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Dungeons & Dragons presents a distinctive creative space. In theory, it acts as a blank canvas where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and participants can craft countless scenarios. Yet, D&D also bears a 50-year legacy of campaign settings, creatures, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and rich mythology. Even the most talented imaginative thinkers find it difficult to entirely detach themselves from this vast universe of existing content, meaning that a lot of “fresh” material for D&D is a reiteration of sampled tracks. Sometimes you get elements that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you wince as if hearing “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the unique worlds of Exandria (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While devoted followers of Mulligan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (He strongly dislikes the deities!), the second episode impressed me because of a truly original take on a traditional D&D creature type: celestials.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Demons and devils (often called evil outsiders) have been part of Dungeons & Dragons since 1976, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to show up. A handful of distinct “angels” with individual titles appeared in the publication Dragon editions #12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than variations of the angels from Hebrew and Christian sacred texts; for more original versions, we had to hold out for the early 80s and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon magazine, where he introduced new monsters that would appear in the 1983 Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar, and the solar made their debut, starting a tradition of beings called celestial entities that is continues to exist in the most recent version of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestials are the servants of benevolent gods, made by their masters to serve as soldiers, leaders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and overall to populate their domains in the Upper Planes. They are paragons of virtue who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and support the faith of their god on the mortal world. In spite of their close connection with the gods, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Well-known instances include Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is notably less fleshed out compared to fiends. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of expanding chaos and demon lords warring amongst themselves. The Nine Hells are a version of the series Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging side stories. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. In the meantime, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gleaned in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that beings who look like biblical angels went underdeveloped. There are stories that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about providing gamers game statistics for angels they could kill in their games, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a broader spectrum of looks and roles, that problematic origin stunted their development. There’s also only so much what you can create for creatures that are created to be divine minions. Certainly, they have independent thought, but their narrative potential is restricted. From that perspective, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Infernal Dukes, and so on) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly entities that can spin in a lot of directions without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Celestials

Honestly, I understand: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of virtue that smite evil in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. That general lack of interest means we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what occurs once the god who made them perishes. There is no canonical answer, and every DM is able to devise their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to center this issue central to the setting of Aramán, one where the deities have all been killed by mortals in a massive war that ended seven decades before the beginning of the campaign. So what became of the followers of these divine beings?

Brennan’s solution is simple, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and became a blight that devastated entire countries. A lot about the past of this world, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that after the gods were slain, the celestial beings went “feral”. They became creatures that could destroy entire regions if not contained. The audience caught a sight of how scary such a being can be at the end of episode 2, as the character Wicander (Sam Riegel) got to meet his “ancestor,” a terrifying celestial kept chained in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestials in D&D, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with ending the Blood War led to her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was summoned by a cleric inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the madness permeating the place.

The taint observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials did not lose their virtue. They were not deceived, nor misled by their own pride or obsessions. They are victims; one more terrible consequence of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign continues, I hope Mulligan concentrates on the idea that, regardless of how “righteous” that war was, the humans who emerged victorious may still regret the consequences. Their realm has been harmed, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the beings that were formerly their protectors, shepherding their souls to safety after death, are currently frightening disasters.

Sure, this may just be a convenient way to solve Gygax’s original dilemma. It is simple to justify killing an angel when it’s a screaming, insane creature with rows of teeth, but I also feel highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythology in Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with the DM’s loathing for gods in his stories, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the flat {