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D&D provides a distinctive creative space. Theoretically, it acts as a empty slate where the imagination of DMs and participants can craft any kind of picture. However, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a five-decade history of campaign settings, creatures, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and general lore. Even the most talented creative minds find it difficult to completely free themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, so that a lot of “fresh” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of sampled tracks. Sometimes you encounter elements that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you cringe like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the original settings of its first setting (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although longtime fans of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (Brennan strongly dislikes the gods!), the second episode stood out to me because of a truly original interpretation on a traditional Dungeons & Dragons monster category: angelic beings.

A Brief History of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Demons and devils (often called fiends) have been included in D&D since 1976, but it took a while longer for their angelic equivalents to appear. A handful of distinct “angels” with specific names appeared in Dragon magazine editions 12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (Aug. 1978). These were essentially variations of the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to hold out for 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” article in Dragon, where he presented fresh creatures that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s when the deva angel, the planetar, and the solar angel made their debut, starting a tradition of creatures known as celestial entities that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the servants of benevolent gods, created by their masters to act as warriors, leaders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and overall to inhabit their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Lower Planes and support the faith of their deity on the Material Plane. Despite their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Well-known instances encompass Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the 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 underdeveloped compared to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has 99 layers of expanding chaos and demon lords tearing each other apart. The Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging subplots. And that’s not even mentioning the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestial beings can be gleaned in an hour of online research.

It’s understandable that beings who resemble biblical angels went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gygax felt uneasy about providing gamers game statistics for angels they could murder in their sessions, and although celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of looks and roles, that problematic origin stunted their development. There’s also only so much what you can do with creatures that are created to be servants of a god. Certainly, 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 ultimately fickle and chaotic entities that can spin in a lot of directions without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Heavenly Beings

Honestly, I understand: Celestials are just not that interesting. Divine champions of good that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also become clichéd very fast. That general lack of interest means we remain unaware of that much about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what happens once the god who created them perishes. There is no canonical answer, and each Dungeon Master is able to come up with their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question at the heart of the world of Aramán, one where the deities have all been slain by humans in a massive war that concluded 70 years prior to the start of the campaign. So what happened to the servants of these gods?

Mulligan’s solution is simple, horrifying, and very interesting: They went crazy and turned into a blight that devastated entire countries. A lot about the history of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the current era has still to be revealed, but it appears that when the deities were slain, the celestials became “wild”. They became creatures that could destroy large areas if not contained. Viewers got a glimpse of how scary such a being can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial kept chained in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestial beings in D&D, narratively, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with ending the Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. 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 huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the insanity infusing the place.

The corruption observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, or misled by their own arrogance or fixations. They are victims; another terrible result of the Shapers’ War. As the new campaign continues, 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 outcome. Their world has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been cut off, and the beings that were once their protectors, shepherding their souls to security after death, are now frightening disasters.

Sure, this might simply be a practical method to solve Gygax’s initial quandary. It is simple to justify killing an divine being when it’s a screaming, insane entity with multiple fangs, but I also feel highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I am not entirely in accord with Brennan’s loathing for gods in his campaigns, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {