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Dungeons & Dragons offers a distinctive imaginative arena. Theoretically, it serves as a empty slate where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and participants can craft countless scenarios. Yet, D&D also carries a 50-year legacy of worlds, creatures, spellcasting rules, well-known NPCs, and general lore. Even the best creative minds find it difficult to entirely detach themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, so that a lot of “fresh” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of familiar ideas. At times you encounter things that sound as good as “a classic hit,” on other occasions you cringe as if hearing “a derivative tune.”

The show Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the original settings of its first setting (created by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although longtime fans of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (Brennan strongly dislikes the deities!), episode 2 impressed me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a classic D&D creature type: celestials.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (collectively known as evil outsiders) have been included in D&D since the mid-70s, but it took a while longer for their angelic equivalents to appear. A few unique “divine messengers” with specific names appeared in Dragon magazine issues 12 (February 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than riffs on the celestial figures from biblical sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” column in Dragon, where he introduced new monsters that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual 2. That’s when the deva angel, the planetar angel, and the solar angel made their debut, starting a tradition of creatures called celestial entities that is still present in the most recent version of the role-playing game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestial beings are the agents of good-aligned deities, created by their masters to serve as warriors, leaders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and overall to inhabit their domains in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who battle the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and help uphold the belief of their god on the mortal world. Despite their close connection with the gods, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Famous examples encompass Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is notably less fleshed out compared to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a interpretation of the series Game of Thrones with greater violence and more engaging subplots. And don’t get me started the Yugoloth. In the meantime, all the essential information about celestials can be gathered in an hour of online research.

It’s understandable that creatures who resemble angels from the Bible went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players stat blocks for divine beings they could murder in their sessions, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range of appearances and purposes, that controversial beginning stunted their development. There’s also only so much what you can create for beings that are created to be divine minions. Certainly, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is restricted. In that sense, the bad guys have much more freedom: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Infernal Dukes, and etc.) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic entities that can evolve in a many ways without sacrificing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Redefines Heavenly Beings

Honestly, I get it: Celestial beings are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of virtue that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also become clichéd very fast. That general lack of interest means we remain unaware of that much about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what happens once the god who created them perishes. There is no canonical answer, and each Dungeon Master is free to devise their own interpretation. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question at the heart of the world of Aramán, one where the deities have all been slain by mortals in a massive war that ended seven decades prior to the beginning of the campaign. So what happened to the servants of these gods?

Brennan’s answer is simple, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and turned into a plague that devastated whole nations. A lot about the history of Aramán, the war against the gods, and its aftermath in the current era has still to be revealed, but it appears that after the gods died, the celestial beings became “wild”. They transformed into creatures that could annihilate large areas if left unchecked. The audience caught a sight 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 terrifying celestial entity held bound in a massive coffin.

It’s not a coincidence that the most interesting celestials in Dungeons & Dragons, story-wise, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, as an instance, was a mighty Solar angel whose fixation with concluding the eternal Blood War resulted in her being tainted by Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil of Hell. Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was called forth by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the insanity permeating the location.

The taint seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, or led astray by their own pride or obsessions. They are victims; one more dreadful result of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign continues, it is hoped the DM concentrates on the notion that, regardless of how “just” that conflict was, the mortals who won it may still regret the consequences. Their realm has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been cut off, and the beings that were formerly their guardians, shepherding their souls to security following death, are now frightening disasters.

Sure, this might simply be a convenient way to address Gygax’s initial quandary. It is simple to justify killing an angel when it’s a screaming, insane creature with rows of teeth, but I also feel highly fascinated by this new declination of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I am not entirely in accord with Brennan’s loathing for gods in his campaigns, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the flat {