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D&D presents a unique creative space. In theory, it acts as a blank canvas where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and players can craft countless scenarios. However, D&D also carries a 50-year legacy of campaign settings, creatures, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this extensive landscape of references, so that a great deal of “new” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of familiar ideas. Sometimes you get things that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you wince as if hearing “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past due to the original settings of Exandria (created by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the setting crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). Although longtime fans of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (He really hates the gods!), episode 2 impressed me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a traditional Dungeons & Dragons monster category: celestials.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Fiendish creatures (collectively known as fiends) have been included in Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it took a while longer for their angelic equivalents to show up. A few unique “angels” with individual titles were featured in Dragon magazine issues #12 (February 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were essentially riffs on the celestial figures from biblical religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until the early 80s and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon, where he presented fresh creatures that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s when the deva, the planetar, and the solar angel first appeared, initiating a lineage of creatures called celestial entities that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the servants of good-aligned deities, made by their creators to act as soldiers, leaders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and overall to populate 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 deity on the mortal world. In spite of their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Famous examples include Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is markedly underdeveloped in contrast to demonic entities. The Abyss has 99 layers of ever-growing disorder and demon lords tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of the series Game of Thrones with greater violence and more interesting side stories. And don’t get me started the Yugoloth. In the meantime, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gathered in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that beings who look like angels from the Bible went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gygax felt uneasy about giving players game statistics for divine beings they could murder in their sessions, and although celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of appearances and purposes, that controversial beginning stunted their development. There is also a limit to what you can do with beings that are designed to be divine minions. Certainly, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is restricted. In that sense, the bad guys have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re in the end unpredictable and disorderly creatures that can evolve in a many ways without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Heavenly Beings

Honestly, I understand: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of good that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also get cheesy quickly. That widespread disinterest means we remain unaware of that much about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what occurs after the deity who made them perishes. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is able to come up with their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue at the heart of the setting of Aramán, one where the gods have all been killed by mortals in a great conflict that ended 70 years prior to the beginning of the campaign. So what happened to the servants of these divine beings?

Brennan’s answer is straightforward, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and turned into a blight that devastated entire countries. A great deal about the history of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the current era has still to be revealed, but it appears that when the gods died, the celestials went “feral”. They became creatures that could destroy large areas if not contained. Viewers got a glimpse of how frightening one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as the character Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial held bound in a enormous casket.

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 fixation with ending the Blood War led to her being tainted by the devil Asmodeus and transformed 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 “purging” the evil in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing to the madness infusing the location.

The corruption seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings did not lose their virtue. They were not deceived, nor misled by their own pride or fixations. They are casualties; one more terrible consequence of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 progresses, it is hoped the DM focuses on the notion that, regardless of how “righteous” that conflict was, the humans who won it may still regret the outcome. Their realm has been harmed, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the beings that were formerly their protectors, shepherding their souls to safety after death, are now terrifying calamities.

Sure, this might simply be a convenient way to solve Gygax’s original dilemma. It is simple to rationalize slaying an divine being when it’s a shrieking, insane entity with rows of teeth, but I am also highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythology in Dungeons & Dragons. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s aversion for divine beings in his campaigns, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {