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D&D presents a unique creative space. Theoretically, it acts as a blank canvas where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and participants can paint countless scenarios. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a 50-year legacy of campaign settings, creatures, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and general lore. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this vast landscape of references, meaning that a lot of “new” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of sampled tracks. Sometimes you encounter things that sound as good as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you wince like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past due to the original settings of Exandria (created by the DM Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). Although longtime fans of Mulligan and his 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 classic D&D creature type: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (collectively known as evil outsiders) have been part of Dungeons & Dragons since 1976, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A few unique “divine messengers” with specific names appeared in the publication Dragon editions 12 (February 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were little more than riffs on the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until the early 80s and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon, where he introduced fresh creatures that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s when the deva angel, the planetar, and the solar angel first appeared, starting a lineage of beings known as celestial entities that is still present in the most recent version of the game.

In D&D, celestials are the servants of benevolent gods, made by their creators to act as soldiers, commanders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and overall to populate their domains in the Upper Planes. They are champions of good who battle the forces of chaos and evil from the Lower Planes and help uphold the belief of their god on the Material Plane. Despite their close connection with the divine beings, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Famous examples include Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is notably less fleshed out in contrast to demonic entities. The chaotic Abyss has 99 layers of expanding chaos and demon lords tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more interesting side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the mysterious Yugoloth. In the meantime, all the essential information about celestials can be gathered in an hour of online research.

It’s understandable that beings who look like biblical angels went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about providing gamers stat blocks for angels they could murder in their games, and although celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of appearances and purposes, that problematic origin stunted their development. There is also a limit to what you can do with creatures that are created to be servants of a god. Sure, they have free will, but their storytelling range is restricted. In that sense, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Demon Lords, 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 unique nature.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Heavenly Beings

To be frank, I understand: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of virtue that smite evil in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also get cheesy quickly. That general lack of interest means we still don’t know that much about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what happens once the deity who created them perishes. There is no official explanation, and every DM is able to devise their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to center this issue at the heart of the world of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been slain by mortals in a great conflict that concluded seven decades prior to the beginning of the campaign. So what became of the servants of these divine beings?

Brennan’s answer is simple, horrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and turned into a plague that destroyed entire countries. A great deal about the history of Aramán, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the present has still to be revealed, but it seems that when the gods died, the celestials became “wild”. They became creatures that could destroy entire regions if not contained. The audience caught a sight of how frightening one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” a terrifying celestial entity kept chained in a enormous casket.

It’s not a coincidence that the most interesting celestials in D&D, story-wise, are those who have fallen from grace. The angel Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with concluding the eternal Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. Fazrian is a obscure Planetar angel who was called forth by a priest inside Undermountain and developed a fixation on “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the insanity permeating the place.

The taint observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, nor misled by their own arrogance or fixations. They are victims; one more terrible result of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 progresses, I hope the DM concentrates on the notion that, regardless of how “just” that conflict was, the mortals who won it may still regret the consequences. Their realm has been wounded, their connection to the afterlife has been severed, and the creatures that were formerly their guardians, guiding their spirits to safety after death, are now terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this might simply be a practical method to address the original creator’s initial quandary. It’s easy to justify killing an divine being when it’s a screaming, insane entity 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 divine beings in his campaigns, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {