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D&D provides a unique creative space. Theoretically, it serves as a blank canvas where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and players can paint countless scenarios. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a five-decade history of worlds, monsters, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the best imaginative thinkers find it difficult to completely free themselves from this vast universe of existing content, so that a lot of “fresh” material for D&D is a reworking of sampled tracks. Sometimes you get things that sound as good as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you wince as if hearing “a derivative tune.”

The show Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past due to the original settings of Exandria (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). Although devoted followers of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his common themes (Brennan really hates the gods!), episode 2 impressed me because of a highly innovative take on a classic D&D creature type: celestials.

A Brief History of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (often called evil outsiders) have been part of D&D since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to show up. A handful of distinct “divine messengers” with individual titles appeared in Dragon magazine editions 12 (February 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were essentially riffs on the angels from biblical sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column in Dragon, where he presented new monsters that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar first appeared, initiating a tradition of beings called celestial entities 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 masters to serve as warriors, commanders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and overall to inhabit their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who battle the forces of chaos and evil from the Lower Planes and support the belief of their god on the Material Plane. Despite their close connection with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Famous examples encompass the angel Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, 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 Abyss has 99 layers of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The Nine Hells are a version of the series Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging subplots. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. In the meantime, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gleaned in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s understandable that creatures who resemble biblical angels received less attention. There are stories that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about providing gamers stat blocks for angels they could kill in their games, and although celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of looks and purposes, that problematic origin stunted their development. There is also a limit to what you can do with beings that are designed to be divine minions. Sure, they have independent thought, but their narrative potential is limited. From that perspective, the bad guys have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly entities that can evolve in a many ways without losing their unique nature.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Reimagines Heavenly Beings

Honestly, I get it: Celestial beings are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of good that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be cool, but they also get cheesy quickly. That widespread disinterest means we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what occurs once the deity who made them perishes. There is no canonical answer, and every DM is able to come up with their own interpretation. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue central to the world of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been slain by humans in a massive war that concluded 70 years before the start of the story. So what happened to the followers of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s answer is simple, horrifying, and very interesting: They went crazy and turned into a plague that devastated whole nations. A great deal about the past of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the present has still to be revealed, but it appears that after the gods died, the celestials became “wild”. They became creatures that could destroy large areas if not contained. Viewers caught a sight of how frightening such a being can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) got to meet his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial kept chained in a massive coffin.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestials in D&D, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. The angel Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with concluding the eternal Blood War led to her being corrupted by Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was called forth by a priest inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing to the insanity infusing the place.

The corruption seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, or misled by their own pride or fixations. They are victims; another dreadful result of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign progresses, it is hoped the DM focuses on the idea that, regardless of how “just” that war was, the mortals who won it may still regret the outcome. Their realm has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the creatures that were once their guardians, guiding their spirits to safety following death, are now frightening disasters.

Certainly, this might simply be a convenient way to address the original creator’s initial quandary. It is simple to justify killing an angel when it’s a shrieking, mad entity with multiple fangs, but I am also highly fascinated by this new declination of the celestial mythos in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with Brennan’s aversion for divine beings in his campaigns, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {