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D&D provides a unique imaginative arena. Theoretically, it serves as a blank canvas where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and players can paint any kind of picture. However, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a 50-year legacy of worlds, monsters, magic systems, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the best creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this extensive landscape of references, meaning that a lot of “fresh” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of familiar ideas. Sometimes you encounter elements that sound as good as “a classic hit,” other times you wince like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

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 Aramán (the setting crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). Although longtime fans of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (He really hates the deities!), episode 2 stood out to me because of a highly innovative take on a traditional D&D creature type: celestials.

The Historical Background of Celestials in D&D

Fiendish creatures (often called evil outsiders) have been part of D&D since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A few unique “divine messengers” with individual titles were featured in the publication Dragon editions #12 (Feb. 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were essentially variations of the angels from biblical sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon magazine, where he presented new monsters that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar, and the solar first appeared, initiating a tradition of beings known as celestials that is continues to exist in the most recent version of the game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the servants of benevolent gods, created by their creators to serve as soldiers, leaders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and in general to inhabit their domains in the Upper Planes. They are champions of good who battle the forces of chaos and evil from the Lower Planes and support the faith of their god on the mortal world. In spite of their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are unique individuals with specific personalities. Well-known instances include Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

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

It’s understandable that beings who resemble biblical angels went underdeveloped. There are stories that Gygax was uncomfortable 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 looks and roles, that controversial beginning stunted their development. There’s also only so much what you can create for beings that are designed to be servants of a god. Sure, they have free will, but their narrative potential is limited. From that perspective, the antagonists have much more freedom: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Infernal Dukes, and so on) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly entities that can evolve in a lot of directions without sacrificing their unique nature.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Reimagines Heavenly Beings

To be frank, I get it: Celestials are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of good that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be cool, but they also get cheesy very fast. That general lack of interest means we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what happens after the god who made them perishes. There is no official explanation, and every DM is free to come up with their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to center this issue at the heart of the setting of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been slain by mortals in a massive war that concluded seven decades before the start of the campaign. So what became of the servants of these gods?

Mulligan’s solution is simple, horrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and became a plague that devastated entire countries. A great deal about the history of this world, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the present has still to be revealed, but it seems that after the gods were slain, the celestials went “feral”. They transformed into monsters that could annihilate large areas if not contained. Viewers caught a sight of how scary such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” a terrifying celestial kept chained in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestial beings in D&D, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with concluding the eternal Blood War led to her being tainted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. The planetar 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 level of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the insanity infusing the location.

The taint observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, nor misled by their own pride or fixations. They are victims; one more terrible consequence of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign progresses, I hope Mulligan focuses on the notion that, no matter how “just” that conflict 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 formerly their protectors, shepherding their souls to security after death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Sure, this may just be a convenient way to address the original creator’s initial quandary. It is simple to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a shrieking, insane creature with multiple fangs, but I also feel very intrigued by this fresh variation of the celestial mythology in D&D. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s aversion for gods in his campaigns, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {