Sunday, July 14, 2019

Thoughts on the couatl

Couatls are celestial beings based on the Mesoamerican feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl.


By default they have a minimalist yet highly flexible background: they could be generic do-gooders, enemies of the rakshasa, scheming manipulators, dragons, angels, etc.

I like the idea of presenting couatls as the angels of Quetzalcoatl himself, or as outright gods themselves. (I'm not a fan of the idea of presenting "gods" as these abstract yet ridiculously over-detailed setting constants that are inexplicably beyond game statistics.)

I like the idea of presenting couatls as a type of dragon, too. (I'm not a fan of D&D's absurd anal-retentive taxonomy anyway.) Eberron presents couatls as related to feathered serpentfolk, which is a nice idea too.

Maybe they are related to the lillend? Friends or relatives? Master and servant? Since couatls can change shape, perhaps the lillend are one of the forms they typically assume?

Couatls have been presented as psionic monsters, alongside other celestials like the angels and shedu, oddly enough. In third edition, they are full-blown spellcasters or psionicists! (I'm not really a fan of laundry lists of spells. Difficult to track, really.)

The couatl isn't a very popular monster (like all goodly monsters), but it did manage to inspire a couple of variants in 3pp. Pathfinder in particular presented several different variants: auwaz couatl, chicome couatl, mix couatl, quetz couatl, tletli couatl, and xiuh couatl. The last is based on the Aztec Xiuhcoatl.

Although not evil in mythology, a couple of 3pp presented the xiuhcoatl as an evil fiery counterpart of the couatl. The "dark couatl" appears in Monster Encyclopaedia 2 - Dark Bestiary by Mongoose Publishing, and the "xiuhcoatl" appears in Bane Ledger by Bloodstone Press (pictured below).


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