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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 any kind of picture. Yet, D&D also carries a 50-year legacy of campaign settings, monsters, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the best 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 reiteration of familiar ideas. At times you encounter elements that sound as good as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you cringe like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the original settings of Exandria (created by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). Although longtime fans of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (He strongly dislikes the gods!), the second episode impressed me because of a highly innovative take on a classic D&D creature type: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Fiendish creatures (collectively known as 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 “divine messengers” with specific names appeared in Dragon magazine editions 12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were essentially variations of the angels 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 new monsters that would appear in the 1983 Monster Manual 2. That’s when the deva angel, the planetar, and the solar angel first appeared, starting a lineage of creatures called celestial entities that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the agents of benevolent gods, made by their masters to serve as warriors, commanders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and overall to populate their domains 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 faith of their god on the mortal world. In spite of their close connection with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Well-known instances encompass the angel Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is notably less fleshed out in contrast to demonic entities. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons warring amongst themselves. The Nine Hells are a interpretation of Game of Thrones with greater violence and more engaging subplots. And don’t get me started the Yugoloth. In the meantime, everything you need to know about celestials can be gleaned in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that beings who resemble angels from the Bible received less attention. There are stories that Gygax felt uneasy about providing gamers game statistics for divine beings they could kill in their games, and even if celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of appearances and purposes, that problematic origin stunted their development. There’s also only so much what you can create for beings that are designed to be servants of a god. Sure, they have independent thought, but their narrative potential is restricted. In that sense, the bad guys have much more freedom: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic creatures that can spin in a lot of directions without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Celestials

To be frank, I get it: Celestial beings are just not that interesting. Divine champions of good that smite evil in all its forms can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. That widespread disinterest implies we remain unaware of that much about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what occurs once the deity who made them perishes. There is no official explanation, and every DM is able to come up with their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question at the heart of the world of Aramán, one where the gods have all been slain by mortals in a great conflict that concluded seven decades prior to the beginning of the story. So what became of the servants of these gods?

Mulligan’s answer is straightforward, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and became a plague that devastated entire countries. A great deal about the past of this world, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the current era has still to be revealed, but it seems that after the gods were slain, the celestials became “wild”. They became creatures that could annihilate entire regions if left unchecked. The audience caught a sight of how scary one of these creatures can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial held bound in a enormous casket.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestials in D&D, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. The angel Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with ending the eternal Blood War resulted in her being tainted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was called forth by a priest inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the evil in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the madness infusing the location.

The corruption seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, nor led astray by their own arrogance or fixations. They are casualties; one more dreadful consequence of the Shapers’ War. As the new campaign continues, I hope the DM focuses on the idea that, no matter how “righteous” that conflict was, the mortals who emerged victorious may still regret the consequences. Their realm has been harmed, their link to the hereafter has been cut off, and the beings that were formerly their protectors, shepherding their souls to safety following death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Sure, this might simply be a convenient way to address the original creator’s original dilemma. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an divine being when it’s a screaming, mad creature with multiple fangs, but I also feel very intrigued by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s aversion for divine beings in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {