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Dungeons & Dragons presents a unique imaginative arena. Theoretically, it serves as a blank canvas where the creativity of DMs and players can paint countless scenarios. However, D&D also bears a five-decade history of worlds, monsters, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the best creative minds struggle to completely free themselves from this vast landscape of references, meaning that a great deal of “new” content for D&D is a reworking of familiar ideas. Sometimes you get elements that sound as good as “a classic hit,” other times you cringe 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 (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While longtime fans of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (Brennan really hates the gods!), episode 2 stood out to me because of a truly original interpretation on a classic D&D creature type: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Celestials in D&D

Demons and devils (collectively known as fiends) have been included in Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it took a while longer for their angelic equivalents to show up. A few unique “angels” with specific names appeared in the publication Dragon editions #12 (February 1978) and #17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than riffs on the angels from biblical religious lore; for more original versions, we had to hold out for 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon magazine, where he presented new monsters that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s when the deva, the planetar, and the solar first appeared, initiating a lineage of beings called celestial entities that is still present in the latest edition of the game.

In D&D, celestials are the agents of good-aligned deities, made by their masters to act as warriors, commanders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and in general to populate their domains in the Upper Planes. They are paragons of virtue who battle the forces of chaos and evil from the Lower Planes and help uphold the faith of their deity on the Material Plane. Despite their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Famous examples include Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is notably less fleshed out compared to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has 99 layers of expanding chaos and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of the series Game of Thrones with greater violence and more interesting side stories. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestial beings can be gleaned in an hour of online research.

It’s understandable that creatures who look like angels from the Bible 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 even if celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of appearances and purposes, that controversial beginning stunted their development. There is also a limit to what you can do with beings that are created to be divine minions. Certainly, they have free will, but their narrative potential is restricted. In that sense, 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 creatures that can spin in a lot of directions without sacrificing their unique nature.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Redefines Celestials

To be frank, I understand: Celestials are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of good that smite evil in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also become clichéd very fast. That widespread disinterest implies we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what happens after the deity who made them dies. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is able to come up with their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question central to the world of Aramán, one where the gods have all been slain by humans in a great conflict that concluded 70 years prior to the start of the story. So what became of the servants of these divine beings?

Brennan’s answer is simple, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and turned into a plague that devastated entire countries. A lot about the history of this world, the war against the gods, and its aftermath in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that after the deities were slain, the celestials went “feral”. They transformed into monsters that could destroy large areas if left unchecked. Viewers got a glimpse of how scary such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as the character Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial kept chained in a massive coffin.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestials in D&D, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. The angel Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with concluding the eternal Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil of Hell. Fazrian is a little-known Planetar angel who was summoned by a cleric inside Undermountain and developed a fixation on “cleaning” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the insanity infusing the location.

The taint seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials did not lose their virtue. They were not deceived, nor misled by their own pride or fixations. They are victims; another dreadful result of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 continues, it is hoped the DM focuses on the idea that, regardless of how “just” that conflict was, the mortals who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their world has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been severed, and the creatures that were formerly their protectors, shepherding their souls to safety following death, are now frightening disasters.

Certainly, this might simply be a practical method to solve Gygax’s original dilemma. It is simple to rationalize slaying an divine being when it’s a screaming, mad creature with rows of teeth, but I am also very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythos in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s loathing for gods in his campaigns, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {