D&D (2024) 5e Aasimar are in the Players Handbook − what should the flavor be?

[Yaarel]

They're not associated with the elemental planes; however, they fill the niche of an fire/necrotic/poison element blaster as an archetype. Someone with an innate affinity for fire magic (or dark magic, etc). Its like saying that red dragon sorcerers are fire elementalists, even if they're not from the fire elemental plane.

In my head canon, all of the Neutral alignment planes are Elemental.

At a personal level, Lawful Neutral versus Chaotic Neutral, is group versus individuals.

But at an atomic level, Law versus Chaos, is "wave" versus "particles". The True Neutral is a kind of Dao optimizing between them, as a third way.

Thus the Neutral planes and their dynamic function as the aspect of Astral thought involved in the production of the physical forces, elements, and matter that the rest of the multiverse is made out of.

The creatures LN Modron, TN Rilmani, and CN Slaad, should be the creature type Primordial. The LN correlates the Elemental Law, while the CN the Elemental Chaos.

These Primordials are still Astral thought, but they are the thoughts that cause the Elemental forms to come into existence.

Plane Touched is the traditional D&D name for those descended from celestials, fiends and elementals. Further, there are times in D&D lore where one becomes plane touched (or dragonborn, etc) via ritual instead of ancestry. The name is fine.

Aasimar are mortals. The vast majority of games take place on the material plane, and the plane touched are born, live, and die there; they don't casually migrate from spiritual worlds.

Like the 2024 Tiefling, the 2024 Aasimar might "casually migrate" from the Celestial planes.

While Aasimar in the Material Plane are mortal, the Aasimar in the Astral Plane including the Celestial planes are immortal.

What do the Aasimar cultures look like in each of the Celestial dominions? They are the "people", the prominent cultures of these planes.

They can be good, evil, lawful, chaotic, neutral. There is no more something forcing them to be angelic missions than your average human. Hells, humans are more likely to be on world saving missions, because they tend to be more humans (and thus more human clerics and human paladins) than there are aasimar in the multiverse.

The 2e Eladrin do go on missions.

We're not talking culture.

We are talking Celestial cultures. Different kinds of Aasimar are members of diverse cultures across the Upper Planes.

We're talking raw biology and poor game design that pushes players towards very specific classes through overly specific mechanics.

Referring to "biology" is in the most abstract sense, since Celestials like the rest of the Astral are constructs made out of thought.

Different Aasimar cultures allow for different Aasimar jobs, excelling at different player classes.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The "elemental tielflings" would be the abysal genasi from 4th Ed.

The devas(4e) had got their own visual style.

I imagine somebody could start to whisper the aasimars really are the reincarnation of fallen celestial, and their new lifes as mortal creatures would be a punishment. Or the aasimars reconquest a zone tainted by a ghoul epidemic, but then the bad tongues tell the aasimars caused intentionally the undead plague to "purgue the zone".

In a fantasy world with celestial and infernal creatures, you could bet the bad guys would use the worst propagandistic war against the good guys.

* I miss the mechanatrix, the planetouched from mechanus appeared in Fiend Folio 3ed. Maybe these could be merger with the mechalus from d20 Future.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Appearances of Aasimar should be almost as varied as the appearances of Tieflings were in 2e. So taking into consideration many of the celestials types in 2e and 5e:

• Some would look very close to Humans/Orcs/Elves/Goblins/Whatever they're mortal ancestry is, with some small differences such as glowing eyes.
• Emerald skin (Planetar)
• Shiny metallic skin colours (Deva and Rilmani).
• Some could in fact have animal heads or just animal ears or even subtly animal-like (Guardinals and some Archons).
• Feathers for hair (Avoral Guardinals or Lillendi)
• Fiery hair, or a nimbus of flames (Firre Eladrin, Quesar or Asuras)
• Satyr-like, such as hooves or ram horns (Cerdival Guardinals)
• Wings that are vestigial (at least at the beginning) whether it be feathery (many Angels, Avorals, Lillendi), fiery (Asuras) or butterfly-like (Corre Eladrin).
• Exactly like the Deva PC species from 4e
• Really metallic with a mask-like face or with floating limbs connected to the body by energy (Rilmani)
• A single Unicorn like horn
• Somewhat scaly
• Glowing and somewhat translucent

As for how some Aasimar are like in the world, I think of them as being a possible look into the idea of "model minority" as opposed to the "marginalized minority" that Tieflings often are.

Although I agree, I think it still helps to have a sort-of "basic" appearance to fall back on and build the art around. For tieflings that horns and a tail. Everything else is an optional extra, although technicolor skin is pretty common.

Offhand, I'd give aasimar wings (maybe small ones if flight isn't a base feature) and an obvious halo. Just a ring floating above their head, but the artist is free to interpret "ring" in nearly any way. Shiny skin is technically optional but should be common.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm a fan of the expectations and pressure theme.

D&D Angels are like Goodness Robots. They do Good (not good) and Right (not right) automatically without consideration or prompting. but Aasimar are people and we have to think and prioritize and choose.

And other people are kinda dumb and when they hear you're the kid of an angel or distant bloodline of angel, they just assume you're also a Goodness Robot and expect you to react accordingly. Not only do they just assume you're going to play the hero whenever they need, but they'll also think they'll take their crap with a goodly smile on their face.

Life as an aasimar means being constantly 'tested'vby people who assume you have no real thoughts and feelings. Whether they're innocently reaching out for general help or trying to take advantage of what they assume is a good nature without a sword made of lightning to back it up with. Not to mention the extremists and zealots who just assume you're on their righteous side and seek validation thought you.

Some would have massive trust issues from this while others might succumb to the pressure, becoming zealous and overbearing on their own as they try to 'perfect' themselves into being like a 'real' angel while others might become rebellious and out to prove everyone wrong. Worst off would be the ones who just let themselves be used, folding faster than Superman on laundry day to every request and beseechment, getting led by the nose into all manner of mishap, danger and villainy in ignorance.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

It's a shame we don't have law and chaos versions of aasimar and tieflings. Those planes as a whole have been ignored compared to the good and evil planes in DnD.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

There are law and chaos planetouched, the legal axani and caothic cansin. Chaons from slaadi, and Zenythris from law. The creatures published by Paizo in Dragon magazine, are copyright by WotC?

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Appearances of Aasimar should be almost as varied as the appearances of Tieflings were in 2e. So taking into consideration many of the celestials types in 2e and 5e:

• Some would look very close to Humans/Orcs/Elves/Goblins/Whatever they're mortal ancestry is, with some small differences such as glowing eyes.
• Emerald skin (Planetar)
• Shiny metallic skin colours (Deva and Rilmani).
• Some could in fact have animal heads or just animal ears or even subtly animal-like (Guardinals and some Archons).
• Feathers for hair (Avoral Guardinals or Lillendi)
• Fiery hair, or a nimbus of flames (Firre Eladrin, Quesar or Asuras)
• Satyr-like, such as hooves or ram horns (Cerdival Guardinals)
• Wings that are vestigial (at least at the beginning) whether it be feathery (many Angels, Avorals, Lillendi), fiery (Asuras) or butterfly-like (Corre Eladrin).
• Exactly like the Deva PC species from 4e
• Really metallic with a mask-like face or with floating limbs connected to the body by energy (Rilmani)
• A single Unicorn like horn
• Somewhat scaly
• Glowing and somewhat translucent

As for how some Aasimar are like in the world, I think of them as being a possible look into the idea of "model minority" as opposed to the "marginalized minority" that Tieflings often are.

I'd add Skin like Marble (Empyreans & Greek Gods), blue skin and Tall (Mercanes), a glowing with Planar Emergy (Planar Incarnates), like Mulan Gods, clooved feet and small wings (Pegasi), like various Faerunian Gods, really out there, have them look.like humaniod vetsions of the Spelljammer Celestial Sharks and Whales, I forget their names. Also ones that look like the Peri from Radiant citadel.

 

[jayoungr]

Visually they should be immediately identifiable as their species, with an emphasis on being both distinctive and easily cast as a compelling character.

FWIW, my players actually prefer the opposite approach. I think they like the idea of their characters blending in with the crowd but having a secret.

When they play tieflings, they want to play the older version that look like humans except for maybe some subtle visual cues. Same goes for aasimar (I have a couple of aasimar PCs in my Descent into Avernus group).

 

[jayoungr]

The "conservative" religious version of some angels tends to be unappealing − either too sexist, homophobic, dictatorship supporting, etcetera.

The Lawful Stupid Paladin ethics are unappealing.

The elevator-music goody-two-shoes is boring.

The fallen angel, including the angel becoming flesh, is a tired trope. A flavor that rejects what Aasimar culture is, offers less information about what that culture actually is. Also, the angels as flesh, sex with angels, and misguided attempts to return to the Garden of Eden come with objections from various reallife religions.

You're not wrong about any of this, but I feel like you're leaning too heavily on angels specifically for the lore. Aasimar just have a bit of "celestial" in their backgrounds, right? It doesn't have to be an angel specifically. Maybe find another celestial creature that interests you more and is less tropey, and use that as the basis for your "awsimar" traits? (If it's a non-humanoid, you could always say they shapeshift.)

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Thinking about appearance.






Probably, the luminous aura is what all Aasimar share in common, for the sake of the IP recognizability. Then individuals might be translucent, metallic, or so on. Brainstorming, maybe the luminosity can be a distinctive light show, like two colors of light shifting back and forth? Maybe runes of light form within the aura? Actually, I strongly associate the Astral Plane with thought, paradigm, symbols, language, and meaningfulness. Let the aura of light form words in calligraphic letters of light within it. So, whenever one sees a character with an aura and words within, it evidences an Aasimar.

The Aasimar form look like anything. Pick any creature in the Celestial planes for inspiration. There can be Celestine (?) (Mount Celestia) who looks like an Elf, Eladrin with an animal head, or unicorn, orb of light, whatever the player conceives. Perhaps the only limitation is anthropomorphic Humanoid, including Human.



I have mixed feelings about wings. Some concepts definitely. Other concepts definitely not.



Heh, speaking of which, in parallel to the Tiefling of Fire, Necrotic, or Poison:

For Aasimar, Radiance, Psychic, and Force.

Radiant for Lawful Good, because Solar.
Psychic for Chaotic Good, because Fey.
I guess that leaves Force for Neutral Good, maybe because creation.

In 3e Aasimar had 5 Cold, 5 Electricity (Lightening), and 5 Acid resistance.

I think glowing eyes might be the only most universal physical trait.

Do you think that they will have the Angellic Flight power the OG Ardling had in addition to Celestial Legacy?