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D&D presents a unique imaginative arena. In theory, it acts as a empty slate where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and participants can paint any kind of picture. However, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a five-decade history of campaign settings, creatures, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the best imaginative thinkers struggle to completely free themselves from this extensive landscape of references, so that a lot of “new” material for D&D is a reiteration of sampled tracks. Sometimes you get things that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you wince like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

The show Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the unique worlds of Exandria (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the setting crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). While devoted followers of Mulligan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (Brennan strongly dislikes the gods!), the second episode stood out to me because of a truly original take on a classic D&D creature type: angelic beings.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings in Dungeons & Dragons

Demons and devils (collectively known as evil outsiders) have been part of D&D since the mid-70s, but it took a while longer for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A few unique “angels” with individual titles were featured in Dragon magazine issues 12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than variations of the angels from biblical religious lore; for more original versions, we had to hold out for 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column in Dragon magazine, where he presented fresh creatures that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s when the deva, the planetar, and the solar angel first appeared, starting a lineage of beings known as celestials that is continues to exist in the most recent version of the role-playing game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the agents of good-aligned deities, made by their masters to serve as warriors, leaders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and overall to inhabit their realms in the Upper Planes. They are paragons of virtue who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Lower Planes and help uphold the faith of their god on the mortal world. In spite of their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are unique individuals with specific personalities. Well-known instances include 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.

The mythology of celestials is notably less fleshed out in contrast 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 celestials can be gathered in an short time of online research.

It’s not surprising that creatures who resemble angels from the Bible went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players stat blocks for divine beings they could murder in their sessions, and even if celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of appearances and roles, that problematic origin stunted their development. There’s also only so much what you can do with creatures that are created to be divine minions. Sure, they have free will, but their storytelling range is limited. From that perspective, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic creatures that can spin in a lot of directions without losing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Heavenly Beings

Honestly, I understand: Celestials are just not that interesting. Divine champions of good that smite evil in all its forms can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. That widespread disinterest implies we remain unaware of that much about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what occurs once the deity who created them dies. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is free to devise their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question at the heart of the setting of Aramán, one where the gods have all been slain by mortals in a great conflict that concluded seven decades before the start of the story. So what became of the followers of these divine beings?

Brennan’s solution is simple, horrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and turned into a plague that devastated whole nations. A great deal about the history of Aramán, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that when the gods died, the celestial beings went “feral”. They became monsters that could destroy large areas if not contained. The audience got a glimpse of how frightening such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as the character Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial kept chained in a enormous casket.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestial beings in Dungeons & Dragons, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with concluding the eternal Blood War resulted in her being tainted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was called forth by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the evil in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the insanity permeating the place.

The corruption observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings did not lose their virtue. They were not deceived, or led astray by their own pride or obsessions. They are casualties; another terrible result of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign progresses, I hope Mulligan focuses on the idea that, no matter how “righteous” 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 severed, and the creatures that were formerly their guardians, shepherding their souls to safety following death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Sure, this may just be a convenient way to address Gygax’s original dilemma. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an divine being when it’s a screaming, mad creature with multiple fangs, but I also feel very intrigued by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s loathing for gods in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the flat {