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D&D offers a unique creative space. Theoretically, it acts as a blank canvas where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and participants 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 rich mythology. Even the best creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, so that a great deal of “new” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of sampled tracks. At times you encounter things that sound as good as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” other times you cringe as if hearing “All Summer Long.”

The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the original settings of Exandria (designed by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the setting crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). Although longtime fans of Mulligan and his other series Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (He strongly dislikes the gods!), episode 2 impressed me because of a truly original take on a traditional Dungeons & Dragons monster category: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Celestials in D&D

Demons and devils (collectively known as fiends) have been included in D&D since 1976, 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 issues 12 (February 1978) and 17 (August 1978). These were essentially riffs on the celestial figures from biblical sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until the early 80s and Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” column in Dragon, where he presented fresh creatures that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar angel, and the solar angel made their debut, starting a tradition of creatures known as celestials that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the agents of good-aligned deities, created by their creators to act as soldiers, commanders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and in general to inhabit their domains in the Upper Planes. They are paragons of virtue who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Lower Planes and support the faith of their god on the mortal world. Despite their close connection with the divine beings, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Well-known instances encompass Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is markedly underdeveloped in contrast to demonic entities. The chaotic Abyss has ninety-nine levels of expanding chaos and demon lords warring amongst themselves. The Nine Hells are a interpretation of Game of Thrones with greater violence and more interesting subplots. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. In the meantime, all the essential information about celestial beings can be gathered in an hour of online research.

It’s understandable that creatures who look like biblical angels went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players game statistics for divine beings they could kill in their sessions, and although celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of looks and roles, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can create for creatures that are designed to be divine minions. Certainly, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is restricted. In that sense, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly creatures that can spin in a many ways without sacrificing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Reimagines Celestials

To be frank, I understand: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of virtue that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be cool, but they also get cheesy very fast. That general lack of interest means we still don’t know that much about celestials. As an illustration, we still don’t know what happens after the deity who created them perishes. There is no official explanation, and every DM is free to come up with their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue central to the world of Aramán, one where the deities have all been killed by mortals in a massive war that ended seven decades prior to the start of the campaign. So what happened to the followers of these gods?

Brennan’s answer is simple, horrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and turned into a blight that devastated entire countries. A great deal about the past of this world, the war against the gods, and its aftermath in the current era has still to be revealed, but it appears that when the gods died, the celestial beings went “feral”. They became monsters that could destroy large areas if left unchecked. Viewers caught a sight of how scary such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as the character Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a terrifying celestial entity held bound in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most compelling celestial beings in D&D, story-wise, are those who have fallen from grace. The angel Zariel, for example, 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 of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was called forth by a priest inside Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the evil in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the insanity infusing the place.

The corruption observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings did not lose their virtue. They were not deceived, nor led astray by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are casualties; another dreadful result of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 continues, it is hoped Mulligan concentrates on the idea that, regardless of how “righteous” that conflict was, the humans who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their realm has been wounded, their connection to the afterlife has been severed, and the beings that were formerly their protectors, guiding their spirits to safety following death, are currently frightening disasters.

Certainly, this may just be a convenient way to solve Gygax’s original dilemma. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a screaming, mad entity with rows of teeth, but I am also 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 stories, but I nonetheless favor these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {