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D&D offers a unique creative space. Theoretically, it serves as a empty slate where the imagination of DMs and players can paint countless scenarios. Yet, D&D also bears a 50-year legacy of campaign settings, creatures, magic systems, established non-player characters, and rich mythology. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this extensive landscape of references, meaning that a great deal of “new” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of familiar ideas. At times you get things that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you wince like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

The show Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the unique worlds of Exandria (created by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although devoted followers of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (He really hates the gods!), the second episode impressed me because of a truly original take on a traditional D&D creature type: celestials.

The Historical Background of Celestials in D&D

Demons and devils (collectively known as fiends) have been part of Dungeons & Dragons since 1976, but it took a while longer for their angelic equivalents to show up. A few unique “divine messengers” with individual titles were featured in Dragon magazine editions #12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were essentially riffs on the angels from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until the early 80s and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column in Dragon, where he introduced fresh creatures that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar angel, and the solar made their debut, starting a tradition of beings called celestial entities that is still present in the latest edition of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the agents of benevolent gods, created by their creators to act as warriors, commanders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and in general 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 Material Plane. In spite of their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Well-known instances encompass Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is notably underdeveloped compared to demonic entities. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a interpretation of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more interesting subplots. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. In the meantime, all the essential information about celestial beings can be gleaned in an hour of online research.

It’s understandable that beings who look like angels from the Bible went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about providing gamers game statistics for angels they could kill in their games, and even if celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range of looks and purposes, that controversial beginning stunted their development. There’s also only so much what you can create for beings that are created to be divine minions. Certainly, they have free will, but their storytelling range is limited. From that perspective, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Lords of Demons, Infernal Dukes, and so on) but they’re in the end fickle and chaotic entities that can spin in a many ways without losing their unique nature.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Reimagines Heavenly Beings

To be frank, I understand: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of good that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be cool, but they also become clichéd quickly. That widespread disinterest means we still don’t know a great deal about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what happens once the god who made them dies. There is no official explanation, and every DM is free to come up with their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question central to the setting of Aramán, one where the gods have all been killed by mortals in a great conflict that ended 70 years prior to the beginning of the story. So what happened to the servants of these divine beings?

Brennan’s solution is simple, horrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and became a blight that devastated whole nations. A great deal about the history of Aramán, the war against the gods, and its aftermath in the present has still to be revealed, but it appears that after the gods died, the celestial beings became “wild”. They transformed into monsters that could annihilate large areas if left unchecked. The audience got a glimpse of how scary such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as the character Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” a terrifying celestial entity kept chained in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most compelling celestial beings in Dungeons & Dragons, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. The angel Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with concluding the eternal Blood War led to her being tainted by Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil of Hell. Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was summoned by a cleric inside Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the evil in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the insanity infusing the location.

The taint seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings did not lose their virtue. They were not deceived, nor led astray by their own pride or obsessions. They are casualties; one more dreadful consequence of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign continues, it is hoped Mulligan focuses on the idea that, regardless of how “righteous” that conflict was, the mortals who won it may still regret the outcome. Their realm has been harmed, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the beings that were formerly their guardians, guiding their spirits to safety after death, are now terrifying calamities.

Sure, this might simply be a practical method to solve Gygax’s original dilemma. It is simple to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a screaming, mad creature with rows of teeth, but I am also very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s aversion for gods in his campaigns, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the flat {