hello everyone today we are talking about celestials and this has like there's a wide gambut of really interesting creatures that come under celestials including unicorns uh but this is also the realm of like Angelic creatures and stuff like that so tell me a little bit how about what is nuba celestials in D and celestials which are native to the upper Plains in DND D they are suffused with the power of the Gods with the power of the upper Plains themselves and when we were building out the new monster manual we wanted to give the Angels
some friends uh because previously the celestial family in the monster manual was pretty small uh you know you had the Angels you had the unicorn and beyond that it was a short list a number of things began falling into place for us when we decided to for one add the animal Lord to the monster Manuel because there we wanted an example of a Celestial from the Beast lands well then that was the Domino that led to us the light bulb going off that as we were looking for a home for our giant animals who talk
MH because we knew we needed to move them out of the Beast category because they were incorrectly categorized before because if if the owl has you know full sapience like a human and can talk to you that's not an owl the way we think of owls uh in our world and so the Giant Eagle the giant elk the giant owl they too are now celestials oh because we we are now envisioning them as other denisons of the Beast lands and if you have and if you meet them in the material plane like the Unicorn is
just they have traveled to the material plane from either the Beast lands or some other Celestial realm while some of the giant animals have migrated over to the celestial category most of the giant animals are still in the Beast category how we determined where the giant animals went uh in the categorization of the creatures was really what level of sapience did they have before so if if they had human like sapiens and they could talk they were going to leave the Beast category but most of our giant animals were just a giant version of an
animal and so most of them are still in the Beast category which means most of them are still affected by Magic that affects beasts and most of them remain wildshape options uh if they're of the appropriate CR for a druid of a particular level we also took sphinxes and moved them all into the celestial category and then expanded out the Sphinx category which we can talk more about in a little bit so people are going to see that a number of creatures have now moved into the celestial category not only showing the variety that there
actually is in the upper Plains but then also again just that simple thing of the angels have some friends now uh and we also have a greater range of challenge ratings for uh the celestials and you know and including you know all the way down to very low CR with something like the imperian Iota uh and going then all the way up at the other end to creatures like the solar and the full-fledged imperion that art is just metal it is not the imperion I grew up with uh I love the art for that but
you mentioned a different type of imperion as well the imperion Iota uh which is almost a a notion of divinity that has taken form and for anyone who doesn't know what an imperion is an imperion is either the direct child of a God or a a being who is otherwise very directly shaped by a deity and uh this time around we wanted to show that not all imperian have a Celestial uh parent uh and and and so when you go to when you go to the imperion uh it it is it is unusual in this
book because it has two different creature types the imperian is either a Celestial or a fiend and the DM decides based on the story uh is this is this the child of you know one of the Gods on Mount Celestia you know sort of like Hercules or is this a child of a being like as modus in which case this imperion might be a fiend so we wanted we wanted to make sure that the imperion had even more utility for Dungeon masters with their storytelling uh when you want to have a demigod show up and
again they're not always necessarily going to be illuminated by Golden Light uh they might instead be surrounded by hellish fire right uh and uh then you'll have to navigate what that means for you and for your campaign uh but then with the Iota this is a chance for you to encounter a spark of divinity at lower levels uh you can almost think of the imperian Iota as like a distant cousin of uh the lantern archon which is a a Celestial that has been in the game for decades uh but the imperian Iota uh like the
imperion can be a Celestial or or a fiend so that that Divine notion that has taken form right could be a wonderfully radiant notion or a devilish horrific notion it's a it's an interesting point because like celestials doesn't NE I mean it tends to mean good but also celestials like they're not without being able to be made Angry absolutely because some of them can be absolute Davis yes um yeah and in fact one of them is a no we see we see you Todd but it's something I love to I do honestly love to play
with like yeah you think this this character is going to be so good and on your side I'm like no you're you're in the wrong spot and people will see that a number of the creatures in the celestial category in the book aren't uh their default alignment is not one of the good alignments I mean for instance the default alignment for imperian is neutral yeah and so not everything that is flagged as Celestial is is good and even if it is good it doesn't mean it's on your side because something we drive home in this
book uh with the story material is just how otherworldly celestials are and their motivations whatever their alignment might not align with Mortal motivations in any way yeah coming from our own mythology well I mean and they're also certainly not all peaceful good does not mean passive I mean you you have things like the the the planetar angel where their entire deal is about war and it's something that you're going to see with every one of the Angels where even though these are incredible like manifestations of goodness that doesn't mean that they have to be passive
in your campaign something that you'll see a lot both in the art and in the story text are details on how you can really use these in your adventures not just as here's here's an angel and now you have to now you have to kill it or now it's angry at you for a reason but more how might they work as a patron how might they send you on a quest how might they be doing things that drive you forward in a plot or end up being in opposition to you in a way that's right
for Adventures for a long time angels have just I think for many DMS been like all right maybe I make an evil one what do I do with this right we spent a lot of energy giving you a breadth of suggestions for what you can do with them and and yeah to really underline that um a creature does not have to be evil to be a foe yeah for a group um because uh good creatures can have honest disagreements with each other and disagreements that that can uh flare up and turn even into uh violent
conflict and uh we we really look when looking at the angels in particular because they are they are specifically flagged as good really delve into the fact that they still are not at peace with a lot of the Multiverse yeah um and they also each have different roles and also when you dig into the stat people are going to see that we've really enhanced their Celestial nature uh so you're not going to see anymore you know it one of them looking like they're holding a weapon that they bought at the store like they like they
are uh like with the solar the the solar's weapons look like they are made out of light itself uh uh with the daa we've really leaned into the fact that daas are the default sort of messenger of the Gods of the upper and that's that's one of the reasons why in the art even Thea is holding a scroll a symbol of like bringing the word from on high uh We've also uh done a number of things to bring some elements that used to be in the story text in the 2014 Monster manual and brought those
elements into the stat blocks and we've done that not only for celestials but when we get to the fiends uh we can talk about what we did there as well and so specifically what I have in mind here is you're going to see a lot of creatures now that specifically tell you if you drop them to zero hit points they're not dead unless particular conditions are met that text actually existed in the 2014 Monster manual but with a few exceptions it was almost never in the creature stap blocks you had to go read the story
text to find out like oh wait a second this devil or this demon or this Ang isn't actually killed by dropping to zero hit points but we know from observing many many live play shows and other people dming they often miss that text and it was like oh the Angel's dead and it's like no it isn't and so that's why like you'll now see um these different restoration abilities in a number of our celestials and a number of our fiends where again before it was like if you carefully read the story text you found out
oh it'll only dies if it's on a certain plane or some other condition is met all that information is now at the DM's fingertips in the STA blocks we've got the guardian Naga is in this we've got the Unicorn the Pegasus have these changed any particular ways so the Unicorn uh has the enhancements that all of our legendary creatures have gotten so we we going through the Unicorn which is also one of the lower SE R celestials in the game but also one of the lowest CR legendary creatures in the game uh and it I've
it's always tickled me that odds are one of the first legendary creatures you're going to meet is not a dragon or some other fearsome foe but it's most likely going to be a unicorn especially if one pops up because this a wild magic sorcerer rolled a unicorn on their on their wild magic uh table uh but we've gone through and fine-tuned all of the unicorn's abilities and you'll see that their legendary actions are much spicier uh than what was in the Unicorn stat block before uh and the whole thing has actually made not only the
Unicorn an even more able Ally but if you get on the wrong side of a unicorn it is also now going to be a much more uh scary fight uh for you to go up against this creature uh so watch out uh because uh the Unicorn now truly delivers its CR tell me about the sphinxes so we have more sphinxes now uh specifically we added the Sphinx of Wonder the little we Spinx which people have already gotten to see in the new players handbook this unfolded as we were looking at all the creatures in the
monster manual and determining you know whether a creature was in the correct category or not we realized first that sphinxes just in general did not belong in the monstrosity category like given their other worldly story Celestial was their natural home and I think that really helped then Inspire some of the redesigns we did in the stat blocks but then we also uh as we've done in other uh monster families we looked and and always determined do we need a higher CR version of in this family or a lower CR version in this family and we
realized we wanted a lower CR version uh Sphinx you could meet early on and then even more because we became so enchanted with this this little Sphinx a sphinx that you could befriend which is why that Sphinx ended up in the player's handbook uh because I who doesn't want a winged cat there was also an element while we were working on the section in the players handbook on alignment where we were looking at the different monsters that are generally associated with the different alignments like the quasit or the Imp or or Sprites just being little
guys that are archetypical of a whole family that's that's influenced or um an embodiment of that alignment and as we were looking at it we saw that there was really an opportunity for like hey let's let's make sure that there's a good little guy for folks of lawful good alignment and that's part of of where the Spinx of Wonder developed where it's like okay now this is something that would make a good companion for good guys more in that trajectory and and we wanted this little creature uh rather than just being like a miniaturized angel
we wanted this little creature to feel like it belonged in the same group as when you're again looking at the alignment spread as imps quasit and the Fay we selected to go in there you know each of these creatures with you know small magical can be a companion to spellcasters and and so thus thus arose the Sphinx of Wonder I really do love the Sphinx art and all of this well this is also something that you're going to to see in the in the art for the sphinxes but it's going to be broader as you
look at many of the celestials now where there just from looking at them you can tell that they're not just normal creatures like the sphinxes here have their wings Trail off into this mysterious Vapor the main of the Unicorn is these like rainbow colorful effects that also like whsp off the um pegasi have these cloudy wings that also end up like uh diffusing off into like more Cloud shapes and whatnot you get a hint from just looking at them that they're not just animal mashups they're these creatures of the Plains and they have these magical
aspects to them I actually quite Love The facil Stills as characters and like you mentioned kind of like the Banshee it was it's it's it's a great narrative hook but like I am a big fan of the comic book series Constantine and the friction that's not very good person has with constantly having to deal with Angelic creatures is just great storytelling I I've always enjoyed that so I I like using celestials to that effect like you said like the Dava can be a messenger and give you information or you could be for whatever reason just
being a fairly neutral party going against the wishes or the greater good that some Angelic being believes in um that's always great storytelling well I mean it's also something where you're going to see some of that in the narrative text for the daa where there's always that question of like well if the angels are out there why don't they just come and fight to fight all of the fiends well you'll see it in the text for the daa where it's like well they could do that but they want to help you do that they want
to help the adventurers grow develop and show that they're more than just more than just victims so here they're encouraging you to be something better to be something greater and that's one of the big ways that when you have something like Angels or celestials in general that they are different from fiends and again one of the ways in which you could end up on the opposite side from the celestial in a war is a particular group of celestials might be doing that work of inspiration and encouragement to the other side absolutely and so and so
DMs I I encourage everyone to just remember the celestials even if they're good are not necessarily always on the side of the adventurers uh they because there are other good people in each D and D world that the Angels might be helping and there may be a a bigger outcome that they're working towards that you do not understand yes and that is also a fun thing to play with I zal's arrogance is a great example of maybe you should not be involved and say and like in descent into a verice balers gate the book you
know zerel Falls because zerel wants to have an active hand in the blood War you were about to say just that there are so many storytelling possibilities with celestials uh particularly because while they do look so otherworldly you can talk to talk to them uh you can reason with them but similar to Fay a bit their motivations are often inscrutable and it can be perilous and so I think uh with with celestials I I encourage anyone who's building a campaign or a story to always remember these are Immortal beings who perhaps have lived for 10
T of thousands of years and their priorities are not immortal's priorities uh the thing that's CU also getting to the question of well why don't the Angels just show up well it's quite possible that for many of them the C the whatever is the crisis of the day in the adventurer's life might be so small scale for the Angels it's not even blipping on their radar yeah because again if you've lived for even potentially millions of years it's like you've seen it all and it's like we'll blink and this thing that The Mortals are running
around you know with their their hair on fire about you know the angels will blink and oh it's already over uh we didn't need to do anything uh because they are perhaps doing something else that's even more important when devils and celestials see you that's a moment like you have made yourself somehow more pouring enough into the story of these entities that they address you the stakes suddenly are upped Woe Is you if you get on the wrong side of especially a solar oh God yeah I I do not want the solar's slaying weapon pointed
my direction and yeah for those that don't know what is what is the difference between like a solar and say well we mentioned the planetar but the solar yeah the the three main types of angels uh or at least specifically the the three who appear in the monster manual are the daa the planetar and the solar and they go up in power in that order the daa the DEA is the not only the lower CR one but also in terms of the Angelic hierarchy the one that Mortals are most likely to meet because dvas are
again Messengers planetar are the really the soldiers yeah the the the Divine Knights of the Angelic host uh if there is if there is a war in heaven that breaks out uh or a a a massive Celestial battle someplace else almost always you're going to see planetar there uh solars are sort of the generals of the angels and also the ones most likely to be the confidants of the Gods themselves so if there if there if there is an angel who has actually been in the presence of an actual God most likely that angel is
a solar and uh that's one of the reasons why solars BL with a light that surpasses the light of the other Angel types and it's in their name solar like they're a sun uh blazing uh with Holiness and they're appropriately devastating like even compared to like fish Heavy Hitters like the ballor and the pit fend the solars e like even a bigger deal and challenge rating wise even more powerful was there something about those three that you wanted to like up the power level or add a different flavor to so in in every case their
abilities are more magical than they were before the solar is even more devastating than before uh every legendary creature in the book which includes the solar those legendary actions are you're going to find either brand new legendary actions in each legendary creature or returning ones that are more powerful than they were before uh and yeah we made sure that whether the solar is helping you with its Divine Aid bonus action or it is and again wo is you if it is firing its slaying bow at you uh we made sure you're going to feel it
whether whether the solar is on your side or on your opponent's side thank you so much for watching this video we will have a ton more videos all about the different monsters in the new monster manual you can purchase the brand new monster manual and all three of the core 20 24 core Rule books by clicking on the link in this video description I'm to kenrik thank you so much for watching
