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Dungeons & Dragons presents a distinctive creative space. Theoretically, it acts as a empty slate where the imagination of DMs and players can paint countless scenarios. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a five-decade history of campaign settings, creatures, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the most talented imaginative thinkers find it difficult to completely free themselves from this vast landscape of references, meaning that a great deal of “new” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of sampled tracks. Sometimes you encounter elements that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you cringe as if hearing “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the original settings of Exandria (designed by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the setting created by Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although longtime fans of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (He strongly dislikes the deities!), episode 2 stood out to me because of a highly innovative take on a traditional D&D creature type: angelic beings.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Demons and devils (collectively known as evil outsiders) have been part of Dungeons & Dragons since 1976, but it took a while longer for their angelic equivalents to show up. A few unique “divine messengers” with specific names appeared in Dragon magazine issues 12 (February 1978) and #17 (Aug. 1978). These were essentially riffs on the angels from biblical sacred texts; for more original versions, we had to hold out for 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column in Dragon, where he introduced fresh creatures that would appear in the 1983 Monster Manual II. That’s when the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar first appeared, starting a lineage of beings called celestials that is still present in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestials are the servants of good-aligned deities, made by their masters to serve as soldiers, leaders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and overall to populate their domains in the Upper Planes. They are champions of good who battle the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and support the belief of their deity on the Material Plane. Despite their close connection with the gods, celestials are unique individuals with specific personalities. Famous examples encompass the angel Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is notably less fleshed out in contrast to demonic entities. The chaotic Abyss has ninety-nine levels of expanding chaos and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a interpretation of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging subplots. And that’s not even mentioning 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 look like biblical angels received less attention. Rumor has it that Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players game statistics for divine beings they could kill in their games, and even if celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of looks and purposes, that problematic origin hindered their growth. There is also a limit to what you can create for beings that are created to be servants of a god. Certainly, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is restricted. From that perspective, the bad guys have much more freedom: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and etc.) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic entities that can evolve in a many ways without sacrificing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Reimagines Celestials

Honestly, I understand: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of virtue that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be cool, but they also get cheesy very fast. That widespread disinterest means we still don’t know a great deal about celestials. As an illustration, we still don’t know what occurs after the god who made them perishes. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is able to come up with their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question at the heart of the world of Aramán, a place where the deities have all been slain by humans in a great conflict that ended 70 years before the beginning of the story. So what happened to the servants of these gods?

Mulligan’s answer is simple, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and turned into a blight that devastated whole nations. A great deal about the past of Aramán, the war against the gods, and its aftermath in the current era has still to be revealed, but it appears that after the deities were slain, the celestials became “wild”. They transformed into creatures that could annihilate entire regions if left unchecked. Viewers caught a sight of how scary one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a terrifying celestial held bound in a massive coffin.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestial beings in D&D, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, for example, was a mighty Solar angel whose obsession with ending the Blood War resulted in her being tainted by the devil Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was summoned by a priest inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the evil in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the madness infusing the place.

The taint observed in the fourth campaign of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, or misled by their own pride or fixations. They are victims; one more terrible result of the Shapers’ War. As the new campaign continues, I hope Mulligan focuses on the notion that, no matter how “just” that conflict was, the humans who won it may nonetheless lament the outcome. Their world has been wounded, their connection to the afterlife has been severed, and the beings that were formerly their guardians, guiding their spirits to safety after death, are now frightening disasters.

Sure, this might simply be a convenient way to address Gygax’s original dilemma. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a screaming, insane entity with multiple fangs, but I also feel very intrigued by this fresh variation of the celestial mythology in Dungeons & Dragons. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s loathing for divine beings in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {