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D&D presents a unique creative space. Theoretically, it serves as a blank canvas where the creativity of DMs and players can paint any kind of picture. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a five-decade history of worlds, monsters, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the most talented imaginative thinkers struggle to completely free themselves from this extensive landscape of references, so that a great deal of “new” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of familiar ideas. At times you get elements that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you cringe as if hearing “a derivative tune.”

The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the original settings of Exandria (created by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While longtime fans of Brennan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (He strongly dislikes the deities!), episode 2 stood out to me because of a truly original interpretation on a classic D&D creature type: celestials.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Demons and devils (often called fiends) have been part of Dungeons & Dragons since 1976, but it took a while longer for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A handful of distinct “angels” with individual titles appeared in the publication Dragon editions #12 (February 1978) and #17 (Aug. 1978). These were essentially variations of the angels from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for more original versions, we had to hold out for the early 80s and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column in Dragon magazine, where he presented new monsters that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s when the deva angel, the planetar, and the solar angel made their debut, initiating a lineage of creatures known as celestial entities that is continues to exist in the most recent version of the 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 overall to inhabit their domains in the Upper Planes. They are paragons of virtue who battle the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and help uphold the faith of their deity on the Material Plane. Despite their close connection with the divine beings, celestials are unique individuals with specific personalities. Well-known instances encompass Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is notably less fleshed out compared to fiends. The Abyss has 99 layers of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of the series Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more interesting subplots. And don’t get me started the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gathered in an short time of online research.

It’s not surprising that beings who look like biblical angels went underdeveloped. There are stories that Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players stat blocks for divine beings they could murder in their sessions, and even if celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range of looks and purposes, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can do with creatures that are created to be servants of a god. Sure, they have independent thought, but their narrative potential is restricted. From that perspective, the antagonists have much more freedom: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and so on) but they’re in the end unpredictable and disorderly entities that can spin in a lot of directions without losing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Celestials

To be frank, I get it: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of virtue that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also get cheesy quickly. That general lack of interest means we remain unaware of that much about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what occurs after the god who made them dies. There is no canonical answer, and each Dungeon Master is free to devise their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to center this issue central to the setting of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been killed by humans in a massive war that ended 70 years prior to the start of the campaign. So what became of the followers of these gods?

Brennan’s solution is simple, horrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and turned into a plague 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 appears that when the gods were slain, the celestial beings went “feral”. They transformed into creatures that could destroy large areas if not contained. Viewers caught a sight of how scary one of these creatures can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) got to meet his “ancestor,” a terrifying celestial held bound in a enormous casket.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestials in D&D, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, for example, was a mighty Solar angel whose obsession with concluding 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 little-known Planetar who was summoned by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the madness infusing the location.

The corruption seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, or led astray by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are casualties; another dreadful result of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 progresses, it is hoped Mulligan concentrates on the notion that, regardless of how “righteous” that war was, the humans who won it may still regret the consequences. Their world has been wounded, their connection to the afterlife has been cut off, and the creatures that were once their guardians, guiding their spirits to safety following death, are currently frightening disasters.

Certainly, this might simply be a practical method to solve the original creator’s initial quandary. It’s easy to justify killing an divine being when it’s a shrieking, mad creature with multiple fangs, but I am also very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s aversion for gods in his campaigns, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the flat {