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D&D presents a unique creative space. In theory, it serves as a empty slate where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and players can craft countless scenarios. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a five-decade history of worlds, creatures, spellcasting rules, well-known NPCs, and general lore. Even the most talented creative minds find it difficult to completely free themselves from this vast universe of existing content, so that a lot of “new” material for D&D is a reworking of sampled tracks. At times you get things that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” on other occasions you wince as if hearing “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the original settings of its first setting (created by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world created by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). While devoted followers of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (He really hates the deities!), episode 2 impressed me because of a truly original take on a classic Dungeons & Dragons monster category: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Celestials in D&D

Fiendish creatures (collectively known as evil outsiders) have been included in D&D since the mid-70s, but it took a while longer for their heavenly counterparts to appear. A handful of distinct “angels” with individual titles were featured in Dragon magazine editions 12 (February 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were essentially variations of the angels from biblical sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” article in Dragon, where he presented new monsters that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual 2. That’s when the deva angel, the planetar, and the solar first appeared, initiating a tradition of creatures known as celestials that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the servants of benevolent gods, created by their creators to act as soldiers, leaders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and overall to populate their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and help uphold the belief of their deity on the mortal world. Despite their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Famous examples include 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 less fleshed out compared to demonic entities. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of expanding chaos and lords of demons warring amongst themselves. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of the series Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestial beings can be gathered in an short time of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that creatures who resemble biblical angels received less attention. There are stories that Gygax felt uneasy about providing gamers game statistics for angels they could murder in their sessions, and although celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of appearances and purposes, that problematic origin stunted their development. There’s also only so much what you can create for creatures that are created to be servants of a god. Certainly, they have free will, but their storytelling range is limited. In that sense, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re in the end fickle and chaotic creatures that can evolve in a lot of directions without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Celestials

To be frank, I understand: Celestials are just not that interesting. Divine champions of good that smite evil in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. That widespread disinterest means we still don’t know that much about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what occurs once the deity who created them dies. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is able to come up with their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue central to the setting of Aramán, one where the deities have all been killed by mortals in a great conflict that ended 70 years prior to the beginning of the story. So what became of the followers of these divine beings?

Brennan’s solution is straightforward, horrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and turned into a blight that devastated whole nations. A lot about the history of this world, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the present has still to be revealed, but it seems that after the deities died, the celestials went “feral”. They became monsters that could annihilate large areas if left unchecked. The audience got a glimpse of how frightening such a being can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a terrifying celestial entity held bound in a massive coffin.

It’s not a coincidence that the most interesting celestial beings in D&D, narratively, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with concluding the eternal 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 angel who was called forth by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the madness permeating the location.

The corruption observed in the fourth campaign of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, nor led astray by their own pride or fixations. They are victims; another dreadful consequence of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign continues, I hope the DM concentrates on the idea that, no matter how “just” that war was, the mortals who won it may still regret the consequences. Their world has been harmed, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the creatures that were formerly their guardians, guiding their spirits to security after death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Sure, this might simply be a convenient way to address Gygax’s initial quandary. It’s easy to justify killing an divine being when it’s a shrieking, mad creature with rows of teeth, 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 loathing for gods in his campaigns, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {