🔗 Share this article

D&D presents a unique creative space. Theoretically, it acts as a empty slate where the creativity of DMs and participants can paint any kind of picture. However, D&D also carries a 50-year legacy of worlds, monsters, spellcasting rules, well-known NPCs, and general lore. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to completely free themselves from this extensive landscape of references, meaning that a great deal of “fresh” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of familiar ideas. At times you get things that sound as good as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you wince as if hearing “All Summer Long.”

The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the original settings of Exandria (created by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While devoted followers of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his common themes (He really hates the gods!), the second episode impressed me because of a truly original interpretation on a traditional D&D creature type: angelic beings.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings in Dungeons & Dragons

Demons and devils (collectively known as fiends) have been included in D&D since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to appear. A few unique “divine messengers” with individual titles appeared in the publication Dragon editions 12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were little more than variations of the celestial figures from biblical sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” article in Dragon, where he introduced new monsters that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar first appeared, initiating a lineage of beings called celestial entities that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestial beings are the servants of benevolent gods, created by their creators to act as warriors, commanders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and in general to populate their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and help uphold the faith of their god on the Material Plane. Despite their direct relationship with the divine beings, 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 the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is notably underdeveloped in contrast 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 the series Game of Thrones with greater violence and more engaging side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the mysterious Yugoloth. In the meantime, all the essential information about celestials can be gathered in an hour of online research.

It’s not surprising that creatures who look like biblical angels received less attention. Rumor has it that Gygax felt uneasy about providing gamers stat blocks for angels they could kill in their games, and although celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of looks and roles, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There is also a limit to what you can create for beings that are created to be divine minions. Sure, they have free will, but their narrative potential is limited. From that perspective, the bad guys have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re in the end unpredictable and disorderly creatures that can evolve in a many ways without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Reimagines Celestials

Honestly, I get it: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of virtue that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be impressive, but they also get cheesy quickly. That general lack of interest means we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what occurs after the deity who made them dies. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is free to devise their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue at the heart of the world of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been killed by humans in a massive war that concluded seven decades prior to the start of the story. So what became of the servants of these gods?

Mulligan’s answer is simple, horrifying, and very interesting: They went crazy and turned into a blight that devastated entire countries. A great deal about the past of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the current era has still to be revealed, but it appears that after the gods were slain, the celestials became “wild”. They became monsters that could annihilate entire regions if left unchecked. The audience got a glimpse of how scary one of these creatures can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as the character Wicander (Sam Riegel) got to meet his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial held bound in a massive coffin.

It’s not a coincidence that the most interesting celestial beings in Dungeons & Dragons, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with concluding the Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was summoned by a cleric inside the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing to the madness permeating the place.

The corruption seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, nor misled by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are casualties; one more dreadful result of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 progresses, it is hoped the DM focuses on the idea that, no matter how “righteous” that conflict was, the mortals who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the outcome. Their world has been harmed, their connection to the afterlife has been cut off, and the creatures that were once their protectors, guiding their spirits to security following death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Sure, this may just be a practical method to address the original creator’s original dilemma. It is simple to rationalize slaying an divine being when it’s a screaming, mad creature with rows of teeth, but I am also highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythology in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s aversion for gods in his stories, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the flat {