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D&D provides a distinctive imaginative arena. In theory, it serves as a blank canvas where the creativity of DMs and players can paint countless scenarios. However, D&D also bears a five-decade history of campaign settings, monsters, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the most talented creative minds 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 reworking of sampled tracks. At times you get things 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 due to the unique worlds of Exandria (created by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the setting crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). While longtime fans of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (Brennan strongly dislikes the deities!), the second episode stood out to me because of a highly innovative take on a traditional D&D creature type: angelic beings.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (collectively known as fiends) have been part of D&D since 1976, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A handful of distinct “divine messengers” with individual titles were featured in the publication Dragon editions #12 (February 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than variations of the celestial figures from biblical religious lore; for more original versions, we had to hold out for 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” column in Dragon, where he introduced fresh creatures that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva, the planetar, and the solar angel first appeared, initiating a lineage of beings called celestial entities that is continues to exist in the most recent version of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestials are the servants of good-aligned deities, made by their masters to serve as warriors, commanders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and overall to populate their realms in the Upper Planes. They are champions of good who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and support the belief of their deity on the mortal world. Despite their close connection with the divine beings, celestials are unique individuals with specific personalities. Famous examples include the angel Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is notably less fleshed out compared to fiends. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of expanding chaos and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with greater violence and more engaging side stories. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestials can be gleaned in an short time of wiki reading.

It’s understandable that creatures who resemble angels from the Bible received less attention. There are stories that Gygax felt uneasy about giving players stat blocks for angels they could murder in their games, and even if celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of looks and roles, that problematic origin stunted their development. There’s also only so much what you can create for beings that are created to be divine minions. Sure, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is restricted. In that sense, the bad guys have much more freedom: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly entities 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 understand: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of good that smite evil in all its forms can be impressive, but they also become clichéd very fast. That widespread disinterest means we still don’t know that much about celestials. As an illustration, we still don’t know what occurs once the god who made them dies. There is no official explanation, and every DM is able to devise their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question central to the setting of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been killed by humans in a massive war that ended 70 years before the beginning of the campaign. So what became of the followers of these divine beings?

Brennan’s solution is simple, terrifying, and very interesting: They went crazy and turned into a plague that destroyed entire countries. A great deal 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 after the deities were slain, the celestial beings became “wild”. They transformed into monsters that could destroy large areas if not contained. The audience caught a sight of how scary one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial kept chained in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestials in D&D, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, as an instance, was a mighty Solar angel whose obsession with concluding the eternal Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar angel who was summoned by a priest inside Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the insanity infusing the location.

The corruption seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials did not lose their virtue. They were not deceived, or misled by their own arrogance or fixations. They are casualties; another dreadful result of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 progresses, it is hoped the DM concentrates on the idea that, no matter how “righteous” that war was, the humans who won it may nonetheless lament the outcome. Their world has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been cut off, and the creatures that were formerly their guardians, shepherding their souls to security after death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this might simply be a practical method to solve Gygax’s initial quandary. It is simple to justify killing an angel when it’s a screaming, mad entity with rows of teeth, but I am also very intrigued by this fresh variation of the celestial mythology in Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s aversion for gods in his campaigns, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the flat {