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D&D presents a distinctive creative space. In theory, it acts as a blank canvas where the imagination of DMs and participants can paint any kind of picture. However, D&D also carries a five-decade history of worlds, creatures, magic systems, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to completely free themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, meaning that a great deal of “fresh” material for D&D is a reworking of sampled tracks. Sometimes you encounter elements that sound as good as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you cringe as if hearing “a derivative tune.”

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 recognize some of his recurring motifs (Brennan strongly dislikes the gods!), episode 2 stood out to me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a classic Dungeons & Dragons monster category: celestials.

The Historical Background of Celestials in D&D

Fiendish creatures (often called fiends) have been included in Dungeons & Dragons since 1976, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to appear. A few unique “angels” with individual titles were featured in Dragon magazine issues #12 (February 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than variations of the angels from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for more original versions, we had to wait until the early 80s and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column in Dragon, where he introduced new monsters that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar angel, and the solar angel made their debut, initiating a tradition of beings called celestials that is still present in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestial beings are the servants of benevolent gods, created by their creators to act as soldiers, commanders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and overall to populate their domains in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Lower Planes and help uphold the faith of their deity on the mortal world. Despite their close connection with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Famous examples include Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is markedly less fleshed out in contrast to demonic entities. The chaotic Abyss has 99 layers of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons warring amongst themselves. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with greater violence and more interesting subplots. And don’t get me started the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestial beings can be gleaned in an hour of online research.

It’s understandable that beings 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 sessions, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a broader spectrum of appearances and roles, that problematic origin hindered their growth. There is also a limit to what you can do with beings that are designed to be divine minions. Certainly, they have free will, but their narrative potential is limited. From that perspective, the antagonists have much more freedom: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic creatures that can spin in a many ways without losing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Heavenly Beings

To be frank, I understand: Celestials are just not that interesting. Divine champions of good that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be impressive, but they also become clichéd very fast. That general lack of interest 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 devise their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question central to the setting of Aramán, one where the deities have all been slain by mortals in a great conflict that ended seven decades before the beginning of the campaign. So what became of the servants of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s answer is straightforward, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and became a plague that devastated entire countries. A lot about the history of Aramán, the war against the gods, and its aftermath in the present has still to be revealed, but it appears that after the gods died, the celestial beings went “feral”. They became creatures that could destroy entire regions if left unchecked. Viewers caught a sight of how scary such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial held bound in a enormous casket.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestial beings in Dungeons & Dragons, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. The angel Zariel, for example, was a mighty Solar angel whose obsession with concluding the eternal Blood War led to her being corrupted by Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil of Hell. Fazrian is a little-known Planetar angel who was summoned by a priest inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the insanity infusing the location.

The taint observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials did not lose their virtue. They were not deceived, nor misled by their own pride or obsessions. They are victims; another terrible result of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign progresses, it is hoped the DM focuses on the notion that, regardless of how “righteous” that conflict was, the humans who won it may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their realm has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the creatures that were formerly their guardians, guiding their spirits to safety after death, are now terrifying calamities.

Sure, this might simply be a convenient way to address Gygax’s original dilemma. It’s easy to justify killing an divine being when it’s a shrieking, insane creature with rows of teeth, but I also feel very intrigued by this fresh variation of the celestial mythology in Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s loathing for divine beings in his stories, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {