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D&D presents a unique creative space. Theoretically, it acts as a empty slate where the creativity of DMs and players can paint any kind of picture. However, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a 50-year legacy of campaign settings, creatures, spellcasting rules, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the best imaginative thinkers struggle to entirely detach themselves from this vast universe of existing content, meaning that a great deal of “new” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of familiar ideas. Sometimes you get things that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” on other occasions you cringe as if hearing “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the unique worlds of Exandria (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the setting crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although devoted followers of Mulligan and his other series Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (Brennan really hates the gods!), episode 2 stood out to me because of a truly original take on a traditional D&D creature type: celestials.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Demons and devils (collectively known as fiends) have been included in Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to appear. A handful of distinct “angels” with individual titles were featured in Dragon magazine editions #12 (February 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were essentially riffs on the angels from biblical religious lore; for more original versions, we had to hold out for 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon, where he presented new monsters that would appear in the 1983 Monster Manual 2. That’s when the deva angel, the planetar angel, and the solar angel first appeared, starting a lineage of creatures called celestials that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the servants of benevolent gods, created by their masters to act as warriors, leaders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and overall to inhabit their realms in the Upper Planes. They are paragons of virtue who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Lower Planes and help uphold the belief of their god on the Material Plane. Despite their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Famous examples encompass the angel Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is notably underdeveloped in contrast to demonic entities. The chaotic Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons warring amongst themselves. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of the series Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestials can be gleaned in an short time of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that creatures who resemble biblical angels received less attention. Rumor has it that Gygax felt uneasy about providing gamers game statistics for angels they could murder in their games, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range of appearances and purposes, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can create for beings that are designed to be divine minions. Certainly, they have independent thought, but their narrative potential is restricted. From that perspective, the bad guys have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and so on) but they’re in the end unpredictable and disorderly creatures that can evolve in a lot of directions without sacrificing their unique nature.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Redefines Heavenly Beings

Honestly, I understand: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of virtue that smite evil in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also become clichéd very fast. That widespread disinterest means we remain unaware of that much about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what happens once the god who made them dies. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is free to come up with their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to center this issue at the heart of the setting of Aramán, one where the deities have all been killed by humans in a massive war that concluded seven decades before the start of the story. So what happened to the followers of these gods?

Mulligan’s solution is straightforward, horrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and became a plague that destroyed whole nations. A great deal about the history of Aramán, the war against the gods, and its aftermath in the present has still to be revealed, but it appears that after the gods died, the celestials went “feral”. They became creatures that could destroy entire regions if left unchecked. Viewers caught a sight of how frightening one of these creatures can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial entity held bound in a enormous casket.

It’s not a coincidence that the most interesting celestials in Dungeons & Dragons, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. The angel Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with concluding the eternal Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil of Hell. Fazrian is a little-known Planetar angel who was called forth by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the insanity permeating the place.

The taint observed in the fourth campaign of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, or led astray by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are victims; another terrible consequence of the Shapers’ War. As the new campaign progresses, it is hoped the DM concentrates on the idea that, no matter how “righteous” that conflict was, the mortals who won it may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their realm has been harmed, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the beings that were once their guardians, shepherding their souls to security after death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Sure, this may just be a convenient way to address the original creator’s original dilemma. It is simple to justify killing an divine being when it’s a shrieking, insane entity with rows of teeth, but I also feel highly fascinated by this new declination of the celestial mythos in D&D. I don’t necessarily agree with the DM’s aversion for gods in his campaigns, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {