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D&D provides a unique imaginative arena. In theory, it serves as a blank canvas where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and participants can craft any kind of picture. However, D&D also carries a five-decade history of worlds, monsters, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the best imaginative thinkers find it difficult to completely free themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, so that a great deal of “fresh” material for D&D is a reiteration of sampled tracks. At times you encounter things that sound as good as “a classic hit,” on other occasions you cringe like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the unique worlds of Exandria (created by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world created by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). Although devoted followers of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (Brennan really hates the gods!), the second episode impressed me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a traditional Dungeons & Dragons monster category: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Demons and devils (often called fiends) have been part of Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to appear. A handful of distinct “angels” with specific names were featured in the publication Dragon issues 12 (Feb. 1978) and 17 (August 1978). These were little more than riffs on the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column in Dragon, where he presented fresh creatures that would appear in the 1983 Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva, the planetar, and the solar first appeared, starting a lineage of creatures 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 agents of good-aligned deities, created by their creators to serve as soldiers, leaders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and overall to populate their domains in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Lower Planes and support the faith of their god on the Material Plane. Despite their close connection with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Well-known instances 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.

Celestial lore is markedly underdeveloped compared to demonic entities. The Abyss has 99 layers of expanding chaos and demon lords tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a interpretation of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gleaned in an hour of online research.

It’s understandable that beings who look like angels from the Bible went underdeveloped. There are stories that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about providing gamers game statistics for divine beings they could kill in their sessions, and even if celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of appearances and purposes, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can create for creatures that are designed to be divine minions. Certainly, they have free will, but their storytelling range is restricted. In that sense, the antagonists have much more freedom: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly entities that can evolve in a lot of directions without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Heavenly Beings

Honestly, I understand: Celestial beings are just not that interesting. Divine champions of virtue that smite evil in every manifestation can be cool, but they also become clichéd quickly. That general lack of interest means we remain unaware of that much about celestials. As an illustration, we still don’t know what occurs once the god who created them dies. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is able to devise their own interpretation. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to center this issue at the heart of the world of Aramán, one where the deities have all been killed by humans in a massive war that concluded 70 years prior to the beginning of the campaign. So what became of the followers of these gods?

Mulligan’s solution is straightforward, horrifying, and very interesting: They went crazy and turned into a blight that destroyed whole nations. A lot about the history of this world, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the present has still to be revealed, but it seems that after the gods died, the celestials went “feral”. They transformed into monsters that could annihilate large areas if not contained. Viewers caught a sight of how frightening such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial entity held bound in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestials in D&D, story-wise, are those who have fallen from grace. 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 turned into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar angel who was summoned by a priest inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing to the madness permeating the location.

The taint seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, nor misled by their own pride or fixations. They are casualties; another terrible consequence of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 continues, it is hoped Mulligan focuses on the idea that, no matter how “righteous” 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 formerly their guardians, shepherding their souls to safety following death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this may just be a practical method to solve the original creator’s initial quandary. It is simple to justify killing an angel when it’s a shrieking, insane entity with multiple fangs, but I am also highly fascinated by this new declination of the celestial mythology in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with Brennan’s loathing for divine beings in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {