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Dungeons & Dragons presents a distinctive imaginative arena. In theory, it serves as a blank canvas where the creativity of DMs and players can paint any kind of picture. However, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a five-decade history of worlds, creatures, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the most talented creative minds find it difficult to entirely detach themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, meaning that a lot of “fresh” content for D&D is a reiteration of familiar ideas. At times you encounter elements that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you cringe as if hearing “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the original settings of Exandria (designed by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although longtime fans of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (Brennan strongly dislikes the deities!), the second episode impressed me because of a highly innovative take on a classic Dungeons & Dragons monster category: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in Dungeons & Dragons

Demons and devils (often called fiends) have been included in Dungeons & Dragons since 1976, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to appear. A few unique “angels” with individual titles appeared in the publication Dragon editions 12 (February 1978) and #17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than riffs on 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” column in Dragon magazine, where he presented fresh creatures that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar, and the solar angel made their debut, starting a tradition of creatures called celestials that is still present in the latest edition of the game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the agents of benevolent gods, created by their masters to act as soldiers, commanders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and overall to populate their domains in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and support the faith of their god on the Material Plane. Despite their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Well-known instances include Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the 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 Abyss has 99 layers of ever-growing disorder and demon lords warring amongst themselves. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of the series Game of Thrones with greater violence and more engaging subplots. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. In the meantime, everything you need to know about celestials can be gathered in an hour of online research.

It’s understandable that creatures who resemble angels from the Bible went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about providing gamers stat blocks for angels they could murder in their games, and even if celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of appearances and roles, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can create for beings that are created to be divine minions. Sure, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is limited. From that perspective, the bad guys have much more freedom: They have defined superiors (Lords of Demons, Infernal Dukes, and so on) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly creatures that can evolve in a many ways without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Heavenly Beings

To be frank, I get it: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of virtue that smite evil in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also become clichéd very fast. That general lack of interest means we remain unaware of that much about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what occurs after the deity who created them perishes. There is no canonical answer, and every DM is free to come up with their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question at the heart of the setting of Aramán, a place where the deities have all been slain by humans in a great conflict that concluded seven decades prior to the start of the campaign. So what happened to the followers of these divine beings?

Brennan’s solution is simple, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and turned into a blight that devastated whole nations. A lot about the past of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that after the gods died, the celestials became “wild”. They transformed into creatures that could annihilate entire regions if left unchecked. Viewers got a glimpse of how frightening such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial kept chained in a massive coffin.

It is no accident that the most compelling celestial beings in Dungeons & Dragons, narratively, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, for example, was a mighty Solar angel whose fixation with concluding the Blood War led to her being tainted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar angel who was called forth by a cleric inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the insanity permeating the location.

The corruption seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings did not lose their virtue. They were not deceived, or misled by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are victims; another dreadful consequence of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign progresses, I hope the DM concentrates on the notion that, regardless of how “just” that conflict was, the humans 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 protectors, guiding their spirits to security following death, are now terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this may just be a practical method to address the original creator’s initial quandary. It is simple to justify killing an angel when it’s a shrieking, mad creature with multiple fangs, but I also feel highly fascinated by this new declination of the celestial mythology in D&D. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s aversion for divine beings in his stories, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the flat {