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D&D provides a unique creative space. Theoretically, it serves as a empty slate where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and participants can paint any kind of picture. However, D&D also bears a 50-year legacy of campaign settings, creatures, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the most talented creative minds find it difficult to completely free themselves from this vast universe of existing content, so that a lot of “new” material for D&D is a reiteration of sampled tracks. At times you encounter elements that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you cringe like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive 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 DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although devoted followers of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (Brennan 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.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Demons and devils (often called evil outsiders) have been included in D&D since 1976, but it took a while longer for their angelic equivalents to appear. A few unique “divine messengers” with individual titles appeared in the publication Dragon issues #12 (Feb. 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than variations of the angels from biblical religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to hold out for 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” article in Dragon magazine, where he introduced new monsters that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s when the deva, the planetar, and the solar angel made their debut, starting a tradition of creatures called celestial entities that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestials are the servants of benevolent gods, made by their masters to serve as soldiers, leaders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and overall to inhabit their realms in the Upper Planes. They are paragons of virtue who battle the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and help uphold the faith of their deity on the mortal world. In spite of their close connection with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Well-known instances include Lumalia and the fallen 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 demonic entities. The chaotic Abyss has ninety-nine levels of expanding chaos and demon lords warring amongst themselves. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging side stories. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestials can be gathered in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s understandable that creatures who resemble angels from the Bible went underdeveloped. There are stories that Gygax felt uneasy about providing gamers game statistics for divine beings they could kill in their sessions, and although celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of appearances and roles, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can create for creatures that are created to be divine minions. Certainly, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is limited. From that perspective, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and etc.) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly entities that can evolve in a lot of directions without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Reimagines Celestials

To be frank, I understand: Celestial beings are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of good 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 that much about celestials. As an illustration, we still don’t know what occurs after the deity who created them dies. There is no official explanation, and every DM is able to devise their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue central to the setting of Aramán, one where the gods have all been slain by humans in a massive war that ended seven decades prior to the start of the campaign. So what became of the followers of these gods?

Brennan’s solution is simple, 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 divine conflict, and its aftermath in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that when the gods were slain, the celestial beings became “wild”. They became monsters that could annihilate entire regions if left unchecked. Viewers got a glimpse of how scary one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as the character Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial entity kept chained in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most compelling celestial beings in Dungeons & Dragons, story-wise, are those who have fallen from grace. The angel Zariel, for example, was a mighty Solar angel whose obsession with ending the Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar angel who was called forth by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “cleaning” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the insanity permeating the place.

The corruption seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials did not lose their virtue. They were not deceived, nor misled by their own arrogance or fixations. They are victims; one more dreadful result of the Shapers’ War. As the new campaign continues, I hope the DM focuses on the idea that, regardless of how “righteous” that war was, the humans who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the outcome. Their world has been harmed, their link to the hereafter has been cut off, and the beings that were formerly their guardians, guiding their spirits to safety after death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this might simply be a convenient way to solve the original creator’s original dilemma. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a shrieking, insane entity with multiple fangs, but I also feel very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythos in D&D. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s aversion for divine beings in his campaigns, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {