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D&D offers a distinctive creative space. Theoretically, it acts as a empty slate where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and players can paint any kind of picture. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a 50-year legacy of campaign settings, creatures, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and rich mythology. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this vast landscape of references, so that a great deal of “fresh” content for D&D is a reworking of familiar ideas. Sometimes you get elements that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” other times you wince like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the original settings of its first setting (created by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). Although devoted followers of Brennan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (He really hates the deities!), the second episode stood out to me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a classic D&D creature type: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Demons and devils (collectively known as evil outsiders) have been part of D&D since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to show up. A few unique “divine messengers” with individual titles were featured in the publication Dragon issues 12 (February 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than riffs on the celestial figures from biblical sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon, where he presented fresh creatures that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar, and the solar angel first appeared, starting a lineage of beings called celestial entities that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the game.

In D&D, celestials are the agents of benevolent gods, created by their masters to act as soldiers, leaders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and overall to populate their realms in the Upper Planes. They are paragons of virtue who battle 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 unique individuals with individual traits. 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 the iconic Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is markedly less fleshed out in contrast to demonic entities. The Abyss has 99 layers of expanding chaos and demon lords tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more interesting subplots. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestial beings can be gleaned in an hour of online research.

It’s understandable that beings who resemble angels from the Bible went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gygax felt uneasy about giving players stat blocks for angels they could murder in their sessions, and even if celestials were subsequently developed with a broader spectrum of appearances and roles, that controversial beginning stunted their development. There’s also only so much what you can do with beings that are designed to be divine minions. Certainly, they have free will, but their narrative potential is restricted. In that sense, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re in the end fickle and chaotic creatures that can evolve in a lot of directions without losing their unique nature.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Celestials

Honestly, I get it: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of good that smite evil in all its forms can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. That widespread disinterest means we still don’t know a great deal about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what occurs once the deity who made them dies. There is no canonical answer, and each Dungeon Master is free to come up with their own interpretation. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question at the heart of the setting of Aramán, one where the gods have all been killed by humans in a massive war that concluded 70 years before the beginning of the story. So what became of the servants of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s answer is straightforward, horrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and turned into a blight that devastated whole nations. A great deal about the past of Aramán, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it seems that after the gods died, the celestials went “feral”. They transformed into monsters that could destroy entire regions if not contained. The audience got a glimpse of how frightening one of these creatures can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial entity held bound in a enormous casket.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestials in Dungeons & Dragons, narratively, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with ending the eternal Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was called forth by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the madness infusing the place.

The taint seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings did not lose their virtue. They weren’t tricked, nor misled by their own pride or obsessions. They are casualties; one more dreadful consequence of the Shapers’ War. As the new campaign progresses, it is hoped the DM focuses on the notion that, regardless of how “just” that conflict was, the mortals who won it may still regret the outcome. Their realm has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been cut off, and the creatures that were once their protectors, guiding their spirits to safety following death, are now terrifying calamities.

Sure, this may just be a convenient way to solve the original creator’s initial quandary. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a screaming, mad creature with rows of teeth, but I am also highly fascinated by this new declination of the celestial mythos in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s aversion for divine beings in his campaigns, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {