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D&D presents a distinctive imaginative arena. Theoretically, it acts as a empty slate where the creativity of DMs and participants can paint countless scenarios. However, D&D also carries a 50-year legacy of worlds, creatures, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the most talented imaginative thinkers struggle to entirely detach themselves from this vast universe of existing content, so that a great deal of “new” material for D&D is a reiteration of familiar ideas. Sometimes you get elements that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you wince like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the original settings of Exandria (designed by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). While longtime fans of Mulligan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (Brennan strongly dislikes the deities!), the second episode impressed me because of a truly original take on a traditional D&D creature type: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Celestials in D&D

Demons and devils (often called fiends) have been included in D&D since 1976, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to appear. A handful of distinct “divine messengers” with individual titles were featured in the publication Dragon editions #12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were little more than riffs on the celestial figures from biblical sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to hold out for 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon magazine, where he introduced fresh creatures that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar angel first appeared, initiating a tradition of beings known as celestials that is still present in the most recent version of the game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the agents of benevolent gods, created by their masters to serve as soldiers, commanders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and in general to populate their domains in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and help uphold the belief of their deity on the Material Plane. In spite of their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Famous examples include Lumalia and the fallen 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 underdeveloped in contrast to demonic entities. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and demon lords tearing each other apart. The Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging subplots. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestial beings can be gleaned in an hour of online research.

It’s not surprising that beings who resemble biblical angels went underdeveloped. There are stories that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about giving players stat blocks for angels they could kill in their sessions, and even if celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of appearances and roles, that problematic origin stunted their development. There’s also only so much what you can do with creatures that are created to be servants of a god. Certainly, they have free will, but their storytelling range is restricted. From that perspective, the bad guys have much more freedom: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re in the end fickle and chaotic entities that can spin in a many ways without losing their unique nature.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Redefines Heavenly Beings

To be frank, I get it: Celestials are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of virtue that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be cool, but they also become clichéd quickly. That general lack of interest implies we still don’t know a great deal about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what happens once the god who created them dies. There is no canonical answer, and every DM is free to come up with their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to center this issue central to the setting of Aramán, one where the deities have all been killed by humans in a massive war that concluded seven decades before the start of the campaign. So what happened to the servants of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s answer is straightforward, horrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and became a blight that devastated entire countries. A lot about the history of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the current era has still to be revealed, but it seems that after the gods were slain, the celestial beings became “wild”. They transformed into monsters that could destroy large areas if not contained. Viewers caught a sight of how frightening one of these creatures can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial entity kept chained in a enormous casket.

It’s not a coincidence that the most interesting celestial beings in Dungeons & Dragons, story-wise, are those who have fallen from grace. The angel Zariel, for example, 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 obscure Planetar angel who was summoned by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the madness permeating the location.

The taint seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, or misled by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are victims; one more terrible result of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 progresses, I hope the DM focuses on the idea that, no matter how “righteous” that conflict was, the humans who emerged victorious may still regret the outcome. Their realm has been wounded, their connection to the afterlife has been severed, and the beings that were once their guardians, shepherding their souls to safety following death, are now terrifying calamities.

Sure, this may just be a practical method to solve the original creator’s original dilemma. It’s easy to justify killing an angel when it’s a shrieking, insane entity with rows of teeth, but I am also highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I am not entirely in accord with Brennan’s loathing for gods in his stories, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the flat {