Malhavoc Press

Anger of Angels Chat Transcript

October 2, 2003 -- 5 p.m. PST

I was pleased to welcome more than 30 of you to our very own chat room last week to chat with designer Sean K Reynolds about his new sourcebook, Anger of Angels. Thanks to everyone who attended! And thanks as well to Carthain for moderating and sending us this transcript*. —Monte

<Carthain> Welcome to a Malhavoc Press Chat! Today we are chatting with Sean K Reynolds! The topic of today is Anger of Angels. Okay -- so if anyone has any questions -- feel free to message me

<seankreynolds> While we're waiting for messages, I just want to say thanks for coming to the chat and for your interest in the book. Working on it took a lot out of me because of other things in my real life schedule, but I like how it turned out. :)

<Carthain> Mjelva wants a brief overview of the book ^_^

<seankreynolds> Well, it's about 128 pages, and gives an overview of angelic history from a somewhat-generic Judeo-Christian point of view. It covers 11 main types of angels, gives info on outcast, rebellious, and fallen angels, describes new powers (feats), spells, and magic items used by Heaven and Hell, has a geography of Heaven and Hell based on real-world visions and literature, and devotes a section to how to incorporate angels into your campaign, whether as mentors, PCs, or enemies.

<Carthain> from bayushiboy: "How do you even begin to research angels to do this book?"

<seankreynolds> Well.... I've had an interest in angels for quite some time, but my best reference books were borrowed from Monte. In particular, Gustav Davidson's book A Dictionary Of Angels, Including Fallen Angels had a TON of data on well-known and obscure angels. From there I branched out and checked other sources, but that was probably the linchpin of name and info references.

<ArthurQ> If I remember correctly you also called upon help from members of your board.

<seankreynolds> As Arthur said, I also asked for advice and suggestions on my boards and Monte's boards about what people would like to see in this kind of book, and most of those suggestions found their way into the text in one way or another.

<Carthain> From Duloth: "How effective would the book be for use in developing similar beings for someone's particular setting they ran a campaign in?"

<seankreynolds> IMO very effective. There's no reason to just use this in a Judeo-Christian campaign, and part of the book talks about these angels serving deities of other mythoi, such as electricity angels serving Thor, knowledge angels serving Thoth, etc. The book isn't cemented to real-world religion, it just draws upon it for inspiration.

<Carthain> From Mjelva: "I have an additional question, if you don't mind. Is this stuff you made up, or if it's pseudo-pagan stuff?"

<seankreynolds> Much of it is drawn from real-world sources. Some is inspired by offhand references in those sources, and some of it is from my own imagination. For the real-world stuff, it draws on Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and small parts from other Earth religions. Most of it can be traced back to a real-world source in one way or another.

<Carthain> From Duloth: "What about the potential of players worshipping a deity ascending to become angels of the appropriate type?"

<seankreynolds> Those of you who keep up with the new stuff on the Wizards of the Coast site might have noticed my articles about template classes, which are a way of advancing in a template in level-based increments. I actually first developed that idea for Anger of Angels with the template classes for the celestial and half-celestial template, and that's the easiest way for a PC to become an angel (in Anger of Angels, we create a loose definition of "angel" that includes planetars, devas, eladrin, archons, Anger of Angels' angels, and other good outsiders such as coatl and half-celestials). So there is a mechanic in the book for becoming an angel through acquisition of the half-celestial template, though there's nothing directly about, say, changing from a human into an ophanite or a seraph.

<Carthain> From Sheadragon: "Do you at any point in the book argue the morality-based roleplaying conundrum that players have with a lawful good character? Do you give advice on how to play these characters?"

<seankreynolds> Well, one of the parts of the book talks about personality traits. It talks about why certain angels are real sticklers for law, order, and obedience, and gives a positive and negative explanation for why an angel might act that way. For example, an angel might be meticulous about following the letter of the law (a) because she's a young angel and trying to prove herself to her peers, or (b) because in her past she lost a close friend because she didn't follow orders to the letter, so to preserve her friends memory (and to keep such an error from happening again) she never deviates from the absolute law. Hooks like that are helpful in playing a character that is (normally) assumed to be created as a perfect being and with a particular alignment in place, and to a lesser extent it can be used to help define mortal characters, too. (sheesh, I'm wordy today)

<anonymouse> There's even a sidebar on evil angels for good gods, which is certainly an interesting take and, more importantly, -works-.

<Carthain> From Kraah: "What's the toughest biblical avenger in the book? I assume there are arch-angels on par with demon lords/princes, but I want to know how bad these angels can get?"

<seankreynolds> Well, if you use epic rules, there's no limit to how tough, just keep adding character levels. But for the archangels in the book I built them assuming your normal campaign stops at level 20, and created them to be significantly more powerful than characters of that level. As our archangel competition showed, Michael and Metatron are the biggest of the big, both having an ECL of 35 or higher. I didn't do a comparison to existing demon princes because they're not Open content. :)

<Carthain> From TarenTheNeverDying: "I'd like to ask: In your opinion, would a lawful good angel rogue find it acceptable to sneak-attack, rather than confronting their enemy head-on?"

<seankreynolds> Sure, just as I feel a paladin/rogue would. Lawful doesn't mean stupid, and it doesn't necessarily mean a knightly code of conduct. If a LG character, angel or not, has certain abilities, he or she should be allowed to use those abilities in the service of her ethos. There is nothing chaotic or evil about using a sneak attack; after all, you could be fighting face-to-face with someone and as soon as a buddy sets up flanking with you then you have the opportunity for sneak attack, it doesn't mean you're a thug in the night too afraid to face a foe. Heck, I could see a smart malakite rogue wisely choosing to sneak attack a barbazu guard from surprise if he knew he couldn't defeat the devil face-to-face....

<Carthain> From Kraah: "Is there any info or rules for those that hunt or fight angels? Angel slayers etc.? (That picture from Book of Vile Darkness comes to mind)"

<seankreynolds> This book focuses mainly on the angelic side of things, but many of the feats are set up to be used by either side, and you could create fiendish counterparts for some of the prestige classes, too. In fact, one of the prestige classes has the power to kill members of his own faith, so you could have angels hunting angels, or use that mechanic for fiends hunting angels.

<Garen> Can I add something to that?

<seankreynolds> Garen?

<Garen> On opposing/hunting angels: The book has tips on running an "adversaries" campaign, which has the PCs as enemies of the angelic forces (whatever form they might take). There are also plenty of abilities that work just as well for fiends as for angels, not to mention the templates for angels no longer in the best of graces.

<ArthurQ> Oh, by the way, in case anyone is curious who me and Garen are, we are the two playtesters listed in the credits.

<Carthain> Got a question of my own: "Are there any helpful bits of information on how to incorporate angels into campaigns that are noticeably light on such creatures? Such as Dragonlance."

<seankreynolds> Okay, are you asking if the book gives advice on introducing angels to an existing campaign where they didn't have much of a presence before?

<Carthain> Pretty much, yes.

<seankreynolds> Hmmm, not overtly. IIRC the section on different types of angelic campaigns (PCs, mentors, adversaries, etc.) does talk about how in a mentors campaign the PCs might be specially selected to be servants or followers of the angels, acting in the world when the angelic (or deific) presence is limited, hotly contested, or nonexistent, so there is something relating to that, but there's nothing so overt as a list of ways to introduce them into an ongoing campaign currently lacking such influences.

<Carthain> Okay, just so everybody knows, Monte just told me that he has a trivia question with prizes for the end of the chat... just so everybody can have a heads-up on that ^_^

<seankreynolds> So think hard!!!

<Monte> What kinds of stuff are in the book for me if I'm a player rather than a DM?

<seankreynolds> Good question, Monte!

<seankreynolds> If you're a player, the book basically gives you 11 new playable PC races, one for each type of classical angel. If you add in the ability to take the celestial or half-celestial template after level 1, and the three tainted angel templates (outcast, rebel, and fallen), you're adding even more than that as PC options. There are also a bunch of new feats and spells, and many of those feats are usable by tiefling or aasimar characters. There are also some new summonable creatures if you'd rather have angels do your fighting for you. It also talks about what effect summoning has on a creature (handy for those players in campaigns that use the DMG's "you always summon the same creature" variant), plus there are four organizations a PC (even a mortal PC) can join. Arthur, your comment?

<ArthurQ> Well, two things. First the story/history/flavor text. As a player, I'm always reading deeply into flavor text for ideas for a character or story. The massive amounts of history and flavor text in the book adds a wealth of possibilities to celestial OR mortal PCs. The other comment was on the feats. Though I don't have access to the PDF now, so I can't make a good comparison, you also wrote the celestial material for Races of Faerun. The feats here combine nicely with the feats from there. I'm always looking for ways to incorporate anything into Forgotten Realms. This works quite well.

<seankreynolds> Oh, yeah, a little bird just reminded me of something else in the book that's cool for PCs.... The role of martyrs and saints. Basically, it's a neat way to bring a dead character out of retirement for a session or two. Especially handy if you're visiting your old gaming group and can only be around for one game. Basically, it gives rules for what powers you have as a saint or arisen martyr, and why you might be sent back to the mortal world on Heaven's behalf. And another little bird reminded me that there are seven new domains in this book. Whether your DM assigns them to deities or lets you worship angels as deific proxies, these domains can get you some cool new tricks.

<Carthain> From anonymouse: "I'm definitely not a biblical scholar, but I hadn't read before about the nephilim being quite so evil. Were they simply good opponents, or was it turned up in research?"

<seankreynolds> Well, nephilim is commonly used as a name for the children of the grigori and their mortal wives ... the Old Testament refers to them as the "giants" that lived before the flood. Other rabbinical references gave me the info on the various types, and I based their powers on the translations of the Hebrew names for the nephilim. So they don't start out bad (at least the gibborim, or first-generation), but the grandkids are real terrors.

<Carthain> From Duloth: "Do you have any sort of a problem with creating the angels that you couldn't solve, due to balance, the system you were using, or any other significant reasons?"

<seankreynolds> Well, from the start I wanted these angels to be at a playable level comparable to standard-race PCs. Playing an astral deva is fun, but you have limited opportunities with that whopping ECL of 20. So I tried to create a baseline angel of each angelic "race" (seraphim, malakim, etc.) and allow the powerful angels mentioned in real-world texts to just be higher-level versions of these creatures. Late in the game I was adding a few standard 3.5E abilities to them and realized that it was starting to make their ECLs climb up again so I had to tone some of it down. In the end we have some angels with an ECL of 5 to 6 and the more powerful ones with ECL 12 to 13. So you could still play a low-level campaign with some of the weaker angels as PCs, but maintaining a relatively low power level was a challenge.

<Carthain> From Aranan: "Are the angels described in the book set up to be purely physical entities, or can they also be used more along the lines of spiritual forces?"

<seankreynolds> Good question! The biblical sources broke creation into three categories: God, who is divine spirit, angels, which are pure spirit, and humanity, which is impure spirit. Angels are inherently spiritual beings, and I don't mean that in a religious sense but in a physical sense: they are heavenly spirits that assume a physical form when interacting with the mortal world. There are some feats that let them scoot about the mortal world invisibly (and angel spellcasters of course have access to spells that do the same thing), and some angels inherently are able to hide from the eyes of the faithful. If you want to run a campaign, particularly a mentors campaign (and by that I mean a campaign where the PCs are mortals and work for a celestial being instead of a mortal) there's no reason why you can't say that the angelic mentors are purely spiritual, and while they can interact with the material world the material world basically can't harm them because they are just spirit. (I wouldn't do that for angels-as-PCs, though, because then combats wouldn't be a challenge.)

<Carthain> From Kraah: "if an angel dies in a forest and no one is around; does it make a sound?"

<seankreynolds> Depends on if he's an Angel of Silence or not (that's a dominion feat, by the way). ;)

<Garen> hehehe

<Carthain> From Duloth: "And, of course, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?"

<seankreynolds> That's one I leave unanswered, smartypants. Probably it depends on their Perform check. :)

<Carthain> lol

<anonymouse> DC 20 +1 per angel?

<Monte> Ready for some trivia?

<Carthain> Sure, we can do trivia now.

<yangnome> woohoo!

<Monte> I'm going to ask a question. The person who answers that question correctly, first, gets their choice of a brand-new Arcana Unearthed: DM's Screen/Player's Guide and an Arcana Unearthed T-Shirt. Then I'm going to ask a second, easier question. The first person to answer that correctly gets whatever's left. Ready?

<Carthain> Ask away Monte ..

<Monte> In what land in the Diamond Throne are you MOST likely to encounter an angel?

<Mjelva> Planescape!
<Sheadragon> None
<anonymouse> Thartholan
<Valmiras> Fallanor
<TarenTheNeverdying> The third one.
<EldricIV> East Brooklyn.
<Elsin> Heaven
<NiTessine> Queen of Lies!
<Aranan> Thartholan
<Aranan> Doh

<Monte> Anonymouse got it. And really fast.

<anonymouse> Thartholan's fun to type. ;)

<Monte> Which of those two prizes would you like?

<anonymouse> Hum. Screen, methinks.

<Monte> Okay. Cool. Send me an email with your address and we'll ship it off to you! Congrats! By the way, the reason that Thartholan is correct is because it is a land filled with still-open gates and portals to other planes, left over from when the evil dramojh were raiding the planes.

<seankreynolds> Sounds like a cool place. :)

<Monte> Okay. So the second question is for the shirt. By the way, we have L, XL and XXL. Ready?

<Monte> Here's the question. Recently, we had a contest on montecook.com to determine the toughest archangel. Who won?

<TarenTheNeverdying> anonymouse
<Valmiras> Michae
<EldricIV> Michael
<Duloth> Michael
<Valmiras> l
<Mjelva> Gabriel!
<TarenTheNeverdying> Archangel Michael!
<Duloth> Metatron
<Mjelva> That's no an angel, that's a Decepticon!
<Duloth> Or... whatever.
<Dwarkanath> (Oh good, I'm not the only one that kept reading Metatron as Megatron :-)
<NiTessine> Rafael
<EldricIV> Leonardo. :-)
<Kraah> Uriel?
<TarenTheNeverdying> Archangel Michael, closely beating Metatron.

<Monte> Valmiras, I'm going to say that "Michae" is close enough. You win. Val, send me your address and shirt size and we'll ship that off as well.

<seankreynolds> All righty, we're going to handle our last questions in the queue....

<Monte> And tell all your friends how profitable it is to come to montecook.com chats!

<Carthain> All right, last couple of questions here. From TarenTheNeverdying: "Something which always irked me was that the way the celestials sit idly by when the world needs saving from evil - it makes little sense. What reasons are given for the angels stoically keeping their distance, and does the book cover this in much detail?"

<seankreynolds> Good question! And I actually don't know if I addressed that exact question in the book (I wrote it seven months ago), but I think I did. In effect, angels aren't just sitting around on the tops of clouds playing harps all the time. They're really really busy. Ferrying souls and prayers. Fighting demons. Finding the lost in between the planes. Carrying important messages for the gods. Watching over special mortals. Repairing the subtle damage that the actions of chaos causes reality. Guarding the doors of Heaven against attacks from Hell. Rescuing mistakenly-damned souls from Hell. Inspiring bards, clerics, and paladins. All sorts of stuff.

<seankreynolds> To repeat: they're busy all the time. Any PC who thinks that angels are lazy should take a moment to consider how bad things would be in the world if angels weren't fighting evil and working for Heaven 24/7. My guess would be: pretty bad.

<Carthain> From Monte: "I know it's not entirely the point of the book, but how hard would it be to have a Judeo-Christian (only) sort of cosmology in a D&D game?"

<seankreynolds> Pretty easy, actually. You'd have to make sure that the One God had sufficient domains to reflect His intervention in the Bible/Torah/Koran, and you might have different splinter faiths (like we do in the real world) based on different translations of the holy books or a focus on a different aspect of the religion, but it certainly is doable. If anything, it would give adventuring PCs more of a reason to worship the deity of the party cleric ... technically there aren't any other true deities available for worship! And then you have the classic BBEG, Samael (a.k.a. Satan) trying to bring everybody down. It would be pretty cool, IMO.

<Carthain> and, last question: from yangnome: "Any more upcoming products from Sean? New Malhavoc/SKR collaborations? Any chance Sean will do any Arcana Unearthed work?"

<seankreynolds> I currently don't have any upcoming projects with Malhavoc. I was really pressed for time earlier in the year and we decided to shelve a couple of Malhavoc Press projects I was working on just to give me some time to breathe. In the meantime I finished some other projects that only now are being published (Path of the Magi from Troll Lord Games) and have a couple of things on the burner now that I've had a summer of from writing (my book for Reaper, which has changed nature a bit, and an upcoming book for Silverthorne Games). I'm going to start up another charity project soon, too. I would of course love to keep working with the Cooks, they're great friends and very nice to me. We'll just have to see what works out in the next few months. As for me writing something for Arcana Unearthed, who knows? Rumor has it I have some Arcana Unearthed miniatures in my mailbox today.... :)

<Monte> Glad you got them.

<seankreynolds> Thanks, guys, you know I love minis. :)

<anonymouse> Wow, something for Reaper? This for the Warlord stuff?

<seankreynolds> Hmmm, can't really say at this point. The book is morphing into something else and it's not been announced yet.

<seankreynolds> So if that's it for the queue, I think we're done here. Any announcements from Monte?

<Monte> In case anyone's wondering, you can get an arcana unearthed shirt of your own at RPGMall. And the DM's Screen/Player's Guide should be in stores now. Anger of Angels is available as a PDF now, and a print product in December.

<ArthurQ> W00000T!

<Monte> Sean will be giving a panel on it at GenCon SoCal.

<seankreynolds> And I'll be running a demo of Arcana Unearthed/Diamond Throne at GenCon SoCal as well. :)

<Monte> Thanks for coming, everyone!

<seankreynolds> Stay tuned in December for another cool web enhancement for Anger of Angels!

<Carthain> And... that looks like that's that ^_^

<seankreynolds> As Izzard would say, "Ciao!"

<Monte> Make sure you don't miss our web update next Thursday. There will be a cool announcement. Ciao!

<Carthain> Thank you all for coming!

* Transcript edited for style and clarity.