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D&D presents a distinctive imaginative arena. In theory, it acts as a blank canvas where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and players can paint any kind of picture. Yet, D&D also carries a five-decade history of campaign settings, monsters, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the most talented imaginative thinkers find it difficult to entirely detach themselves from this vast universe of existing content, so that a great deal of “fresh” material for D&D is a reiteration of familiar ideas. Sometimes you get elements that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you wince as if hearing “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the original settings of Exandria (created by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world created by Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although longtime fans of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (He really hates the gods!), the second episode stood out to me because of a truly original interpretation on a traditional D&D creature type: celestials.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Demons and devils (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 (February 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than riffs on the angels from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” article in Dragon, where he introduced fresh creatures that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar angel made their debut, starting a tradition of beings called celestial entities that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestials are the agents of benevolent gods, made by their masters to act as soldiers, leaders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, 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 Infernal Realms and support the belief of their god on the mortal world. In spite of their close connection with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Famous examples encompass the angel Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is markedly less fleshed out compared to demonic entities. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons warring amongst themselves. The Nine Hells are a version of the series Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging subplots. And that’s not even mentioning the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestials can be gleaned in an hour of online research.

It’s understandable that creatures who look like angels from the Bible received less attention. There are stories that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about providing gamers stat blocks for divine beings they could murder in their sessions, and even if celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of looks and roles, that problematic origin stunted their development. There is also a limit to what you can do with creatures that are designed to be divine minions. Certainly, they have free will, but their storytelling range is limited. From that perspective, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and so on) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic entities that can evolve in a lot of directions without sacrificing their unique nature.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Heavenly Beings

Honestly, I get it: Celestial beings are just not that interesting. Divine champions of good that smite evil in all its forms can be impressive, but they also become clichéd very fast. That general lack of interest means we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what happens once the god 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 decided to make this question central to the world of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been slain by humans in a great conflict that concluded 70 years prior to the beginning of the campaign. So what became of the followers of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s answer is straightforward, horrifying, and very interesting: They went crazy and turned into a plague that devastated whole nations. A lot about the past of this world, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it seems that when the deities died, the celestial beings became “wild”. They became creatures that could annihilate large areas if left unchecked. Viewers caught a sight of how frightening such a being can be at the end of episode 2, as the character Wicander (player Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a terrifying celestial entity held bound in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestials in D&D, story-wise, are those who have fallen from grace. The angel Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with concluding the Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar angel who was summoned by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the madness infusing the place.

The taint observed in the fourth campaign of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials did not lose their virtue. They weren’t tricked, or misled by their own pride or fixations. They are casualties; one more terrible result of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign progresses, it is hoped the DM focuses on the notion that, regardless of how “just” that conflict was, the humans who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their realm has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been cut off, and the beings that were once their guardians, guiding their spirits to security following death, are currently frightening disasters.

Certainly, this might simply be a practical method to address the original creator’s original dilemma. It is simple to rationalize slaying an divine being when it’s a screaming, insane entity with rows of teeth, but I am also highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythology in D&D. I don’t necessarily agree with the DM’s aversion for divine beings in his stories, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the flat {