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D&D presents a distinctive creative space. Theoretically, it acts as a empty slate where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and players can craft countless scenarios. However, D&D also carries a 50-year legacy of campaign settings, monsters, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the most talented creative minds find it difficult to completely free themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, meaning that a lot of “new” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of sampled tracks. At times you get elements that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” on other occasions you cringe like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive 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 DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). While devoted followers of Brennan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (He really hates the gods!), episode 2 impressed me because of a highly innovative take on a classic Dungeons & Dragons monster category: angelic beings.

A Brief History of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Demons and devils (often called evil outsiders) have been part of D&D since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to show up. A few unique “angels” with individual titles were featured in Dragon magazine editions #12 (February 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were essentially riffs on the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for more original versions, we had to hold out for 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” article in Dragon magazine, where he introduced new monsters that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar angel, and the solar angel first appeared, initiating a tradition of beings known as celestial entities that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the servants of benevolent gods, created by their creators to act as warriors, commanders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and in general to inhabit their domains in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Lower Planes and support the belief of their deity on the Material Plane. In spite of their close connection with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Famous examples include the angel Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is notably less fleshed out in contrast to demonic entities. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging subplots. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestials can be gleaned in an short time of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that creatures who resemble angels from the Bible went underdeveloped. There are stories that Gygax felt uneasy about giving players game statistics for divine beings they could kill in their games, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range of appearances and roles, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can do with 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 bad guys have much more freedom: They have defined superiors (Lords of Demons, Infernal Dukes, and so on) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly creatures that can spin in a lot of directions without sacrificing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Celestials

To be frank, I understand: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of virtue that smite evil in every manifestation can be cool, but they also become clichéd quickly. That widespread disinterest means we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what occurs after the deity who created them dies. There is no canonical answer, and each Dungeon Master is able to devise their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question at the heart of the setting of Aramán, a place where the deities have all been killed by mortals in a massive war that concluded 70 years before the beginning of the campaign. So what happened to the followers of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s solution is simple, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and turned into a blight that devastated whole nations. 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 seems that when the gods were slain, the celestials went “feral”. They became monsters that could annihilate entire regions if left unchecked. Viewers caught a sight of how scary one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial entity held bound in a enormous casket.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestials in Dungeons & Dragons, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. The angel Zariel, as an instance, was a mighty Solar angel whose fixation with ending the Blood War led to her being tainted by Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was called forth by a priest inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing to the madness infusing the place.

The taint observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, or misled by their own pride or fixations. They are victims; one more dreadful result of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 continues, it is hoped the DM focuses on the idea that, no matter how “just” that war was, the mortals who emerged victorious may still regret the outcome. Their realm has been harmed, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the beings that were once their protectors, shepherding their souls to security after death, are now frightening disasters.

Certainly, this might simply be a practical method to solve Gygax’s original dilemma. It is simple to justify killing an divine being when it’s a shrieking, insane entity with multiple fangs, but I am also very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythos in D&D. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s loathing for gods in his campaigns, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {