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D&D presents a distinctive creative space. Theoretically, it acts as a empty slate where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and players can craft any kind of picture. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a 50-year legacy of worlds, monsters, spellcasting rules, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the best imaginative thinkers struggle to entirely detach themselves from this extensive landscape of references, meaning that a lot of “fresh” material for D&D is a reiteration of sampled tracks. At times you encounter things that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” other times you cringe like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

The show Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past due to the unique worlds of its first setting (created by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world created by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While devoted followers of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (He strongly dislikes the deities!), the second episode stood out to 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 (collectively known as fiends) have been included in D&D since 1976, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to show up. A few unique “divine messengers” with specific names appeared in Dragon magazine editions 12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were little more than riffs on the celestial figures from biblical sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until the early 80s and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column in Dragon magazine, where he introduced new monsters that would appear in the 1983 Monster Manual II. That’s when the deva, the planetar, and the solar first appeared, starting a tradition of creatures called celestials that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestials are the agents of benevolent gods, created by their masters to serve as warriors, commanders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and overall to populate their realms in the Upper Planes. They are champions of good who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and support the faith of their deity on the mortal world. In spite of their close connection with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Well-known instances encompass Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, 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 notably less fleshed out compared to fiends. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a interpretation of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. In the meantime, all the essential information about celestials can be gleaned in an hour of online research.

It’s understandable that beings who look like angels from the Bible received less attention. There are stories that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players game statistics for divine beings they could murder in their games, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range of appearances and roles, that problematic origin hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can create for creatures that are created to be divine minions. Sure, they have free will, but their narrative potential is restricted. From that perspective, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly creatures that can evolve in a lot of directions without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Celestials

Honestly, I understand: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of good that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be cool, but they also become clichéd very fast. That general lack of interest implies we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. As an illustration, we still don’t know what occurs once the god who made them dies. There is no canonical answer, and each Dungeon Master is able to devise their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue central to the world of Aramán, a place where the deities have all been killed by mortals in a massive war that ended seven decades prior to the beginning of the campaign. So what became of the servants of these gods?

Mulligan’s solution is straightforward, horrifying, and very interesting: They went crazy and turned into a plague that devastated entire countries. A great deal about the past of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that after the gods died, the celestials went “feral”. They transformed into monsters that could annihilate entire regions if left unchecked. Viewers caught a sight of how scary one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial entity held bound in a massive coffin.

It is no accident that the most compelling celestial beings in D&D, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, as an instance, was a mighty Solar angel whose obsession with concluding the Blood War led to her being tainted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil of Hell. Fazrian is a obscure Planetar angel who was called forth by a priest inside Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the evil 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 assumes a distinct form. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, nor led astray by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are casualties; another dreadful result of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 progresses, I hope the DM focuses on the idea that, no matter how “righteous” 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 cut off, and the creatures that were once their protectors, shepherding their souls to security following death, are currently frightening disasters.

Sure, this may just be a convenient way to address the original creator’s original dilemma. It’s easy to justify killing 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 Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with the DM’s loathing for divine beings in his stories, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the flat {