Editing Deva (section)

==Devas vs. Aasimars==
Devas were added to 4th edition by taking the place of the [[aasimar]], introduced in [[Planescape]] so long ago. Their coming was foretold in the teaser-splatbook "Wizards Presences: Races & Classes". There, one of the game designers noted that whilst "inherently celestial race" was a good idea of itself, the actual execution of it in the form of the aasimar was... not so good. After all, when you get down to it, the aasimars are pretty much a carbon-copy of [[tiefling]]s, just doing a find & replace of "fiend" with "celestial". With fluff that basically boils down to "I'm a super-special super-good [[cleric]] or [[paladin]]".

...What? You want to see it for yourself? Alright, fine:

CELESTIALS
—Rob Heinsoo
If you’re a long-time D&D fan, odds are that you’ve already noticed that the tieflings’ promotion to first-rank player character race has left another race behind: the race that was the tieflings’ light-side counterpart, a race of golden humans descended from angels—the aasimar.

Even now I struggle to type that word without spelling it like buttocks.

I’m one of the designers who argued that we should stop using the word “aasimar.” In the aasimar’s place, you’ll meet a race of celestials who have plunged through the same transforming fires as the tieflings.

I won’t lie: making Good-associated creatures as exciting as their Evil-curious counterparts is a challenge. I call the challenge the “Ave Maria” problem, a reference to Walt Disney’s original Fantasia, a wonderful animated film that ended with musical meditations on Evil and Good. Evil got Night on Bald Mountain, accompanied by an evil-storm orchestrated by a whip-wielding demon. Good followed up with barely animated candle-bearing keepers of the faith proceeding across the screen singing Ave Maria. It’s a sweet piece of music, and it certainly speaks to the possibilities of Good, but the animation just didn’t hold a candle to lightning storms on Bald Mountain.

So now you know our mission: celestials who sizzle bright enough to hold their own against Bald Mountain lightning storms. We’re working on it!