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Dungeons & Dragons presents a unique creative space. In theory, it acts as a blank canvas where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and players can paint countless scenarios. However, D&D also carries a five-decade history of campaign settings, creatures, spellcasting rules, well-known NPCs, and general lore. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, so that a lot of “fresh” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of familiar ideas. At times you get elements that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you cringe like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the unique worlds of Exandria (created by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). While devoted followers of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (He strongly dislikes the gods!), the second episode stood out to me because of a truly original interpretation on a traditional D&D creature type: angelic beings.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (often called fiends) have been included in D&D since 1976, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to appear. A few unique “angels” with individual titles were featured in Dragon magazine editions 12 (February 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were little more than riffs on the angels from Hebrew and Christian sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” column in Dragon, where he presented fresh creatures that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual II. That’s when the deva angel, the planetar, and the solar angel made their debut, starting a tradition of beings known as celestials that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the servants of benevolent gods, created by their masters to act as soldiers, leaders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and in general to inhabit their domains in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who fight against the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Lower Planes and support the faith of their god on the mortal world. In spite of their close connection with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Well-known instances encompass the angel Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is notably less fleshed out compared to demonic entities. The Abyss has 99 layers of expanding chaos and demon lords warring amongst themselves. The Nine Hells are a interpretation of Game of Thrones with greater violence and more engaging subplots. And that’s not even mentioning the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestial beings can be gathered in an hour of online research.

It’s not surprising that beings who resemble biblical angels went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players game statistics for divine beings they could murder in their sessions, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a broader spectrum of appearances and purposes, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can create for creatures that are created to be servants of a god. Sure, they have free will, but their storytelling range is restricted. In that sense, the bad guys have much more freedom: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Infernal Dukes, and so on) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic creatures that can evolve in a lot of directions without sacrificing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Redefines Celestials

To be frank, I understand: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of virtue that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be cool, but they also become clichéd very fast. That general lack of interest implies we still don’t know a great deal about celestials. As an illustration, we still don’t know what happens after the deity who created them perishes. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is able to devise their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question central to the setting of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been killed by mortals in a great conflict that concluded 70 years before the start of the story. So what happened to the followers of these gods?

Mulligan’s answer is simple, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and became a plague that destroyed whole nations. A lot about the history of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it seems that when the deities died, the celestials became “wild”. They transformed into creatures that could annihilate large areas if left unchecked. Viewers caught a sight of how frightening such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a terrifying celestial held bound in a massive coffin.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestials in Dungeons & Dragons, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with ending the eternal Blood War led to her being tainted by the devil Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar angel who was summoned by a cleric inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus level of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing to the insanity infusing the location.

The taint observed in the fourth campaign of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, nor led astray by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are victims; one more dreadful result of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 continues, it is hoped Mulligan focuses on the notion that, regardless of how “righteous” that conflict was, the mortals who won it may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their world has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been severed, and the beings that were once their protectors, shepherding their souls to safety after death, are currently frightening disasters.

Sure, this might simply be a convenient way to address the original creator’s initial quandary. It is simple to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a screaming, mad entity with multiple fangs, but I also feel highly fascinated by this new declination of the celestial mythology in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with Brennan’s loathing for divine beings in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the flat {