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Dungeons & Dragons presents a unique imaginative arena. In theory, it serves as a blank canvas where the creativity of DMs and players can paint countless scenarios. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a five-decade history of worlds, creatures, spellcasting rules, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this vast universe of existing content, meaning that a great deal of “fresh” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of familiar ideas. Sometimes you encounter things that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” 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 (designed by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the setting crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although devoted followers of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his common themes (Brennan really hates the gods!), episode 2 stood out to me because of a truly original take on a classic D&D creature type: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Celestials in D&D

Fiendish creatures (often called fiends) have been included in Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to show up. A handful of distinct “divine messengers” with individual titles appeared in Dragon magazine editions #12 (Feb. 1978) and 17 (August 1978). These were little more than riffs on the angels from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to hold out for the early 80s and Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” article in Dragon magazine, where he introduced new monsters that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva, the planetar, and the solar angel made their debut, starting a tradition of creatures called celestial entities that is continues to exist in the most recent version of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the agents of good-aligned deities, made by their creators to serve as soldiers, commanders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and overall to inhabit their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and support the faith of their god on the Material Plane. In spite of their direct relationship with the divine beings, 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 Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is notably underdeveloped in contrast to demonic entities. The 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 side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gathered in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s understandable that creatures who resemble biblical angels received less attention. Rumor has it that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about giving players game statistics for divine beings they could murder in their sessions, and although celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of looks and roles, that problematic origin hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can create for beings that are designed to be servants of a god. Sure, they have free will, but their storytelling range is restricted. In that sense, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly entities that can spin in a many ways without sacrificing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Redefines Celestials

Honestly, I understand: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of good that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. That widespread disinterest implies we still don’t know that much about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what occurs after the god who made them perishes. There is no official explanation, and every DM is free to come up with their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue at the heart of the world of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been slain by mortals in a great conflict that ended 70 years before the beginning of the story. So what happened to the followers of these gods?

Mulligan’s answer is simple, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and turned into a plague that destroyed whole nations. A lot about the history of this world, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that when the gods died, the celestial beings became “wild”. They became creatures that could destroy entire regions if left unchecked. The audience got a glimpse of how frightening such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as the character Wicander (player Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial kept chained in a massive coffin.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestial beings in Dungeons & Dragons, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. The angel Zariel, as an instance, was a mighty Solar angel whose fixation with concluding the eternal Blood War led to her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar angel who was called forth by a cleric inside the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus level of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing to the madness permeating the location.

The taint observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials did not lose their virtue. They weren’t tricked, or misled by their own pride or obsessions. They are victims; another dreadful result of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign progresses, it is hoped the DM focuses on the notion that, no matter how “righteous” that conflict was, the humans who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their realm has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been severed, and the beings that were formerly their protectors, guiding their spirits to safety after death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Sure, this may just be a practical method to address the original creator’s initial quandary. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a shrieking, mad entity with rows of teeth, but I am also highly fascinated by this new declination of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s loathing for gods in his campaigns, but I nonetheless favor these horrific heavenly beings to the flat {