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D&D offers a distinctive creative space. Theoretically, it serves as a blank canvas where the imagination of DMs and participants can paint countless scenarios. However, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a five-decade history of worlds, monsters, magic systems, established non-player characters, and rich mythology. Even the most talented imaginative thinkers struggle to completely free themselves from this vast landscape of references, so that a great deal of “new” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of sampled tracks. At times you encounter elements that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you cringe like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the original settings of its first setting (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). While longtime fans of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his common themes (Brennan really hates the deities!), the second episode stood out to me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a traditional Dungeons & Dragons monster category: angelic beings.

A Brief History of Celestials in D&D

Demons and devils (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 handful of distinct “divine messengers” with specific names were featured in the publication Dragon editions #12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than riffs on the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon, where he introduced fresh creatures that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva, the planetar, and the solar angel made their debut, initiating a tradition of beings known as celestial entities that is still present in the most recent version of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestials are the servants of benevolent gods, made by their creators to act as soldiers, commanders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and overall to populate their domains in the Upper Planes. They are paragons of virtue who fight against the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and help uphold the faith of their god on the mortal world. In spite of their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are unique individuals with specific personalities. 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 notably underdeveloped in contrast to demonic entities. The chaotic Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons warring amongst themselves. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of 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 celestials can be gathered in an hour of online research.

It’s not surprising that beings who look like biblical angels received less attention. Rumor has it that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about giving players game statistics for divine beings they could murder in their sessions, and even if celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of appearances and purposes, that controversial beginning stunted their development. There is also a limit to what you can do with beings that are created to be divine minions. Certainly, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is restricted. From that perspective, the bad guys have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and etc.) but they’re in the end unpredictable and disorderly creatures that can spin in a many ways without sacrificing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Celestials

To be frank, I get it: Celestials are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of good that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be cool, but they also get cheesy quickly. That general lack of interest means we remain unaware of that much about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what occurs once the deity who created them dies. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is able to come up with their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question central to the setting of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been slain by mortals in a massive war that concluded seven decades before the start of the story. So what happened to the followers of these gods?

Mulligan’s answer is simple, horrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and turned into a plague that destroyed entire countries. A great deal about the past of this world, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that after the gods were slain, the celestial beings went “feral”. They became creatures that could annihilate 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 the character Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a terrifying celestial kept chained in a massive coffin.

It is no accident that the most compelling celestials in Dungeons & Dragons, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. The angel Zariel, for example, was a mighty Solar angel whose obsession with ending the eternal Blood War led to her being corrupted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil of Hell. Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was summoned by a cleric inside the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the evil in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the madness infusing the location.

The taint seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, nor misled by their own arrogance or fixations. They are casualties; one more dreadful result of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 continues, it is hoped Mulligan focuses on the idea that, regardless of how “just” that conflict was, the mortals who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their realm has been wounded, their connection to the afterlife has been cut off, and the beings that were once their protectors, shepherding their souls to security following death, are now terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this might simply be a practical method to address the original creator’s original dilemma. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a screaming, insane creature with multiple fangs, but I also feel very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythology in Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s aversion for gods in his campaigns, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {