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D&D presents a distinctive imaginative arena. In theory, it serves as a blank canvas where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and players can paint any kind of picture. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a five-decade history of worlds, monsters, magic systems, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the most talented imaginative thinkers struggle to entirely detach themselves from this vast universe of existing content, so that a lot of “fresh” content for D&D is a reiteration of sampled tracks. Sometimes you encounter elements that sound as good as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” other times you cringe as if hearing “a derivative tune.”

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

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Demons and devils (collectively known as fiends) have been part of D&D since 1976, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to appear. A handful of distinct “angels” with specific names appeared in the publication Dragon editions 12 (Feb. 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were essentially riffs on the angels from biblical religious lore; for more original versions, we had to wait until 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon magazine, where he introduced new monsters that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva, the planetar, and the solar angel first appeared, starting a lineage of creatures called celestial entities that is still present in the most recent version of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the servants of benevolent gods, made by their masters to act as soldiers, leaders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and in general to inhabit their domains in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who battle the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and help uphold the faith of their god on the Material Plane. In spite of their close connection with the gods, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Famous examples encompass Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is notably less fleshed out compared to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and demon lords tearing each other apart. The Nine Hells are a interpretation of Game of Thrones with greater violence and more engaging side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. In the meantime, everything you need to know about celestials can be gathered in an hour of online research.

It’s understandable that creatures who resemble angels from the Bible received less attention. There are stories that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about providing gamers game statistics for angels they could murder in their sessions, and even if celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range of looks and roles, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There is also a limit to what you can do with creatures that are created to be divine minions. Sure, they have free will, but their narrative potential is restricted. In that sense, the bad guys have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and etc.) but they’re in the end fickle and chaotic creatures that can spin in a many ways without losing their unique nature.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Heavenly Beings

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 become clichéd quickly. That general lack of interest means we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what occurs once the deity who created them dies. There is no official explanation, and every DM is able to come up with their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to center this issue at the heart of the world of Aramán, a place where the deities have all been killed by mortals in a massive war that concluded seven decades prior to the beginning of the story. So what happened to the followers of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s answer is straightforward, horrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and turned into a plague that destroyed whole nations. A great deal about the past of this world, the war against the gods, and its aftermath in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that when the deities died, the celestials became “wild”. 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 the character Wicander (player Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial entity kept chained in a massive coffin.

It’s not a coincidence that the most interesting celestial beings in D&D, narratively, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, for example, was a mighty Solar angel whose fixation with ending the eternal Blood War led to her being corrupted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar angel who was summoned by a priest inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the evil in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing to the madness infusing the location.

The taint seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials did not lose their virtue. They weren’t tricked, nor led astray by their own arrogance or fixations. They are victims; one more terrible consequence of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign progresses, it is hoped Mulligan concentrates on the notion that, no matter how “righteous” that conflict was, the mortals who emerged victorious may still regret the consequences. Their world has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the creatures that were formerly their guardians, guiding their spirits to security after death, are now terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this might simply be a practical method to address the original creator’s initial quandary. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a screaming, insane entity with multiple fangs, but I also feel highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythology in Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s aversion for divine beings in his campaigns, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {