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D&D offers a unique creative space. In theory, it acts as a blank canvas where the creativity of DMs and players can paint countless scenarios. However, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a 50-year legacy of campaign settings, monsters, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to completely free themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, so that a lot of “fresh” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of familiar ideas. At times you encounter elements that sound as good as “a classic hit,” on other occasions you wince as if hearing “All Summer Long.”

The show Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks 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). While devoted followers of Brennan and his other series Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (He really hates the deities!), the second episode stood out to me because of a truly original take on a traditional D&D creature type: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in Dungeons & Dragons

Demons and devils (collectively known as evil outsiders) have been included in D&D since 1976, but it took a while longer for their angelic equivalents to appear. A handful of distinct “angels” with individual titles appeared in Dragon magazine issues 12 (February 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than riffs on the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” article in Dragon, where he presented new monsters that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva, the planetar, and the solar angel made their debut, starting a lineage of creatures known as celestials that is still present in the most recent version of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the agents of good-aligned deities, made by their creators to act as soldiers, commanders, messengers, 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. Despite their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Famous examples encompass Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is markedly 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 the series Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gathered in an hour of online research.

It’s not surprising that beings who resemble angels from the Bible received less attention. There are stories that Gygax felt uneasy about giving players game statistics for angels they could kill in their sessions, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a broader spectrum of looks and purposes, that problematic origin stunted their development. There’s also only so much what you can do with beings that are created to be servants of a god. Certainly, they have independent thought, but their narrative potential is restricted. In that sense, the bad guys have much more freedom: They have defined superiors (Lords of Demons, Infernal Dukes, and etc.) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly creatures that can evolve in a many ways without sacrificing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Redefines Heavenly Beings

To be frank, I get it: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of good that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be cool, but they also become clichéd very fast. That general lack of interest implies we remain unaware of that much about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what occurs once the deity who made them dies. There is no official explanation, and every DM is able to come up with their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to center this issue at the heart of the world of Aramán, a place where the deities have all been slain by mortals in a great conflict that concluded seven decades prior to the start of the story. So what happened to the followers of these divine beings?

Brennan’s solution is simple, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and became a blight 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 when the gods were slain, the celestials became “wild”. They transformed into creatures that could annihilate large areas if left unchecked. The audience got a glimpse of how frightening such a being can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial entity kept chained in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestial beings in Dungeons & Dragons, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. The angel Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with ending the Blood War led to her being tainted by the devil Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was summoned by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “cleaning” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the insanity permeating the location.

The taint observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, or led astray by their own pride or fixations. They are casualties; one more dreadful consequence 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 still regret the consequences. Their realm has been harmed, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the creatures that were once their protectors, guiding their spirits to security after death, are now terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this may just be a practical method to solve the original creator’s initial quandary. It’s easy to justify killing an angel when it’s a shrieking, insane creature with multiple fangs, but I also feel highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in D&D. I don’t necessarily agree with the DM’s loathing for divine beings in his campaigns, but I nonetheless favor these horrific heavenly beings to the flat {