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D&D provides a distinctive 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, D&D also carries a five-decade history of campaign settings, creatures, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and rich mythology. Even the most talented creative minds find it difficult to completely free themselves from this vast universe of existing content, meaning that a lot of “new” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of sampled tracks. At times you get elements that sound as good as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you cringe like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past due to the original settings of its first setting (designed by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the setting crafted 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 (Brennan strongly dislikes the gods!), episode 2 impressed me because of a truly original take on a traditional D&D creature type: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Fiendish creatures (often called fiends) have been part of Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to appear. A handful of distinct “divine messengers” with specific names were featured in Dragon magazine issues #12 (February 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than 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 new monsters that would be included 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 creatures called celestials that is still present in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the servants of good-aligned deities, created by their masters to serve as warriors, commanders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and overall to populate their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and help uphold the belief of their god on the mortal world. In spite of their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Well-known instances encompass Lumalia and 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.

Celestial lore is markedly less fleshed out in contrast to demonic entities. The chaotic Abyss has ninety-nine levels of expanding chaos and lords of demons warring amongst themselves. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of the series Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more interesting side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. In the meantime, all the essential information about celestials can be gleaned in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s understandable that creatures who look like angels from the Bible received less attention. There are stories that 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 looks and purposes, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can do with beings that are designed to be servants of a god. Sure, they have independent thought, but their narrative potential is limited. From that perspective, the bad guys have much more freedom: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and etc.) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly entities that can evolve in a lot of directions without sacrificing their unique nature.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Heavenly Beings

Honestly, I understand: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of virtue that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. That general lack of interest means we still don’t know a great deal about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what happens once the deity who created them perishes. There is no official explanation, and every DM is able to devise their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question at the heart of the setting of Aramán, one where the deities have all been slain by humans in a massive war that concluded seven decades before the start of the story. So what happened to the followers of these gods?

Mulligan’s solution is straightforward, horrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and became a plague that devastated whole nations. A great deal about the history of this world, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the current era has still to be revealed, but it seems that after the deities died, the celestials became “wild”. They became monsters that could destroy large areas if not contained. Viewers caught a sight of how scary one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial entity held bound 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. The angel Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with concluding the eternal Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. 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 wickedness in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the madness infusing the place.

The taint observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, nor misled by their own arrogance or fixations. They are victims; one more terrible consequence of the Shapers’ War. As the new campaign continues, it is hoped Mulligan concentrates on the notion that, no matter how “just” that conflict was, the humans who won it may nonetheless lament the outcome. Their realm has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been cut off, and the creatures that were formerly their guardians, shepherding their souls to security after death, are now frightening disasters.

Certainly, this might simply be a convenient way to address the original creator’s initial quandary. It is simple to justify killing an angel when it’s a shrieking, mad entity with rows of teeth, but I am also very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s loathing for divine beings in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {