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Dungeons & Dragons presents a unique imaginative arena. In theory, it serves as a blank canvas where the creativity of DMs and players can paint countless scenarios. However, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a five-decade history of worlds, monsters, magic systems, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the best creative minds struggle to completely free themselves from this vast landscape of references, so that a lot of “new” material for D&D is a reworking of sampled tracks. At times you encounter things that sound as good as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you cringe like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the unique worlds of its first setting (designed by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). Although longtime fans of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (Brennan strongly dislikes the gods!), the second episode stood out to me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a classic Dungeons & Dragons monster category: celestials.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (often called fiends) have been part of Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it took a while longer for their angelic equivalents to appear. A few unique “divine messengers” with specific names were featured in Dragon magazine editions #12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than variations of the angels from Hebrew and Christian sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to hold out for 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon, where he presented new monsters that would appear in the 1983 Monster Manual II. That’s when the deva, the planetar, and the solar angel first appeared, starting a lineage of beings called celestial entities that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the agents of good-aligned deities, created by their creators to serve as warriors, commanders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and overall 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 support the faith of their deity on the mortal world. Despite their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Well-known instances encompass Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is notably underdeveloped in contrast to demonic entities. The Abyss has 99 layers of expanding chaos and demon lords tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of the series Game of Thrones with greater violence and more engaging subplots. And don’t get me started the Yugoloth. In the meantime, all the essential information about celestial beings can be gathered in an short time of online research.

It’s understandable that beings who look like angels from the Bible went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about giving players stat blocks for divine beings they could murder in their sessions, and even if celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of looks and purposes, that problematic origin 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. From that perspective, the bad guys have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and etc.) but they’re in the end unpredictable and disorderly entities that can spin in a many ways without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Celestials

To be frank, I understand: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of good that smite evil in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also become clichéd very fast. That widespread disinterest means we remain unaware of that much about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what happens once the deity who made them perishes. There is no canonical answer, and each Dungeon Master is free to devise their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question at the heart of the setting of Aramán, a place where the deities have all been slain by mortals in a massive war that ended 70 years prior to the start of the campaign. So what became of the followers of these gods?

Brennan’s answer is straightforward, terrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and turned into a plague that destroyed entire countries. A lot about the history of this world, the war against the gods, and its aftermath in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it seems that after the gods were slain, the celestial beings became “wild”. They became monsters that could destroy entire regions if not contained. The audience caught a sight of how frightening one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) got to meet his “ancestor,” a terrifying celestial entity kept chained in a massive coffin.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestials in D&D, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with ending the Blood War led to her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil of Hell. Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was called forth by a cleric inside the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the madness permeating the location.

The corruption observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings did not lose their virtue. They weren’t tricked, nor misled by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are casualties; one more terrible consequence of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 continues, it is hoped the DM focuses on the notion that, no matter how “righteous” that conflict was, the humans who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the outcome. Their realm has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been cut off, and the beings that were once their protectors, shepherding their souls to security after death, are now frightening disasters.

Certainly, this might simply be a practical method to solve Gygax’s initial quandary. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a screaming, insane entity with multiple fangs, but I am also very intrigued by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in D&D. I don’t necessarily agree with the DM’s aversion for gods in his campaigns, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the flat {