The Latest Critical Role Season Four Could Have Fixed The Most Problematic D&D Monster

D&D offers a unique creative space. In theory, it acts as a blank canvas where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and participants can paint any kind of picture. However, D&D also carries a 50-year legacy of campaign settings, monsters, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and general lore. Even the best imaginative thinkers struggle to completely free themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, meaning that a lot of “new” material for Dungeons & Dragons is a reworking of familiar ideas. At times you encounter elements that sound as good as “a classic hit,” other times 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 (designed by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the setting crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While longtime fans of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his common themes (He strongly dislikes the gods!), the second episode impressed me because of a truly original interpretation on a traditional Dungeons & Dragons monster category: angelic beings.

A Brief History of Celestials in D&D

Fiendish creatures (collectively known as fiends) have been part of Dungeons & Dragons since 1976, but it took a while longer for their heavenly counterparts to appear. A handful of distinct “angels” with specific names were featured in Dragon magazine issues 12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were essentially riffs on the angels from Hebrew and Christian sacred texts; for more original versions, we had to hold out for 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon, where he introduced fresh creatures that would appear in the 1983 Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva, the planetar, and the solar angel first appeared, starting a tradition of creatures known as celestials that is continues to exist in the most recent version of the game.

In D&D, celestials are the agents of benevolent gods, made by their masters to act as warriors, commanders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and in general to inhabit their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who fight against the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Lower Planes and support the belief of their god on the Material Plane. Despite their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Famous examples encompass Lumalia and Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is markedly underdeveloped compared to fiends. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons warring amongst themselves. The infernal Nine Hells are a interpretation of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging subplots. And that’s not even mentioning the mysterious Yugoloth. In the meantime, all the essential information about celestial beings can be gathered in an short time of online research.

It’s understandable that creatures who resemble angels from the Bible received less attention. Rumor has it that Gygax was uncomfortable about providing gamers game statistics for angels they could murder in their games, 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 created to be divine minions. Certainly, they have free will, but their storytelling range is limited. In that sense, the bad guys have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and so on) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic creatures that can spin in a many ways without losing their distinct identity.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Celestials

Honestly, I get it: Celestials are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of good that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be impressive, but they also get cheesy very fast. That widespread disinterest implies we remain unaware of a great deal about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what happens once the deity who created them dies. There is no official explanation, and every DM is free to devise their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to center this issue at the heart of the world of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been killed by humans in a great conflict that concluded 70 years prior to the start of the campaign. So what became of the servants of these gods?

Brennan’s solution is simple, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and turned into a blight that devastated whole nations. A great deal about the past of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the current era has still to be revealed, but it appears that when the gods died, the celestials became “wild”. They became creatures that could destroy entire regions if not contained. Viewers caught a sight of how scary one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial entity held bound in a enormous casket.

It is no accident that the most compelling celestials in Dungeons & Dragons, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, for example, was a mighty Solar angel whose fixation with concluding the eternal Blood War led to her being tainted by the devil Asmodeus and transformed 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 “cleaning” the wickedness in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the insanity infusing the location.

The corruption seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role takes a different shape. These celestials did not lose their virtue. They weren’t tricked, nor misled by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are victims; another dreadful result of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign continues, it is hoped the DM concentrates on the idea that, regardless of how “righteous” that conflict was, the mortals who won it may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their realm has been harmed, their link to the hereafter has been cut off, and the creatures that were formerly their guardians, guiding their spirits to security after death, are now terrifying calamities.

Sure, this might simply be a convenient way to solve Gygax’s original dilemma. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a shrieking, insane creature with multiple fangs, but I also feel highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythology in Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with Brennan’s loathing for divine beings in his campaigns, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the flat {