What can a Planar Shepherd attuned to the Beastlands turn into?

Question

Normally the Beastlands would not be the first choice for the Planar Shepherd, because you can already turn into most creatures found on the plane (though you don't get their unusual abilities). But if you are a Totem Druid (and have DM consent) this can be rather interesting. But my question is: what can you turn into as a Planar Shepherd attuned to the Beastlands? The Manual of the Planes (p. 142) says the following on the inhabitants of the Beastlands:

A variety of creatures live in the Beastlands. First and foremost are outsiders, often celestial versions of wild creatures found on the Material Plane. These celestial animals, beasts, vermin, and magical beasts inhabit every environmental niche in the Beastlands. Occasionally a nonevil aberration calls the Beastlands home, but few intelligent creatures other than magical beasts such as unicorns stay in the wilderness for long.

At third level, Planar Shepherd says the following:

At 3rd level, you are able to use wild shape to change into a magical beast native to your chosen plane, with the same size restrictions as for animal forms. [...] This includes creatures whose type changes to magical beast as the result of applying a template (such as celestial or fiendish).

Now, this is fairly easy: you can turn into any* magical beast or creature who is a magical beast BECAUSE of the Celestial template. But then you hit level 9:

When you attain 9th level, you become able to use wild shape to change into an elemental or outsider native to your chosen plane, although it costs two of your daily uses of wild shape to do so.

Since the inhabitants of the Beastlands include "animals, beasts, vermin", at level 9 you can turn into them. But then it gets wonky:

Celestials are common in the Beastlands, especially the eladrin but also planetars and solars. Lillends may be found here as well. The plane is the home of many beasts of legend — superior versions of powerful animals, beasts, and magical beasts. Good-aligned lycanthropes (and their petitioner spirits after they die) can find great joy with their animal kin in the Beastlands, though they lose their lycanthrope abilities in this plane.

It mentions Eladrin, Planetars, Solars and Lillends. Of those first and last I know that they normally come from Aborea, but the angels live on all Upper Planes, do they not?

So my question is: is it correct that a 9th level Planar Shepherd attuned to the Beastlands can turn into the following creatures?

• Animal (regular and Legendary)
• Beast (regular and Legendary)
• Vermin (regular and Legendary)
• Magical Beast (regular, via the Celestial template and Legendary)
• Nonevil Abberations (regular)
• Eladrin (regular)
• Planetars and Solars (regular)
• Lillend (regular)

And, you CANNOT turn into the following creatures because they are petitioners:

• Centaurs
• Lycanthropes

(* I do not know any Evil magical beasts from the top of my head, but I assume that they cannot take the Celestial template)

Answer 1

Some planar shepherd questions won't generate good answers when the questions are about the class's abilities' interactions with planes outside the Eberron campaign setting. That means, as always,

Ask the DM

The Wilderness of the Beastlands has never received the attention the higher profile planes receive. Like the previous question about the Outlands, the planar shepherd who picks a fictionally underdeveloped plane¹ with which to link is at no particular advantage over a planar shepherd who picks a fictionally well-developed plane.² A planar shepherd who picks an unpopular plane just leaves more of his options up to the DM.

The Beastlands' Magical Beasts

There's just one.

• The gaspar (PlH 124-5).

In addition, native to the Beastlands is the beast dragon (Dragon #321 50-1), a dragon with the extraplanar subtype, and the dread blossom swarm (MM3 45), a plant. No single template changes dragons or plants to magical beasts, however.

Template Shenanigans
There's no template that makes an animal into a magical beast by making it more beastlandish, but that's okay because the Beastlands specifically calls out the template celestial, which "can be added to any corporeal animal, aberration, animal, dragon, fey, giant, humanoid, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, plant, or vermin of good or neutral alignment" (MM 31), so that template's pretty wide-ranging.

And while it's interesting that the Beastlands "is the home of many beasts of legend--superior versions of powerful animals, beasts, and magical beasts" (MP 142), that doesn't let the Beastlands-attuned planar shepherd break the rules of the template monster of legend, which says that it "can be added to any animal, beast, magical beast, or monstrous humanoid .... The creature’s type changes to outsider [not magical beast], though the monster of legend’s home plane is the Material Plane" (MM2 213), not the Beastlands. So what, exactly, that sentence means is up to the DM; perhaps the DM'd be willing to homebrew some creatures, convert some from a previous edition, or allow 3rd-party sources to satisfy this note.

But ask the DM if the planar shepherd's level 3 wild shape special ability that permits him "to change into a magical beast native to [the] chosen plane" and "includes creatures whose type changes to magical beast as the result of applying a template" (FE 106) also includes templates other than the examples celestial or fiendish. If yes, there are templates that can be added to animals to change their types to magical beasts. In my opinion, those appropriate for Beastlands animals include the following:

• chimeric creature (MM2 206).
• kaiju (Dragon #289 68-71). Note: Using wild shape to assume the form of one, though, is quite the challenge.
• monstrous beast (SS 122).
• valicorn ("Ghostwalk Web Enhancement" 4-5).
• winged creature (SS 137).

Any of these could satisfy the "beasts of legend" flavor text of the Beastlands.

The Beastlands' Native Outsiders

In Dungeons and Dragons, 3rd Edition the following outsiders are native to the Beastlands:

• Some neutral good angels. According to the Monster Manual, one of the sources of "neutral good angels [is]... the Beastlands" (MM 10).

  • The deva (MM 11)
  • The planetar (MM 11-12)
  • The solar (MM 12-13)

  After the Monster Manual Wizards of the Coast published no further angels.

• The hollyphant (BE 176-7).
• The spirit of the wild (Dungeon #148 25)
• The xap-yaup energon (PlH 122).

Unlike many planes, the Beastlands never received their iconic creatures--the plane's popularity never even spawned a race as sparsely detailed as the rilmani from the Outlands or the demodands of Carceri. The closest I could find from earlier editions are the mortai, converted to Dungeons and Dragons, 3rd Edition here, and, honestly, I don't think they count.

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live in Remains Different from native to

It's obvious you want the answer to be different, but Jack Lesnie's correct when he says that these terms mean different things. Seriously.

• "Lawful good angels hail from the plane of Celestia, neutral good angels from the plane of Elysium or the Beastlands, and chaotic good angels from plane of Arborea" (MM 10).
• "Archons are celestials from the plane of Celestia" (MM 10).
• "The eladrins are a celestial race native to the plane of Arborea" (MM 93).
• "Guardinals are a celestial race native to the plane of Elysium" (MM 141).
• "Lillends are mysterious visitors from the plane of Ysgard" (MM 168).

...And so on. An outsider's entry tells the reader what plane a creature's native to. All the other times when a creature is mentioned as hanging out on another plane, such a creature can only live in another plane. He's not native to it.

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1. While I find researching these questions interesting, there just isn't that much information about Arborea, Bytopia, Ysgard, Pandemonium, Carceri, and the like.
2. In fact, short of the Abyss, Celestia, Baator, Limbo, and Mechanus, not a lot's been said about many planes.

Answer 2

'Native to' vs 'Inhabitant of'

This came up in another question, but this is different enough that I guess it deserves being brought up again.

Lawful Good celestials such as Planetars, Solars, etc are Native to the Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia.

Anything that turns into a Petitioner after it dies is Native to the Prime Material (it has a soul).

That's the simple answer. 'Inhabitant' or 'found in' is not the same as 'Native'. Native is the plane that magically produced the creature fully-formed in the first place.

The more complicated answer is that it's not really defined what happens with putatively Material creatures such as Dire Tigers who are 'found' in Beastlands and by all accounts are 'native' to the plane. And that the term 'Native' is not used reliably across the various planar source material. The Celestial versions are fair game, though.

By the rules as they stand, though you don't get to change into a Solar just because there are Solars who live in Beastlands - Celestia is what creates them, so you need to be a Celestia Shepherd to get access to them.

Upshot of this; You don't get to turn into something just because it lives on the plane. You only get to turn into something created by the plane.

Beastlands; Nothing is called out as specifically 'native' of beastlands. So anything you can turn into is 'arguably'. Celestial magical beast versions of animals seems most likely to be native by the text. Other things (lycanthropes, angels, aberrations) are called out as living there, but not as much or 'staying for long'. So RAW is unclear, probably sanest interpretation is 'you get celestial animals, and that's it'.