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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 craft countless scenarios. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also bears 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 vast landscape of references, meaning that a great deal of “new” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of sampled tracks. Sometimes you encounter things that sound as good as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you cringe like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the original settings of Exandria (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although devoted followers of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his common themes (He really hates the gods!), the second episode impressed me because of a highly innovative take on a classic D&D creature type: angelic beings.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (collectively known as evil outsiders) have been part of D&D since 1976, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to appear. A few unique “angels” with individual titles appeared in the publication Dragon issues 12 (February 1978) and 17 (August 1978). These were little more than variations of the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for more original versions, we had to wait until 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 II. That’s when the deva, the planetar, and the solar made their debut, starting a tradition of creatures called celestial entities that is continues to exist in the most recent version of the game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the agents of benevolent gods, created by their masters to serve as soldiers, commanders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and in general to populate their realms in the Upper Planes. They are champions of good who battle the forces of chaos and evil from the Lower Planes and help uphold the faith of their deity on the Material Plane. Despite their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Well-known instances encompass the angel Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is markedly less fleshed out in contrast to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging subplots. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. In the meantime, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gleaned in an short time of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that creatures who look like biblical angels went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gygax was uncomfortable about providing gamers game statistics for angels they could kill in their sessions, and although celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of looks and roles, that problematic origin hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can do with creatures that are created to be servants of a god. Certainly, they have independent thought, but their narrative potential is limited. From that perspective, the antagonists have much more freedom: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re in the end unpredictable and disorderly creatures that can spin in a many ways without sacrificing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Redefines Celestials

To be frank, I understand: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of good that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be impressive, but they also become clichéd very fast. That general lack of interest means we still don’t know 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 make this question central to the setting of Aramán, one where the gods have all been killed by humans in a great conflict that concluded 70 years before the beginning of the campaign. So what became of 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 history of Aramán, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the present has still to be revealed, but it appears that after the deities were slain, the celestial beings became “wild”. They became creatures that could destroy entire regions if left unchecked. The audience got a glimpse of how frightening such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as the character Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “ancestor,” a terrifying celestial entity held bound in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most compelling celestials in D&D, narratively, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with concluding the Blood War led to her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was summoned by a cleric inside Undermountain and developed a fixation on “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus level of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the madness permeating the location.

The corruption seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, or misled by their own pride or obsessions. They are victims; one more dreadful result of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign continues, it is hoped Mulligan concentrates on the notion that, no matter how “righteous” that conflict was, the mortals who won it may still regret the consequences. Their world has been harmed, 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 now terrifying calamities.

Sure, this might simply be a practical method to address the original creator’s initial quandary. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a screaming, insane entity with rows of teeth, but I also feel very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythology in Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with the DM’s loathing for gods in his stories, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the flat {