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D&D provides a unique creative space. In theory, it serves as a blank canvas where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and participants can craft countless scenarios. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a 50-year legacy of worlds, monsters, magic systems, established non-player characters, and rich mythology. Even the most talented creative minds find it difficult to completely free themselves from this vast universe of existing content, meaning that a lot of “fresh” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of sampled tracks. At times you get elements that sound as good as “a classic hit,” on other occasions you cringe 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 setting crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although devoted followers of Brennan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (He really hates the gods!), the second episode impressed me because of a truly original interpretation on a traditional D&D creature type: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Fiendish creatures (collectively known as fiends) have been included in Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to appear. A few unique “angels” with specific names appeared in the publication Dragon issues #12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were little more than variations of the angels from biblical sacred texts; for more original versions, we had to hold out for the early 80s and Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” article in Dragon, where he presented new monsters that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual 2. That’s when the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar first appeared, starting a tradition of creatures called celestials that is still present in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestial beings are the servants of benevolent gods, created by their masters to serve as soldiers, commanders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and in general to inhabit their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Lower Planes and help uphold the belief of their deity on the Material Plane. Despite their close connection with the gods, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Famous examples encompass Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is markedly less fleshed out in contrast to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has ninety-nine levels of expanding chaos and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with greater violence and more engaging subplots. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. In the meantime, everything you need to know about celestials can be gleaned in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s understandable that beings who look like biblical angels went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gygax felt uneasy about providing gamers stat blocks for divine beings they could murder in their sessions, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a broader spectrum of appearances and roles, that problematic origin hindered their growth. There is also a limit to what you can do with beings that are designed to be divine minions. Sure, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is restricted. From that perspective, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic creatures that can spin in a many ways without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Heavenly Beings

Honestly, I get it: Celestials are just not that interesting. Divine champions of good that smite evil in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. That widespread disinterest implies we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what happens once the deity who created them dies. There is no official explanation, and every DM is able to devise their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question at the heart of the world of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been slain by mortals in a great conflict that ended 70 years before the beginning of the story. So what became of the followers of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s answer is simple, horrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and turned into a plague that destroyed entire countries. A great deal about the history of this world, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that after the gods died, the celestial beings went “feral”. They transformed into monsters that could annihilate large areas if not contained. The audience got a glimpse of how frightening one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial kept chained in a massive coffin.

It’s not a coincidence that the most interesting celestials in D&D, narratively, are those who have lost their divinity. The angel Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with ending the Blood War resulted in her being tainted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was summoned by a cleric inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing to the insanity permeating the location.

The corruption seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings did not lose their virtue. They were not deceived, or misled by their own arrogance or fixations. They are victims; another dreadful result of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 progresses, I hope Mulligan concentrates on the idea that, no matter how “righteous” that conflict was, the humans who emerged victorious may still regret the consequences. Their world has been wounded, their connection to the afterlife has been cut off, and the beings that were formerly their protectors, shepherding their souls to security following death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Sure, this might simply be a convenient way to solve Gygax’s original dilemma. It is simple to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a screaming, mad creature with multiple fangs, but I also feel very intrigued by this fresh variation of the celestial mythology in Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s aversion for divine beings in his campaigns, but I nonetheless favor these horrific heavenly beings to the flat {