The Latest Critical Role Campaign 4 May Have Fixed My Least Favorite D&D Monster

Dungeons & Dragons presents a distinctive imaginative arena. In theory, it acts as a empty slate where the creativity of DMs and participants can paint any kind of picture. However, D&D also bears a 50-year legacy of worlds, creatures, spellcasting rules, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the most talented imaginative thinkers struggle to entirely detach themselves from this vast landscape of references, meaning that a lot of “fresh” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of sampled tracks. At times you get things that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you wince like when listening to “All Summer Long.”

Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the unique worlds of its first setting (created by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the setting created by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While devoted followers of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his recurring motifs (He strongly dislikes the deities!), episode 2 stood out to me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a classic Dungeons & Dragons monster category: angelic beings.

The Historical Background of Celestials in D&D

Demons and devils (often called fiends) have been part of D&D since 1976, but it took a while longer for their angelic equivalents to appear. A handful of distinct “angels” with specific names appeared in the publication Dragon editions #12 (February 1978) and 17 (August 1978). These were essentially riffs on the celestial figures from biblical sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon, where he presented fresh creatures that would be included in the 1983 Monster Manual II. That’s when the deva, the planetar, and the solar angel first appeared, starting a lineage of creatures called celestials that is still present in the most recent version of the game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the servants of good-aligned deities, created by their creators to serve as warriors, commanders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and in general to populate their domains in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and support the faith of their god on the mortal world. In spite of their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Well-known instances encompass Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, 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 underdeveloped in contrast to demonic entities. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of expanding chaos and lords of demons warring amongst themselves. The infernal Nine Hells are a interpretation of Game of Thrones with greater violence and more interesting side stories. And don’t get me started the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestial beings can be gleaned in an hour of wiki reading.

It’s understandable that beings who resemble angels from the Bible received less attention. Rumor has it that Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players stat blocks for angels they could kill in their sessions, and even if celestials were subsequently developed with a broader spectrum of looks and purposes, that problematic origin stunted their development. There is also a limit to what you can create for creatures that are created to be divine minions. Sure, they have free will, but their storytelling range is restricted. In that sense, the bad guys have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly entities that can spin in a lot of directions without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Reimagines Heavenly Beings

Honestly, I understand: Celestials are just not that interesting. Divine champions of virtue that smite evil in every manifestation 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 have yet to learn what occurs once the deity who made them perishes. There is no canonical answer, and every DM is free to come up with their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue central to the world of Aramán, one where the gods have all been slain by humans in a great conflict that ended seven decades before the start of the campaign. So what happened to the followers of these divine beings?

Brennan’s solution is simple, horrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and turned into a blight that devastated whole nations. A lot about the past of this world, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the current era has still to be revealed, but it appears that after the gods were slain, the celestials became “wild”. They became monsters that could annihilate entire regions if left unchecked. Viewers caught a sight of how scary such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a terrifying celestial held bound in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most compelling celestial beings in D&D, story-wise, are those who have lost their divinity. The angel Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose obsession with concluding the Blood War led to her being corrupted by Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. Fazrian is a little-known Planetar angel who was summoned by a cleric inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “purging” the evil in the Terminus level of the massive dungeon, gradually yielding to the madness infusing the location.

The taint seen in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials did not lose their virtue. They weren’t tricked, nor misled by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are casualties; one more terrible result of the Shapers’ War. As the new campaign progresses, it is hoped Mulligan concentrates on the idea that, no matter how “righteous” that war was, the humans who emerged victorious may still regret the consequences. Their realm has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been cut off, and the beings that were once their guardians, shepherding their souls to security following death, are now terrifying calamities.

Sure, this may just be a convenient way to address Gygax’s original dilemma. It is simple to justify killing an divine being when it’s a shrieking, mad entity with multiple fangs, but I am also very intrigued by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in D&D. I don’t necessarily agree with the DM’s aversion for gods in his campaigns, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {