding it hard to post on a Friday when it is so nice out!

So some updates.

We had some really hot days this week so I took advantage of it and went out to get my TRS-80 Model III case and give it a new paint job.  It now looks like a TRS-80 Model 4.

That is the first coat of primer. I primed it in flat white and used a glossy white top coat.  It's dry but I might put on another coat. 

For this "Retro-Build" I really wanted to use a Raspberry Pi 4 based system again, but I also have this motherboard just laying around. I have not idea if it will fit save for my quick and dirty measurements. I have a new hard drive for it and the keyboard.  I need to cut the bottom of the case to fit the keyboard in, but that is no big deal, and I already have my support.  Going with some industrial foam this time instead of 3D printing one.

If I stick with Windows on it versus the Pi I can run all the Gold Box D&D games on it.  Make this nothing but a D&D-related computer. Just like the 1980s. 

My DragonQuest post went over rather nicely. I am going to be checking out the fan revision of 2nd Edition, called Version 2.19 soon.   I am not entirely sure what, if anything, I will do with it but I do love the idea of mixing in bits of the SPI Demons game and calling it "DemonQuest" instead.  Maybe I take some notes from DragonRaid!  This is only a passing idea.  Maybe something I can pick at every now and then.  I do have some ideas though that I like.

July is coming up.  I was talking with my friend Greg this week and the topic of Superhero Games came up.  I might spend some time with some supers games and maybe even get to some Sci-Fi stuff I did not cover in May and some D&D stuff I now know I won't get to this month.  At the end of July (or rather the last ⅓)  I have something special planned that should be fun.  No details yet, but here is a spoiler.

Next week, either some Castles & Crusades or Pathfinder and how they relate to D&D!

One Man's God: Legends & Lore, 2nd Edition

For this post, I am moving further outside of my original purpose of One Man's God but certainly still within the spirit of why I was doing it.  In truth one of the seeds of what would lead me to do One Man's God to start with was planted while flipping through the AD&D 2nd Edition Legends & Lore and my complaints about it. 

A brief recap. My series, One Man's God, dealt with going through the original Deities & Demigods book and working out how various gods, monsters and/or heroes would work in the cosmology of AD&D 1st Edition demons.  I took each myth/pantheon and looked at them through the lens of AD&D demons. Not Christian demons, though that can inform my view, and not Ars Goetia demons, or any other sort. Just AD&D ones.  I went through the book and took on some ancillary topics as well like Syncretism and how to build my own myths. 

AD&D 2nd Edition though is a different sort of creature.  For starters, we didn't even have demons or devils at the start. Secondly, the cosmology of the Outer Planes or the "Great Wheel" became something of its own setting in Planescape later on. So a lot of assumptions going into One Man's God are called into question in this new cosmological viewpoint. 

Though I think I could make the argument that I can take the Legends & Lore book and look at it independently of later developments and certainly Planescape and still apply the rules I was using for OMG.  I am going to cover a lot of ground in this one, but it is very familiar ground.  Sometimes very, very familiar.  But before I do that maybe an overview/review of Legends & Lore is in order.

Legends & Lore, AD&D 2nd Edition

For this review, I am considering the hardcover book published in 1990 and the files from DriveThruRPG. 192 pages. Color cover and inserts, black & white and blue interior art. 

My history with Legends & Lore is a complicated one. Deities & Demigods was my very first AD&D hardcover purchase.  I was playing a Cleric in D&D B/X at the time and wanted to expand his role in the game. I thought a book of gods would be a great in. Plus it was mythology that got me into D&D to begin with, so it was a natural choice for me. 

Like many at the time I also, rather immaturely, chaffed under the name change of "Deities & Demigods" to "Legends & Lore" feeling that TSR was bowing to the smallest, but loudest, contingent of people criticizing the game. But I would later buy a copy so my collection of AD&D hardbacks would be complete.  Fast forward a couple of years and now AD&D 2nd Ed is the new game on the block and there is a new Legends & Lore out.  This time I did not mind the name, maybe because I was now in college and saw that it fit the content better. I recall sitting in the apartment of my old High School DM and his cousin was there (he lived in the apartment below) and we were discussing the new L&L book. I can't say the discussion was very favorable towards the new book.

Before I delve into that, let's look at the book and I'll bring up that discussion as it pertains.

Legends & Lore was written by James M. Ward (who gave us Gods, Demi-gods, and Heroes and Deities & Demigods) and Troy Denning. This book has the advantage of being the one that is most in common with three different versions of the D&D game.  The book is called revised and updated, and it is certainly that, but there are plenty of similarities between this book and the 1st Edition one.

This book contains 11 different mythologies, down from the 17/15 of the previous edition.  This was one of my first points of contention with the book back in 1990.  Where were the Babylonia and Summerian? The Finnish or the Non-humans? One could have easily combined (and made a good argument for it) the Babylonian and Sumerian myths.  Combined they still were not as long as the Egyptian myths cover. 

My second point of contention, and even then I knew this was a very weak leg to stand on, is that the stats were gone.  Oh sure there were brand new stat blocks for worshipers and what the gods can do and there were the stats for their "Earthly" avatars, but the long, and let me just say it, Monster Manual-like stats were gone. Yes. These are not supposed to beings you can, or even should, hunt down to kill.  

My last complaint, and again this one is weak, is that so much of the art was reused for this edition.

Granted sometimes the older art was used to great effect.

Other times, less so.

Thelb K'aarna art for Cú Chulainn? Nope. Not buying it. They would have been better using Moonglum.

The book does though do a very good job to laying out the powers of Greater, Intermediate (new to this edition), Lesser,  and Demi- Gods. Power common to all gods are discussed and powers they grant to their clerics, in general, are discussed, with the details of each god.  Ok. So this means each god takes up more space. That explains some of the loss.  

There is a solid human focus here and that is by the design of the book since they are drawing more from history. 

Each of the pantheon/myths is presented in more or less of the same format. We get a covering of the myths and an explanation on where they come from.  There are some new spells listed and some new magic items.  We follow with the Gods, usually the most powerful first working our way down to demi-gods and ascended heroes.  Where appropriate there are also monsters and sometimes maps/plans of centers of worship. Pyramids for the Aztecs and Egyptians, temples, and so on.

Also included with each god are the duties of the priesthood and what their requirements are. These will include alignment, ability score minimums, Weapons the priests are allowed to use, armor restrictions, what spheres of clerical magic they will have access, what other powers might be granted, and whether or not they can turn or command undead or even have no effect on them at all. This is the forerunner of 3rd Edition's Channel Divinity power for Clerics. 

The myths include American Indian, Arthurian Legends, Aztec, Celtic, Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, Indian, Japanese, Newhwon, and Norse.

One Man's God

Now I want to look at each of these and see how they would fare using the lens of One Man's God. Or, to put it easier. Are there any demons here?

American Indian

Covers some similar ground (as all the myths do) as the original Deities & Demigods. No monsters here, but a lot of heroes.

Arthurian Legends

No gods at all here, despite how important Christian mythology, especially around the Holy Grail, is to these tales.  Only a note that "Authur's deity remains distant and unapproachable."  The Grail is mentioned as a magical relic, but not much more about it. There are only two monsters here, The White Hart and The Questing Beast.

Aztec

Aztec myths are full of demons and demon-like creatures. What does 2ne ed give us?  A paragraph about how the mythology is lacking in fantastic creatures. Sorry, not buying that one. 

Celtic

Now Celtic myths have monsters, and I have talked about many of them before, but only a very few could be considered demons in the AD&D sense of the term. Here we get a lot of gods and only one hero, Cú Chulainn.

Chinese

Again China has tons of creatures that could be called demons in the AD&D sense. The Neglected Ancestral Spirit could be considered demonic. But are they AD&D demons? I am going with no. 

Egyptian

Not sure I am liking that blonde-haired, green-eyed version of Isis here. It is likely that our first concept of demons came from Egyptians. Well.,, I would argue they came from the Sumerians who would then influence the Egyptians. Also, Egyptians have a ton of gods, so no monsters at all in this section. Not even Apep and Ammit. 

Greek

Many of the primordial titans of Greek myth would get new life in Roman myths and then get ported over to Christian mythology. Geryon is one notable example. As far as Greek myths go this one has the gods a bit better organized.  The Furies or Erinyes are now "Lesser Gods" which tracks with some myths and here their alignment is Neutral. Among the monsters are Cerberus (NE) and the Gigantes (CE) which are bit like the primordial versions of the giants. These work great for my Hüne which are bit like demons. 

Indian

One of Kali's great powers is her ability to scare away demons. It's why she is put at the head of armies. Does this book give us any?  Sadly no monsters are mentioned here.

Japanese

This one feels a bit more research than the original D&DG. While no demons, the god Amatsu-Mikaboshi would make for a reasonable devil or some other type of fiend; a unique, Prince level one. He is a rebel god and would not submit to the other gods, so there is a bit of Lucifer in him. That and the fact he is called the "Dread Star of Heaven."

Nehwon

Our odd one out since it is not a world myth but rather the creation of Fritz Leiber.  Again Tyaa could pass for a demonic queen in many settings along with the Birds of Tyaa. 

Norse

The Norse gave us fire and frost giants and many of those primordial giants are quite demon-like. Lots of heroes here, as to be expected, and some monsters. Garm and Fenris Wolf could both be considered to be like demons as well.

In the end this book represented a paradigm shift that was not just part of AD&D 2nd Edition but happened along with it. Even future books that dealt with gods handled them a little different than this, but along the same paths of evolution. 

What was the outcome of my story about talking with my friends about this book?  Well if you see the image of the cover I used, well that is my own book. I didn't buy it right away, in fact it was many years later before I picked up a copy of Legends & Lore.  Strange that a book that was really one of my first purchases for AD&D would in the very next edition become one of my last.

Review: DragonQuest, First Edition (1980)

I have a history with DragonQuest. Not a complicated one or even an interesting one, but history all the same.  Back in 83 or 84 or so I would head to Belobrajdic's Bookstore in my hometown every weekend. There I would get a new edition of Dragon or whatever sci-fi novel piqued my interest and then check out all the new RPG materials.  One I kept going back to time and time again was DragonQuest.  This was the 2nd Edition softcover and looked really different than anything I had played so far.  The barbarian proudly holds the severed head of a dragon. 

The game intrigued me so much. I flipped through it many times and even it got to the point that I annoyed the owner, Paula Belobrajdic, that she told me I should buy it.  In retrospect, I wish I had.  Though had I I likely would not have picked up the great-looking first edition boxed set next to me now.

My history with the first edition is not as long or as storied. I bought it a while back and it has sat on my shelves for a bit. I did do a character write-up last year, Phygor, for DragonQuest and I really liked how the character came it. 

For this month of D&D, I figure a look into the game that tempted me so much would be neat to look into.

DragonQuest, First Edition (1980)

This game was published by SPI in 1980.  SPI had been a wargame publisher and decided to get into the RPG market. I am sure they were seeing their market share being eaten away by RPGs, and D&D in particular.  This is important since this game does feel very wargamey. This includes how the rules are presented and even how combat is run. While D&D/AD&D at this time was open to minis and terrain maps this game requires them. Or at least chits and the included maps. 

The boxed set I have contains three soft-cover books. Some chits. Some ads, a comment card, and a tactical hex map.  My set does not have dice, but I also don't think it originally came with dice.  I added two d10s myself.

The First Book of DragonQuest: Character Generation, Combat

Our first book is the smaller of the three at 32 pages.  The format is three-column and the rules are all presented in "wargame" style.  So Adventure Rationale can be coded as II.1.A.1.  I won't be using this much but it does make it easy to find any rule. A little cumbersome at first and then it gets really easy. 

This was an interesting time. The Introduction (I.) and How to Play the Game (II.) don't spend a lot of time with the "This is a Roleplaying Game" and instead gets down to business. Requirements for play are discussed as well as Game Terms (III.).

We get into Character Generation (IV.) This is not a completely random affair as D&D was at the time.  You roll and get a pool of points. Though with a high number of points, your maximum is low, likewise a small amount in a point pool will give you a higher maximum.  The traits are Physical Strength, Agility, Magical Aptitude, Manual Dexterity, Endurance, Willpower, and Appearance. Scores are 5 to 25 for the human range.  So you roll a 4d5 (1d10/2) which will generate a score from 4 to 20.  Compare this to the table under 5.1. This table gives you your point pool (82 to 98) and a Group (A to G) These groups refer to the maximums. A = 25, B = 24 and G =19.-

There are even some rules for developing other types of abilities if the Game Master desires them. After this other details are figured out; Gender (or even genderless), handiness, human or non-human (such as Dwarf, Efl, Giant, Halfling, Orc or Shape-changer), various Aspects, and Heritages.  It can be a complex character system all for what is nominally an 18-year-old.   This all covers the first dozen pages.  There are no classes (rather famously so) and more to your character from the next books.

The last half+ of this book covers combat. All movement and combat is done on a hex grid, not a square one. Gives it an interesting twist and again a holdover of their wargame roots. Plenty of diagrams and examples are given. Combat rounds are 10 seconds and can be made up of an undefined increment of time called a Pulse. There are Strike Zones, Fire Zones, and all sorts of fun bits.  I am reminded of combat in D&D 3rd Edition here to be honest. 

Damage is an equally detailed affair with damage affecting Fatigue and Endurance. When Fatigue is 0 damage starts happening to Endurance, there is a similar idea here in D&D 4th edition. Maybe when TSR bought SPI DragonQuest didn't entirely disappear.  There is also Grievous injury which is much worse. 

Personally, I feel any D&D player could get a lot out of reading this combat section, at least give it a play-through once.  

The Second Book of DragonQuest: Magic

Ask anyone that has ever played both DragonQuest and D&D about what sets the two games apart the most and you are likely to hear "Magic."  In 1980 DragonQuest took an approach to magic that would not be seen in other games until much later.  What made it different then? Three pretty good reasons. Mana, different kinds of spells, and Colleges.

Mana in DragonQuest fuels the magic an Adept can use. Spell casting can be tiring and there is never a guarantee that the spell will work. It could fail or backfire. Even when it works the target can be resistant to it.  And Adepts can never wear metal to top it all off. This notion is pretty commonplace now, but then it was new and exciting. I have lost track of how many "spell points" and "mana" systems I have seen applied to AD&D over the years and that is not counting systems like Mage and WitchCraft that use some form of Essence or Quintessence. Ass expected Magical Aptitude is important here, but so is Willpower and even Endurance. 

The different sorts of spells the adept has access to. Nearly every adept has access to at least one magical talent (I'll get to that). These talents can be thought of as a power that can always be used and they are related to the Adept's college.  Then there are "normal" spells. These are the most "D&D" like and each college has its own lists and there is very little crossover, though each college has something going for it. The limiting factors here are how many spells you know.  Finally, there are rituals. These are like spells that take longer, usually much longer, require more components but have a far better chance of success.  

I have talked a bit about them already, but DragonQuest's adepts learn their magic from distinct Colleges. There are twelve colleges: Ensorcelments & Enchantments, Sorceries of the Mind, Illusions, Naming Incantations, Earth Magics, Air Magics, Fire Magics, Water Magics, Celestial Magics, Black Magics, Necromancy, and Greater Summonings.  Each college has its own requirements.  After the college descriptions, we get [xx.1] restrictions, [xx.2] modifiers, [xx.3] Talents, [xx.4] Spells, [xx.6] General Rituals and [xx.7] Special Rituals.  There are 30 pages of these.

This should all sound familiar. AD&D 2nd adopted the college idea in their schools of magic; though there is more overlap in spells.  D&D 4th Ed gave us at-will, encounter, and daily spells that mimic this setup.  All have been recombined one way or the other in 5th Edition. Again, this was all brand new in 1980.

Also, something that flies in the face of all things of the 1980s is the last 25 pages. Here we get a listing of demons straight out of the Ars Goetia of The Lesser Key of Solomon. Who they are and how to summon them. And the Christians were going after D&D. 

The Third Book of DragonQuest: Skills, Monsters, Adventure

Overtly the Game Master's book. 

Skills can be roughly thought of as professions or even, dare I say it, classes. You get professional skills like Alchemist, Assassin, Astrology, Beast Master, Courtesan, Healer, Mechanician, Merchant, Military Scientist, Navigator, Ranger, Spy, Thief, and Troubador.  Each one is covered in detail along with what each profession allows the character to do. 

Each "profession" skill gets a listing [xx.1] to [xx.9] that covers what is needed to learn each skill (prereqs), what it does, and how it does it. For example, according to 53.1, a Beast Master must have a Willpower of at least 15. In 54.1 we learn that while Courtesans do not have minimum scores there is an XP penalty if they don't meet certain requirements (Dexterity, Agility, Physical Beauty) and a bonus if they have higher scores.   The back cover of this book gives the XP expenditure to go up a rank in each. 

Personally. I think this should have been part of the Characters' book.

The next section is all about Monsters. They are divided by like types. So all the primates, apes and pre-humans are in one section, cats in another, birds and avians, land mammals, aquatics and so on all get their own sections. Dragons get their own section, naturally, but wyverns are part of reptiles.  The usual suspects are all here, but not much more than that. There are however enough points of comparison that converting an AD&D monster to DragonQuest would be easy enough. There are some differences too. Nymphs have the lower half of a goat, like that of a satyr. Gnolls are dog-faced. Kobolds look like tiny old men, neither dog nor lizard-like, and tend towards good.  Medusa and Gorgons are the same creatures. Not much in the way of "new" monsters, even for 1980.

The last section covers Adventure. For a game that has such tactical wargame DNA, I expected a little more here, but I guess I am not surprised, to be honest. We also get a few tables.

--

There is so much packed into this box. I can really see why this game, more than 40 years later, still has such a following. While I lament that TSR (and by extension Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro) have let this IP fall into disuse, I do see where bits of it live on in nearly all the post-1990 (AD&D 2nd ed Ed in 1989 too) versions of D&D. Schools of magic, tactical battle movement, mini use, all of these became standard.  I can't say that all of these directly came from DragonQuest, but they are certainly all headed in the directions that DragonQuest started. 

My issue right now is not counting D&D and its various forms, editions, and offsprings, I have a lot of Fantasy RPGs.  Many of my favorites are more or less dead.

They are all great fun but with DragonQuest I am right where I was back in 1984; It's a great-looking game, but no one around me is playing it.  If I Am going to play like it was 1984 I am going to pull AD&D 1st Ed off my shelf.

The obvious reason to choose one over the other is how well does it play? Well, DragonQuest is above and beyond many of the others in terms of rules and playability. Also as I mentioned there is a huge amount of online support, informal as it is. 

There is also the idea that with DragonQuest, and adding in SPI's Demons, I could create a fun demon summoning game.  But again I have to ask, can't I do this with D&D now?

Maybe DemonQuest is a game I could try out!

What are your thoughts and memories about this game? 

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yesterday was my Birthday!

 My oldest spent his day off smoking ribs and brisket for me.

My youngest made me a strawberry pie with strawberries picked from my wife's garden.

I also picked up some D&D-related gifts for myself. A Hellfire Club t-shirt (from Stranger Things).

And a 6" custom Skylla figure.  She looks pretty good with the rest of my Skylla figures and minis. 

I got some other stuff too. A new hard drive for my computer project. A new Dremel for various projects around the house.

Speaking of computer projects, my new one is taking a bit longer, but I am getting there. Had to remove the old CRT faceplate so I can replace it with an LCD.

Still debating which OS to go with on this one.  I kinda want to go with Ubuntu Linux.  My CoCo uses Debian Linux, but I am betting I'll have the processing power to go with Windows.  Either way, I really want a program language IDE on it. Maybe Python.

So Happy Birthday to me!

Monstrous Mondays: Angels

One of the things holding up my completion of Basic Bestiary I is honestly what am I going to do about Angels?  By that, I mean Good Aligned Outsiders that populate the upper planes and are the servants of the various forces of good.

I have posted a couple that are largely near-complete drafts, the Dirae and the Lunars. Here are my problems as they stand.

1. I have a large number of various angel-like begins that need to be classified and codified.
2. I want parallels between my forces of good (angels) and my forces of evil (demons) where they are appropriate.
3. I want to include angel-like begins not just from the history of D&D (and OGC) but also from other cultures.

Much like the demons had to be spawned off into a whole other book, the angels have grown.  Though I am not likely to make a whole book for them since for the most part these are not really monsters to be fought, but you could interact with them.  Oh, I suppose evil characters could fight them.

In my research (or more accurately, literature review) I also came up with a fourth problem. Though this is one that began to creep into my High Witchcraft book.

4. There is a lot of literature on Angels and their role in Witchcraft.

Just go to pagan publisher Llewellyn and do a search on Angels, you get over 350 publications.  The idea of Angels in Witchcraft is not just a new-agey one.  There are many pagan belief systems that have had angel-like beings.  I even mentioned last week that British Occultist Aleister Crowley had a pact with an angel he called Aiwass.  So for my High Witchcraft book including angels makes a lot of sense.

But which ones? And how?

And that is where I had stalled. But I think I have it worked out now. Rereading Gygax's descriptions of Devas, Planetars, and Solars in Dragon Magazine help jell my ideas.  

The Classification and Hierarchy of the Good Outsiders

It is said that demons are legion. It is true that their numbers far exceed that of the forces of good, but it is also true that "demon" is often used to describe any fiend of the lower planes, whether they are classified as a "Demon" or "Devil" or as a "Calabim," "Yaoguai," or a "Baalseraph."  Likewise, there are "angels" and there are "Angels."

angels (lowercase a) refer to any good-aligned outsider creature that serves the forces of good.  They are often synonymous with "Good Outsider" or "Celestial."  They often have both a humanoid (profane) and a divine appearance.  Their profane appearance is what they use when visiting the prime material and dealing with mortals. The more powerful the angel the more "inhuman" their divine appearance can be and often the more harm it will cause a mortal. For example, the divine appearance of an archangel can burn a mortal to ash. 

Angels (uppercase A) are a particular group of Lawful Good Celestials that serve primarily in The Seven Heavens of  Mount Celestia.  Their groupings include Powers, Principalities, Seraphim, Thrones, Virtues, and the mighty Archangels.  This is the group that the Baalseraph once belonged to before they fell.

Archons are Neutral Good Celestials that act as guardians and warriors for the causes of good. Their roles are clearly defined in their names; Hound, Trumpet, Harbinger and Gate Archons are among the many types.

Agathós (from Agathodaemon) are mostly Chaotic Good Celestials. There are some that serve forces of Law and Neutrality within Good and their alignments will be that of whom or what they serve.  For example, the Lunars are mostly Lawful Good.  These celestials include the ranks of Devas, Planetars, Lunars, and Solars. Given the image above I should also include Auroras.

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Anyone that has followed my blog over the years will not see a huge surprise here.  These are roughly the same classifications I was using when I was running my Buffy RPG I just didn't have a solid name yet for the "Independent Servitors of Good" aka the Chaotic Good ones. 

I still have some details to work out. What are the various powers common to all these types? Should I move the Dirae from Angels to Agathós? What other sorts of creatures need to be added to these groups? Are these the only groups?

Plus I need to make sure that whatever I come with they need to be able to stand toe to toe with the most powerful demons.  

I will say this, it has been a really fun experience sorting all this out.

New D&D Minis and Figures

So the universe has decided I need to spend more money on little plastic people. 

Up first, and very near and dear to my heart are new NECA, LJN-style D&D action figures. 

They look great, but I am mostly interested in the Skylla and Kelek figures.  I am quite excited for the Skylla one since she never had a 4" figure release.

I had a Kelek back in the day, this one looks a lot like that older one save that this newer Kelek looks like he has a mohawk.  

So a while back I picked up the Kelek and Skylla D&D Miniatures from WizKids, well their next round is coming out and I am very excited about this one too. And it should be a lot cheaper.

It looks like there will be five characters. Diana, Hank, Eric, Presto, and an unnamed cleric.

Here is our unnamed cleric.

Given the tabard, the mace, and the design I am making the guess that this is Aleena.

Missing are Shelia and Bobby, which kinda sucks really, but not a problem. Thanks to HeroForge.

Click on the images for the HeroForge site.

Of course, WizKids might have another wave. 

My HeroForge Skylla and Kelek compare well to the new WizKids versions.

In any case, these are likely to suck up a lot of my gaming budget.