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D&D presents a unique imaginative arena. In theory, it acts as a empty slate 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, spellcasting rules, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the best creative minds find it difficult 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 encounter 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 (created by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the setting crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While longtime fans of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (He really hates the gods!), the second episode stood out to me because of a highly innovative take on a traditional Dungeons & Dragons monster category: celestials.

A Brief History of Celestials in D&D

Demons and devils (collectively known as fiends) have been included in Dungeons & Dragons since 1976, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to appear. A few unique “divine messengers” with specific names appeared in Dragon magazine editions #12 (Feb. 1978) and 17 (August 1978). These were essentially 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” column in Dragon, where he introduced new monsters that would appear in the 1983 Monster Manual 2. That’s when the deva angel, the planetar, and the solar made their debut, initiating a lineage of beings known as celestial entities that is continues to exist in the most recent version of the game.

In D&D, celestials are the agents of benevolent gods, made by their masters to serve as warriors, leaders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and in general to inhabit their realms in the Upper Planes. They are paragons of virtue who fight against the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and help uphold the faith of their deity on the mortal world. In spite of their close connection with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Well-known instances encompass the angel Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is markedly underdeveloped compared to demonic entities. The chaotic Abyss has 99 layers of ever-growing disorder and demon lords warring amongst themselves. The Nine Hells are a interpretation of the series Game of Thrones with greater violence and more interesting subplots. And that’s not even mentioning the mysterious Yugoloth. In the meantime, everything you need to know about celestials can be gleaned in an short time of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that beings who resemble angels from the Bible went underdeveloped. There are stories that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players game statistics for divine beings they could kill in their sessions, and although celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of looks and purposes, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can create for creatures that are designed to be servants of a god. Certainly, they have free will, but their narrative potential is restricted. From that perspective, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Lords of Demons, Infernal Dukes, and so on) but they’re in the end fickle and chaotic entities that can spin in a many ways without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Celestials

Honestly, I understand: Celestial beings are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of good that smite evil in all its forms can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. That general lack of interest means we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what happens after the god who made them dies. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is free to devise their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue at the heart of the setting of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been slain by mortals in a massive war that ended seven decades prior to the beginning of the story. So what happened to the followers of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s solution is simple, horrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and became a plague that devastated whole nations. A lot about the past of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it seems that when the gods died, the celestial beings became “wild”. They transformed into monsters that could annihilate large areas if left unchecked. The audience got a glimpse of how frightening such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a terrifying celestial entity kept chained in a massive coffin.

It’s not a coincidence that the most interesting celestials in Dungeons & Dragons, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. The angel Zariel, for example, was a mighty Solar angel whose fixation with concluding the Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. Fazrian is a little-known Planetar angel who was summoned by a cleric inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the madness infusing the location.

The taint observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, nor misled by their own pride or fixations. They are casualties; another terrible result of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign continues, it is hoped Mulligan concentrates on the idea that, regardless of how “righteous” that conflict was, the humans who won it may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their world has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been cut off, and the beings that were once their guardians, shepherding their souls to safety after death, are currently frightening disasters.

Certainly, this might simply be a convenient way to address Gygax’s initial quandary. It’s easy to justify killing an divine being when it’s a shrieking, mad creature with rows of teeth, but I also feel very intrigued by this fresh variation of the celestial mythology in D&D. I don’t necessarily agree with the DM’s aversion for gods in his campaigns, but I nonetheless favor these horrific heavenly beings to the flat {