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D&D provides a unique creative space. In theory, it acts as a blank canvas where the creativity of DMs and players can paint countless scenarios. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a 50-year legacy of campaign settings, monsters, spellcasting rules, well-known NPCs, and general lore. Even the most talented creative minds find it difficult to entirely detach themselves from this vast universe of existing content, so that a great deal of “fresh” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of sampled tracks. Sometimes you encounter elements that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” other times you wince as if hearing “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the original settings of Exandria (created by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While longtime fans of Brennan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (Brennan strongly dislikes the gods!), the second episode stood out to me because of a truly original interpretation on a traditional Dungeons & Dragons monster category: angelic beings.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings in Dungeons & Dragons

Demons and devils (collectively known as fiends) have been part of Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A few unique “angels” with individual titles were featured in Dragon magazine editions #12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were essentially riffs on the angels from biblical sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to hold out for the early 80s and Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” article in Dragon magazine, where he introduced fresh creatures that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar first appeared, starting a lineage of creatures known as celestials that is still present in the most recent version of the game.

In D&D, celestials are the servants of good-aligned deities, made by their creators to act as soldiers, leaders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and in general to populate their domains in the Upper Planes. They are champions of good who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Lower Planes and support the belief of their god on the Material Plane. In spite of their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Well-known instances encompass Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is notably underdeveloped in contrast to demonic entities. The chaotic Abyss has 99 layers of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The Nine Hells are a version of the series Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more interesting side stories. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. In the meantime, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gleaned in an short time of online research.

It’s not surprising that creatures who look like angels from the Bible received less attention. There are stories that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players game statistics for angels they could kill 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 designed to be divine minions. Sure, they have free will, but their narrative potential is limited. From that perspective, the bad guys have much more freedom: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re in the end fickle and chaotic creatures that can spin in a many ways without losing their unique nature.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Heavenly Beings

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 get cheesy quickly. That general lack of interest means we remain unaware of that much about celestials. As an illustration, we still don’t know what occurs once the god who made them dies. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is free to come up with their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question central to the setting of Aramán, one where the deities have all been killed by mortals in a massive war that ended 70 years prior to the beginning of the story. So what became of the servants of these gods?

Mulligan’s solution is simple, terrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and turned into a plague that devastated whole nations. A great deal about the past of Aramán, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the current era has still to be revealed, but it seems that after the gods died, the celestials became “wild”. They transformed into monsters that could destroy entire regions if left unchecked. Viewers caught a sight of how scary one of these creatures can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial kept chained in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestials in D&D, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, as an instance, was a mighty Solar angel whose fixation with ending the eternal Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was called forth by a cleric inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the madness permeating the place.

The corruption observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, or misled by their own arrogance or fixations. They are casualties; one more dreadful result of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 continues, I hope Mulligan focuses on the idea that, no matter how “just” that conflict was, the humans who emerged victorious may still regret the outcome. Their realm has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been cut off, and the creatures that were formerly their guardians, shepherding their souls to security after death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this might simply be a practical method to solve Gygax’s initial quandary. It’s easy to justify killing an angel when it’s a screaming, insane entity with rows of teeth, but I am also very intrigued by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. 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 {