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D&D offers a distinctive imaginative arena. Theoretically, it acts as a empty slate where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and players can paint countless scenarios. Yet, D&D also carries a 50-year legacy of worlds, creatures, spellcasting rules, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the most talented imaginative thinkers find it difficult to entirely detach themselves from this vast landscape of references, so that a lot of “new” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of sampled tracks. Sometimes you get things that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” on other occasions you cringe like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the unique worlds of Exandria (created by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the setting created by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although longtime fans of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (He strongly dislikes the deities!), episode 2 stood out to me because of a truly original take on a traditional Dungeons & Dragons monster category: celestials.

A Brief History of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Demons and devils (often called evil outsiders) have been part of D&D since 1976, but it took a while longer for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A handful of distinct “divine messengers” with specific names were featured in the publication Dragon editions #12 (February 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were little more than variations of the angels from biblical sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to hold out for 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” column in Dragon, where he introduced new monsters that would appear in the 1983 Monster Manual II. That’s when the deva angel, the planetar, and the solar made their debut, starting a tradition of creatures known as celestial entities that is still present in the latest edition of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the agents of good-aligned deities, created by their masters to serve as soldiers, commanders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and in general to inhabit their domains in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who battle the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and help uphold the faith of their god on the mortal world. Despite their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Famous examples encompass the angel Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is notably underdeveloped 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 interpretation of the series Game of Thrones with greater violence and more engaging side stories. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. In the meantime, everything you need to know about celestials can be gathered in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that creatures who look like biblical angels received less attention. Rumor has it that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about giving players stat blocks for angels they could murder in their sessions, and although celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of looks and purposes, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There is also a limit to what you can create for creatures that are created to be servants of a god. Sure, they have free will, but their storytelling range is restricted. In that sense, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic creatures that can evolve in a many ways without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Heavenly Beings

Honestly, I understand: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of virtue that smite evil in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also become clichéd very fast. That widespread disinterest implies we still don’t know a great deal about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what occurs once the god who created them perishes. There is no canonical answer, and every DM is free to devise their own interpretation. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue at the heart of the world of Aramán, one where the gods have all been slain by mortals in a massive war that concluded 70 years before the start of the campaign. So what happened to the followers of these divine beings?

Brennan’s answer is straightforward, terrifying, and very interesting: They went crazy and turned into a plague that destroyed entire countries. A lot about the past of this world, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the present has still to be revealed, but it seems that when the gods died, the celestials went “feral”. They transformed into 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 conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial held bound in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestial beings in D&D, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, for example, was a mighty Solar angel whose obsession with concluding the eternal Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was called forth by a priest inside Undermountain and developed a fixation on “cleaning” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the madness infusing the location.

The taint seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, or led astray by their own arrogance or fixations. They are victims; one more terrible result of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 continues, it is hoped Mulligan concentrates on the notion that, no matter how “righteous” that conflict was, the mortals who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the outcome. Their realm has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been cut off, and the beings that were once their protectors, guiding their spirits to security following death, are now terrifying calamities.

Sure, this might simply be a practical method to solve the original creator’s initial quandary. It’s easy to justify killing an divine being when it’s a shrieking, insane entity with multiple fangs, but I am also highly fascinated by this new declination of the celestial mythology in Dungeons & Dragons. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s aversion for divine beings in his campaigns, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the flat {