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Dungeons & Dragons provides a unique imaginative arena. In theory, it serves as a blank canvas where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and players can paint countless scenarios. Yet, D&D also bears a 50-year legacy of worlds, creatures, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and rich mythology. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, so that a great deal of “fresh” material for D&D is a reworking of familiar ideas. Sometimes you encounter things that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” on other occasions you wince as if hearing “All Summer Long.”

The show Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past due to the unique worlds of Exandria (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world created by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). While devoted followers of Mulligan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (Brennan strongly dislikes the gods!), episode 2 stood out to me because of a highly innovative take on a classic D&D creature type: celestials.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (often called evil outsiders) have been part of Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to appear. A few unique “angels” with individual titles appeared in the publication Dragon editions 12 (February 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than variations of the angels from biblical sacred texts; for more original versions, we had to hold out for the early 80s and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon, where he presented fresh creatures that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s when the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar angel made their debut, starting a lineage of creatures known as 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 good-aligned deities, made by their creators to act as soldiers, leaders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and overall to inhabit their domains in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and help uphold the faith of their god on the Material Plane. Despite their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Famous examples include the angel 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.

Celestial lore is notably underdeveloped compared to fiends. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of expanding chaos and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging side stories. And don’t get me started the Yugoloth. In the meantime, all the essential information about celestials can be gleaned in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s understandable that beings who look like biblical angels received less attention. Rumor has it that Gygax was uncomfortable about providing gamers game statistics for angels they could kill in their games, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range of looks and roles, that controversial beginning stunted their development. 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 limited. In that sense, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Infernal Dukes, and etc.) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic entities that can evolve in a many ways without losing their unique nature.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Redefines Celestials

Honestly, I get it: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of virtue that smite evil in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also become clichéd very fast. That widespread disinterest implies we remain unaware of that much about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what happens after the god who created them dies. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is able to devise their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question at the heart of the setting of Aramán, one where the deities have all been killed by humans in a great conflict that ended 70 years prior to the start of the campaign. So what happened to the followers of these gods?

Mulligan’s solution is straightforward, horrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and became a plague that destroyed entire countries. A great deal about the history of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the current era has still to be revealed, but it appears that after the deities died, the celestials became “wild”. They became creatures that could annihilate entire regions if not contained. The audience got a glimpse of how scary one of these creatures can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial entity kept chained in a massive coffin.

It is no accident that the most compelling celestial beings in D&D, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. The angel Zariel, for example, was a mighty Solar angel whose obsession with ending the Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil of Hell. Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was called forth by a priest inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the madness infusing the location.

The corruption seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, nor led astray by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are casualties; another dreadful consequence of the Shapers’ War. As the new campaign progresses, it is hoped the DM concentrates on the idea that, no matter how “just” that war was, the humans who won it 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 guardians, shepherding their souls to security after death, are now frightening disasters.

Certainly, this might simply be a convenient way to address Gygax’s original dilemma. It is simple to justify killing an angel when it’s a screaming, insane creature with multiple fangs, but I am also highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythology in Dungeons & Dragons. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s aversion for gods in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the flat {