How to make angels interesting beyond just some winged guys from the sky that do good things and rarely fall and get...

how to make angels interesting beyond just some winged guys from the sky that do good things and rarely fall and get corrupted sometimes

what are some settings that do angels well pic not related

Well, the first thing is to not do yet another fucking setting where "well akshually, our angels are total assholes" or "well akshuaalalalaly, our angels are cthulhus like in the bible that I've never read"

>yet another
?

>angels are cthulhus
>bad
?

>?
Dude, "angels are actually assholes" is so common it appears in mainstream fucking movies. It's tired.

>?
I didn't say it was "bad," I said if you wanted them to be INTERESTING, one of the worst things you can do is turn them into unrelateable blobs vomitted from all of 6 pages of Ezekiel which a shitton of other angels didn't conform to at all.

Make one of them Dennis Quaid like in legion

All the gods, good and evil, law and chaos, have angels.

Make them incomprehensible fourth dimensional beings, I guess.

make angels actually be a race of ultra innocent fey that have never actually been in contact with demons and such.
>twist: demons are actually just fey too, just not as evil as their material plane counterparts

The Diablo angels being made of light and sound is not a bad idea.

Couldn't agree more. "Muh subversion" without any extra reason is shit and so many terrible authors use it as a crutch. The reason one of my favorite fantasy settings is Mythic Europe is because it's absolutely strait-laced. Not really relevant to this discussion, though, since angels there don't have the internal drama that makes characters interesting.

If you want the angels to be proper characters (and to better adjust them to a polytheistic setting), they could be free agents, who align themselves with a god to do their bidding, and in exchange receive [magical energy that keeps them existing]. Those that "fall" are those who were servants of a benevolent deity who decided it wasn't in their interests. I personally don't like having angels fall as part of a campaign, since if they do it of their own will they probably would've done it before and if it isn't free then it wouldn't really be falling, but that's just my 2 autistic cents.

Make them just not give a shit about mortals. At all. They do what they do, for whatever reason they have, and don't care if anything will get hurt by their actions. Sort of like a sentient natural disaster.

Not total assholes though, just invincible immortal things with radically different from mortals priorities and goals, that almost never directly interact with mortals.

I like this. Kind of like superpowered children or something. Their innocence is a double edged blade, their inexperience makes empathizing hard and sometimes leads them to act without thought of consequence. Basically it's the difference between the kid who watches ants and the kid with a magnifying glass who fries them.

My setting has no gods but people who commit the most heroic and evil acts are turned into angels by the universe. It's incredibly rare and there's only 23 at the moment.

They can't directly interact with the mortal realm but they do power clerics and during large historical events one or two might appear if it has something to do with their domain. They're also always at war with each other because the only contact they get is other immortal indestructible beings and they still have mortal minds that can feel pain.

Why not make them cute?

God damn, why do the Diablo angels look so fucking good

Follow the old testament and make them a strictly incomprehensible force-of-nature who can be corrupted, with a wholeload of body horror thrown in

Sounds like a useful disguise to wear when you want to help the mortals without alarming them unduly.

Make their nature and methods highly dependent on their god, I guess.

It also helps to clarify a few things before even introducing them into your setting

>Are angels individuals with free will and the ability to rebel or deceive their god to further their own interests?
>Are angels a literal extension of their god's existence and therefore uncorruptable/unkillable without special means?
>Are angels mortals servants that have been uplifted through meritorious deeds in the name of their god?
>Are angels simply another species that as a whole is known for working under a god but can in fact exist outside of this stereotype and occupy other archetypes and roles in society?


>What roles does an angel fulfill for this god and in this setting? Does an angel deliver messages, act as an errand boy, a sort of higher tier soldier or is it dependent on the angel itself and the god?
>Do angels have a certain tendency or inclination? Are they war-like or peaceful? Do they see mortals as insects or as servants? Do they consider their tasks to be of the utmost importance?

bump lol

what if the setting doesnt have a god? in my over the top grimdark medieval setting i have angels, they're at the top. they represent different virtues and shit, for example there is the angel of strength who believes that the weak must be destroyed, so he and maybe his pal, the angel of purity, go around committing massive genocides that are, to them and their worshipers, are justified.

but i also have demons. why do i even have demons in my setting if my angels can be considered evil from a perspective? how do i make my demons different from the angels that i have?

make them the bad ass angels from the old testament that run around mercing lads

Make them Evangelion angels obviously.

Imperius did nothing wrong.

Simple. Angels do it because they think their in the right. Demons do the same thing because they think their in the wrong.

This could lead to fun shenanigans when the party needs help and stumbles across a demon that believes extending life is a sin.

*They're

Fuck.

They used to be mortals.

Combine with . All Angels at some point used to be mortals, but became favored champions, companions, servants, courtesans, or any other role for the god in general that brought them to a high position. In giving themselves so much to the gods, they gave up part of their humanity, but became more like the god themselves. By doing this, they exalted themselves and mantled or were elevated to a higher position; not a god, but no longer a mortal.

They still have free will, though, but they've simply become so much like the god in personality that they rarely choose differently, save for a few flourishes of their own personality. And, of course, to choose differently would cause them to become less like their gods, and they would lose their power. As such, they're pretty set in their personality, 2 dimensional in character almost, but often show contradictory characteristics to the deity's ideal, and have a vested interest in keeping in line with their patron's principles.

Otherwise, without gods, they might simply be beings who have become so hardened and set in their ways from millennia of simply living and growing stronger that they have become paragons of some ideal or idea or form. A champion who has stumbled upon a way of thinking and takes it just left of extreme, straining towards the logical and extreme conclusion but not quite.

bump
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