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D&D provides a unique imaginative arena. Theoretically, it serves as a empty slate where the creativity of DMs and participants can craft any kind of picture. However, D&D also carries a five-decade history of campaign settings, creatures, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the best creative minds struggle to completely free themselves from this vast landscape of references, so that a lot of “fresh” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of sampled tracks. At times you get things that sound as good as “a classic hit,” other times you wince like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

The show Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the original settings of its first setting (designed by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world created by Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although longtime fans of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (Brennan really hates the deities!), episode 2 stood out to me because of a truly original interpretation on a traditional D&D creature type: celestials.

The Historical Background of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (often called evil outsiders) have been part of Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it took a while longer for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A few unique “angels” with specific names were featured in Dragon magazine issues #12 (February 1978) and 17 (August 1978). These were essentially riffs on the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian sacred texts; for more original versions, we had to wait until the early 80s and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column in Dragon magazine, where he presented new monsters that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s when the deva, the planetar, and the solar made their debut, initiating a tradition of beings known as celestial entities that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the servants of benevolent gods, made by their creators to act as warriors, leaders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and in general to populate their domains in the Upper Planes. They are paragons of virtue who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Lower Planes and support the faith of their god on the mortal world. Despite their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Famous examples encompass the angel Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is notably underdeveloped compared to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has 99 layers of expanding chaos and lords of demons warring amongst themselves. The infernal Nine Hells are a interpretation of the series Game of Thrones with greater violence and more interesting side stories. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestials can be gleaned in an short time of wiki reading.

It’s understandable that creatures who look like angels from the Bible received less attention. Rumor has it that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players stat blocks for divine beings they could kill in their games, and even if celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range of appearances and roles, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can create for creatures that are created to be servants of a god. Certainly, they have independent thought, but their narrative potential is limited. From that perspective, the bad guys have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic creatures that can spin in a lot of directions without losing their unique nature.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Celestials

To be frank, I understand: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of virtue that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. That general lack of interest implies we still don’t know that much about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what occurs once the deity who created them perishes. There is no official explanation, and every DM is free to come up with their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question central to the world of Aramán, one where the gods have all been killed by mortals in a massive war that ended seven decades prior to the beginning of the campaign. So what happened to the servants of these gods?

Brennan’s answer is simple, terrifying, and very interesting: They went crazy and turned into a plague that destroyed whole nations. A great deal about the past of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the current era has still to be revealed, but it appears that when the gods were slain, the celestial beings became “wild”. 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 Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a terrifying celestial entity held bound in a massive coffin.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestials in D&D, narratively, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, as an instance, was a mighty Solar angel whose obsession with ending the eternal Blood War led to her being tainted by the devil Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar angel who was summoned by a priest inside Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the madness permeating the place.

The taint seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, or led astray by their own arrogance or fixations. They are victims; one more dreadful result of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 progresses, it is hoped Mulligan focuses on the notion that, regardless of how “righteous” that conflict was, the humans who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the outcome. Their realm has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the beings that were formerly their guardians, shepherding their souls to safety after death, are now frightening disasters.

Certainly, this may just be a convenient way to address the original creator’s original dilemma. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an divine being when it’s a screaming, insane creature with multiple fangs, but I also feel highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythology in Dungeons & Dragons. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s loathing for divine beings in his stories, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the flat {