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D&D presents a distinctive imaginative arena. Theoretically, it acts as a empty slate where the imagination of DMs and players can craft countless scenarios. However, D&D also carries a five-decade history of worlds, creatures, magic systems, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the best imaginative thinkers struggle to completely free themselves from this vast landscape of references, so that a great deal of “fresh” content for D&D is a reworking of sampled tracks. Sometimes you get things that sound as good as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” other times you wince as if hearing “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the original settings of its first setting (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although longtime fans of Mulligan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (He strongly dislikes the deities!), episode 2 stood out to me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a traditional D&D creature type: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (collectively known as fiends) have been part of D&D since 1976, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to appear. A handful of distinct “angels” with specific names appeared in the publication Dragon issues 12 (Feb. 1978) and 17 (August 1978). These were essentially riffs on the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” column in Dragon magazine, where he introduced new monsters that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar, and the solar first appeared, starting a lineage of creatures known as celestial entities that is still present in the latest edition of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the agents of good-aligned deities, created by their masters to act as warriors, commanders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, 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 help uphold the belief of their deity on the Material Plane. Despite their close connection with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Well-known instances include Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the mysterious 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 underdeveloped in contrast to demonic entities. The chaotic Abyss has ninety-nine levels of expanding chaos and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The Nine Hells are a interpretation of Game of Thrones with greater violence and more interesting side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. In the meantime, all the essential information about celestial beings can be gleaned in an hour of online research.

It’s not surprising that beings who resemble biblical angels received less attention. There are stories that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players game statistics for divine beings they could kill in their sessions, and even if celestials were subsequently developed with a broader spectrum of looks and roles, that problematic origin hindered their growth. There is also a limit to what you can create for creatures that are designed to be servants of a god. Certainly, they have free will, but their storytelling range is limited. From that perspective, the antagonists have much more freedom: They have defined superiors (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly entities that can evolve in a lot of directions without sacrificing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Redefines Heavenly Beings

To be frank, I get it: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of virtue 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 after the deity who made them perishes. There is no official explanation, and every DM is able to come up with their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question central to the setting of Aramán, a place where the deities have all been killed by humans in a great conflict that concluded 70 years prior to the start of the story. So what became of the followers of these divine beings?

Brennan’s answer is simple, horrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and became a blight that devastated entire countries. A great deal about the history of this world, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that when the gods died, the celestial beings went “feral”. They became monsters that could destroy large areas if left unchecked. Viewers caught a sight of how scary one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “ancestor,” a terrifying celestial entity 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 mighty Solar angel whose fixation with ending the Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil of Hell. Fazrian is a little-known Planetar angel who was summoned by a cleric inside the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the insanity permeating the place.

The corruption seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings did not lose their virtue. They weren’t tricked, nor misled by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are victims; one more dreadful consequence of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign progresses, it is hoped the DM concentrates on the notion that, no matter how “righteous” that conflict was, the humans who won it may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their realm has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been cut off, and the beings that were once their protectors, guiding their spirits to security following death, are currently frightening disasters.

Certainly, this may just be a practical method to address the original creator’s initial quandary. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an divine being when it’s a screaming, insane entity with rows of teeth, but I am also very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythology in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with Brennan’s aversion for gods in his campaigns, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the flat {