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D&D offers a distinctive creative space. Theoretically, it serves as a empty slate where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and participants can craft any kind of picture. However, D&D also bears a five-decade history of worlds, creatures, magic systems, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to completely free themselves from this vast universe of existing content, meaning that a lot of “new” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of sampled tracks. At times you get elements that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” other times you wince as if hearing “All Summer Long.”

The show Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the unique worlds of Exandria (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the setting crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although devoted followers of Brennan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (He really hates the deities!), episode 2 impressed me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a classic Dungeons & Dragons monster category: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Celestials in D&D

Demons and devils (often called fiends) have been part of Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it took a while longer for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A few unique “angels” with specific names were featured in Dragon magazine issues 12 (February 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were essentially variations of the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until the early 80s and Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” column in Dragon magazine, where he presented fresh creatures that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar angel first appeared, initiating a lineage of beings known as celestial entities that is still present in the latest edition of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the agents of benevolent gods, made by their masters to act as warriors, leaders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and overall to populate their domains in the Upper Planes. They are champions of good who battle the forces of chaos and evil from the Lower Planes and help uphold the faith of their deity on the mortal world. In spite of their close connection with the gods, celestials are unique individuals with specific personalities. Well-known instances encompass the angel Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is notably less fleshed out in contrast to demonic entities. The chaotic Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons warring amongst themselves. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of the series Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. In the meantime, 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 angels from the Bible went underdeveloped. There are stories that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about providing gamers game statistics for angels they could murder in their games, and even if celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range 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. Certainly, they have free will, but their narrative potential is limited. From that perspective, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and etc.) but they’re in the end fickle and chaotic creatures that can spin in a lot of directions without sacrificing their unique nature.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Redefines Celestials

To be frank, I understand: Celestial beings are just not that interesting. Divine champions of good that smite evil in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. That general lack of interest implies we remain unaware of that much about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what occurs once the god who made them dies. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is able to devise their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to center this issue central to the world of Aramán, a place where the deities have all been slain by humans in a great conflict that concluded seven decades prior to the beginning of the story. So what happened to the followers of these divine beings?

Brennan’s solution is straightforward, horrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and turned into a blight that destroyed whole nations. A lot about the history of this world, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it seems that when the gods died, the celestials went “feral”. They transformed into monsters that could destroy entire regions if not contained. The audience caught a sight of how frightening such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” a terrifying celestial entity held bound in a massive coffin.

It’s not a coincidence that the most interesting celestials in D&D, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. The angel Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with concluding the eternal Blood War led to her being tainted by Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil of Hell. Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was summoned by a priest inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing to the madness permeating the location.

The corruption seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, or misled by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are casualties; another terrible result of the Shapers’ War. As the new campaign continues, it is hoped Mulligan concentrates on the notion that, regardless of how “righteous” that conflict was, the mortals who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the outcome. Their realm has been wounded, their connection to the afterlife has been severed, and the beings that were once their guardians, shepherding their souls to safety after death, are now terrifying calamities.

Sure, this might simply be a practical method to address the original creator’s initial quandary. It is simple to justify killing an angel when it’s a screaming, insane creature with multiple fangs, but I am also highly fascinated by this new declination of the celestial mythology in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s aversion for gods in his stories, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the flat {