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D&D provides a unique creative space. In theory, it serves as a empty slate where the imagination of DMs and players can craft countless scenarios. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a 50-year legacy of campaign settings, monsters, magic systems, established non-player characters, and rich mythology. Even the most talented imaginative thinkers struggle to completely free themselves from this vast landscape of references, meaning that a great deal of “fresh” content for D&D is a reworking of familiar ideas. At times you get elements that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” on other occasions you cringe as if hearing “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the unique worlds of Exandria (designed by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world created by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). While devoted followers of Mulligan and his other series Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (He strongly dislikes the gods!), the second episode impressed me because of a truly original interpretation on a classic D&D creature type: angelic beings.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Demons and devils (often called fiends) have been included in D&D since 1976, but it took a while longer for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A few unique “divine messengers” with individual titles were featured in the publication Dragon editions #12 (February 1978) and #17 (Aug. 1978). These were essentially riffs on the celestial figures from biblical sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to hold out for the early 80s and Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” column in Dragon, where he introduced fresh creatures that would appear in the 1983 Monster Manual II. That’s when the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar angel first appeared, initiating a tradition of creatures called celestials that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestial beings are the servants of benevolent gods, made by their masters to serve as warriors, commanders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and in general to inhabit their domains in the Upper Planes. They are paragons of virtue who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness 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 unique individuals with specific personalities. Well-known instances encompass Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is markedly 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 interpretation of the series Game of Thrones with greater violence and more interesting side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. In the meantime, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gleaned in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that creatures who look like angels from the Bible received less attention. There are stories that Gary Gygax felt uneasy about giving players stat blocks for angels they could murder in their games, and even if celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of appearances and purposes, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can create for beings that are designed to be divine minions. Certainly, they have independent thought, but their narrative potential is restricted. In that sense, the bad guys have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re in the end unpredictable and disorderly creatures that can spin in a lot of directions without sacrificing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Redefines Heavenly Beings

To be frank, I get it: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of virtue that smite evil in all its forms can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. That general lack of interest means we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what occurs once the deity who made them perishes. There is no official explanation, and every DM is able to come up with their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question central to the setting of Aramán, a place where the deities have all been killed by mortals in a great conflict that ended seven decades before the start of the campaign. So what became of the followers of these divine beings?

Brennan’s solution is straightforward, horrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and became a plague that destroyed entire countries. A great deal about the history of Aramán, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the current era has still to be revealed, but it appears that when the deities were slain, the celestial beings became “wild”. They became creatures that could destroy entire regions if left unchecked. Viewers caught a sight of how scary such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as the character Wicander (Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial held bound in a enormous casket.

It’s not a coincidence that the most interesting celestial beings in D&D, narratively, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with ending the Blood War led to her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was called forth by a cleric inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the insanity permeating the location.

The taint seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, nor led astray by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are casualties; another dreadful consequence of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign continues, it is hoped the DM focuses on the idea that, no matter how “righteous” that conflict was, the humans who won it may nonetheless lament the outcome. Their realm has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the beings that were formerly their protectors, guiding their spirits to safety following death, are now terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this might simply be a convenient way to address Gygax’s original dilemma. It is simple to justify killing an angel when it’s a screaming, insane creature with multiple fangs, but I also feel highly fascinated by this new declination of the celestial mythos in D&D. I don’t necessarily agree with the DM’s aversion for gods in his stories, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {