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D&D presents a unique imaginative arena. Theoretically, it serves as a blank canvas where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and participants can paint any kind of picture. Yet, D&D also carries a 50-year legacy 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 landscape of references, so that a lot of “fresh” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of sampled tracks. At times you get elements that sound as good as “a classic hit,” other times you cringe like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the unique worlds of its first setting (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the setting created by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although devoted followers of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (He really hates the deities!), episode 2 stood out to me because of a truly original take on a classic Dungeons & Dragons monster category: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (collectively known as fiends) have been included in Dungeons & Dragons since 1976, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to show up. A few unique “angels” with individual titles appeared in the publication Dragon editions 12 (Feb. 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were essentially riffs on the celestial figures from biblical sacred texts; for more original versions, we had to hold out for 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” column in Dragon, where he introduced fresh creatures that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s when the deva, the planetar, and the solar angel made their debut, initiating a lineage of creatures known as celestials that is still present in the latest edition of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestial beings are the servants of good-aligned deities, created by their creators to serve as warriors, leaders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and in general to populate their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and support the faith of their deity on the Material Plane. Despite their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are unique individuals with specific personalities. Famous examples encompass the angel 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.

The mythology of celestials is notably less fleshed out in contrast to demonic entities. The chaotic Abyss has 99 layers of expanding chaos and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with greater violence and more interesting side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gleaned in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that beings who look like biblical angels went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about providing gamers game statistics for angels they could kill in their games, and even if celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of looks and purposes, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can do with creatures that are designed to be servants of a god. Sure, they have free will, but their storytelling range is limited. In that sense, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and etc.) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic creatures that can evolve in a lot of directions without sacrificing their unique nature.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Redefines Celestials

Honestly, I understand: Celestials are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of good that smite evil in every manifestation can be cool, but they also get cheesy quickly. That general lack of interest means we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what occurs after the deity who made them dies. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is able to devise their own interpretation. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question central to the world of Aramán, one where the deities have all been slain by humans in a great conflict that ended 70 years before the beginning of the story. So what became of the servants of these gods?

Mulligan’s answer is straightforward, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and became a plague that devastated whole nations. A great deal about the history of this world, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the present has still to be revealed, but it seems that when the deities were slain, the celestials became “wild”. They transformed into creatures that could annihilate large areas if left unchecked. Viewers 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) got to meet his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial entity held bound in a massive coffin.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestial beings in D&D, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, as an instance, was a mighty Solar angel whose fixation with concluding the Blood War led to her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was summoned by a priest inside Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the insanity infusing the location.

The corruption seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, nor misled by their own pride or obsessions. They are casualties; another dreadful result of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign progresses, I hope Mulligan focuses on the notion that, no matter how “just” that conflict was, the mortals who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their world has been wounded, their connection to the afterlife has been cut off, and the creatures that were once their protectors, guiding their spirits to safety following death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this may just be a convenient way to solve the original creator’s initial quandary. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a screaming, mad creature with rows of teeth, but I am also very intrigued 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 stories, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the flat {