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D&D presents a distinctive creative space. Theoretically, it acts as a blank canvas where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and participants can craft any kind of picture. Yet, D&D also carries a five-decade history of worlds, creatures, spellcasting rules, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the most talented imaginative thinkers find it difficult to entirely detach themselves from this vast universe of existing content, so that a lot of “new” content for D&D is a reiteration of familiar ideas. At times you get elements that sound as good as “a classic hit,” other times you cringe as if hearing “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the unique worlds of its first setting (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). Although devoted followers of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (Brennan really hates the deities!), episode 2 impressed me because of a truly original take on a classic D&D creature type: celestials.

A Brief History of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (often called evil outsiders) have been included in Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it took a while longer for their heavenly counterparts to appear. A few unique “divine messengers” with individual titles appeared in Dragon magazine editions 12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were little more than riffs on the angels from biblical sacred texts; for more original versions, we had to hold out for 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” column in Dragon magazine, where he presented new monsters that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s when the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar angel first appeared, starting a tradition of creatures called celestials that is still present in the most recent version of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestial beings are the agents of benevolent gods, made by their masters to serve as warriors, leaders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and overall to inhabit their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and support 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 Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is markedly underdeveloped in contrast to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has 99 layers of expanding chaos and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The Nine Hells are a version of the series Game of Thrones with greater violence and more interesting subplots. And that’s not even mentioning the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestial beings can be gathered in an short time of online research.

It’s not surprising that beings who resemble angels from the Bible received less attention. Rumor has it that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about providing gamers game statistics for angels they could murder in their sessions, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a broader spectrum of appearances and roles, that problematic origin stunted their development. There’s also only so much what you can do with beings that are created to be divine minions. Certainly, they have free will, but their storytelling range is limited. In that sense, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re in the end fickle and chaotic entities that can evolve in a many ways without sacrificing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Heavenly Beings

Honestly, I understand: Celestial beings are just not that interesting. Divine champions of virtue that smite evil in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also get cheesy quickly. That general lack of interest implies we still don’t know a great deal about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what occurs after the god who made them perishes. There is no official explanation, and every DM is able to come up with their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question at the heart of the world of Aramán, a place where the deities have all been slain by humans in a massive war that ended 70 years prior to the beginning of the campaign. So what happened to the followers of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s answer is simple, terrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and became a blight that destroyed whole nations. A great deal about the past of this world, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it seems that after the gods were slain, the celestials went “feral”. They transformed into creatures that could annihilate large areas if not contained. Viewers got a glimpse of how scary one of these creatures can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as the character Wicander (player Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a terrifying celestial held bound in a massive coffin.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestials in D&D, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with concluding the Blood War led to her being tainted by Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar angel who was called forth by a priest inside Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the insanity permeating the location.

The taint seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials did not lose their virtue. They weren’t tricked, nor led astray by their own arrogance or fixations. They are victims; another dreadful result of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 continues, it is hoped the DM concentrates on the notion that, regardless of how “just” that war was, the humans who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their realm has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been cut off, and the beings that were formerly their guardians, shepherding their souls to safety following death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this may just be a practical method to address the original creator’s initial quandary. It is simple to justify killing an divine being when it’s a shrieking, mad entity with multiple fangs, but I also feel highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythology in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s aversion for divine beings in his campaigns, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {