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D&D presents a unique imaginative arena. In theory, it acts as a empty slate where the imagination of DMs and players can paint any kind of picture. However, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a five-decade history of worlds, monsters, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and general lore. Even the best creative minds struggle to completely free themselves from this vast universe of existing content, so that a lot of “new” content for D&D is a reworking of sampled tracks. At times you get things that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” other times you wince as if hearing “a derivative tune.”

The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the unique worlds of its first setting (designed by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the setting crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although longtime fans of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his common themes (Brennan strongly dislikes the deities!), episode 2 stood out to me because of a highly innovative take on a traditional D&D creature type: celestials.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Fiendish creatures (often called evil outsiders) have been included in D&D since the mid-70s, but it took a while longer for their heavenly counterparts to appear. A few unique “angels” with individual titles were featured in the publication Dragon issues #12 (February 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were little more than riffs on the angels from biblical religious lore; for more original versions, we had to wait until the early 80s and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” column in Dragon magazine, where he introduced fresh creatures that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s when the deva, the planetar, and the solar first appeared, initiating a lineage of creatures called celestials that is still present in the most recent version of the game.

In D&D, celestials are the servants of good-aligned deities, created by their masters to serve as warriors, commanders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and in general to populate their realms in the Upper Planes. They are paragons of virtue who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and support the faith of their god on the Material Plane. In spite of their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Well-known instances include Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is notably less fleshed out compared to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has 99 layers of ever-growing disorder and demon lords tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with greater violence and more engaging subplots. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestials can be gleaned in an short time of online research.

It’s understandable that beings who resemble biblical angels received less attention. There are stories that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about providing gamers game statistics for angels they could murder in their games, and although celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of appearances and purposes, that problematic origin stunted their development. There is also a limit to what you can do with beings that are designed to be divine minions. Certainly, they have free will, but their storytelling range is limited. From that perspective, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re in the end unpredictable and disorderly entities that can spin in a many ways without sacrificing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Heavenly Beings

To be frank, I understand: Celestial beings are just not that interesting. Divine champions of good 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. For example, we have yet to learn what occurs after the deity who made them perishes. There is no official explanation, and every DM is free to devise their own interpretation. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue at the heart of the world of Aramán, a place where the deities have all been killed by mortals in a great conflict that ended seven decades before the start of the story. So what happened to the followers of these gods?

Brennan’s answer is simple, horrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and turned into a blight that devastated entire countries. A great deal about the history of this world, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it seems that after the gods were slain, the celestial beings became “wild”. They became monsters that could annihilate large areas if not contained. The audience caught a sight of how frightening one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial held bound in a enormous casket.

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 powerful Solar whose fixation with concluding the eternal Blood War resulted in her being tainted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar angel who was called forth by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the evil in the Terminus level of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the madness permeating the place.

The corruption seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, or led astray by their own arrogance or fixations. They are casualties; one more dreadful result of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign progresses, it is hoped Mulligan concentrates on the notion that, regardless of how “just” that conflict was, the humans who won it may still regret the consequences. Their world has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been cut off, and the creatures that were formerly their protectors, guiding their spirits to safety following death, are currently frightening disasters.

Sure, this might simply be a convenient way to address the original creator’s original dilemma. It is simple to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a screaming, mad creature with rows of teeth, but I am also very intrigued 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 {