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D&D offers a distinctive creative space. In theory, it acts as a blank canvas where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and participants can paint any kind of picture. However, D&D also bears a five-decade history of worlds, 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 “new” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of sampled tracks. At times you get elements that sound as good as “a classic hit,” other times you wince like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the unique worlds of its first setting (created by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the setting created by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). Although devoted followers of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (Brennan strongly dislikes the deities!), episode 2 impressed me because of a truly original take on a traditional D&D creature type: angelic beings.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (collectively known as evil outsiders) have been part of D&D since the mid-70s, but it took a while longer for their heavenly counterparts to appear. A handful of distinct “divine messengers” with individual titles appeared in Dragon magazine issues #12 (February 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than variations of the celestial figures from biblical religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to hold out for the early 80s and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” column in Dragon, where he presented new monsters that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s when the deva, the planetar, and the solar angel first appeared, initiating a tradition of beings called celestial entities that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the servants of good-aligned deities, made by their creators to act as soldiers, leaders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and overall to inhabit their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and help uphold the belief of their deity on the Material Plane. Despite their close connection with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Famous examples encompass the angel Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is markedly underdeveloped compared to demonic entities. The chaotic Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a interpretation of Game of Thrones with greater violence and more engaging side stories. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gathered in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s understandable that creatures who look like biblical angels received less attention. Rumor has it that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about providing gamers game statistics for divine beings they could kill in their games, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a broader spectrum of appearances and purposes, that problematic origin stunted their development. There is also a limit to what you can create for creatures that are created to be divine minions. Sure, they have free will, but their storytelling range is restricted. In that sense, the bad guys have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Infernal Dukes, and so on) but they’re in the end fickle and chaotic entities that can spin in a many ways without sacrificing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Heavenly Beings

To be frank, I understand: Celestial beings are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of virtue that smite evil in all its forms can be cool, but they also get cheesy very fast. That general lack of interest means we remain unaware of that much about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what happens after the deity who created them dies. There is no canonical answer, and every DM is free to come up with their own interpretation. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question central to the setting of Aramán, one 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 happened to the followers of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s answer is simple, terrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and turned into a blight that devastated whole nations. A lot about the history of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the current era has still to be revealed, but it seems that when the deities died, the celestial beings became “wild”. They became monsters that could annihilate entire regions if not contained. The audience got a glimpse of how frightening one of these creatures can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as the character Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” a terrifying celestial entity held bound in a massive coffin.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestial beings in D&D, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with concluding the Blood War resulted in her being tainted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar angel who was called forth by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the insanity infusing the location.

The corruption observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials did not lose their virtue. They weren’t tricked, or led astray by their own arrogance or fixations. They are victims; another dreadful result of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 continues, it is hoped the DM focuses on the notion that, regardless of how “righteous” that war was, the humans who emerged victorious may still regret the outcome. Their world has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been cut off, and the beings that were once their protectors, guiding their spirits to safety after death, are now frightening disasters.

Certainly, this might simply be a convenient way to solve Gygax’s original dilemma. It is simple to justify killing an angel when it’s a screaming, insane entity with rows of teeth, but I am also highly fascinated by this new declination of the celestial mythology in Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s aversion for divine beings in his stories, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {