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D&D presents a unique creative space. Theoretically, it serves as a blank canvas where the creativity of DMs and participants can paint any kind of picture. Yet, D&D also carries a 50-year legacy of worlds, monsters, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and general lore. Even the best creative minds find it difficult to completely free themselves from this extensive landscape of references, meaning that a lot of “fresh” content for D&D is a reworking of familiar ideas. At times you get elements that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” on other occasions you cringe like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the original settings of Exandria (designed by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the setting crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). Although devoted followers of Brennan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (Brennan really hates the deities!), the second episode stood out to me because of a highly innovative take on a traditional Dungeons & Dragons monster category: celestials.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Demons and devils (collectively known as evil outsiders) have been included in Dungeons & Dragons since 1976, but it took a while longer for their angelic equivalents to appear. A handful of distinct “divine messengers” with individual titles appeared in Dragon magazine editions 12 (February 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were essentially riffs on the angels from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for more original versions, we had to hold out for 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” article in Dragon, where he presented new monsters that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva, the planetar, and the solar first appeared, initiating a tradition of creatures known as celestials that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the servants of benevolent gods, created by their masters to serve as warriors, leaders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and in general to inhabit their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who fight against the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and support the faith of their deity on the mortal world. Despite their close connection with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Famous examples 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.

The mythology of celestials is markedly underdeveloped compared to fiends. The Abyss has 99 layers of expanding chaos 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 interesting subplots. And don’t get me started the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestial beings can be gleaned in an short time 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 games, and although celestials were later expanded 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 creatures that are created to be divine minions. Sure, they have independent thought, but their narrative potential is restricted. In that sense, the bad guys have much more freedom: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re in the end unpredictable and disorderly entities that can evolve in a many ways without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Reimagines Heavenly Beings

To be frank, I get it: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of good that smite evil in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also become clichéd quickly. That general lack of interest means we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. As an illustration, we still don’t know what happens once the god who made them dies. There is no canonical answer, and every DM is free to come up with their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question central to the world of Aramán, one where the deities have all been slain by mortals in a massive war that ended seven decades before the start of the campaign. So what happened to the followers of these divine beings?

Brennan’s answer is simple, terrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and became a blight that devastated entire countries. A lot about the history of Aramán, the war against the gods, and its aftermath in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that after the deities were slain, the celestial beings went “feral”. They transformed into monsters that could annihilate large areas if left unchecked. Viewers caught a sight of how frightening one of these creatures can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as the character Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial kept chained in a massive coffin.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestial beings in Dungeons & Dragons, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with concluding the Blood War led to her being corrupted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was called forth by a cleric inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the insanity infusing the location.

The taint observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, nor led astray by their own pride or fixations. They are victims; another terrible result of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 continues, I hope Mulligan concentrates on the idea that, regardless of how “just” that war was, the humans who won it may still regret the outcome. Their realm has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been severed, and the beings that were formerly their protectors, guiding their spirits to safety after death, are currently frightening disasters.

Sure, this may just 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 entity with rows of teeth, but I am also highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in D&D. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s loathing for divine beings in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {