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Dungeons & Dragons offers a distinctive creative space. In theory, it serves as a blank canvas where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and participants can paint countless scenarios. However, D&D also bears a five-decade history of worlds, monsters, magic systems, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the best imaginative thinkers struggle to completely free themselves from this vast universe of existing content, meaning that a lot of “new” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of sampled tracks. At times you encounter elements that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you cringe like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

The show Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the original settings of its first setting (created by the DM Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While longtime fans of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (He really hates the deities!), the second episode stood out to me because of a truly original interpretation on a classic D&D creature type: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Demons and devils (collectively known as fiends) have been part of Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to show up. A handful of distinct “angels” with individual titles were featured in the publication Dragon issues 12 (Feb. 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were essentially variations of the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for more original versions, we had to wait until 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column in Dragon, where he introduced fresh creatures that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual 2. That’s when the deva angel, the planetar, and the solar made their debut, starting a lineage of creatures called celestials that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the agents of good-aligned deities, created by their masters to serve as warriors, leaders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and in general to inhabit their domains in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who fight against the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and support the belief of their deity on the Material Plane. Despite their close connection with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Famous examples include the angel Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, 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 compared to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging subplots. And don’t get me started the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestial beings can be gleaned in an hour of online research.

It’s not surprising that beings who resemble angels from the Bible received less attention. Rumor has it 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 bigger range of appearances and purposes, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can do with beings that are created to be servants of a god. Sure, they have free will, but their storytelling range is limited. In that sense, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly creatures that can evolve in a many ways without losing their unique nature.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Celestials

To be frank, I get it: Celestial beings are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of good that smite evil in all its forms can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. That widespread disinterest implies we still don’t know that much about celestials. As an illustration, we still don’t know what occurs after the deity who made them dies. There is no official explanation, and every DM is able to devise their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue central to the setting of Aramán, one where the deities have all been slain by humans in a massive war that concluded 70 years prior to the start of the story. So what happened to the followers of these gods?

Brennan’s solution is simple, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and turned into a plague that devastated entire countries. A great deal about the history of Aramán, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the present has still to be revealed, but it appears that when the deities were slain, the celestial beings became “wild”. They became monsters that could destroy large areas if not contained. The audience got a glimpse of how frightening such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) got to meet 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 lost their divinity. Zariel, for example, was a mighty Solar angel whose fixation with concluding the Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was summoned by a cleric inside the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “cleaning” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the insanity permeating the location.

The taint seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, or led astray by their own pride or obsessions. They are casualties; another dreadful consequence of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 continues, I hope Mulligan focuses on the notion that, regardless of how “righteous” that conflict was, the humans who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their realm has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been severed, and the creatures that were formerly their guardians, guiding their spirits to security after death, are now frightening disasters.

Sure, this may just be a convenient way to solve Gygax’s original dilemma. It’s easy to justify killing an angel when it’s a screaming, insane entity with multiple fangs, but I also feel highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythology in D&D. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s loathing for gods in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {