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Dungeons & Dragons presents a unique creative space. Theoretically, it serves as a blank canvas where the creativity of DMs and players can craft any kind of picture. However, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a 50-year legacy of worlds, creatures, magic systems, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the best creative minds find it difficult to entirely detach themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, meaning that a great deal of “new” material for D&D is a reiteration of familiar ideas. At times you encounter things that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you wince like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks 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 devoted followers of Mulligan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (Brennan strongly dislikes the deities!), the second episode impressed me because of a highly innovative take on a classic D&D creature type: celestials.

A Brief History of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (collectively known as evil outsiders) have been included in D&D since 1976, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to show up. A few unique “angels” with specific names were featured in Dragon magazine issues #12 (Feb. 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were essentially variations of the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until the early 80s and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column 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, and the solar angel first appeared, initiating a tradition of creatures known as celestial entities that is still present in the latest edition of the game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the servants of good-aligned deities, made by their creators to act as soldiers, leaders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and overall to inhabit their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and support the belief of their god on the mortal world. Despite their close connection with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Well-known instances include Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is markedly less fleshed out in contrast to fiends. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons warring amongst themselves. The Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more interesting side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the 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 look like biblical angels received less attention. Rumor has it that Gygax felt uneasy about giving players stat blocks for divine beings they could kill in their sessions, and although celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of looks and purposes, that problematic origin stunted their development. There is also a limit to what you can create for beings that are created to be divine minions. Certainly, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is restricted. In that sense, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and so on) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly entities that can evolve in a lot of directions without losing their unique nature.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Heavenly Beings

Honestly, I get it: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of virtue that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. 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 occurs once the god who made them dies. There is no canonical answer, and every DM is able to devise their own interpretation. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question at the heart of the world of Aramán, one where the gods have all been slain by mortals in a massive war that concluded seven decades prior to the start of the story. So what became of the followers of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s solution is simple, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and turned into a plague that destroyed whole nations. A great deal about the past of this world, the war against the gods, and its aftermath in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it seems that after the gods died, the celestials became “wild”. They transformed into monsters that could destroy large areas if not contained. The audience got a glimpse of how scary such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a terrifying celestial held bound in a massive coffin.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestial beings in D&D, narratively, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with ending the Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was called forth by a cleric inside Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the evil in the Terminus level of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing to the madness infusing the place.

The taint seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, or misled by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are victims; one more terrible consequence of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 continues, it is hoped Mulligan focuses on the notion that, no matter how “righteous” that conflict was, the mortals who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the outcome. Their realm has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been severed, and the beings that were once their protectors, shepherding their souls to security after death, are currently frightening disasters.

Certainly, this may just be a practical method to solve Gygax’s original dilemma. It is simple to rationalize slaying an divine being when it’s a shrieking, insane creature with multiple fangs, but I am also highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythology in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with Brennan’s aversion for gods in his campaigns, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {