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

D&D presents a unique creative space. Theoretically, it acts as a empty slate where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and participants can paint any kind of picture. Yet, D&D also bears a five-decade history of worlds, creatures, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the most talented creative minds find it difficult to completely free themselves from this extensive universe of existing content, so that a lot of “new” material for D&D is a reworking 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 (designed by Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world created by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While devoted followers of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (Brennan really hates the deities!), the second episode impressed me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a classic Dungeons & Dragons monster category: celestials.

The Historical Background of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons

Fiendish creatures (often called evil outsiders) have been included in Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it took a while longer for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A handful of distinct “angels” with individual titles appeared in the publication Dragon issues 12 (Feb. 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than riffs on the angels from Hebrew and Christian religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to hold out for the early 80s and Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column in Dragon, where he presented new monsters that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s when the deva, the planetar angel, and the solar angel made their debut, initiating a tradition of creatures known as celestials that is still present in the latest edition of the role-playing game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, celestial beings are the agents of benevolent gods, made by their creators to serve as soldiers, leaders, emissaries, intermediaries for humans, and in general to populate their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are paragons of virtue who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and support the faith of their god on the Material Plane. Despite their close connection with the gods, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Famous examples encompass 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 the game Baldur’s Gate 3.

Celestial lore is notably underdeveloped in contrast to fiends. The chaotic 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 greater violence and more interesting subplots. And don’t get me started the mysterious Yugoloth. In the meantime, all the essential information about celestial beings can be gathered in an short time of wiki reading.

It’s not surprising that beings who look like angels from the Bible received less attention. Rumor has it that Gygax felt uneasy about giving players game statistics for divine beings they could kill in their sessions, and even if celestials were subsequently developed with a broader spectrum of looks and roles, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can create for creatures that are designed to be divine minions. Certainly, they have free will, but their narrative potential is limited. From that perspective, the antagonists have much more freedom: They have established masters (Lords of Demons, Infernal Dukes, and so on) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic creatures that can evolve in a lot of directions without losing their unique nature.

The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Redefines Celestials

Honestly, I understand: Celestials are just not that interesting. Divine champions of good that smite evil in every manifestation can be cool, but they also get cheesy very fast. That general lack of interest means we still don’t know that much about celestials. As an illustration, we still don’t know what happens after the deity who made them perishes. There is no canonical answer, and each Dungeon Master is free to come up with their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan decided to center this issue central to the world of Aramán, one where the gods have all been slain by mortals in a great conflict that concluded seven decades prior to the start of the story. So what became of the followers of these divine beings?

Mulligan’s solution is straightforward, terrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and became a blight that devastated entire countries. A great deal about the history of this world, the war against the gods, and its aftermath in the current era has still to be revealed, but it seems that when the gods were slain, the celestial beings went “feral”. They transformed into creatures that could annihilate entire regions if left unchecked. Viewers caught a sight of how scary one of these creatures can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as the character Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a terrifying celestial held bound in a enormous casket.

It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestial beings in D&D, narratively, are those who have lost their divinity. The angel Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with concluding the eternal Blood War led to her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. Fazrian is a obscure Planetar angel who was summoned by a cleric inside the dungeon Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the insanity permeating the place.

The corruption observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings did not lose their virtue. They were not deceived, or misled by their own pride or obsessions. They are victims; another dreadful result of the Shapers’ War. As Campaign 4 continues, it is hoped Mulligan concentrates on the notion that, regardless of how “righteous” that conflict was, the mortals who won it 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 security after death, are currently terrifying calamities.

Sure, this may just be a practical method to solve the original creator’s original dilemma. It’s easy to rationalize slaying an angel when it’s a shrieking, mad creature with multiple fangs, but I also feel highly fascinated by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in D&D. I am not entirely in accord with Brennan’s loathing for gods in his stories, but I still prefer these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {