Critical Role Campaign 4 Could Have Resolved My Least Favorite D&D Monster
D&D presents a distinctive creative space. Theoretically, it acts as a blank canvas where the creativity of DMs and players can paint countless scenarios. However, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a five-decade history of campaign settings, monsters, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the most talented creative minds find it difficult to entirely detach themselves from this vast universe of existing content, so that a great deal of “new” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of familiar ideas. At times you get things that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” other times you cringe as if hearing “a derivative tune.”
The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the original settings of its first setting (designed by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world created by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for its fourth campaign). Although longtime fans of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (He strongly dislikes the gods!), the second episode stood out to me because of a highly innovative take on a classic Dungeons & Dragons monster category: angelic beings.
The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in D&D
Demons and devils (collectively known as fiends) have been part of D&D since 1976, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A few unique “divine messengers” with specific names appeared in Dragon magazine editions 12 (Feb. 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were little more than variations of the angels from biblical sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to hold out for the early 80s and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” article in Dragon, where he introduced 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 tradition of creatures called celestial entities that is still present in the most recent version of the game.
In D&D, celestial beings are the agents of benevolent gods, made by their masters to act as soldiers, 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 belief of their god on the mortal world. Despite their close connection with the gods, 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 fiends. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of expanding chaos and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The Nine Hells are a interpretation of the series Game of Thrones with more bloodshed and more engaging side stories. And don’t get me started the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestials can be gleaned in an short time of online research.
It’s not surprising that beings who look like angels from the Bible went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players game statistics for angels they could murder in their sessions, and although celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range of looks and purposes, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There is also a limit to what you can do with creatures that are designed to be divine minions. 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 (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and so on) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly creatures that can spin in a many ways without losing their unique nature.
The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Celestials
Honestly, I get it: Celestials are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of virtue that smite evil in all its forms can be cool, but they also become clichéd quickly. That general lack of interest implies we remain unaware of that much about celestials. As an illustration, we still don’t know what occurs once the deity who made them perishes. There is no official explanation, and each Dungeon Master is free to come up with their own spin. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue central to the world of Aramán, one where the deities have all been slain by mortals in a great conflict that concluded seven decades prior to the beginning of the campaign. So what happened to the followers of these divine beings?
Mulligan’s solution is straightforward, horrifying, and very interesting: They went crazy and became a blight that destroyed entire countries. A great deal about the past of Aramán, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the current era has yet to be disclosed, but it seems that when the deities died, the celestials became “wild”. They became creatures that could destroy entire regions if not contained. The audience caught a sight of how scary one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (player Sam Riegel) got to meet his “ancestor,” a terrifying celestial held bound in a enormous casket.
It is no accident that the most compelling celestial beings in D&D, narratively, are those who have lost their divinity. Zariel, for example, was a mighty Solar angel whose obsession with ending the Blood War led to her being tainted by the devil Asmodeus and transformed into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was called forth by a priest inside the dungeon Undermountain and developed a fixation on “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus level of the massive dungeon, slowly succumbing to the insanity infusing the location.
The corruption seen in the fourth campaign of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials did not lose their virtue. They were not deceived, nor misled by their own arrogance or obsessions. They are casualties; another terrible result of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 progresses, I hope Mulligan focuses on the idea that, no matter how “righteous” that war was, the humans who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the outcome. Their realm has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been cut off, and the beings that were formerly their guardians, shepherding their souls to safety after death, are currently terrifying calamities.
Certainly, this may just be a practical method to solve Gygax’s initial quandary. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a shrieking, mad creature with rows of teeth, but I am also very intrigued by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s aversion for divine beings in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these horrific heavenly beings to the flat {
