Critical Role Campaign 4 Could Have Fixed The Most Problematic D&D Monster
D&D offers a unique imaginative arena. In theory, it serves as a empty slate where the creativity of Dungeon Masters and players can craft any kind of picture. Yet, Dungeons & Dragons also bears a five-decade history of campaign settings, creatures, spellcasting rules, well-known NPCs, and general lore. Even the most talented creative minds find it difficult to completely free themselves from this extensive 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 elements that are as brilliant as “a classic hit,” other times you wince like when listening to “All Summer Long.”
The show Critical Role has gotten plenty creative in the past thanks to the unique worlds of Exandria (created by the DM Matt Mercer) and now the new world Aramán (the world created by Brennan Lee Mulligan for Campaign 4). Although devoted followers of Brennan and his Dimension 20 work may recognize some of his recurring motifs (He really hates the gods!), episode 2 stood out to me because of a truly original interpretation on a traditional Dungeons & Dragons monster category: angelic beings.
The Historical Background of Heavenly Beings in D&D
Demons and devils (often called evil outsiders) have been included in Dungeons & Dragons since the mid-70s, but it required more time for their heavenly counterparts to show up. A few unique “divine messengers” with individual titles were featured in Dragon magazine issues #12 (February 1978) and 17 (Aug. 1978). These were little more than variations of the angels from Hebrew and Christian sacred texts; for truly unique interpretations, we had to hold out for 1982 and Gary Gygax’s “Featured Creatures” column in Dragon magazine, where he presented fresh creatures that would be included in 1983’s Monster Manual II. That’s where the deva angel, the planetar angel, and the solar angel first appeared, initiating a lineage of creatures called celestial entities that is continues to exist in the latest edition of the game.
In Dungeons & Dragons, celestials are the servants of benevolent gods, created by their creators to serve as warriors, commanders, messengers, liaisons with mortals, and in general to inhabit their domains in the Upper Planes. They are champions of good who fight against the agents of disorder and wickedness from the Infernal Realms and support the faith of their deity on the Material Plane. In spite of their direct relationship with the divine beings, celestials are unique individuals with individual traits. Well-known instances include Lumalia and the fallen Zariel from the Forgotten Realms world, the Lady of the Lake from the Greyhawk setting, and even the iconic Dame Aylin from Baldur’s Gate 3.
The mythology of celestials is notably less fleshed out in contrast to fiends. The Abyss has 99 layers of expanding chaos and demon lords tearing each other apart. The infernal Nine Hells are a interpretation of the series Game of Thrones with greater violence and more interesting subplots. And that’s not even mentioning the Yugoloth. Meanwhile, all the essential information about celestials can be gathered in an short time of online research.
It’s not surprising that creatures who look like biblical angels went underdeveloped. Rumor has it that Gygax felt uneasy about providing gamers game statistics for divine beings they could murder in their games, and although celestials were subsequently developed 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 creatures that are created to be servants of a god. Sure, they have free will, but their narrative potential is limited. From that perspective, the bad guys have far greater liberty: They have established masters (Demon Lords, Infernal Dukes, and so on) but they’re ultimately fickle and chaotic entities that can evolve in a many ways without sacrificing their unique nature.
The Way Campaign 4 of Critical Role Reimagines Celestials
Honestly, I get it: Celestial beings are simply not very compelling. Holy warriors of good that strike down wickedness in every manifestation can be impressive, but they also become clichéd quickly. That widespread disinterest implies we still don’t know that much about celestials. As an illustration, we still don’t know what occurs once the deity who made them dies. There is no canonical answer, and each Dungeon Master is able to come up with their own spin. Brennan Lee Mulligan chose to make this question at the heart of the world of Aramán, a place where the gods have all been killed by humans in a great conflict that ended 70 years prior to the start of the story. So what happened to the followers of these gods?
Brennan’s answer is straightforward, horrifying, and highly intriguing: They became insane and turned into a plague that destroyed entire countries. A lot about the past of Aramán, the divine conflict, and its consequences in the present has yet to be disclosed, but it appears that when the deities were slain, the celestials went “feral”. They became monsters that could destroy large areas if not contained. The audience got a glimpse of how frightening one of these creatures can be at the conclusion of the second episode, as Wicander (Sam Riegel) encountered his “ancestor,” a fearsome celestial held bound in a enormous casket.
It is no accident that the most compelling celestials in D&D, story-wise, are those who have fallen from grace. Zariel, as an instance, was a powerful Solar whose fixation with concluding the eternal Blood War resulted in her being tainted by the devil Asmodeus and turned into an Archdevil. The planetar Fazrian is a obscure Planetar who was summoned by a priest inside Undermountain and became obsessed with “cleaning” the wickedness in the Terminus level of the huge labyrinth, gradually yielding to the madness permeating the location.
The taint observed in Campaign 4 of Critical Role assumes a distinct form. These celestial beings didn’t fall from grace. They weren’t tricked, nor led astray by their own pride or obsessions. They are casualties; one more dreadful result of the War of the Shapers. As the new campaign progresses, it is hoped the DM concentrates on the idea that, no matter how “just” that conflict was, the humans who won it may nonetheless lament the consequences. Their world has been wounded, their connection to the afterlife has been cut off, and the creatures that were formerly their protectors, shepherding their souls to security after death, are currently terrifying calamities.
Certainly, this may just be a practical method to solve Gygax’s initial quandary. It is simple to justify killing an angel when it’s a shrieking, mad entity with multiple fangs, but I am also highly fascinated by this new declination of the celestial mythos in Dungeons & Dragons. I am not entirely in accord with the DM’s loathing for gods in his campaigns, but I nonetheless favor these monstrous celestials to the one-dimensional {
