At 6:05 there is like a 3 second long black screen which was supposed to be a fun edit. It got destroyed in the render somehow which is a bummer. It's way too late to fix it now, but here is a link to the 3 seconds of content you missed out on: twitter.com/DungeonPapa/status/1490067456110567424
You say “villains pretending to be good” & “inflexible celestial worldview,” *I* hear: “The players find themselves on the wrong end of a word archon’s maul after taking several jobs from a seemingly benevolent patron with secret evil schemes they’ve been unknowingly assisting.”
The word Archeon reminds me of this quote from Terry Pratchett & his decidedly (dark) fae take on Elves: “Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies. Elves are glamorous. They project glamour. Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment. Elves are terrific. They beget terror. The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning. No one ever said elves are nice. Elves are bad.” - Terry Pratchett "Lords And Ladies."
Haha, yes! I feel the same way. We've lost so many unique words to indicate specific qualities because they have all just become enthusiastic synonyms for "good". In fact, the word "nice" itself is an example because the original word meant "nasty" and it completely changed its meaning.
So basically Human Logic: "Being evil is ok if I can think of some reason to excuse my actions as justified." The Word Archon: "Actually that is the most evil form of evil."
Nobody would phrase it that way, it's always "for the greater good." Remember those who carried out some of the worst atrocities in history have usually done it in the name of "a better tomorrow."
The Word Archon follows a deontological moral system. This is what is meant by, "seeing means as ends in and of themselves." Look up the philosophy of Immanuel Kant if you want a full treatment of this perspective. Incidentally, this is the kind of moral system that characterizes the Lawful Good alignment in D&D.
@@HenriFaust To me the definition of Chaotic Good is nothing evil I do is ever intentional, and having friends is just a matter of working hard to find the people who care. But I have no idea if this is canon.
For the fallen word archon idea, you could have a great old one's true name that, upon being learned, corrupted the archon to spread the G.O.O.'s influence.
Perverting words also works for Demon Lords' means and ends. Also Devils and Daemons would pervert words, not for the sake of it, but as a means to an end.
@HenriFaust if you want corrupting words you need look no further than 2 of the best books in 3.5 the complete arcana and the book of vile darkness They are dark words of power just like the words of creation the gods use to make things, but they make terrible things happen, uttering a single syllable of dark speech can shatter objects and daze and deafen any person holding or wearing the object (1 round and one min respectively) Dark speech is definitely a great way to corrupt one of them
Doxy used Power Word: Sass 👍🏼 Encounter idea: party finds a word archon paralyzed in thought since it's encountered a conceptual paradox in reorganizing its wings. It's slowly on its way to becoming a gray philosopher.
Celestials and fiends are perfect reminders that the alignment system is from the perspective of the Astral planes and not contained with the conflict two mortals have with each other on some rock. I can see word archons acting in a way a mortal might see as evil, but have a goal that is good in the eyes of the cosmos
Onomancy is actually a minor to major thing in most of my campaign settings, simply because the Words of Power for Oath, Pact, and Contract are all widespread, or at least known by most if not all major organizations in the setting. This leads to widespread use of contracts magically reinforced by writing the word the corresponding word of power at the top bottom and sides of any contract, thus turning said piece of paper into the equivalent of a Geas Scroll, where the signatories must carry out there end of the contract, or have the corresponding penalties placed upon them, or suffer 1d4 ticks of Non-healable True Damage once a month, week, or day (depends on the tier of the contract) until they either carry out their end of the deal, at which point they heal at the same rate, or die a True Death, where there soul is immediately cleanse of its memories, personality, and karma and shunted off into the Ethereal or Positive energy plane to await reincarnation. These contracts, as mentioned above, come in three different tiers (Mortal, Heroic, and Legendary) and are based on the number of times the Word of Power is written on the paper (once, twice, and four times respectively), and the clarity of meaning that the Word of Power was written with, ie a low level Word Contractor/Transcriber with a loose and/or hazy understanding of a Word of Power's meaning cannot create a legendary-class contract. Likewise, a high-level Word Contractor/Transcriber cannot dilute their understanding of a Word of Power's true meaning, and thus cannot create weaker Contracts. The Mortal and Heroic contracts, while powerful, are still within the realms of mortal beings, and can be broken with a Remove Curse spell, cast at the 6th level for the Mortal Contract and 9th level for the Heroic. The Legendary Contract, however, is as close to the absolute true meaning of the word a mortal can get without being an Archon or divine/transcendent being themselves (think Demigods, actual Gods, Demon Lords, and anything of equivalent power), and is for all intents an purposes, a quasi-divine artifact on the level of a 10th or 11th level spell. A Legendary Contract cannot be broken in any way outside of two; divine intervention, with the God or Goddess summoning the contracted into their divine realm (where they are as powerful as they are ever going to get without merging their various aspects across the multiverse) and forcibly breaking the contract, at which point all parties involved (the contract's creator, signitories, and the god that broke it) will suffer a major backlash, which will also probably kill the contractee, but at least it's not a True Death, and they can thus be ressurected (unless they've already lost half their total HP to True Damage, at which point, flip a coin). The second option is to entreat the Archon of Oaths/Pacts/Contracts/Vows themself (as they may have a tangible presence in the setting) and ask them to annul the contract, but this is far less likely to happen, as the Archon Archon of Oaths/Pacts/Contracts/Vows actually gains power from the contracts in existence and those fulfilled, and the higher the tier of contract, the more power the Archon gains, and that power is on an exponential scale. Annulment of a Legendary Contract would not only lead to a massive power drop for the Archon of Oaths/Pacts/Contracts/Vows, but has a 1 in 10 chance of temporary damaging there connection to their chosen Word of Power for 1d10 centuries, making them the equivalent of an archangel in strength; still a powerful immortal entity, but not one capable of standing on a stage with Demon Lords and Demigods.
I don’t care what my DM says I still stand by that if my Kenku gets hit by power word kill and is revived that he should automatically be able to use power word kill back at the enemy by mimicking them and that would be particularly annoying and devastating to a Word Archon
I love weird lore interactions like this. A similar concept I had was that running gag people have with fae asking "can I have your name(s)?," before magically taking it, being used on a god, who NEEDS their name to maintain and grow their portfolio.
Plot hook: A party needs a spell that does a very specific thing. A Word Archon likely has a power word for that somewhere on its wings, a word in a language long dead to mortals. The party has to convince it to part with the only remaining record this word ever existed, and its very protective of its unique magic.
For Banishment, I would consider that bandit as being native to the Material Plane, even if they are a fiend temporarily. Banishment doesn't care about the creature type, but the plane of origin.
Slightly different, but it's like the Abyssal Chickens in Descent into Avernus. Sure, demons originate in the Abyss, but the chickens in that book are spawned in Avernus so they'd be sent back to the Nine Hells if Banished elsewhere, or they'd be Banished to a harmless demiplane if the spell is cast on one in Hell.
I definitely think RAW you’re correct. It’s less clear cut with some other spells but banishment especially has that wording “plane of origin”. If a fire elemental was “born” on the material plane, I think it would be considered it’s home plane now.
Whatever others say well designed celestials are rare(ish) enought in 5e for me to be excited here. The focus on power words also is neat bit of spice to usual lets just reflavor stuff to do radiant damige that some of my DM hace done.
@@DungeonDad I'd love to see the Hound and Lantern Archons return...the Lantern would make a great counterpart to the low level fiends as an option for Celestial Chain Warlocks. I used to love having Hound Archons around just because they worked very well as a Celestial that can just blend into the world...and the good dog thing along with the All Dogs Go To Heaven bit...plus they are the closest of the Archons to being an angel in how they act. Personally, both Archons and Guardinals need to return...
Honestly, I have a nerdy celestial warlock a little fixated on ritual magic, and while I already have a definite vision for who his patron is, this would actually be a way more thematic and flavorful option than what I had in mind back when I made them.Thank you for another great video, they're always entertaining.
I like to use old characters (especially from other editions) as patrons, my warlock (3.5) needed a variant patron since my dad won't let me have a demonic patron (it's dumb I'm 24 like calm down I'm already a pagan this won't turn my away from religion lol) so I'm using one of my previous fey characters as his patron She's also clinically insane so that makes her a fun patron
"any word archon worth their font" I couldn't even laugh. This joke struck me so hard. That was amazing, my dude. You deserve a medal. Not a joke. This now lives rent-free in my head.
This is giving me Earthsea Cycle vibes. I’ve always wanted to do a campaign dealing with the power of true names. If you haven’t read it, knowing someone’s true name allows you to command them to do a single thing, for the rest of their life they have to obey that rule. No exceptions.
When you talked about the Banishment spell, I remember when I figured out that I could get myself back to the material plane by casting Banishment on myself and willingly failing the saving throw
There was an NPC in Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark who served a very similar function. You needed to seek her out to learn the true names of certain characters in order to save the city/world. You could definitely create a plot hook for a Word Archon along a very similar story arch.
Again a very interesting creature and again one I will heavily overthink: Would a Word Archon have any ambition of changing an evil concept? I personally see them more as lawful neutral, guardians of concepts no matter if good or evil, opposed to any form of either corruption or purification. Maybe you could use it as a fun enemy to punish players doing stuff in an unconventional style by enforcing "canon", like forcing the half-orc to rage or the goblin to betray the party Or just have them as guardians of a cool old library, that would work, too. Als now excuse me, but I have to find a copy of the book you mentioned. (36 warlock patrons? I knew of about 8 and it took hours to decide.....)
A lawful character wouldn't care about changes to words after the fact, at least not without some personal motivation. They would only work to stop words from changing.
I think I've seen it before but never used it even though I still main 3.5 My current character is a warlock who took flaws to be able to have metamagic spell like abilities (it's a separate feat than the normal ones) so he can unleash total situational control in any combat (well if there are no more than 6-14 combatants or groups of combatants) Ge can only do his one thing but he is fucking awesome at the one thing he does
This is a good base for a lot of things I never knew about there being many power words so you can make some whacky spells with that in mind would also be interesting to find the corpse of one and see the parchment and set out to find all the parchment to prevent bad things from happening or return them to the other archons I imagine power word life forcefully bring a target under a certain cr or lol back to life without a choice or power word earth just rupturing the ground or fixing a chasm crazy things like that
Idea: One of these that appears as an eleven year old girl in a superhero costume with a pet monkey who fights evildoers like fiends, undead, and people with mouse brains stuck to their heads.
I'm really glad I stumbled onto this video. I recently realized that there's no divine magic wielding 5e class that uses INT as a spellcasting modifier, so I started making my own homebrew fill-in player class. I call it the "Archivist" (which i realize is also the name of a UA subclass, but that never became official content), and the class is all based on the power of entwining divine magic with special writing. In addition to keeping records, Archivists strive to harness the power of this form of magic for a greater cause and keep its secrets hidden from those that would abuse it. The word archon seems like the perfect type of creature to serve as further inspiration for this class!
I know the Tomes from 3.5E all had a bad rap from being fairly unbalanced (or very in the case of the Tome of Battle), but they were all such cool concepts that I think should be taken from or inspire new things for 5E that just feel like it's missing. Especially shadow magic and onomancy.
I think 3.5 wasn't even unbalanced it was just made for a different kind of player than 5e, im the kind of person who has tons of books memorized as if I was actually a person who lived in the world of magic if you have that mindset you'd know from overhearing adventurers growing up or learning about them in school how each monster works and what to do if you run into them 5th is much more of just a game where 3.5 really required you think like a character which is a lot more difficult/very different than the vibe I get when I play 5e You also had to be willing to accept some more strange parts of 3.5 like the fact that with enough items, skill, and a bit of luck you could theoretically become more charismatic than a goddess of beauty. Like that's just the way that world works
I'll commend you on not having a complete dumpster fire of a channel. 😜 Part of my brain had completely blocked truename magic. That got ridiculous some times, and that classes/PrClasses that revolved around the concept of truenaming got quite frightening.
I remember In NWN Hoards of the underdark You could learn true names of many characters including Mephistopheles and use his name to enslave him by the way anyone interested in Mephistopheles true name it's "Thra'axfyl the Ambitious" enjoy commanding the 8th duke of hell
Man, if I was a celestial warlock, this lady would be my patron, lol. She fits me so well because not only am I really into angels IRL, but I'm also an English major/writer with a slight obsession on using words correctly. Nothing drives me crazy in the same way as people being sloppy with their language to overexaggerate their point (reducing the impact of a more intense word to describe a lesser situation) or the twisting of words with semantics and technicalities (Oh no, I didn't buy this drink even through I'm underage, I just gave money to my legal friend and he bought it.) There's more examples of common misuse of language, but I'm sure you get the idea. If this lovely being appeared before me and offered me the task of being a divine enforcer of the truth of the universe and preserving the actual specific meaning of words, I'd take it in a heartbeat! lol.
Funny enough a younger coworker asked me to do that for them the other night. He said "don't worry, I'm turning 21 in 3 weeks" so I said "alright, cool. I'll buy you that drink then... In 3 weeks." 😜
Word archon, looking in the mirror: “You! You are the one who has been influencing the definition of good with your falsehood of mercilessly harming and punishing those with sympathetic motivations and those unaware of their own crimes and thus unable to be fully held responsible for those deeds they did not realize they were not supposed to do!”
We need the Onomancer Class, including a list of Onomancy Spells for level 1 to 20 maybe keeping low level spells balanced by making them wild magicish like what would come to mind: Powerword: Help Which rolls a D100 of Various Helps that you can receive with maybe a 1% chance of some diety smiting the enemy or fully healing the party and a 1% chance of a Tissue paper spawning to help after sneezing.
I’m so glad! Definitely not bad company to be mentioned in. Colville was a big I spit ration for me starting RUclips altogether back when I first uploaded. The guy has some really interesting ways of looking at things.
Man, tome of magic? I ran a binder from that book for a few years. I really liked the weird sword dancer monster from that book. Might be a worthy addition to your list of monsters
I had a player Truenamer in the Age of Worms campaign I ran in college. She was SO strong that she got the killing blow on the nascent Worm-God Kyuss. She became a Word Archon after her death. The 3.5 Truenamer class is OP AF, y’all
Did you change the mechanics to not be as overbalanced as they are as written, or did the player just know how to make it work? Because my understanding is that, as written, the Truenamer, as written in the actual rules, is not good mechanically. I can't remember the exact reasoning, just that it has problems that make it difficult to successfully use. But I have no problem with people adjusting it to actually be viable, so if that was the case, I wouldn't mind hearing what changes were made.
This would be an *amazing* celestial warlock patron if you wanted to play with allowing INT-based warlocks (which was apparently what the designers originally had in mind, and honestly fits certain warlock character archetypes a lot better).
Here's my take. What if the Word Archons also try to change the definition of things that they found immoral or just stop the world from beacomeing truly perfect. So like changeing the concept of consuming living fizical bodys for sustenance to be nothing but a incredibly disturbing idea, and by doing that the world will change so that you and I will be able to fead only throw chemosintesis, as an example. And that leads them into clashing with the various mortal agents of evil deitys, deitys who hold dominion over the aspects of existence that the Archon wishes to change or divinitys who just don't want those things changed on a regular basis. OR ALL OF THEM. And then you have the player characters who all have dedicated their lives to the type of deity/s mentioned above and the campaign could be all about trying to stop this particular Word Archon or trying to get rid of them for good.
For a villain, I really like the idea of having a Word Archon having access to Power Word Pain, then being shocked when you point out how hypocritical they are being. "I'm not *killing* the law breakers, I'm enforcing the law *legally*."
The Fact that Word Archon's are willing to go far, actually shows they are willing to die for their views (Celestials die on the prime material, but respawn on their home plane)
I would be interested in seeing warlock patron stats for a particularly powerful word archon. Like a warlock who casts using true word magic like their patron and becomes a paragon of lawful neutral, just protecting the meaning of words to their best ability.
This is super useful for my homebrew campaign, it was going to have a lot more power words as a magic system specifically accessible to deities and select individuals… and now I’ve got an archon tailor made for that lol
The latest artwork for The MTG card Battle of Witts at the 7:04 mark is perfect for this topic. The 1 card in magic that wants u to have ALL of the knowledge "do u have 200 or more cards left in ur deck at the start of ur tn while this is on play? Ok, u win!" Befre my PC crapped out (my bro hopefully can fix it soon when he is available) I was designing a deck with it. The 2 pics of the Werebear, Angel, n Knight around the 16:30 mark r awesome n they remind me of something else in MTG, the Eldrazi Titans. 3 eldritch horrors that r somewhere between 200 feet n a mile tall (perspective is hard to discern in the artworks) n yet that is just their Avatars. They r basically like a hand reaching into a pond n all the fish attack the had n think they have killed it when the hand leaves the water n never see the human that hand was attached to. But the 3 we have seen thus far were half forgotten to history n legends sprang up about them being a great n unstoppable barbarian warrior of the sea, an armour clad king in the finest regalia, n a beautiful angel with a wingspan that seemed like it took up the whole sky. In truth they were an unkillable annihilation monster whose arms branch at the elbow n has tentacles rather than legs n sucks the mana out of the world itself n leaves landscapes as endless grey ash in his wake, an almost human shaped giant with no head but floating stone pillars in a vague shape like a crown who alters the fundamental forces around him, so gravity works in weird directions (maybe each atom gets pulled a different way n u explode) things blink in n outnof existence or fold thru space, n the last is a cross between a jellyfish n a floating island reminiscent of the mothership in Independence Day n is basically just a flying spaghetti monster but somehow she is the reasonable one who is able to plot n play the long game n plan things eons ahead of wut mortal minds could conceive. She currently slumbers inside a moon made of silver (probably waiting fr her brothers to reform their Avatars after some protagonists channeled all the mana of the universal plane they were on into a giant fireball, which in itself was an inside joke as the cards Channel n Fireball were the most infamous n first combo ever used in the games competitive history being enabled by the games most powerful card, 1 of its 5 cards tied for 2nd best, n 1 of its 5 cards that r literally the games most basic mechanic.
For your example around 12:00 with water, you could actually use general or specific forms of Magic (Like necromancy) as an example, bringing a neat form of conflict into a scenario
I would really like to see a Valentine's day one-off where a word archon seeks out the party to gain their assistance in preventing the main villain from perverting the concept of love itself
Pro Tip: If you're ever on a date with a Word Archon, never tell them they look 'nice' unless you want to hear a 10-minute rant on all the previous meanings of the word.
Imagine if Word Archons existed and were informed that the word assigned to depicting the true meaning of...a word was somehow slowly having its meaning changed to the exact opposite. What kind of crusade would they lead in defence of the word "Literally".
@@DungeonDad I came looking specifically for this video as well, my friend had suggested it when we were work shopping some background plot, keep up the great work.
I remember playing a Truenamer once for a couple of sessions. That books contents are broken beyond repair. The Class gets worse as you level up because you need to beat a scaling DC skill check to cast your "spells" but it scales twice as fast as your skill bonus, making it impossible to play without minmaxing beyond level 10.
Cool idea: what if an Archon discovered Power Word Kill? The discovery of the scroll corrupted its very being making its armor tainted and their wings charred with their final attack being Power Word Kill. They would seal themselves somewhere where such a destructive word can’t be uttered.
Such a cool monster! I wish it had more interesting words though. “Incarnation” is the only truly interesting one. I think “Origin” would be a cool word. Basically, it would make all creatures who heard the word return to their normal form. This would include rage, shapeshifting, buffs and de-buffs, and anything else that can be constituted as being different than one’s true self. Also this word has no save, but can be avoided by not being able to hear it. I also like the idea of “Harmless” where a failed save results in the creature being unable to damage, frighten, or deal any other kind of harm until the succeed a saving throw at the end of each of their turns.
So you went looking for the Raven queens true name, did you? ( or insert any demonlord/archdevil) these guys are guardians of True names for Gods and powerful beings in my world, starting now
Also, an unexpectedly menacing creature. There is something about the ruthlessly righteous that is so much scarier than the mindlessly savage or selfishly evil.
I just realized that Archons hate puns and swearing because they use one word to mean something else. I don't think I could be friends with an Archon. I don't swear much, but I could never give up puns
So dunno if you still take suggestions and it’s not a dnd monster, but would you consider making a video on the Blightsteel colossus from Magic the Gathering? It’s got some funky infect and stuff and can big Rez. Could be fun as a high level monsyer
Here's a plot hook I came up with based on a lore video I found and of course all the carceri monsters. Orcus had at one point found a word of power potent enough to kill gods. After using it to reclaim his Abyssal layer the other gods somehow got rid of it. What if what they did was give that to a word archon that was sealed up in carceri. Maybe the BBEG is a big bad like Tharizdun or one of the Elder Evils and the only way to permanently stop it is for the players to journey into carceri and get the word.
Okay, hear me out. The party finds either an infant word archon, or on whose lost its memories, or however it happens. The party has to care for the archon and watch after it while it gathers words. And the party's actions directly influence the words it gathers and what those words mean.
YEARS ago, a 3.5e campaign whent to epic levels and every player choosed a true word to own. They chased the trueword's power and eventually became the god of that power representation, at level 47. Sooo cool
What about a word archon turning noble children to angels and banishing them to "save" them from corruption of parents? Party tries to find out what happened and moral dilemma of stopping the archon from forcing people into celestial realms.
I really loved the tome of magic. Ive considered making a binder class as a alt version of the warlock where as you level up you are able to bind with additional vistages simultaneously. And and keeping each one granting certain abilities instead of free choosing invocations. That said i also loved the truenamer and was disappointed they couldn't adapt it for 5e. Although to be honest i think true name magic needs to have its own system slightly. Maybe working like 4e's ritual spells. Although i have something similar to that already in my game with rites.
This made me feel quite weird as I used to carry 2 full dictionaries with my D&D satchel & hang out at coffee shops (& a Roget's) in universities domains seeking out people writing papers for a class. [This before cell phone's]
Hey Dungeon Dad, can I ask you to read the text on the section title cards (e.g. "Plot Hooks")? I often listen to your videos while doing something else and the section transitions are jarring and confusing when I don't see the graphics. Thanks for making great content and all the inspiration!
Archons appeared decades before 3rd Ed AD&D, that edition changed them. They were a D&D boxed set "angel" in the Immortals boxed set as a top-tier Lawful outer-planar species. Their name translates from an ancient Greek status word meaning "ruler", appropriate at the time.
I’ve always understood banishment to be on an individual creature level. A fiend is only permanently banished back to the nine hells if it was created there. As an example, a beholder that was spawned into existence on the material plane by another beholder’s dream would be native to the material plane, and hence would not be permanently sent back to the Far Realms.
![Gucci Mane & Sexyy Red - You Don't Love Me [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/j7IBqyFKT4c/mqdefault.jpg)
At 6:05 there is like a 3 second long black screen which was supposed to be a fun edit. It got destroyed in the render somehow which is a bummer. It's way too late to fix it now, but here is a link to the 3 seconds of content you missed out on: twitter.com/DungeonPapa/status/1490067456110567424
Of you whant a fey lock in dragon magazine 304
Is this too late to fix it
Their worst enemy is linguistic drift.
You say “villains pretending to be good” & “inflexible celestial worldview,” *I* hear: “The players find themselves on the wrong end of a word archon’s maul after taking several jobs from a seemingly benevolent patron with secret evil schemes they’ve been unknowingly assisting.”
The question is, of course, can they understand that they need to use their words to solve the problem?
The word Archeon reminds me of this quote from Terry Pratchett & his decidedly (dark) fae take on Elves:
“Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad.” - Terry Pratchett "Lords And Ladies."
Haha, yes! I feel the same way. We've lost so many unique words to indicate specific qualities because they have all just become enthusiastic synonyms for "good". In fact, the word "nice" itself is an example because the original word meant "nasty" and it completely changed its meaning.
Check out George Orwell's _Politics and the English Language_ if that's how you feel.
Gay.
@@ckmishn3664 yep, that's what makes it awesome.
So basically
Human Logic: "Being evil is ok if I can think of some reason to excuse my actions as justified."
The Word Archon: "Actually that is the most evil form of evil."
Nobody would phrase it that way, it's always "for the greater good." Remember those who carried out some of the worst atrocities in history have usually done it in the name of "a better tomorrow."
"The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it."
- H. L. Mencken.
The Word Archon follows a deontological moral system. This is what is meant by, "seeing means as ends in and of themselves." Look up the philosophy of Immanuel Kant if you want a full treatment of this perspective. Incidentally, this is the kind of moral system that characterizes the Lawful Good alignment in D&D.
@@HenriFaust To me the definition of Chaotic Good is nothing evil I do is ever intentional, and having friends is just a matter of working hard to find the people who care.
But I have no idea if this is canon.
imagine how much this applies today in "politics"...
many definitions and realities being twisted into the totally opposite meaning.
For the fallen word archon idea, you could have a great old one's true name that, upon being learned, corrupted the archon to spread the G.O.O.'s influence.
That’s an unreal idea. Even better if you have a GOO warlock in the party dedicated to that being
Perverting words also works for Demon Lords' means and ends. Also Devils and Daemons would pervert words, not for the sake of it, but as a means to an end.
@HenriFaust if you want corrupting words you need look no further than 2 of the best books in 3.5 the complete arcana and the book of vile darkness
They are dark words of power just like the words of creation the gods use to make things, but they make terrible things happen, uttering a single syllable of dark speech can shatter objects and daze and deafen any person holding or wearing the object (1 round and one min respectively)
Dark speech is definitely a great way to corrupt one of them
Isn't a Fallen Word Archon just a Logokron Devil?
Doxy used Power Word: Sass 👍🏼
Encounter idea: party finds a word archon paralyzed in thought since it's encountered a conceptual paradox in reorganizing its wings. It's slowly on its way to becoming a gray philosopher.
That’s a very cool idea! A gray philosopher spawned from a word archon is such an awesome concept
Celestials and fiends are perfect reminders that the alignment system is from the perspective of the Astral planes and not contained with the conflict two mortals have with each other on some rock. I can see word archons acting in a way a mortal might see as evil, but have a goal that is good in the eyes of the cosmos
Not even a mass power outage will stop me from uploading!!!!!!
Gigagigagiga Giga Chad!
Your work ethic is a treasure Jo.
No, but it will delay you a couple of days. XD
What about a mass power word OUTAGE!
Onomancy is actually a minor to major thing in most of my campaign settings, simply because the Words of Power for Oath, Pact, and Contract are all widespread, or at least known by most if not all major organizations in the setting. This leads to widespread use of contracts magically reinforced by writing the word the corresponding word of power at the top bottom and sides of any contract, thus turning said piece of paper into the equivalent of a Geas Scroll, where the signatories must carry out there end of the contract, or have the corresponding penalties placed upon them, or suffer 1d4 ticks of Non-healable True Damage once a month, week, or day (depends on the tier of the contract) until they either carry out their end of the deal, at which point they heal at the same rate, or die a True Death, where there soul is immediately cleanse of its memories, personality, and karma and shunted off into the Ethereal or Positive energy plane to await reincarnation.
These contracts, as mentioned above, come in three different tiers (Mortal, Heroic, and Legendary) and are based on the number of times the Word of Power is written on the paper (once, twice, and four times respectively), and the clarity of meaning that the Word of Power was written with, ie a low level Word Contractor/Transcriber with a loose and/or hazy understanding of a Word of Power's meaning cannot create a legendary-class contract. Likewise, a high-level Word Contractor/Transcriber cannot dilute their understanding of a Word of Power's true meaning, and thus cannot create weaker Contracts. The Mortal and Heroic contracts, while powerful, are still within the realms of mortal beings, and can be broken with a Remove Curse spell, cast at the 6th level for the Mortal Contract and 9th level for the Heroic. The Legendary Contract, however, is as close to the absolute true meaning of the word a mortal can get without being an Archon or divine/transcendent being themselves (think Demigods, actual Gods, Demon Lords, and anything of equivalent power), and is for all intents an purposes, a quasi-divine artifact on the level of a 10th or 11th level spell. A Legendary Contract cannot be broken in any way outside of two; divine intervention, with the God or Goddess summoning the contracted into their divine realm (where they are as powerful as they are ever going to get without merging their various aspects across the multiverse) and forcibly breaking the contract, at which point all parties involved (the contract's creator, signitories, and the god that broke it) will suffer a major backlash, which will also probably kill the contractee, but at least it's not a True Death, and they can thus be ressurected (unless they've already lost half their total HP to True Damage, at which point, flip a coin). The second option is to entreat the Archon of Oaths/Pacts/Contracts/Vows themself (as they may have a tangible presence in the setting) and ask them to annul the contract, but this is far less likely to happen, as the Archon Archon of Oaths/Pacts/Contracts/Vows actually gains power from the contracts in existence and those fulfilled, and the higher the tier of contract, the more power the Archon gains, and that power is on an exponential scale. Annulment of a Legendary Contract would not only lead to a massive power drop for the Archon of Oaths/Pacts/Contracts/Vows, but has a 1 in 10 chance of temporary damaging there connection to their chosen Word of Power for 1d10 centuries, making them the equivalent of an archangel in strength; still a powerful immortal entity, but not one capable of standing on a stage with Demon Lords and Demigods.
I don’t care what my DM says I still stand by that if my Kenku gets hit by power word kill and is revived that he should automatically be able to use power word kill back at the enemy by mimicking them and that would be particularly annoying and devastating to a Word Archon
YES!
I love weird lore interactions like this. A similar concept I had was that running gag people have with fae asking "can I have your name(s)?," before magically taking it, being used on a god, who NEEDS their name to maintain and grow their portfolio.
@@TheMightyBattleSquid here’s one, if a basilisk locks eyes with a mirror mephet, which one turns to stone? Both or one or what?
This is hilarious and 100% shenanigans. I love it
@@cfakatsuki17both, naturally
As a self-confessed word nerd, the Word Archon is right up my alley! Thanks for bringing them to light!
Hell yeah, thanks for watching!!
Plot hook: A party needs a spell that does a very specific thing. A Word Archon likely has a power word for that somewhere on its wings, a word in a language long dead to mortals. The party has to convince it to part with the only remaining record this word ever existed, and its very protective of its unique magic.
For Banishment, I would consider that bandit as being native to the Material Plane, even if they are a fiend temporarily. Banishment doesn't care about the creature type, but the plane of origin.
I would agree, and there's precedent for normally planar creatures being native to the Material Plane.
Totally agree, otherwise I’d also have to rule that killing an affected creature would send them to a corresponding plane
Slightly different, but it's like the Abyssal Chickens in Descent into Avernus. Sure, demons originate in the Abyss, but the chickens in that book are spawned in Avernus so they'd be sent back to the Nine Hells if Banished elsewhere, or they'd be Banished to a harmless demiplane if the spell is cast on one in Hell.
I definitely think RAW you’re correct. It’s less clear cut with some other spells but banishment especially has that wording “plane of origin”. If a fire elemental was “born” on the material plane, I think it would be considered it’s home plane now.
@@DungeonDad True.
Whatever others say well designed celestials are rare(ish) enought in 5e for me to be excited here. The focus on power words also is neat bit of spice to usual lets just reflavor stuff to do radiant damige that some of my DM hace done.
Big time agree, 5E needs more usable celestial creatures.
@@DungeonDad I'd love to see the Hound and Lantern Archons return...the Lantern would make a great counterpart to the low level fiends as an option for Celestial Chain Warlocks. I used to love having Hound Archons around just because they worked very well as a Celestial that can just blend into the world...and the good dog thing along with the All Dogs Go To Heaven bit...plus they are the closest of the Archons to being an angel in how they act.
Personally, both Archons and Guardinals need to return...
Honestly, I have a nerdy celestial warlock a little fixated on ritual magic, and while I already have a definite vision for who his patron is, this would actually be a way more thematic and flavorful option than what I had in mind back when I made them.Thank you for another great video, they're always entertaining.
I like to use old characters (especially from other editions) as patrons, my warlock (3.5) needed a variant patron since my dad won't let me have a demonic patron (it's dumb I'm 24 like calm down I'm already a pagan this won't turn my away from religion lol) so I'm using one of my previous fey characters as his patron
She's also clinically insane so that makes her a fun patron
"any word archon worth their font"
I couldn't even laugh. This joke struck me so hard. That was amazing, my dude. You deserve a medal. Not a joke. This now lives rent-free in my head.
The phrase "No Word Archon worth their font" is so good I imagine that if one existed it would approve.
Very informal archon there, dropping all them thous
This is giving me Earthsea Cycle vibes. I’ve always wanted to do a campaign dealing with the power of true names.
If you haven’t read it, knowing someone’s true name allows you to command them to do a single thing, for the rest of their life they have to obey that rule. No exceptions.
When you talked about the Banishment spell, I remember when I figured out that I could get myself back to the material plane by casting Banishment on myself and willingly failing the saving throw
There was an NPC in Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark who served a very similar function. You needed to seek her out to learn the true names of certain characters in order to save the city/world. You could definitely create a plot hook for a Word Archon along a very similar story arch.
Again a very interesting creature and again one I will heavily overthink: Would a Word Archon have any ambition of changing an evil concept? I personally see them more as lawful neutral, guardians of concepts no matter if good or evil, opposed to any form of either corruption or purification.
Maybe you could use it as a fun enemy to punish players doing stuff in an unconventional style by enforcing "canon", like forcing the half-orc to rage or the goblin to betray the party
Or just have them as guardians of a cool old library, that would work, too. Als now excuse me, but I have to find a copy of the book you mentioned. (36 warlock patrons? I knew of about 8 and it took hours to decide.....)
Are they even celestials at that point? If I used them in that way I would just make a whole new creature type called spirit and make them that.
@@nicolaezenoaga9756 so, something more akin to the inevitables?
@@travisterry2200 My goodness your right! Why haven't I thot of that from the very start?!
A lawful character wouldn't care about changes to words after the fact, at least not without some personal motivation. They would only work to stop words from changing.
Great to see the Tome of Magic getting some love. Played a shadowmancer for years, they were fun but not as overpowered as baseline wizards.
It’s such a cool book!
I think I've seen it before but never used it even though I still main 3.5
My current character is a warlock who took flaws to be able to have metamagic spell like abilities (it's a separate feat than the normal ones) so he can unleash total situational control in any combat (well if there are no more than 6-14 combatants or groups of combatants)
Ge can only do his one thing but he is fucking awesome at the one thing he does
This is a good base for a lot of things I never knew about there being many power words so you can make some whacky spells with that in mind would also be interesting to find the corpse of one and see the parchment and set out to find all the parchment to prevent bad things from happening or return them to the other archons
I imagine power word life forcefully bring a target under a certain cr or lol back to life without a choice or power word earth just rupturing the ground or fixing a chasm crazy things like that
Idea: One of these that appears as an eleven year old girl in a superhero costume with a pet monkey who fights evildoers like fiends, undead, and people with mouse brains stuck to their heads.
Dora the Destroyah?
@@mikedanielespeja6128 Nope
Its a WordGirl reference.
I don't know what "WordGirl" is, but I already like it.
"I am an archon, which are much better and cooler than angels". Well said, 10/10
I'm really glad I stumbled onto this video. I recently realized that there's no divine magic wielding 5e class that uses INT as a spellcasting modifier, so I started making my own homebrew fill-in player class. I call it the "Archivist" (which i realize is also the name of a UA subclass, but that never became official content), and the class is all based on the power of entwining divine magic with special writing. In addition to keeping records, Archivists strive to harness the power of this form of magic for a greater cause and keep its secrets hidden from those that would abuse it. The word archon seems like the perfect type of creature to serve as further inspiration for this class!
I believe that Archivist was the name of an INT-based divine caster class in 3.5, as well.
I know the Tomes from 3.5E all had a bad rap from being fairly unbalanced (or very in the case of the Tome of Battle), but they were all such cool concepts that I think should be taken from or inspire new things for 5E that just feel like it's missing. Especially shadow magic and onomancy.
I think 3.5 wasn't even unbalanced it was just made for a different kind of player than 5e, im the kind of person who has tons of books memorized as if I was actually a person who lived in the world of magic if you have that mindset you'd know from overhearing adventurers growing up or learning about them in school how each monster works and what to do if you run into them 5th is much more of just a game where 3.5 really required you think like a character which is a lot more difficult/very different than the vibe I get when I play 5e
You also had to be willing to accept some more strange parts of 3.5 like the fact that with enough items, skill, and a bit of luck you could theoretically become more charismatic than a goddess of beauty. Like that's just the way that world works
I'll commend you on not having a complete dumpster fire of a channel. 😜
Part of my brain had completely blocked truename magic. That got ridiculous some times, and that classes/PrClasses that revolved around the concept of truenaming got quite frightening.
Some of that stuff is WIIIILD
Another great video. I appreciate all of the hard work that goes into these.
Bless 🙏🏽
I remember In NWN Hoards of the underdark You could learn true names of many characters including Mephistopheles and use his name to enslave him by the way anyone interested in Mephistopheles true name it's "Thra'axfyl the Ambitious" enjoy commanding the 8th duke of hell
Man, if I was a celestial warlock, this lady would be my patron, lol. She fits me so well because not only am I really into angels IRL, but I'm also an English major/writer with a slight obsession on using words correctly. Nothing drives me crazy in the same way as people being sloppy with their language to overexaggerate their point (reducing the impact of a more intense word to describe a lesser situation) or the twisting of words with semantics and technicalities (Oh no, I didn't buy this drink even through I'm underage, I just gave money to my legal friend and he bought it.) There's more examples of common misuse of language, but I'm sure you get the idea. If this lovely being appeared before me and offered me the task of being a divine enforcer of the truth of the universe and preserving the actual specific meaning of words, I'd take it in a heartbeat! lol.
Funny enough a younger coworker asked me to do that for them the other night. He said "don't worry, I'm turning 21 in 3 weeks" so I said "alright, cool. I'll buy you that drink then... In 3 weeks." 😜
I love this on multiple levels. As a mechanics thing I think a word archon would make a really fun patron. In your case especially!
Word archon, looking in the mirror: “You! You are the one who has been influencing the definition of good with your falsehood of mercilessly harming and punishing those with sympathetic motivations and those unaware of their own crimes and thus unable to be fully held responsible for those deeds they did not realize they were not supposed to do!”
Dm Self insert Lich who onomacied themself celestial: guilty
We need the Onomancer Class, including a list of Onomancy Spells for level 1 to 20 maybe keeping low level spells balanced by making them wild magicish like what would come to mind:
Powerword: Help
Which rolls a D100 of Various Helps that you can receive with maybe a 1% chance of some diety smiting the enemy or fully healing the party and a 1% chance of a Tissue paper spawning to help after sneezing.
You and Colville always give me so many ideas. Love the stuff you dream up!
I’m so glad! Definitely not bad company to be mentioned in. Colville was a big I spit ration for me starting RUclips altogether back when I first uploaded. The guy has some really interesting ways of looking at things.
Man, tome of magic? I ran a binder from that book for a few years. I really liked the weird sword dancer monster from that book. Might be a worthy addition to your list of monsters
I fell in love with dungeon dad's Videos with this video.
Dungeon dads storytelling is truly captivating! Thanks for doing what you do look forward to these videos everyday!
I had a player Truenamer in the Age of Worms campaign I ran in college. She was SO strong that she got the killing blow on the nascent Worm-God Kyuss. She became a Word Archon after her death. The 3.5 Truenamer class is OP AF, y’all
Did you change the mechanics to not be as overbalanced as they are as written, or did the player just know how to make it work? Because my understanding is that, as written, the Truenamer, as written in the actual rules, is not good mechanically. I can't remember the exact reasoning, just that it has problems that make it difficult to successfully use. But I have no problem with people adjusting it to actually be viable, so if that was the case, I wouldn't mind hearing what changes were made.
This would be an *amazing* celestial warlock patron if you wanted to play with allowing INT-based warlocks (which was apparently what the designers originally had in mind, and honestly fits certain warlock character archetypes a lot better).
Quality content as always. This is me commenting to help your algorithm.
The hero we need
Here's my take. What if the Word Archons also try to change the definition of things that they found immoral or just stop the world from beacomeing truly perfect. So like changeing the concept of consuming living fizical bodys for sustenance to be nothing but a incredibly disturbing idea, and by doing that the world will change so that you and I will be able to fead only throw chemosintesis, as an example.
And that leads them into clashing with the various mortal agents of evil deitys, deitys who hold dominion over the aspects of existence that the Archon wishes to change or divinitys who just don't want those things changed on a regular basis. OR ALL OF THEM.
And then you have the player characters who all have dedicated their lives to the type of deity/s mentioned above and the campaign could be all about trying to stop this particular Word Archon or trying to get rid of them for good.
I think this is a really awesome idea. That would be a cool twist on these creatures that could easily make them villains for a campaign
@@DungeonDad Thank you!
For a villain, I really like the idea of having a Word Archon having access to Power Word Pain, then being shocked when you point out how hypocritical they are being. "I'm not *killing* the law breakers, I'm enforcing the law *legally*."
**sounds of soon to be devils applauding and taking notes**
I love tome of magic, favorite 3.5 book, those classes are so much stupid fun.
I know, right? Shadow magic was awesome.
The Fact that Word Archon's are willing to go far, actually shows they are willing to die for their views (Celestials die on the prime material, but respawn on their home plane)
I would be interested in seeing warlock patron stats for a particularly powerful word archon. Like a warlock who casts using true word magic like their patron and becomes a paragon of lawful neutral, just protecting the meaning of words to their best ability.
Your channel is Pretty ok sometimes!
It's trying!
This is super useful for my homebrew campaign, it was going to have a lot more power words as a magic system specifically accessible to deities and select individuals… and now I’ve got an archon tailor made for that lol
you have been a really fun way to spend a sick day.
Gotta say Tome of Magic was one of my favorite 3.5 books. Was really curious how you were going to adapt Utterances
That book was fun, one DM in my group got a ton of mileage out of the Saeropanean (sp?) Order for a campaign.
Love your content, not so sure about the skit portions of them tho. Everything else is flawless!
The latest artwork for The MTG card Battle of Witts at the 7:04 mark is perfect for this topic. The 1 card in magic that wants u to have ALL of the knowledge "do u have 200 or more cards left in ur deck at the start of ur tn while this is on play? Ok, u win!" Befre my PC crapped out (my bro hopefully can fix it soon when he is available) I was designing a deck with it.
The 2 pics of the Werebear, Angel, n Knight around the 16:30 mark r awesome n they remind me of something else in MTG, the Eldrazi Titans. 3 eldritch horrors that r somewhere between 200 feet n a mile tall (perspective is hard to discern in the artworks) n yet that is just their Avatars. They r basically like a hand reaching into a pond n all the fish attack the had n think they have killed it when the hand leaves the water n never see the human that hand was attached to. But the 3 we have seen thus far were half forgotten to history n legends sprang up about them being a great n unstoppable barbarian warrior of the sea, an armour clad king in the finest regalia, n a beautiful angel with a wingspan that seemed like it took up the whole sky. In truth they were an unkillable annihilation monster whose arms branch at the elbow n has tentacles rather than legs n sucks the mana out of the world itself n leaves landscapes as endless grey ash in his wake, an almost human shaped giant with no head but floating stone pillars in a vague shape like a crown who alters the fundamental forces around him, so gravity works in weird directions (maybe each atom gets pulled a different way n u explode) things blink in n outnof existence or fold thru space, n the last is a cross between a jellyfish n a floating island reminiscent of the mothership in Independence Day n is basically just a flying spaghetti monster but somehow she is the reasonable one who is able to plot n play the long game n plan things eons ahead of wut mortal minds could conceive. She currently slumbers inside a moon made of silver (probably waiting fr her brothers to reform their Avatars after some protagonists channeled all the mana of the universal plane they were on into a giant fireball, which in itself was an inside joke as the cards Channel n Fireball were the most infamous n first combo ever used in the games competitive history being enabled by the games most powerful card, 1 of its 5 cards tied for 2nd best, n 1 of its 5 cards that r literally the games most basic mechanic.
This would make an amazing professor at Strixhavan!
I’m gonna be running a Strixhaven game soon for some friends and I am 100% going to be stealing this idea
So basically, angels are lawful good, archons are lawful stupid.
thanks i needed this. it's so beautiful.
For your example around 12:00 with water, you could actually use general or specific forms of Magic (Like necromancy) as an example, bringing a neat form of conflict into a scenario
Archon riders are always fun to use
I would really like to see a Valentine's day one-off where a word archon seeks out the party to gain their assistance in preventing the main villain from perverting the concept of love itself
There's nothing non-lethal about a good shockwave
Whooooaaaaaww. You said the monster of the weeeeek!!!!
Pro Tip: If you're ever on a date with a Word Archon, never tell them they look 'nice' unless you want to hear a 10-minute rant on all the previous meanings of the word.
Celestials in general are an underrepresented type in 5e, exactly the reason why I like making my own.
Imagine if Word Archons existed and were informed that the word assigned to depicting the true meaning of...a word was somehow slowly having its meaning changed to the exact opposite. What kind of crusade would they lead in defence of the word "Literally".
Your videos are so underrated. It blows my mind that you aren't in the top tier of the community
Just found you, great job! Subscribed!
Heck yeah, welcome!
@@DungeonDad I came looking specifically for this video as well, my friend had suggested it when we were work shopping some background plot, keep up the great work.
Oh HELL yeah
I remember playing a Truenamer once for a couple of sessions. That books contents are broken beyond repair. The Class gets worse as you level up because you need to beat a scaling DC skill check to cast your "spells" but it scales twice as fast as your skill bonus, making it impossible to play without minmaxing beyond level 10.
This is now my favorite creature in all editions of DnD
Cool idea: what if an Archon discovered Power Word Kill? The discovery of the scroll corrupted its very being making its armor tainted and their wings charred with their final attack being Power Word Kill. They would seal themselves somewhere where such a destructive word can’t be uttered.
Wow I didn't even realize they had wings! I thought it was cool background or a visual aura effect of it's utterance. Cool!.
Such a cool monster! I wish it had more interesting words though. “Incarnation” is the only truly interesting one. I think “Origin” would be a cool word. Basically, it would make all creatures who heard the word return to their normal form. This would include rage, shapeshifting, buffs and de-buffs, and anything else that can be constituted as being different than one’s true self. Also this word has no save, but can be avoided by not being able to hear it. I also like the idea of “Harmless” where a failed save results in the creature being unable to damage, frighten, or deal any other kind of harm until the succeed a saving throw at the end of each of their turns.
So you went looking for the Raven queens true name, did you? ( or insert any demonlord/archdevil) these guys are guardians of True names for Gods and powerful beings in my world, starting now
ThouTube
Omg, that slayed me!
Also, an unexpectedly menacing creature. There is something about the ruthlessly righteous that is so much scarier than the mindlessly savage or selfishly evil.
I’m glad you found it as funny as I did 😂
I just realized that Archons hate puns and swearing because they use one word to mean something else. I don't think I could be friends with an Archon. I don't swear much, but I could never give up puns
Appropriately your "Monster of the Week" series tends to have monsters that would be a great fit for the "Monster of the Week" RPG. :)
17:57
Dwarfen Barkeep:
Let's steal a Note that's essential the feather of the wing of a celestial being!
PC:
You sonofab!tch I'm in!
Awesome vid, but everything else aside; WHO GAVE THE MIMIC A GUN?!?!?! Are we just gonna ignore that???
So dunno if you still take suggestions and it’s not a dnd monster, but would you consider making a video on the Blightsteel colossus from Magic the Gathering? It’s got some funky infect and stuff and can big Rez. Could be fun as a high level monsyer
Definitely!
I love the use of MtG art!
Here's a plot hook I came up with based on a lore video I found and of course all the carceri monsters. Orcus had at one point found a word of power potent enough to kill gods. After using it to reclaim his Abyssal layer the other gods somehow got rid of it. What if what they did was give that to a word archon that was sealed up in carceri.
Maybe the BBEG is a big bad like Tharizdun or one of the Elder Evils and the only way to permanently stop it is for the players to journey into carceri and get the word.
Okay, hear me out. The party finds either an infant word archon, or on whose lost its memories, or however it happens. The party has to care for the archon and watch after it while it gathers words. And the party's actions directly influence the words it gathers and what those words mean.
Thank you, Josiah! yes, funny, interesting and informative!! Some ideas pop up :p
You are welcome!! Thanks YOU for watching! 😁
1:19 Lais!
1:58 And Monks
Those damn MONKS!!!!
YEARS ago, a 3.5e campaign whent to epic levels and every player choosed a true word to own. They chased the trueword's power and eventually became the god of that power representation, at level 47. Sooo cool
Best monster thus far
What about a word archon turning noble children to angels and banishing them to "save" them from corruption of parents? Party tries to find out what happened and moral dilemma of stopping the archon from forcing people into celestial realms.
"Because it's time for.."
*CEX advert plays*
I really loved the tome of magic. Ive considered making a binder class as a alt version of the warlock where as you level up you are able to bind with additional vistages simultaneously. And and keeping each one granting certain abilities instead of free choosing invocations. That said i also loved the truenamer and was disappointed they couldn't adapt it for 5e. Although to be honest i think true name magic needs to have its own system slightly. Maybe working like 4e's ritual spells. Although i have something similar to that already in my game with rites.
Your chanel is awesome. As AD&D veteran I realy missed lot of old creatures and their depth.
This made me feel quite weird as I used to carry 2 full dictionaries with my D&D satchel & hang out at coffee shops (& a Roget's) in universities domains seeking out people writing papers for a class. [This before cell phone's]
Hey Dungeon Dad, can I ask you to read the text on the section title cards (e.g. "Plot Hooks")? I often listen to your videos while doing something else and the section transitions are jarring and confusing when I don't see the graphics. Thanks for making great content and all the inspiration!
05:50 That looks like feathers to me, Ms. Archon.
SOMEHOW THIS IS UNFORTUNATELY A VERY TOPICAL MONSTER.
Archons appeared decades before 3rd Ed AD&D, that edition changed them. They were a D&D boxed set "angel" in the Immortals boxed set as a top-tier Lawful outer-planar species. Their name translates from an ancient Greek status word meaning "ruler", appropriate at the time.
This is pretty neat.
So essentially, they’re those creatures you use when your party doesn’t take the hint about the benevolent preacher they’ve been helping out.
Could you do Kobolds at some point aswell, I think they are quite interesting
The Word Archon in this video simply has to become a recurring character. I want to see more of her so badly 🤣
See, I'd go with changing that evil pirate captain's type to Celestial, and see where his ass got banished to.
I’ve always understood banishment to be on an individual creature level. A fiend is only permanently banished back to the nine hells if it was created there. As an example, a beholder that was spawned into existence on the material plane by another beholder’s dream would be native to the material plane, and hence would not be permanently sent back to the Far Realms.
7 foot tall angels? Yeah i would.