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D&D presents a distinctive imaginative arena. In theory, it serves as a empty slate where the creativity of DMs and players can paint any kind of picture. However, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a five-decade history of campaign settings, creatures, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this extensive landscape of references, meaning that a great deal of “new” material for D&D is a reiteration of familiar ideas. At times you encounter elements that sound as good as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” other times you cringe like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the unique worlds of its first setting (created by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the setting crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although longtime fans of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (He strongly dislikes the deities!), episode 2 impressed me because of a highly innovative take on a traditional D&D creature type: celestials.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (often called evil outsiders) have been included in D&D since 1976, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to appear. A handful of distinct “divine messengers” with specific names were featured in Dragon magazine issues #12 (February 1978) and #17 (Aug. 1978). These were essentially riffs on the angels from Hebrew and Christian sacred texts; for more original versions, we had to hold out for 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon magazine, where he presented new monsters that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar angel first appeared, starting a lineage of beings known as celestials that is still present in the latest edition of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestial beings are the servants of benevolent gods, made by their creators to act as soldiers, leaders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and overall to inhabit their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and support the belief of their god on the mortal world. Despite their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Well-known instances encompass the angel Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is markedly less fleshed out compared to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has 99 layers of ever-growing disorder and demon lords tearing each other apart. The Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with greater violence and more interesting subplots. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestials can be gleaned in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that beings who look like biblical angels received less attention. Rumor has it that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about giving players game statistics for angels they could murder in their games, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range 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 divine minions. Sure, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is limited. From that perspective, the antagonists have much more freedom: They have defined superiors (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re in the end fickle and chaotic creatures that can evolve in a many ways without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Reimagines Heavenly Beings

Honestly, I understand: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of virtue that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be impressive, but they also become clichéd very fast. That general lack of interest implies we still don’t know that much about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what happens after the deity who made them perishes. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is able to devise their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to center this issue central to the setting of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been killed by mortals in a massive war that ended seven decades prior to the start of the campaign. So what happened to the servants of these gods?

Brennan’s solution is simple, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and became a plague that destroyed entire countries. A great deal about the past of Aramán, the war against the gods, and its aftermath in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that after the deities were slain, the celestial beings became “wild”. They transformed into creatures that could destroy large areas if left unchecked. Viewers caught a sight of how scary such a being can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial held bound in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most compelling celestial beings in Dungeons & Dragons, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, for example, was a mighty Solar angel whose fixation with ending the Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was summoned by a priest inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the insanity infusing the location.

The taint observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, or led astray by their own pride or fixations. They are victims; another dreadful consequence of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 continues, I hope the DM focuses on the idea that, regardless of how “righteous” that conflict was, the mortals who emerged victorious may still regret the outcome. Their world has been harmed, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the beings that were formerly their protectors, guiding their spirits to safety after death, are now frightening disasters.

Sure, this might simply be a convenient way to address Gygax’s initial quandary. It is simple to justify killing an divine being when it’s a screaming, insane creature with rows of teeth, but I also feel highly fascinated by this new declination of the celestial mythology in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with Brennan’s aversion for gods in his campaigns, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the flat {