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Dungeons & Dragons presents a distinctive imaginative arena. Theoretically, it serves as a blank canvas where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and participants can paint countless scenarios. However, D&D also bears a five-decade history of campaign settings, creatures, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the best creative minds find it difficult to entirely detach themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, meaning that a great deal of “new” material for D&D is a reiteration of familiar ideas. At times you get things that sound as good as “a classic hit,” other times you wince like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the original settings of its first setting (created by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While devoted followers of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (Brennan really hates the deities!), the second episode impressed me because of a truly original take on a traditional D&D creature type: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Celestials in D&D

Demons and devils (often called fiends) have been part of Dungeons & Dragons since 1976, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to show up. A handful of distinct “angels” with specific names were featured in the publication Dragon issues 12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than variations of the angels from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” article in Dragon magazine, where he introduced fresh creatures that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar angel, and the solar first appeared, initiating a tradition of creatures called celestials that is continues to exist in the most recent version of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestials are the agents of benevolent gods, created by their masters to act 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 agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and support the faith of their god on the mortal world. Despite their direct relationship with the divine beings, 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 Greyhawk, and even Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is markedly less fleshed out in contrast to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has 99 layers of ever-growing disorder and demon lords tearing each other apart. The Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging side stories. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. In the meantime, everything you need to know about celestials can be gleaned in an short time of wiki reading.

It’s understandable that creatures who look like angels from the Bible received less attention. There are stories that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about giving players stat blocks for divine beings they could murder in their games, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range of appearances and roles, that controversial beginning stunted their development. There is also a limit to what you can do with beings that are designed to be servants of a god. Sure, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is limited. From that perspective, the antagonists have much more freedom: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and etc.) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly entities that can spin in a many ways without losing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Celestials

Honestly, I understand: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of virtue that smite evil in every manifestation can be cool, but they also get cheesy quickly. That general lack of interest means we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what happens after the deity who made them dies. There is no canonical answer, and every DM is free to devise their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question at the heart of the setting of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been killed by humans in a great conflict that ended 70 years before the start of the story. So what became of the followers of these divine beings?

Brennan’s solution is straightforward, terrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and became a plague that devastated whole nations. A great deal about the past of Aramán, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it seems that when the gods were slain, the celestial beings went “feral”. They transformed into monsters that could destroy large areas if not contained. Viewers caught a sight of how scary one of these creatures can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as the character Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial entity kept chained in a massive coffin.

It is no accident 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 tainted by Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was called forth by a cleric inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus level of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the madness permeating the location.

The taint observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, nor led astray by their own pride or obsessions. They are victims; one more dreadful result of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign continues, it is hoped Mulligan focuses on the idea that, no matter how “just” that conflict was, the humans who won it may nonetheless lament the outcome. Their realm has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been cut off, and the creatures that were once their protectors, shepherding their souls to security following death, are currently frightening disasters.

Sure, this may just be a convenient way to address Gygax’s original dilemma. It’s easy to justify killing an angel when it’s a shrieking, insane entity with multiple fangs, but I am also very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s aversion for divine beings in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {