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Dungeons & Dragons provides a distinctive creative space. Theoretically, it serves as a blank canvas where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and participants can paint countless scenarios. However, D&D also bears a five-decade history of worlds, monsters, spellcasting rules, well-known NPCs, and general lore. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this vast landscape of references, meaning that a lot of “new” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of sampled tracks. Sometimes you encounter things that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” on other occasions you cringe like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past due to the unique worlds of Exandria (created by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world created by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). While longtime fans of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his common themes (Brennan really hates the deities!), the second episode stood out to me because of a truly original interpretation on a classic D&D creature type: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Celestials in D&D

Demons and devils (often called evil outsiders) have been included in D&D since the mid-70s, but it took a while longer for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A handful of distinct “divine messengers” with specific names were featured in Dragon magazine issues 12 (February 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were essentially riffs on the celestial figures from biblical sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon magazine, where he presented fresh creatures that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva, the planetar, and the solar made their debut, initiating a tradition of beings called celestial entities that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestials are the servants of benevolent gods, made by their masters to act as warriors, commanders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and overall to inhabit their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Lower Planes and support the faith of their deity on the mortal world. Despite their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Famous examples encompass Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is markedly underdeveloped compared to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has 99 layers of ever-growing disorder and demon lords tearing each other apart. The Nine Hells are a interpretation of the series Game of Thrones with greater violence and more engaging side stories. And don’t get me started the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestial beings can be gathered in an short time of online research.

It’s not surprising that creatures who resemble biblical angels went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gygax was uncomfortable about providing gamers game statistics for angels they could murder in their sessions, and although celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of looks and purposes, that problematic origin hindered their growth. There is also a limit to what you can create for beings that are created to be servants of a god. Sure, they have independent thought, but their narrative potential is restricted. In that sense, the bad guys have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic entities that can spin in a lot of directions without sacrificing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Celestials

To be frank, I get it: Celestials are just not that interesting. Divine champions of virtue that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. That widespread disinterest implies we still don’t know that much about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what happens once the god who made them dies. There is no canonical answer, and each Dungeon Master is able to come up with their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to center this issue central to the world of Aramán, a place where the deities have all been slain by mortals in a massive war that concluded seven decades prior to the beginning of the campaign. So what became of the servants of these divine beings?

Brennan’s solution is straightforward, horrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and turned into a blight that devastated entire countries. A lot about the past of Aramán, the war against the gods, and its aftermath in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it seems that when the deities were slain, the celestials went “feral”. They became monsters that could destroy entire regions if left unchecked. The audience caught a sight of how scary such a being can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a terrifying celestial held bound in a massive coffin.

It is no accident that the most compelling celestial beings in D&D, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. The angel Zariel, as an instance, was a mighty Solar angel whose fixation with ending the Blood War led to her being tainted by Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was summoned by a cleric inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the insanity permeating the location.

The corruption seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials did not lose their virtue. They weren’t tricked, nor led astray by their own pride or obsessions. They are victims; one more terrible result of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 continues, it is hoped Mulligan focuses on the idea that, regardless of how “righteous” that conflict was, the mortals who won it may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their realm has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been severed, and the creatures that were formerly their guardians, shepherding their souls to safety following death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this may just be a convenient way to solve the original creator’s original dilemma. It is simple to justify killing an angel when it’s a shrieking, mad creature with multiple fangs, but I am also very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythology in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s loathing for divine beings in his stories, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {