Critical Role Campaign 4 Could Have Fixed The Most Problematic D&D Monster
D&D provides a unique imaginative arena. Theoretically, it serves as a empty slate where the imagination of Dungeon Masters and participants can craft countless scenarios. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a five-decade history of worlds, monsters, magic systems, established non-player characters, and rich mythology. Even the most talented creative minds struggle to entirely detach themselves from this extensive landscape of references, meaning that a lot of “fresh” content for Dungeons & Dragons is a reiteration of familiar ideas. At times you get things that are as brilliant as “Gangsta’s Paradise,” on other occasions you cringe as if hearing “All Summer Long.”
The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the unique worlds of Exandria (designed by Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While devoted followers of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may identify some of his common themes (Brennan strongly dislikes the deities!), episode 2 impressed me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a classic D&D creature type: angelic beings.
A Brief History of Celestials in Dungeons & Dragons
Demons and devils (often called evil outsiders) have been part of Dungeons & Dragons since 1976, but it took a while longer for their angelic equivalents to appear. A few unique “divine messengers” with individual titles appeared in Dragon magazine editions 12 (February 1978) and #17 (August 1978). These were little more than riffs on the celestial figures from biblical religious lore; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until 1982 and the creator Gary Gygax’s “Monster Spotlight” column in Dragon, where he presented new monsters that would appear in 1983’s Monster Manual 2. That’s where the deva, the planetar, and the solar angel first appeared, starting a tradition of creatures known as celestial entities that is continues to exist in the most recent version of the role-playing game.
In D&D, celestial beings are the agents of good-aligned deities, made by their masters to serve as soldiers, leaders, messengers, intermediaries for humans, and in general to inhabit their domains in the Upper Planes. They are champions of good who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and help uphold the faith of their deity on the Material Plane. In spite of their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are distinct persons with specific personalities. Famous examples encompass the angel Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms setting, the mysterious Lady of the Lake from Greyhawk, and even Dame Aylin from the game Baldur’s Gate 3.
The mythology of celestials is notably underdeveloped compared to demonic entities. The Abyss has 99 layers of expanding chaos and lords of demons warring amongst themselves. The Nine Hells are a interpretation of Game of Thrones with greater violence and more interesting subplots. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestial beings can be gathered in an hour of online research.
It’s not surprising that beings who look like biblical angels received less attention. Rumor has it that Gary Gygax was uncomfortable about giving players game statistics for divine beings they could kill in their games, and even if celestials were subsequently developed with a bigger range of looks and roles, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There’s also only so much what you can create for creatures that are created to be servants of a god. Sure, they have free will, but their storytelling range is limited. In that sense, the bad guys have far greater liberty: They have defined superiors (Demon Lords, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re in the end fickle and chaotic creatures that can spin in a lot of directions without losing their unique nature.
How Critical Role Campaign 4 Reimagines Heavenly Beings
To be frank, I get it: Celestials are just not that interesting. Holy warriors of virtue that strike down wickedness in all its forms can be cool, 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 happens once the god who created them perishes. There is no canonical answer, and each Dungeon Master is free to come up with their own interpretation. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question at the heart of the world of Aramán, one where the deities have all been slain by mortals in a great conflict that ended seven decades prior to the beginning of the campaign. So what happened to the followers of these gods?
Mulligan’s solution is straightforward, terrifying, and very interesting: They went crazy and became a plague 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 still to be revealed, but it seems that when the deities died, the celestial beings went “feral”. They transformed into creatures that could annihilate large areas if left unchecked. The audience caught a sight of how scary one of these creatures can be at the end of episode 2, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “grandfather,” a terrifying celestial held bound in a enormous casket.
It’s not a coincidence that the most compelling celestials in Dungeons & Dragons, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. The angel Zariel, for example, was a mighty Solar angel whose fixation with concluding the eternal Blood War resulted in her being corrupted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. Fazrian is a little-known Planetar angel who was called forth 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 permeating the location.
The corruption observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, or misled by their own arrogance or fixations. They are casualties; another terrible consequence of the War of the Shapers. As Campaign 4 continues, I hope Mulligan concentrates on the idea that, regardless of how “righteous” that war was, the mortals who won it may still regret the consequences. Their world has been harmed, 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 frightening disasters.
Certainly, this might simply be a practical method to solve Gygax’s initial quandary. It’s easy to justify killing an angel when it’s a shrieking, insane creature with multiple fangs, but I also feel very intrigued by this fresh variation of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t necessarily agree with the DM’s aversion for divine beings in his stories, but I nonetheless favor these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {
