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Dungeons & Dragons presents a unique creative space. In theory, it serves as a blank canvas where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and participants can craft any kind of picture. However, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a five-decade history of campaign settings, creatures, magic systems, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to completely free themselves from this vast landscape of references, so that a lot of “new” content for D&D is a reworking of sampled tracks. At times you get elements that sound as good as “a classic hit,” on other occasions you wince as if hearing “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the unique worlds of Exandria (created by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). Although devoted followers of Brennan and his other series Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (He strongly dislikes the deities!), episode 2 impressed me because of a truly original interpretation on a traditional D&D creature type: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (collectively known as evil outsiders) have been part of D&D since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to appear. A few unique “angels” with individual titles appeared in the publication Dragon issues 12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (Aug. 1978). These were essentially variations of the angels from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for more original versions, we had to wait until 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon, where he presented fresh creatures that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual 2. That’s when the deva, the planetar, and the solar made their debut, initiating a lineage of creatures called celestial entities that is still present in the most recent version of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestial beings are the servants of benevolent gods, made by their creators to serve as warriors, leaders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and in general to inhabit their realms in the Upper Planes. They are paragons of virtue who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and help uphold the belief of their deity on the mortal world. In spite of their close connection with the gods, celestials are unique individuals with specific personalities. Well-known instances include Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is notably underdeveloped compared to demonic entities. The chaotic Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons warring amongst themselves. The Nine Hells are a interpretation of the series Game of Thrones with greater violence and more interesting subplots. And don’t get me started the Yugoloth. In the meantime, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gathered in an short time of online research.

It’s not surprising that beings who look like biblical angels received less attention. Rumor has it that Gygax felt uneasy about providing gamers game statistics for divine beings they could murder in their games, and although celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of appearances and roles, that controversial beginning stunted their development. There’s also only so much what you can do with creatures that are created to be divine minions. Certainly, they have free will, but their storytelling range is restricted. In that sense, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic creatures that can evolve in a many ways without sacrificing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Reimagines Celestials

To be frank, I get it: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of good that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be impressive, but they also get cheesy quickly. That widespread disinterest implies we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what happens after the deity who made them perishes. There is no canonical answer, and each Dungeon Master is free to devise their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question central to the world 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 solution is straightforward, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and turned into a plague that devastated whole nations. A lot about the history of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the present has still to be revealed, but it appears that after the gods were slain, the celestial beings went “feral”. They became monsters that could destroy entire regions if left unchecked. The audience got a glimpse of how frightening such a being can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a terrifying celestial entity kept chained in a massive coffin.

It’s not a coincidence that the most interesting celestial beings in Dungeons & Dragons, story-wise, are those who have fallen from grace. The angel Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with concluding the Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil of Hell. Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was summoned by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the madness permeating the place.

The corruption observed in the fourth campaign of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, nor misled by their own arrogance or fixations. They are victims; one more terrible result of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 continues, I hope Mulligan concentrates on the notion that, regardless of how “just” that conflict was, the mortals who won it may still regret the outcome. Their realm has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been severed, and the creatures that were once their guardians, guiding their spirits to security after death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Sure, this might simply be a practical method to address Gygax’s original dilemma. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a shrieking, mad creature with rows of teeth, but I also feel highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with Brennan’s aversion for gods in his campaigns, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the flat {