Critical Role Campaign 4 Could Have Resolved The Most Problematic D&D Monster

D&D offers a unique creative space. Theoretically, it serves as a empty slate where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and participants can paint any kind of picture. However, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a 50-year legacy of worlds, creatures, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and general lore. Even the most talented creative minds find it difficult to completely free themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, meaning that a lot of “new” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of sampled tracks. Sometimes you encounter things that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you cringe like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the original settings of Exandria (designed by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the setting created by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). Although longtime fans of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (Brennan really hates the gods!), episode 2 impressed me because of a truly original interpretation on a classic D&D creature type: celestials.

The Historical Background of Celestials in D&D

Demons and devils (collectively known as fiends) have been included in D&D since 1976, but it required more time for their angelic equivalents to appear. A handful of distinct “angels” with individual titles appeared 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 wait until 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column in Dragon, where he presented fresh creatures that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar angel, and the solar first appeared, initiating a tradition of creatures called celestial entities that is still present in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestial beings are the agents of benevolent gods, made by their masters to act as warriors, leaders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and overall to inhabit their domains in the Upper Planes. They are paragons of virtue who fight against the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and support the belief of their deity on the mortal world. In spite of their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Well-known instances include the angel Lumalia and 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.

The mythology of celestials is markedly underdeveloped compared to demonic entities. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons warring amongst themselves. The Nine Hells are a interpretation of the series Game of Thrones with greater violence and more engaging side stories. And don’t get me started the Yugoloth. In the meantime, all the essential information about celestial beings can be gathered in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that beings who resemble angels from the Bible received less attention. Rumor has it that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players game statistics for divine beings they could murder in their sessions, and even if celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range of looks and purposes, that problematic origin hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can create for beings that are designed to be divine minions. Sure, they have free will, but their narrative potential is restricted. From that perspective, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re in the end fickle and chaotic creatures that can spin in a many ways without losing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Celestials

Honestly, I understand: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of virtue that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also get cheesy quickly. That widespread disinterest implies we remain unaware of that much about celestials. As an illustration, we have yet to learn what happens once the deity who made them perishes. There is no canonical answer, and each Dungeon Master is able to come up with their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue central to the world of Aramán, a place where the deities have all been killed by humans in a great conflict that concluded seven decades before the beginning of the campaign. So what happened to the servants of these gods?

Mulligan’s solution is straightforward, terrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and became a blight that destroyed entire countries. A lot about the history of this world, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the present has still to be revealed, but it seems that when the gods died, the celestial beings went “feral”. They transformed into monsters that could annihilate large areas if left unchecked. The audience got a glimpse of how frightening one of these creatures can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a terrifying celestial kept chained in a massive coffin.

It is no accident that the most interesting celestials in D&D, story-wise, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with concluding the eternal Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. Fazrian is a obscure Planetar angel who was called forth by a priest inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing to the madness permeating the place.

The corruption seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings did not lose their virtue. They were not deceived, or misled by their own pride or fixations. They are victims; another dreadful result of the Shapers’ War. As the new campaign continues, it is hoped the DM focuses on the idea that, no matter how “just” that conflict was, the humans who emerged victorious may still regret the outcome. 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 safety following death, are currently frightening disasters.

Sure, this may just be a practical method to solve Gygax’s initial quandary. It is simple to rationalize slaying an divine being when it’s a shrieking, insane creature with multiple fangs, but I am also highly fascinated by this new declination of the celestial mythology in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with Brennan’s aversion for divine beings in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the flat {