Anger of Angels

[Messageboard Golem]

The sanctity of Heaven was shattered when prideful angels rebelled. Though the fallen host were cast out, the battle between Heaven and Hell rages on, with mortals becoming pawns on both sides.

Anger of Angels gives you the tools to run a campaign amid the struggle between Heaven and Hell, whether in a standard fantasy or more modern setting. Use angels and demons as supernatural advisors and manipulators, or allow angelic and demonic player characters to take the field.

The book details 10 new kinds of angel and a dozen new demons. It describes archangels and the lords of Hell, maps out Heaven and Hell, and offers new feats, classes, mortal organizations, and angelic and demonic magic.

 

[Hardhead]

I picked up Anger of Angels, the new book by Sean K. Reynolds today. And I have to say, it's going to be a *great* resource for campaigns in the Outer Planes (especially if you're an old-school Planescape player). Basically, it's a treatment of the Judeo-Christian Heaven and Angels, but "D&Dified."

Here's a quick overview: Chapter One is a brief history of "Heaven." Heaven is treated as the only good-aligned afterlife/plane here, but it's devided into seven heavens, and shares many traits with Mt. Celestia, and it's easily adaptable to that D&D plane. Also, most of the story that is told here is ancient and deals with a creation-of-the-fiends mythology, so obviously takes place in a very ancient time (perhaps back when there were less Outer Planes, as some old Planescape sources hinted). Either way, while the book doesn't try to fit into D&D cosmology, it's all still very adaptable to it.

Chapter Two talks about Angels in general, discussing gender, free will, and other important topics. One interesting idea, I thought, was a sidebar on "evil angels." Evil angels would be normal angels created to be evil from the begining (as opposed to fallen angels, that become so). Evil angel's jobs are to do thinks like destroy Saddam and Gomorrah, things no purely good being could do. They serve good dieties, but do "evil" in their name. Neat idea, and I wish it had a bit more room in the book.

The rest of Chapter Two gives us full descriptions of eleven "classical" angels, including the Cherubim (not the cupid-like ones we see today, the original bad ass ones), Malakim, Grigori, Seraphim, ect. And lists a dozen more in (very) short form. One interesting design decision was to create "weak" angels. For instance, a Malakim (what Michael is) has only two HD. However, the DM is supposed to give them class levels as well, so that two Malakim can be very different. It's not a traditional MM-style writeup at all. While this is handy if you're going to play in a campaign where the players are angels (something this book is designed to let you do) or if you're going to have lots of Angel NPCs, this is less useful as on-the-fly NPCs to fight (though, I suppose, players don't fight angels very often). I'm not sure if I like this or not.

Chapter Three is all about Angel Politics, roles, et cetera. It also discusses how they interact with mortals, ranging from how they appear to them to what exactly happenshappens when they're summoned. That kind of thing. It's actually all very interesting. Trust me.

Chapter Four is the geogprahy of heaven and hell. This is actually a relatively short chapter, which is unfortunate since I found it so interesting. Several sites in this chapter could fit into D&D planes like a glove.

Chapter Five is all about specific angels, mainly the Archangels. This is a really neat part of the book. The seven Archangels basically serve as good counterparts for the Demon Princes and the Lords of the Nine. The ones detailed are Gabriel, Michael, Raguel, Raphael, Remiel, Uriel, Zerachiel, and Metatron (aka The Word, who may be a/the God incarnate, and not really an angel).

For instance, this is what he has to say about Uriel:

Uriel
LG cherub Pal20/Angel of Destruction5/Angel
of Terror5
Archangel Uriel (“fire of god”) is a mighty angel whose martial
powers are second only to Archangel Michael’s. He is the Angel
of Chance†, Fire†, Libra (see Angel of the Zodiac†), Lightning†,
Music†, and Repentance†, as well as regent of the sun and an
angel of prophecy and salvation. He watches over thunder and
terror, meaning that all other Angels of Lightning answer to
him. He is captain of the angels of terror who guard the divine
thrones. When Adam and Even were banished from Eden, Uriel
guarded the gate of Eden with his flaming sword to prevent
them from returning. Later, Uriel helped bury Adam in Heaven
and was sent to warn Noah of the flood. He is known throughout
all of Heaven for his sharp eyes, sharp mind, and his objective
and impersonal manner in implementing his superior’s will.
When the Last Judgment comes, he will break the adamantine
gates in Hell so that all waiting souls may come forth to be
judged, even the ancient beings and monsters imprisoned since
the elder days.
When interacting with mortals, Uriel prefers a regal-looking and
physically impressive male form with light-colored close-cut hair.
He is never without his fiery sword.
Favored Weapon: Longsword; Domains: Good, Fire, Law,
Prophecy†, Sun,War

Unfortunately, the Archangels are missing full stat writeups. Apparently, knowing their angelic "race," class, and Dominion feats, we're supposed to work them out ourselves. Boo! Hiss!

Lastly, this chapter is rounded out by giving brief descprtions of a couple dozen more angels. For example:

Penemue (NE grigori Wiz10): Penemue (“the inside”) was
once Penemuel, a grigori sent to the Material Plane to educate
mortals. Once known for his ability to cure disorders of the mind
as well as stupidity itself, he transgressed against Heaven by teaching
mortals writing, which at the time was forbidden because it
could corrupt mortal thought. Angry at this unreasonable edict, he
rebelled against Heaven and is thought to still wander the mortal
world to this day.

Chapter Six is all about organizations. One interesting one is the Council of Wings, a group of Fiends and Angels alike who are just tired of the constant war for mortal souls. I mean, really, they've been doing it for millenia and they can only take so much. They're just weary of the constant battle, and so they're working to end the war, or at least minimize it. Obviously, neither side is happy about the Council's existence.

Chapter Seven is feats. Most require being an angel (or a fiend in some cases), and so are for further angelic customization. Many can also be taken by half-celestials and aasimar. Many of the feats are "Dominion" feats and can only bestowed upon an angel by a god. These are named as "Angel of Hope," "Angel of Baptisim," "Angel of Repentance," ect. These are all more powerful than normal feats, but hey, they're only for Angels chosen by their god, so it figures.

Chapter Eight is Prestige Classes, all generally for Angels. Angel of Death, Angel of Destruction, Angel of Terror. This chapter is very short.

Chapter Nine is Magic. It has a few new items, a seven new domains (chant, fiendslayer, grail, heaven, martyr, prophecy, righteousness), and about 30 new spells that angels and fiends often use against each other (but can just as well be used by/against PCs, for the most part). One interesting solution to bringing outsiders back to life is here, with spells like Fiendish Reincarnation, that lets you bring a fiend back, but as a lower-HD creature (for instance, a Pit Fiend could be brought back as a Glugeon). Then, he'd have to work for promotion to Pit Fiend all over again.

Chapter Ten is Creatures. A few new fiends populate these pages, along with a "Fallen" template for Angels that have turned evil but aren't any specific type of fiend, and some Angel NPCs that helps fix the problem of no MM-style entries for Angels in Chapter Two.

Overall, it's a good book, and I gave it four stars. However, if your campaign doesn't make use of the planes or celestials very often, it will be significantly less useful for you than it will be for me. But for what it is - a D&D treatment of angels - it's very good.

Though it has it's flaws, it's a wonderful take on the good side of Outsiders. While I think D&D "evil" has benefited immensely by adapting real-word mythology, much of this has been lacking from the "good" side, simply because authors have been hesitant to use Judeo-Christian mythology in D&D. Anger of Angels remedies this nicely. The one sticking point to me is price. At $10, it's an expensive pdf, even if it is 128 pages. Honestly, you may want to wait for the shelf version for this one if you don't have easy means of printing.

 

[Psion]

FYI, the LTI code used by the reviews board is not the same as the UBB code used by the message boards. I've replaced your quote tags with italic tags.

 

[GameWyrd]

Anger of Angels is a d20 supplement all about angels (you guessed, huh?) from Malhavoc Press and by Sean K Reynolds. It’s a PDF at the minute; I dare say a paperback will be along shortly. Some people will go buy this supplement because of the d20 logo, others because of the Malhavoc logo and others because SKR is the author. The best reason to go buy Anger of Angels is if you just want a whole lot of angel involvement in your game with no questions asked.

I like to ask questions though. Anger of Angels is one of those products that, I think, asks all sorts of questions about the typical D&D alignment system. Angels are, by and large, good. At one point in Anger of Angels there’s a discussion how different angels would go about clearing a land of tribes so their deity’s chosen people can move in. You what? That’s not good. That’s ethnic cleansing. One of the worse case scenarios for the not-chosen people is that Michael, the Archangel of War, sets about this task. He may lead a squadron of angels to route the tribes from the land. He may kill them all. He may kill these hapless tribes if they’re evil. Okay. What would make these tribes evil? Maybe they torture people. Maybe they engage in ethnic cleansing (oh! the irony!) or maybe they eat the wrong food on the wrong day. Yup. Eating the wrong food on the wrong day is in an example of a possible taboo from Anger of Angels. It could lead to an angel Falling. There are evil angels too, evil angels who serve the greater good but do those unpleasant tasks like murdering the first born as part of a holy plague. Evil angels aren’t Fallen Angels, not if they still serve their deity.

There’s plenty of information on the "biology" of Angels too. They’re not born as such and so I really shouldn’t call them biological. Angels are made, either by a deity or by one or more angels. Angels made by a deity are bound to it (you know, like a slave, but in a non-evil way or something) and those made by other angels tend to be free. Do you believe in divine density? In fate? In Wyrd? To put in another way, do you believe in free will? It’s an interesting question for religious folk most of the time. Imagine what it’s like for an Angel? Were they made so that they could make their own decisions? A third of angels have Fallen – so does this free will prove that they are flawed creations? Or do they simply live their pre-defined fate? In this case their fall is part of some divine plan. I love stuff like this – in my roleplaying, anyway. I’m less interested in, and rather puzzled by, suggestions that angels need to breathe air. All angels need to breathe air – even ophanites. An ophanite is typically a wheel of fire without lungs. God knows why they need to breathe air. Literarily, God knows why. These burning wheels of fire can wear two rings and a circlet. They get the standard D&D rule mechanics say-so of magic item slots. They don’t actually have to have the ring on a finger because they don’t have fingers but do need to be "holding" it to use it. Burning wheels of fire and other oddly shaped angels need to have a hand free in order to cast magic too. This isn’t two much of a bother as all angels count as having two hands. Confused? It’s simply really – the standard d20 rules apply. Don’t penalise angels for not being humanoid. I suppose it’s fair and wise to offer up rulings like this too. If you’re buying Anger of Angels to get the stats for Gabriel or the Metatron because you like to have everything in black and white for your game then you can enjoy this ruling in its black and white glory too.

Anger of Angels lets players play angels. There are 11 character race rule sets. If you want to play a snake-like Seraph then you can sit back and enjoy your total of +10 to attribute bonuses and a page of special abilities – then the effective level adjustment of +9. The back of the book suggests there as many new kinds of demons and fallen angels. There aren’t any character race rules for demons. I think the bullet point comment is right; there are as many demons mentioned by the product, just note that the level detail isn’t the same. Anger of Angels is entirely focused on the angels. I wouldn’t complain if we saw a demon companion though. What about the Distemper of Demons! No, no, my thesaurus has a better idea, the Dander of Demons. Why all the new angels then? That question’s answered explicably. If you want to have a go at an angel PC campaigns or even has angels as viable hands-on NPCs then its best to have access to lower level angels. Lower level angels can be made more powerful by adding character classes to them. I’ll offer up my observation that the Effective Level mechanic sucks. I’ll take the lower level angels as a ready way to avoid using it.

I don’t tend to like high powered games, especially not D&D flavoured ones, but Anger of Angels makes it tempting. The game takes most of its inspiration for the Heaven Hell conflict from Christian and Jewish teachings (the Old Testament, I guess) and spices the story up with titbits from other religions very occasionally. Angels raid Hell to rescue wrongly damned souls. They use Jacob’s Ladder to climb down from Heaven to the mortal coil. We’re left to speculate why souls might be wrongly damned (perhaps it’s not so bad eating food on the wrong day after all). Demons are those angels who have become corrupted by tormenting souls for power. That’s why demons are interested in souls. In Nomine gets a mention in the bibliography. Amusingly, so does Good Omens. I could have a fair bash at an In Nomine style game with this, there’s even a brief mention on angels in a modern setting.

Whoops! Have I not mentioned the prestige classes and feats? This is a d20 supplement. You knew they where there. There’s new magic and domains too. The prestige classes are the Angel of Death, Angel of Destruction, Angel of Fury, Angel of Terror and Fire-Speaker. Hopefully it’s pretty clear why I had lingering questions about the alignment system throughout the supplement. An Angel of Terror? A fanatic committing acts of terror in the name of their religion is a good guy. Their set of values allows, demands, it in the name of goodness.

And we’re back to the start. We’re back to the start because Angel of Angels provides the carefully balanced and generally useful new feats, spells and domains you’d expect from Malhavoc and SKR. Mind you, the FiendSlayer domain doesn’t quite have that quintessential rawness that the Fire, Earth and Death domains do. We’re back to the start because it’s worth repeating that Anger of Angels works best for you if you can avoid getting distracted by problems and questions spawned in D&D fantasy and which Anger of Angels has really just inherited. If you want a bunch of rules for Old Testament style angels then there’s little to quibble with here. I was torn between a 6 or a 7 for Anger of Angels on the GameWyrd scale. If I go to 6.5 and apply real maths rather than RPG maths then that goes to 7. I thought I’d point out the fine line since if you’re reading this on ENWorld then that rounding up is enough to turn a 3 star review into a 4 star one.

Oh. One other thing. Malhavoc products are printer friendly. They’re designed to be ink kind and printed back to back to save pages. In this case, though, I just couldn’t do it. I don’t know if I’d had too much beer, whether this was the first time I’d tried to print odd pages first and then even pages with Adobe Reader 6 or whether there was something weird with the internal page structure of the PDF. I printed off the even page first (great, 60 or so pages used), reversed the pages and stuck them back into the printer. I couldn’t get it to print the odd pages. The damn thing just wanted to print the even pages again. If anyone else has fought this battle – let me know.

* This Anger of Angels review was first published by GameWyrd.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Anger of Angels is your guide to introducing and including celestial themes to your campaign based around various types of angels.

It doesn't go quite as far as the Wizards of the Coast recent book, the Dragonomicon but it comes close. It provides numerous new angels with full racial details and sample stat blocks of standard angels. It provides new feats and prestige classes as well as role playing information and examples of the most well known angels, as well as background to fit this material into your campaign.

For me, it just doesn't break out of the high powered mode for me to actively use it much. Dragons for example, are often the enemy. A book full of new dragons is a theme but often a good one as dragons are bad. I can use them sooner or latter as active participants in a game. A book of angels, who aren't bad and who will act as patrons or substitute gods, useful, but not quite as useful.

In addition, in places where I thought stats would be useful, they're not there. The background information on the Eight Archangels is nice, and the fact that they have little notes on what level they are, useful. More useful would be actual stat blocks. Now I know, if you don't need them as foes, why have stat blocks on them? If they are to take their place in a standard D&D cosmology, it might be important to know who is more powerful in terms of devil/demon lords and archangels as one example. It might be useful to know what divine ranking one of these creatures can stack up against compared to an avatar. Little things that would help GMs running an evil Epic campaign using the Book of Vile Darkness.

One thing that most campaigns might find some use in is the Planar Geography that covers not only Heaven, but Hell. These aren't very detailed maps or listings of dungeon locations, but rather places of importance that can spark some interesting ideas for those GMs who choose to use these versions.

To get the five star rating, more details on using this type of supplement in a standard campaign would be necessary. For example, more feats, prestige classes and other material for mortals to either ally with, summon, slay, or banish angels. More maps with more details. More stats on the powerful angels themselves. More unique items. More examples of using these angels with specific deities, perhaps ones already introduced in other Malhavoc products or web expansions.

The different templates in the Creatures Section, insures that campaigns that aren't focused highly on heavenly matters, can still get some use out of them as there are four types of nephilite which can be added to a campaign rather quickly. This provides some different origins for monsters the characters may meet, as well as allowing two of the organizations to be utilized fairly quickly. The different organizations also give the GM some ideas on how best to use this material and put angels in as mentors or as far away patrons. These organizations will are one of the reasons the product gets a four as it allows the GM to tie the players and material world into the higher realms without making this a planescape type deal.

For those interested in running a celestial game though, this book offers a lot. Take racial matters. There are eleven fully detailed angelic races. These range from the lower powered Grigori, clocking in at a level adjustment of 3, to the Kalydrim, at 8 or the Seraphim at 9. Truly the stuff of potential high level campaigns. Each one includes background, personality, physical description, relations, alignments, religion, language, names, and adventurers. This follows the formula from the Player's Handbook well. The various Prestige Classes, along with the new type of feat, Domain, help customize the angels right away. Each of the big themes is covered: Angel of Death, Destruction, Fury, Terror and Fire-Speaker.

Art is up to Malhavok's usual standards but one of the artists isn't my style, The work is very charcoal like, but also very dark and the details, especially perhaps when printed on an ink jet, seem a little muted. Layout is standard two-column format with solid editing and fairly good use of white space. The PDF version has standard bookmarks making navigation easy.

The book's writing style flows easily. The research in the book is obvious to anyone with even a passing knowledge of Angels and their various representations in religion and myth. The listing of resources used is nice and allows those interested to go further with the material.

For the standard D&D game, Anger of Angels might be a little too focused on getting the goods on Angels as the focus. For the party that is heading to the Havens, Anger of Angels provides all the right tools.

 

[pogre]

Thanks for the useful review. As i am currently caught up in contemplating the cosmology of my campaign this book appears to be useful for brainfood.

I know I have not commented before, but there are some reviews I always check out - those by JoeGKushner.

 

[Psion]

Anger of Angels

Anger of Angels is a sourcebook for playing games involving angelic beings using d20 System fantasy rules, principally in the role of PCs, though other uses are possible as well. The book is written by WotC alumni author Sean K. Reynolds and published by Malhavoc Press, and is currently available in both PDF and print versions. This review concerns the PDF version.

The book is written to 3.5 standards.

A First Look

The PDF version of Anger of Angels is 130 pages long including color "cover" pages. The price listed in the document is $13, though there is almost always some discount at RPGnow.com.

The cover is illustrated by Alan Pollack and depicts an angel in the sky, plummeting in pursuit of another angel whose leathery weak betrays some sort of corruption.

The interior is black-and-white and features the talents of David Hendy, Sam Wood, and Kieran Yanner.

A Deeper Look

Reynolds begins his books by discussing the cultural origins of angels in our society. He states plainly that his presentation is well rooted in Christian and Jewish underpinnings that are the basis behind most western conceptions of angels, and proceeds with something of a disclaimer.

In the first two chapters, he describes the history and the nature of angels. The first chapter is the much more true to the cultural origins of angels, and tells a hypothetical history of angels that very strongly resembles the one I learned in Sunday school, with one third of the host of heaven turning against a singular god. Other cultural references include jealousy of mankind as a motivating factor, much akin to the way angels are depicted in the apocalyptic horror movie, The Prophecy.

Indeed, the author cites a good amount of bibliographic material in the book, so if you are looking for something a bit closer to the traditionally accepted image of angels in western theology, you may be impressed.

The second chapter hews a bit closer to angels as they are depicted in d20 fantasy. As he describes them, angels are immortal sexless beings, living spirits given form. Despite being sexless by default, angels with humanoid forms may "assume" a gender and even reproduce with mortal beings (thus half-celestials and aasimar.) Other aspects of angels discussed include free will, service to deities, becoming "fallen", angelic bodies, and equipment.

To this point, the chapter is primarily expositional text, but where needed, it is followed by appropriate game mechanics, such as physical traits of planetouched beings descended from various angel types and traits associated with corruption.

The major game rules content of this chapter is the introduction of a variety (11 to be exact) of angel races. These races all have racial hit dice and level adjustments stemming from their powers. However, these numbers might be quite a bit lower than what you are used to in angelic races in the d20 System, with possible starting levels as low as 5. The main reason given for this is to allow you to play using these rules over a wide range of levels by using the classes.

As a side note, the only class that any of these races feature as a favored class is their own racial HD; the author states this was specifically intended that way. That decision I question; these races will never advance their racial HD again, so the racial levels as a favored class should be considered a gimme. Any of these races could reasonably have a standard class as an additional favored class.

The third chapter is entitled Campaigns and continues to explore the ramifications of playing with angels. The section actually suggesting the variety of campaign approaches you may wish to take when running a campaign involving angels, most of the chapter actually concerns itself with deeper aspects of the campaign, including some variants from traditionally accepted d20 canon. For example, traditional D&D canon has it that spirits in the afterlife lose all memory of their former self, though this chapter discusses some possibilities if you do not follow that paradigm.

One mechanical inclusion in this chapter that will intrigue some players is a "leveled" version of the celestial and half-celestial templates, allowing their benefits to gradually be introduced into a game.

The fourth chapter, Planar Geography, presents details of heaven and hell as planar locales. While it would be possible to extract some concepts herein to use the more traditions d20 planar cosmology, the planes as presented here are almost a cosmology of their own. Much like the earlier planar material, this take on the planes draws more strongly from Judeo-Christian tradition, including features such as Jacob's Ladder and Purgatory.

The fifth chapter presents a small miscellany of "famous" angels. All angels have name, alignment, angelic race, and class. The Eight archangels have the longest descriptions and have clerical domains that allow them to function as patrons granting spells if the GM so desires. All angels herein have at least 10 class levels, and the archangels are well into epic levels.

The sixth chapter presents three organizations in the mortal realm but otherwise related to angels. These organizations are good starting points for campaigns involving angels or angelic beings. For example, the Brotherhood of the Pure Spirit blames the fall of angels on consorts with mortals and acts to eliminate celestial blooded creatures like half-celestials and aasimar.

The seventh through ninth chapters provide new character options specifically for angels, including feats, prestige classes, magic items, domains, and spells.

Many of the feats are exclusive to angels. Some are in a new category of feats called dominion feats. These feats must be specifically granted by a higher power, and are title by specific duties or sphere that the angel now has dominion over (such as angel of chance, angel of light, etc.) These feats grant spell like abilities once a day, but the angel may use it more times per day at the cost of gaining negative levels.

Of the remaining feats, many expand or enhance the racial abilities of the angel. For instance, the aligned damage reduction ability gives DR only negated by weapons of the opposing ethos, and extra spell like abilities does just that. Such feats would be beyond the pale of normal characters, but considering the hit dice and racial adjustment investment of angels pay, it's probably not inappropriate here.

Most of the prestige classes are similar in nature to dominion feats in that they take on a title corresponding to some aspect, like Angel of Death or Angel of Fury. All the classes are five level classes, perhaps to compensate for the fact that with many angels having so many effective levels, there is little room for a 10 level class.

The tenth chapter provides a variety of creatures appropriate for angelic campaigns, primarily as opponents, such as fiends, fallen angels, and other abominations. Many of the entries are template creatures (with an example of each), and include such oddities and nephilim (cursed offspring of a specific family on angels and mortals) and Vrykolaka (the corpse of a being animated by a fiend.)

In addition to these new creatures, the creatures chapter provides stat blocks for an unclassed version of each of the angelic races introduced earlier.

Conclusion

Overall, this is a very well done resource if you want to highlight angels in your campaign. The lower level assumptions and the more friendly to PCs composition makes them far more accessible as PCs than in existing angels, and the book supports the concept well with a nice mixture of rules material and expositional background.

The default Judeo-Christian model, though perhaps unavoidable, could make it more difficult to integrate these creatures into a game that uses a more typical D&D pantheon of deities.

Overall Grade: B+

–Alan D. Kohler