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D&D offers a unique creative space. In theory, it serves as a blank canvas where the creativity of DMs and participants can craft any kind of picture. Yet, D&D also carries a five-decade history of campaign settings, creatures, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and rich mythology. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this vast landscape of references, so that a lot of “fresh” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of familiar ideas. At times you encounter elements that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you wince like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the unique worlds of its first setting (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the setting created by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While longtime fans of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his common themes (He really hates the gods!), episode 2 impressed me because of a truly original interpretation on a classic Dungeons & Dragons monster category: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Demons and devils (collectively known as evil outsiders) have been part of D&D since 1976, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A handful of distinct “divine messengers” with specific names appeared in Dragon magazine editions #12 (February 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were essentially variations of the angels from biblical religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” column in Dragon, where he introduced new monsters that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar angel, and the solar first appeared, initiating a tradition of creatures known as celestial entities that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the agents of good-aligned deities, created by their creators to act as soldiers, commanders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and overall to inhabit their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who battle the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and support the belief of their deity on the mortal world. In spite of their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Well-known instances include the angel Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is markedly underdeveloped in contrast to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has ninety-nine levels of expanding chaos and lords of demons warring amongst themselves. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of the series Game of Thrones with greater violence and more engaging side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gleaned in an short time of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that creatures who look like angels from the Bible went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about providing gamers game statistics for angels they could kill in their sessions, and although celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of looks and roles, that controversial beginning stunted their development. There’s also only so much what you can create for creatures that are designed to be divine minions. Sure, they have free will, but their storytelling range is restricted. In that sense, the bad guys have much more freedom: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Infernal Dukes, and etc.) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly creatures that can evolve in a many ways without sacrificing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Celestials

To be frank, I understand: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of good that smite evil in all its forms can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. That general lack of interest means we still don’t know that much about celestials. As an illustration, we still don’t know what occurs once the deity who made them perishes. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is free to devise their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question central to the world of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been slain by humans in a great conflict that ended seven decades before the beginning of the story. So what happened to the servants of these gods?

Brennan’s solution is simple, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and turned into a plague that destroyed entire countries. A lot about the past of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it seems that when the deities were slain, the celestial beings went “feral”. They became monsters that could destroy entire regions if not contained. The audience got a glimpse of how frightening one of these creatures can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as the character Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial entity held bound in a enormous casket.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestial beings in D&D, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, as an instance, was a mighty Solar angel whose obsession with ending the Blood War led to her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. Fazrian is a obscure Planetar angel who was summoned by a cleric inside the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the evil in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the madness infusing the location.

The taint observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, or misled by their own pride or fixations. They are victims; another terrible consequence of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 progresses, it is hoped Mulligan focuses on the idea that, no matter how “righteous” that conflict was, the humans who emerged victorious may still regret the outcome. Their realm has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been cut off, and the creatures that were formerly their protectors, shepherding their souls to safety after death, are currently frightening disasters.

Sure, this might simply be a convenient way to address the original creator’s original dilemma. It’s easy to justify killing an angel when it’s a shrieking, mad entity with rows of teeth, but I also feel highly fascinated by this new declination of the celestial mythos in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s loathing for gods in his campaigns, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {