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D&D offers a unique imaginative arena. Theoretically, it serves as a empty slate where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and players can craft any kind of picture. However, D&D also carries a five-decade history of campaign settings, creatures, magic systems, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this extensive landscape of references, meaning that a lot of “new” material for D&D is a reiteration of sampled tracks. At times you get elements that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” other times you cringe like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

The show Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the original settings of Exandria (created by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the setting crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although longtime fans of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (Brennan really hates the gods!), the second episode impressed me because of a highly innovative take on a traditional D&D creature type: celestials.

The Historical Background of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Demons and devils (collectively known as fiends) have been part of D&D since 1976, but it took a while longer for their heavenly counterparts to appear. A few unique “divine messengers” with specific names were featured in Dragon magazine editions 12 (February 1978) and #17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than variations of the angels from Hebrew and Christian sacred texts; for more original versions, we had to hold out for 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” column in Dragon, 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 first appeared, initiating a lineage of creatures known as celestial entities that is still present in the most recent version of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestials are the agents of good-aligned deities, created by their creators to serve as warriors, commanders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and in general to inhabit their realms in the Upper Planes. They are champions of good who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Lower Planes and support the belief of their deity on the Material Plane. In spite of their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Well-known instances encompass Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is notably less fleshed out in contrast to demonic entities. The chaotic Abyss has 99 layers of ever-growing disorder and demon lords tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a interpretation of Game of Thrones with greater violence and more interesting 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 short time of wiki reading.

It’s understandable that creatures who resemble biblical angels went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gygax felt uneasy about giving players game statistics for angels they could murder in their sessions, and even if celestials were subsequently developed with a broader spectrum of looks 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 servants of a god. Sure, they have free will, but their narrative potential is limited. From that perspective, the bad guys have much more freedom: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and so on) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly entities that can spin in a lot of directions without losing their unique nature.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Redefines Celestials

Honestly, I understand: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of virtue that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be cool, but they also get cheesy very fast. That widespread disinterest implies we remain unaware of that much about celestials. As an illustration, we still don’t know what happens after the deity who created them dies. There is no canonical answer, and every DM is able to come up with their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue central to the setting of Aramán, one where the deities have all been slain by mortals in a massive war that concluded 70 years prior to the start of the story. So what became of the followers of these gods?

Brennan’s solution is straightforward, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and turned into a plague that devastated entire countries. A great deal about the history of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that after the gods died, the celestials went “feral”. They became monsters that could annihilate large areas if not contained. Viewers caught a sight of how scary one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial entity kept chained in a enormous casket.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestials in D&D, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with concluding the eternal Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil of Hell. Fazrian is a little-known Planetar 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 location.

The taint observed in the fourth campaign of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, nor led astray by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are victims; another terrible result of the Shapers’ War. As the new campaign continues, it is hoped the DM concentrates on the notion that, no matter how “just” that conflict was, the humans who won it may still regret the consequences. Their realm has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been severed, and the beings that were once their guardians, guiding their spirits to safety after death, are now terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this might simply be a convenient way to address Gygax’s initial quandary. It is simple to justify killing an angel when it’s a screaming, mad creature with rows of teeth, but I also feel very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythos in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with Brennan’s loathing for divine beings in his stories, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {