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Dungeons & Dragons presents a distinctive imaginative arena. In theory, it acts as a empty slate where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and players can paint any kind of picture. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a five-decade history of campaign settings, creatures, magic systems, established non-player characters, and rich mythology. Even the best creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this vast landscape of references, meaning that a lot of “fresh” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of familiar ideas. Sometimes you get elements that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” on other occasions you cringe like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the unique worlds of Exandria (created by the DM Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world created by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although longtime fans of Brennan and his other series Dimension 20 work may identify some of his common themes (Brennan strongly dislikes the gods!), episode 2 impressed me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a traditional Dungeons & Dragons monster category: celestials.

A Brief History of Celestials in D&D

Fiendish creatures (collectively known as evil outsiders) have been part of D&D since the mid-70s, but it took a while longer for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A handful of distinct “divine messengers” with individual titles appeared in Dragon magazine issues #12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than variations of the angels from Hebrew and Christian sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon, where he presented new monsters that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar, and the solar angel made their debut, starting a tradition of creatures called celestial entities that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the servants of good-aligned deities, made by their masters to act as soldiers, commanders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and overall to populate their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who fight against the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Lower Planes and support the belief of their god on the mortal world. In spite of their close connection with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Well-known instances include Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is markedly underdeveloped 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 greater violence and more engaging subplots. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gathered in an hour of online research.

It’s not surprising that creatures who resemble biblical angels went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players game statistics for divine beings they could murder in their games, and even if celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of appearances and roles, that problematic origin hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can do with beings that are created to be divine minions. Sure, they have free will, but their storytelling range is restricted. In that sense, the antagonists have much more freedom: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic creatures that can spin in a lot of directions without losing their unique nature.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Heavenly Beings

To be frank, I understand: Celestial beings are just not that interesting. 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 remain unaware of that much about celestials. As an illustration, we still don’t know what happens after the deity who made them dies. There is no canonical answer, and every DM is able to come up with their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question central to the setting of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been killed by mortals in a massive war that concluded seven decades prior to the beginning of the campaign. So what became of the followers of these gods?

Mulligan’s solution is straightforward, horrifying, and very interesting: They went crazy and turned into a plague that destroyed whole nations. A great deal about the past of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the current era has still to be revealed, but it appears that when the deities were slain, the celestials became “wild”. They became monsters that could annihilate large areas if left unchecked. Viewers caught a sight of how scary one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a terrifying celestial held bound in a enormous casket.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestials in Dungeons & Dragons, narratively, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with ending the eternal Blood War led to her being corrupted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. Fazrian is a obscure Planetar angel who was summoned by a cleric inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the insanity infusing the location.

The taint seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials did not lose their virtue. They were not deceived, nor led astray by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are casualties; another terrible result of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 continues, it is hoped Mulligan focuses on the idea that, no matter how “just” that conflict was, the humans who emerged victorious may still regret the consequences. Their world has been harmed, their link to the hereafter has been cut off, and the beings that were once their protectors, shepherding their souls to security after death, are now frightening disasters.

Certainly, this may just be a convenient way to solve the original creator’s initial quandary. It is simple to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a screaming, insane creature with rows of teeth, but I am also highly fascinated by this new declination of the celestial mythology in D&D. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s aversion for gods in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {