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Dungeons & Dragons provides a distinctive creative space. Theoretically, it serves as a empty slate where the imagination of DMs and players can paint countless scenarios. However, D&D also carries a 50-year legacy of worlds, creatures, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the best imaginative thinkers struggle to completely free themselves from this extensive landscape of references, meaning that a great deal of “new” material for D&D is a reiteration of familiar ideas. At times you encounter elements that sound as good as “a classic hit,” other times you cringe as if hearing “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the original settings of its first setting (designed by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although devoted followers of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (Brennan really hates the deities!), episode 2 stood out to me because of a truly original take on a traditional D&D creature type: celestials.

A Brief History of Celestials in D&D

Fiendish creatures (often called fiends) have been part of Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it took a while longer for their heavenly counterparts to appear. A handful of distinct “angels” with individual titles appeared in Dragon magazine issues 12 (Feb. 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than variations of the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for more original versions, we had to hold out for 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column in Dragon magazine, where he introduced new monsters that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar angel, 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, celestials are the servants of good-aligned deities, made by their creators to act as warriors, leaders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and in general to inhabit their domains in the Upper Planes. They are paragons of virtue who battle the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and support the faith of their deity on the Material Plane. Despite their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are unique individuals with specific personalities. Famous examples encompass the angel Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is notably less fleshed out in contrast to demonic entities. The chaotic Abyss has 99 layers of ever-growing disorder and demon lords tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of the series Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more interesting side stories. And don’t get me started the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gleaned in an short time of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that creatures who resemble biblical angels went underdeveloped. There are stories that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about giving players game statistics for divine beings they could kill in their sessions, and even if celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of appearances and roles, that problematic origin hindered their growth. There is also a limit to what you can create for creatures that are designed to be servants of a god. Certainly, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is restricted. From that perspective, the bad guys have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic entities that can spin in a many ways without sacrificing their unique nature.

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 every manifestation can be cool, but they also get cheesy quickly. That general lack of interest implies we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what happens once the deity who created them dies. There is no official explanation, and every DM is able to devise their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question central to the setting of Aramán, one where the gods have all been killed by mortals in a great conflict that ended 70 years prior to the beginning of the campaign. So what happened to the followers of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s solution is straightforward, horrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and became a plague that devastated entire countries. A great deal about the history of this world, the war against the gods, and its aftermath in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that after the deities were slain, the celestials became “wild”. They transformed into monsters that could destroy entire regions if not contained. Viewers got a glimpse of how scary such a being can be at the end of episode 2, as the character Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” a terrifying celestial held bound in a enormous casket.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestials in D&D, narratively, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with concluding the eternal Blood War led to her being tainted 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 the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing to the insanity permeating the location.

The corruption seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, nor led astray by their own pride or fixations. They are victims; one more dreadful consequence of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 progresses, it is hoped the DM focuses on the idea that, no matter how “just” that conflict was, the humans who emerged victorious may still regret the outcome. Their world has been harmed, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the creatures that were once their guardians, shepherding their souls to security following death, are now terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this may just 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 shrieking, mad entity with rows of teeth, but I am also highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s aversion for gods in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the flat {