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D&D offers a distinctive imaginative arena. Theoretically, it serves as a empty slate where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and participants can craft countless scenarios. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a 50-year legacy of worlds, monsters, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and general lore. Even the best imaginative thinkers struggle to entirely detach themselves from this vast landscape of references, meaning that a lot of “new” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of familiar ideas. Sometimes you encounter elements that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” other times you wince as if hearing “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the original settings of its first setting (created by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While devoted followers of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (Brennan really hates the deities!), the second episode stood out to me because of a highly innovative take on a classic D&D creature type: angelic beings.

A Brief History of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (often called evil outsiders) have been part of D&D since 1976, but it took a while longer for their angelic equivalents to show up. A few unique “divine messengers” with individual titles appeared in the publication Dragon issues #12 (Feb. 1978) and 17 (August 1978). These were little more than variations of the angels from Hebrew and Christian sacred texts; for more original versions, we had to wait until 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” article in Dragon magazine, where he introduced fresh creatures that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s when the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar first appeared, initiating a tradition of creatures known as celestials that is still present in the most recent version of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the agents of good-aligned deities, made by their masters to act as warriors, commanders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and in general to inhabit their realms in the Upper Planes. They are paragons of virtue who battle the forces of chaos and evil from the Lower Planes and support the belief of their deity on the Material Plane. Despite their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Well-known instances encompass the angel Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is notably underdeveloped in contrast to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The Nine Hells are a interpretation of Game of Thrones with greater violence and more engaging subplots. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. In the meantime, all the essential information about celestial beings can be gleaned in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that creatures who resemble biblical angels went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gygax felt uneasy about providing gamers game statistics for angels they could kill in their games, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range of appearances and roles, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There is also a limit to 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 established masters (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly creatures that can spin in a many ways without losing their unique nature.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Redefines Heavenly Beings

To be frank, I understand: Celestials are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of good that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be impressive, but they also become clichéd quickly. That general lack of interest implies we remain unaware of that much about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what happens after the deity who made them perishes. There is no canonical answer, and every DM is free to come up with their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to center this issue central to the world of Aramán, one where the gods have all been killed by mortals in a massive war that concluded seven decades prior to the beginning of the campaign. So what became of the servants of these gods?

Mulligan’s solution is straightforward, terrifying, and very interesting: They went crazy and turned into a blight that devastated whole nations. A lot about the past of this world, the war against the gods, and its aftermath in the present has still to be revealed, but it appears that after the deities were slain, the celestials went “feral”. They transformed into creatures that could destroy entire regions if not contained. Viewers caught a sight of how frightening such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial entity held bound in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most compelling celestials in D&D, narratively, are those who have lost their divinity. The angel Zariel, as an instance, was a mighty Solar angel whose fixation with ending the eternal Blood War led to her being tainted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar angel who was summoned by a cleric inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the madness infusing the location.

The corruption observed in the fourth campaign of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials did not lose their virtue. They were not deceived, nor led astray by their own pride or obsessions. They are victims; one more dreadful result of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign continues, I hope the DM concentrates on the notion that, regardless of how “righteous” that conflict was, the humans who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the outcome. Their realm has been harmed, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the creatures that were formerly their protectors, guiding their spirits to safety after death, are now frightening disasters.

Sure, this may just be a convenient way to solve the original creator’s original dilemma. It is simple to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a shrieking, insane entity with multiple fangs, but I am also highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythology in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s loathing for gods in his campaigns, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {