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D&D provides a distinctive creative space. Theoretically, it serves as a empty slate where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and players can craft any kind of picture. However, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a five-decade history of worlds, creatures, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the most talented imaginative thinkers struggle to completely free themselves from this vast landscape of references, meaning that a great deal of “new” material for D&D is a reworking of familiar ideas. Sometimes you encounter elements that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” on other occasions you cringe as if hearing “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the original settings of Exandria (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the setting created by Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although devoted followers of Mulligan and his other series Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (Brennan really hates the gods!), the second episode stood out to me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a classic D&D creature type: celestials.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Demons and devils (collectively known as fiends) 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 “angels” 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 religious lore; for more original versions, we had to hold out for the early 80s and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon magazine, where he presented new monsters that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar first appeared, initiating a lineage of creatures known as celestials that is still present in the latest edition of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the agents of good-aligned deities, created by their creators to serve as warriors, commanders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and overall to populate their realms in the Upper Planes. They are paragons of virtue who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Lower Planes and support the belief of their god on the Material Plane. Despite their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Well-known instances encompass Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is notably less fleshed out compared to fiends. The Abyss has 99 layers 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 more bloodshed and more interesting side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestials can be gleaned in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s understandable that beings who resemble angels from the Bible received less attention. There are stories that Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players game statistics for angels they could kill in their games, and although celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of appearances and purposes, that controversial beginning stunted their development. There is also a limit to what you can create for creatures that are designed to be divine minions. Certainly, they have free will, but their narrative potential is restricted. From that perspective, the bad guys have much more freedom: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and etc.) but they’re in the end fickle and chaotic creatures that can spin in a many ways without losing their unique nature.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Reimagines Celestials

Honestly, I understand: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of good that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be cool, but they also become clichéd quickly. That general lack of interest implies we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what happens after the deity who created them perishes. There is no canonical answer, and each Dungeon Master is free to devise their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue central to the world of Aramán, one where the gods have all been slain by mortals in a massive war that concluded seven decades before the beginning of the campaign. So what became of the servants of these gods?

Brennan’s answer is straightforward, horrifying, and very interesting: They went crazy and turned into a blight that destroyed entire countries. A great deal about the history of this world, the war against the gods, and its aftermath in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that when the gods were slain, the celestial beings became “wild”. They became creatures that could destroy large areas if not contained. The audience got a glimpse of how scary such a being can be at the end of episode 2, as the character Wicander (Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a terrifying celestial kept chained in a massive coffin.

It’s not a coincidence that the most interesting celestials in D&D, narratively, are those who have lost their divinity. The angel Zariel, for example, was a mighty Solar angel whose obsession with concluding the Blood War led to her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar angel who was called forth by a priest inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the insanity permeating the location.

The corruption seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials did not lose their virtue. They weren’t tricked, nor misled by their own arrogance or fixations. They are victims; another dreadful result of the Shapers’ War. As the new campaign continues, I hope Mulligan focuses on the idea that, no matter how “just” that conflict was, the humans who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the consequences. 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 terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this may just be a convenient way to solve Gygax’s original dilemma. It is simple to rationalize slaying an divine being when it’s a screaming, insane entity with multiple fangs, but I am also very intrigued by this fresh variation of the celestial mythology in D&D. I don’t necessarily agree with the DM’s aversion for gods in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {