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D&D presents a distinctive creative space. Theoretically, it acts as a empty slate where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and players can paint any kind of picture. However, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a 50-year legacy of campaign settings, creatures, magic systems, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the best creative minds find it difficult to entirely detach themselves from this vast landscape of references, meaning that a lot of “fresh” material for D&D is a reiteration of sampled tracks. Sometimes you get elements that sound as good as “a classic hit,” other times you cringe like when listening to “a derivative tune.”

The show Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the unique worlds of its first setting (designed by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world created by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While longtime fans of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his common themes (He really hates the gods!), episode 2 impressed me because of a truly original interpretation on a traditional D&D creature type: celestials.

A Brief History of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (often called evil outsiders) have been included in Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A handful of distinct “divine messengers” with specific names were featured in the publication Dragon issues #12 (Feb. 1978) and 17 (August 1978). These were essentially riffs on the celestial figures from biblical sacred texts; for more original versions, we had to wait until the early 80s and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” column in Dragon magazine, where he introduced new monsters that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar first appeared, initiating a lineage of creatures known as celestials that is continues to exist in the most recent version of the role-playing game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the servants of good-aligned deities, made by their creators to serve as soldiers, commanders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and overall to populate their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who fight against the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Lower Planes and support the faith of their god on the mortal world. Despite their close connection with the gods, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Famous examples include Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is markedly underdeveloped in contrast to demonic entities. The chaotic Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and demon lords warring amongst themselves. The Nine Hells are a interpretation of Game of Thrones with greater violence and more engaging side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestials can be gathered in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that beings who look like biblical angels went underdeveloped. There are stories that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players game statistics for divine beings they could murder in their games, and even if celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of appearances and purposes, that controversial beginning stunted their development. There’s also only so much what you can do with beings that are designed to be divine minions. Sure, they have free will, but their storytelling range is limited. From that perspective, the bad guys have much more freedom: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and so on) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly entities that can spin in a many ways without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Reimagines Celestials

Honestly, I understand: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of good that smite evil in every manifestation can be cool, but they also get cheesy very fast. That general lack of interest implies we still don’t know a great deal about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what occurs after the deity who made them dies. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is able to devise their own interpretation. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question at the heart of the world of Aramán, one where the gods have all been slain by mortals in a massive war that ended 70 years before the start of the campaign. So what happened to the followers of these divine beings?

Brennan’s solution is simple, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and became a blight that destroyed whole nations. A great deal about the past of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it seems that when the deities died, the celestial beings became “wild”. They transformed into monsters that could destroy entire regions if not contained. Viewers got a glimpse of how scary one of these creatures can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) got to meet his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial entity kept chained in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most compelling celestials in D&D, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. The angel Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with ending the eternal Blood War resulted in her being tainted by the devil Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar angel who was summoned by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing to the madness infusing the location.

The corruption observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, or led astray by their own pride or obsessions. They are victims; another dreadful result of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 progresses, I hope the DM focuses on the notion that, no matter how “just” that war was, the mortals who emerged victorious may still regret the outcome. Their realm has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been severed, and the beings that were formerly their protectors, shepherding their souls to safety following death, are now frightening disasters.

Sure, this might simply be a practical method to address Gygax’s original dilemma. It’s easy to justify killing an divine being when it’s a screaming, mad creature with rows of teeth, but I am also very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythos in D&D. I don’t necessarily agree with the DM’s aversion for divine beings in his stories, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the flat {