Critical Role Season Four May Have Fixed The Most Problematic D&D Monster
D&D presents a unique creative space. In theory, it serves as a empty slate where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and players can craft countless scenarios. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a 50-year legacy of campaign settings, creatures, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and general lore. Even the most talented imaginative thinkers find it difficult to completely free themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, meaning that a lot of “new” material for D&D is a reworking of familiar ideas. At times you encounter things that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you cringe like when listening to “All Summer Long.”
The show Critical Role has been highly inventive in the past thanks to the original settings of its first setting (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 other series Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (Brennan really hates the gods!), the second episode stood out to me because of a highly innovative take on a classic D&D creature type: celestials.
The Historical Background of Celestials in D&D
Fiendish creatures (often called evil outsiders) have been included in Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it took a while longer for their angelic equivalents to show up. A few unique “angels” with individual titles were featured in the publication Dragon issues #12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were little more than variations of the angels from biblical religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until the early 80s and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” column in Dragon magazine, where he presented fresh creatures that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s when the deva angel, the planetar angel, and the solar angel made their debut, starting a lineage of beings called celestials that is still present in the most recent version of the role-playing game.
In Dungeons & Dragons, celestial beings are the servants of benevolent gods, made by their creators to act as soldiers, leaders, emissaries, liaisons with mortals, and overall to inhabit their realms in the Upper Planes. They are paragons of virtue who fight against the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and help uphold the belief of their deity on the mortal world. Despite their close connection with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Well-known instances include the angel 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 notably underdeveloped compared to demonic entities. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and demon lords tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more interesting side stories. 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 look like biblical angels went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gygax felt uneasy about giving players stat blocks for angels they could kill in their games, and although celestials were later expanded with a bigger range of appearances and purposes, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There is also a limit to what you can create for beings that are designed to be servants of a god. Sure, they have free will, but their storytelling range is limited. In that sense, the bad guys have much more freedom: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Infernal Dukes, and etc.) but they’re in the end unpredictable and disorderly entities that can evolve in a many ways without sacrificing their unique nature.
The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Celestials
Honestly, I get it: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of virtue that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be impressive, but they also become clichéd quickly. That general lack of interest means we remain unaware of that much about celestials. For example, we have yet to learn what occurs after the god who created them perishes. There is no canonical answer, and every DM is able to devise their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue central to the world of Aramán, one where the gods have all been slain by mortals in a massive war that concluded seven decades prior to the start of the campaign. So what happened to the followers of these divine beings?
Brennan’s solution is straightforward, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They went crazy and became a blight that destroyed entire countries. A lot about the past of this world, the divine conflict, and its aftermath in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it seems that when the gods were slain, the celestials went “feral”. They became monsters that could destroy entire regions if left unchecked. The audience got a glimpse of how scary one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as the character Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” 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 lost their divinity. The angel Zariel, for example, was a mighty Solar angel whose fixation with ending the 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 priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “purging” the evil in the Terminus area of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the insanity permeating the location.
The taint observed in the fourth campaign of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials did not lose their virtue. They weren’t tricked, nor led astray by their own pride or obsessions. They are casualties; one more dreadful consequence of the Shapers’ War. As the new campaign progresses, it is hoped the DM focuses on the notion that, regardless of how “just” that conflict was, the mortals who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their realm has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been cut off, and the beings that were formerly their protectors, shepherding their souls to safety after death, are currently frightening disasters.
Sure, this may just be a convenient way to address the original creator’s initial quandary. It’s easy to justify killing an angel when it’s a screaming, insane creature with rows of teeth, but I also feel highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythology in Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with the DM’s loathing for divine beings in his campaigns, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the flat {
