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Dungeons & Dragons offers a distinctive creative space. Theoretically, it serves as a empty slate where the creativity of DMs and players can paint any kind of picture. Yet, D&D also bears a five-decade history of campaign settings, monsters, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the most talented imaginative thinkers find it difficult to entirely detach themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, so that a lot of “fresh” material for D&D is a reworking of familiar ideas. At times you encounter elements that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” other times you wince like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the original settings of its first setting (designed by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While devoted followers of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (He strongly dislikes the gods!), the second episode impressed me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a classic Dungeons & Dragons monster category: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Demons and devils (collectively known as fiends) have been part of D&D since the mid-70s, but it took a while longer for their heavenly counterparts to appear. A handful of distinct “divine messengers” with individual titles were featured in Dragon magazine issues 12 (February 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were little more than variations of the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to hold out for the early 80s and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon magazine, where he presented new monsters that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar angel, and the solar made their debut, initiating a tradition of beings called celestial entities that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestial beings are the agents of benevolent gods, created by their masters to act as soldiers, commanders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and in general to populate their domains in the Upper Planes. They are champions of good who battle the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and support the faith of their deity on the mortal world. In spite of their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Well-known instances encompass the angel Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is markedly less fleshed out compared to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and demon lords 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. In the meantime, everything you need to know about celestials can be gleaned in an short time of online research.

It’s understandable that creatures who resemble angels from the Bible received less attention. There are stories that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players stat blocks for angels they could kill in their sessions, and even if celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of looks and roles, that problematic origin stunted their development. There’s also only so much what you can create for creatures that are designed to be servants of a god. Sure, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is limited. In that sense, the antagonists have much more freedom: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re in the end fickle and chaotic entities that can evolve in a many ways without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Celestials

Honestly, I get it: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of good that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be cool, but they also get cheesy very fast. That widespread disinterest implies we still don’t know a great deal about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what occurs once the god who created them dies. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is able to devise their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question central to the setting of Aramán, one where the gods have all been slain by humans in a great conflict that concluded 70 years before the start of the campaign. So what happened to the followers of these gods?

Mulligan’s solution is simple, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and became a blight that devastated entire countries. A great deal about the history of this world, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the present has still to be revealed, but it appears that when the deities were slain, the celestials went “feral”. They became monsters that could destroy entire regions if left unchecked. Viewers caught a sight of how scary such a being can be at the end of episode 2, as the character Wicander (player Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a terrifying celestial entity held bound in a enormous casket.

It’s not a coincidence that the most interesting celestial beings in Dungeons & Dragons, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, as an instance, was a mighty Solar angel whose obsession with concluding the eternal Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was called forth by a priest inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing to the madness permeating the location.

The taint observed in the fourth campaign of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, or misled by their own pride or fixations. They are victims; one more terrible result of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 progresses, it is hoped Mulligan focuses on the idea that, regardless of how “righteous” that war was, the humans who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the outcome. Their realm has been wounded, their connection to the afterlife has been severed, and the creatures that were once their guardians, guiding their spirits to safety after death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this may just be a practical method to solve Gygax’s original dilemma. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a shrieking, mad 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 {