D&D 5E The Next D&D Book is JOURNEYS THROUGH THE RADIANT CITADEL

We peered, poked, squinted, flipped, and enhanced the teaser image that WotC put out last week, and it turns out we got it right -- the next book is, indeed, Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel.

Wraparound cover art by Evyn Fong​

Through the mists of the Ethereal Plane shines the Radiant Citadel. Travelers from across the multiverse flock to this mysterious bastion to share their traditions, stories, and calls for heroes. A crossroads of wonders and adventures, the Radiant Citadel is the first step on the path to legend. Where will your journeys take you?

Journeys through the Radiant Citadel is a collection of thirteen short, stand-alone D&D adventures featuring challenges for character levels 1–14. Each adventure has ties to the Radiant Citadel, a magical city with connections to lands rich with excitement and danger, and each can be run by itself or as part of an ongoing campaign. Explore this rich and varied collection of adventures in magical lands.

• Thirteen new stand-alone adventures spanning levels 1 to 14, each with its own set of maps
• Introduces the Radiant Citadel, a new location on the Ethereal Plane that connects adventurers to richly detailed and distinct corners of the D&D multiverse
• Each adventure can be set in any existing D&D campaign setting or on worlds of your own design
• Introduces eleven new D&D monsters
• There’s a story for every adventuring party, from whimsical and light to dark and foreboding and everything in between

Slated for June 21st (update - I just got a press release which says it's June 21st "in North American stores"; I'm not sure what that means for the rest of us!), it's a 224-page adventure anthology featuring a floating city called the Radiant Citadel. The book is written entirely by people of colour, including Ajit George, who was the first person of Indian heritage to write Indian-inspired material for D&D (in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft). Around 50 POC writers were involved in total in various ways.

The Radiant Citadel is on the ethereal plane and is carved from the giant fossil of an unknown monster. A massive gemstone called the Royal Diamond sits at the core, surrounded by a bunch of smaller Concord Jewels, which are gateways to the Citadel's founding civilizations. DMs can link any world to the citadel by placing a Concord Jewel there.

The Citadel, unlike many D&D locations, is more of a sanctuary than a place of danger. The book's alternate cover features a Dawn Incarnate, a creature which is the embodiment of stories and cultures.

D&D 5E - Here's Radiant Citadel's press release

Dropped in my inbox a short while ago, if you want the official announcement. It's the same info as in the news article on the front page. Dungeons & Dragons Invites You to Explore the Radiant Citadel Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel is a new collection of short adventures set in wondrous...

www.enworld.org

The adventures are as follows:

• Salted Legacy
• Written In Blood
• The Fiend of Hollow Mine
• Wages of Vice
• Sins of Our Elders
• Gold for Fools and Princes
• Trail of Destruction
• In the Mists of Manivarsha
• Between Tangled Roots
• Shadow of the Sun
• The Nightsea’s Succor
• Buried Dynasty
• Orchids of the Invisible Mountain

UPDATE -- the press release contains a list of some of the contributors: "Justice Ramin Arman, Dominique Dickey, Ajit A. George, Basheer Ghouse, Alastor Guzman, D. Fox Harrell, T.K. Johnson, Felice Tzehuei Kuan, Surena Marie, Mimi Mondal, Mario Ortegón, Miyuki Jane Pinckard, Pam Punzalan, Erin Roberts, Terry H. Romero, Stephanie Yoon, and many more."

Regular cover by Even Fong

Alternate Cover by Sija Hong​

 

[Paul Farquhar]

sounds like heroic, save-the-world dnd. I haven't really played any official 5e campaigns--would any of them be described as sword and sorcery? My sense was they, like 5e as a system, is more geared toward epic high fantasy.

You could run RotFM as sword and sorcery, if you made the PCs mercenaries engaged by the Arcane Brotherhood to recover certain magics, and made the Auril stuff the B plot.

Netherdeep is definitely heroic (Conan wouldn't consider it worth his time), although the world isn't in need of saving (unless the PCs mess up big time).

 

[Yaarel]

Don't let the mutant sharks fool you. I have read it, and it isn't full of doom and gloom. The Vox Machina animation is much darker.

Ok.


Relatedly, there is apparently a distinction between the Radiant crystal which is "solar punk" versus the adventures that are "hopepunk". So, I expect some of the adventures to deal with disturbing themes.

 

[Yaarel]

Spoiler: General Plotline for Call of the Netherdeep

The party discovers an artifact and receives a vision from a forgotten demigod called the Apotheon who once used the item. He asks to be saved from a hidden demiplane that he has been trapped within for a millenium. The artifact can be upgraded by visiting various locations where this imprisoned demigod once was blessed by various deities, eventually leading the party to a city above the titular Netherdeep, a watery demiplane within which the Apotheon has remained after trying and failing to save an ancient city from the wrath of Gruumsh. It turns out that the visions the Apotheon had sent the party were only the vestiges of who he used to be, and in the centuries since the demigod has gone mad with anger that he was abandoned and forgotten by the world, transforming him into an aberration whose tormented thoughts have mutated everything around him into monsters fueled by his own psychic torment. After braving a surreal dungeon within the Netherdeep formed from the Apotheon's own memories and emotional turmoil the party is greeted by the demigod, who asks to be released. He attacks if denied, but during the battle the party can attempt to soothe his spirit. In the final confrontation the party can either kill the deranged demigod, redeem him and allow him to leave the Netherdeep as the person he once was, or fail to defeat or redeem him, at which point the mutated Apotheon escapes the Netherdeep as a monster bent on destroying everything he once fought to save, starting with the city above the Netherdeep.

Heh, big time spoiler! I was warned.

So, gloom but not doom.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Call of the Netherdeep isn't as remotely disturbing as a typical episode of Doctor Who.

Solar Punk is classic Star Trek. Humanity has solved it's problems. Utopian, basically. This refers to the Radiant Citadel itself though, not the adventures.

Hope Punk is things may look dark, but good will always triumph. Lord of the Rings, Forgotten Realms.

 

[Burnside]

sounds like heroic, save-the-world dnd. I haven't really played any official 5e campaigns--would any of them be described as sword and sorcery? My sense was they, like 5e as a system, is more geared toward epic high fantasy.

Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage would 100% work as sword and sorcery. Arguably Curse of Strahd, and for the most part Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden. Actually, despite the world-affecting scope of what's going on in Tomb of Annihilation, it could very much be played that way as well.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Heh, big time spoiler! I was warned.

So, gloom but not doom.

I think I will run Netherdeep with the Dark Souls 5e rules when it comes out. The scenario of the campaign seems to fit pretty good with the general ''lore'' or DS. I'll maybe even throw an option for one of the players to claim Apotheon's divinity as its own by slaying its ''immortality'' with the powered-up artifact, taking the place of the now-mortal demi-god in the prison.

Then I'll have gloom AND doom!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The video shows it to have at least two levels.

I'm pretty sure the Rock of Bral also has at least two levels lol.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm pretty sure the Rock of Bral also has at least two levels lol.

I really don't remember.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I really don't remember.

That's for the best lol.

 

[Maxperson]

That's for the best lol.

But.....................................Large Luigi!