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Dungeons & Dragons provides a unique creative space. In theory, it acts as a blank canvas where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and participants can paint countless scenarios. However, D&D also carries a 50-year legacy of worlds, monsters, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this vast universe of existing content, meaning that a lot of “new” material for D&D is a reworking of familiar ideas. At times you encounter things that sound as good as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you cringe like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the unique worlds of its first setting (created by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world crafted 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 recurring motifs (He really hates the gods!), the second episode impressed me because of a truly original take on a classic D&D creature type: angelic beings.

A Brief History of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Demons and devils (often called fiends) have been included in Dungeons & Dragons since 1976, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to appear. A few unique “divine messengers” with specific names appeared in the publication Dragon editions #12 (Feb. 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than variations of the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to hold out for 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” column in Dragon, where he presented new monsters that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s when the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar first appeared, initiating a lineage of creatures called celestials that is still present in the most recent version of the game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the servants of benevolent gods, made by their masters to serve as warriors, commanders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and in general to populate their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who fight against the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and support the belief of their deity on the mortal world. Despite their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Well-known instances include the angel Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is markedly less fleshed out in contrast to demonic entities. The chaotic 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 greater violence and more interesting subplots. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestial beings can be gleaned in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that creatures who look like biblical angels went underdeveloped. There are stories that Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players game statistics for angels they could murder in their sessions, and although celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of appearances and purposes, that problematic origin stunted their development. There’s also only so much what you can do with beings that are created to be divine minions. Sure, they have free will, but their narrative potential is restricted. From that perspective, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re in the end fickle and chaotic entities that can spin in a lot of directions without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Reimagines Celestials

Honestly, I get it: Celestial beings are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of good that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also become clichéd very fast. That widespread disinterest implies we remain unaware of that much about celestials. As an illustration, we still don’t know what occurs once the god who made them dies. There is no official explanation, and every DM is able to come up with their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to center this issue central to the world of Aramán, one where the deities have all been slain by mortals in a massive war that ended seven decades prior to the start of the campaign. So what happened to the servants of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s solution is simple, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and became a plague that devastated entire countries. A lot about the past of this world, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the present has still to be revealed, but it seems that when the gods were slain, the celestial beings went “feral”. They transformed into creatures that could annihilate large areas if not contained. The audience got a glimpse of how frightening one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as the character Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” a terrifying celestial held bound in a enormous casket.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestials in Dungeons & Dragons, story-wise, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with ending the Blood War resulted in her being tainted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was called forth by a priest inside Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the madness infusing the location.

The corruption observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, nor led astray by their own pride or obsessions. They are casualties; another terrible consequence of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign progresses, it is hoped Mulligan focuses on the notion that, no matter how “just” that conflict was, the mortals who won it may still regret the consequences. Their world has been harmed, their link to the hereafter has been cut off, and the beings that were once their guardians, shepherding their souls to safety following death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this might simply be a practical method to solve the original creator’s original dilemma. It’s easy to justify killing an divine being when it’s a shrieking, insane entity with multiple fangs, but I am also very intrigued by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in D&D. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s aversion for gods in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {