🔗 Share this article

D&D offers a unique imaginative arena. In theory, it serves as a blank canvas where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and players can paint countless scenarios. However, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a five-decade history of campaign settings, creatures, magic systems, established non-player characters, and rich mythology. Even the best creative minds find it difficult to entirely detach themselves from this vast landscape of references, meaning that a great deal of “fresh” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of sampled tracks. At times you encounter things that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you cringe as if hearing “a derivative tune.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the original settings of Exandria (designed by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the setting crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although longtime fans of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (He strongly dislikes the gods!), the second episode impressed me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a classic D&D creature type: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Demons and devils (collectively known as evil outsiders) have been part of D&D since 1976, 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 little more than variations of the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for more original versions, we had to wait until 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon, where he introduced fresh creatures that would appear in the 1983 Monster Manual 2. That’s when the deva angel, the planetar angel, and the solar angel made their debut, initiating a tradition of beings known as celestial entities that is still present in the most recent version of the game.

In D&D, celestials are the agents of benevolent gods, created by their masters to serve as soldiers, leaders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and overall to inhabit their domains in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and support the belief of their god on the mortal world. Despite their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons 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 notably less fleshed out 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 the series Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more interesting side stories. And don’t get me started the Yugoloth. In the meantime, everything you need to know about celestials can be gleaned in an hour of online research.

It’s understandable that creatures who resemble biblical angels received less attention. Rumor has it that Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players stat blocks for divine beings they could kill in their games, and even if celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of looks and purposes, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. 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 narrative potential is restricted. From that perspective, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic creatures that can spin in a lot of directions without sacrificing their unique nature.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Heavenly Beings

To be frank, I understand: Celestials are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of virtue that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. That widespread disinterest means we remain unaware of that much about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what happens once the deity who made them dies. There is no canonical answer, and every DM is able to come up with their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question at the heart of the world of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been slain by mortals in a massive war that ended seven decades before the start of the campaign. So what became of the servants of these gods?

Brennan’s answer is simple, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and turned into a plague that devastated entire countries. A great deal about the past of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that when the deities were slain, the celestial beings went “feral”. They became creatures that could annihilate large areas if left unchecked. The audience caught a sight of how frightening one of these creatures 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 massive coffin.

It is no accident that the most compelling celestials in D&D, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with concluding the Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was summoned by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “cleaning” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the madness infusing the location.

The taint observed in the fourth campaign of Critical Role takes a different shape. 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 terrible result of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 progresses, it is hoped the DM concentrates on the notion that, regardless of how “righteous” that war was, the mortals who emerged victorious may still regret the outcome. Their world has been wounded, their connection to the afterlife has been severed, and the creatures that were once their guardians, guiding their spirits to security following death, are now frightening disasters.

Sure, this might simply be a practical method to address the original creator’s initial quandary. It is simple to justify killing an angel when it’s a shrieking, mad creature with multiple fangs, but I also feel very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s aversion for gods in his campaigns, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the flat {