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D&D provides a unique imaginative arena. Theoretically, it acts as a blank canvas where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and players can paint countless scenarios. Yet, D&D also carries a 50-year legacy of campaign settings, monsters, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and general lore. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to completely free themselves from this vast universe of existing content, meaning that a great deal of “new” content for D&D is a reiteration of sampled tracks. At times you encounter elements that sound as good as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you cringe as if hearing “All Summer Long.”

The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the unique worlds of Exandria (created by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the setting created by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). Although longtime fans of Brennan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (Brennan strongly dislikes the deities!), the second episode impressed me because of a truly original interpretation on a traditional D&D creature type: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Demons and devils (often called fiends) have been part of Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it took a while longer for their angelic equivalents to appear. A few unique “angels” with specific names appeared in Dragon magazine issues #12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were essentially riffs on the angels from biblical sacred texts; for more original versions, we had to wait until 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column in Dragon, where he introduced new monsters that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s when the deva angel, the planetar, and the solar angel made their debut, initiating a lineage of beings called celestials that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the agents of benevolent gods, created by their creators to act as warriors, leaders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and in general to inhabit their domains in the Upper Planes. They are champions of good who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and help uphold the faith of their deity on the Material Plane. In spite of their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Famous examples encompass the angel Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is notably underdeveloped in contrast to demonic entities. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and demon lords warring amongst themselves. The Nine Hells are a interpretation of the series Game of Thrones with greater violence and more interesting subplots. And that’s not even mentioning the mysterious Yugoloth. In the meantime, all the essential information about celestials can be gathered in an short time of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that creatures who look like angels from the Bible went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players game statistics for divine beings they could murder in their games, and even if celestials were subsequently developed with a broader spectrum of looks and purposes, that problematic origin hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can create for creatures that are designed to be servants of a god. Certainly, they have free will, but their narrative potential is restricted. From that perspective, the bad guys have much more freedom: They have defined superiors (Lords of Demons, Infernal Dukes, and so on) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic creatures that can evolve in a many ways without sacrificing their unique nature.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Heavenly Beings

Honestly, 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 get cheesy very fast. That general lack of interest means we remain unaware of that much about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what occurs once the deity who created them perishes. There is no canonical answer, and each Dungeon Master is able to come up with their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to center this issue at the heart of the world of Aramán, one where the deities have all been slain by humans in a massive war that ended 70 years prior to the start of the campaign. So what became of the followers of these gods?

Brennan’s solution is straightforward, horrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and became a plague that destroyed whole nations. A lot about the past of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that after the gods died, 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 conclusion of the second episode, as the character Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a terrifying 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. The angel Zariel, as an instance, was a mighty Solar angel whose obsession with ending the eternal Blood War led to her being corrupted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil of Hell. Fazrian is a little-known Planetar angel who was called forth by a cleric inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the madness infusing the place.

The taint observed in the fourth campaign of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, or misled by their own pride or fixations. They are casualties; another dreadful result of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 continues, it is hoped the DM focuses on the notion that, no matter how “just” that conflict was, the humans who emerged victorious may still regret the consequences. Their realm has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been cut off, and the creatures that were once their protectors, shepherding their souls to safety following death, are now terrifying calamities.

Sure, this might simply be a convenient way to solve the original creator’s original dilemma. It is simple to rationalize slaying an divine being when it’s a shrieking, mad creature with rows of teeth, but I am also very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythos in D&D. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s loathing for gods in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {