victorysaber said:
for the planetouched there are aasimar (good), tiefling (evil), axani (law), and cansin (chaos), with the latter two being from an issue of Dragon.
Technically, the lawful and chaotic planetouched originated in the Monster Manual II, the zenythri (lawful, descended from an unknown race of lawful outsiders, purplish skin) and chaonds (chaotic, descended from slaadi or something, somehow, appear deformed). I didn't know though that Dragon added two different planetouched like that.....
for "basic" templates there are celestial (good), fiendish (evil), anarchic (law), and axiomatic (chaos), latter two from the Planar Handbook.
Technically, the anarchic and axiomatic templates originated in Manual of the Planes; and you got the alignments mixed up when you typed it, anarchic is for chaos and axiomatic is for law.
however, for the half-templates there are only half-fiend (evil) and half-celestial (good). are there any templates for half-chaotic outsiders and half-lawful outsiders?
Nope, not to my knowledge, at least from official D&D sources. I find it odd myself.
on that issue, what is the default name for a chaotic and lawful outsider? good outsiders have the catchall name of celestials, and evil outsiders have the catchall name of fiends. slaads and inevitables or modrons would not be the catchall name, as you wouldn't call **all** chaotic oustiders slaads and likewise for lawful outsiders.
There are no default names for them. The war between chaos and law basically ground to a crawl or halt, IIRC, after the Wind Dukes of Aaqa and the Queen of Chaos destroyed each other with their armies. There's also less cooperation, I think, among the forces of law and within the forces of chaos; slaadi are pretty independant, and other chaotic outsiders aren't very numerous it seems; formians are rivals to the modrons in Mechanus since the formians shifted their layer of Arcadia into Mechanus with their change to purely lawful, dominating manner. And the modrons are weaker than before thanks to Orcus/Tenebrous. The inevitables are apparently separate and uninvolved as they just work to maintain some degree of order within the larger multiverse.
so basically my question is, what is the law and chaos counterpart to fiends and celestials, and half-fiends and half-celestials? can someone cite the source as well? thanks!
None that I know of, as mentioned above.
However, I do have houserule material for these matters, that I have slowly begun to finish and use in Rhunaria (and will employ in Aurelia shortly afterward). I personally refer to lawful outsiders as Axions, and chaotic outsiders as Anarchials. I have a 'race' of Axions that use the term Axion to describe themselves, and that's where the term originates in my own settings, whereas they refer to chaotic outsiders collectively as Anarchials (and thus does that term spread in use among the mortals of Rhunaria and Aurelia), since the chaotic outsiders are so independant and fractured, with no unified structure, goals, or even just a single 'race'. By 'race', in these cases, I mean a collection of related species, like Baatezu are one 'race' of sorts, and Guardinals are another 'race', but with distinct subspecies or whatnot.
The Axions have a defined hierarchy, and many of them are, in fact, incorporeal and practically formless, invisibly working on maintaining the fabric of reality and the borders of the planes. I have only a few Axion breeds finished or nearly so; most are still in the rough stages of hammering out. The races I've at least partially defined so far, in order from lowest or highest in the hierarchy, are Numagons (basically finished except for spell-like abilities, caretakers and observers of individual mortals that stray from Law, attempt to guide them on the path to Lawful behavior or keep them there; occasionally become familiars toward that end), Hieragons (finished, emissaries of Law to mortals), Durixagons (rank and file soldiers of Law), Soliragons (commanders of the lower infantry ranks, like the durixagons), Nexalagons (portal guardians and foes to any who damage the planar fabric/borders), and Monothragons (massive bastions of axion armies, somewhat like banner-bearers but just as much like generals).
I have a Half-Axion template in the works but not quite finished (as a few kinds of Axion may interbreed with other creatures occasionally, to spread the influence of Law). I also have a Zenythri template finished, which represents the descendants of Axions and other creatures (I use templates instead of races to represent most kinds of planetouched in Rhunaria and Aurelia; so I have an Aasimar template instead of an Aasimar race, for example). I made the Chaond race into a template for chaotic-outsider-descended creatures in Rhunaria and Aurelia as well, the Anarchial equivalent to Zenythri or Aasimar or Tieflings.
Anarchials in my campaigns are more varied; while axion can refer to any lawful outsider and anarchial can refer to any chaotic outsider, there is no race that is referred to specifically as Anarchials, unlike the Axions. Besides Slaadi and such, I have my own race of chaotic outsiders that fall under the general term of anarchials, but call themselves the Xaosyk. Xaosyk, like Axions, Baatezu, Tanar'ri (er, sorta), Guardinals, Eladrins, etc., the Xaosyk have a naming convention within their own strange tongue, but are generally known to mortals and such by a layman's name descriptive of their form or tendencies.
The Xaosyk have several distinct breeds, as being completely different individually would just be too predictable and orderly.... So instead they vary a lot in appearance but retain largely identical traits to other Xaosyk of the same breed, and often possess some individual mutation or other trait that is uniquely different from other Xaosyk of that breed. Each Xaosyk breed exists to spread and exercise their particular form of chaos (or impart some chaos into a particular kind of activity or event; or spread chaos by removing certain things). The Xaosyk breeds' layman's names are the Xaosyk Anarchs, Artists, Breakers, Changelings, Chaos Spawn (formed quickly from mortals other Xaosyk have drained away all lawful essence from; may eventually become more powerful breeds of Xaosyk), Collectors, Despoilers, Gorgers, Jesters, Nullifiers, Seekers, Takers. I'll leave off the specific names for now since there are a few I'm still tinkering with to sound right (like Gesshebsyk, which seems too stupid, whereas Vooransyk seems fine). I don't remember which of these I finished (they're not on this computer).
My Aasimar, Chaond, Tiefling, and Zenythri templates are on my Rhunaria webpage, in the Planetouched section. My Half-Celestial, Half-Fiendish, Half-Anarchial, and Half-Axion templates aren't quite finished but I have been working on them, and will be put on my Rhunaria page at some point. Unfortunately I haven't finished any of those four yet, since they haven't come up in the Rhunaria campaign yet.
