Critical Role Campaign 4 Could Have Fixed The Most Problematic D&D Monster
Dungeons & Dragons provides a unique imaginative arena. Theoretically, it acts as a empty slate where the creativity of DMs and participants can paint countless scenarios. However, Dungeons & Dragons also carries a five-decade history of worlds, creatures, magic systems, well-known NPCs, and rich mythology. Even the most talented imaginative thinkers find it difficult to entirely detach themselves from this vast landscape of references, so that a great deal of “new” content for D&D is a reworking of familiar ideas. At times you encounter elements that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you cringe like when listening to “a derivative tune.”
The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past due to the original settings of Exandria (created by the DM Matt Mercer) and now Aramán (the world crafted by DM Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). While longtime fans of Mulligan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his common themes (Brennan strongly dislikes the deities!), the second episode impressed me because of a highly innovative interpretation on a classic Dungeons & Dragons monster category: angelic beings.
The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in Dungeons & Dragons
Demons and devils (collectively known as evil outsiders) have been part of D&D since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A few unique “divine messengers” with individual titles appeared in Dragon magazine editions 12 (February 1978) and 17 (August 1978). These were essentially variations of the celestial figures from biblical sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to wait until 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 II. That’s when the deva angel, the planetar angel, and the solar first appeared, initiating a tradition of creatures called celestial entities that is still present in the latest edition of the game.
In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the agents of benevolent gods, created by their creators to act as warriors, leaders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and in general to populate their realms in the Heavenly Realms. They are champions of good who fight against the forces of chaos and evil from the Infernal Realms and support the belief of their god on the Material Plane. Despite their direct relationship with the gods, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Famous examples encompass Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, 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 less fleshed out compared to fiends. The Abyss has ninety-nine levels of ever-growing disorder and lords of demons tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a version of the series Game of Thrones with greater violence and more interesting side stories. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, everything you need to know about celestials can be gathered in an short time of online research.
It’s not surprising that creatures who look like biblical angels received less attention. There are stories that Gygax felt uneasy about providing gamers game statistics for divine beings they could kill in their games, and even if celestials were subsequently developed with a broader spectrum of looks and roles, that controversial beginning hindered their growth. There is also a limit to what you can create for beings that are created to be servants of a god. Sure, they have independent thought, but their storytelling range is limited. From that perspective, the antagonists have much more freedom: They have defined superiors (Lords of Demons, Archdevils, and etc.) but they’re ultimately unpredictable and disorderly creatures that can evolve in a lot of directions without losing their distinct identity.
How Critical Role Campaign 4 Redefines Heavenly Beings
To be frank, I get it: Celestials are just not that interesting. Divine champions of virtue that smite evil in every manifestation can be cool, but they also become clichéd very fast. That general lack of interest implies we still don’t know a great deal 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 every DM is free to come up with their own interpretation. The DM Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to center this issue central to the setting of Aramán, a place where the deities have all been slain by humans in a massive war that concluded seven decades before the start of the campaign. So what became of the servants of these divine beings?
Brennan’s solution is straightforward, horrifying, and very interesting: They became insane and turned into a plague that devastated entire countries. A great deal about the history of this world, the war against the gods, and its consequences in the current era has still to be revealed, but it seems that after the deities were slain, the celestial beings went “feral”. They transformed into monsters that could annihilate large areas if left unchecked. Viewers got a glimpse of how scary such a being can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as the character Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial entity held bound in a enormous casket.
It is no accident that the most interesting celestials in D&D, narratively, are those who have fallen from grace. The angel Zariel, for example, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with ending the Blood War resulted in her being tainted by Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil of Hell. The planetar Fazrian is a little-known Planetar who was called forth by a cleric inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the evil in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, slowly succumbing to the madness permeating the place.
The taint observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestials didn’t fall from grace. They were not deceived, or led astray by their own pride or fixations. They are casualties; another terrible consequence of the Shapers’ War. As the new campaign progresses, I hope the DM concentrates on the notion that, no matter how “righteous” that war was, the humans who emerged victorious may nonetheless lament the outcome. Their world has been wounded, their link to the hereafter has been cut off, and the creatures that were formerly their guardians, guiding their spirits to safety following death, are currently frightening disasters.
Certainly, this might simply be a practical method to solve the original creator’s initial quandary. It is simple to justify killing an angel when it’s a shrieking, insane entity with rows of teeth, but I am also very intrigued by this new declination of the celestial mythology in D&D. I don’t necessarily agree with the DM’s loathing for gods in his stories, but I still prefer these horrific heavenly beings to the one-dimensional {
