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D&D presents a unique imaginative arena. In theory, it acts as a empty slate where the imagination of DMs and participants can craft any kind of picture. Yet, D&D also bears a five-decade history of campaign settings, monsters, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and general lore. Even the most talented imaginative thinkers struggle to entirely detach themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, so that a great deal of “fresh” content for D&D is a reiteration of familiar ideas. Sometimes you get things that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you cringe like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

The show Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past due to the original settings of Exandria (created by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world created by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While devoted followers of Brennan and his other series Dimension 20 work may identify some of his common themes (He strongly dislikes the deities!), episode 2 stood out to me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a classic D&D creature type: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Demons and devils (collectively known as fiends) have been included in D&D since 1976, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to show up. A handful of distinct “angels” with individual titles appeared in the publication Dragon issues #12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were little more than variations of the celestial figures from biblical sacred texts; for more original versions, we had to wait until the early 80s and Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” article in Dragon, where he presented new monsters that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar angel made their debut, starting a lineage of beings known as celestial entities that is still present in the most recent version of the role-playing game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the agents of benevolent gods, created by their creators to act as soldiers, commanders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and overall to populate their domains in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and support the belief of their deity on the Material Plane. In spite of their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Well-known instances encompass the angel 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 markedly less fleshed out 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 Game of Thrones with greater violence and more engaging side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestials can be gathered in an short time of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that beings who look like angels from the Bible received less attention. There are stories that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players stat blocks for divine beings they could kill in their games, and even if celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range of appearances and roles, that problematic origin hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can do with creatures that are created to be divine minions. Sure, they have free will, but their storytelling range is restricted. From that perspective, the bad guys have much more freedom: They have defined superiors (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly entities that can evolve in a many ways without sacrificing 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 virtue that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. That general lack of interest implies we remain unaware of that much about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what happens after the god who created them dies. There is no official explanation, and every DM is free to come up with their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to center this issue at the heart of the world of Aramán, one where the gods have all been slain by humans in a great conflict that ended seven decades prior to the beginning of the story. So what became of the followers of these gods?

Mulligan’s solution is straightforward, horrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and turned into a blight that destroyed entire countries. A lot about the history of this world, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it seems that after the gods were slain, the celestials became “wild”. They transformed into creatures that could destroy entire regions if not contained. Viewers got a glimpse of how scary such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial held bound in a massive coffin.

It is no accident that the most compelling celestial beings in D&D, story-wise, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, as an instance, was a mighty Solar angel whose obsession with concluding the Blood War led to her being tainted by the devil Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was called forth by a cleric inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the evil in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the insanity infusing the location.

The taint observed 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 pride or obsessions. They are casualties; another terrible consequence of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 progresses, it is hoped the DM focuses on the idea that, regardless of how “just” that conflict was, the mortals who emerged victorious may still regret the outcome. Their realm has been wounded, their connection to the afterlife has been cut off, and the beings that were once their guardians, shepherding their souls to safety after death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this may just be a practical method to solve Gygax’s initial quandary. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a screaming, mad entity with multiple fangs, but I am also highly fascinated by this new declination of the celestial mythology in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s aversion for divine beings in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {