A celestial’s magical nature allows it to breed with virtually any creature. The offspring of the resulting unions, half-celestials, are glorious and wonderful beings.
To carry out their responsibilities, celestials sometimes spend great amounts of time in mortal realms. Being devoted and kind, they occasionally fall in love with mortals: humans, elves, unicorns, and similar creatures. The objects of celestial affection are never evil and are always intelligent. They always return the love of their immortal paramour and willingly conceive the child, usually caring for it since the celestial has other duties.
No matter the form, half-celestials are always comely and delightful to the senses, having golden skin, sparkling eyes, angelic wings, or some other sign of their higher nature.
Though noble and compassionate, half-celestials are often dismayed at the evil among their kin and take a stern, sometimes harsh, view of base instincts or malevolent actions. Never truly fitting into any mortal society, half-celestials are usually loners and wanderers attempting to right wrongs wherever they can.
“Half-celestial” is an inherited template that can be added to any living, corporeal creature with an Intelligence score of 4 or higher and nonevil alignment (referred to hereafter as the base creature). A half-celestial uses all the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here.
Size and Type: The creature’s type changes to outsider. Do not recalculate the creature’s Hit Dice, base attack bonus, or saves. Size is unchanged. Half-celestials are normally native outsiders.
Speed: A half-celestial has feathered wings and can fly at twice the base creature’s base land speed (good maneuverability). If the base creature has a fly speed, use that instead.
Armor Class: Natural armor improves by +1 (this stacks with any natural armor bonus the base creature has).
Special Attacks: A half-celestial retains all the special attacks of the base creature and also gains the following special abilities.
Daylight (Su): Half-celestials can use a daylight effect (as the spell) at will.
Smite Evil (Su): Once per day a half-celestial can make a normal melee attack to deal extra damage equal to its HD (maximum of +20) against an evil foe.
Spell-Like Abilities: A half-celestial with an Intelligence or Wisdom score of 8 or higher has two or more spell-like abilities, depending on its Hit Dice, as indicated on the table below. The abilities are cumulative; a half-celestial wyrmling brass dragon (4 HD) can use protection from evil and bless as well as aid and detect evil. Unless otherwise noted, an ability is usable once per day. Caster level equals the creature’s HD, and the save DC is Charisma-based.
| HD | Abilities |
|---|---|
| 1–2 | Protection from evil 3/day, bless |
| 3–4 | Aid, detect evil |
| 5–6 | Cure serious wounds, neutralize poison |
| 7–8 | Holy smite, remove disease |
| 9–10 | Dispel evil |
| 11–12 | Holy word |
| 13–14 | Holy aura 3/day, hallow |
| 15–16 | Mass charm monster |
| 17–18 | Summon monster IX (celestials only) |
| 19–20 | Resurrection |
Special Qualities: A half-celestial has all the special qualities of the base creature, plus the following special qualities.
Abilities: Increase from the base creature as follows: Str +4, Dex +2, Con +4, Int +2, Wis +4, Cha +4.
Skills: A half-celestial gains skill points as an outsider and has skill points equal to (8 + Int modifier) × (HD +3). Do not include Hit Dice from class levels in this calculation—the half-celestial gains outsider skill points only for its racial Hit Dice, and gains the normal amount of skill points for its class levels. Treat skills from the base creature’s list as class skills, and other skills as cross-class.
Challenge Rating: HD 5 or less, as base creature +1; HD 6 to 10, as base creature +2; HD 11 or more, as base creature +3.
Alignment: Always good (any).
Level Adjustment: Same as base creature +4.
Half-celestial humanoids often have a character class, preferring bard, cleric, fighter, and paladin. Nonhumanoids are also sometimes clerics or paladins. Half-celestial clerics serve good deities such as Ehlonna, Heironeous, Kord, or Pelor.
Source: Monster Manual (version 3.5), page 144.