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jotun-philosopher · 5 months ago

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Aziraphale: Dungeons & Dragons AU

I've been on a bit of a D&D jag recently -- a couple of 50th anniversary adventure books caught my imagination -- so I went back to this little post and decided to expand on it with in-universe character bios and statblocks for the Ineffable Husbands!

I can't safely assume that everyone who reads this post will be familiar with D&D terms, so I'll be including a lot of inline links -- let me know in the notes if there's anything I've missed on that front. For the links to 5e.tools, there are tabs for Traits/Stat Block, Info and so on at the top of each information pane on the right-hand side of the screen. The tables on the left-hand side of the screen can be hidden by clicking on the 'Hide' tab.

Crowley bio/statblock here -- the bios are intended to be read more-or-less side-by-side. The whole thing is also available on my AO3 here

cw: child abuse, physical and psychological (mostly implied, some effects shown or discussed), cults, violence, trauma

*********

Shabby but comfortable scholar's robes in an old-fashioned style, short white hair, stocky build, a gentle, kindly, soft-spoken manner -- apart from the brown eyes liberally flecked with silver and the ring of dusty, sparkling light around his head, like a concentration of the 'diamond dust' that sometimes forms in cold regions, Aziraphale looks like a perfectly mundane bookseller in a well-preserved late middle age. Many have judged this aasimar thus; for some beings, it was the last mistake they ever made.

It was not always so. Aziraphale was born into a self-righteous apocalypse cult that travelled around the easternmost reaches of the continent. His strong celestial heritage was obvious from the start, which the cult leadership took as a sign of divine favour for their schemes.

As a small child, Aziraphale would have been perfectly content to spend his time chasing butterflies, trailing his fingers in running water and playing with motes of dust dancing in sunbeams. However, a stern, distant angelic figure began repeatedly appearing in his dreams, sending vague dark prophecies and visions of events that might or might not come to pass. When Aziraphale mentioned this to the adults, with all the trusting innocence of the very young, the cult's resident sage recognised the signs of a deva guide reaching out to their assigned aasimar. The cult leaders, unwilling to relinquish control of their little figurehead, proceeded to use every method they could find, both magical and mundane, to manipulate and browbeat Aziraphale into becoming their chief enforcer.

When Aziraphale came of age, the cult's leadership decided to test the strength of their control over him by sending him out to kill some tiefling children in the nearby town for, essentially, being tieflings. He went out, because the conditioning to which he'd been subjected for most of his life was deeply rooted and backed up with a high-level geas. Underneath it all, though, Aziraphale was wracked with nebulous fears, doubts and uncertainties that the chains of enchantment around his mind would not permit him to examine more closely. This internal conflict, however deeply buried, was still potent enough to slow his steps and blunt his situational awareness; when he entered the residence of his assigned targets, his guard was just low enough that he didn't notice the adult tiefling rogue until his sword was snatched and thrown across the room at the same time as he was slammed into the wall.

Aziraphale rather distantly realised that he should have been scared. Instead, the golden-yellow eyes staring into his own struck him as the most beautiful and above all kindest eyes he had ever seen. Distracted by this sight and thought, and the further inner turmoil they provoked, he answered a series of probing, compassionate questions without thinking, until he found himself helping his would-be targets discreetly take flight to a far-off place of safety -- without provoking a psychic backlash from the geas!

On a hillside overlooking the town, once he'd helped this mysterious tiefling burn the house down to cover up the family's escape, Aziraphale risked taking a closer look at the golden-eyed stranger. Six feet of lanky height, dark red hair falling in waves past the shoulders, elaborately twisting horns above the temples, serviceable leather armour and a five-foot-long prehensile tail -- an arresting sight indeed! And so many questions -- delivered in a gentle tone, but carefully worded and incisively aimed. Aziraphale answered haltingly, utterly unused to such interactions and uncertain as to why his new friend seemed so horrified at things that were, for him, perfectly normal. He tentatively reached toward the thought that maybe they weren't normal, but as soon as it began to form, the harsh bite of enchantment yanked his mind into a stinging dark red haze and his limbs began to move of their own volition.

Stumbling back to the cult's encampment, a prisoner within his uncontrollable body -- in pain on an earthen floor, the cult's leader wielding a wooden cudgel to vicious effect while the sage rummaged through his mind -- tremors in the ground, the boom of a magically magnified voice that seemed familiar, though the words were indistinct -- being carried at speed along a dark street, blood streaming from his nose...

When Aziraphale regained full consciousness, he found himself lying in his underclothes on a bed in a small stone room, his brain feeling like it had been pulled out and flattened with a mallet. His tiefling friend -- who seemed to be called Crowley, judging by the argument they were having with a senior cleric -- barged the door fully open, helped him into a set of nondescript common clothes and a cloak (to conceal his distinctive halo), guided him carefully out of the temple through a rear door and, hand in hand, they legged it out of town just as dawn was creeping over the horizon.

And so began their desperate flight across the continent. Aziraphale struggled to adjust at first; the privations of life on the run were not so different from life in the cult, but having anyone at all (let alone a very stylish and huggable tiefling) treat him with kindness and actual, genuine respect for his thoughts and feelings and needs and personhood was so unfamiliar as to be initially incomprehensible. Sleep wasn't much of an escape -- his nightmarish memories combined with his deva guide's attempts at reaching out in surreal and disturbing ways.

It got easier. With every hug from Crowley, every kind word, every chance to watch a piece of natural beauty or try a tasty new food, and with the passage of time, the memories did not so much fade as lose their sharp edges. With the abatement, however gradual, of the nightmares came the mental space for Aziraphale to reconnect with long-buried parts of himself, in particular his quiet pleasure in sensory communion with nature, and his own aasimar powers.

When their funds started running low a little under one third of the way across the continent, Aziraphale was therefore the one to suggest taking adventuring work as a way to fund the rest of their travels -- jobs were in plentiful supply, after all, and it'd introduce an erratic element to their travel path that'd likely confuse any lingering pursuit (not that there was likely to be any, given Crowley's skill at stealthy travel). Plus, knowing that the cult had tried to exploit his power for evil ends made him very determined to use that power to help and protect people. Crowley seemed hesitant, but agreed after some thought, and helped him find a suitable sword and some decent affordable armour.

Taking up adventuring proved to be a better decision than Aziraphale had ever expected. Solving people's problems alongside Crowley and seeing genuinely positive results from using his aasimar abilities helped light break through the shell of trauma and darkness around his soul, and every smile -- from people he'd helped, and especially from Crowley -- went to shore up his burgeoning feelings of hope for himself and the future. Even his deva guide proved useful once or twice, pointing out places where a situation might need attention (though its distant, detached perspective and rigid criteria for 'goodness' proved troublesome and helpful in equal measure).

The discovery that he truly enjoyed helping and protecting people and places stoked in Aziraphale a fiercely burning love of all of the good and life-giving things of the world and a powerful determination to preserve them. He was musing over this one morning, watching an interesting bush swaying in the breeze, when a huge and magnificent blue butterfly began emerging from its chrysalis but fell from the branch before its wings had fully expanded. Aziraphale gently caught it and let it rest on its hand until it was able to fly. Something about the situation felt powerfully evocative of his own recent history, which gave him an idea. He discussed it with Crowley, and the very next day, in a sun-dappled glade with the wind whispering through the leaves, Aziraphale took the Oath of the Ancients before no god but nature itself, swearing to kindle the light of hope through acts of mercy, kindness and forgiveness; to shelter the light of beauty, goodness, life, love and laughter against the forces that would devour them; to preserve the light in his own heart, that he might best preserve the light of the world; to be a beacon of joy and courage and hope for those living in despair. The stern and muted approval of his deva guide at this decision was as nothing compared to Crowley's radiantly evident pride.

The decision to take the path of a paladin helped give a more defined shape to their adventuring work, and Aziraphale and Crowley quickly gained a degree of note (or at least notoriety) for being seemingly utterly mismatched -- paladin and rogue, aasimar and tiefling, heavy plate armour versus light, spike-studded leather -- yet working together with fluid brilliance, putting paid to evil schemes wherever they found them. Aziraphale in particular tended to attract curiosity and surprise, with his intense enthusiasm for butterflies (having adopted the image of one as his holy paladin symbol) leading people to take him for an unusually heavily armoured ranger or druid -- until he started smiting undead monstrosities or healing mortal wounds with divine light.

As far as Aziraphale was concerned, Crowley was the greatest of the good and life-giving parts of the world, the sheer goodness of their kind and caring soul (though they denied it, out of long-ingrained habit) a shining light that he would fight to preserve regardless of formal oath. This culminated, one crisp, clear spring morning, in the pair taking their wedding vows in a lush meadow in the foothills of a mountain near the western coast of the continent. Their rings being perfect for use with the warding bond spell was the icing on the metaphorical cake.

Once the honeymoon was over, the adventuring work continued as usual -- though not without struggle. Aziraphale's tensions with his deva guide increased, as the guide's detachment from the realities of life on the Material Plane and unswerving adherence to a rigid conception of Goodness clashed with his lived experience of small, everyday acts of courage and kindness and love being just as important in holding back darkness (per his paladin oath) as any amount of smiting great evil. The guide's dream-contacts also made Aziraphale feel out-of-sorts for days afterwards, with the old nightmares tending to make a resurgence; he eventually realised that the pressure to adhere unquestioningly to rules of Goodness written on Mount Celestia was constantly re-opening the wounds inflicted on him so long ago by his childhood cult in their efforts to control him. He tried to convey this to the guide and request a cessation of contact save in the most apocalyptically dire emergencies, but the only response the guide made was to accost Aziraphale and Crowley in person when they were returning to civilisation, lightly singed, after dealing with a swarm of hell hounds and the fire giant to whom they were in service.

The meeting did not go well; almost the first words out of the guide's mouth were criticisms of Aziraphale's choice of paladin oath and general waywardness, Crowley's influence being blamed for the latter. Aziraphale could have dealt with all of that with comparative equanimity, but the guide followed it up by calling his and Crowley's marriage 'a distraction and a mistake'; it got about halfway through making a profoundly bigoted remark about Crowley's tiefling heritage before Aziraphale delivered a plate-armoured straight-arm punch to the nose. With the guide stunned on the ground, he coldly, calmly instructed it to never attempt to contact him or Crowley again, by any means or for any reason -- a request not quite delivered at swordpoint, but certainly with several inches of unsheathed blade. Thankfully, the guide got the message.

After that, things settled back into the usual rhythm of the adventuring life, with events ranging from the routine (such as joining up with another group of adventurers to deal with a demilich haunting the cellars of an opera house; a profoundly grateful management offered free tickets as part of the reward, so it turned into an impromptu date night!) to the surprising (a rare black-and-tan pegasus bonding with Crowley; for whatever reason, they decided to name it 'Bentley') to the intense (Aziraphale's childhood cult attempting to make a resurgence; their fatal error was in assuming that the powerful and experienced paladin with a legitimate grievance and devoted, protective spouse would be just as easy to control as the isolated and vulnerable child. They were swiftly proved wrong.) A few magical artifacts came into their possession, too, whether discovered in dungeons or given as rewards -- and once, when an old man festooned with canaries pressed a small canary figurine on them in the street because he 'liked their faces' (Aziraphale gave it to Crowley more or less immediately, because it was the same pretty gold colour as their eyes).

A short time after the final dissolution of the cult, the duo were attacked by a pit fiend that abducted Crowley, apparently due to some sort of long-ago deal. Aziraphale wasted no time in sending Bentley to fetch help, gathering resources, preparing spells and giving chase, refusing to leave Crowley in the darkness and despair of captivity for a single second longer than necessary, or to believe that his spouse would voluntarily enter into an infernal contract.

The portal to the pit fiend's lair lay in the ruins of a wizard's forest tower, and led to an isolated section of Avernus, first and outermost of the Nine Hells. While Crowley was too physically far away for the warding bond spell in their wedding rings to activate, long familiarity with the latent link meant Aziraphale was able to get a very good idea of which direction to go. He set off walking across the barren, blasted hills, cutting a swath through any creatures attempting to waylay him (when he was unable to avoid them using stealth techniques picked up from Crowley) and avoiding all deals, temptations and tarnish to his soul by means of sheer single-minded stubbornness. When a cave came into view that his senses, both mundane and divine, told him was the place where Crowley was being held, Aziraphale took a moment to pause and listen.

The pit fiend was gloating to Crowley (who was chained and caged, but alive and seemingly unharmed) and a bearded devil minion about its scheme to usurp power in Avernus, which apparently relied upon corrupting powerful souls; neither fiend was paying close attention to the cave entrance. Aziraphale was therefore able to catch the bearded devil entirely off-guard with a casting of moonbeam, which destroyed it in a matter of seconds. He moved the spell's area of effect to the pit fiend and advanced steadily, noting with the small part of his mind not bent on maintaining the spell that Crowley had nearly broken free of their bonds and was hastily working to finish the job.

The pit fiend lunged out of the moonbeam spell at that point, breaking Aziraphale's concentration with a tail strike that sent him reeling. Aziraphale responded by invoking warding bond and the strongest magical transformations granted by both his aasimar heritage and his paladin oath, and went on the offensive, trying to damage the pit fiend as much as possible while drawing its attention away from Crowley, who had managed to escape both chains and cage, and was readying a sneak attack.

Aziraphale and Crowley fought hard, with a fluid cooperation honed over many years. The pit fiend gave as good as it got, though, and despite Aziraphale's protective paladin auras and Crowley's speed, they eventually found themselves near collapse, burned by walls of fire and weakened by poison from the fiend's bite. Then Crowley, with the ingenuity that always made Aziraphale go gooey inside, remembered the enigmatic canary figurine, invoking an activation command and hurling it at the pit fiend's feet -- whereupon it transformed into an adult gold dragon!

The considerable distraction provided by the dragon allowed Aziraphale the opportunity to heal himself and Crowley and repair the rents in their armour. After that, they went back on the offensive, and with the aid of their new ally they vanquished the pit fiend. In the aftermath, Aziraphale took a moment to sit and catch his breath while Crowley carefully gathered up the restored canary figurine and explained about how their village had tried to sacrifice them to the pit fiend in their early childhood, and the swiftly-dispatched bearded devil had once been part of the old cult.

Their belongings gathered, the next problem presented itself: getting out of Avernus safely. An investigation of the meagre hoard of treasures in the pit fiend's lair turned up a silver ring inlaid with three green gemstones, one of which burned with a curious internal fire. Aziraphale recognised its powerful magic immediately, and after some thought, Crowley identified it as a ring of three wishes with one charge remaining. As the more proficient spellcaster, Aziraphale used the ring to transport the two of them back to their campsite, where Bentley the pegasus was waiting for them, whickering nervously.

Ultimately, despite multiple boons from some of the more sentimentally inclined deities who'd been following his and Crowley's relationship and exploits, an accumulation of physical and mental scathe forced Aziraphale to retire from active combat and adventuring. He bought property in a somewhat out-of-the-way town and opened a bookshop, which quickly gained a sort of affectionate notoriety for its incredibly convoluted opening hours and refusal to actually sell anything.

Adventurers are welcome to drop by the bookshop for advice on spellcasting, assistance with copying or interpreting spell scrolls, information on butterflies (which they'll probably get anyway!) and good counsel about many other matters. A very lucky few might be permitted to pet or feed Bentley the pegasus, or take some fruit and vegetables from Crowley's well-tended garden. It would be wise to note, though, that despite his retirement from active adventuring, Aziraphale still keeps in shape and follows the tenets of the Oath of the Ancients as best he can in everyday life -- and thus retains all of his paladin powers. Only the most terminally foolish individuals would try to steal from the bookshop or otherwise provoke his and Crowley's ire.

---

Aziraphale

Medium Humanoid (Protector Aasimar, 20th level Oath of the Ancients Paladin), Chaotic Good

Age: Unknown (immortal) Height: 5'10'' Weight: 194lb

Armour Class 13 Hit Points 250 (20d10+140) ('Tough' feat applies) Speed 30ft

STR 23 (+6) DEX 17 (+3) CON 20 (+5) INT 22 (+6) WIS 20 (+5) CHA 22 (+6)

Saving Throws Strength (+20), Constitution (+19), Intelligence (+20), Wisdom (+12), Charisma (+20)

Skills Athletics (+13), Sleight of Hand (+10), Arcana (+20), History (+13), Nature (+20), Religion (+20), Animal Handling (+19), Insight (+12), Medicine (+19), Survival (+12), Intimidation (+20), Persuasion (+20)

Damage Resistances necrotic, radiant; bludgeoning, piercing and slashing from non-magical attacks

Damage Immunities psychic, poison

Condition Immunities charmed, frightened, possessed, poisoned, stunned, all diseases

Senses darkvision 60ft, passive Perception 29

Languages all

Challenge 21 (33,000 XP) Proficiency Bonus +7

Traits

Special Equipment Depending on the circumstances of combat, Aziraphale may be wielding either a Holy Avenger Longsword or a large candelabra. He uses them two-handed and has proficiency with both. He also wears a ring of the ram on the little finger of his right hand and a platinum ring for use with the warding bond spell on the ring finger of his left hand; Crowley wears the other such ring.

Chronic Fatigue Due to persistent trauma, Aziraphale has two levels of exhaustion as a baseline.

Channel Divinity: Nature's Wrath As an action, Aziraphale can cause spectral vines to ensnare one creature within 10 feet of him that he can see. That creature must succeed on its choice of a Strength or Dexterity saving throw or be restrained; it can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, freeing itself on a success. This causes the vines to vanish.

Protective Auras Provided that Aziraphale is not incapacitated, he and any creatures friendly to him who are within 30ft of him have a +6 bonus to saving throws and resistance to damage from spells, and cannot be inflicted with the 'frightened' condition by any means.

Divine Smite Aziraphale deals an extra 1d8 radiant damage with all weapon strikes (as detailed under 'Radiant Strike' in the 'Actions' section)

Undying Sentinel (1/day) Aziraphale falls to 1 hit point if he takes a hit that would reduce him to 0 hit points without killing him outright.

Magic Resistance Aziraphale has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

Legendary Resistance (3/day) If he fails a saving throw, Aziraphale can choose to succeed on it instead.

Spellcasting Aziraphale is a 20th-level spellcaster. His spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 21, +13 to hit with spell attacks). He uses a butterfly-styled amulet as a spellcasting focus and as such requires no material components. He has the following paladin spells prepared, and casts warding bond at the start of combat:

Cantrips (at will): light, mending, holy word

1st level (4 slots): wrathful smite, divine favour, ensnaring strike (oath spell), speak with animals (oath spell)

2nd level (3 slots): branding smite, warding bond, moonbeam (oath spell), misty step (oath spell)

3rd level (3 slots): blinding smite, remove curse, aura of vitality, plant growth (oath spell), protection from energy (oath spell)

4th level (3 slots): aura of purity, supernal smite, staggering smite, ice storm (oath spell), stoneskin (oath spell)

5th level (2 slots): banishing smite, destructive wave, commune with nature (oath spell), tree stride (oath spell)

Actions

Multiattack Aziraphale makes two Radiant Strike attacks and either casts one spell or expends one charge from his ring of the ram.

Radiant Strike Melee Weapon Attack: +13 to hit, reach 5ft, one target. Hit: 15 (1d10+10) slashing damage plus 15 (2d10+1d8) radiant damage (Holy Avenger Longsword)/10 (1d6+7) bludgeoning damage + 4 (1d8) radiant damage (candelabra).

Radiant Soul Aziraphale unleashes the divine energy within him. For the next minute, he has luminous, incorporeal wings which grant him 30ft of flying speed and the ability to deal an extra 20 radiant damage on one weapon or spell strike per turn.

Elder Champion Aziraphale calls upon the strongest powers granted by his oath, gaining a leonine mane of shimmering butterfly wings. For the next minute, he regains 10 hit points at the start of each of his turns and can cast his paladin spells as a bonus action even if their casting time is 1 action; additionally, enemies within 10 feet of him have disadvantage on saving throws against his spells and Channel Divinity feature.

Reaction

Trauma Aziraphale is immune to all enchantment and illusion magic. Any such spell cast on him fails automatically; furthermore, he moves to within 5 feet of any creature that tries to cast such magic on him or Crowley and makes two weapon attacks on that creature, which are automatic critical hits.

---

Notes:

I wrote this with the Forgotten Realms setting in mind, since I'm most familiar with that world; translating things to another part of the D&D multiverse shouldn't be too much of a problem

I was leaning on the 2014 editions of the Player's Handbook, Monster Manual and Dungeon Master's Guide for this fic and statblock -- the 2024 PHB came out when I was halfway through typing up the statblock! XD

This statblock is intended to portray aasimar!Aziraphale in retirement; if you want to put him into your campaign as an active paladin, equip him with Plate Armour of Etherealness (angels aren't occult, after all!) and a shield in addition to the Holy Avenger Longsword; I'm torn between Euryale's Aegis, Sentinel Shield and a simple +3 shield (the latter two of which would free up an attunement slot for something else (maybe a Necklace of Prayer Beads?)). Whichever one you choose, tweak the statblock accordingly, and happy dungeoneering! And definitely drop me a line to let me know how it goes! :D

My autistic headcanon for Aziraphale really made itself felt while I was planning/writing this (I'm autistic myself and identify with Az to a slightly worrying degree, so I was probably projecting a bit while writing); I'm not entirely sure where the butterfly aspect came from, but eh, it fits ^^

Props to @vidavalor for doing a spot of beta reading :D

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jotun-philosopher · 5 months ago

Text

Crowley: Dungeons & Dragons AU

Aziraphale bio/statblock here -- the bios are intended to be read more-or-less side-by-side. The whole thing is also on my AO3 here

cw: child abuse, physical and psychological (mostly implied, some effects shown or discussed), cults, violence, trauma

*********

With their lightly curled and fiercely red hair tumbling past their shoulders, stylish leather attire, five-foot-long prehensile tail, glowing yellow-gold eyes without sclerae or pupils, and six feet of willowy height enhanced by long, wavy horns, Crowley might not initially strike an uninformed observer as being a kindly, artistic soul who enjoys gardening and snuggling with their true love on rainy days. They are devoted to their aasimar husband, Aziraphale, and fiercely protective of their peaceful domestic existence.

This peace was hard-won after a long journey. For Crowley, that journey started in the village in which they were born. Their infernal heritage as a tiefling was obvious from the start, so much so that from their earliest years they were reviled as a bad omen and an agent of the Nine Hells -- the latter most especially, because of their constant questioning of everything they didn't understand.

Not long after their seventh birthday (not that anyone really bothered to mark the occasion), Crowley was targeted by a greedy, power-hungry cabal in the village who wished to treat with Asmodeus, ruler of Nessus and Overlord of the Nine Hells, for power and prestige; their tiefling bloodline had been determined in the interim to ultimately stem from Asmodeus, so Crowley was deemed a suitable sacrifice. Unfortunately -- for the cabal -- some blunder or lack of power in the summoning ritual meant that instead of the greatest of archdevils, the entity called up was a pit fiend who declared that it didn't care for 'mewling brats' (Crowley was having a very understandable seven-year-old reaction to the whole business) and proceeded to violently slaughter all of the adults in the room. Being small and nimble, Crowley was able to escape unnoticed in the confusion.

With the last of their innocence crumbling into ruins within them, Crowley gathered some food and fled into the wilderness. They drifted from place to place, trying to avoid undue notice. When Crowley did show themself, in an attempt to purchase supplies or secure accommodation, a widespread prejudice against tieflings made things complicated at best, forcing them to learn to talk their way out of trouble or be so stealthy as to attract no attention at all (no small challenge, given their horns and tail!). On some mercifully rare occasions where these skills failed, Crowley found themself mistaken for a cambion and treated with commensurate hostility.

And so things went on, with Crowley wandering in aimless solitude across the continent, scraping a meagre living from infiltration, investigation and petty thievery, and using a shell of biting sarcasm to protect the soft heart they insisted they didn't have. They found themself in a town in the easternmost part of the continent shortly after they came of age, seeking nothing more than their next meal but finding some disturbing rumours about a travelling cult that had encamped near the town.

Over a bowl of fair-to-middling stew, Crowley wheedled out of the tavern's staff the information that the cult had a case of self-righteousness that was bizarre even by the standards of apocalypse cults, that a tiefling family in town had come into some ill-defined conflict with them and thus been marked for death, and that they had some sort of terrifying celestial figurehead/enforcer who would probably be tasked with the assassination. Crowley tried to hide their deeply instinctive, 'Nope. Not on my watch,' reaction under a veneer of, 'Huh, that's interesting,' and almost succeeded.

When the moon was hanging over the mountains like a dirty toenail clipping, Crowley hurried to the tiefling family's home, grumbling about stupid empathy making things stupidly complicated... Composing themselves, they knocked on the door, did the fastest talking of their life to convince the patriarch of their good intentions, and kept watch while the family packed supplies and prepared to flee. They'd all convened in the main room when Crowley, hearing a slight footstep outside, gestured for silence. The family retreated to a corner while Crowley took up a position beside the door, which began to creep open.

Moving with lightning speed, Crowley snatched the intruder's sword from its sheath and hurled it across the room while slamming its owner against the wall -- then was pulled up short. The cult's supposed 'terrifying celestial champion' turned out to be a scrawny aasimar barely older than them, who from the look in his eyes seemed to be under at least one mind-control spell of vicious power. Crowley's heart squeezed with compassion, even as something deep in their soul said, 'Yes. This one.'

Crowley tore their gaze (with some difficulty) away from the tormented look in those eyes -- a deep, rich brown peppered with flecks of silver -- and started throwing out questions worded with immense care, probing the edges of whatever geas had been laid upon the aasimar. Once satisfied that they'd worked out the shape of it, Crowley deployed their most silver-tongued persuasion, intending merely to convince this obviously enslaved enforcer to look the other way; even they were surprised when the aasimar actively helped get the tiefling family to the edge of town!

The family were just as flummoxed, and begged Crowley to say who they were.

"No-one of consequence."

"But we must know! We must properly thank..."

"Get used to disappointment. Now for...someone's...sake go! Get going! GO!"

Crowley watched the family until they'd disappeared into the darkness, then turned to their new...acquaintance? Friend? Acutely aware that geasa inflicted a horrible psychic backlash when disobeyed but unwilling to relinquish this troubled aasimar to the not-so-tender mercies of the cult, Crowley took him back to the house to burn it in hopes it'd look convincing from the cult's encampment, then invited him for a stroll on a hillside overlooking the town. More careful, gentle questioning -- and how long had it been since Crowley'd been this inquisitive? -- turned up the aasimar's name (Aziraphale) and a series of increasingly horrific facts about life in the cult, delivered hesitantly but in as casual a tone as might be used for discussing mundanities like the weather. For Crowley, the most heartbreaking detail was that Aziraphale was entirely unfamiliar with the concept of hugs; once Crowley'd explained it, he tentatively accepted a demonstration and began to relax against their shoulder -- then abruptly stiffened, twisted and screamed.

The scream was choked off almost as soon as it had begun, and Aziraphale stumbled away, moving like an ill-maintained puppet, but surprisingly quickly for all that. Crowley trailed him back to the cult's camp, the need for stealth meaning they were barely able to keep up.

Crowley stopped bothering with stealth once they reached the camp -- they could hear Aziraphale screaming from somewhere close by, and an unimpeded retreat felt more important than getting in unnoticed. They deployed dagger and shortsword on any cultists who tried to waylay them, and even tapped some of the inherent infernal magic they usually tried to ignore to intimidate others from getting close. They found Aziraphale in the largest tent, being beaten by a senior-looking cultist while another muttered ominous-sounding incantations. Crowley knocked them both away from Aziraphale, picked him up and fled without paying much attention to anyone else.

Crowley fled through the town, trying not to panic at the amount of blood gushing from Aziraphale's nose and ears. They found a temple to a god of healing, which they'd noted in passing on arriving in the town, and nearly kicked down the door in their haste. The temple's senior cleric was annoyed at first, but took one look at the state Aziraphale was in and immediately led them to an examination room.

The good news, the cleric said, was that Aziraphale could be healed and freed from the various geasa fairly easily, with few lasting effects, using the right spells. The bad news was twofold: the spells had to be cast within the next couple of hours, and because the day had been a busy one, all of the temple's usual healers were out of magic until the next dawn. At that, an acolyte who'd been assisting the examination suggested asking 'Learned Penric' -- apparently a visitor -- despite the late hour, and fled the room gratefully (with a nervous glance at Crowley, whose horns and tail were scratching the ceiling and walls with every agitated oscillation) when their superior assented.

This 'Learned Penric', when he arrived, appeared to be no more than a delicate-featured, blond-queued stripling, but the quick indrawn breath, mutter of, "Bastard's teeth!" and immediate application of multiple enormously powerful healing and curse-removal spells bespoke many years of experience; Crowley was too worried about Aziraphale to give the matter much thought.

Once Penric had pronounced the healing complete, Crowley insisted on being the one to move Aziraphale to a side room to recover. While watching him sleep, they tried to work out just what it was about this sparkling-halo'd aasimar that had them tied in such unaccustomed knots. The best answer they could come up with was that unexpectedly finding something of a kindred spirit was just so new that it had thrown them wildly off-centre. The exertions of the night caught up with them at that point, and they dozed off in their chair while idly studying the curl of Aziraphale's hair.

Crowley jerked awake a little before dawn, consumed with a sudden fear that the cult might already have started looking for them. Quelling the initial spasm of panic, they checked on Aziraphale -- who was sleeping fairly peacefully -- and darted out of the room to find him some new clothes. They were on their way back with a simple set of clothes, a cloak and some food when Learned Penric intercepted them.

"Leaving already? I'd advise against it -- your..."

"That cult could be here any moment! I want to get Aziraphale as far away from here as possible."

They began arguing with increasing heat, Crowley wanting to put as much distance between Aziraphale and the cult as possible, pointing out that the temple's staff were outnumbered, out of magic and unlikely to have sufficient combat experience, and Penric countering that it wasn't certain that the cult would be able or willing to mount an attack, that (magic or no) the temple was solid and defensible, that Aziraphale likely needed more rest before being fit to travel, and that Crowley was being selfish, reckless and inconsistent, willing to take the temple's help with healing Aziraphale but not to trust them to keep him safe afterwards. Crowley had no answer to that, but covered it by shouldering open the door to Aziraphale's room, helping him into the clothes they'd gathered, gently concealing his distinctive halo under the hood of the cloak, and hurrying him out of the temple's rear door just as dawn was breaking.

Hand-in-hand, they merged discreetly into the foot traffic on the westward road, Crowley keeping watch for any sign of pursuit and Aziraphale seeming almost stunned by the newness of being among ordinary people. By night, they camped in the most concealed spots Crowley could find. By day, they pushed westward as hard as Crowley dared, some of Penric's points about Aziraphale's health having penetrated Crowley's instinctive paranoia.

Aziraphale was obviously struggling, not complaining about the privations of life on the road but sleeping restlessly and frequently waking up screaming. Crowley, at something of a loss for how to help, defaulted to 'lots of hugs, and do the opposite of what the cult probably did', which mainly meant speaking to him kindly, making sure he ate properly and seeking and properly considering his input on various matters. It certainly seemed to help; Aziraphale eventually admitted (though with a reluctance evidently born of past violent betrayal) that his bad dreams were as much down to some dream-guide trying to make contact as to his awful memories. Crowley recognised this admission for the confession of trust that it was, their throat clogging with compassionate sadness for Aziraphale's pain, and hugged him firmly.

Crowley was pleased to see parts of Aziraphale's true personality emerging as the nightmares began to abate. The first one to show up was his love of butterflies; his hand-flapping and full-body excited wiggling whenever one showed up were downright adorable! Next to appear was his ability to enjoy simply watching running water or dust dancing in a sunbeam for hours on end. Crowley didn't fully understand this, but with the possibility of active pursuit lessening by the day, they were happy enough to indulge their aasimar friend.

One of the most significant developments came when Crowley woke from a nightmare of their own (the incident with the pit fiend had never really stopped troubling them) to find Aziraphale cuddled up on their chest, holding a small twig imbued with light. Befuddled by, but joyful at, this expression of care and trust, Crowley realised that Aziraphale was beginning to explore his innate aasimar magic -- something worth encouraging! Especially as every success meant he gained that adorably excited smile and wiggling... His glee at managing to manifest fully functional wings of pure luminous energy was infectious, and Crowley cherished the memory of holding Aziraphale's hand as he took his first flight around a sunlit forest clearing, the two of them giggling with overwhelming joy, for a long time afterwards.

When they'd made it a third or so of the way across the continent, their funds began to run low. As the two of them sat at a corner table in a lakeside tavern one afternoon, counting up their remaining store of coin, Aziraphale suggested that they take adventuring work to fund their onward travel. Crowley was taken aback but listened to his reasoning.

"One, there are plenty of jobs available and they pay well. Two, if anyone is still following us, making our route more unpredictable will only help shake them off. Three, we both have powers and skills that are worth using, and I for one would prefer to use mine to preserve the world rather than bring about its dissolution."

Crowley realised with a pang of guilt that, for all they'd spent so much time admiring Aziraphale's appearance and mannerisms, they hadn't properly looked at him; they did so now. The motes of light forming his halo winked and twinkled and danced in the glow of the tavern's torches, framing a face no longer sunken with hunger but full and strong, with a fierce, steely intelligence in the eyes. He'd gained some healthy weight, too, his body still rather lean but far more solid than when they'd first met. With Learned Penric's words about recklessness and lack of trust ringing distantly in their ears, Crowley took a breath, properly considered Aziraphale's reasoning and found it extremely solid. Luckily, the armourer near the tavern was still open, so they were able to find Aziraphale a sword and some basic armour without too much trouble.

As it turned out, taking up adventuring was an excellent idea! Jobs were indeed plentiful and paid well, both in coin and in other ways. Aziraphale seemed to genuinely enjoy helping and protecting people, and was (between his own powers and frightening skill with a sword) very good at it. His joy at this rubbed off on Crowley, who gradually went from simply not wanting to disappoint his wonderful aasimar to genuinely wanting to do good for its own sake. They even started exploring their innate infernal magic, on the slowly growing idea that simply being infernal in origin didn't make it inherently evil or wrong or shameful; the first time they cast hellish rebuke while battling a monster was still pretty startling! Despite their lack of physical wings, Crowley found that the westward journey felt more and more like they were flying.

It wasn't all sunshine and roses, though. Aziraphale's dream guide -- some stuck-up deva based on Mount Celestia -- might have provided genuinely useful information once or twice, but from what little Aziraphale said about it, it seemed to mostly be concerned with ordering Aziraphale around in a way frighteningly similar to the cult, albeit reading off some immutable list of 'Rules For Goodness' rather than plotting an apocalypse. Crowley grew to loathe that deva, for all that they'd never met; its visits always left Aziraphale unaccountably upset for days afterwards, with his nightmares and intermittent memory issues (a legacy, Crowley guessed, of the cult's mind-control magic) flaring up.

Crowley was worrying quietly about this, one misty, dew-soaked morning, when they heard a rustling and the distinctive excited squeak of an aasimar who'd found a particularly interesting butterfly. They looked over to see Aziraphale delicately balancing a huge and magnificent blue butterfly on one hand while wearing a look of almost beatific revelation. Once the butterfly had fluttered off, Aziraphale bounded across their small campsite -- almost landing on Crowley's ribcage -- and started babbling excitedly. Once he'd calmed down a little, and Crowley had worked through the metaphors about butterfly wings and chrysalises, it emerged that he was seriously considering taking oath as a paladin and wanted Crowley's input.

Crowley knew that Aziraphale's love of helping and protecting people, and generally doing good, fitted well with the requirements of the paladin's path; they did worry, though, about the high standards required to maintain the oath and potential harshness of the consequences of breaking it, even by accident. They did trust Aziraphale's decision-making, though, and were willing to support him in whatever choice he made. That being established, the two of them wandered into the nearby town (which had a reasonably respectable library) to do a bit of research and take counsel with an experienced paladin who happened to be in the area.

The next day dawned bright and clear. Crowley accompanied Aziraphale to a small glade near the town, and there watched as Aziraphale formally swore the Oath of the Ancients before no specific god save for nature itself, and received a butterfly-shaped amulet to act as his holy symbol. Crowley's heart was near bursting with affection and pride for how far Aziraphale had come, as his aasimar stood holding the amulet, quivering with nervous excitement and hope while the dappled sunlight breaking through the trees made glorious sparks of the ever-drifting motes of his halo.

Becoming a paladin evidently suited Aziraphale -- he seemed happier than ever, and his physical health improved greatly; Crowley was glad they'd trusted his choice (the increasingly muscular view when they bathed together certainly didn't hurt!). Their combat styles meshed well, too, with Crowley making speedy yet devastating sneak attacks while Aziraphale drew opponents' attention and absorbed their strikes. Together they achieved a not-inconsiderable degree of note for their deeds; even so, Aziraphale's kindly manner and flappy-handed, wiggly-bodied love of butterflies tended to lead people to underestimate him. It was, for Crowley, a reliable source of amusement to see people who'd assumed he was some sort of really eccentric druid get very startled when the latest undead monstrosity showed up and he promptly smote its ruin upon the good green earth.

Crowley still wasn't completely immune to underestimating Aziraphale themself, though. When their travels had brought them within a couple of weeks' ride of the continent's western coast, they ran into a smarmy con artist whom Crowley had encountered once or twice in their petty-thievery days (and how long had they been thinking of that period as firmly in the past?). They were briefly worried about Aziraphale being taken in, but instead he seriously unnerved the con artist by heavily playing up his literal-mindedness and asking a lot of uncomfortably pointed questions (Crowley was evidently rubbing off on him...) while maintaining fixed and near-unblinking eye contact with a point slightly above the con artist's left ear. Crowley could barely keep themself from laughing out loud at the odious twerp's obvious discomfiture and hasty retreat.

The realisation that they'd properly left behind any need for criminal activity gave Crowley a new surge of hope for the future. They evidently weren't alone in thinking of what was yet to come; when they visited an up-and-coming mining town in early spring, Aziraphale ducked into a shop selling magic items, and was excited but mysterious about what he'd bought. He explained it when they had some privacy, showing Crowley a pair of platinum rings and stuttering his way through an explanation of the warding bond spell. Crowley recognised the strategic value of the spell immediately, but there seemed to be something else behind their aasimar's nerves...

"Just to be clear, angel, are you proposing?"

A flustered nod.

Crowley took a moment to process that, yes, this was absolutely real. "Then I accept!" They held out their left hand so Aziraphale could put the ring on their finger. He was still flustered, gabbling about how Crowley was good and kind and brilliant and wonderful and... Crowley reflected that this would be a terrible time for their habitual insistence on just being a big mean ol' tiefling (grrr!), however joking, and instead petted Aziraphale's hair fondly.

The engagement lasted for precisely the length of time it took them to find someone to officiate the ceremony. A couple of days later, early in the morning when the sky was clear and the crisp bite of early-spring frost was still in the air, they were formally wed in a grassy meadow nestled in the foothills of the mountain near the mining town. Crowley couldn't remember ever having been this deliriously happy -- nor could Aziraphale, judging by the sparkly-eyed smile he wore throughout.

After a honeymoon mostly spent thoroughly stress-testing the bed in their room at the tavern, it was back to the adventuring! Crowley's ear for deceit, eye for detail and general irrepressible inquisitiveness garnered many leads to areas of trouble and situations requiring resolution; Aziraphale's deva guide was exactly as helpful as it had always been (i.e. not very). His nightmares and memory troubles were flaring up worse than ever after its visits. Crowley managed to coax him into talking about it, and they eventually worked out that the deva was acting a lot like the old cult, which meant that the old mental wounds were being torn open every time it made contact. He did his best to tell the deva to back off -- Crowley made extra sure to convey their pride in him for that.

A couple of weeks later, the two of them were returning to their lodgings after assisting a young copper dragon who was being troubled in its lair by a roaming fire giant and its horde of hell hounds. Suddenly, the air twisted in front of them and a celestial figure appeared, the radiance of its milk-pale skin and the gold edging of its chalk-white wing feathers almost blinding. Crowley had a funny feeling that this was the obnoxious deva guide they so despised, a feeling confirmed when the figure greeted Aziraphale by name and immediately began berating him for being wayward and distracted by petty trivialities like seeing to the well-being of individuals rather than the Greater Good, and for being insufficiently lawful in his choice of paladin oath. Aziraphale made an obvious effort to bear this tirade with equanimity, but Crowley could see him starting to regress to the state of fear and confusion he'd been in when they'd first met him, so long ago. They reached for their dagger, intending to hurl it into the deva's throat to shut it up -- but then it insulted their marriage.

The deva barely got halfway through insulting Crowley's tiefling heritage in the crassest manner imaginable before Aziraphale punched it in the face hard enough to break its nose and send it flying a few feet backward. Crowley suddenly had to ignore their dagger and physically restrain Aziraphale from drawing his sword with killing intent (an oath violation for sure, in these circumstances). They succeeded, just; he had several inches of blade visible while he delivered an instruction to never contact him again, in any way or for any reason, in tones of the coldest, most steely anger Crowley had ever heard him use. The deva was intimidated enough to flee immediately, hopefully never to return. Crowley hugged Aziraphale while he gathered himself, made sure to pamper him extra hard when they got back to their lodgings, and gently nudged him to take counsel about his oath with a relevant local cleric.

With that resolved, things went on much as they had before. One particularly memorable job involved an opera house; a middleweight adventuring party had been hired to clear a mysterious infestation of undead out of the cellars, but having found and barely escaped a demilich in the deepest cellar, they'd decided they needed backup. Crowley found them to be a mostly sensible bunch, if their bard would just stop trying to bloody peacock around in front of the corps de ballet! They're not even paying attention, it's embarrassing... Once the warlock of the group had delivered the (seemingly routine) refocusing clip 'round the ear, they descended into the monster's lair. The fight was a difficult one, though Aziraphale's aura of courage and healing spells, and Crowley's lightning reflexes and unparalleled darkvision, helped the team claim victory. While the adventuring party had done the majority of the fighting, destroying the demilich's phylactery was another matter. The wizard of the group determined that it could only be destroyed by being struck with celestial radiance and infernal flame simultaneously, while fully immersed in holy water. A tall order indeed -- unless, of course, one has a powerful aasimar/tiefling duo on hand! Aziraphale and Crowley both kept a few flasks of holy water in stock as a matter of course, and a simultaneous casting of moonbeam and hellish rebuke took care of the rest. The opera house's managers were profusely grateful and generous with their rewards; these included free tickets for that night's performance, a comical piece about pirates who did very little piracy and were either excellent or terrible at stealth, so the day's work was capped off with a very enjoyable date night.

Not every memorable incident involved difficult battles. On one occasion, the duo encountered a rare black-and-tan pegasus being pestered by human bounty hunters; once the ruffians had been driven off, the pegasus took an immediate liking to Crowley, much to their bemusement. They called it Bentley -- the name felt right somehow -- and it happily acted as their steed. Odder still was the incident some time later, when a green-robed old man with three bright yellow canaries sitting on each shoulder and one clinging to his hat accosted them in the street. He said something about liking their faces and pressed a small golden canary figurine on Aziraphale, before disappearing into the city crowds with an enigmatic wink. Aziraphale gave the figurine to Crowley immediately, because it 'matched their pretty gold eyes'. Crowley slipped it into their belt pouch (there was definitely something unusual about it, meriting further investigation), smooched Aziraphale on the cheek and gently towed him off to the marketplace to get him something in return, eventually settling on a ring of the ram, which seemed to fit his solidity and force of will.

It was sometime after that, when things had gone comparatively quiet on the adventuring front, that the duo were asked to look into a cult trying to set up a suspicious ritual. They duly went to the place where the worrying activity had been reported -- and found Aziraphale's former cult. Crowley could have kicked themself for not doing enough damage to them while rescuing Aziraphale all those years ago, especially as they recognised the cult's brainwash-magic-happy sage (though they took some comfort in the fact that it had apparently taken this long for the cult to rebound). The sight was evidently affecting Aziraphale, too, and despite his clear efforts to stay quiet, the sage heard and approached their hiding spot with a few club-wielding acolytes in tow.

The sage launched into a profoundly patronising speech 'forgiving' Aziraphale for 'being led astray' and inviting him to return to the fold. The last few words seemed to be laced with subtle persuasive magic, and Crowley had a fleeting pang of dread that it'd actually work; then they looked again at the sage and realised that his spellwork was rather sloppy and complacent. Aziraphale's formidable reputation as a bloody-minded stubborn paladin who was nigh-immune to enchantment and illusion magic had obviously passed him by, as he seemed to be assuming that this experienced aasimar (with an indisputably legitimate grievance) was still the same easily controllable child as before. Crowley was shifting into position, ready to correct their earlier mistakes, when Aziraphale did something that he'd never done before in all the time Crowley had known him -- he swore.

"FUCK that!"

A longsword blow that bisected the sage at the waist, an invocation of warding bond, and the battle was on. The cultists stood little chance; Crowley reflected that they probably shouldn't be enjoying the cult's destruction this much, even if they had tortured their husband for years... Once the cult was well and truly demolished -- permanently -- the duo reported back to their informant and returned to their lodgings, whereupon Aziraphale had an emotional meltdown in Crowley's arms.

A scant few weeks after that, they were setting up camp for the night when, with a waft of sulphurous air, a pit fiend ambushed them. It seized and telepathically mocked Crowley for not initially remembering 'their deal' and gloated about how much more interesting a prize they were now, before flying off to the nearby forest, where a portal to Avernus, first and outermost of the Nine Hells, was waiting. Crowley started to panic a little, once they realised that this was the very pit fiend they'd almost been sacrificed to as a child.

The pit fiend took them to a cave in a range of barren hills in an isolated part of Avernus. It threw Crowley into a cage and chained their wrists to the uppermost bars, before wrapping its wings around itself and flopping down next to a small heap of treasure (evidently stolen from luckless travellers) and thanking a bearded devil lurking in the shadows for their accurate information. Something about the lesser fiend seemed familiar to Crowley...

Affecting a lackadaisical manner, Crowley prodded the bearded devil with questions until it confirmed their suspicion that it used to be the sage of the old cult, having made a posthumous bargain for power in exchange for information about powerful souls to corrupt. The pit fiend was intelligent enough, at least, to realise that blabbing one's plans to a captive, however seemingly helpless, might not be the best idea, and tried to shut the bearded devil up. However, Crowley was able to play on the pit fiend's ego enough to persuade it to start bragging about its own scheme to usurp power in Avernus by corrupting powerful souls to its control -- Aziraphale and Crowley being particularly juicy targets. All the while, Crowley was subtly picking the locks on their chains, using the narrow tip of their prehensile tail.

Oddly enough, Crowley wasn't all that scared. They knew, so deep in their bones that it would be hard to articulate, that Aziraphale would come to their rescue and that they'd destroy the pit fiend and its loathsome scheme together, as they had so many other evil plans in the past. They also realised that even if they did escape from their chains now, getting out of the cave unharmed would be a very tall order, and running off into the wastelands of Avernus would only make it harder for Aziraphale to track them down; they therefore discreetly worked at their chains to the point where they could slip out of them relatively easily without giving this fact away to their captors.

Crowley's trust and faith were rewarded almost immediately, when a familiar column of silvery light caught the bearded devil in the back and engulfed it in ghostly flames of uncanny radiance, reducing it to nothingness in less than fifteen seconds. Aziraphale advanced into the cave, gesturing the moonbeam onto the pit fiend with his sword, his shield hanging on his left forearm to allow that hand to touch his butterfly amulet/spellcasting focus, a look of steely determination and controlled fury in his eyes. Crowley knew the spell needed the caster to concentrate on maintaining it, so they exchanged the briefest of acknowledging eye contact with him before working away at their bindings in earnest.

The chains fell away, and Crowley turned their attention to breaking out of the cage. The iron bars were sturdy and resisted their efforts to pull them apart, but Crowley gained the extra strength necessary to break them when the pit fiend lunged out of the shaft of moonbeam and struck Aziraphale with its tail, shattering his concentration on the spell and sending him reeling across the cave. Feeling the familiar flare of warding bond activating, Crowley shouted insults, hurled pieces of the cage and generally tried to distract the pit fiend while Aziraphale got to his feet and invoked his radiant aasimar wings. A few more seconds bought, and a shift in his posture told Crowley that he'd also assumed the leonine mane of shimmering butterfly wings that signified the strongest magics granted by his paladin oath.

He charged forward and attacked, drawing the pit fiend's attention back to himself while Crowley landed their signature sneak attacks with dual-wielded shortswords. Their well-honed co-operative combat, with spell and blade in fluid accord, certainly caused the pit fiend grief, though less than Crowley would have liked. It got a few lucky hits in with fireball, claw, mace and tail, and forced them to keep their distance with a well-timed wall of fire just as Aziraphale's transformations wore off.

The pit fiend seized its chance then, biting down on Crowley's arm with its venom-dripping fangs and tossing them into Aziraphale, who was beginning to wilt inside his plate armour from the heat of the fiend's fires. Crowley was dimly aware of Aziraphale dragging them out of range of the heat of the fire while the pit fiend gloated and its venom burned through their veins.

As the fiend's wall of fire died down, Crowley dimly registered Aziraphale passing a glowing hand over the bite wound on their arm. The effects of the pit fiend's venom faded away, and Crowley was able to gather enough of their wits that they remembered the mysterious canary figurine that they'd never quite got round to investigating. They fumbled it out of their belt pouch, glanced at the words carved on the base and hurled it at the pit fiend's feet while chanting what they really hoped was the right incantation. The pit fiend's mocking laughter was abruptly cut off when the tiny figurine transformed into an adult gold dragon!

Crowley gasped out a command to the dragon -- "Keep it busy!" -- which the dragon interpreted as an instruction to invoke its fear-inducing aura and go to town with its claws and bite while the pit fiend cowered against the cave wall. Aziraphale, as was usual, made sure to use the opportunity to heal Crowley up and repair their armour before seeing to his own needs. This done, the duo readied themselves to re-enter the fray. Although the effects of its aura were beginning to wear off, the gold dragon had done a great deal of damage to the pit fiend by this time; Aziraphale added to it by muttering divine incantations (lacking the energy for stronger magic by this time) and invoking his ring of the ram. He gave Crowley the final blow, though, and as they delivered the coup de grace something unknotted deep inside them.

With the pit fiend vanquished, the duo exchanged bows with the gold dragon before it turned itself back into the canary figurine. Crowley shakily picked it up and out it away while explaining to Aziraphale (who was taking a moment to catch his breath) the background information he might've missed.

They were both too exhausted to want to risk leaving Avernus the long way, or lingering in the cave too long, so once they'd gathered themselves, the duo poked around the pit fiend's small heap of stolen treasure. A glint caught Crowley's eye, which turned out to be a silver ring of deceptively simple design, inlaid with three green gemstones. Aziraphale immediately noted the strong magic in the one gemstone that still burned with its own internal fire, and with that clue Crowley identified the item as a ring of three wishes, with two-thirds of its charges expended. They were swaying on their feet by this time (and in any case were no great shakes at spellcasting), so Aziraphale hooked an arm round their waist, held up the ring and used its one remaining charge to replicate the plane shift spell, which deposited them back at their campsite scarcely half a day after they'd left. Bentley the pegasus was there, whickering nervously and nuzzling their faces, along with what seemed to be a hastily-assembled rescue party, who appeared relieved to not have to contend with the Nine Hells after all.

Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale had ever been particularly inclined to have faith in the gods, but the zenith of their adventuring career often involved performing commissions for them, with commensurate boons (up to and including immortality!) as rewards. It was during the course of one of these missions that something happened which Crowley had long dreaded -- Aziraphale's memory issues flared up badly in the middle of combat. Crowley was able to protect him until he recovered, and they finished the mission safely, but Aziraphale was badly rattled. Back in their lodgings, he raised for the first time the possibility of retirement. Crowley was just as shaken by the incident, and agreed that it would be unwise to risk another memory glitch happening in so dangerous a situation.

With their considerable accumulated wealth, Aziraphale bought property in an out-of-the-way town, with a large garden for Crowley to tend, a good stable for Bentley and plenty of space for it to run around. Aziraphale opted to open a bookshop where adventurers might find advice and information on any number of matters, but drew up some extremely convoluted opening hours in line with his impish sense of humour and long-standing distaste for directionless interactions with people other than Crowley (who found the whole thing rather amusing). They gradually settled into a quieter rhythm of life, with Crowley working wonders in the garden and unabashedly ogling Aziraphale while he practised sword drills to stay in shape, in lieu of opening the shop.

And so they live still. Crowley is much less inclined, these days, to hide their kind, generous nature, and will happily share produce from their garden with local businesses or friendly adventurers. They are intensely protective of their husband and their hard-won peaceful domesticity, though, so anyone who is terminally foolish enough to threaten them, by theft, violence or otherwise, will regret it very quickly.

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Crowley

Medium Humanoid (Tiefling (Asmodeus), 20th level Inquisitive Rogue), Chaotic Good

Age: Unknown (immortal) Height: 6'1'' Weight: 120lb

Armour Class 21 (glamoured studded leather, Dual Wielder feat) Hit Points 170 (20d8+80) Speed 30ft

STR 22 (+6) DEX 24 (+7) CON 18 (+4) INT 24 (+7) WIS 23 (+6) CHA 25 (+7)

Saving Throws Strength (+12), Dexterity (+20), Intelligence (+19), Wisdom (+18), Charisma (+19)

Skills Athletics (+12), Acrobatics (+19), Stealth (+19), Arcana (+13), History (+13), Investigation (+19), Insight (+18), Perception (+18), Survival (+18), Deception (+19), Intimidation (+19), Persuasion (+19)

Damage Resistances fire, cold, poison, lightning

Damage Immunities psychic

Condition Immunities charmed, frightened, possessed, paralysed

Senses darkvision 60ft, passive Perception (33), passive Investigation (34)

Languages all

Challenge 20 (25,000 XP) Proficiency Bonus +6

Traits

Special Equipment Crowley dual-wields magic shortswords. One is an Ascendant Dragon's Wrath Shortsword (hereafter ADWS), which steeped in an Ancient Blue Dragon's hoard and as such inflicts an extra 3d6 lightning damage on a successful strike (included in the combat statistics); the other is a Crystal Shortsword, which inflicts an extra 1d8 radiant damage on a successful strike (included in the combat statistics). Crowley also wears a platinum ring for use with the warding bond spell on the ring finger of their left hand; Aziraphale wears the other such ring.

Magic Resistance Crowley has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

Sneak Attack One per turn, Crowley can inflict an extra 10d6 (or 13d6 with Insightful Fighting, see below) piercing damage on one attack that is made either with advantage or on an enemy that is within 5 feet of Aziraphale (provided that he isn't incapacitated).

Insightful Fighting As a bonus action, Crowley can make a Wisdom (Insight) check against a creature they can see that isn't incapacitated, contested by the target's Charisma (Deception) check. On a success, for the next minute, Crowley can use their Sneak Attack against that target only without needing advantage on the attack roll, and inflicts an extra 3d6 damage with each successful Sneak Attack.

Cunning Action Crowley can use a bonus action to take the Dash, Disengage or Hide actions.

Uncanny Dodge Crowley can use their reaction to halve the damage taken when an attack hits them.

Evasion When subjected to an effect that allows them to make a Dexterity saving throw to only take half damage, Crowley instead takes no damage on a success, and only half damage on a failure.

Blindsense If Crowley is not deafened, they are aware of the locations of any hidden or invisible creature within 10 feet of them.

Elusive No attack roll has advantage against Crowley if they aren't incapacitated.

Legendary Resistance (4/day) If Crowley fails on a saving throw, they can choose to succeed instead.

Innate Spellcasting Crowley's spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 21). They can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:

At will: thaumaturgy

1/day each: hellish rebuke (2nd level), darkness

Actions

Two-Weapon Fighting One melee attack with each weapon (one as an action, one as a bonus action): +13 (Crystal Shortsword)/+16 (ADWS) to hit, reach 5ft, one target. Hit: 1d6 + 16 piercing damage plus 3d6 lightning damage (ADWS), 1d6 + 13 piercing damage plus 1d8 radiant damage (Crystal Shortsword).

Melee Strike Crowley makes one attack with one weapon (see above).

Destructive Lightning (1/day) As an action, Crowley can unleash destructive energy from their ADWS in a 60ft cone. Each creature in that cone must make a DC 18 Dexterity saving throw, taking 12d6 lightning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

Reaction

Protective If an enemy damages Aziraphale or tries to cast enchantment or illusion magic on him, Crowley moves to within 5ft of that enemy and makes one Two-Weapon Fighting attack.

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Notes:

I wrote this bio and Aziraphale's with the Forgotten Realms setting in mind, since I'm most familiar with that world; translating things to another part of the D&D multiverse shouldn't be too much of a problem

As with Azzy's bio and stats, I was leaning on the 2014 editions of the Player's Handbook, Monster Manual and Dungeon Master's Guide for this fic and statblock

With Aziraphale's bio, I was deliberately trying to emulate the style of an officially published D&D NPC bio. For this one, I just went 'f--- it, I'mma go expansive' :D

The 'Learned Penric' character here is from World of the Five Gods by Lois McMaster Bujold -- I decided to slip him in when I realised how easy it'd be to fit the Quintarian pantheon into a D&D setting! I'd imagine that, in D&D terms, Penric'd be something along the lines of a Wild Magic sorcerer/Life Domain cleric multiclass, with maybe a sprinkling of warlock, given the way his powers canonically work... I have a spoiler-free summary of the WotFG series on tumblr and AO3 if you want to know more!

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