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D&D offers a unique imaginative arena. Theoretically, it acts as a empty slate where the imagination of DMs and participants can paint any kind of picture. However, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a 50-year legacy of campaign settings, monsters, magic systems, established non-player characters, and rich mythology. Even the best creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this extensive landscape of references, so that a great deal of “fresh” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of familiar ideas. Sometimes you encounter elements that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” other times you cringe like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the unique worlds of its first setting (designed by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the setting created by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). While devoted followers of Mulligan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (He really hates the deities!), the second episode impressed me because of a truly original take on a traditional D&D creature type: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Demons and devils (often called fiends) have been part of D&D since 1976, but it took a while longer for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A handful of distinct “angels” with individual titles were featured in Dragon magazine editions 12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than variations of the celestial figures from biblical sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” column in Dragon, where he introduced new monsters that would appear in the 1983 Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar angel, and the solar made their debut, initiating a lineage of beings called celestial entities that is still present in the most recent version of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the servants of benevolent gods, made by their creators to act as warriors, leaders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and overall to populate their realms in the Upper Planes. They are champions of good who fight against the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Lower Planes 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 Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is markedly underdeveloped in contrast to fiends. 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 Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more interesting side stories. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. In the meantime, all the essential information about celestial beings can be gleaned in an short time of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that beings who resemble angels from the Bible received less attention. There are stories that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players game statistics 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’s also only so much what you can create for beings that are designed to be servants of a god. Certainly, they have free will, but their storytelling range is restricted. In that sense, the bad guys have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly entities that can spin in a many ways without sacrificing their unique nature.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Redefines Heavenly Beings

To be frank, I understand: Celestials are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of virtue that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. That widespread disinterest implies we remain unaware of that much about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what happens after the deity who created them perishes. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is free to devise their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question central to the world of Aramán, a place where the deities have all been slain by humans in a great conflict that concluded 70 years prior to the start of the campaign. So what became of the servants of these divine beings?

Brennan’s solution is straightforward, horrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and became a blight that devastated entire countries. A lot about the history of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the current era has still to be revealed, but it seems that when the gods were slain, the celestial beings became “wild”. They became creatures that could annihilate large areas if not contained. The audience caught a sight of how scary such a being can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” a terrifying celestial kept chained in a massive coffin.

It’s not a coincidence that the most interesting celestials in D&D, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. The angel Zariel, for example, was a mighty Solar angel whose fixation with concluding the eternal Blood War led to her being corrupted by Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was summoned by a cleric inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing to the insanity permeating the location.

The taint observed in the fourth campaign of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings did not lose their virtue. They weren’t tricked, or led astray by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are victims; another terrible result of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 progresses, it is hoped the DM focuses on the notion that, no matter how “righteous” that war was, the mortals who won it may still regret the outcome. Their world has been harmed, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the beings that were once their protectors, guiding their spirits to safety after death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this may just be a convenient way to solve Gygax’s initial quandary. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a shrieking, insane 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 Brennan’s aversion for gods in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the flat {