Celestial Body

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.

When something/someone of tremendous power wants to show off, they may reveal themselves to be literally made of stars. A... Celestial Body, if you will. Perhaps it's part of their nature, perhaps they've acquired it somehow, but they invariably have cosmological bodies within themselves. They range from having a "mere" planet, to having have an entire Universe inside them. Or even more.

The Celestial Body itself comes in many forms, from the seemingly average looking guy, to a marble ball, to an impossible thing from the beyond. No matter the form, they always invoke Bigger on the Inside.

They tend to be Reality Warpers/Reality Warping objects of cosmic scale, and may occasionally also have a Stellar Name.

See Star-Spangled Spandex for what someone with a Body of Stars usually seems to wear, but actually is.

Not to be confused with angels or gods, whose Celestial Bodies need not be a Celestial Body.


Examples of Celestial Body include:

Anime and Manga

  • In the last episode of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, after Madoka becomes a god/force of nature/whatever, Madoka and Homura have a scene where they appear like this.
  • A Certain Scientific Railgun T, the season which shows most of the seven Level 5 espers in Academy City, shows one of those Level 5s taking on a Celestial Body while approaching the never-before-reached Level 6.

Comic Books

Literature

  • In Pyramids, one of the multiple (and simultaneous) mythological explanations of night in Djelibeybi is that the sky goddess arches her (moon-and-star-containing) body over the land.
    • Another Discworld example is Fate, whose eyes consist of a starry night sky.
  • Zandramas, the Big Bad of the Malloreon, has stars beneath her skin, in increasing number. After her side is defeated, she is transformed to replace a missing galaxy.
  • In Warrior Cats, the warriors of StarClan have stars in their pelts.

Live-Action TV

Music

  • Marina of Marina and the Diamonds has her body painted like this during portions of "I Am Not a Robot".

Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myths and Legends

  • The Egyptian sky goddess Nut may have been the Ur Example. She literally is the sky (usually portrayed as the night sky), and is the wife of Geb, the embodiment of the Earth.
  • In Classical Mythology, Uranus was similar to Nut, except far less benevolent. On a related note, a lot of mortal beings were turned into constellations after their deaths (often considered a reward by the gods), the most famous being Orion.
  • In Hinduism, one interpretation of Vishnu's blue color is that he contains the entire universe within himself, and therefore resembles the night sky.

Tabletop Games

  • The Starborn of Dungeons & Dragons.
  • Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game) campaign The Fungi from Yuggoth, section "Day of the Beast". When the Sphinx is turned into the Beast (an avatar of Nyarlathotep) its face falls off, revealing a black oval void filled with whirling suns and galaxies.
  • Celestial Ancient from Magic: The Gathering.
  • Spelljammer
    • The entry for blazozoids (Energy Beings that look like small, fiery comets) in the Monstrous Compendium for the setting mentions an entity called I, a living sun. I believes itself to be the only living being in the cosmos (it doesn't recognize material beings as living or sentient) but it is open-minded to the idea that it might be wrong, and has created the blazozoids to search for other living suns like itself.
    • There are also constellates, which are living constellations. These colossal entities are (or were) Eldritch Abominations imprisoned by the gods for unspecified crimes. Capable of crushing planets and uncomfortably common in all known Crystal Spheres, these beings are given gameplay statistics and it is possible to try to fight them. This may be a symptom of the massive scale that made Spelljammer so... problematic as a setting.

Video Games

  • Trag'oul, a dragon/deity in Diablo lore, is described as a dragon whose entire body is made from stars, and who bears the world on his spine.
  • Algalon of World of Warcraft, along with a lot of the Titan architecture. He also drops daggers that look like this.
  • Super Mario Galaxy 2 features the Cosmic Guide, a creature who resembles Rosalina (the goddess who helped Mario/Luigi on his quest to save both Peach and the entire galaxy from Bowser in the first Super Mario Galaxy game), but her body is made of stars, who helps the player complete a certain level only after it is failed too many times. Unfortunately, the Guide thinks that that's cheating, and as a result once she completes the level for you she will immediately give you a bronze Power Star because of your ineptitude.
    • The first Super Mario Galaxy game also featured creatures that either resembled Mario or Luigi, but his body also appeared to be made of stars.
  • Utsuho the Hell-Raven from Touhou has a cape that has the starry depths within them.
  • The King of All Cosmos from Katamari Damacy
  • Guild Wars: Factions has the Nahpui Quarter. To become Closer to the Stars, a necessary step in the main plot, the heroes must defeat four celestial spirits who embody this trope.

Web Comics

  • Homestuck has anyone with First Guardian powers, who seem to have their entire bodies be full of stars when they use them.
    • The Genesis Frogs bred by players of each Sburb session take it further, in that each is literally an entire universe. Similarly, Snowman appears to have such a link to the Alternia universe; killing her caused the universe's destruction.
  • In Nedroid, Reginald tries to pick up a lady with space pants.

Web Original

  • SCP Foundation has, SCP-179, a Thaumiel Class (as in, helpful) SCP. A colossal (34 kilometers tall) entity with a female body, her jet-black metallic skin is covered with alchemical symbols. She roams the solar system, giving a non-verbal warning to the Foundation and other groups that know about her, whenever the Earth is in the path of a dangerous hazard like a meteor or comet. Usually she stays near the Sun, which she claims is her brother.
    • Of course, if she is right about that, the Sun might qualify too.

Western Animation

  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • The Ursa Major and the Ursa Minor of are made of stars. Their two namesake constellations to be precise.
    • Nightmare Moon's mane and tail are shadowy clouds full of stars.
    • In "Luna Eclipsed", Luna has regained this trait partially.
  • The three generals of the Beast Planet in War Planets appear to be made out of this, but it's actually antimatter.
  • In Fantasia, Nyx (at the end of the Pastoral Symphony sequence) might qualify, as it's not clear whether the night is her body or her mantle.
  • Alien X from Ben 10 Alien Force has a black body resembling space with tiny white stars scattered throughout. According to Word of God, it belongs to a race known as Celestialsapiens. It is by far the strongest of Ben's Omnitrix aliens, with full-on Reality Warper powers, but unless two-thirds of the personalities residing within Alien X (Ben himself, the aggressive and rage-filled Bellicus, and the loving and passionate Serena) can agree on something, Alien X remains completely still as it needs an order to do so much as walk. Ben is forced to be the Ego and negotiate between the two, to ill-effect. Since it was The Load, Ben vowed to never use Alien X again after his first transformation, although he eventually reuses it in Ultimate Alien. The results there were somewhat better, although it still ended up backfiring.
  • Nocturne, the ghost of sleep in Danny Phantom, has his entire body except his eyes and face-mask as stars in space.
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