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Dungeons & Dragons presents a distinctive imaginative arena. Theoretically, it acts as a empty slate where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and players can paint any kind of picture. However, D&D also bears a 50-year legacy of campaign settings, monsters, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this vast universe of existing content, meaning that a great deal of “new” material for D&D is a reiteration of familiar ideas. Sometimes you encounter things that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you cringe like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the unique worlds of its first setting (created by the DM Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world created by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). Although devoted followers of Brennan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (Brennan strongly dislikes the deities!), episode 2 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 fiends) have been part of D&D since 1976, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to appear. A few unique “angels” with individual titles appeared in Dragon magazine editions 12 (February 1978) and 17 (August 1978). These were essentially variations of the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until the early 80s and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column in Dragon, where he presented new monsters that would appear in the 1983 Monster Manual 2. That’s when the deva angel, the planetar angel, and the solar angel first appeared, initiating a lineage of beings called celestial entities that is still present in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestial beings are the agents of benevolent gods, created by their masters to act as warriors, commanders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and overall to populate their domains in the Upper Planes. They are champions of good who battle the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and support the belief of their god on the mortal world. In spite of their close connection with the gods, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Well-known instances encompass the angel 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 notably underdeveloped in contrast to demonic entities. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and demon lords warring amongst themselves. The infernal Nine Hells are a interpretation of the series Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more interesting subplots. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestials can be gleaned in an short time of online research.

It’s not surprising that beings who look like biblical angels received less attention. There are stories that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about giving players stat blocks for angels they could murder in their sessions, and even if celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of appearances and purposes, that problematic origin hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can do with beings that are designed to be divine minions. Sure, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is restricted. From that perspective, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and so on) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly creatures that can spin in a many ways without losing their unique nature.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Heavenly Beings

Honestly, I get it: Celestials are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of good that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be cool, but they also become clichéd quickly. That widespread disinterest means we still don’t know that much about celestials. As an illustration, we still don’t know what occurs after the deity who made them dies. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is free to devise their own interpretation. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question at the heart of the world of Aramán, one where the gods have all been slain by mortals in a great conflict that concluded seven decades prior to the start of the story. So what became of the followers of these divine beings?

Brennan’s answer is simple, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane 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 seems that when the gods were slain, the celestial beings became “wild”. They transformed into monsters that could annihilate large areas if left unchecked. The audience caught a sight of how frightening such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as the character Wicander (player Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial held bound in a massive coffin.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestials in D&D, story-wise, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, for example, was a mighty Solar angel whose fixation with concluding the Blood War led to her being tainted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was summoned by a cleric inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the evil in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the insanity permeating the place.

The corruption seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, or misled by their own pride or fixations. They are casualties; another dreadful consequence of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign continues, it is hoped the DM concentrates on the notion that, no matter how “just” that war was, the mortals who emerged victorious may still regret the consequences. Their world has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been severed, and the creatures that were formerly their guardians, shepherding their souls to security following death, are now terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this might simply be a convenient way to address Gygax’s original dilemma. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a screaming, mad creature with multiple fangs, but I also feel very intrigued by this fresh variation of the celestial mythology in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s aversion for divine beings in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {