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D&D provides a distinctive imaginative arena. In theory, it serves as a blank canvas where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and players can craft countless scenarios. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a five-decade history of worlds, monsters, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the most talented imaginative thinkers find it difficult to entirely detach themselves from this vast universe of existing content, meaning that a great deal of “fresh” content for D&D is a reiteration of sampled tracks. Sometimes you get things that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you wince as if hearing “All Summer Long.”

The show Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the original settings of its first setting (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). Although devoted followers of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (Brennan strongly dislikes the deities!), the second episode impressed me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a classic D&D creature type: celestials.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Fiendish creatures (often called fiends) have been included in D&D since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to appear. A handful of distinct “divine messengers” with individual titles appeared in the publication Dragon issues 12 (February 1978) and 17 (August 1978). These were essentially variations of the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to hold out for 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon, where he introduced new monsters that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar angel, and the solar made their debut, initiating a tradition of creatures called celestial entities that is still present in the latest edition of the game.

In D&D, celestials are the servants of benevolent gods, created by their creators to act as soldiers, leaders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and in general to inhabit their domains in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and support the faith of their deity on the mortal world. Despite their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Famous examples encompass Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is markedly less fleshed out compared to demonic entities. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of expanding chaos and lords of demons warring amongst themselves. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more interesting side stories. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestials can be gathered in an hour of online research.

It’s understandable that creatures who resemble biblical angels went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gygax was uncomfortable about providing gamers game statistics for divine beings they could murder in their games, and although celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of appearances and purposes, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can do with creatures that are created to be servants of a god. Certainly, they have free will, but their narrative potential is limited. In that sense, the antagonists have much more freedom: They have defined superiors (Lords of Demons, Infernal Dukes, and so on) but they’re in the end unpredictable and disorderly entities that can spin in a many ways without sacrificing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Celestials

Honestly, I understand: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of virtue that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be cool, but they also get cheesy quickly. That widespread disinterest means we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. As an illustration, we still don’t know what happens after the deity who created them dies. There is no official explanation, and every DM is free to devise their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to center this issue central to the setting of Aramán, a place where the deities have all been killed by mortals in a massive war that ended 70 years before the start of the story. So what happened to the servants of these gods?

Mulligan’s answer is simple, horrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and became a plague that devastated entire countries. A lot about the history of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that when the gods died, the celestials went “feral”. They transformed into creatures that could destroy entire regions if left unchecked. Viewers got a glimpse of how scary such a being 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 is no accident that the most interesting celestial beings in Dungeons & Dragons, story-wise, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with concluding the Blood War led to her being corrupted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar angel who was called forth by a priest inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the insanity permeating the location.

The taint seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials did not lose their virtue. They weren’t tricked, or led astray by their own pride or obsessions. They are victims; one more dreadful consequence of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 progresses, I hope Mulligan concentrates on the notion that, regardless of how “just” that war was, the humans who won it may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their world has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been cut off, and the creatures that were once their protectors, shepherding their souls to safety following death, are currently frightening disasters.

Certainly, this might simply be a convenient way to solve Gygax’s original dilemma. It’s easy to justify killing an angel when it’s a shrieking, mad entity with multiple fangs, but I am also very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythos in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s aversion for divine beings in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the flat {