And that, love, was that.

Hi! I'm Spyri. I'm 25+ and prefer she/her and they/them. As noted, this is a sideblog for @spyridonya about Raphael, D&D, and BG3 related lore.

I don't interact with minors due to this being just a fandom blog and adult subjects. I occasionally follow back on @spyridonya but if I don't, I appreciate you following this! I haven't gotten much any asks but will always be open to receiving and answering them!

Organization

Raphael

My Headcanons - x

Others Headcanon - x

Media - x

Haarlep

My Headcanons - x

Others Headcanon - x

Media - x

Tav + Shipping

General Tav Headcanons - x

Others Tav Headcanons - x

Media - x

BG3+Dungeons and Dragons Lore

BG3 Lore - x

General D&D Lore - x

D&D meta -x

Hell Lore - x

What strikes me as sad is asking them for their name. They never give you their real name, they refer to themselves as Haarlep in death.

I am so utterly broken about this. Even in death his identity has been tied to Raphael.

In 1e and 2e, cambions were the names of offspring between demons and mortal women. This lead to unfortunate implications... Or intended complications. Regardless, this didn't mean there weren't half devils, or that female demons couldn't have held mortal kids, half devils were just rare compared to half demons and the setting didn't bother to name them.

This was likely due to demons being impulsive with both binary genres being fertile. Demons may not plan on having offspring and descents but would jump at the opportunity to use them for their whims.

In contrast in 1e and 2e lore, only male devils were fertile and devils were meticulous planners and had full intention of using their children.

Of course the term for cambion is a umbrella term in in 1e and 2e.

We have baron cambions, who were offspring of demon lords and mortals. There were also true cambions, and those were offspring of a tiefling woman and a demon. Cambions, apparently, killed their mother at birth. Unless if you were a female offspring of a succubus. Then you were an Alu-Fiend and a woman.

This was the explanation why cambions were often evil, humans rejected them and demons thought they were losers. However, the lore never explains if the cambion child is dependent of a caregiver or more like demons in being born independent. I'm not a fan of any species killing their mother at birth due to the fact that this is usually written by people who don't realize unless the baby has a wet nurse before formula, the baby dies within days.

But for all my complaining, 2e cambions were not always evil. There was a 10% chance they'd be not-evil. I liked that.

In 3e, the writers decided was too damn confusing and everyone with a fiend father and mortal mother were half-fiends and generally regarded as cambions... unless if you were an alu-fiend. The only mention of demonic cambions was in an adventure module towards the end of 3e that was all about Grazzt being annoyed Lloth wouldn't be a booty call.

4e said fuck that, cambions were only offspring of devils as apart of Hasbro's idea to get rid of all the previous lore outside of the Forgotten Realms. Unlike demon based cambions, devil based cambions were adored and spoiled by their infernal parents. 4e was so hated that Hasbro moved onto 5e when there wasn't a lot of sufficient lore on why devils pampered their children beyond having more worshipers for Asmodeus... or anything else besides the bare bones, really.

In 5e Hasbro retconned the old lore back, though they did change the cambions to fit the 'let's make lore more simple'. As of this edition, any offspring between a fiend and a mortal was a cambion. Didn't matter. All were cambions. It didn't matter how much the mortal parent (male or female) attempted to help their fiendish child, that child was evil. So, the good news was that cambions no longer killed their mothers at birth. The bad news is that cambions according to RAW can no longer be not-evil.

It's absurdly hard for full blooded fiends to go exactly where they want to go without natural portals or being summoned. This includes Archdevils.

And unfortunately, Raphael is the son of Mephistopheles, one of the most narcissistic of the Archdevils.

In 1982, a young teenager and D&D enthusiast named Irving Lee Pulling committed suicide. While his peers could see he was struggling with his mental health at school, his mother Patricia Pulling blamed D&D:

' [D&D is] a fantasy role-playing game which uses demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity, sex perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, satanic type rituals, gambling, barbarism, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning, necromantics, divination and other teachings."

To be fair, the only thing on her list not often featured in D&D was voodoo. To be absolutely unfair to her, OD&D was essentially a fictional math game made by nerds who wanted to do one-on-one combat rather than war games and needed set dressing.

Considering how Ms. Pulling wanted to sue the school for the curse that D&D placed on her son and her conservative Christian beilefs, one can assume her poor son had an awful home life.

Instead of taking a moment to explore her guilt and how she might have contributed to her son's death, Pauling founded Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons (BADD) in 1983 and D&D got caught up in the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. For the next several years, D&D suffered under mainstream backlash with even respected news organizations dragging a game made by bored math nerds over the goals.

In 1989, TSR pulled demons, daemons, and devils out of D&D nearly entirely until 1993-1994. They focused on focusing on more common threats, fantastical elements, jumping straight to evil deities, or creating settings that avoided topics like this all together. If you're wondering why the culture of DnD made good and evil more black and white, this was the reason. It impacted how stories were written, how grandiose evil had to fail, and gaming lore still reflects this to this day.

In 1994, Planescape setting was introduced and they brought fiends back. While still avoiding the 'd-words', the fiends were reintroduced as the baatezu (devils), the tanar'ri (demons), and the yugoloths (daemons). TSR writers did an amazing dance in world building despite the remnants of Satanic Panic through self censorship.

By avoiding the name brand fiends, TSR was able to develop the hordes of fiends into three unique cultures. Baatezu were a horrific combination of Feudalism and Authoritarian with a dash of colonialism, the tanar'ri were a nightmare of Randian and bomb throwing Anarchists, and the yugoloths were an insidious mix of manipulators and warmongers for profit. Under Planescape, all these fiends would focus on each other more in the Blood Wars as their primary goals.

The Blood Wars were essentially an eons long battle between the baatezu and the tanar'ri over... no one is really sure and lore has decided to keep it a mystery. Meanwhile the yugoloths fight for both sides with egging each side on, often claiming they're the ones that started it. However, no one trusts yugoloths and their take of history and in a meta sense, they were the most boring. The baatezu and tanar'ri had a more soap operatic feel between them in contrast to the more 'mundane' yugoloths.

All of this, of course, was meant to make the collection of human souls a secondary matter to fiends.

In 1997, when WotC acquired D&D, they methodically brought back the old terminology of devils, demons, and daemons. By 5e, the terms of baatezu and tanar'ri were phased out entirely. Meanwhile, Yugoloths retained their 2e names, likely for newcomers to the games not to get daemons confused with demons. The Blood War would be focused until 4e when Asmodeus ended it until... everyone in the real world hated 4e and it's change or lore, and 5e brought it back as apart of the culture of demons and devils.

While later editions have some world building to fiends, it was never on the level of 2e, making devils and demons a little bit more... boring. After all, you don't want to make people scared about fictional stories, yet again.

Works cited:

“The Great 1980s Dungeons & Dragons Panic.” BBC News, April 11, 2014.

On a certain discord, someone noted that Raphael's name seemed like a regular name. I paused, considered, and when I realized I was writing more than a paragraph, I decided to do a quick analysis instead.

Raphael is the name for one archangels in Abrahamic religious texts whose name is derived from the Hebrew phrase 'God has Healed'. Though never named in the bible itself, Raphael is associated as the angel that saved Lot in Genesis and associated as the angel who healed disfigured people in the Gospel of John.

However, Raphael is featured prominently in the Book of Tobit, a religiously inspired fictional text that was written after the Babylonian exile of the Jews in 5th century BCE.

A very rough summary of the story is as follows: Tobit is Jewish gravedigger who is blinded and becomes dependent on his wife, fearing she'll cheat on him and wishes for death. Meanwhile, a young woman named Sarah also prays for death when she is stalked by a demon named Asmodeus who kills her suitors.

God hears their prayers and Raphael is sent to help both by traveling with Tobit's son, Tobias. Together they drive away Asmodeus back to hell for Sarah, and Tobias marries her. Raphael travels with them to make sure they return save to Tobais' home. Once there, the archangel heals Tobit rejoices and reminds the exiled Israelis that God will return them home before leaving.

Though popular in Judaism and Christianity as a story, the Catholic and Eastern Church consider it apart of their religious canon.

Under the Catholic Church, Raphael was deemed a saint for his roles in the bible and in the book of Tobias on top of being an archangel. He is considered a patron of travelers, happy meetings, healers, courting, and marriage.

Some of this might feel like a stretch but I got to thinking:

Raphael is the only villain in the game that follows along with Tav/Durge with the promise to save them.

Most of the meetings with Raphael are helpful and remarkably agreeable for a devil.

Raphael proves that he can 'heal' you in Act 3.

The the stretch that you can feel in your hamstrings is likely courtship and marriage, but his situation with Hope and Haarlep play prominently in his interactions in Act 3.

However, what nails it in the coffin this wasn't a coincidence for me is the fact that Asmodeus (the figure that DnD's Asmodeus is based on) has a very explit association with the archangel Raphael.