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Dungeons & Dragons offers a unique creative space. In theory, it acts as a empty slate where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and participants can craft any kind of picture. However, D&D also carries a five-decade history of worlds, creatures, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to completely free themselves from this vast universe of existing content, meaning that a lot of “fresh” content for D&D is a reiteration of sampled tracks. Sometimes you get things that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you cringe as if hearing “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the unique worlds of Exandria (designed by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world created by Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). While devoted followers of Mulligan and his other series Dimension 20 work may identify some of his common themes (He strongly dislikes the deities!), the second episode impressed me because of a highly innovative take on a traditional D&D creature type: celestials.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (often called fiends) have been part of D&D since 1976, but it took a while longer for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A handful of distinct “angels” with individual titles appeared in Dragon magazine issues 12 (Feb. 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than variations of the celestial figures from biblical religious lore; for more original versions, we had to hold out for the early 80s and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column in Dragon magazine, where he introduced new monsters that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva, the planetar, and the solar angel made their debut, initiating a lineage of beings called celestials that is still present in the most recent version of the game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the servants of benevolent gods, created by their creators to act as warriors, leaders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and in general to populate their realms 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 belief of their god on the Material Plane. Despite their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are unique individuals with specific personalities. Famous examples encompass the angel Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is notably less fleshed out compared to demonic entities. The Abyss has 99 layers of ever-growing disorder and demon lords warring amongst themselves. The Nine Hells are a version of the series Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging side stories. And don’t get me started the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestials can be gathered in an hour of online research.

It’s understandable that creatures who resemble angels from the Bible went underdeveloped. There are stories that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about giving players game statistics for divine beings they could murder in their sessions, and even if celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of appearances and roles, that problematic origin hindered their growth. There is also a limit to what you can do with creatures that are created to be servants of a god. Sure, they have free will, but their storytelling range is restricted. From that perspective, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly creatures that can evolve in a many ways without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Celestials

Honestly, I get it: Celestials are just not that interesting. Divine champions of virtue that smite evil in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. That widespread disinterest means we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what happens after the god who made them dies. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is free to devise their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue at the heart of the setting of Aramán, one where the deities have all been slain by mortals in a massive war that concluded seven decades prior to the beginning of the story. So what became of the followers of these gods?

Mulligan’s solution is simple, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and turned into a blight that destroyed entire countries. A lot about the history of this world, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it seems that after the gods died, the celestial beings went “feral”. They transformed into creatures that could annihilate entire regions if not contained. Viewers got a glimpse of how scary one of these creatures can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as the character Wicander (Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial entity kept chained in a enormous casket.

It’s not a coincidence that the most interesting celestials in D&D, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with concluding the Blood War resulted in her being tainted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. Fazrian is a little-known Planetar angel who was summoned by a cleric inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing to the insanity infusing the place.

The corruption seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials did not lose their virtue. They were not deceived, or misled by their own arrogance or fixations. They are victims; another terrible result of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign progresses, it is hoped Mulligan focuses on the idea that, regardless of how “just” that war was, the mortals who emerged victorious may still regret the consequences. Their world has been wounded, their connection to the afterlife has been severed, and the beings that were once their protectors, shepherding their souls to security after death, are currently frightening disasters.

Sure, this may just be a practical method to address the original creator’s initial quandary. It is simple to justify killing an angel when it’s a screaming, mad creature with rows of teeth, but I also feel highly fascinated by this new declination of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I am not entirely in accord with Brennan’s aversion for divine beings in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the flat {