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D&D offers a unique imaginative arena. Theoretically, it acts as a empty slate where the imagination of DMs and participants can paint countless scenarios. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a five-decade history of worlds, monsters, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and rich mythology. Even the best creative minds struggle to completely free themselves from this extensive landscape of references, meaning that a great deal of “new” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of sampled tracks. At times you encounter things that sound as good as “a classic hit,” other times you wince like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the original settings of its first setting (created by the DM Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world created by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While devoted followers of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his common themes (He really hates the gods!), the second episode stood out to me because of a truly original take on a traditional D&D creature type: angelic beings.

A Brief History of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Demons and devils (collectively known as fiends) have been part of Dungeons & Dragons since 1976, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to show up. 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 angels from biblical sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until the early 80s and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column in Dragon magazine, where he presented fresh creatures that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva, the planetar, and the solar angel first appeared, initiating a tradition of beings known as celestial entities that is still present in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestials are the agents of benevolent gods, made by their masters to serve as warriors, commanders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and in general to inhabit their realms in the Upper Planes. They are paragons of virtue who fight against the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and support the belief of their god on the Material Plane. Despite their close connection with the gods, celestials are unique individuals with specific personalities. Well-known instances include Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is notably underdeveloped compared to demonic entities. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of expanding chaos and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more interesting side stories. And don’t get me started the Yugoloth. In the meantime, all the essential information about celestials can be gleaned in an hour of online research.

It’s not surprising that beings who resemble biblical angels 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 subsequently developed with a bigger range of appearances and roles, that controversial beginning stunted their development. There is also a limit to what you can do with beings that are designed to be divine minions. Sure, they have independent thought, but their narrative potential is limited. In that sense, the bad guys have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and so on) but they’re in the end unpredictable and disorderly entities that can evolve in a lot of directions without losing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Heavenly Beings

To be frank, I get it: Celestial beings are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of good that smite evil 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. For example, we still don’t know what happens once the deity who made them perishes. There is no canonical answer, and each Dungeon Master is able to come up with their own interpretation. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question at the heart of the setting of Aramán, one where the gods have all been killed by humans in a great conflict that concluded 70 years prior to the beginning of the story. So what happened to the servants of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s answer is simple, terrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and became a plague that destroyed whole nations. A lot about the history of this world, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the current era has still to be revealed, but it seems that after the deities were slain, the celestial beings went “feral”. They became monsters that could annihilate large areas if left unchecked. Viewers caught a sight of how frightening one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) got to meet his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial kept chained in a massive coffin.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestial beings in D&D, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. The angel Zariel, for example, was a mighty Solar angel whose obsession with concluding the Blood War led to her being tainted by the devil Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was summoned by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the evil in the Terminus level of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing 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, nor led astray by their own pride or fixations. They are casualties; another terrible 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 war was, the mortals who won it may still regret the outcome. Their world has been harmed, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the beings that were once their guardians, shepherding their souls to safety after death, are now terrifying calamities.

Sure, this may just be a convenient way to address the original creator’s original dilemma. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a shrieking, mad entity with rows of teeth, but I also feel highly fascinated by this new declination of the celestial mythology in Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with the DM’s aversion for gods in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {