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D&D presents a distinctive imaginative arena. In theory, it acts as a blank canvas where the imagination of DMs and participants can craft any kind of picture. However, D&D also bears a five-decade history of worlds, creatures, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the best imaginative thinkers struggle to completely free themselves from this extensive landscape of references, so that a lot of “fresh” content for D&D is a reiteration of familiar ideas. Sometimes you encounter things that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you cringe like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the original settings of its first setting (designed by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world created 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 (Brennan really hates the deities!), the second episode stood out to me because of a truly original interpretation on a classic D&D creature type: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Celestials in D&D

Demons and devils (often called fiends) have been included in Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A handful of distinct “divine messengers” with individual titles were featured in Dragon magazine issues #12 (February 1978) and 17 (August 1978). These were little more than riffs on the angels from biblical religious lore; for more original versions, we had to hold out for the early 80s and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” column in Dragon magazine, where he introduced new monsters that would appear in the 1983 Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar angel, and the solar angel first appeared, initiating a lineage of beings known as celestial entities that is still present in the most recent version of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the agents of good-aligned deities, made by their masters to serve as warriors, commanders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and overall to inhabit their domains in the Upper Planes. They are paragons of virtue who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness 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 unique individuals with specific personalities. Famous examples encompass Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, 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 notably underdeveloped in contrast to demonic entities. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels 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 engaging subplots. And don’t get me started the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestials can be gleaned in an short time of online research.

It’s understandable that creatures who resemble biblical angels received less attention. There are stories that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players game statistics for angels they could murder in their games, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range of looks and roles, that controversial beginning stunted their development. There is also a limit to what you can do with beings that are created to be servants of a god. Sure, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is restricted. From that perspective, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic creatures that can evolve in a lot of directions without sacrificing their unique nature.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Celestials

Honestly, I understand: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors 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 still don’t know what occurs after the god who created them dies. There is no canonical answer, and every DM is free to come up with their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue central to the setting of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been killed by mortals in a massive war that concluded seven decades prior to the beginning of the campaign. So what became of the servants of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s solution is simple, horrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and became a plague that devastated entire countries. A lot about the past of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that after the gods were slain, the celestial beings went “feral”. They became monsters that could destroy entire regions if left unchecked. Viewers got a glimpse of how frightening such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as the character Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a terrifying celestial entity held bound in a massive coffin.

It is no accident that the most compelling celestial beings in Dungeons & Dragons, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with ending the eternal Blood War led to her being tainted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil of Hell. Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was summoned by a cleric inside the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “cleaning” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the madness infusing the place.

The corruption seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, nor led astray by their own pride or fixations. They are casualties; another dreadful consequence of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 progresses, I hope Mulligan focuses on the notion that, regardless of how “righteous” that conflict was, the humans who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their world has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been cut off, and the creatures that were formerly their guardians, shepherding their souls to security following death, are currently frightening disasters.

Certainly, this may just be a convenient way to solve the original creator’s initial quandary. It is simple to rationalize slaying an divine being when it’s a screaming, insane creature with multiple fangs, but I am also highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s loathing for divine beings in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these horrific heavenly beings to the flat {