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D&D presents a unique creative space. Theoretically, it acts as a blank canvas where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and players can paint countless scenarios. Yet, D&D also bears a 50-year legacy of campaign settings, monsters, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the most talented creative minds find it difficult to entirely detach themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, meaning that a great deal of “new” content for D&D is a reworking of sampled tracks. At times you get elements that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” other times you wince like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the unique worlds of its first setting (designed by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the setting created by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). While devoted followers of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (Brennan really hates the deities!), the second episode stood out to me because of a truly original interpretation on a classic Dungeons & Dragons monster category: celestials.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (collectively known as fiends) have been included in Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A few unique “angels” with specific names were featured 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 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon magazine, where he introduced fresh creatures that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s when the deva angel, the planetar angel, and the solar made their debut, starting a lineage of creatures known as celestial entities that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestials are the agents of good-aligned deities, made by their creators to serve as warriors, leaders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and in general to populate their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who battle the forces of chaos and evil from the Lower Planes and help uphold the belief of their god on the mortal world. In spite of their close connection with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Famous examples encompass the angel 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.

Celestial lore is notably underdeveloped in contrast to demonic entities. The chaotic Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with greater violence and more interesting subplots. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. In the meantime, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gleaned in an short time of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that creatures who resemble biblical angels received less attention. Rumor has it that Gygax felt uneasy about giving players game statistics for divine beings they could kill in their games, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range of looks and purposes, that controversial beginning stunted their development. There’s also only so much what you can do with beings that are created to be divine minions. Certainly, they have free will, but their narrative potential is limited. From that perspective, the bad guys have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and etc.) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly entities that can spin in a lot of directions without losing their unique nature.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Redefines Celestials

Honestly, I understand: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of good that smite evil in every manifestation can be cool, but they also become clichéd quickly. That widespread disinterest means we remain unaware of that much about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what happens after the deity who created them perishes. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is able to devise their own interpretation. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue at the heart of the setting of Aramán, one where the gods have all been killed by mortals in a great conflict that ended 70 years before the beginning of the campaign. So what became of the followers of these gods?

Brennan’s solution is simple, horrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and became a blight that devastated entire countries. A great deal about the history of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the present has still to be revealed, but it seems that after the deities died, the celestial beings became “wild”. They transformed into creatures that could destroy entire regions if not contained. The audience caught a sight 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 “ancestor,” a terrifying celestial entity kept chained in a massive coffin.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestial beings in D&D, narratively, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with ending the Blood War led to her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil of Hell. Fazrian is a obscure Planetar angel who was summoned by a cleric inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the madness permeating the location.

The corruption seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, or misled by their own arrogance or fixations. They are victims; another dreadful consequence of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign continues, I hope the DM focuses on the idea that, regardless of how “righteous” that war was, the humans who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their world has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been cut off, and the creatures that were formerly their protectors, guiding their spirits to safety following death, are now terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this may just be a practical method to address the original creator’s original dilemma. It’s easy to justify killing an divine being when it’s a shrieking, mad creature with multiple fangs, but I am also highly fascinated by this new declination of the celestial mythology in D&D. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s loathing for gods in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these horrific heavenly beings to the flat {