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D&D provides a distinctive creative space. Theoretically, it acts as a blank canvas where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and participants can paint countless scenarios. However, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a 50-year legacy of campaign settings, monsters, magic systems, established non-player characters, and rich mythology. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this extensive landscape of references, meaning that a lot of “new” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of familiar ideas. Sometimes you encounter elements that sound as good as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you wince as if hearing “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the original settings of its first setting (created by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the setting crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although devoted followers of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (He really hates the deities!), the second episode impressed me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a classic D&D creature type: angelic beings.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings 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 appear. A few unique “divine messengers” with specific names appeared in the publication Dragon editions 12 (Feb. 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than riffs on the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until the early 80s and Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” article in Dragon, where he presented fresh creatures that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar angel, and the solar angel first appeared, initiating a lineage of creatures called celestial entities that is still present in the most recent version of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestial beings are the servants of benevolent gods, made by their masters to act as warriors, commanders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and overall to inhabit their realms 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 deity on the Material Plane. In spite of their close connection with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Famous examples include the angel Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is notably less fleshed out compared to demonic entities. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of expanding chaos and lords of demons warring amongst themselves. The infernal Nine Hells are a interpretation of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more interesting subplots. And that’s not even mentioning the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestial beings can be gathered in an short time of online research.

It’s not surprising that creatures who resemble angels from the Bible received less attention. There are stories that Gygax was uncomfortable about providing gamers game statistics for angels they could kill in their sessions, and even if celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range of looks and purposes, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can do with beings that are created to be servants of a god. Certainly, they have independent thought, but their narrative potential is restricted. In that sense, the antagonists 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 many ways without losing their unique nature.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Heavenly Beings

Honestly, I get it: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of good that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be cool, but they also get cheesy quickly. That general lack of interest implies we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what happens once the deity who made them perishes. There is no canonical answer, and every DM is free to come up with their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to center this issue central to the setting of Aramán, one where the deities have all been killed by mortals in a massive war that ended seven decades prior to the start of the story. So what happened to the followers of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s solution is simple, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and became a blight that destroyed entire countries. A great deal about the past of this world, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the current era has still to be revealed, but it seems that when the deities were slain, the celestial beings went “feral”. They transformed into monsters that could destroy entire regions if not contained. Viewers caught a sight of how frightening such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial entity kept chained in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestial beings in D&D, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with concluding the eternal Blood War led to her being tainted by Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was called forth by a priest inside Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing to the insanity permeating the place.

The corruption 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; another terrible result of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 progresses, I hope Mulligan focuses on the notion that, regardless of how “just” that conflict was, the humans who won it 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 protectors, shepherding their souls to security after death, are currently frightening disasters.

Sure, this may just be a practical method to solve the original creator’s original dilemma. It is simple to justify killing an divine being when it’s a shrieking, mad entity with multiple fangs, but I also feel very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythology in Dungeons & Dragons. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s loathing for divine beings in his stories, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {