Dark Sun: Details a Bit Light on the Most Edgelord-y Setting

 There's a certain class of nerd that frequently complains about how, as various franchises have sought a broader appeal, that they've lost some of their grit.

I tend to be very wary of such nerds, because there's often an underlying (or, in the past decade or so, pretty overt) element of that that is some combination of racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, or in some other way being upset that people who aren't like them are able to enjoy something.

That being said, I do think it's true that in a more corporatized media landscape, there is a lot of sanding down of the edges on things. Many words have been written about how the current state of Hollywood seems afraid to portray any kind of sex or sexiness.

There is a lot of nuance, though, to how something like a Trigger Warning is supposed to work - it's not censorship, but just a heads-up for audiences that might have experienced related traumas. I think that there's a place for all subject matters to be dealt with in art, though the freedom to approach certain themes or ideas in the manner you wish to doesn't mean people don't have the right to complain about it (Freedom of Speech goes both ways).

All this is to say: the animated trailer for D&D's new Dark Sun two-book set is clearly meant to send the message: we're going brutal with this.

Now, the prospect of a Dark Sun book has long been rumored, and when we got such things as a Warlock Patron "Sorcerer King," it was basically confirmed that we'd have something set on the bleak world of Athas.

The trailer depicts violence in an utterly gruesome matter - and not, really, that much else. Warriors on some wasteland battlefield tear one another apart. The first shot is someone falling to the ground, presumably just felled (and for his sake, I hope he's dead by the time he hits the ground) before another warrior literally rips the skull and spinal cord from his body (Mortal Kombat-style,) rendered in unflinching detail.

The message, to my mind, is that the big tent approach D&D is taking is also making a space for the edgelords.

And... I actually think I'm fine with that.

Dark Sun has a lot of themes that are seen as radioactive in today's nerd culture, like slavery, for example. I think that these subjects can be explored in nuanced and interesting ways - it just means being careful.

Basically, just make such subject matter opt-in. The use of safety tools in TTRPGs isn't about banning anything that might be disturbing or dark, but it's about finding what is actually fun for your players. And while you might be very comfortable with lots of dark subjects, it's important to remember that the people you play with might not be.

But more likely than a binary "everything goes" versus "nothing that's rated above PG" it's more likely that there's going to be some nuance to it. For example, I know a lot of people (myself included) who are far more ok with sexual content than hyper-violent content (the logic being that sex is something normal people do all the time, and deadly violence is something I think we all would prefer to avoid in our lives). But you might also be more interested in slavery as a thematic element if it's about uprisings and rebellions, fighting for freedom, and not focusing on the brutal torture and abuses suffered by those bound by chains.

Every D&D group is going to have different perspectives and opinions, and while I think players signing on to play, say, Storm King's Thunder, are unlikely to encounter things that make it too uncomfortable to play, the same general "just be a compassionate person" guidance is really the key to approaching a setting like Dark Sun.

But the point is, by talking about it, you might also find that your players are all super into the hyper-violent brutality of the setting, and that gives you a big old green light.

Anyway, in terms of details about it, we don't really have much, other than that it'll be a two-book set. One book will be more player-facing, with subclasses and the like, and almost certainly, this will include the Psion class, the first full new class to be added to the game since the Artificer.

I have high hopes for the Psion, based on its UA playtest, and especially if we get some new spells for it.

The other book is, I believe, more of a setting book, though I'm not sure if there will be "a big adventure" or if it will be more akin to the 5.5 setting books where you get lightly-sketched adventures that could be done in a session or two.

I'm also curious to see if some of the gameplay restrictions from earlier editions will hold true in this. For example, I think metal is supposed to be very precious, with metal weapons (I heard) being as rare as a +1 weapon. I'm not sure I love the idea of nerfing martials that way, though if there are also consequences for spellcasting because of the warped way magic works there, maybe it'll balance?

I think this one is slated for "late 2027," which means we probably have about a year before we get our hands on it.

Going In Depth with D&D/WoW Crossover

 Ok, let's get the details straight here:

Dungeons & Dragons: World of Warcraft is the upcoming product coming in November that acts as a setting book for D&D using the world of Azeroth.

Subclasses:

Initially I misunderstood and though they would be giving us all the classes from WoW as full and independent classes, but apparently there are instead several subclasses, some of which aid in re-skinning an existing class to function as the equivalent in D&D.

Oath of the Ebon Blade and Oath of the Holy are two subclasses for the Paladin, the former letting you play as a WoW Death Knight (curious to see if it's akin to the "Oathbreaker" one we saw in UA) and the other being presumably a more healing-oriented Paladin like WoW's Paladin healing spec.

The Demon Hunter is a new ranger subclass. In WoW, Demon Hunters are those who decided to fight hellfire with hellfire, and took on demonic magic into themselves to fight against those evil fiends. Hopefully this will take some cues from the Hollow Warden to be a bit stronger than your typical Ranger subclasses.

Clerics get the Shadow and Discipline domains, based on the specs for WoW's Priest class. Shadow is all about blasting your enemies' minds with nightmarish psychic damage and communing with the eldritch power of the Void, while Discipline is built around healing your allies by striking your enemies, and has a bit of a "fire and brimstone" flavor to it. (Actually, I think this kind of flavoring isn't there as much anymore. It's a bit more of a mix of light and dark, primarily healing with the light and harming with shadow).

Barbarians will get the Path of the Elements subclass, which presumably is meant to give us the equivalent of an Enhancement Shaman, who sling elemental magic around them as they fight up in melee.

Then, three existing subclasses (maybe I'm wrong about the Oathbreaker/Ebon Blade connection) are the Path of the Spiritual Guardian Barbarian (which has a less obvious connection - I'd actually say this could also be an Enhancement Shaman - Shamans are literally people who commune with unseen spirits,) the Swashbuckler Rogue (equivalent to WoW's Outlaw Rogue) and the Warrior of Mystic Brews Monk (WoW's Brewmaster Monk).

Again, I actually think just making new subclasses is the more reasonable direction for this - adding Evokers, Shamans, Death Knights, and Demon Hunters as fully fledged new classes would be a lot. 

For species, there are apparently new "WoW-mapping" rules for 5 existing species (presumably Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, and Orcs) and then new ones for Dracthyr, Draenei, Earthen, Forsaken, Haranir, Mechagnome, Pandaren, Tauren, Troll, Vulpera, and Worgen. (Surprisingly no Goblin here, which technically haven't yet gotten a 5.5 version.)

There are going to be a whopping 60 new spells, which seem to all be player spells/abilities from WoW. Examples include Rune Strike (ok, actually, that's not a thing anymore,) Demon Spikes, Moonfire (here I thought that was just Moonbeam?) Also, naturally a bunch of magic items and such.

There's also evidently a profession system, which seems built around downtime activities, so I'm not sure how this will differ all that much from normal D&D crafting, but let me play an engineer.

There are evidently a crapton of monsters - 50 new monsters and 30 new "dungeon bosses," which I assume will be legendary creatures in line with the Horrors Within Darklords. I don't know if we have specifics, but I'd love to see Hogger as a legendary level 1 monster.

Seven classic (well, not all "Classic") dungeons are also included, revised to work as D&D dungeons. These are:

Azjol-Nerub (underground realm of creepy spider people who were absorbed into the undead Scourge)

Blackfathom Deeps (ancient elf ruins submerged in underwater caves and taken over by the apocalyptic Twilight's Hammer cult)

Deadmines (the headquarters of the Defias Gang, who seek to overthrow the government of the human capital of Stormwind)

Dire Maul (ancient Night Elf ruins taken over by ogres, ghosts, and ancient demons)

Onyxia's Lair (home to the evil and manipulative dragon who, fun fact, kind of engineered the animosity that led to the Defias Gang's war on Stormwind)

Scarlet Monastery (bastion of a group of crazed zealots whose fight against the undead has descended into paranoia and madness)

Shadowfang Keep (well, depending on if we're talking the original SFK or the post-Cataclysm one, it's either the castle occupied by the crazed archmage Arugal, who unleashed the werewolf-like Worgen upon the world, or it's occupied by a group of undead traitors to the Kingdom of Gilneas, who would rather sell out to the nation's enemies than acknowledge a kingdom mostly transformed into Worgen).

    I will say, I can't be upset by this. WoW has, of course, been a big influence on the way that I run D&D (my goblins basically always have Brooklyn accents, though this has also worked quite well in Ravnica - which you could argue was kind of an early in-house Universes Beyond). There's plenty of good genre cross-over, so it'll be very easy to pillage this content and use it in non-Azeroth-set campaigns.

I'm also eager to get my hands on some stat blocks: I want to see Murlocs and Abominations, and I'll be really curious to see what stat block they make for the Lich King (I think it ought to be higher-CR than a standard Lich, though perhaps in the low 20s to account for having a bunch of minions).

I was also quite encouraged by a lot of the UA stuff - the Mystic Brews monk, assuming it's an evolution of the "Intoxicated..." something something, which was itself built on the Druken Master, looked a lot of fun (specifcally the ability to brew various beverages that gave you effects, like blowing a breath of fire each round).

Naturally, some of the species could, in theory, be broadened out to be setting-agnostic. Tauren are Minotaurs, and the Lupin from Ravenloft could very easily stand in for Worgen. Mechagnomes aren't... quite Autognomes (think cybernetic gnomes rather than artificial gnomes).

But basically, this is a setting that I'm actually more familiar with than any established D&D setting, so it's aimed right at me, even if it has the stink of corporate synergy on it.

Dark Sun, Universes Beyond, and More D&D News out of GenCon

 Well, Universes Beyond is coming to D&D.

If you're unfamiliar, this terminology was established for Magic the Gathering, where they started making card sets in licensed IPs from other companies. Recently, those Universes Beyond sets have been coming out as Standard-legal (the most up-to-date, "current" format for the game, comprised of sets that have come out in the past few annual seasons).

As was leaked a few days ago, D&D will be getting its first of these UB materials set in the world of Warcraft. That's naturally a franchise I'm pretty intimately familiar with (nearly half my life playing WoW,) and certainly makes sense for a game like D&D, as it's also a broad fantasy setting.

The remarkable thing about it is that they plan to have 16 playable species (let's see, that'd be what, core 6 on each side makes 12, and then Pandaren and Dracthyr, maybe a few of the allied races?) as well as all 13 playable classes, with "specializations" for each... presumably these will just be other subclasses (though surely a Retribution Paladin would be a Oath of Vengeance Paladin?) I'm very curious to see how classes like the Demon Hunter or Death Knight are expressed in D&D terms. (EDIT: I got this wrong - it's just subclasses, which honestly seems way more feasible)

The "mic drop" at the end of the presentation was that the next UB setting they're going to do is Star Wars. Given the existence of SW5E, I imagine it'll also work fairly well. Personally, I'm less interested in actually setting a campaign/adventure there and more just drawing from it to help make a more science-fantasy version of Spelljammer (with used-future spaceships instead of sailing vessels in space).

I've had sort of mixed feelings about Universes Beyond - at this point, every other standard MTG set is a UB one. But unlike Magic, you aren't strong pressured to buy into each product in D&D, and tables can establish how much they want to allow or limit various content.

Anyway, moving on:

Dark Sun is official, and it's certainly being marketed as the ultimate brutal edgelord setting (evidently the books will have to be shrink-wrapped as it's meant for 18+ audiences only). The animated trailer they played was grisly, with bodies being torn apart. There was one shot in which a person seemed to send a pulse of psionic energy into a group of foes, whose heads then exploded, which I'm taking to mean that the Psion class is in (given that the Unearthed Arcana version was pretty well-received, I'm not surprised).

Greyhawk: Crown of the Witch-Queen is a new full-length adventure book coming next year, centered around Drelza, the vampiric daughter of Iggwilv/Tasha/Zibilna.

In the interest of supporting existing settings, they're going to third party companies to make books for the Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, and Eberron. Kobold Press will be working on the Forgotten Realms book, Ghostfire Gaming will work on the Ravenloft one (they have some background with Dark Fantasy after all) and Visionary Production and Design (which did Exploring Eberron) will work on Eberron.

There are also some updates planned for D&D Beyond, though I haven't really looked into that as much.

Anyway, given the leak about the Warcraft book(s), I don't think we got any really big shocks here - maybe Star Wars, though it's also kind of an obvious one to go for with Universes Beyond.

But I'm very curious about Dark Sun, a setting I've heard about a lot but am not super-familiar with. No news on the "villain" book just yet, though it could come later in 2027 - the Warcraft book is coming in November of this year.

The Intelligence Officer for D&D

 I have a deep affection for the brooding, depressing, paranoid world of the spy thriller. While I do enjoy an action-packed James Bond movie, the more realistic and pessimistic version of the genre, particularly from the works of John Le Carré (who actually worked in British Intelligence, and had to get special permission from his bosses to publish The Spy Who Came In From the Cold while still working in that field) inspires me more.

In a lot of ways, you get the grimy back-rooms and shady characters of a Noir-ish crime drama, but with much higher stakes.

Now, D&D is a game about fighting monsters, and so this is not a build that would necessarily work in a one-size-fits-all party. Instead, this would have to be for a campaign that really focused on spycraft and espionage.

When you think of the ultimate spy character in D&D, you probably think of a Rogue. I actually think you'll be a bit disappointed if that's the route you go. Rogues (setting aside their shortcomings as martial warriors) are built to move swiftly and silently, to be assassins and thieves (I mean, those are literally two of their subclasses).

But the way actual Cold War spycraft worked wasn't really how Hollywood portrays it. It wasn't the American CIA officer who snuck into some Soviet research facility to take photos of their new submarine plans. Instead, the officer would recruit someone working at that facility, meet with them in secret, and persuade them to take the extremely high risk in exchange for something - usually money, and perhaps a promise to eventually exfiltrate them to start a new life in the US.

And that's why I think that the ultimate spy in D&D would be an Eloquence Bard.

I'll note here that I think Liam O'Brien had a similar idea in Campaign Four of Critical Role. While his character, Halandil Fang, is more like the William Shakespeare of the setting (a brilliant playwright and head of the city's most prominent theater company,) the tasks set to him at the "Schemer's Table" have been very high-stakes spycraft (a little more of an underground revolution than Cold War spying, but similar "maintain a plausible cover while secretly undermining the powers that be" drama).

First and foremost, the thing that the Eloquence Bard gets right from level 3 is Silver Tongue, which is effectively the Rogue's Reliable Talent, but specifically for Persuasion and Deception checks. Admittedly, at low level, getting no less than a 10 plus your modifier on these rolls might still not cut it in really dire situations. But if we grab Expertise in these skills, and assume we start off with a +3 to Charisma, we'll be rolling no lower than a 17 by level 3.

These skills are going to be really core to what we do as a spy. Persuasion can sometimes be used as a "misleading the target by telling the truth in a certain way," but it's also going to be crucial if you want to persuade assets you meet to do what you need them to do.

Now, I'll allow for the following: you might actually want to start off at 1st level with Rogue, because you will get one more skill proficiency this way. Multiclassing with both will allow you to get more expertise, though I think it's possible we'll want to just stick to Bard for a little bit for spell progression.

Other skills that I think will be very helpful to have are Insight, Perception, Stealth, and possibly Investigation. As a Bard, we're not going to get all of those, but we could pick a species that gets one of them as a bonus (Elves, for instance, can get Perception for free - and the fact that they never technically sleep and can actually keep watch while Trancing could be very helpful).

We'll naturally want to focus on Charisma as our best stat, but I'd say after taking care of enough Con to have some meat on our bones, we probably want to have a bit of Wisdom. It is tough - as a Light Armor class that doesn't actually focus on Dexterity, we'll probably have a terrible AC, so you might instead push Dex, which will help with Stealth.

I'll also say this: there's a case to be made for grabbing a bit of Sorcerer here - primarily for Metamagic, as we'll likely want to have Subtle Spell available to us.

One of the biggest challenges that an intelligence officer has in a hostile place is that their movements are being tracked constantly. It was crucial, of course, to not actually be identified as an intelligence officer, because at best you'd have your diplomatic credentials revoked and be deported, and at worse, they'd capture you and interrogate you (probably under torture,) and maybe kill you (though as I understand it, it was the cultivated assets who tended to be tortured to death).

Thus, any means to be able to do your work without making it clear you're doing your work can be helpful. Still, depending on how your DM rules it, you might be able to get some spells off without Subtle Spell and still go undetected if you, say, break line of sight and maybe are allowed to mutter the verbal components under your breath.

So, what spells might we consider taking?

For cantrips, I think Message feels pretty obvious - if you could arrange for your asset to sit in a public place and do something innocuous (akin to reading a newspaper) while you're in an inn looking down from a window on an upper floor and can just message into their heads, you could get a lot of discussion done without the asset seeming to be speaking at all.

Prestidigitation actually could be really great - if you need to make a Dead Drop (where you don't actually see your asset, but just leave instructions or equipment for them stashed away somewhere) you could identify the place it's hidden with a secret mark that then, conveniently, disappears after an hour.

Next, for 1st level spells, Charm Person might actually be best used when cultivating an asset - you charm them and then make your case. They will know that you charmed them when the spell ends, but you might find a way to put them into a position where they'll forgive you.

Disguise Self is a great option, though I'll throw this out there: you might instead want to get proficiency with a Disguise Kit. Disguise Self is thwarted by Dispel Magic, or even Detect Magic, and Truesight. A mundane disguise does not set off any pings in any kind of magical detection. I don't think it would even fail under Truesight given that it's not like this isn't your "true form."

Illusory Script - yes, it's tough to justify this on a Bard, as compared to a Wizard - is tailor-made for this kind of thing. You leave a dead drop instruction for your asset, and if someone happens to stumble upon it, the writing might be something innocuous.

Naturally, any kind of illusion spell, from Minor Image to Silent Image to Major Image to Programmed Illusion, could be very useful in myriad ways.

Onto second level spells:

You might consider grabbing Enhance Ability both for your party but also for your assets. The duration isn't super-long, but if you can make contact before they go on a dangerous endeavor, it will make them more likely to succeed.

Detect Thoughts is also pretty obvious: both for finding hidden listeners and also getting better angles to work on people.

Invisibility is obviously pretty helpful.

Suggestion is a pretty powerful one - you can effectively make an asset of someone if they fail a wisdom saving throw. While this probably won't be as reliable as someone you really coach through things, it can work in a pinch.

Now, rather than going through every spell level, I'm going to just talk about a few highlights. Naturally, as a Bard, at level 10 we can start getting any spell from the Wizard, Cleric, or Druid list, so the possibilities become very broad.

Nondetection could be helpful, but I think if you have to cast this constantly to avoid being detected, you're probably screwed. It might work if you're sending someone in where they're not supposed to be, but the whole point of cultivating an asset is that they are supposed to be there. Now, it could help your asset avoid getting their mind read via Detect Thoughts, but that's a pretty specific situation.

Mislead, a 5th level spell, is basically built for spycraft. You simultaneously go invisible while an illusory double of you takes your place. It's kind of what Loki does in the Thor movies, and if you're being tailed, you can send the illusion around a corner and have it vanish, or even have it just sit at a cafe doing nothing for an hour while you put some distance between you and the people surveilling you.

Modify Memory feels like a real must-have, the kind of major ripcord you might need to pull if a foe witnesses you.

Rary's Telepathic Bond can give you a really lasting connection with your asset in case they need guidance while they're on a mission for you.

Mind Blank and Glibness can both be really helpful. Frankly, as someone running a campaign with a high-level Bard, I kind of hate glibness because it just says "I succeed on all Charisma checks" (he's got expertise in all four charisma skills,) so when his character needs to do a high-stakes argument, there's very little interactivity to it.

But Mind Blank is one that could really help you if you're coming up against enemy mind-readers.

I will say that I don't know how sustainable a grim Cold War spy campaign will be at higher levels. I think Dark and Gritty in D&D really works best in tier 1, where bad luck or bad decisions can truly put you in a bind. The higher-level players get, the more ripcords they have to pull, and while you might be able to sustain the tension by finding some conceit for you to still need to empower low-CR NPCs to do these tasks, at a certain point, the game really allows a high-level character to have a better chance than any Apprentice Mage or Warrior Veteran.

Still, I think you could have a lot of fun if you played a character like a real spy, if a DM is willing to buy in to that fantasy.

Finally Really Figuring Out the Systems of Cyberpunk 2077

 Ah, ok!

So apparently the various bits of Cyberware you can get installed will often scale with a given attribute. I'm super-invested in Intelligence, so I've been going through and making sure that I get all pieces that scale with that, though there are some slots that don't seem to have any pieces that work with it.

My general sense is that a character will want to kind of mix their traits, but to largely focus on just two or maybe three. I've been racing to what I assume is the cap for Intelligence at 20 (I assume it's the cap for everything - not unlike stats in D&D) and then will probably go for Technical Ability next.

I'm not really champing at the bit to start a new V, though I have thought that a kind of corpo cyborg samurai would be fun, maybe going Body/Reflex and Cool?

Anyway, I am having the usual open world issue where part of me just wants to race through the main story missions while part of me doesn't want to get ahead of myself and ensure I'm doing enough side quests to keep all my gear as top-grade as possible.

I've now done a story chapter outside the city, which is a nice bit of scenery change, and I've met some of the Nomads, one of the three backgrounds you can pick, including one character I assume is going to be a major figure in the game moving forward.

The weird irony of my build is that I don't really care that much about weapons. I basically only fire when my hacking RAM is on cooldown. And I've gotten pretty good at hacking into cameras in a location and then using those to do quickhacks on the foes inside. Ideally, they're all down before I even step into the building. I did a side-gig where I had to rescue a doctor who had been held against her will by Maelstrom (a real psychotic and evil gang) and more or less wiped out all the enforcers there while sitting up on some ducts outside the building.

The risk here is that they can often trace your location when you do this, but ideally you take them all out before that becomes a problem. I can't recall if I have some perks that help me mitigate that.

Anyway, I now have all the cyberware slots filled (except the extra ones you unlock with perks in the Technical Ability tree) including an Intelligence-scaling Monowire, which has proven a pretty effective melee weapon.

Also, the Cyberpsychos don't seem so impossible to deal with now. You're generally supposed to take them down nonlethally (the overall goal of these missions is to try to find a way to rehabilitate them,) and luckily the game seems to assume that's what you're trying to do, so I think when they hit 1% they go down and turn off any Damage-over-time effects you have. (Contagion, a quickhack that does poison damage over time and spreads between foes, has proven a very efficient way to deal with big groups of enemies - though it doesn't work on robots and drones).

Anyway, I find myself flooded with various Fixers and people calling me with jobs, which I think is a measure of my Street Cred - basically, as you do more missions and jobs, you earn a reputation. Mine must be as a terrifying Netrunner who can wipe out a building without being seen. Indeed, given the things I've pulled off, I do think that it makes sense I'm making a name for myself.

I am super curious to see what the game's story is like for the other two backgrounds. It makes total sense that my Street Kid character would get mixed up in all of these dangerous jobs, but I'm really curious to see how a Corpo gets dragged into it. I could imagine a world in which it's a totally different story, or at least the route to getting involved in the biochip heist is a different one, but I don't know.

I Want Scarier Celestials in D&D

 So, I was browsing YouTube, as is my wont, and the Richaadeb cover of The Promised Consort showed up. His cover, and of course, the original, really sell the majesty of that boss fight. While my main memory of the fight in-game is beating my head against a wall until I finally just barely managed it on my most overpowered character (I've gotten to the fight on a couple other characters, but haven't beaten it a second time,) if you take a step back and really consider the context of the fight, it's profoundly epic: a fight against both a demigod and a newly-crowned actual god.

Much like our fight against the Elden Beast in the base game, I interpret the music that plays as essentially being an ethereal choir singing the praises of the divine power that we're in the middle of fighting, exhorting them to best us (though I sort of feel like maybe the choir in the Elden Beast fight starts to kind of sing instead of the fulfillment of fate as we gain the upper hand).

Demons (or fiends in general, if we're talking D&D) make for great monsters to fight because they're definitionally evil (well, depending on the setting and game, I suppose). Their capabilities make them terrifying, but there's a moral clarity that slaying demons is an automatically correct thing to do.

It's very rare in D&D that we fight Celestials. Largely, that's because player characters tend to be good guys, and Celestials are often also good guys. This isn't strictly always true - Celestials cover beings of the good-aligned upper planes, yes, but also the neutral planes, like the Rilmani of the Outlands, or Sphinxes (who were monstrosities in 5.0,) who aren't really tied to any specific plane.

In D&D's cosmos, Fiends and Celestials really play quite similar roles, being the denizens of the outer planes, and typically the servants of the gods.

I... sort of like the idea of a different distinction, though:

D&D's alignment system is iconic, of course, and it's also the organizing principle behind the Outer Planes, which I love. But it's also something that's been downplayed in recent years (I don't even remember if the 2024 Player's Handbook even suggests you declare an alignment).

I think it's notable that Devils are the Lawful Evil variety of fiends (ok, sure, Rakshasas are as well - and I do think it's kind of fascinating that they're also from the Nine Hells but exist outside of the diabolic hierarchy). Devils, though, are all kind of linked to one another as a single hierarchy that ultimately answers to Asmodeus. And while Asmodeus is a god, he is also, at least in older Planescape content, considered a lesser god because he's not in the Nine Hells by his own will. In a lot of ways, he's really just the most powerful archdevil, and figures like Mephistopheles or Mammon aren't gods at all, even if they might be extremely powerful.

While not unified like devils, demons are their equal and opposite numbers, inhabiting the Abyss and typically serving one demon lord or another. But similarly, these demon lords, even the mightiest among them, Demogorgon, aren't gods either.

It's almost like fiends sort of occupy this odd environmental niche within the Lower Planes.

Now, in fairness, it's specifically angels, and not Celestials in general, who I believe are described as directly serving gods. I can't recall if Guardinals or Archons are described as playing those roles.

But I do think there's a real opportunity here: that Celestials could be the creature type that serves gods - any gods.

In the 5.5 Monster Manual, they changed Empyreans in the following way: in 5.0, they were always Celestials, whereas in 5.5, they're described as being either Celestials or Fiends, depending on their alignment.

I actually don't love this. I think that a being that is so directly tied to the gods, maybe a minor deity in its own right, should be a Celestial. Again, that's a matter of taste and vibes, not an argument based on the canon lore.

The Celestial servant of an evil god would then make for a potentially epic encounter.

Let me tell you about some of the lore in my homebrew setting:

The broad pantheon is a little complex: the gods are not all the same kind of deity, with some that are ascended mortals, some that are from other settings (I caved and had a few canon deities show up in the world, though I think their worship is pretty rare) and there's one deity that some people consider to be the only true god of the setting while others think that it's just another deity that hasn't been accounted for in most religious traditions (they're both kind of right). One is even secretly a Great Old One (though a friendly one).

But the most commonly worshipped deities are at least depicted by mortals as a classical polytheistic pantheon akin to the Greek gods. And among these, there are gods of light and gods of dark. Generally, light and dark correspond with good and evil, but I really like there to be just a little bit of ambiguity there. Deities can choose which Outer Plane they reside in (or even if they want to live in a different part of the multiverse) so the fact that the goddess of the hunt resides in the Beastlands doesn't necessarily mean she's all that nice - but she does count as a Goddess of Light as a result.

The Gods of Darkness reside in the lower planes, but they have at least one powerful angel that serves them. None of the angels look remotely "normal" in their true forms (Magon, who's the supremely heroic and benevolent servant of Doros, the God of Sunlight and Justice, has a head like a blazing sun around which four floating masks orbit to just barely shield those who see him from his blinding glory - naturally, he takes on a more classically humanoid shape when interacting with mortals) but the Angels of Darkness are quite unnerving.

As an example, Valthatria is the Angel of Pain, and serves Vyssar, the Goddess of Murder, Torture, and Cruelty. Valthatria's most distinguishing feature is that her head is detached from her body, but held to her shoulders by six sculpted, iron hands that appear riveted in place to both her shoulders and her face.

There are a couple reasons I like making these Celestials instead of fiends.

The first is just an aesthetic one: I'll concede that the variety of fiends in the Monster Manual actually gives you a ton of flexibility in how one might look, from the classic fallen angel Erinyes to the weird rotting vulture-thing that is the Vrok, I just kind of think that I like calling these celestials.

The second is a mechanical distinction with lore implications: while it's not super-common, there are things that are more effective against Fiends, probably most famously Divine Smite. As elite servants of evil gods, I like the idea that a Paladin is no longer at any sort of advantage when fighting the Angel of Pain. Righteousness and just "being the good guy" aren't enough to help you against these beings.

I also like that it just kind of muddies the waters a bit: you can't be totally sure where you stand.

I'll note that I think Brennan Lee Mulligan and I are on a similar wavelength here, as the lore of Araman, the setting for Critical Role's fourth campaign, makes a major distinction. We haven't fully plumbed the depths, but with Tyranny, a player character who is explicitly a demon (and not in the way that Draw Steel Devils are basically just people who come from the Seven Cities of Hell, but truly an ancient being of pure concept only recently given flesh - though I suspect she uses Tiefling stats) we get a sense of what fiends are like (and it's actually a bit goofy) while Celestials, in this world where mortals felled the gods (who are way more petty like Greek, or even Norse, gods,) may have once been majestic, but are now basically eldritch horrors (not sure what aberrations are in that setting, or if they'll even use them).

I've never read or seen Berserk, the manga (and anime adaptation) that was a major influence on FromSoft's Soulsborne games, like Elden Ring, but I'm given to understand that "angels" and "gods" in that are truly horrifying things (and that the main villain is a former mortal and ally of the main character who betrayed everyone to achieve apotheosis - likely a major inspiration for Miquella, the ascendant god whose "promised consort" we fight). Indeed, I think a lot of Japanese media depicts angels as horrifying monsters (I know that's a big part of Neon Genesis Evangelion,) the cultural underpinnings of which I'm not super qualified to analyze.

I also think there are some interesting themes you could play with regarding Gnostic ideas: there's a concept in Gnosticism (though I sometimes conflate this with Manicheanism, so bear with me) where the physical world is a falsehood and prison created by the Demiurge, a being who thinks itself to be God, but is not - whether this is out of malice or out of misguided ignorance is open to debate. But the acts of this demiurge and the world created by them are blamed for the suffering and evils of the world. You could imagine that antagonistic Celestials are there to enforce the will of the Demiurge, and thus play an antagonistic role toward the heroic player characters.

The 2025 Monster Manual has 17 Celestials, which is way more than the 2014 one, due in large part to the changes to Sphinxes (and there are more of them) and the re-classification of many Beasts to now be Celestials (screwing over Moon Druids and anyone with the Polymorph spell). But that's compared to 54 Fiends found there - it's clear which type they expect players to fight more often.

But I guess what I'd look for is some really solid high-level Celestials. Angels are actually already there - the least powerful is CR 10. But I'd love to see plenty of CR 20+ Celestials to truly present epic encounters. Radahn from Elden Ring would probably have been a CR 10 Legendary creature in his first fight out in Caelid (where he's lost his mind with the Scarlet Rot) but is, like, maybe CR 30 when we fight him as the Promised Consort (being the hardest boss in all of Elden Ring and essentially the true final boss given that his defeat finishes the DLC).

(This is maybe a whole other post, but we could maybe also get some high-level, legendary humanoids as well. I kind of love that Draw Steel's "biggest, scariest monster" is just the greatest human soldier who has ever lived.)

Cyberpunk 2077 is Making Me Curious to Try the TTRPG

 I think I'm starting to get into the groove of Cyberpunk 2077. I think the game could do a little better job at tutorializing things, but I think I've more or less gotten the sense of how to upgrade my character. I still sometimes run into a Cyberpsycho that tears me apart super-quick, but I had a moment where I truly felt like I had "gotten" my character.

Focusing largely on Intelligence (though I'm not sure if I should be spreading my stats more widely or actually refunding everything to just go straight to the top with Int) my primary combat strategy is Quickhacks. Now that I've managed to purchase and upgrade some of these hacks (and upgrade my operating system, which is a piece of cybernetics that requires you to see a Ripperdoc) I've been able to pull off some super nasty things.

When on a mission to rescue a friend/associate from a place that makes "XBDs" (think the movie Strange Days, in which people make recordings of individuals' experiences to be able to live through them - normally this is something like fun sexy times. These are called "Braindances," or "BDs," but the black-market, real horrifying shit is referred to as either Black BDs or XBDs, which is stuff like snuff films and the like... kind of like in that movie, whose mere trailer gave me nightmares as a kid) I hopped up into a damaged building across from the one where the friend was being held, and took out the single guard sitting watching TV next to a computer console. Taking that guy out silently from behind, I hacked into the security system via the console, which gave me access to the security cameras. And from the vantage of the cameras, I was able to hack various other objects around the facility, drawing guards to various explosive objects with "Distract Enemies" and then detonating them with another quickhack. Those who weren't near any such objects, I simply hacked their cyberware directly, taking them down with Overheat and Short Circuit. With, I think, a single exception, none of this was with my own eyes, simply doing it via the cameras. Once the place was cleared out, I simply walked around and looted everyone.

It really made me feel like a legendary hacker, and while things were a bit messier down in the basement, it was one of those really satisfying times when everything felt like it was working as my character build was meant to.

I have an admittedly weird aversion to Cyberpunk as a genre. Maybe it's that the world it portrays is too much like the one that I live in. I mean, we're in a world where megacorp tech companies have absurd degrees of power and influence. I find it less fun that the genre depicts a world in which corporations and gangs are the biggest powers, with governments kind of hanging on as weak vestigial structures. The latter element in particular feels darkly relevant today, with the cheapening of America's government under the helm of the most unabashedly corrupt president in the country's history.

I guess when I think about stories built around betrayal and mistrust in a dark and grimy world, I gravitate more toward Cold War-era spy stories, where the big powers are the governments, and a lot of the darkness comes from the fact that both sides are so in the weeds about the tactical game of spycraft that they lose sight of the ideals that brought them into conflict in the first place.

Another thing that's kind of odd is that the characterization of the high-ranking "Corpos" is built very much around this kind of stoic Japanese honor, and also a focus on legacy. The real world's corporate overlords don't seem to be interested in building lasting institutions so much as getting while the getting's good. They're also much more strangely ideological, believing in weird science-fiction-y ideas without seeming to grasp that they'd be the villains in such stories.

Anyway, I'm curious to see how the game maps to the TTRPG system. Naturally, we've had plenty of games that are based on or at least inspired by TTRPGs. Baldur's Gate III works remarkably similarly to D&D 5E (with a few tweaks here and there). I believe the most recent edition of Cyberpunk is Cyberpunk RED, which is set between the eras of 2020 (the version from the 80s) and 2077 (not sure if there's a tabletop version of that or if it's just this game).

Funnily enough, having run a Ravnica-based D&D campaign for over six years now, I could for sure see a reimagining of the setting as a Cyberpunk one - just turn the Guilds into Megacorps and you're about 90% there. And hey, there's even precedent for Cyberpunk fantasy with Shadowrun. House Dimir is now an information technology corporation, the Orzhov Syndicate focuses on "corporate solutions." The Simic Combine is full-on biotech.