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Dungeons & Dragons presents a unique imaginative arena. Theoretically, it serves as a blank canvas where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and players can paint any kind of picture. However, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a five-decade history of worlds, creatures, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the best creative minds find it difficult to completely free themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, meaning that a lot of “new” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of familiar ideas. Sometimes you encounter elements that sound as good as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you wince like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the unique worlds of its first setting (created by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While devoted followers of Mulligan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (He strongly dislikes the deities!), the second episode stood out to me because of a highly innovative take on a classic Dungeons & Dragons monster category: celestials.

The Historical Background of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Demons and devils (collectively known as evil outsiders) have been part of D&D since 1976, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A handful of distinct “divine messengers” with specific names were featured in the publication Dragon editions 12 (February 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 the early 80s 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 angel, the planetar angel, and the solar angel first appeared, starting a tradition of creatures known as celestials that is still present in the latest edition of the game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the agents of good-aligned deities, made by their creators to act as warriors, leaders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and in general to populate their realms in the Upper Planes. They are champions of good who battle the forces of chaos and evil from the Lower Planes and help uphold the faith of their god on the Material Plane. In spite of their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are unique individuals with specific personalities. Well-known instances include Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is markedly underdeveloped compared to demonic entities. The Abyss has 99 layers of expanding chaos 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. In the meantime, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gathered in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s understandable that beings who resemble angels from the Bible received less attention. Rumor has it that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about giving players game statistics for angels they could kill in their sessions, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range of appearances and purposes, that problematic origin stunted their development. There’s also only so much what you can do with beings that are created to be divine minions. Sure, they have independent thought, but their narrative potential is restricted. From that perspective, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re in the end unpredictable and disorderly creatures that can evolve in a many ways without sacrificing their unique nature.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Heavenly Beings

To be frank, I get it: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of good that smite evil in all its forms can be impressive, but they also become clichéd very fast. That widespread disinterest implies we still don’t know that much about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what occurs once the deity who made them perishes. There is no canonical answer, and every DM is able to devise their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue central to the world of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been slain by humans in a great conflict that ended 70 years prior to the beginning of the campaign. So what became of the servants of these divine beings?

Brennan’s solution is straightforward, terrifying, and very interesting: They went crazy and turned into a plague that devastated entire countries. A lot about the history of this world, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the current era has still to be revealed, but it seems that after the deities were slain, the celestials became “wild”. They became monsters that could annihilate entire regions if left unchecked. Viewers got a glimpse of how scary 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 held bound in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestials in Dungeons & Dragons, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, as an instance, was a mighty Solar angel whose fixation with concluding the Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar angel who was called forth by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus level of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing to the insanity infusing the place.

The corruption observed in the fourth campaign of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, nor led astray by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are casualties; another dreadful result of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign progresses, it is hoped Mulligan focuses on the idea that, no matter how “just” 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 cut off, and the creatures that were formerly their protectors, shepherding their souls to safety after death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this may just be a convenient way to address Gygax’s initial quandary. It is simple to justify killing an divine being when it’s a screaming, mad entity with multiple fangs, but I also feel very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythology in Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with the DM’s loathing for divine beings in his campaigns, but I nonetheless favor these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {