The first One D&D update for Dungeons & Dragons has added a brand-new playable race to the game, and it acts as a holy equivalent to the tieflings. This new race is known as the ardlings, and they offer an easy way for players to create an animal-themed character, as ardlings are descended from celestial beings that have a connection to nature. The ardlings were introduced in an Unearthed Arcana article, so they’re still considered playtesting material at the moment, and may change by the time they appear in the D&D 5e 50th anniversary revision in 2024.
In the D&D multiverse, the Prime Material Plane is surrounded by the elemental Inner Planes, which are themselves surrounded by the Outer Planes. The D&D Outer Planes contain various afterlives, as well as many fiends, celestials, and the embodiments of law and chaos. The celestials that most players are familiar with resemble angels, being winged humanoids with incredible strength of arms and the ability to speak holy spells, which can unmake any fiends that approach them. There are other kinds of celestials in D&D and they will have a bigger role in things to come, as their descendants have been introduced in the “Character Options” Unearthed Arcana on D&D Beyond.
The D&D heavenly Outer Planes are also home to celestial animals, as there are also good-aligned nature gods, with their own respective realms in the heavens. There is even an entire category of animal-themed essentials that debuted in AD&D, known as the guardinals, who act as protectors of realms like Elysium and Arborea. As is the case with the other celestials and fiends, the guardinals sometimes procreated with denizens of the Prime Material Plane, and their descendants are known as ardlings.
Ardlings Are A Brand New Playable Race In One D&D
The ardlings are people who share a bloodline with the animalistic celestials from the Upper Planes, or they were exposed to the magic of one of the planes at some point in time, possibly by growing up there. The ardlings are instantly recognizable, as they have an animal head, with the options presented including bear, cat, dog, eagle, elephant, goat, mule, pig, owl, raven, stork, and toad. All ardlings have resistance to radiant damage and they possess the Angelic Flight feature, which lets them gain wings and the ability to fly for a round, and this can be used a number of times equal to proficiency bonus. Like One D&D’s new tiefling playable race in “Character Options”, there are three types of ardling: Exalted, Heavenly, and Idyllic. The choice of ardling type grants different cantrips and spells that can be cast once per long rest. The Exalted ardlings can cast thaumaturgy at level one, divine favor at level three, and lesser restoration at level five, the Heavenly ardlings can cast light at level one, cure wounds at level three, and zone of truth at level five, and Idyllic ardlings can cast guidance at level one, healing word at level three, and animal messenger at level five.
How Ardlings Differ From Aasimar & Tieflings
The D&D 5e Player’s Handbook already has a playable race with a connection to the Outer Planes, in the form of the tieflings. According to the Player’s Handbook, tieflings are people with the blood of fiends in their ancestry. The Player’s Handbook doesn’t distinguish between the types of fiends, with all tieflings having the same mechanical benefits, regardless of whether they descended from demons, devils, yugoloth, or any other kind of fiend. This will change in the future, as the version of tieflings in One D&D has three variants, with Infernal (the one from the Player’s Handbook) descended from devils, Chthonic being descended from yugoloth, and Abyssal being descended from demons.
There are holy equivalents to tieflings in the lore of D&D, known as aasimar, which have been a playable race in several D&D 5e products, with the most recent being D&D‘s Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse. The aasimar are descended from celestial beings, or are those who absorbed the power of the Outer Planes in the past. In the older versions of D&D, a character who was directly descended from a being from the Outer Planes usually had the half-fiend or half-celestial template, while any generational gap after that usually produced an aasimar or a tiefling.
The ardlings are closer to the aasimar than the tieflings, as they can also be descended from creatures of the Upper Planes. While aasimar are descended from humanoid celestials, the ardlings can be descended from a number of different celestial races, which ties into their animal theme. There are some animalistic celestials that could breed with humans and demihumans, such as the Hound Archon, resulting in an ardling. It’s also possible for different celestial animals to shapeshift into a human and procreate, similar to how many D&D sorcerers have a dragon in their bloodline.
Ardlings As The Catch-All Animal Race
D&D 5e has playable animal race options, for those who want a character who walks on the wild side. These include the owlin from Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos, who possess incredible darkvision and the ability to fly, or the tabaxi from Tomb of Annihilation, who possess razor-sharp claws and the ability to seamlessly climb up walls. The people who want to play animals also have options, as a level 2 druid can use Wildshape to turn into many animals, while the Sidekick rules from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything also offer options for players who want to play a smarter than normal animal.
The D&D 5e playable animal race options are spread across lots of different books, with the closest thing to an animal race in the Player’s Handbook being the Dragonborn. One purpose that the ardling serves is that it gives players a catch-all race option for playing as an animal character. Not only does the ardling option let players choose from any number of animal designs for their character, but it provides them with awesome power/spell sets, making them a great choice for the new Dungeons & Dragons players, as those who want to play a cat character can now do so with minimal effort.
Source: D&D Beyond