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D&D provides a distinctive imaginative arena. In theory, it serves as a empty slate where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and participants can paint countless scenarios. Yet, D&D also bears a five-decade history of worlds, monsters, spellcasting rules, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the most talented creative minds find it difficult to completely free themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, meaning that a great deal of “new” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of sampled tracks. At times you get things that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” on other occasions you wince like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the original settings of Exandria (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although longtime fans of Brennan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (Brennan really hates the gods!), the second episode stood out to me because of a truly original interpretation on a traditional Dungeons & Dragons monster category: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Celestials in D&D

Fiendish creatures (collectively known as evil outsiders) have been part of D&D since 1976, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to appear. A few unique “angels” with individual titles appeared in the publication Dragon issues #12 (February 1978) and #17 (Aug. 1978). These were essentially riffs on the celestial figures from biblical sacred texts; for more original versions, we had to hold out for 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column in Dragon, where he presented fresh creatures that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar, and the solar angel first appeared, initiating a tradition of creatures called celestial entities that is still present in the latest edition of the game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the servants of good-aligned deities, made by their creators to serve as warriors, leaders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and in general to inhabit their domains in the Upper Planes. They are paragons of virtue who battle the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and support the belief of their god on the mortal world. In spite of their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Well-known instances encompass Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, 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 markedly underdeveloped compared to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has 99 layers of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The Nine Hells are a version of the series Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more interesting subplots. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gleaned in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s understandable that creatures who look like biblical angels received less attention. There are stories that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about providing gamers stat blocks for divine beings they could kill in their games, and although celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of looks and purposes, that problematic origin stunted their development. There’s also only so much what you can create for beings that are designed to be divine minions. Sure, they have free will, but their storytelling range is restricted. In that sense, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic creatures that can evolve in a many ways without losing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Celestials

To be frank, I understand: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of good that smite evil in every manifestation can be cool, but they also get cheesy quickly. That widespread disinterest implies we still don’t know a great deal about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what occurs once the deity who made them perishes. There is no official explanation, and every DM is free to come up with their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue central to the setting of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been killed by mortals in a massive war that concluded 70 years before the start of the campaign. So what became of the followers of these gods?

Mulligan’s answer is simple, horrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and became a blight that devastated whole nations. A lot about the history of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the current era has still to be revealed, but it seems that after the gods died, the celestials became “wild”. They became creatures that could destroy large areas if left unchecked. The audience caught a sight of how scary such a being can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial kept chained in a massive coffin.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestials in Dungeons & Dragons, narratively, are those who have lost their divinity. The angel Zariel, for example, was a mighty Solar angel whose obsession with concluding the Blood War led to her being tainted by the devil Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil of Hell. Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was summoned by a priest inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the evil in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing to the madness infusing the location.

The corruption observed in the fourth campaign of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, nor led astray by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are casualties; one more terrible consequence of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign progresses, I hope the DM concentrates on the idea that, no matter how “righteous” that conflict was, the humans who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their world has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been severed, and the creatures that were once their protectors, shepherding their souls to security after death, are now frightening disasters.

Sure, this may just be a convenient way to address the original creator’s original dilemma. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a screaming, mad entity with multiple fangs, but I also feel highly fascinated by this fresh variation 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 {