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D&D presents a unique creative space. In theory, it acts as a empty slate where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and participants can paint countless scenarios. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a five-decade history of campaign settings, monsters, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and rich mythology. Even the best creative minds find it difficult to completely free themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, meaning that a lot of “fresh” content for D&D is a reiteration of sampled tracks. At times you get things that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you wince like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past due to the original settings of its first setting (designed by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the setting crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). While devoted followers of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (He really hates the deities!), episode 2 impressed me because of a truly original take on a traditional D&D creature type: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Demons and devils (collectively known as fiends) have been included in D&D since 1976, but it took a while longer for their angelic equivalents to appear. A handful of distinct “divine messengers” with individual titles appeared in Dragon magazine issues #12 (February 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were essentially riffs on the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to hold out for the early 80s and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon magazine, where he introduced fresh creatures that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar angel made their debut, initiating a lineage of beings called celestials that is continues to exist in the most recent version of the game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the agents of benevolent gods, created by their masters to serve as warriors, leaders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and in general 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 help uphold the belief of their god on the mortal world. In spite of their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Well-known instances encompass Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is notably underdeveloped compared to demonic entities. The Abyss has 99 layers of expanding chaos and demon lords warring amongst themselves. The Nine Hells are a interpretation of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging subplots. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestials can be gathered in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that beings who look like angels from the Bible received less attention. There are stories that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about providing gamers game statistics for angels they could kill in their games, and even if celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of looks and roles, that problematic origin hindered their growth. There is also a limit to what you can do with creatures that are created to be servants of a god. Sure, they have independent thought, but their narrative potential is restricted. In that sense, the antagonists have much more freedom: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and etc.) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly creatures that can spin in a many ways without sacrificing their unique nature.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Celestials

Honestly, I get it: Celestials are just not that interesting. Divine champions of virtue that smite evil in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also get cheesy quickly. That widespread disinterest means we remain unaware of that much about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what occurs once the deity who made them dies. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is free to devise their own interpretation. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question at the heart of the world of Aramán, one where the gods have all been slain by humans in a massive war that concluded seven decades prior to the start of the story. So what became of the servants of these gods?

Mulligan’s answer is simple, terrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and turned into a plague that destroyed entire countries. A great deal about the past of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the present has still to be revealed, but it appears that when the deities died, the celestials went “feral”. They became creatures that could annihilate large areas if left unchecked. The audience caught a sight of how scary one of these creatures can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial entity kept chained in a enormous casket.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestial beings in Dungeons & Dragons, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with ending the eternal Blood War led to her being tainted by Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was called forth by a priest inside Undermountain and developed a fixation on “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the insanity infusing the location.

The corruption seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, nor led astray by their own pride or fixations. They are casualties; one more terrible result of the Shapers’ War. As the new campaign continues, it is hoped Mulligan focuses on the notion that, no matter how “just” that conflict was, the humans who won it may still regret the outcome. Their world has been harmed, their link to the hereafter has been cut off, and the creatures that were formerly their guardians, shepherding their souls to security after death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this might simply be a practical method to solve Gygax’s initial quandary. It’s easy to justify killing an divine being when it’s a shrieking, mad creature with rows of teeth, but I am also highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s loathing for gods in his stories, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {