Copyright 2009 Wizards of the Coast

This is part of a series! Go here to see the other entries.

The word “Deva” used to refer to Lawful Good angels in earlier editions, but now it means something different. Deva as presented here are new to Fourth Edition, and first appeared as a playable option in the Player’s Handbook 2. They occupy the same dramatic role as aasimar did in earlier editions, but in my opinion are much cooler.

The Lore

In ancient times, a group of good angels decided they liked the world so much that they would become a part of it. So they assumed mortal form, and the resulting creatures became known as devas. They have lived countless lives since then, and still carry some memories of the deep past with them.

A deva begins life by materializing from thin air, fully grown and capable of both speech and motion on the level of any other adult sapient humanoid. More, actually, since they also appear with the skills necessary to defend themselves and others. Few newborns can claim that! Newly-incarnated Deva have vague memories of their past lives and retain their basic personality, but their slate is otherwise clean.

It’s no wonder then that a very high percentage of devas end up following adventuring careers, or otherwise dedicate themselves to fighting evil. They’re not all members of divine classes, but those are quite common given their usual temperament. In the end, though, they’re folk like everyone else. It’s quite possible for some deva to settle for a peaceful life instead, or to go down less-righteous paths.

When a deva dies, be it from natural or violent causes, they disappear and immediately reincarnate at a random place in the world, clean slates once more, ready to begin life anew.

A deva who turns to evil will reincarnate as a rakshasa on their next life. Rakshasa have perfect recall when they reincarnate, so this might seem like a good deal to a deva who has grown too attached to its present identity. However, even they revile this fate, so they would rather avoid death altogether than to undergo the transformation.

Given their perfect recall, it’s possible every rakshasa remembers being a deva. I’d say that should a rakshasa redeem itself and become good (or at least non-evil) once more, it will return to being a deva in its next life.

Deva fashion for all genders tends towards flowing robes, sometimes with revealing chest “windows”. Their armor tends to be designed to go over those robes. Armored or not, their outfits usually include back or shoulder decorations resembling wings.

The Numbers

Deva are Medium Immortal Humanoids, have tier-dependent resistance to both radiant and necrotic damage, and a +1 to all defenses against bloodied creatures. Their signature ability is Memory of a Thousand Lifetimes, a free-action encounter power that allows them to add +1d6 to an attack roll, skill test or ability test they just made. This represents memories and flashes of insight from the deva’s previous lives, and could end up turning a failure into a success.

PC Devas have the same abilities, though their resistances are a bit more granular and they also have the customary attribute and skill bonuses.

Deva Knight-Errant

This deva travels the world acting as a champion of holy causes. It’s the first monster I find in this book who is explicitly Good in alignment, and described as most likely to serve the role of an ally to the PCs. Still, a party entirely composed of shady fucks might find themselves at the wrong end of the knight-errant.

The knight is a Level 11 Soldier with 111 HP and all standard Deva traits. Their resistances are set to 10. Being paladin-types, they wear full plate and wield a sword, a shield, and a holy symbol. Their speed is 5 due to the heavy armor.

Knights fight with a mixture swordplay and divine magic. The Inner Radiance trait allows them to switch the damage type of any of their attacks to Radiant, and to accept a -2 attack penalty to make the attack deal an extra 4 radiant damage.

The knight’s broadsword marks for a turn on a hit, and they can perform a Rejuvenating Strike with it that heals the knight for half the damage dealt. It recharges whenever the knight hits with a normal sword attack. This will become substantially more powerful once you fix their damage.

There’s a couple of pure-magic abilities as well: Martyr’s Cry (close burst 3 vs. Will; recharge 6) deals psychic damage and marks all targets hit (save ends). Health Transfer (minor action; encounter) transfers up to 25 damage and a condition from an ally within 10 squares to the knight.

Knight-Errants are well set-up to be allied NPCs, with those support and marking abilities. The self-healing strike is important to give them some longer-term staying power when riding with the party, as most healing abilities that depend on healing surges are less effective on them.

Deva Zealot

The zealot opposes evil, well, zealously. They’re a lot less nice in their judgment and methods than the knight, and thus Unaligned. They wear leather or other light armor, and wield falchions. Their resistances are set to 10. Their speed is 6. If they were PCs, they’d be Avengers.

The falchion his a high-crit weapon and deals some bonus radiant damage. It’s their main attack, and all their other abilities support it. Skirmish works as usual, adding more bonus damage when they move at least 4 squares in that turn. Dazzling Soul (minor; recharge 4-6) makes the zealot shine so brightly it gains concealment and emits bright light in a 6-square radius and dim light out to 12 squares. Path of Virtue (encounter) allows them to shift their speed and make one falchion attack against each enemy in reach during the move.

Last but not least, Radiant Retribution is a at-will free action that triggers when the zealot takes damage from an attack, and deals half that amount as radiant damage to the attacker. I think this means it will trigger against every attack made on the deva - if it was a reaction or interrupt, it would only happen once per round.

Deva Fallen Star

A deva who went bad and is all set to become a rakshasa on their next incarnation, though ideally they don’t want to die at all. They’re Level 26 Artillery with 188 HP. Their resistances are set to 15. Using a rod as an implement, if they were PCs they’d likely be a warlock.

The fallen star will likely open the fight with a Soul Scourge spell (area burst 2 within 15 vs. Will), a fireball-sized blast that deals immediate radiant damage and ongoing 15 necrotic damage (save ends). This recharges when it’s first bloodied. Until then it will use a Forgetting Ray (ranged 20 vs. Reflex) which does psychic damage and restricts the target to using only at-will attacks (save ends).

When hit by an attack, the fallen star can use Fateful Transposition (ranged 10 vs. Will) as an interrupt, targeting an enemy. A hit allows it to switch places with that enemy, making it take half the triggering attack’s damage. The deva still takes the other half.

The fallen start’s basic melee attack is the Rebuking Rod, which does psychic and radiant damage and triggers a secondary attack vs. Fortitude: if that one hits, the fallen star gains total concealment against the target (save ends).

The fallen star’s research into evil magic has allowed it to trade the usual Memory of a Thousand Lifetimes power for Fate Manipulation. This can add 1d8 to their rolls or remove 1d8 from an enemy’s roll, and it recharges once the fallen star is first bloodied.

And finally, we have the ability that confirms this deva “fell” because it wanted out of the circle of reincarnation: Vile Rebirth. When the deva is reduced to 0 HP by non-necrotic damage, it doesn’t die. Instead, it remains at 0 HP until its next turn, when regains 25 HP and acquires the undead keyword. In other words, it becomes something close to a newly-minted lich! This power recharges, but the “non-necrotic” bit becomes “non-radiant”. In other words, you have to either kill it with necrotic damage the first time around, or with radiant damage after it becomes undead. If you don’t, it keeps coming back.

I’d say that if Vile Rebirth triggers and the falen star escapes, you can use it as a lich in subsequent encounters. And if it dies “for real”, it’s rakshasa time, though in that case it would take longer to return to the campaign if it makes an appearance at all.

Sample Encounters

The book admits most PC parties are unlikely to find themselves facing a knight-errant or even a zealot, so the sample encounter is Level 27 and features a pair of fallen stars along with 2 efreet karadjins and 2 efreet pyresingers. So it looks like the deva have joined the ranks of nobility at the City of Brass.

I really like Deva! Aasimar from previous editions just had a celestial somewhere in the family tree, Deva have a cool backstory on par with the one that was given to tieflings. One thing I find particularly cool about the stat blocks from this entry is that they could represent the trajectory (and tragic fall) of a single individual over three lifetimes.