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D&D offers a distinctive creative space. In theory, it acts as a empty slate where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and players can paint any kind of picture. However, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a five-decade history of campaign settings, creatures, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and rich mythology. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this extensive landscape of references, meaning that a great deal of “fresh” content for D&D is a reworking of sampled tracks. Sometimes you get things that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” other times you cringe as if hearing “All Summer Long.”

The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the unique worlds of Exandria (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although devoted followers of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (He really hates the deities!), episode 2 stood out to me because of a highly innovative take on a classic D&D creature type: angelic beings.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Demons and devils (collectively known as fiends) have been included in Dungeons & Dragons since 1976, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to appear. A few unique “angels” with specific names appeared in Dragon magazine editions #12 (Feb. 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 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon magazine, where he introduced fresh creatures that would appear in the 1983 Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva, the planetar, and the solar first appeared, starting a tradition of creatures known as celestials that is continues to exist in the most recent version of the role-playing game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the servants of good-aligned deities, made by their creators to serve as warriors, commanders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and in general to populate their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who battle the forces of chaos and evil from the Lower Planes and support the belief of their god 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 world, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is notably less fleshed out compared to demonic entities. The chaotic Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and demon lords tearing each other apart. The Nine Hells are a interpretation 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 gathered in an short time of online research.

It’s not surprising that beings who resemble angels from the Bible received less attention. There are stories that Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players stat blocks for divine beings they could kill in their sessions, and even if celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of appearances and roles, that controversial beginning stunted their development. There is also a limit to what you can create for creatures that are created to be divine minions. Sure, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is restricted. In that sense, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic creatures that can evolve in a lot of directions without sacrificing their unique nature.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Redefines Celestials

To be frank, I get it: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of good that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also get cheesy quickly. That general lack of interest implies we still don’t know a great deal about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what happens once the god who made them dies. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is free to come up with their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue at the heart of the setting of Aramán, one where the gods have all been killed by mortals in a great conflict that ended 70 years prior to the beginning of the campaign. So what became of the servants of these gods?

Brennan’s solution is straightforward, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and turned into a blight that destroyed whole nations. A lot about the history of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the present has still to be revealed, but it seems that after the gods were slain, the celestial beings went “feral”. They transformed into creatures that could destroy large areas if not contained. The audience caught a sight of how scary one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial entity kept chained in a massive coffin.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestial beings in D&D, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. The angel Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with concluding the Blood War led to her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was called forth by a priest inside Undermountain and developed a fixation on “cleaning” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the madness permeating the location.

The taint observed in the fourth campaign of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials did not lose their virtue. They weren’t tricked, nor misled by their own pride or obsessions. They are casualties; one more dreadful result of the Shapers’ War. As the new campaign progresses, it is hoped the DM focuses on the notion that, no matter how “righteous” that conflict was, the humans who won it may nonetheless lament the outcome. Their world has been harmed, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the creatures that were formerly their protectors, shepherding their souls to security following death, are currently frightening disasters.

Sure, this might simply be a convenient way to address Gygax’s original dilemma. It is simple to justify killing an divine being when it’s a screaming, insane entity with multiple fangs, but I am also very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythology in D&D. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s loathing for divine beings in his stories, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {