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D&D presents a unique creative space. Theoretically, it acts as a empty slate where the imagination of DMs and players can craft countless scenarios. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a five-decade history of campaign settings, monsters, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this vast landscape of references, so that a lot of “new” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of familiar ideas. At times you encounter things that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” on other occasions you wince as if hearing “All Summer Long.”

The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the unique worlds of its first setting (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the setting created by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). Although longtime fans of Brennan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (Brennan really hates the deities!), the second episode stood out to me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a traditional Dungeons & Dragons monster category: celestials.

A Brief History of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (often called fiends) have been included in D&D since the mid-70s, but it took a while longer for their angelic equivalents to show up. A few unique “angels” with individual titles were featured in the publication Dragon editions 12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than riffs on the celestial figures from biblical sacred texts; for more original versions, we had to hold out for the early 80s and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” article in Dragon, where he presented fresh creatures that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual II. That’s when the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar first appeared, initiating a lineage of beings called celestials that is continues to exist in the most recent version of the role-playing game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestial beings are the servants of benevolent gods, made by their creators to serve as soldiers, leaders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and in general to populate their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Lower Planes and support the belief of their deity on the mortal world. In spite of their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Famous examples encompass Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is notably underdeveloped in contrast to fiends. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and demon lords tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a interpretation of the series Game of Thrones with greater violence and more engaging subplots. And don’t get me started the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestials can be gleaned in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s understandable that beings who resemble angels from the Bible went underdeveloped. There are stories that Gygax was uncomfortable about providing gamers stat blocks for divine beings they could murder in their sessions, and although celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of appearances and purposes, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There is also a limit to what you can do with beings that are created to be divine minions. Sure, they have free will, but their narrative potential is limited. From that perspective, the antagonists have much more freedom: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re in the end fickle and chaotic creatures that can evolve in a lot of directions without sacrificing their unique nature.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Heavenly Beings

To be frank, I get it: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of virtue that smite evil in all its forms can be cool, but they also become clichéd quickly. That general lack of interest implies we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what happens once the deity who made them dies. There is no official explanation, and every DM is free to devise their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue central to the setting of Aramán, one where the deities have all been killed by mortals in a great conflict that concluded seven decades before the beginning of the story. So what became of the servants of these gods?

Brennan’s answer is straightforward, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and became a plague that devastated entire countries. A lot about the history of this world, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the present has still to be revealed, but it appears that when the deities were slain, the celestials became “wild”. They transformed into monsters that could destroy entire regions if not contained. Viewers caught a sight of how scary such a being can be at the end of episode 2, as the character Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a terrifying celestial entity held bound in a enormous casket.

It’s not a coincidence 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 fixation with concluding the Blood War resulted in her being tainted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar angel who was called forth by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “cleaning” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the madness permeating the place.

The taint seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. 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 the new campaign progresses, it is hoped the DM focuses on the idea that, regardless of how “righteous” 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, shepherding their souls to safety after death, are currently frightening disasters.

Sure, this might simply be a practical method to solve Gygax’s initial quandary. It is simple to justify killing an divine being when it’s a shrieking, mad creature with multiple fangs, but I am also highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with the DM’s loathing for divine beings in his stories, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {