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D&D offers a distinctive creative space. Theoretically, it serves as a blank canvas where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and players can craft any kind of picture. However, D&D also carries a five-decade history of campaign settings, monsters, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and general lore. Even the best imaginative thinkers find it difficult to entirely detach themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, meaning that a great deal of “fresh” content for D&D is a reiteration of sampled tracks. At times you encounter things that sound as good as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you cringe like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the original settings of Exandria (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While longtime fans of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his common themes (He strongly dislikes the deities!), the second episode stood out to me because of a truly original take on a classic D&D creature type: celestials.

The Historical Background of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (often called fiends) 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 “angels” with specific names were featured in the publication Dragon editions 12 (February 1978) and 17 (August 1978). These were little more than variations of the angels from biblical religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until the early 80s and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column in Dragon, where he presented new monsters that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s when the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar first appeared, initiating a tradition of creatures known as celestial entities that is still present in the latest edition of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestial beings are the agents of benevolent gods, created by their creators to serve as warriors, leaders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and overall to populate their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and help uphold the belief of their god on the mortal world. In spite of their close connection with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Famous examples encompass Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is markedly underdeveloped compared to fiends. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of expanding chaos and demon lords tearing each other apart. The infernal 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. In the meantime, all the essential information about celestials can be gleaned in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s understandable that beings who resemble biblical angels received less attention. There are stories that Gygax felt uneasy about providing gamers game statistics for angels they could kill in their games, and although celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of looks and roles, that problematic origin stunted their development. There is also a limit to what you can create for creatures that are created to be servants of a god. Certainly, they have independent thought, but their narrative potential is restricted. In that sense, the bad guys have much more freedom: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic creatures that can evolve in a many ways without losing their unique nature.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Celestials

To be frank, I get it: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of virtue that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. That widespread disinterest implies we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what happens once the deity who made them perishes. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is free to come up with their own interpretation. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue at the heart of the world of Aramán, one where the deities have all been killed by humans in a massive war that ended seven decades prior to the start of the campaign. So what happened to the followers of these gods?

Mulligan’s answer is straightforward, horrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and turned into a plague that devastated entire countries. A lot about the past of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the current era has still to be revealed, but it seems that after the deities died, the celestial beings became “wild”. They became creatures that could annihilate large areas if not contained. The audience got a glimpse of how scary such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as the character Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial kept chained in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestials in D&D, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, for example, was a mighty Solar angel whose fixation with concluding the eternal Blood War led to her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil of Hell. Fazrian is a obscure Planetar angel who was summoned by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “cleaning” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the insanity infusing the location.

The corruption observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings did not lose their virtue. They weren’t tricked, or misled by their own arrogance or fixations. They are victims; another dreadful consequence of the Shapers’ War. As the new campaign continues, it is hoped Mulligan concentrates on the notion that, no matter how “just” that conflict was, the humans who won it may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their realm has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been cut off, and the beings that were once their guardians, shepherding their souls to safety after death, are now frightening disasters.

Sure, this might simply be a practical method to solve the original creator’s initial quandary. It is simple to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a screaming, insane entity with rows of teeth, but I am also very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with the DM’s loathing for divine beings in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {