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Dungeons & Dragons provides a distinctive creative space. In theory, it acts as a blank canvas where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and participants can paint countless scenarios. However, D&D also carries a five-decade history of worlds, creatures, magic systems, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the best imaginative thinkers struggle to entirely detach themselves from this vast landscape of references, so that a lot of “fresh” material for D&D is a reiteration 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.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the unique worlds of Exandria (created by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the setting crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although devoted followers of Brennan and his other series Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (Brennan strongly dislikes the gods!), episode 2 impressed me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a traditional Dungeons & Dragons monster category: angelic beings.

A Brief History of Heavenly Beings in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (often called evil outsiders) have been part of D&D since 1976, but it took a while longer for their angelic equivalents to show up. A handful of distinct “angels” with individual titles appeared in Dragon magazine issues #12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were essentially variations of the angels from biblical religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to hold out for 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” column in Dragon magazine, where he presented new monsters that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar angel, and the solar first appeared, starting a tradition of creatures known as celestial entities that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the game.

In D&D, celestial beings are the agents of good-aligned deities, made by their masters to serve as warriors, commanders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and in general 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 direct relationship with the gods, celestials are distinct persons with individual traits. Famous examples include the angel Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is markedly less fleshed out in contrast to demonic entities. The chaotic Abyss has 99 layers of ever-growing disorder and demon lords warring amongst themselves. The Nine Hells are a version 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, all the essential information about celestials can be gathered in an hour of online research.

It’s understandable that beings who resemble angels from the Bible received less attention. There are stories that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about providing gamers game statistics for angels they could kill in their sessions, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a broader spectrum of looks and purposes, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can do with creatures that are designed 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 defined superiors (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and so on) but they’re in the end fickle and chaotic creatures that can evolve in a many ways without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Reimagines Celestials

To be frank, I get it: Celestial beings are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of virtue that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be impressive, but they also become clichéd quickly. That widespread disinterest implies we still don’t know that much about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what happens once the god who made them dies. There is no canonical answer, and each Dungeon Master is free to devise their own interpretation. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question at the heart of the setting of Aramán, a place where the deities have all been killed by humans in a great conflict that ended 70 years before the start of the story. So what happened to the followers of these divine beings?

Brennan’s answer is simple, horrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and became a plague that devastated whole nations. A lot about the history of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that when the gods were slain, the celestial beings went “feral”. They transformed into monsters that could destroy entire regions if left unchecked. The audience got a glimpse of how frightening one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” a fearsome celestial kept chained in a enormous casket.

It’s not a coincidence that the most interesting celestial beings in Dungeons & Dragons, narratively, are those who have lost their divinity. The angel Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with concluding the Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil of Hell. Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was called forth by a priest inside Undermountain and developed a fixation on “cleaning” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the insanity permeating the location.

The corruption observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestial beings did not lose their virtue. They weren’t tricked, or misled by their own arrogance or fixations. They are victims; one more terrible result of the Shapers’ War. As the new campaign progresses, it is hoped Mulligan focuses on the idea that, regardless of how “righteous” that conflict was, the humans who emerged victorious may still regret the consequences. Their realm has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the beings that were formerly their guardians, shepherding their souls to security following death, are currently frightening disasters.

Sure, this might simply be a convenient way to solve the original creator’s initial quandary. It is simple to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a screaming, mad entity with rows of teeth, but I also feel very intrigued by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I am not entirely in accord with Brennan’s aversion for divine beings in his campaigns, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the flat {