The Latest Critical Role Campaign 4 May Have Fixed The Most Problematic D&D Monster

Dungeons & Dragons offers a distinctive imaginative arena. In theory, it serves as a empty slate where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and players can craft countless scenarios. However, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a five-decade history of worlds, monsters, spellcasting rules, established non-player characters, and rich mythology. Even the best imaginative thinkers find it difficult to completely free themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, so that a lot of “new” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of familiar ideas. Sometimes you get elements that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” other times you cringe as if hearing “All Summer Long.”

The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the unique worlds of Exandria (designed by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world created by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). While devoted followers of Mulligan and his other series Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (He really hates the deities!), episode 2 impressed me because of a truly original interpretation on a classic Dungeons & Dragons monster category: celestials.

The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in D&D

Fiendish creatures (collectively known as fiends) have been included in Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A handful of distinct “divine messengers” with specific names appeared in Dragon magazine issues 12 (February 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were essentially variations of the celestial figures from Hebrew and Christian sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to hold out for 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column in Dragon, where he presented fresh creatures that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva, the planetar, and the solar angel made their debut, starting a tradition of creatures known as celestial entities that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the agents of good-aligned deities, created by their masters to serve as warriors, commanders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and in general to populate their domains in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who battle the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and help uphold the faith of their deity on the mortal world. In spite of their close connection with the divine beings, celestials are unique individuals with specific personalities. Famous examples encompass the angel Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

The mythology of celestials is notably underdeveloped in contrast to fiends. The Abyss has 99 layers of expanding chaos and lords of demons warring amongst themselves. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with greater violence and more interesting side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the mysterious Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestials can be gleaned in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that creatures who resemble biblical angels received less attention. Rumor has it that Gygax felt uneasy about giving players game statistics for angels they could kill in their games, and even if celestials were later expanded with a broader spectrum of looks and roles, that controversial beginning stunted their development. There is also a limit to what you can create for creatures that are designed to be servants of a god. Certainly, they have free will, but their narrative potential is restricted. In that sense, the antagonists have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly creatures that can evolve in a lot of directions without losing their distinct identity.

How Critical Role Campaign 4 Redefines Celestials

To be frank, I understand: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of virtue that smite evil in every manifestation can be cool, but they also become clichéd quickly. That widespread disinterest implies we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. For example, we still don’t know what happens once the deity who made them dies. There is no canonical answer, and every DM is able to devise their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question at the heart of the setting of Aramán, a place where the deities have all been killed by mortals in a great conflict that ended seven decades prior to the start of the story. So what became of the followers of these gods?

Brennan’s solution is simple, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and turned into a plague that devastated whole nations. A lot about the past of this world, the war against the gods, and its aftermath in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that after the deities were slain, the celestials became “wild”. They became creatures that could destroy entire regions if left unchecked. The audience caught a sight of how scary 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 is no accident that the most interesting celestials in D&D, story-wise, are those who have fallen from grace. The angel Zariel, as an instance, was a mighty Solar angel whose fixation with ending 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 “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus level of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing to the insanity infusing the location.

The corruption observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, or misled by their own arrogance or fixations. They are casualties; one more terrible result of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign continues, it is hoped Mulligan focuses on the idea that, regardless of how “righteous” that conflict was, the humans who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the outcome. Their world has been harmed, their link to the hereafter has been severed, and the creatures that were formerly their protectors, guiding their spirits to security after death, are now terrifying calamities.

Certainly, this might simply be a convenient way to address Gygax’s initial quandary. It is simple to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a shrieking, insane entity with rows of teeth, 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 campaigns, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the flat {