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An avoral, a planetar, and a hound archon.

Card Games

  • Epic (Card Game): Most of the Angel Champions are Good-aligned, female Winged Humanoids, but the Angel of Death is a male, and despite being Evil-aligned is still considered an Angel.
  • Magic: The Gathering:
    • Angels are a staple White type, the most famous of which is the classic Serra Angel. Almost all of them (and definitely all the recent ones) are female, with the exception being, well, exceptional in some way (for example, the Mirror Universe Malach of the Dawn). While most are under the domain of White, there are other more atypical ones such as the Maelstrom Archangel and the Platinum Angel. A Mirror Universe version of Akroma, Angel of Wrath is mono-Red instead of White. Of course, Black also has its share of Fallen Angels, but in recent years a design philosophy has come down that all new angels must be at least partly White. The uniqueness of each plane's environs often leads to each plane's angels being further divergent from the standard mold.
    • Mirrodin has cyborg angels and even one robot angel (the above Platinum Angel).
    • The rebirth of Mirrodin into New Phyrexia features the angels being surgically rebuilt into near-mindless killing machines... that are still pure White — appropriate enough, given that Phyrexia is basically a freakin' horror refinery.
    • Alara's are more the "classical" Magic type of winged female humanoids, but some were cyberneticized during the Conflux.
    • All but the most powerful of Zendikar's angels were shackled by the Eldrazi, their haloes actually being blindfolds.
    • The standard Serra family of angels come from an artificial plane created by the planeswalker Serra that was invaded and scrapped by the Phyrexians, forcing them to relocate to Dominaria.
    • Ravnica's angels are either Red and White and aligned with the crusaders of the Boros Legion or Black and White and aligned with the Corrupt Church of the Orzhov Syndicate.
    • The angels of Innistrad are also more or less classical Magic angels, but Avacyn, their leader, is basically a goddess in her own right (albeit a created one, by the vampire Sorin Markov), lording not only over her church but also over the plane's White Magic, down to the fact that the other angels are much weaker without her. She's also a lunar deity (think Selene, only more protective), and because she was created by a vampire, a bit gothy in appearance. And while the rest of the angels in Innistrad are the traditional Winged Humanoid sort, Innistradi angels are further divided into three groups: Flight Alabaster (Barrier Maiden and occasional psychopomps), Flight Goldnight (Church Militant), and Flight of Herons (healing and scouting)
    • When Valkyries appear, they are always classified as part of the Angel creature type. On Kaldheim, Valkyries are the inhabitants of the Realm of Starnheim, and are forged from the souls of righteous warriors after death. Notably, they are aligned with Black as well as White mana, reflecting a ferocity and callousness toward those who fail to meet their standards largely absent from their counterparts on other worlds.
    • Angels on Kaladesh have bright red skin, six arms, elaborate mechanical-looking headdresses, and seemingly a natural ability to manipulate the flow of aether.
    • Angels on New Capenna have wings and halos that appear to be geometric holograms, wear snappy suits, and, unlike most other worlds, can be either male or female (although women are still more common). They have been trapped in statues by the city's demonic overlords, and are the source of the Fantastic Drug Halo that powers the city and sustains its people.
    • While technically not angels, MTG's Archons take their role as the large White aligned beings wherever angels do not resonate well with the flavour, like in the Classical Mythology-inspired Theros Block. They hew closer to more eldritch takes on angels, being unfathomable incarnations of White mana that represent its more oppressive side, and usually take the form of a humanoid rider on the back of a steed such as a winged stag, lion or bull; these are not two distinct being, but one entity in two bodies.
    • The pneumagogs are an unique type of phyrexian who had six-wings and were semi-spiritual and luminous. Since they have not been represented in cards its unclear if they are actually angels per se, but they are heavily inspired by Biblical seraphs.
  • Summoner Wars: Archangels and Angels are basically soulless machines of justice who were previously Vanguards.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!: Angels are a Type of Monster (called Fairies in the TCG) but while they have many that resemble classic, traditional ones, Konami seems to be very lax at what they can call an Angel.
    • The Counter Fairies which are meant to work with Counter Traps, look like mechanical angels. Well-known ones include Layard the Liberator, Bountiful Artemis, and Voltanis the Adjudicator.
    • It's hard to say how a giant, ugly, man-eating (in the anime) scorpion-beast like Mystical Beast of Serket could be classified as a Fairy, except possibly because it's supposed to be a tomb guardian.
    • The Arcana Force monsters, which use Tarot Motifs, are a clear case of Light Is Not Good. Based on demons in the Cthulhu Mythos. they were used by the Big Bad of the Second Season of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX and are Obviously Evil. Yet, they are still considered Angels. Some examples are seen here.
    • The Zefra archetype consists of a winged giant penguin and dolphin with young girls as riders (Zeframpilica and Zefrawendi), a humanoid Dragon (Zefraxa), a knight with half bright and half dark armor and the wings to match (Zefraroots), an old man with access to a Fountain of Youth (Zefrasaber), one of the 2 monsters responsible for the death of Sophia (and is now called Zefranaga), A humanoid bug that slightly got more humanoid (Zefraxition), a warrior that might be the human form of Chiwen, Light of the Yang Zing (Zefrathuban), and two dragons (Zefrainu and Zefraxi). None of them are even Fairy-type.

Tabletop RPGs

  • Anima: Beyond Fantasy: The Beryls are godlike spirit beings of light who serve C'iel, the goddess of light. There're seven of them, who are named after — and identified with — the seven archangels of the Christianism of the setting. All but one of them have adopted female gender, and each is associated with a set of ideas and concepts (for example, Gabriel represents among other things love, arts, and peace and Uriel — the unique male — freedom, independence, and free will).
  • Dark•Matter (1999): The Elohim are speculated to be a race that lived on Earth before they transcended to another dimension. They appear as tall, perfect humans but this seems to be A Form You Are Comfortable With. Other types have been seen, such as fiery flying wheels or pillars of fire, but these still may not be their true forms. They have a bit of a A God Am I complex around other races and they have the tech to back their attitude up. When they speak, every listener understands regardless of what languages they understand, which is rather impressive to the Greys. They also hate the luciferians and arcane magic users with a passion.
  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • The catch-all term "celestial" is used to refer to beings from the Upper Planes, "angels" (or "aasimon" when 2nd Edition was trying to appease the Moral Guardians) are celestials who directly serve gods, and "asuras" are former angels who left their gods' service for various reasons (they're still on the side of good, but don't take crap from anyone). All are Made of Good and have innate supernatural abilities, and while celestials cannot possess mortals like fiends can, some mortal spellcasters learn to act as a Willing Channelers for them. They are not infallible, however, and some celestials end up becoming Fallen Angels, resulting in them being driven from their heavenly homes. Like the fiends, celestials include several subtypes based upon Character Alignment, but while the devils, demons and yugoloths wage the Blood War, the Upper Planes are free of that sort of vicious infighting — even the most lawful of archons would rather tolerate the chaos of an eladrin than the evil of a devil.
      • Archons are Lawful Good celestials from the Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia, serving the Celestial Hebdomad. They vary greatly in appearance, from the human-looking Sword and Trumpet Archons, to animalistic Hound and Owl Archons, to the more abstract Lantern Archon.
      • Eladrins are Chaotic Good celestials from the Olympian Glades of Arborea, serving Queen Morwel and the Court of Stars, essentially a good version of The Fair Folk. They tend to look like supernatural elves — firre eladrin have fiery eyes, and shiradi eladrin have wings, for example — but can freely assume more fantastical forms like a pillar of flame or cloud of light shards.
      • Guardinals are Neutral Good celestials from the Blessed Fields of Elysium, serving Talisad and the Five Companions, who are more or less an epic-level adventuring party. Their ranks are made up of heavenly Beast Men — leonals, lupinals, equinals, ursinals, and so on.
      • Other celestial beings include devas, angels assigned to monitor and patrol specific planes, lillends, winged snake-women who defend art and unspoiled wilderness, bariaurs, ram-centaurs from Ysgard, hollyphants, which can shift between the forms of a small, winged elephant and a winged mastodon, and moon dogs, intelligent hounds with a potent array of abilities to combat evil, dispell illusions, and heal wounds.
    • Ptolus: Because Praemal is a prison plane, extraplanar beings can enter but then they can never leave. Some angels still come if they believe they must, to do some good. They tend to congregate in the Ivory Tower in Ptolus and are collectively called the Malkuth. For the same reason, the inhabitants of Praemal have a very vague understanding of the Outer Planes and call all celestial beings "angels" (regardless of how they're called in other settings).
    • Fourth Edition mixed things up by declaring angels to be "expressions of the Astral Sea", basically Energy Beings who mostly act as servants and mercenaries for the gods on their own initiative according to their individual natures. They're depicted as glowy, winged, legless humanoids and can now be of any alignment, so yes, evil gods have their own angels. The term "archon" was reassigned to elemental servants of the Primordials, while eladrins became an elven subrace emphasizing their connection to the Feywild.
    • Fifth Edition has had little in the way of celestials in its bestiaries thus far, with only the standard deva, solar and planetar appearing under a generic "Angel" entry. Eladrins remain a fey elven subrace, while the 4th Edition elemental archons have been renamed "elemental myrmidons". Player paladins who reach 20th level can temporary take up an angelic form as part of their Oath of Vengeance.
  • Godbound: The angels are pissed. After humanity laid waste to Heaven and Earth in a hubristic bid for ultimate power, they declared war on humanity and intentionally spread false religions in disguise to ensure the maximum number of humans go to Hell.
  • Gods of the Fall: Seraphs of virtue, who made up the Battle Hosts of Elanehtar, were angelic beings, but they are robots animated by divine grace, not living creatures.
  • Heart: The City Beneath: Angels are powerful, terrifying beings in the service of the Heart. Some of them were once mortals. Or were incubated within mortals. Angels of the Heart are "red and terrible and mighty", and any area they visit reshapes into walls of flesh with eyes opening on every surface.
  • In Nomine has no less than seven major types of Angels (called "choirs"), and two minor types. Some of these are practically humans with superpowers, while others are so alien that they consider the "human condition" something akin to a disease. They can be banished from Heaven if they act in defiance of their various natures, and will fall to become demons if they continue to do so as Outcasts. (An angel can also choose at any time to fall and become a demon — most don't.) While Outcasts can redeem themselves once they have healed the damage caused by their acts, its significantly harder for demons to ascend — but not impossible. The seven main types (from highest to lowest rank) are:
    • Seraphim, the Most Holy: Serpents with six eyes and six feathered wings. The holiest angels and closest to God of any being, [[they cannot speak or abide untruths of any kind and are the most detached from humanity.
    • Cherubim, the Guardians: Winged animals, of any variety (try not to imagine what a bird-cherubim looks like...). Guardian Angels who exist to protect other beings, and can form powerful bonds to mortals.
    • Ofanim, the Wheels: Constantly spinning wheels of flame, they embody motion and activity, have an instinctive ability to tell how to reach desired locations, and cannot abide stillness or being restrained.
    • Elohim, the Powers: Hairless, androgynous humanoids with large, staring eyes — basically, The Greys. Dispassionate and objective, they are Heaven's agents of balance and can innately tell the emotional states of other beings.
    • Malakim, the Virtues: Shadowy human figures with black wings, they are Heaven's crusaders, warriors, and scourges of evil. They're only choir unable to fall, perhaps due to how strictly they police themselves. (May or may not have already fallen and are just deluding themselves.)
    • Kyriotates, the Dominations: A whirling cloud of limbs and body parts. Bodyless spirits who must ride mortal bodies to interact with the world, rarely keeping a single body for more than a week, and compelled to never leave a body in worse shape than it was when they moved in.
    • Mercurians, the Friends of Man: Winged Humanoids with halos and feathery wings. Politicians and ambassadors with an instinctive grasp of social networks, they are the closest angels to humans in mentality.
    • Grigori, the Watchers: In ancient times, the Grigori were tasked with living among humans and guiding them. They eventually came to neglect their duties, choosing to lead lives of debauchery, and took mates among humans to created half-breed children. After the destruction of the Nephallim, their monstrous spawn, Heaven exiled the Grigori to spend the rest of their lives on Earth. They're mostly extinct now, but their non-monstrous, half-human descendants still endure in great numbers.
    • Menunim, the Messengers of Hope, are described in The Marches and are a minor choir charged with instilling hope in humanity; they prefer to do so by giving subtle mental pushes to mortals in order to encourage them towards greater goodness and away from despair. Their celestial forms resemble clouds of vapor, in which they can manifest a face at need. They all serve Blandine, the Archangel of Dreams.
    • Relievers are minor spirits created as aides and servants to the Host; they are not a true choir per se, but rather a catch-all term for all celestial spirits too weak to be true angels. In Heaven, they are mostly employed as messengers, gofers, and personal aides; on Earth and in the Marches, they are typically assigned to watch over some specific mortal, thing, or place, protect it as best they can, and alert stronger celestials if something truly dangerous happens. They can gradually gather Forces and distinctions for their service, and a reliever that grows sufficiently in this manner will fledge into a true angel of any choir.
  • Invisible Sun: Angels are aspects of the Legacy, left in the universe by the Absolute to watch over creation. There are many types of angels that come in many forms, both spiritual and physical. Angels often greatly value honour, benevolence and justice, but sometimes fall to temptation.
  • Legend System: Hallow features enormous semi-sentient constructs of glass and metal called Angels. Their purpose is to oversee parts of the world, but the only part of that understood by humans is that they handle what happens to people and things that fall off of plates.
  • Nobilis: Angels are celestial beings who live in Heaven, seek to protect and preserve beauty, and claim to hear the Creator's guiding voice. They work with devils, their fallen kin, in order to stop the Excrucians from destroying the universe — this is unspeakably abhorrent to them, but the alternative's just worse. Contrary to scripture, they don't really let people into Heaven when they die.
  • Pathfinder: In the vein of D&D, celestials are beings who are Made of Good and inhabit the Upper Planes — Heaven, Nirvana and Elysium. Most either serve Good-aligned deities or the hierarchies and leaders of their own kind; this isn't mutually exclusive, as the gods and celestials of the Upper Plans often cooperate closely. The most powerful celestials become demigods, lesser deities capable of granting spells to their worshippers. Like most other outsiders, they are formed from the souls of mortals who migrated to their native planes after death.
    • The main kinds of celestials, the dominant races of the Upper Planes, are particularly closely allied and share a single kind of demigods — unlike fiends, who are divided into multiple independent and warring factions and whose deific upper tiers are strictly separated.
      • Archons are Lawful Good, and form a rigidly ordered society in the seven tiers of Heaven. In appearance, they range from winged humanoids to humanoid canines to living balls of light.
      • Agathions are Neutral Good and resemble humanoid animals — they're derived from the guardinals in D&D. Utterly devoted to goodness and benevolence above all other concerns, they care deeply for both mortals and the natural world and often have to mediate between their allies' more extreme outlooks. The name is a contraction of agathodaímōn, a Greek term for benevolent spirits.
      • Azatas are Chaotic Good, often similar to fey, and equivalents to the eladrin. They often resemble elf-like humanoids, but also included Plant People and winged Snake People in their ranks.
      • Angels can be of any Good alignment, and are taken to be a symbol of Good's innate drive towards understanding of cooperation — notably, there is no Evil equivalent of their role. They almost always resemble winged humanoids and often act directly as the agents of Good deities. Notable types include Balisse angels, formed from the souls of mortals who turned away from evil and who seek to inspire such redemptions in others, and Empyreans, immensely powerful beings created directly by gods instead of being transformed mortal souls.
    • The manasaputras are Hindu-inspired rather than vaguely Abrahamic. They live in the Positive Energy Plane and originate as the souls of enlightened mortals. They gradually advance in power and wisdom over many lifetimes — their leaders, the Solar Pitris and the Seven Kumaras, have lived through many, many cycles of universal birth and collapse — and seek to guide mortals towards their same path of enlightenment.
  • Relics: A Game of Angels: The angels were created by God to help Her shape the universe, and are composed of four Aspects representing the Bull, the Eagle, the Human, and the Lion. In Heaven, an angel is a ball of superheated divine fire. When they come to Earth they forge crystalline Vessels for themselves, over which is projected a human disguise called a Semblance.
  • Savage Worlds: Winterweir has the Celestials. A bunch of angry ascended former humans who believe in the total domination of all beings through orderly stability. They manipulate religions to think of them as divine servitors.
  • Scion: The setting's equivalent of angels are the Hands of Aten (who is the Avatar of the Titan of Light). They are bad. Although the descriptions suggest that they are in fact Aten's attempt to copy angels as described by humans. So the stories of angels, true or false, came before the Hands.
  • Shadow of the Demon Lord: Angels are anything but good — they are actually devils serving Diabolus who prey upon the strongly religious and seek to drive them to commit evil in the name of their faith, so as to push them toward corruption and damnation. While angels often take the form of whatever the one they appear to considers ideal, with lots of light to go around, their true forms are hideous, with pale skin riddled with oozing fissures and craters, Black Eyes of Evil, Bad Black Barf from the mouth, and flaming feathered wings far more befitting of their infernal nature. Since all devils are fae creatures in SOTDL, angels also share the fae/diabolic vulnerability to iron.
  • The Strange:
    • In Ardeyn, the qephilim are a race descended from immortal angelic beings who served the Maker and his Incarnations. When the Betrayal occurred and the Incarnations failed, the qephilim became mortal.
    • In Starship Heinlein, the angels are no more than humans living on a generation ship that consider themselves holy. They have retained some semblance of the knowledge required to keep a starship operational, which they consider rituals of worship, not science. Angels each have a revelation, which they see as proof of their divine heritage but in truth are merely drones that provide owners with basic access to certain functions provided by the starship.
    • Each of the golem-like angels of Eschatos appears like a different extinct terrestrial animal forged of silver. They serve Eris, a magitech entity who oversees the Last City, the home of the last humans in a universe that has undergone heat death.
    • Aviatars are warriors who appear to be lithe, muscular humans with feathered wings. Some think them angels, but they do not work toward some benevolent ideal and are interested in their own sense of honour and justice. In some recursions, aviatars might be angels, doling out divine vengeance. In others, they might be the last of an ancient, magic race.
  • Systems Malfunction:
  • Talislanta has Archons, Guardians, and Paramanes. Archons are 10' tall beings of light. Guardians are 20' tall and look like stereotypical armored angels. Paramanes are 7'-10' tall silver skinned beings that serve as guardian angels for mortals.
  • Unknown Armies: They're never directly seen, but demons are universally terrified of what they call the Cruel Ones, and on the occasion they have apparently manifested directly there's always some form of a localized Apocalypse Wow. Since that name seems to exclusively come from demons, who seem to be the only thing they actually hate, most checkers assume that the reality of the matter is a little more complex.
  • Victoriana RPG: Classical white-winged angels are around, but they're in the minority; most angels look nothing like them. In fact, most angels of the Aluminat look more like a Clockwork Creature than a servant of goodness and light due to having become tarnished by dogma.
  • Witchcraft: Angels mostly conform to common beliefs as being Winged Humanoids, both in their native plane (where they are actually Energy Beings) and our world (where they have to incarnate themselves into physical bodies, but can easily hide their true natures). Both heavenly and fallen angels (the latter and demons being one and the same) are split into two orders: the more powerful ones, created/born as angels (Seraphim) and the souls of mortals that went to Heaven or Hell which were transfigured into angelic forms (Cherubim and Qlippothim, respectively) to be field agents and footsoldiers.
  • The World of Darkness:
    • New World of Darkness:
      • Demon: The Descent: Angels serve the God-Machine, being essentially divine subroutines and programs running on its cosmic supercomputer. They have no free will outside their orders (going against them, even in letter, causes them to fall and become demons), act as forces pushing things towards some arrayed purpose they can't possibly know, take any number of forms corporeal and non-corporeal, and are sometimes set at cross purposes (one Actual Play has one angel assigned to protect a barista, another assigned to kill said barista, and both falling because of it). Angels can also take any number of forms; while most angels do discreet work for the God-Machine and look human, some look outright monstrous, some might take the form of animals, and one sample angel is a living pattern of graffiti that slithers across city buildings.
      • Changeling: The Lost has the Nemeses, assassins serving Fate who kill anyone who tries to Screw Destiny and manifest as Winged Humanoids resembling their target. They're never explicitly called angels but the parallels are obvious.
      • Mage: The Awakening has Angels as being the inhabitants of the Supernal Realm of the Aether (where the Arcana of Forces and Prime originate) and are divided into the choirs of Seraphim (for Forces) and Cherubim (for Prime). The Seraphim are described as being powerful and furious, often manifesting in forms of wild, powerful energy, while the Cherubim are more patient and wise, often manifesting in gentler, softer forms. All angels are said to be forces of righteousness with high moral standards, although their particular view of morality can be sometimes a bit alien. The sample Cherubim are the Ophan (a nude, feminine figure, completely white and hairless and covered in hundreds of closed eyes which blaze with a blinding, blue light when open) and the Beast Keeper (a multi-armed, solidly-built masculine figure who has constantly shifting animal features). The sample Seraphim are the Metatron (described as a towering humanoid being of pure fire with countless wings constantly folding and unfolding behind it and constant electricity sparkling around it) and the Elemental (a being which can manifest as a pillar of fire, a ball of heat and light, a beast constructed from magma, or a swirling torrent of water). The other suggested angels have forms ranging from the typical (humanoid beings made from energy, burning bushes) to the unusual (a rubber ball constantly ricocheting off of surfaces, a structure made from marble and glass suspended in orbit) to the particularly alien (which greatly resemble the Angels from Evangelion).
      • Promethean: The Created features the qashmallim. Despite the fact that the books make it very clear that they are not angels, they can take any number of forms (including Biblical-style renditions such as a man with four faces or a flaming chariot), they have powers that are Biblical in scope (such as calling down a rain of fire or turning a human into a pillar of salt), and they're made of the "Divine Fire" that powers the universe and act in service of a guiding force known as "the Principle." Just to be confusing, the books also make it very clear in some points that they are angels. Sometimes in the same sentence.
      • To further add to the confusion, Demon mentions the qashmallim and how similar they are to the angels of the God-Machine - divine agents crafted for one purpose before being assumed back into a greater system. The book itself says that demons don't know what it means but are sometimes content to pit a qashmal and an angel against one another and see the fireworks, but one interpretation from a former writer for the line is that the Principle that moves the qashmallim came first, and the God-Machine just copied its homework when it entered reality.
      • Werewolf: The Forsaken: Gamugur, a spirit of primal chaos, takes the form of a three-headed, many-winged angel to interact with a religious cult.
    • Old World of Darkness:
      • Demon: The Fallen: The "angels" (if they can still be called that; they sure think they can) are split up into seven celestial Houses, based on which day of creation they had a role in (for instance, the Rabisu, responsible for the sixth day and all the creatures of the Earth, have control over animal life, plant life, and flesh). As the Quotes page indicates, the pre-Fall angels were quantum beings that existed in multiple states — the actual debate that led to the Fall is described by one angel as simultaneously being a verbal debate and clashing elements of a symphony and a struggle between elemental forces. Actual angels have disappeared from Creation by the time the game begins, as has God. Perhaps Angels aren't as gone as you might think, depending on your Storyteller. One sidebar (and thus optional) in the final book gives stats for genuine blessed-by-God angels: a slight alteration from the standard Demon stats for thematic reasons, with the ass-kicking stats pegged at eleven. There is also a suggestion in one novel that the avatars of mages are the remains of the angels.
      • Werewolf: The Apocalypse: In the caern at Gish Abbai in Ethiopia, described in Rage Across the World, a gateway opens every decade or so and closes after a lunar month. This gate is guarded by a being resembling a winged human made of light, who bars all entrance to the garden that lies beyond it. No-one has ever bested it in combat, but a few especially wise Garou have persuaded it to retrieve powerful healing items from the garden in exchange for completing semingly impossible tasks.

Tabletop Wargames


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