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Dungeons & Dragons presents a distinctive imaginative arena. In theory, it acts as a blank canvas where the creativity of DMs and participants can paint countless scenarios. Yet, D&D also carries a 50-year legacy of campaign settings, creatures, magic systems, established non-player characters, and rich mythology. Even the best creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this vast landscape of references, so that a great deal of “new” material for D&D is a reworking of sampled tracks. Sometimes you encounter things that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” on other occasions you cringe like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the unique worlds of Exandria (designed by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the setting crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). Although longtime fans of Brennan and his other series Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (Brennan really hates the gods!), episode 2 impressed me because of a truly original interpretation on a traditional Dungeons & Dragons monster category: celestials.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Demons and devils (collectively known as 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 individual titles 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 hold out for the early 80s and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column in Dragon, where he introduced fresh creatures that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s when the deva, the planetar, and the solar first appeared, starting a lineage of creatures known as celestial entities that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestials are the agents of good-aligned deities, created by their creators to serve as warriors, leaders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and in general to populate their realms in the Upper Planes. They are champions of good who fight against the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and help uphold the belief of their god on the Material Plane. In spite of their direct relationship 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 markedly less fleshed out compared to demonic entities. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and demon lords tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a interpretation of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the mysterious Yugoloth. In the meantime, everything you need to know about celestials can be gleaned 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 was uncomfortable 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 problematic origin hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can create for beings that are designed to be divine minions. Certainly, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is limited. From that perspective, the antagonists have much more freedom: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re in the end unpredictable and disorderly entities that can spin in a many ways without sacrificing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Celestials

Honestly, I understand: Celestials are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of good that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also become clichéd very fast. That widespread disinterest means we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. As an illustration, we still don’t know what occurs once the god who created them perishes. There is no canonical answer, and every DM is free to devise their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue at the heart of the setting of Aramán, one where the gods have all been killed by humans in a great conflict that concluded 70 years before the start of the story. So what became of the servants of these gods?

Mulligan’s solution is straightforward, terrifying, and very interesting: They went crazy and became a blight that destroyed whole nations. A great deal about the past of this world, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the present has still to be revealed, but it seems that after the gods died, the celestial beings 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 end of episode 2, as 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 interesting celestials in D&D, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. The angel Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with ending the eternal Blood War led to her being corrupted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar angel who was called forth by a priest inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the insanity permeating the place.

The corruption observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, or misled by their own arrogance or fixations. They are casualties; another terrible consequence of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 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 consequences. Their world has been harmed, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the beings that were formerly their guardians, guiding their spirits to security after death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Sure, this may just be a convenient way to solve Gygax’s original dilemma. It is simple to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a shrieking, insane entity with rows of teeth, but I also feel highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in D&D. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s loathing for divine beings in his stories, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the flat {