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D&D provides a distinctive imaginative arena. In theory, it acts as a blank canvas where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and players can paint countless scenarios. However, D&D also bears a 50-year legacy of campaign settings, monsters, spellcasting rules, well-known NPCs, and general lore. Even the best imaginative thinkers find it difficult to entirely detach themselves from this extensive landscape of references, so that a lot of “new” content for D&D is a reworking of sampled tracks. At times you encounter things that sound as good as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” other times you cringe as if hearing “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the original settings of Exandria (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While devoted followers of Brennan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (He really hates the deities!), episode 2 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 Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (often called evil outsiders) have been included in D&D since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to show up. A few unique “divine messengers” with specific names appeared in Dragon magazine issues #12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than variations of the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for more original versions, we had to hold out for the early 80s and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” article in Dragon magazine, where he presented fresh creatures that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s when the deva, the planetar, and the solar angel made their debut, starting a tradition of creatures known as celestial entities that is still present in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestials are the servants of benevolent gods, made by their creators to serve as soldiers, leaders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and overall to inhabit their realms in the Upper Planes. They are champions of good who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and help uphold the belief of their deity on the mortal world. Despite their close connection with the gods, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Well-known instances include Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is notably underdeveloped compared to fiends. The Abyss has 99 layers of ever-growing disorder and demon lords tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a interpretation of the series Game of Thrones with greater violence and more engaging side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. In the meantime, everything you need to know about celestials can be gathered in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s understandable that creatures who look like angels from the Bible received less attention. There are stories that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about providing gamers game statistics for divine beings they could murder in their sessions, and even if celestials were later expanded with a bigger range 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 servants of a god. Sure, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is limited. In that sense, the bad guys have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re in the end unpredictable and disorderly entities that can spin in a many ways without sacrificing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Redefines Celestials

Honestly, 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 very fast. That widespread disinterest means we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what occurs once the god who made them dies. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is free to devise their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question at the heart of the world of Aramán, one where the gods have all been killed by humans in a great conflict that concluded 70 years prior to the beginning of the campaign. So what happened to the servants of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s solution is simple, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and turned into a blight that destroyed entire countries. A lot about the past of this world, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it seems that after the deities were slain, the celestials became “wild”. They transformed into monsters that could annihilate entire regions if left unchecked. Viewers got a glimpse of how scary one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as the character Wicander (player Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial entity held bound in a massive coffin.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestial beings in Dungeons & Dragons, story-wise, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with concluding the eternal Blood War led to her being tainted by the devil Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was called forth by a priest inside Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the insanity infusing the place.

The corruption observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings did not lose their virtue. They weren’t tricked, nor misled by their own pride or fixations. They are victims; another terrible result of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign progresses, it is hoped Mulligan focuses on the notion that, no matter how “just” that conflict was, the mortals who won it may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their realm has been wounded, their connection to the afterlife has been severed, and the creatures that were once their protectors, guiding their spirits to safety after death, are now frightening disasters.

Sure, this might simply be a convenient way to address the original creator’s original dilemma. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a shrieking, mad creature with multiple fangs, but I am also highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I am not entirely in accord with Brennan’s loathing for divine beings in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the flat {