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D&D offers a unique creative space. Theoretically, it acts as a empty slate where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and players can paint any kind of picture. Yet, D&D also bears a five-decade history of campaign settings, monsters, spellcasting rules, well-known NPCs, and general lore. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to completely free themselves from this extensive landscape of references, meaning that a lot of “new” content for D&D is a reworking of familiar ideas. At times you encounter things that sound as good as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” other times you wince like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the unique worlds of its first setting (created by the DM Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the setting crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although devoted followers of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his common themes (He really hates the gods!), the second episode stood out to me because of a truly original interpretation on a classic D&D creature type: angelic beings.

A Brief History of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (collectively known as evil outsiders) have been included in D&D since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to appear. A handful of distinct “angels” with specific names were featured in Dragon magazine editions #12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (Aug. 1978). These were essentially riffs on the angels from Hebrew and Christian sacred texts; for more original versions, we had to wait until 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” article in Dragon, where he introduced fresh creatures that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s when the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar made their debut, starting a tradition of beings called celestials that is still present in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the agents of good-aligned deities, made by their masters to serve as soldiers, commanders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and overall to populate their domains in the Upper Planes. They are champions of good who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and support the belief of their god on the Material Plane. Despite their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Famous examples encompass Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is notably less fleshed out compared to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has 99 layers of expanding chaos and demon lords warring amongst themselves. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gathered in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that beings who resemble angels from the Bible went underdeveloped. There are stories that Gygax felt uneasy about giving players game statistics for angels they could kill in their sessions, and although celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of looks and purposes, that controversial beginning stunted their development. There’s also only so much what you can create for creatures that are designed to be divine minions. Certainly, they have free will, but their narrative potential is limited. In that sense, the antagonists have much more freedom: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and etc.) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic entities that can spin in a many ways without losing their unique nature.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Celestials

To be frank, I understand: Celestials are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of good that smite evil in all its forms can be cool, but they also become clichéd quickly. That widespread disinterest means we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what occurs once the deity who made them dies. There is no official explanation, and every DM is able to devise their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question central to the world of Aramán, a place where the deities have all been killed by mortals in a massive war that ended 70 years prior to the start of the campaign. So what became of the followers of these gods?

Mulligan’s answer is straightforward, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and became a blight that devastated whole nations. A lot about the history of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the current era has still to be revealed, but it appears that after the gods died, the celestials became “wild”. They became monsters that could destroy large areas if not contained. Viewers got a glimpse of how scary one of these creatures can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “ancestor,” a terrifying celestial held bound in a massive coffin.

It is no accident that the most compelling celestials in Dungeons & Dragons, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. The angel Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with ending the Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar angel who was summoned by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the madness infusing the place.

The corruption observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, nor misled by their own pride or obsessions. They are casualties; one more terrible consequence of the Shapers’ War. As the new campaign progresses, I hope the DM concentrates on the notion that, regardless of how “just” that conflict was, the humans who won it may nonetheless lament the outcome. Their realm has been harmed, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the creatures that were once their protectors, guiding their spirits to security after death, are now frightening disasters.

Certainly, this may just be a practical method to solve the original creator’s original dilemma. It’s easy to justify killing an divine being when it’s a shrieking, insane 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 the DM’s aversion for divine beings in his campaigns, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {