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D&D offers a unique creative space. In theory, it acts as a empty slate where the creativity of DMs and players can paint any kind of picture. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a 50-year legacy of worlds, creatures, magic systems, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this extensive landscape of references, meaning that a great deal of “fresh” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of familiar ideas. Sometimes you get elements that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you cringe like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the original settings of its first setting (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the setting created by Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although devoted followers of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his common themes (Brennan really hates the gods!), the second episode stood out to me because of a truly original interpretation on a traditional Dungeons & Dragons monster category: celestials.

A Brief History of Celestials in D&D

Demons and devils (collectively known as fiends) have been part of D&D since 1976, but it took a while longer for their angelic equivalents to appear. A few unique “angels” with individual titles were featured in Dragon magazine editions #12 (Feb. 1978) and 17 (August 1978). These were little more than variations of the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to hold out for the early 80s and Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” article in Dragon magazine, where he presented new monsters that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual 2. That’s when the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar angel made their debut, starting a lineage of creatures known as celestial entities that is still present in the most recent version of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestial beings are the servants of benevolent gods, created by their masters to act as warriors, commanders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and overall to inhabit their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who battle the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and support the faith of their deity on the mortal world. In spite of their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Well-known instances include the angel Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is markedly less fleshed out compared to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has 99 layers of expanding chaos and lords of demons warring amongst themselves. The infernal Nine Hells are a interpretation of the series Game of Thrones with greater violence and more engaging subplots. And that’s not even mentioning the mysterious Yugoloth. In the meantime, all the essential information about celestials can be gleaned in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s understandable that creatures who resemble angels from the Bible received less attention. Rumor has it that Gygax was uncomfortable about providing gamers game statistics for angels they could murder in their games, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a broader spectrum 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 divine minions. Certainly, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is restricted. In that sense, 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 many ways without losing their unique nature.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Reimagines Heavenly Beings

Honestly, I understand: Celestial beings are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of virtue that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. That widespread disinterest implies we remain unaware of that much about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what occurs once the deity who created them perishes. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is able to devise their own interpretation. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question at the heart of the setting of Aramán, one where the deities have all been killed by mortals in a massive war that concluded seven decades prior to the beginning of the story. So what happened to the servants of these gods?

Brennan’s answer 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 war against the gods, and its aftermath in the present has still to be revealed, but it appears that after the deities were slain, the celestials went “feral”. They transformed into creatures that could annihilate entire regions if left unchecked. The audience caught a sight of how frightening such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) got to meet his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial kept chained in a massive coffin.

It is no accident that the most compelling celestial beings in Dungeons & Dragons, narratively, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with concluding the Blood War resulted in her being tainted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. Fazrian is a obscure Planetar angel who was called forth by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the madness permeating the place.

The corruption seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings did not lose their virtue. They weren’t tricked, or misled by their own pride or fixations. They are victims; another dreadful consequence of the Shapers’ War. As the new campaign continues, I hope the DM concentrates on the idea that, no matter how “righteous” that war was, the mortals who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the outcome. Their world has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been cut off, and the creatures that were formerly their guardians, shepherding their souls to safety after death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Certainly, 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, insane creature with rows of teeth, 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 loathing for divine beings in his campaigns, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {