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Dungeons & Dragons presents a distinctive imaginative arena. In theory, it serves as a blank canvas where the imagination of DMs and participants can paint any kind of picture. Yet, 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 find it difficult to entirely detach themselves from this extensive landscape of references, meaning that a great deal of “fresh” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of sampled tracks. Sometimes you get things that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you cringe like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the unique worlds of its first setting (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). While longtime fans of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (He really hates the deities!), the second episode stood out to me because of a truly original take on a classic D&D creature type: celestials.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Fiendish creatures (collectively known as fiends) have been part of Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to show up. A handful of distinct “divine messengers” with specific names appeared in Dragon magazine issues 12 (February 1978) and #17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than variations of the angels from biblical religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until the early 80s and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon, where he introduced fresh creatures that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva, the planetar, and the solar first appeared, starting a tradition of creatures called celestial entities that is still present in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestials are the agents of benevolent gods, created by their creators to serve as warriors, commanders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and overall to inhabit their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and support the belief of their deity on the Material Plane. Despite their close connection with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Well-known instances include the angel Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is notably less fleshed out compared to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has 99 layers of ever-growing disorder and demon lords warring amongst themselves. The infernal Nine Hells are a interpretation of the series Game of Thrones with more bloodshed 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 short time of online research.

It’s not surprising that beings who look like angels from the Bible went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gygax was uncomfortable about providing gamers game statistics for angels they could kill in their sessions, and even if celestials were subsequently developed 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 beings that are created to be divine minions. Sure, they have independent thought, but their narrative potential is restricted. In that sense, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re in the end fickle and chaotic entities that can evolve in a lot of directions without sacrificing their unique nature.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Celestials

To be frank, I understand: Celestials are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of virtue that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be cool, but they also get cheesy quickly. That widespread disinterest implies we still don’t know that much about celestials. As an illustration, we still don’t know what happens after the god who made them dies. There is no canonical answer, and every DM is able to come up with their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue at the heart of the setting of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been slain by humans in a great conflict that concluded 70 years prior to the start of the campaign. So what became of the followers of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s solution is simple, terrifying, and very interesting: They went crazy and turned into a blight that destroyed whole nations. A lot about the history of this world, the war against the gods, and its aftermath in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that when the gods were slain, the celestials went “feral”. They transformed into monsters that could destroy large areas if left unchecked. Viewers caught a sight of how frightening such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial entity held bound in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most compelling celestials in D&D, story-wise, are those who have fallen from grace. The angel Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with concluding the eternal Blood War led to her being corrupted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was summoned by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the madness infusing the location.

The taint observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, nor misled by their own pride or obsessions. They are casualties; one more dreadful consequence of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 progresses, I hope Mulligan focuses on the notion that, regardless of how “just” that conflict was, the mortals who won it may still regret the consequences. Their realm has been wounded, their connection to the afterlife has been cut off, and the creatures that were once their guardians, guiding their spirits to safety following death, are currently frightening disasters.

Certainly, this may just be a practical method to solve Gygax’s original dilemma. It’s easy to justify killing an angel when it’s a shrieking, insane creature with rows of teeth, but I also feel very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythology in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s aversion for gods in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the flat {