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D&D presents a unique imaginative arena. Theoretically, it acts as a blank canvas where the imagination of DMs and players can paint any kind of picture. However, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a five-decade history of worlds, creatures, spellcasting rules, well-known NPCs, and general lore. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this vast landscape of references, so that a great deal of “fresh” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of sampled tracks. Sometimes you get elements that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you wince like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past due to the original settings of its first setting (designed by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the setting created by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While longtime fans of Mulligan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (He strongly dislikes the gods!), episode 2 stood out to me because of a truly original take on a traditional D&D creature type: celestials.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (collectively known as fiends) have been included in D&D since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts 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 riffs on the celestial figures from biblical sacred texts; for more original versions, we had to hold out for the early 80s and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon, where he presented fresh creatures that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva, the planetar, and the solar made their debut, initiating a tradition of creatures known as celestials that is still present in the latest edition of the game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the servants of good-aligned deities, created by their masters to act as warriors, leaders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and overall to populate their domains in the Upper Planes. 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 mortal world. Despite their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Well-known instances encompass the angel Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is markedly less fleshed out in contrast to fiends. The Abyss has 99 layers of expanding chaos and demon lords warring amongst themselves. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of the series Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestials can be gleaned 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 Gary Gygax felt uneasy about providing gamers stat blocks for angels they could murder in their games, and even if celestials were subsequently developed with a broader spectrum of looks and purposes, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There is also a limit to what you can create for beings that are created to be divine minions. Sure, they have free will, but their narrative potential is limited. From that perspective, the antagonists have much more freedom: They have defined superiors (Lords of Demons, Infernal Dukes, and etc.) but they’re in the end fickle and chaotic creatures that can spin in a lot of directions without losing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Redefines Celestials

Honestly, I understand: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of good that smite evil in every manifestation can be cool, but they also become clichéd very fast. That general lack of interest means we still don’t know that much about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what happens after the deity who made them perishes. There is no official explanation, and every DM is free to devise their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue at the heart of the world of Aramán, a place where the deities have all been killed by mortals in a massive war that ended 70 years prior to the start of the campaign. So what became of the servants of these gods?

Brennan’s answer is straightforward, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and turned into a plague that devastated entire countries. A lot about the past of this world, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it seems that after the deities were slain, the celestial beings became “wild”. They became monsters that could annihilate large areas if not contained. Viewers caught a sight of how frightening one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a terrifying celestial kept chained in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestial beings in D&D, story-wise, are those who have fallen from grace. The angel Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with concluding the Blood War resulted in her being tainted by Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was summoned by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the evil in the Terminus level of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the madness infusing the place.

The taint observed in the fourth campaign of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, nor misled by their own pride or fixations. They are casualties; one more dreadful consequence of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 continues, I hope Mulligan focuses on the notion that, regardless of how “just” that war was, the mortals who emerged victorious may still regret the consequences. Their world has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the creatures that were once their guardians, guiding their spirits to security following death, are currently frightening disasters.

Sure, this may just be a practical method to address the original creator’s initial quandary. It is simple to justify killing an divine being when it’s a screaming, mad entity with rows of teeth, but I also feel highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s loathing for divine beings in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {