🔗 Share this article

D&D presents a distinctive creative space. Theoretically, it acts as a blank canvas where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and participants can paint countless scenarios. However, D&D also bears a 50-year legacy of worlds, monsters, magic systems, established non-player characters, and rich mythology. Even the most talented creative minds find it difficult to entirely detach themselves from this extensive landscape of references, meaning that a lot of “fresh” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of sampled tracks. At times you encounter things that sound as good as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you cringe as if hearing “All Summer Long.”

The show Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the original settings of its first setting (created by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the setting crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While longtime fans of Mulligan and his other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (He really hates the deities!), episode 2 stood out to me because of a truly original take on a classic D&D creature type: celestials.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (collectively known as evil outsiders) have been included in D&D since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to appear. A handful of distinct “divine messengers” with specific names were featured in the publication Dragon editions #12 (February 1978) and 17 (August 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 “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon magazine, where he introduced fresh creatures that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual II. That’s when the deva, the planetar, and the solar angel made their debut, initiating a tradition of creatures known as celestial entities that is still present in the most recent version of the role-playing game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the servants of benevolent gods, created by their creators to serve as soldiers, commanders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and in general to inhabit 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 help uphold the faith of their deity on the Material Plane. 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 Greyhawk, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is notably underdeveloped in contrast to fiends. The chaotic Abyss has 99 layers of expanding chaos and demon lords tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a interpretation of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more interesting subplots. And that’s not even mentioning the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gathered in an short time of online research.

It’s not surprising that beings who resemble angels from the Bible went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players game statistics for angels they could murder in their games, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range of appearances and purposes, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There is also a limit to what you can create for beings that are designed to be divine minions. Sure, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is restricted. In that sense, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re in the end unpredictable and disorderly creatures that can evolve in a many ways without sacrificing their unique nature.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Reimagines Heavenly Beings

To be frank, I get it: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of good that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be cool, but they also get cheesy quickly. That widespread disinterest means we still don’t know that much about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what occurs once the god who made them dies. There is no canonical answer, and each Dungeon Master is able to devise their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question central to the world of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been killed by mortals in a massive war that concluded 70 years before the beginning of the story. So what became of the servants of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s solution is simple, terrifying, and very interesting: They went crazy and became a blight that devastated whole nations. A lot about the past of this world, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that when the deities were slain, the celestials became “wild”. They transformed into monsters that could annihilate entire regions if left unchecked. Viewers got a glimpse of how frightening such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial kept chained in a massive coffin.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestial beings in Dungeons & Dragons, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, for example, was a mighty Solar angel whose fixation with concluding the Blood War led to her being tainted by Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was called forth by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the evil in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the madness infusing the location.

The taint observed in the fourth campaign of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings did not lose their virtue. They were not deceived, or led astray by their own pride or fixations. They are victims; one more dreadful consequence of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 progresses, I hope Mulligan focuses on the idea that, no matter how “just” that war was, the mortals who won it may still regret the consequences. Their realm has been harmed, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the beings that were formerly their protectors, guiding their spirits to safety following death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this may just be a convenient way to solve Gygax’s original dilemma. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a shrieking, insane entity with rows of teeth, but I am also highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with the DM’s loathing for gods in his campaigns, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {