How would you portray angels or celestial beings in general as

>>49630702

Callous disregard for mortal lives.

Shin Megami Tensei style

>>49630702
Make them anything that isn't an "angel".
It's just dumb humans mistaking aliens, wizards or science for their own divine thing.

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>>49630702
Angels are servants and messengers of the divine. Some (or all, if you want to be edgy) divine beings aren't exactly Good.

>>49630702
Make them like cosmic robots or automatons. They crush anything that goes against their prime directive, without malice or remorse; simply because it stands in the way.

>>49630702
Make them follow their religion to the letter and add some edgy elements to it.
e.g. death penalty for killing no matter how small, etc.
>A child steals a candy
>Gets killed by an angel

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>>49630702
they have no free will and are basically sociopaths
they dont know what evil is thus they cannot commit it?
insect mentality: kill demons, those "tainted" by evil, and complete disregard for all other life

>>49630702
Sauce on the image?

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>>49630702
Dogmatic adherence to a religion that's values & tenants are far removed from modern day notions of morality.

Think Taliban, with super powers.

>>49630702
Are they bullying him? Because it looks like they're bullying him

It's simple really. Anyone who does not abide by the word of god is wanting. The only luxury you are afforded is the chance to repent. Sinners are to be punished justly.

The faithful will naturally desire to be free of the self, to sing forever in the celestial choir the praises of the god who has liberated them from the weakness and frailty of morality.

Those who desire and desire to maintain the ruinous thing called "The self" are to be cleansed justly and thus we war with demons who are the embodiment of desire and self made form.

>>49631433
>Taliban
>Post picture of Osama Bin Laden

>>49630702
I think what is most important is portraying them as being "off" from normal people. Even if they are doing unambiguous good, something about it should make you a little uneasy. An angel rescues a child from a burning building and your impulse is not to thank it but wonder what is going through its mind.

>>49630702
Angels live with Purpose above all else. Each and every one of them having a driving function as automatic and important to their continued existence as a beating heart is to a mortal man.

>>49631629
>There are kids now who weren't even around for 9/11.

Yes, you idiot. That's why the US attacked Afghanistan; they were harboring him.

>>49631914
>Taliban
>Osama Bin Laden

>>49631953
AQ and the Taliban were working together closely during the Invasion and Occupation of Afghanistan.

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>>49630702

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Angels are beings of Law and Order in its purest sense.
Such is their devotion to this concept that all who do not share their views or worship whatever Deity (or Deities, as the case may be) they serve are viewed as worthless infidels that must be annihilated down to the last man, woman, and child.

>>49631914
>he still believes in what us government says

How're those wmds that you manage to find in Iraq doing?

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>>49630702
What about this picture turns me on?
What is that devil writing?
What is the source of this one-off image?

>>49632923
Well, it's two naked women threatening and bullying a visibly beat up and chained down equally-naked dude. There's plenty of things for a pervert to gravitate towards there, take your pick.

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>>49630702
>"Having a bad day? Well go fuck yourself, your existence disrupts the cosmic balance, faggot, get fucked. Oh, and this city helps the disruption just by existing, so fuck it too."

go old testament on their asses.
>Angels carry out AGGRESSIVE evangelism
>people turned to salt
>firstborns taken
>SCORCHED EARTH MOTHERFUCKER

>>49630702
Possibilities:
* Just flat out evil. They may be from an exalted race, but they are evil people.
* Horrifyingly Dogmatic. Adhering to the letter of the rules when rather than the spirit.
* Alien moral code.

>>49632923
Tracked it down. http://nyoxion.deviantart.com/art/deadline-is-coming-

A couple possibilities >>49633065 left out is a supernatural/fantasy element or a dissonance between one's appearance and one's nature.

>>49633665
http://nyoxion.deviantart.com/art/deadline-is-coming-331022512
Didn't post the full link, sorry about that.

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Perhaps even before Avacyn was slain, the angel Emeria became their/her master.

>>49630702
Just use the way the are portrayed in the bible. What was "good" when that fanfic was written is an unrepentant tyranical Evil by modern standards

>>49633874
are they daijobu?

>>49633926
Your post reeks of semen and angst but is mostly correct.

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>>49634039
You mean right now or in the picture?
Pretty sure she was killed by Thalia (possessed by a benevolent ghost) and Brisela's sister Sigarda.

In the picture? Yeah, she's feeling great! Just look at those stats!

In fact, she was feeling so good, she tried to get Sigarda to join her. Sigarda said "no".

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/saint-traft-and-flight-nightmares-2016-07-13

>>49634039
>>49634117
On second thought, I'm not sure about her mental health. M:tG doesn't have a SAN stat.

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>>49634117
Sigarda said no, Brisela replied 'that's the spirit!' and did it anyway.

Based Thalia, saving the day.

>>49630702
Well, other than the Modron approach that other posters have suggested, it could be a matter of scale. The celestials are trying to ensure that "Good" triumphs over "Evil" in a trillion years time at the end of the universe. Whether a few million messy humans live or die won't really have much baring on that.

>>49630702
"I can do no wrong, for I do not know what it is."

Oh look it's another "Good" is evil thread. Wonderful.

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>>49630702
They kill demons and people who help demons. They'll take the help of humans, but will not tolerate any deviance from their strict religious creed. Their goal is to save creation from being overrun by hell on earth, no matter how many humans have to die to make it happen.

>>49630702
Angels cannot be evil, they don't have morals or free will, they have directives and don't comprehend anything they are not meant to comprehend.
They didn't eat the fruit, we did, they don't know of good an evil, they don't know death, fear, shame, pain.

From a human perspective their emotionless devotion to the holy directive may seem evil, because humans are selfish faggots who think anything that don't benefit them personally is evil, but angels are literally incapable of doing wrong.

>>49630720
This honestly.

>>49630702
Angels are actually evil as a concept is played out

But if you must, portray the difference between them as EXTEME LAW and EXTREME ANARCHY

Angels represent law. Old fucking testament law. And the only thing keeping them from burning you into piles of ash and pillars of salt is the mercy of God holding them in check. Legions of zealous servitors who not only love God but adore him and every time you step out of line and disobey him they want to fucking kill you. And the only thing preventing this is God continuously holding them back from unleashing holy omnicide upon creation

Or do the Diablo thing I guess. Where angels are good guys, but earth is just one of many realms they watch over and frankly more trouble than it's worth

>>49630702
Both Heaven and Hell are alien planes that use people of mortal realm as soldiers to settle their long war, and actually don't give half a fuck about them (with a few exceptions); it started because both factions claimed the other had shit taste in everything.

>>49630702
Revelation happens. The rapture happens

You are not one of the saved

Prepare your fucking anus

https://youtu.be/Ivlq8ndqVuo

>>49630702
Make them more concerned about their battle against demons than with human life like in Diablo.

>>49630702
See: Sorin Markov, Ugin, Galactus, The Watcher

>>49630702
The will of the gods they serve must be followed to the absolute.

That means a complete disregard for the happiness, well-being, and life of mortals if it conflicts with gods.

Also, they exist in their purest form, however horrifying it may be. As they have no regard for the sensibilities of mortals.

You may like a Pantheocide book. It have very biblical close to actual legends Angels tha are complete dicks to humand (and demons, but who cares, humans curbstomped them by that point) while believing themselves to be paragons of righteousnes.

>>49630702
Isn't this the purpose of Archons in the white slice of the pie?

>>49630702
They don't follow the same values as we do

If killing 1000 humans would mean saving 1001 thirty years later they would gladly do this

>>49636793

I should reinstall Fall from Heaven.

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>>49638708
>If killing 1000 humans would mean saving 1001 thirty years later they would gladly do this
You mean you wouldn't?

>>49630702
Remember that the actual angels of the bible were terrifying elder god like beings, and not faggoty little boys with wings. There is a damn reason they always started any conversation with "fear not".

Also remember that they are MESSENGERS, not gods. They spread a message and they are really good at that, but they will do ANYTHING to get the point across. They have neither sense for proportion nor are they capable of thinking in terms of "good" and "evil". Either they are subserviant to god and thus by definition in their own view "good", no matter the evil things they do. "Evil" are those who have their own damn thoughts about whats good and whats bad, but those also like to put themselves above creation by deciding what is good and what's not. Not that they actually change, they just unchain themselves and remove all restraints on their doings, and they also want to "improve" creation, which is why demons allways look slightly unsetteling, uncanny valley like, but never awe and terror inspiring like the angels they used to be.

So all you need to portray them as evil is to leave slips and cracks in their purpose that they fill with their own ruthlessness, or just go full out "Supernatural" and have God leave for a pack of smokes and never come back so that they have to figure their own shit out. I bet you rather sooner than later the demons might not look to bad compared to them.

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>>49638516
Kind of.

White is always about the good of the whole, or at the very least, perhaps the whole is everyone over all, or it might just be your own faction.

Sometimes that means the nuclear option.

>>49639969
How would you KNOW that would work?
"Certainly any one who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices."

More commonly paraphrased (than directly quoted) as: Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities

>>49636843
Yeah, I am all against all this "good os evil" vibe that tips Fedoras here on /tg/.
But that is objectively wrong, as the source of all Evil was an Angel and many followed it in the Fall.

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>>49640165
"messenger". Sometimes that message is destruction.

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options.
1. Use deva, i.e. divine servitors without moral compass that are neither malevolent or benevolent.
2. deploy Milton/Goethe make them flawed beings with a bit of humanity.
3. Make god/gods evil. See berserk, cathars and shit like that, the angels purpose is to sow suffering, then balance it out with a reason for god being like that.

4. most importantly and somewhat contradictory to point 2. Remember they are so far divorced from mortal life that it is incomparable.
They have no want to eat, no want to sleep, no need to breed, no understanding of pain, no free will and no emotions really when i think about it.
Nor is it just being divorced from it they have and will never have these urges.

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>>49630702
There is the Babylon 5 way, treat angels vs demons as order vs chaos.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorlon#Planet_killers

>>49636793
>Reap good civs so their units join you in afterlife
Man, that was brutal.

>>49640497
I read somewhere that Odin sometimes did something along those lines.

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>>49640281
>How would you KNOW that would work?
I assumed that was presupposed in the very question, considering we're literally talking about angels.

>"Certainly any one who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices."
Nice Voltaire quote. Here's another.

>>49640281
I just realized you don't even need to know it would work for sure. If you can calculate how likely it is to work, game theory would probably be able to determine the ideal course of action.

>>49630702
While wearing a fedora.

>>49640661
a witty quote proves that a person has some knowledge on the discussed topic, and is intelligent enough to make interesting quips about it

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I don't use traditional angels, instead the 'celestial' beings in my setting are Bureaucrats. They have specific jobs in the Celestial Bureaucracy, such as cataloging your sexual escapades, painting all the leaves orange in the fall, and spreading plague and disease. It's not their decision, check with my supervisor. Buddy, leave me alone I'm just doing my job.

You can however bribe them, since they are pretty greedy, or if you find a way to do their work for them they'll probably take a vacation.

I should also mention that, at least in this setting, these beings are not really a 'religion' either. It's less about worship and more about just how the world works, instead of the moon's gravity influencing the tides or evolution or changes of temperature in the climate or the weak force or gravity or whatever- it's the spirits that make everything work.

>>49641128
Except it's in no way related to the subject (we were talking about whether or not the consequences of ones actions could be foreseen, not whether or not they were ridiculous to begin with) and it's a quote. There's nothing interesting or original about it after it has been regurgitated a hundred times in a hundred better situations.

>>49641281
So you use Chinese angels.

SOOOOOO clever

>>49641635

Yes, and?

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Just go full Shin Megami Tensei, if you're not following God's law by the letter, you must the exterminated. Ruthless, unfeeling and uncaring.

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>>49641917
In a lot of Nipshit gods tend to be the bad guys. Is there any explanation for this? Were the gods of Shintoism a bunch of massive assholes that made the Greek gods look virtuous by comparison?

>>49642041
"We follow Izanagi and local Gods, who do you follow?"
"We follow YHVH, who flooded the earth, smoted ethiopia, burned Sodom with meteors..."
"Your God is a baka."

Enforcer Droids for their deity. A bunch of droidekas really.

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>>49642091
>smoted ethiopia

All angels are messengers.

The rank of angel and nature of the "message" varies based on the recipient.

Mortals may come in contact with low-ranking traditional angels. Messages vary from an actual message like premonitions and guidance to actual blessings like magic buffs, wards, curse-ending shit, etc.

The higher ranking angels like Dominions and Seraphim are basically very powerful celestial aberrations, that rarely talk until after they fuck evil shit up.

>>49638516
I think Archons are more supposed to be like angels that focus on the more Law aspects of white as opposed to the typical moral aspects of white

>>49642041
It's because god in Shinto is a very broad term. It would bascially cover every supernatural creature in greek myth that had a name and wasn't weak enough to just be a normal spirit.

Since gods in Shinto are so numerous, the idea that there are a lot of good, evil, or indifferent ones is a common thought to them, so they tend to play it more fast and loose.

>>49642041
My understanding is Susanoo wasn't the best guy. I wouldn't go as far as saying he made greek gods look virtuous, but that is more of a matter of ignorance than an informed opinion.

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>>49630702
Nobilis did it pretty well, I feel. Someone summarized it as

>Heaven loves you for who you could be, for all the good that you could do, but it sets the bar too high. You can never truly live up to Heaven's expectations, and Heaven will always be, at least a little, disappointed in you.
>And, of course, if you turn from the light and from the Good, Heaven has no place for you.

(Hell, on the other hand, loves you for who you are. Hell loves the sinner, loves the unloveable; there is always room in Hell's heart for thee. Hell is why you will never, ever die alone. When you are at your lowest, at your worst, when you think all the world has abandoned you - Hell is there. Hell is always with you.)

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>>49643508

>>49642041
Japanese people think Christian symbols are cool and don't really care about how they portray it.

>>49630702
>as evil
skilled, beautiful, yet vain and utterly contemptuous of human kind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi1r8B5INfU
is a good example I think

>>49642041
It's not so much they think gods are evil as much as they have the potential to be huge jerks. Same deal with Indo-European polytheism. Hell, in Mesopotamia, and goddess got super butthurt and went crying to her daddy because a demigod told her to fuck off.

I can think of explanation as to why SMT has YHVH be evil through The Mysterious Stranger by Twain.

>a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell—mouths mercy and invented hell—mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites a poor, abused slave to worship him!

It's also worth keep in mind the YHVH of SMT is a reflection of how the universe being inherently flawed.

>>49643508
>>49643690
because who doesn't love music whilst they read
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGZ9mYVV5s0

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>>49643690
>Sometimes the light of Heaven will break the darkness of our lives.
>Sometimes you’ll be falling and the lotus will catch you---you’ll be on the great wide bloom of it, the magic-carpet-expanse of it, and you’ll realize you’re blowing in the wind instead of dying of having nothing to cling to. Sometimes you will be lost, and the light of Heaven will give unto you a path. Or a hope. Or, at least, a chance.
>You must ask yourself if you are worthy of it.
>If you are not then you are better served to step off the edge of the lotus and resume your fall. You are better served to walk forth from that light. If you are not capable of earning Heaven’s grace then you must not accept it. It hurts to say this, because I do not believe that it is right; but it is true. It is the will of the angels, always, to be just.
>Sometimes it is a justice mixed with kindness or with poetry. Sometimes it is justice in pettier or more juridical forms. Sometimes it is a justice as cruel and hard as a diamond is cruel and hard. The angels don’t have a preference, not in that sense. They’re too big for such small distinctions. They don’t care about human justice.
>But they seek always to be just.
>The Devils thought otherwise. They thought that there should be a place in the world for the nasty, for the ugly, for the monsters and the cruel. They thought that justice didn’t mean Heaven could do whatever it wanted to the mean and foul things. For that crime, for the crime of standing up for Caligula, Pol Pot, and the ichneumon wasp, the angels cast them into Hell.

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>>49645210
>But the first work of Hell is to honor and bear witness to the things that would otherwise be entirely unloved.
>They will come and sit with you if you have to die alone. The Powers of Hell. The demons. The flames and rotten flowers, at least, if nothing else; maybe even a Devil. They won’t do it to hurt you, not even the Devils. They might hurt you, they might hurt you terribly, they might even steal your soul, because they’re just that broken. But it won’t be why they’re there.
>They’ll be there because if they were not there, you would suffer and die, alone, and with no witnesses; and for someone to die in such a fashion is anathema to Hell.
>They will come and visit you, now and then, if you live in the mountains, isolated, with no one else to know.
>They will come to watch you, to listen to you, to know you, if you are a thing so horrible and broken that no one else would dare.
>They love the evil things, maybe, best of all, because it’s evil that needs Hell most. If you want to know how the Devils have gone so horribly wrong, it may be that; that, as much as the corruption and their own suffering; that they spend all of their time in the company of the worst of us, and so they’ve come to exemplify that awfulness themselves. But to love the evil things is not their duty but its expression. The work of Hell is to love whatever needs them most; whatever would, without Hell, be alone.
>Hell’s eyes are open to you.
>They will not turn away.
>That is why the humans with the greatest taint of Hell are as likely to walk the road of sainthood as that of evil, or to find a strange equivocating path between them. The thing in us that can love the evil is at once our worst side and our best.

>>49630702
They operate on a scale of morality far detached from humanity.

"You're an ant. Your plight doesn't matter to us. While you're fighting an evil cult for the past year, we've battled the forces of hell for centuries."

>>49640553
Indirectly through the Valkyries; They would cause warriors to make the ones small mistake that lead to their death when fighting, so that their death would be assured to be on the battlefield and thus their soul assured to be delivered to Odin and not Hel.

>>49643508
>>49643690
Is that a scan of the GWB?
Please tell me that's a scan of the GWB

>>49631914
>That's why the US attacked Afghanistan; they were harboring him.
This really fires up the cerebral corex, how come you didn't attack pakistan?

>>49645356
Cropped out of the third edition PDF. I paid real actual money through legitimate channels for a print version but due to various circumstances I never got it. I don't particularly blame anyone for it, but I am salty about it, even after all these years.

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>>49630720
>tfw Apocalypse will probably be at least 1 year late in yurop again

>>49645380
Damn, it's been a while since I've given 3e a proper read and my tired mind got it's hopes up that somebody somewhere had finally recovered those lost secrets.
Still great to see Nobilis mentioned here and there, for how esoteric a game and setting it is I will always consider it's writing of Heaven and Hell to be the most interesting (if not the best) anywhere.

>>49645431
Yeah, I absolutely love Moran's take on Heaven and Hell. Which reminds me, I gotta finish reading the Fable of the Swan at some point and also pick up Chuubo's...

I have the biggest nerd crush on Moran. Lady's got a doctorate in compsci which is the same subject I'm working towards a degree in, and she writes hella sweet fiction hnnnngh

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>>49642381
This is a big point.
Especially because its the reason the NIP phantasy ladder is something like
Wildlife, civlization, monsters, holy/demon monsters, holy/demonic civilization, space crystal civilization, GOD

As features in Bayonetta, DMC, Final Fantasy, Digimon, Pokemon, Godhand and many others.
You will often see what in Christianity would be Saints or Angels, ascribed as Dieties.

>>49644000
Came here to post this, honestly. Illiterate fa/tg/uys would know Mysterious Stranger from:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb8hd3IjhVo

>>49630702
Benevolent but capable of being flawed or even evil, all because God decided it was unfair to give humanity free will but not give his first children the same chance to choose.

And then the big guy went on vacation because he felt the world was "old enough to make, spot, and correct it's own mistakes".

>>49645483
I never was able to sink my teeth into Fable of the Swan; It's "quirkyness" was just a little too much for me to get over
Which probably says SOMETHING considering I was a backer of Chuubo and have a hardcover of it sitting at home.
which speaking of it, I definitely recommend it, especially if you already like Moran's weird fiction. The Outside is, at least for me, a better representation of The Lands Beyond even as it contains them and is very much a transition into them. The rules themselves are at once very nice and probably an improvement on Nobilis, and also MORE incomprehensible than anything in Nobilis itself (and this is coming from someone who had no real trouble getting Nobilis)

I have one of Jenna's old unfinished systems from her blog before they were taken down, I should convert them to PDF's some time and upload them, or at least the lore document. It's near the top of my list of things to pilfer from or just outright use for running a game If I can get over my neverGMing

>>49630702

Like some presumably right on everything but very stern parents.

For some added edgyness, humans (or whatever) actually cannot understand their laws, but apparently the angels do know their shit.

>>49640365
The source of all evil is knowledge.

>>49630702
Completely above mortal morality. They aren't evil, they have an objective and they will do whatever they need to (within their nature) to achieve that goal. If they have to genocide an entire nation because that nation will one day give birth to an evil sorcerer who will upset the divine balance, so be it. They have such contempt for mortals that they feel no need to explain themselves.

>>49647060
The source of all evil is an apple tree.