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D&D presents a unique creative space. Theoretically, it serves as a empty slate where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and players can craft countless scenarios. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a 50-year legacy of worlds, creatures, magic systems, established non-player characters, and rich mythology. Even the best imaginative thinkers struggle to completely free themselves from this vast universe of existing content, so that a lot of “new” content for D&D is a reiteration of familiar ideas. Sometimes you encounter things that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you wince like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

The show Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the original settings of its first setting (created by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While longtime fans of Brennan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (He strongly dislikes the deities!), the second episode stood out to me because of a truly original take on a traditional Dungeons & Dragons monster category: celestials.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in Dungeons & Dragons

Demons and devils (collectively known as evil outsiders) have been included in D&D since 1976, but it took a while longer for their heavenly counterparts to appear. A few unique “divine messengers” with specific names appeared in Dragon magazine issues 12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than variations of the angels from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for more original versions, we had to wait until 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column in Dragon, where he presented fresh creatures that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva, the planetar, and the solar angel made their debut, starting a tradition of beings known as celestials that is still present in the latest edition of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestial beings are the servants of good-aligned deities, made by their masters to serve as warriors, leaders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and in general to inhabit their realms in the Upper Planes. 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. In spite of their close connection with the divine beings, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Famous examples encompass Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is markedly less fleshed out compared to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and demon lords warring amongst themselves. The Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging side stories. And don’t get me started the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gathered in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s understandable that creatures who look like biblical angels received less attention. There are stories that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about giving players stat blocks for divine beings they could kill in their games, and even if celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of looks and roles, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can do with beings that are created to be divine minions. Certainly, they have free will, but their storytelling range is restricted. From that perspective, 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 Reimagines Heavenly Beings

Honestly, I understand: Celestials are just not that interesting. Divine champions of virtue that smite evil in all its forms can be impressive, but they also become clichéd very fast. That widespread disinterest implies we still don’t know that much about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what occurs once the god who made them perishes. There is no canonical answer, and every DM is free to devise their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue central to the setting of Aramán, one where the deities have all been killed by humans in a great conflict that ended 70 years prior to the beginning of the story. So what became of the followers of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s answer is straightforward, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and became a blight that destroyed whole nations. A great deal about the past of this world, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the present has still to be revealed, but it seems that when the gods were slain, the celestials became “wild”. They transformed into monsters that could annihilate large areas if left unchecked. The audience got a glimpse of how scary one of these creatures can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as the character Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial entity held bound in a enormous casket.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestial beings in Dungeons & Dragons, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. The angel 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 of Hell. Fazrian is a little-known Planetar angel who was summoned by a cleric inside Undermountain and developed a fixation on “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the madness permeating the location.

The corruption seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials did not lose their virtue. They were not deceived, nor led astray by their own arrogance or fixations. They are casualties; another terrible result of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 continues, it is hoped Mulligan focuses on the idea that, regardless of how “righteous” that conflict was, the humans who won it may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their realm has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been cut off, and the beings that were formerly their protectors, guiding their spirits to security following death, are now frightening disasters.

Sure, this may just be a practical method to solve Gygax’s original dilemma. It is simple to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a shrieking, insane creature with multiple fangs, but I also feel very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythology in Dungeons & Dragons. I am not entirely in accord with Brennan’s loathing for gods in his stories, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {