D&D provides a unique imaginative arena. In theory, it serves as a blank canvas where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and players can craft any kind of picture. However, D&D also bears a five-decade history of worlds, monsters, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the best imaginative thinkers find it difficult to entirely detach themselves from this vast universe of existing content, meaning that a lot of “fresh” material for D&D is a reworking of sampled tracks. At times you get things that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you cringe like when listening to “a derivative tune.”
The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the unique worlds of its first setting (designed by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world created by 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 gods!), the second episode impressed me because of a highly innovative take on a traditional D&D creature type: celestials.
Demons and devils (often called evil outsiders) have been part of D&D since the mid-70s, but it took a while longer for their angelic equivalents to appear. A few unique “divine messengers” with individual titles appeared in the publication Dragon editions 12 (February 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than riffs on the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian sacred texts; for more original versions, we had to hold out for 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon, where he presented fresh creatures that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar angel made their debut, initiating a tradition of creatures called celestials that is still present in the most recent version of the role-playing game.
In D&D, celestials are the servants of benevolent gods, created by their creators to act as soldiers, leaders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and overall to inhabit their realms in the Upper Planes. They are champions of good who battle the forces of chaos and evil from the Lower Planes and support the faith of their god on the mortal world. In spite of their close connection with the divine beings, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Famous examples include Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even the iconic 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 expanding chaos and demon lords tearing each other apart. The Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with greater violence and more engaging side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. In the meantime, everything you need to know about celestials can be gleaned in an short time of wiki reading.
It’s understandable that creatures who resemble biblical angels went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about providing gamers stat blocks for angels they could murder in their sessions, and although celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of looks and roles, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can create for creatures that are created to be servants of a god. Sure, they have independent thought, but their narrative potential is limited. From that perspective, the antagonists have much more freedom: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re in the end fickle and chaotic creatures that can spin in a many ways without sacrificing their distinct identity.
Honestly, I understand: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Divine champions of good that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be impressive, but they also become clichéd quickly. That general lack of interest means we still don’t know that much about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what happens after the god who created them perishes. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is able to come up with their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to make this question at the heart of the setting of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been slain by mortals in a great conflict that ended 70 years before the start of the campaign. So what happened to the servants of these divine beings?
Mulligan’s answer is simple, terrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and became a plague that devastated whole nations. A great deal about the past of this world, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the present has still to be revealed, but it seems that after the deities were slain, the celestial beings became “wild”. They became monsters that could destroy large areas if not contained. The audience caught a sight of how scary one of these creatures can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial entity kept chained in a enormous casket.
It is no accident that the most compelling celestials in Dungeons & Dragons, narratively, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with ending the eternal Blood War led to her being tainted by Asmodeus and turned 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 “purging” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the madness infusing the place.
The taint seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, nor misled by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are victims; one more terrible result of the Shapers’ War. As the new campaign progresses, I hope Mulligan concentrates on the notion that, no matter how “just” that conflict was, the mortals who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the outcome. Their realm has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been cut off, and the beings that were formerly their protectors, guiding their spirits to security after death, are currently frightening disasters.
Certainly, this might simply be a convenient way to solve Gygax’s initial quandary. It’s easy to justify killing an divine being when it’s a shrieking, mad creature with rows of teeth, but I also feel very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythos in D&D. I don’t necessarily agree with the DM’s aversion for divine beings in his campaigns, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {
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