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D&D provides a unique imaginative arena. Theoretically, it acts as a empty slate where the creativity of DMs and players can paint any kind of picture. Yet, D&D also carries a five-decade history of worlds, monsters, spellcasting rules, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this extensive landscape of references, meaning that a great deal of “fresh” content for D&D is a reworking of familiar ideas. At times you get elements that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you wince like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the original settings of its first setting (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the setting created by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). While longtime fans of Brennan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (He strongly dislikes the gods!), the second episode stood out to me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a traditional D&D creature type: angelic beings.

A Brief History of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (often called evil outsiders) have been included in D&D since 1976, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A few unique “divine messengers” with specific names appeared in the publication Dragon editions #12 (February 1978) and 17 (August 1978). These were essentially riffs on the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian sacred texts; 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 fresh creatures that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar, and the solar angel made their debut, starting a tradition of creatures known as celestial entities that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestial beings are the agents of good-aligned deities, made by their masters to act as soldiers, leaders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and in general to populate their domains in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Lower Planes and help uphold the faith of their god on the Material Plane. In spite of their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are unique individuals with specific personalities. Well-known instances include the angel Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is markedly less fleshed out in contrast to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has 99 layers of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a interpretation of the series Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging subplots. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. In the meantime, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gathered in an short time of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that beings who look like biblical angels received less attention. There are stories that Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players stat blocks for angels they could kill in their games, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a broader spectrum of appearances and roles, that problematic origin stunted their development. There is also a limit to 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. From that perspective, the bad guys have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic creatures that can evolve in a lot of directions without losing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Redefines Celestials

Honestly, I get it: Celestial beings are just not that interesting. Divine champions of virtue that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. That general lack of interest implies we still don’t know that much about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what occurs after the deity who created them perishes. There is no canonical answer, and each Dungeon Master is able to devise their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question central to the world of Aramán, one where the deities have all been slain by mortals in a massive war that ended seven decades before the beginning of the story. So what became of the followers of these divine beings?

Brennan’s answer is simple, horrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and turned into a blight that destroyed whole nations. A lot about the history of this world, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that when the gods died, the celestial beings went “feral”. They transformed into creatures that could annihilate large areas if left unchecked. Viewers caught a sight of how scary such a being can be at the end of episode 2, as the character Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial entity held bound in a enormous casket.

It’s not a coincidence that the most interesting celestials in Dungeons & Dragons, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. The angel Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with ending the eternal Blood War led to her being tainted by Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was summoned by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the insanity permeating the location.

The taint observed in the fourth campaign of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials did not lose their virtue. They were not deceived, nor led astray by their own pride or obsessions. They are casualties; one more dreadful consequence of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign progresses, it is hoped the DM concentrates on the notion that, no matter how “just” that war was, the humans who won it may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their realm has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been cut off, and the beings that were once their protectors, guiding their spirits to safety after death, are now terrifying calamities.

Sure, this may just be a convenient way to address the original creator’s initial quandary. It’s easy to justify killing an divine being when it’s a screaming, mad entity with rows of teeth, but I am also highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with Brennan’s aversion for divine beings in his campaigns, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the flat {