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Dungeons & Dragons presents a unique creative space. Theoretically, it acts as a blank canvas where the creativity of DMs and players can paint countless scenarios. Yet, D&D also carries a five-decade history of worlds, monsters, magic systems, established non-player characters, and rich mythology. Even the most talented creative minds find it difficult to entirely detach themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, meaning that a great deal of “fresh” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of sampled tracks. At times you get elements that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” other times you wince as if hearing “a derivative tune.”

The show Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the original settings of Exandria (designed by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although longtime fans of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (Brennan strongly dislikes the deities!), episode 2 impressed me because of a highly innovative take on a traditional D&D creature type: celestials.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in Dungeons & Dragons

Demons and devils (collectively known as fiends) have been part of D&D since 1976, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to appear. A handful of distinct “angels” with individual titles appeared in Dragon magazine editions #12 (February 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were essentially riffs on the angels from biblical religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until the early 80s and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” column in Dragon magazine, where he introduced fresh creatures that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva, the planetar, and the solar angel made their debut, starting a tradition of beings known as celestial entities that is still present in the latest edition of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestial beings are the agents of good-aligned deities, created by their creators to act as warriors, commanders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and in general to inhabit their domains in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and support the belief of their god on the mortal world. Despite their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Well-known instances 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.

Celestial lore is markedly underdeveloped in contrast to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and demon lords warring amongst themselves. The infernal Nine Hells are a interpretation of Game of Thrones with greater violence and more interesting subplots. And don’t get me started the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestials can be gathered in an short time of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that beings who resemble angels from the Bible received less attention. Rumor has it that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about providing gamers stat blocks for divine beings they could murder in their sessions, and although celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of appearances and roles, that controversial beginning stunted their development. There’s also only so much what you can create for creatures that are created to be divine minions. Certainly, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is restricted. In that sense, the bad guys have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re in the end unpredictable and disorderly creatures that can spin in a many ways without sacrificing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Celestials

Honestly, I understand: Celestial beings are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of virtue that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also get cheesy quickly. That general lack of interest implies we still don’t know that much about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what happens once the deity who made them dies. There is no canonical answer, and each Dungeon Master is able to come up with their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to center this issue central to the world of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been slain by mortals in a massive war that concluded 70 years prior to the start of the campaign. So what became of the servants of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s solution is simple, terrifying, and very interesting: They went crazy and turned into a blight that destroyed entire countries. A lot about the past of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the present has still to be revealed, but it appears that when the gods died, the celestials became “wild”. They transformed into creatures that could destroy large areas if not contained. 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 “ancestor,” a terrifying celestial held bound in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestial beings in Dungeons & Dragons, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, as an instance, was a mighty Solar angel whose obsession with concluding the Blood War resulted in her being tainted by Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was called forth by a cleric inside the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the evil in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the madness infusing the place.

The corruption seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, nor led astray by their own pride or obsessions. They are casualties; one more terrible result of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 progresses, it is hoped the DM focuses on the notion that, regardless of how “righteous” that war was, the humans who emerged victorious may still regret the outcome. Their world has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been cut off, and the creatures that were once their protectors, shepherding their souls to safety 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 justify killing an divine being when it’s a screaming, mad entity 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 campaigns, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {