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D&D provides a distinctive creative space. In theory, it serves as a empty slate where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and participants can paint any kind of picture. However, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a 50-year legacy of worlds, creatures, magic systems, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the best creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, meaning that a great deal of “new” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of sampled tracks. At times you encounter elements that sound as good as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you wince like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

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

A Brief History of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (collectively known as evil outsiders) have been included in D&D since 1976, but it took a while longer for their heavenly counterparts to appear. A few unique “divine messengers” with specific names appeared in the publication Dragon editions 12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were little more than riffs on the angels from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until the early 80s 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 where the deva angel, the planetar angel, and the solar angel made their debut, starting a tradition of beings known as celestial entities that is continues to exist in the most recent version of the role-playing game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestial beings are the agents of good-aligned deities, made by their creators to act as soldiers, commanders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and in general to populate their domains in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Lower Planes and support the belief of their god on the Material Plane. Despite their close connection with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Well-known instances encompass the angel Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is markedly underdeveloped compared to fiends. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and demon lords tearing each other apart. The Nine Hells are a version of the series Game of Thrones with greater violence and more interesting side stories. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gathered in an hour of online research.

It’s understandable that creatures who resemble biblical angels received less attention. Rumor has it that Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players stat blocks for divine beings they could murder in their games, and even if celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of looks and purposes, that problematic origin hindered their growth. There is also a limit to what you can do with creatures that are created to be servants of a god. Sure, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is limited. In that sense, the bad guys have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic entities that can evolve in a many ways without sacrificing their unique nature.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Celestials

To be frank, I understand: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of good that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be impressive, 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 still don’t know what happens once the god who made them dies. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is free to devise their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question central to the setting of Aramán, one where the gods have all been killed by mortals in a great conflict that ended 70 years before the beginning of the campaign. So what became of the servants of these gods?

Brennan’s answer is simple, horrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and became a blight that destroyed entire countries. A great deal about the history of this world, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it seems that after the deities were slain, the celestial beings went “feral”. They became creatures that could annihilate 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 (Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial entity kept chained in a massive coffin.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestial beings in D&D, narratively, are those who have lost their divinity. The angel Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with ending the eternal Blood War led to her being corrupted by Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was called forth by a cleric inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the madness infusing the location.

The taint observed in the fourth campaign of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings did not lose their virtue. They were not deceived, nor misled by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are victims; another dreadful consequence of the Shapers’ War. As the new campaign progresses, it is hoped Mulligan concentrates on the idea that, regardless of how “just” that conflict was, the mortals who won it may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their realm has been wounded, their connection to the afterlife has been cut off, and the creatures that were formerly their protectors, guiding their spirits to safety after death, are currently frightening disasters.

Certainly, this may just be a convenient way to solve the original creator’s original dilemma. It is simple to justify killing an divine being when it’s a screaming, mad creature with rows of teeth, but I also feel highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s aversion for divine beings in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {