Thursday, February 14, 2019

Signs of Angelic Heritage: A Table of d60 Biblical Oddities for Aasimar and Nephilim.

See that wheely thing in the lower right? That's yer pa.
I've seen complaints that in standard rpg settings, being half-angel essential amounts to being a very pretty human, which fails to capture the weirdness of old-school religious angels. So here's a list of traits that you might get when a properly Abrahamic angel sires a child with a mortal human.

I tried to include a variety of entries ranging from severe hinderance to mild superpower.



  1. Trumpets sound whenever they arrive somewhere.
  2. Left half extremely cold, right half extremely hot.
  3. Supernatural affinity for playing trumpets. Nothing seems off about them until they start playing, but when the music starts, you can't help but weep.
  4. Deep booming voice that commands respect.
  5. Direct eye contact induces overwhelming terror. They wear shaded glasses so as to not be a nuisance.
  6. Instead of eyes on their face, both eyes orbit around their head.
  7. A hoop covered in eyes rotates around their waist. Makes it hard to fit through doorways, but they’ve found they can hang bags from it, so they’ve made a good career as a courier.
  8. Has a wagon wheel growing out of their body like a tumor.
  9. Rotates like a gimbal whenever they lose focus on, well, not rotating.
  10. Eyes in hands.
  11. Eyes everywhere except their face.
  12. Too many eyes on their face.
  13. They have an identical twin which drifts around in the air next to them.
  14. Can only move around via cartwheeling.
  15. Second face on back of head.
  16. When they change direction, only their head rotates. If they want to move south, they have to side-shuffle
  17. Has a bird head growing from their shoulder.
  18. Always accompanied by gales of wind, even indoors.
  19. Poofy hair. constantly charged with static electricity. 
  20. Has a wire-frame cube floating around their body.
  21. Lion-mane, bull horns, bird feathers. Kind of a mess to look at.
  22. Can’t tell lies.
  23. Doesn’t understand the concept of lies.
  24. Causes nearby vegetation to dry out and burn.
  25. Turns water into blood via touch. Skin covered in red after exertion.
  26. Bodily fluids are extremely toxic.
  27. Reduces the amount of light that bounces off of nearby objects and so appears to glow by comparison.
  28. Locusts tend to congregate around them.
  29. Screams proclamations about coming judgement.
  30. All dirt is repelled from them. Clothes become clean, floors are automatically swept, topsoil is blown away as if by a horrible wind.
  31. Golden bands encircle their body.
  32. voice attracts birds. They hate birds.
  33. They feel compelled to constantly sing praises. This makes them functionally mute, for most kinds of conversation.
  34. They have a divine mandate to sing praises according to the heavenly schedule, and they burst into flame whenever they fail in their duties. But they lack the knowledge of what this schedule is. So they pretty much randomly catch on fire. Sleeps on stone. Carries around a bucket of water.
  35. Can unlock doors with a thought, but cannot enter buildings that have been marked with blood.
  36. Can move slightly into the fourth dimension. Body parts sometimes disappear.
  37. Halo. The bright light makes it hard to sleep, so they have deep bags under their eyes.
  38. Halo. The light is so bright that they have gone blind, and it hurts to look directly at them.
  39. Standard angelic giant pigeon wings on back.
  40. Dozens of regular-sized bird wings located in random places all over the body.
  41. Body entirely tightly wrapped in wings.
  42. Legs are made of wings. They can’t fly, and have to hobble around on a mass of feathers.
  43. Wings in place of arms.
  44. Wings on head. Tiny underdeveloped body. Can briefly flutter.
  45. Has an inert, non-glowing halo floating around their head.
  46. Just two wings covering their face. They constantly have to brush feathers out of their eyes.
  47. They look just like a  normal human, but when you are close to them, you feel a pressure in your chest.
  48. Hands hot like a burning coal.
  49. Constantly wreathed in cold flames.
  50. Appear to be made of snow.
  51. Aura of intense uncomfortable heat.
  52. Appears to be triplets, but is actually just one person with three bodies.
  53. Always has a flaming sword. It’s not attached to their hands, but they can’t get rid of it. They were born holding a tiny warm dagger, and the weapon has grown with them. It gets more inconvenient and unwieldy each year.
  54. They see normal now, but they came out of the womb in the form of a tiny fully grown man, with well-developed muscles and slight male-pattern baldness. Other than their size, their appearance hasn’t changed at all.
  55. Can only speak Enochian.
  56. Uncomfortably smooth.
  57. Ten feet tall.
  58. The size of an elephant.
  59. Never stops growing, and doesn’t die of old age.
  60. Sometimes accidentally moves from one point to another without passing through the intervening space.

5 comments:

  1. these are some fascinatingly weird/cool/funny traits. im not read in the biblical texts but i do know some the higher angels could look quite eldritch.

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    Replies
    1. additional traits:
      sword blade projecting from mouth instead of tongue.
      has head of a lamb with seven horns and eyes, unable to enunciate can only bleat
      perpetually bleeding slit on throat
      glowing star sigils on hand, can with effort burn with a touch or hurl like a minute meteor
      heavy brass feet

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  2. saw this a year ago, still often think about it. if i was into worldbuilding at all it wouldn't stop popping up in my head.

    a small nitpick i have with it, is that it's *too* biblical. many of these are only, as far as i can tell, slightly 'angelic' as my non-abrahamic-literate brain can see, such as the poofy electric hair, ten feet tall..
    if i were to add this to a game somehow, i would make it so that Aasimar have between 2-4 traits, maybe reduced in strength if they get too ridiculous, so that they're 'weird angelic' and not 'weird'

    an idea i had: an angelic enclave, populated entirely by Aasimar. Angel and human mating is very rare, but half-angels are born in sets. 7 children, 77, 777, and in one case, 0.7.

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