September 24, 2025 • 16 mins
Today’s episode goes back to Dragon Magazine #6 (1977) for a look at the Death Angel, a creature that mixes oracular prophecy with deadly power. Armed with a death scythe and near-unstoppable persistence, these beings embody fate itself. I’ll break down their abilities, how they work in play, and how to drop one into your campaign without wrecking the balance.
#ADnD #DeathAngel #DragonMagazine
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:17):
Hey, welcome back to the podcast, the Evil Dungeon
Masters AD and D Universe Podcast.
I'm your host, Evil Dungeon Master Vince.
Hopefully you're doing well out there.
Today is Wednesday, September 24th, 2025.
Today we're going to be talking about Advanced Dungeons and
Dragons. The thing that everybody loves,
the thing everybody likes that comes to this podcast.
(00:38):
For the Wisdom of Gary Gygax in AD and D 1st Edition, ask the DM
at the Evil dm.com is my e-mail address and the Evil dm.com is
my website. Head over to patreon.com/the
Evil DM if you want to support me, which I started doing a new
feature on there for Patreon members.
(00:58):
I was opening up my DM journal and giving you the notes that I
was putting up, putting up the notes that I was using for my
basic fantasy campaign that I'vewritten, the book, the page that
I prepped for the weekend, this weekend coming up.
So if you're interested in that,you want to support me, go
ahead. You get that as well as some
(01:19):
other stuff I always put up every month for members.
So all right, today we're going to flip back to Dragon Magazine
number six, and this came out in, believe, April 1977.
So this is an older edition and it has some great information in
it, but I wanted to flip to a monster in the back that I don't
(01:42):
think I've ever used or would ever use in my campaign due to
the extreme abilities this thinghas.
So it's kind of an ender for a lot of things, but it's called
The Death Angel by John Sullivan.
It's a neutral line creature andit has seven D87-D8 hit dice.
(02:03):
Number of appearing is 1, Armor class is 4 and doesn't have any
treasure. It attacks with a death Skype
which does 1D12 damage save versus death at -3 and then it
goes on further to tell us more about this creature.
Death Angels are highly intelligent and speak all
languages telepathically. They either either act as
(02:26):
oracles, warning a being or a party of death, or they
represent death itself, being under a mission to kill a
particular person or creature. When killed, the Death Angels
vanish. I don't know why it says angels,
because it is only one ever appearing, but when killed the
(02:46):
death it should be, the Death Angel vanishes entirely, leaving
no remains whatsoever. Death Angels have the ability of
teleportation as well as flying.With their golden wings.
Their teleport has no chance of failure, but they cannot
teleport out of melee. So keep that in mind when using
(03:06):
this creature to kill your party.
Here's where it gets starts getting a little bit
overpowered, but I love. I love it though because this is
an April issue. So every time a Death Angel hits
with the Skype, Skype, excuse me, their opponent must save
versus Death at -3 on their saving throw.
(03:27):
Should you save said saving throw, you lose one point of
Constitution, which can only be given back by a cleric spell,
Restoration, or a healer's energy spell.
Death Angels do not dispel per SE, but they can be turned like
vampires by a cleric, but will return the next day or the next
(03:52):
night, for they must fulfill their mission of death.
So you can temporarily block them, get rid of them with a
turn by a cleric, but they'll just be like, you know what?
All right, I'm out, but I'll seeyou tomorrow, so they'll be
right back. Those successfully killed by the
Death Angel become Death Angels after three days unless a raised
(04:16):
by a raised dead attempt is made.
A normal raised dead will not work.
Only a raised dead fully will, and even then it will only raise
the victim like a regular raiseddead.
Also, when rolling for a percentchance of raising, roll a
victim's constitution as if it were three.
(04:39):
So the chance of your resurrection or raised dead in
this case would be based on yourConstitution 3.
A wish will automatically raise them.
Yay. If if the being is killed three
times by a death Angel, nothing will bring them back, even a
(05:00):
wish. So you know, three times if a
death angel's coming after you, you're pretty much dead.
There's no point at that point, if a Death Angel's after you,
you might as well just give up. Death Angels are fingers of fate
and thus utilized by very powerful entities such as God,
demigods, and some liches, and very few evil high priests of
(05:22):
20th level or higher. Death Angels are 95 resistant to
all magic, including cleric magic, and they will only attack
their intended victim, ignoring all others, and they will leave
after killing them, either teleporting away or flying away
after they have fulfilled their mission of death.
(05:44):
In as much as Death Angels will return again and again to kill
their intended victim, the only way to permanently dispel Death
Angels is to throw a removed curse upon them.
If they are slain battling the intended victim, this will allow
them to go into eternal peace, which they will only find by
killing a victim or having a replacement for them.
(06:09):
Even if the body is burned, a victim of the death Angel will
always rise up three days later as the death Angel, and
therefore can no longer. And let's see.
And they can be no more than oneDeath Angel serving one Master.
So you know, interesting there. So that basically sums up the
Death Angel in itself. It's pretty powerful creature
(06:32):
when it comes to bringing your campaign created by John
Sullivan. Now just just a quick recap.
They, you know, a target must save versus death at -3 if they
do save, they obviously lose a point of constitution, which
would mean losing hit points midbattle.
So this thing is definitely sentwhen you are intended to kill
(06:54):
someone or remember the Deck of Many things.
When you get a death, you can use this death here.
Even though they had more stats for it later on.
I thought this was a pretty interesting creature, but just
because of the way they wrote itup and how it's listed here in
campaign uses. You could use it as an Oracle of
(07:15):
Doom obviously to warn the partyof an upcoming feat whether they
listen to it or not. If you feel like I had a certain
area in my campaign that the I was setting up rumors for it and
I really didn't want the playersto go there.
But I mean, obviously players have free will with their
(07:35):
characters, can go wherever theywant, but as Adm I'm supposed to
try to deter them from these areas and and they know people
are saying they won't. Maybe you shouldn't set up those
areas because you're low level, you're going to die.
Now when it comes to AD and D worlds, or any worlds in AD and
D campaign for that matter, for whatever edition, it's not level
(07:57):
appropriate. The world is based on what the
world is. Now it's up to the DM and the
players to determine what part of the world's they're going to
go to during their specific levels.
Adm can't prevent people. I mean, Adm can absolutely
prevent players from taking their characters wherever they
(08:18):
want on the map, but if you wantto have a free will and not
railroad, you're going to allow players to go wherever they
want. Now you can in game use rumors
and MPCS to try to deter player characters from going certain
areas by telling them, you know,lots of brave warriors and
(08:40):
Wizards and whatever went there and they've never come back and
things like that. And as Adm you could tell them
out of character. Listen guys, I'm setting this up
for the future. You could you're by all means,
you can go there, but you're probably going to die.
Everything there is like, you know, whatever undead or
something or very powerful and you're not going to be able to
(09:01):
handle it, but you want to go there.
I will take the campaign there just for you.
Let them have their own free will when it comes to roaming
around. I hate to railroad people and
say no. But like I said, there was a
part in my campaign where there was a crypt that they had to go
to. And I set up a bunch of places
(09:24):
for them to go, including the crypt, because it was a future
planned spot for them to go. And they were like, well, maybe
we'll go to the crypt. And I was just like, all right,
well, I gave them, you know, subtle hints in the campaign
about how powerful it was. They weren't seeming to get it,
but and then I told them in between session breaks, I'm
(09:44):
like, listen, I don't think you guys should go there.
It is set up for a much higher level and I give you a much
better options to go to for yourlevel that's more appropriate.
Now if you guys want to go thereand see which how well you
handle or hold up, don't be mad when you die.
So I mean they took the hint after that and didn't go there.
(10:05):
But there's there are ways that you can not force or railroad by
just telling them, hey, you can go there.
But you know, so maybe you can use an Oracle of Doom saying if
you go to the crypt you will dieinstantly or something stupid
like that. I mean, obviously you could send
(10:28):
this death Angel as a high levelvillain or PC who after, I'm
sorry, after a high level villain or PC who evades
justice, The executioner is after them.
Maybe the party has to protect said person from this
executioner because this I don'tknow.
Maybe demon or God or demigod wants him dead so the party is
(10:50):
able to it has to slay this thing somehow and figure out how
to do it. Maybe the death angels are
coming back and the party has been hired to stop the death
angels from doing this. Or maybe there's just a like
(11:12):
rogue death Angel that decided that he wants to, you know, be
the executioner of death and wants to just go out and punish
the evil. So maybe you are tasked with
stopping this death Angel from doing what he does best, and
that's killing. So and then maybe if you try to
stop him so many times he turns his evil looking helmet because
(11:35):
he's actually kind of not looking what you would think.
He looks like he's more of he's got golden wings and he looks
like he kind of looks more like an Angel than a death, like kind
of like a death. Like you'd think how death would
look with the with the cloak andthe skeleton and everything.
No, he's more of the death Angelhimself.
(11:58):
So maybe he turns his golden helmet towards you and your
party and decides, you know, you've meddled in my business
long enough, Guess what? Your ass is mine now and I'm
going to kick your ass and kill you.
So now the party has this death Angel on them, so they have to
actually try to get away from him after after going after him.
(12:23):
It's just you do so many different things with this.
It's it's kind of a fun at this point.
But obviously you'd have to be ahigh level party to take on
something like this entirely. Yeah.
He could become like some type of reoccurring nemesis.
Like they finally slay him. And then he just he like maybe
(12:45):
later on he comes back after he regroups or something and he's
just like, he waits and bides his time and he's just like,
he's going to get the party. And then all of a sudden, boom,
he shows up at like the best moment possible because he could
show up whenever he wants. So maybe he watches the party.
He stalks the party after, you know, they slayed him.
OK. He's like, all right, all right,
(13:07):
I'll be back. I'll be back.
And they don't know about the whole, you know, when he can
come back. So he gets slain and he's just
like he chills and he waits and bides his time, watches the
party. And then that one moment when
the party's really weak and maybe they maybe they defeated
the whatever monster they were fighting or whatever, and some
(13:29):
of the parties really wounded. Boom, he shows up.
He's like, guess who's back? And there's the death Angel
again. Someone there to annoy the crap
out of you. So there's so many possibilities
you can do with this and you cantie him to any one of the gods
of your world. I mean, any cosmic power that
wants this something carried out.
(13:52):
He's your justice. Yeah.
He's your, your arm of justice. And he could even be a messenger
as far as I'm concerned. There's so many possibilities to
do with him. So I don't know.
I thought it was an interesting creature.
I know they have a death in AD and D itself, but I wanted to
talk about this when I saw it because it just, it struck me as
(14:13):
an interesting write up that could be used for your campaign
in a different way that that players probably wouldn't know
about. Generally a lot of people didn't
read dragon magazines, or maybe if they did it was a best of or
here or there, and chances are they probably don't remember the
dragon magazine if they did. So that's why I like finding
(14:35):
these little things inside it because players obviously know
advanced thunders of Dragons, especially if they're a veteran
player, they'll know all the books and read all the stuff and
know the monsters. And so this is one of those
monsters. They'll think it's probably just
death and self, but he's really not.
So you know, you have that. I don't know.
(14:56):
Tell me what you think. I'll, I'll add the write up from
Dragon Magazine on my blog if I remember and you guys can
comment away on that or comment on Spotify or whatever.
All right, I'm going to head out.
I have some journal writing to do for my campaign this weekend
(15:17):
and I'll put that up on patreon.com/steven VM or by
Patreon users. I appreciate everyone of you
that support me and those that even download the podcast and
comment. I absolutely appreciate you as
well. Again, there's no no need to
support me in any other way thandownloading and commenting
(15:40):
whatever you feel is necessary. But with that said, I'm going to
head out. Hopefully you have a great day.
Kee original Kee it old school. Good night and God bless.
Hey, welcome back to the podcast, the Evil Dungeon
Masters AD and D Universe Podcast.
I'm your host, Evil Dungeon Master Vince.
Hopefully you're doing well out there.
Today is Wednesday, September 24th, 2025.
Today we're going to be talking about Advanced Dungeons and
Dragons. The thing that everybody loves,
the thing everybody likes that comes to this podcast.
(00:38):
For the Wisdom of Gary Gygax in AD and D 1st Edition, ask the DM
at the Evil dm.com is my e-mail address and the Evil dm.com is
my website. Head over to patreon.com/the
Evil DM if you want to support me, which I started doing a new
feature on there for Patreon members.
(00:58):
I was opening up my DM journal and giving you the notes that I
was putting up, putting up the notes that I was using for my
basic fantasy campaign that I'vewritten, the book, the page that
I prepped for the weekend, this weekend coming up.
So if you're interested in that,you want to support me, go
ahead. You get that as well as some
(01:19):
other stuff I always put up every month for members.
So all right, today we're going to flip back to Dragon Magazine
number six, and this came out in, believe, April 1977.
So this is an older edition and it has some great information in
it, but I wanted to flip to a monster in the back that I don't
(01:42):
think I've ever used or would ever use in my campaign due to
the extreme abilities this thinghas.
So it's kind of an ender for a lot of things, but it's called
The Death Angel by John Sullivan.
It's a neutral line creature andit has seven D87-D8 hit dice.
(02:03):
Number of appearing is 1, Armor class is 4 and doesn't have any
treasure. It attacks with a death Skype
which does 1D12 damage save versus death at -3 and then it
goes on further to tell us more about this creature.
Death Angels are highly intelligent and speak all
languages telepathically. They either either act as
(02:26):
oracles, warning a being or a party of death, or they
represent death itself, being under a mission to kill a
particular person or creature. When killed, the Death Angels
vanish. I don't know why it says angels,
because it is only one ever appearing, but when killed the
(02:46):
death it should be, the Death Angel vanishes entirely, leaving
no remains whatsoever. Death Angels have the ability of
teleportation as well as flying.With their golden wings.
Their teleport has no chance of failure, but they cannot
teleport out of melee. So keep that in mind when using
(03:06):
this creature to kill your party.
Here's where it gets starts getting a little bit
overpowered, but I love. I love it though because this is
an April issue. So every time a Death Angel hits
with the Skype, Skype, excuse me, their opponent must save
versus Death at -3 on their saving throw.
(03:27):
Should you save said saving throw, you lose one point of
Constitution, which can only be given back by a cleric spell,
Restoration, or a healer's energy spell.
Death Angels do not dispel per SE, but they can be turned like
vampires by a cleric, but will return the next day or the next
(03:52):
night, for they must fulfill their mission of death.
So you can temporarily block them, get rid of them with a
turn by a cleric, but they'll just be like, you know what?
All right, I'm out, but I'll seeyou tomorrow, so they'll be
right back. Those successfully killed by the
Death Angel become Death Angels after three days unless a raised
(04:16):
by a raised dead attempt is made.
A normal raised dead will not work.
Only a raised dead fully will, and even then it will only raise
the victim like a regular raiseddead.
Also, when rolling for a percentchance of raising, roll a
victim's constitution as if it were three.
(04:39):
So the chance of your resurrection or raised dead in
this case would be based on yourConstitution 3.
A wish will automatically raise them.
Yay. If if the being is killed three
times by a death Angel, nothing will bring them back, even a
(05:00):
wish. So you know, three times if a
death angel's coming after you, you're pretty much dead.
There's no point at that point, if a Death Angel's after you,
you might as well just give up. Death Angels are fingers of fate
and thus utilized by very powerful entities such as God,
demigods, and some liches, and very few evil high priests of
(05:22):
20th level or higher. Death Angels are 95 resistant to
all magic, including cleric magic, and they will only attack
their intended victim, ignoring all others, and they will leave
after killing them, either teleporting away or flying away
after they have fulfilled their mission of death.
(05:44):
In as much as Death Angels will return again and again to kill
their intended victim, the only way to permanently dispel Death
Angels is to throw a removed curse upon them.
If they are slain battling the intended victim, this will allow
them to go into eternal peace, which they will only find by
killing a victim or having a replacement for them.
(06:09):
Even if the body is burned, a victim of the death Angel will
always rise up three days later as the death Angel, and
therefore can no longer. And let's see.
And they can be no more than oneDeath Angel serving one Master.
So you know, interesting there. So that basically sums up the
Death Angel in itself. It's pretty powerful creature
(06:32):
when it comes to bringing your campaign created by John
Sullivan. Now just just a quick recap.
They, you know, a target must save versus death at -3 if they
do save, they obviously lose a point of constitution, which
would mean losing hit points midbattle.
So this thing is definitely sentwhen you are intended to kill
(06:54):
someone or remember the Deck of Many things.
When you get a death, you can use this death here.
Even though they had more stats for it later on.
I thought this was a pretty interesting creature, but just
because of the way they wrote itup and how it's listed here in
campaign uses. You could use it as an Oracle of
(07:15):
Doom obviously to warn the partyof an upcoming feat whether they
listen to it or not. If you feel like I had a certain
area in my campaign that the I was setting up rumors for it and
I really didn't want the playersto go there.
But I mean, obviously players have free will with their
(07:35):
characters, can go wherever theywant, but as Adm I'm supposed to
try to deter them from these areas and and they know people
are saying they won't. Maybe you shouldn't set up those
areas because you're low level, you're going to die.
Now when it comes to AD and D worlds, or any worlds in AD and
D campaign for that matter, for whatever edition, it's not level
(07:57):
appropriate. The world is based on what the
world is. Now it's up to the DM and the
players to determine what part of the world's they're going to
go to during their specific levels.
Adm can't prevent people. I mean, Adm can absolutely
prevent players from taking their characters wherever they
(08:18):
want on the map, but if you wantto have a free will and not
railroad, you're going to allow players to go wherever they
want. Now you can in game use rumors
and MPCS to try to deter player characters from going certain
areas by telling them, you know,lots of brave warriors and
(08:40):
Wizards and whatever went there and they've never come back and
things like that. And as Adm you could tell them
out of character. Listen guys, I'm setting this up
for the future. You could you're by all means,
you can go there, but you're probably going to die.
Everything there is like, you know, whatever undead or
something or very powerful and you're not going to be able to
(09:01):
handle it, but you want to go there.
I will take the campaign there just for you.
Let them have their own free will when it comes to roaming
around. I hate to railroad people and
say no. But like I said, there was a
part in my campaign where there was a crypt that they had to go
to. And I set up a bunch of places
(09:24):
for them to go, including the crypt, because it was a future
planned spot for them to go. And they were like, well, maybe
we'll go to the crypt. And I was just like, all right,
well, I gave them, you know, subtle hints in the campaign
about how powerful it was. They weren't seeming to get it,
but and then I told them in between session breaks, I'm
(09:44):
like, listen, I don't think you guys should go there.
It is set up for a much higher level and I give you a much
better options to go to for yourlevel that's more appropriate.
Now if you guys want to go thereand see which how well you
handle or hold up, don't be mad when you die.
So I mean they took the hint after that and didn't go there.
(10:05):
But there's there are ways that you can not force or railroad by
just telling them, hey, you can go there.
But you know, so maybe you can use an Oracle of Doom saying if
you go to the crypt you will dieinstantly or something stupid
like that. I mean, obviously you could send
(10:28):
this death Angel as a high levelvillain or PC who after, I'm
sorry, after a high level villain or PC who evades
justice, The executioner is after them.
Maybe the party has to protect said person from this
executioner because this I don'tknow.
Maybe demon or God or demigod wants him dead so the party is
(10:50):
able to it has to slay this thing somehow and figure out how
to do it. Maybe the death angels are
coming back and the party has been hired to stop the death
angels from doing this. Or maybe there's just a like
(11:12):
rogue death Angel that decided that he wants to, you know, be
the executioner of death and wants to just go out and punish
the evil. So maybe you are tasked with
stopping this death Angel from doing what he does best, and
that's killing. So and then maybe if you try to
stop him so many times he turns his evil looking helmet because
(11:35):
he's actually kind of not looking what you would think.
He looks like he's more of he's got golden wings and he looks
like he kind of looks more like an Angel than a death, like kind
of like a death. Like you'd think how death would
look with the with the cloak andthe skeleton and everything.
No, he's more of the death Angelhimself.
(11:58):
So maybe he turns his golden helmet towards you and your
party and decides, you know, you've meddled in my business
long enough, Guess what? Your ass is mine now and I'm
going to kick your ass and kill you.
So now the party has this death Angel on them, so they have to
actually try to get away from him after after going after him.
(12:23):
It's just you do so many different things with this.
It's it's kind of a fun at this point.
But obviously you'd have to be ahigh level party to take on
something like this entirely. Yeah.
He could become like some type of reoccurring nemesis.
Like they finally slay him. And then he just he like maybe
(12:45):
later on he comes back after he regroups or something and he's
just like, he waits and bides his time and he's just like,
he's going to get the party. And then all of a sudden, boom,
he shows up at like the best moment possible because he could
show up whenever he wants. So maybe he watches the party.
He stalks the party after, you know, they slayed him.
OK. He's like, all right, all right,
(13:07):
I'll be back. I'll be back.
And they don't know about the whole, you know, when he can
come back. So he gets slain and he's just
like he chills and he waits and bides his time, watches the
party. And then that one moment when
the party's really weak and maybe they maybe they defeated
the whatever monster they were fighting or whatever, and some
(13:29):
of the parties really wounded. Boom, he shows up.
He's like, guess who's back? And there's the death Angel
again. Someone there to annoy the crap
out of you. So there's so many possibilities
you can do with this and you cantie him to any one of the gods
of your world. I mean, any cosmic power that
wants this something carried out.
(13:52):
He's your justice. Yeah.
He's your, your arm of justice. And he could even be a messenger
as far as I'm concerned. There's so many possibilities to
do with him. So I don't know.
I thought it was an interesting creature.
I know they have a death in AD and D itself, but I wanted to
talk about this when I saw it because it just, it struck me as
(14:13):
an interesting write up that could be used for your campaign
in a different way that that players probably wouldn't know
about. Generally a lot of people didn't
read dragon magazines, or maybe if they did it was a best of or
here or there, and chances are they probably don't remember the
dragon magazine if they did. So that's why I like finding
(14:35):
these little things inside it because players obviously know
advanced thunders of Dragons, especially if they're a veteran
player, they'll know all the books and read all the stuff and
know the monsters. And so this is one of those
monsters. They'll think it's probably just
death and self, but he's really not.
So you know, you have that. I don't know.
(14:56):
Tell me what you think. I'll, I'll add the write up from
Dragon Magazine on my blog if I remember and you guys can
comment away on that or comment on Spotify or whatever.
All right, I'm going to head out.
I have some journal writing to do for my campaign this weekend
(15:17):
and I'll put that up on patreon.com/steven VM or by
Patreon users. I appreciate everyone of you
that support me and those that even download the podcast and
comment. I absolutely appreciate you as
well. Again, there's no no need to
support me in any other way thandownloading and commenting
(15:40):
whatever you feel is necessary. But with that said, I'm going to
head out. Hopefully you have a great day.
Kee original Kee it old school. Good night and God bless.
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