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Dungeons & Dragons presents a distinctive imaginative arena. In theory, it acts as a blank canvas where the creativity of DMs and participants can paint any kind of picture. However, D&D also bears a five-decade history of worlds, creatures, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and rich mythology. Even the most talented imaginative thinkers struggle to completely free themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, meaning that a great deal of “fresh” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of familiar ideas. At times you get things that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” on other occasions you cringe like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

The show Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past due to the original settings of Exandria (designed by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the setting created by Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although longtime fans of Brennan and his other series Dimension 20 work may identify some of his common themes (Brennan strongly dislikes the deities!), the second episode impressed me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a classic D&D creature type: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Demons and devils (collectively known as evil outsiders) have been included in Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A handful of distinct “divine messengers” with specific names were featured in Dragon magazine issues #12 (Feb. 1978) and 17 (August 1978). These were essentially variations of the angels from Hebrew and Christian sacred texts; for more original versions, we had to hold out for the early 80s and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” column in Dragon, where he introduced fresh creatures that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual 2. That’s when the deva, the planetar, and the solar angel first appeared, starting a lineage of beings known as celestial entities that is still present in the most recent version of the game.

In D&D, celestials are the servants of benevolent gods, made by their masters to serve as soldiers, leaders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and in general to inhabit their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and support the faith of their god on the Material Plane. In spite of their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Well-known instances encompass the angel Lumalia and 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 underdeveloped in contrast to fiends. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and demon lords tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a interpretation of the series Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging subplots. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. In the meantime, all the essential information about celestials can be gleaned in an hour of online research.

It’s understandable that creatures who resemble biblical angels went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about giving players stat blocks for angels they could kill in their sessions, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range of looks and purposes, that controversial beginning 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 independent thought, but their storytelling range is limited. From that perspective, the bad guys have much more freedom: They have defined superiors (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re in the end unpredictable and disorderly entities that can evolve in a many ways without losing their unique nature.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Celestials

Honestly, I get it: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of good that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also get cheesy quickly. That general lack of interest implies we still don’t know that much about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what occurs after the god who created them perishes. There is no canonical answer, and each Dungeon Master is free to devise their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue central to the world of Aramán, one where the gods have all been killed by mortals in a massive war that concluded seven decades prior to the beginning of the story. So what became of the servants of these divine beings?

Brennan’s solution is simple, horrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and turned into a blight that devastated whole nations. A great deal about the history of this world, the war against the gods, and its aftermath in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that after the gods were slain, the celestials went “feral”. They transformed into creatures that could annihilate large areas if not contained. The audience got a glimpse of how scary such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) got to meet his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial entity held bound in a massive coffin.

It is no accident that the most compelling celestials in D&D, story-wise, are those who have fallen from grace. The angel Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with ending the eternal Blood War resulted in her being tainted by Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar angel who was called forth by a cleric inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the insanity infusing the place.

The taint seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, or misled by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are victims; one more dreadful consequence of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 continues, it is hoped the DM focuses on the notion that, regardless of how “just” that war was, the mortals who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the outcome. Their realm has been wounded, their connection to the afterlife has been severed, and the beings that were once their guardians, shepherding their souls to safety following death, are currently frightening disasters.

Certainly, this might simply be a practical method to address Gygax’s original dilemma. It’s easy to justify killing an angel when it’s a screaming, insane entity with multiple fangs, but I also feel very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythology 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 {