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D&D provides a distinctive imaginative arena. In theory, it acts as a empty slate where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and participants can craft any kind of picture. However, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a five-decade history of worlds, creatures, spellcasting rules, well-known NPCs, and general lore. Even the most talented imaginative thinkers find it difficult to entirely detach themselves from this vast landscape of references, meaning that a lot of “new” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of sampled tracks. At times you encounter elements that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you wince as if hearing “a derivative tune.”

The show Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the unique worlds of Exandria (created by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the setting created by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). Although devoted followers of Mulligan and his other series Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (He strongly dislikes the deities!), the second episode stood out to me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a classic Dungeons & Dragons monster category: angelic beings.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings in Dungeons & Dragons

Demons and devils (often called fiends) have been part of D&D since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to show up. A few unique “divine messengers” with individual titles were featured in Dragon magazine editions #12 (Feb. 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than variations of the celestial figures from biblical sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to hold out for the early 80s and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” article in Dragon, where he introduced fresh creatures that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual II. That’s when the deva angel, the planetar, and the solar angel first appeared, initiating a lineage of creatures called celestial entities that is continues to exist in the most recent version of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the agents of good-aligned deities, made by their masters to act as soldiers, leaders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and overall to populate their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Lower Planes and support the faith of their deity on the mortal world. In spite of their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Well-known instances include the angel Lumalia and the fallen 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.

The mythology of celestials is notably underdeveloped compared to fiends. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of expanding chaos and demon lords warring amongst themselves. The Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with greater violence and more interesting subplots. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gleaned in an short time of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that beings who resemble biblical angels went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gygax felt uneasy about giving players game statistics for divine beings they could murder in their sessions, and even if celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range of appearances and purposes, that controversial beginning stunted their development. There is also a limit to what you can do with beings that are created to be divine minions. Certainly, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is limited. From that perspective, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and etc.) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly entities that can evolve in a lot of directions without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Heavenly Beings

Honestly, I get it: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of virtue that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also become clichéd very fast. That widespread disinterest means we remain unaware of that much about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what happens after the deity who created them perishes. There is no official explanation, and every DM is free to come up with their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue at the heart of the world of Aramán, one where the deities have all been slain by humans in a massive war that concluded 70 years before the beginning of the story. So what happened to the followers of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s answer is simple, terrifying, and very interesting: They went crazy and turned into a blight that devastated entire countries. A great deal about the past of Aramán, the war against the gods, and its aftermath in the current era has still to be revealed, but it seems that when the gods were slain, the celestial beings became “wild”. They became monsters that could annihilate large areas if not contained. The audience got a glimpse of how scary such a being can be at the end of episode 2, as the character Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial held bound in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most compelling celestial beings in D&D, narratively, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, as an instance, was a mighty Solar angel whose fixation with concluding the Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar angel who was summoned by a cleric inside Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the evil in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the insanity permeating the location.

The taint observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, or led astray by their own pride or obsessions. They are victims; one more dreadful consequence of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 continues, I hope the DM concentrates on the notion that, regardless of how “righteous” that conflict was, the mortals who won it may still regret the consequences. Their world has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the creatures that were once their protectors, guiding their spirits to safety after death, are now frightening disasters.

Certainly, this might simply be a convenient way to address the original creator’s original dilemma. It’s easy to justify killing an divine being when it’s a shrieking, insane creature with rows of teeth, but I am also highly fascinated by this new declination of the celestial mythos in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s loathing for divine beings in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {