Astral Deva, Monadic Deva, Movanic Deva.

The race of devas inhabit the upper Outer Planes of Good. Devas are
servants and messengers of the various deities of good alignment, ie.,
some devas are lawful, some chaotic, some neutral, but all are good.
Devas are by no means the most powerful creatures on the planes they
inhabit, although there is no question that they are powerful minions of
Good (cf., Planetar, Solar).

All devas
are able to travel about the planesof good alignment, although
those of lawful nature will be found doing so only when obeying some
instruction from a deity, and even chaotic devas seldom journey from
place to place except in service. All devas can become ethereal as well,
although only the astral deva can travel astrally except when commanded
by a deity. They generally operate equally well in anyenvironment,
including water.

When on the Prime Material Plane or any Elemental Plane, only the
material body of a deva can be destroyed. The spirit of the deva is
invulnerable and will return to its own plane instantly upon destruction
of its fleshy form, there to remain for a decade and regain the power
necessaryto again form a corporeal body. Note, however, that when on
any other plane, all devas are subject to actual death. No deva will ever
negotiate with beings or creatures of Evil, although nonlawful devas
might strike a bargain with nonevil neutrals.
A deva can usually evaluate opponents so as to determine which
are most powerful and pose the
greatest threat and attack accordingly. Attacks can be divided during a
round if the deva so desires.

All devas can perform the following spell-like powers, 1 at a time, 1 per round:
    cure disease (3 per day),
    cure light wounds (7 per day),
    cure serious wounds (3 per day),
    detect  evil,
    detect illusion,
    detect magic,
    find traps, <corrected >
    dispel magic (7 per day),
    etherealness,
    heal (1 per day),
    know alignment,
    invisibility (individual or 10' radius),
    light (effect varies),
    polymorph self,
    read magic,
    remove curse,
    remove fear,
    teleport without error,
    tongues,
    ultravision,
    and [protection from evil.

Devas are not affected by cold, electrical, magic missile, petrification,
poison, normal fire-based, or any gas attack spells. Except for monadic
devas who are not affected by fire of any sort, devas take half damage
from dragon and magical fire attacks. They take full damage from acid
attacks. Although they take no damage from normal iron or silver weapons,
they take full damage from those which are magic. The 3 kinds of
devas found anywhere on the Upper Outer Planes are detailed hereafter.

The deva
So how about the official new creature,
the deva? (It is pronounced with a
long “e” — deevah, with the accent on
the first syllable.) Some oddly oriented
chap accused me of plagiarism because
the religion and myth of India mentions
devas. (Good gracious! I do hope that
when this fellow checks out the Monster
Manual he will forgive me. . . . And what
will he think of Tolkien, I wonder, who
took virtually everything he wrote about
from a background of Norse mythology
and English folklore? And R. E. Howard!
Why, almost all of his names are taken
directly from actual history! Mercy! Such
high-handed theft!) Those Enlightened
Readers familiar with theosophy will
immediately be able to recognize from
whence I got inspiration for the three
races of devas, and their more powerful
associates the planetars and solars. Because
the races of devas are native to the
Upper Outer Planes, their frequency is
given for such areas. As is stated, they
travel about in service to the deities of
these planes and do not generally ramble
about on persona! pleasure jaunts. If
fans of demons and devils find them too
strong, I can hardly wait until they get a
look at what planetars and solars are
able to do! (Editor’s note: This essay was
composed before the issue of DRAGON
Magazine containing the planetar and
solar had been released.) Although there
are fewer of these servants of Good, they
are far and away stronger than the minions
of Evil. A strong character can handle
the typical demon or devil. With aid
from a deva or two, any party of Good
alignment can hope to survive the dire
machinations of morally and ethically
aligned foes with the forces of Darkness
to call upon. While they should be seldom
met, the potential is always there.

Although illustrated as male, the races
of devas are similar to humans in that
they have male and female sexes. They
are bipedal and somewhat resemble
humans, but they are in no sense human.
In fact, they are nothing like the angels of
Judeo-Christian teaching, or Moslem,
for that matter, as they are a race, have
no direct descent due to creation by a
supreme being, and have corporal forms
everywhere, save the Prime Material
Plane where they have material forms
but immortality. Devas have wings in
order to fly — just as giant eagles and
rocs do. For much the same reason,
quite a number of the monstrous inhabitants
of the Lower Outer Planes have
wings. After all, AD&D gaming is postulated
on medieval fantasy and mythology.
Because there are hordes of nasty
critters at work to promote Evil (and provide
fodder for swordplay), it is necessary
to have some reasonable’ minions
serving the opposing planes in the mythical
multiverse of the game. To state that
devas are patterned after angels is preposterous.
They are patterned after
mythological and fabled concepts of
what sort of creatures serve the forces of
Good. They are written so as to make
their alignment absolutely clear. To think
otherwise is to fly in the face of reason
and against the entire gamut of creatures
patterned in the AD&D game system.
Much of the inspiration for it all is
borrowed from folklore, myth, and legend.
To claim that some demon names
match those found in the Bible makes as
much sense as asserting that devas are
from Indian myth or that they are angels.
Devils and demons were either taken
from common lists of secular writings on
the topic, or made up on the spot as the
need arose. Some are obviously based
on the gods of ancient cultures — Assyria,
Babylonia, Persia, etc. Some are of
medieval origin. Who borrows from
whom becomes quite muddled in the
span of history. Frankly, what difference
does it make when we are talking about a
time separation of centuries?!

There was a typographical error in the
stats for one of the devas. This is important!
The astral deva has a “mace-like”
weapon which strikes as if it were a mace
of disruption wielded by an 8th level cleric,
not a 9th level cleric, as shown. My
thanks to Chuck Conerity for spotting
the glitch!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Geoffrey
,,,

...The closest thing in AD&D to Gandalf would be a deva.
 

And that angel-like creature was meant to be as such.

Cheers,
Gary
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Geoffrey
Really? Devas were meant to be like Gandalf? That's pretty cool. 

Would you believe more like angels than a pointy-hatter wizard!

Gary
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gray Mouser
What? Devas like angels? You mean the winged figure in the MM II that was an other-planar minion of the powers of weal were meant to resemble angels? That's crazy talk, I tell you!

Actually, I rather liked Devas, Solars and (IIRR) Planatars. It did seem, however, that the Solar could give a demon lord or duke of hell a run for his money. Which is fitting, given the angel/demon/devil parallels 

I recall that the Devas were divided into three distinct groups, were Planatars and Solars, as well? Was this three-fold division inspired by the "Choirs of Angels" belief that was developed largely by Pseudo-Dyonisius' reflection on various passages in the New Testament?

Gray Mouser

Hi Mouser,

Devas were drawn mainly from mytholology.

Planetar and Solar were inspired by Theosophy.
There were no grades of either IIRR--too lazy to dig up MMII and check for sure.

The lot were surely meant to counter, and then some, the minions of the Lower Planes 

Cheerio,
Gary
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mighty Veil
What exactly is Theosophy all about? I'm reading it on Wiki but that's not helping. I'm curious to know because when my grandmother died years ago. In her book collection I found a very old bible like book with the emblem of the Theosophical Society symbol on it. The symbol has the Nazi symbol in it, so I always wondered if there was some connection (not that grandma *ever* seemed like the type).

Look up Sprirtism and Theosophy online, also try Madam Blavatsky (sp?).
It was a popular belief back in the late 1800s and lasted into the early 1900s, a spritualist sort of belief.
As a matter of fact it was very active in Wisconsin...and look up Wisconsin Death Trip sometime.

The swastika is a gammadon, IIRR, used in ancinet India and by the American indians as a good luck symbol.

Cheers,
Gary
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Thulcondar
I find that particularly fascinating (and yet another indicator of just how far you were willing to go to find source material).
Although it also points out how far Mme. Blavatsky was willing to go for source material, inasmuch as the Deva is a Hindu figure.

I have been toying with the idea of putting together some sort of Angelic heirarchy to counter the Diabolic and Demonic heirarchies.
Since we have arch-devils, why not arch-angels? Major Devils and Seraphim.
Demon Princes and Saints...
The details are unimportant, but you get the idea...
And of course the "named" Infernal figures would have their own counterparts.

The only thing that has stumped me thusfar is in individualizing them sufficiently.
Perhaps I am a creature of the mythologies to which I am accustomed, but the angelic hosts always seemed so... homogenous.
Valkyries could work for one of the other alignments (NG, mayhap, although for those who know their true nature according to the Norse lore they are far from beneficient beings!), but I find myself at something of a stumbling block.
And for the non-good/evil minions... I would ache for something more rooted in mythology than Modrons.

Any thoughts as to a possible expansion of the demon/devil/daemon idea into the realms of Good, beyond the (to my mind, rather limited) Deva/Plantar/Solar?

As always, my thanks in advance.

The short answer is that as a Christian I have stayed away from Judeo-Christian theology.
Thus the use of Theophysical in Hindu spirit entities.

Cheers,
Gary

<didn't Gary convert to Christianity c. 1985?>
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by dcas
Are there rough D&D equivalents to each of the nine choirs of angels? or was that not a consideration?

That was not a consideration, the Devas, Planatars, and Solars were added to the roster of creatures to coulter-balance the various demone, devils, and fiends.

Cheerio,
Gary
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mighty Veil
Wow. Reading page 3's Gary responses from his response of my Canadian Maple Leaf post to Gord. I haven't been this surprise about AD&D's roots since Gary said he wasn't a LotR fan. And not so much D&D is based on LotR.

I didn't realize D&D didn't base itself on Christian beliefs. Hindu, huh? Never would of guessed that. I still don't understand this Theosophy one. But Solars are the sun, and planetars are the planet. This new view of them makes them seem more like cosmic elementals than angels (reminds me of the show Andromeda). Very spiritual.

You know Gary. Had you used "Paradise Lost" as inspiration. I bet a neat D&D cosmology , different then the current one, there could have been. I just HATE what 2e's Planescape did to it. I was thinking of buying the new Demonweb Pit adventure till I learned it used 2e's cosmology.

As a Christian I stayed well away from basing any of the D&D game on scripture.

The Deva, Solarm and Planatar are benign and rather angelic in their purposes.

No Milton, but I did use a bit of Dante's Inferno is developing the denizens of the Nine Hells.

Cheerio,
Gary