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D&D offers a unique imaginative arena. In theory, it acts as a blank canvas where the creativity of DMs and participants can craft countless scenarios. However, D&D also carries a 50-year legacy of worlds, monsters, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and general lore. Even the most talented imaginative thinkers struggle to entirely detach themselves from this vast universe of existing content, so that a great deal of “fresh” content for D&D is a reworking of familiar ideas. At times you encounter elements that sound as good as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” other times you cringe as if hearing “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the unique worlds of Exandria (designed by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While longtime fans of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (Brennan really hates the gods!), the second episode stood out to me because of a truly original interpretation on a classic D&D creature type: angelic beings.

A Brief History of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Demons and devils (often called fiends) have been part of Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it took a while longer for their heavenly counterparts to appear. A handful of distinct “angels” with specific names appeared in the publication Dragon issues #12 (February 1978) and #17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than riffs on the angels from biblical religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to hold out for 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon, where he presented fresh creatures that would appear in the 1983 Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar, and the solar angel made their debut, starting 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, celestials are the agents of good-aligned deities, created by their creators to act as soldiers, leaders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and overall to populate their domains in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Lower Planes and support the belief of their deity on the mortal world. In spite of their close connection with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Well-known instances encompass Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is markedly underdeveloped in contrast to demonic entities. The Abyss has 99 layers of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The Nine Hells are a version of the series Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging subplots. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestials can be gleaned in an hour of online research.

It’s not surprising that beings who look like biblical angels received less attention. Rumor has it that Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players stat blocks for divine beings they could murder in their sessions, and although celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of appearances and roles, that problematic origin hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can do with beings that are created to be servants of a god. Certainly, they have free will, but their storytelling range is restricted. From that perspective, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Lords of Demons, Infernal Dukes, and etc.) but they’re in the end fickle and chaotic entities that can spin in a many ways without losing their unique nature.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Reimagines Heavenly Beings

Honestly, I get it: Celestials are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of virtue that smite evil in all its forms can be cool, but they also get cheesy very fast. That general lack of interest implies we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what occurs once the god who made them dies. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is able to come up with their own interpretation. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question at the heart of the setting of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been slain by humans in a massive war that concluded seven decades before the beginning of the campaign. So what became of the servants of these gods?

Mulligan’s answer is straightforward, horrifying, and very interesting: They went crazy and turned into a blight that devastated entire countries. A lot about the past of Aramán, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that when the gods were slain, the celestial beings went “feral”. They transformed into creatures that could annihilate entire regions if not contained. Viewers got a glimpse of how scary such a being 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 kept chained in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestial beings in Dungeons & Dragons, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with ending the eternal Blood War led to her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was called forth by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing to the insanity permeating the location.

The corruption seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, or misled by their own pride or fixations. They are casualties; another dreadful consequence of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 progresses, it is hoped the DM concentrates on the notion that, regardless of how “righteous” that conflict was, the mortals who won it may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their realm has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been cut off, and the creatures that were once their guardians, shepherding their souls to security following death, are now terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this might simply be a practical method to solve the original creator’s original dilemma. It is simple to justify killing an divine being when it’s a screaming, insane creature with rows of teeth, but I am also highly fascinated by this new declination of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with the DM’s loathing for divine beings in his campaigns, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the flat {