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​

 

[OblivionDrive]

Press release: "There’s a story for every adventuring party, from whimsical and light to dark and foreboding and everything in between"

Grumpy Old Men: "It's all fluffy! It's California! Childish! Give us Sigil, you cowards! Fluffy!"

The weird selective amnesia too, as if 1/2/3e didn’t have their weird fluffy moments and joke monsters.

 

[Parmandur]

The thing about these adventure compilations is that they can accept random submissions from new writers (with largely unproven track records), who will work for hire (i.e. cheap), do very little editorial oversight, and crank out a book that fills a release date placeholder.
I have absolutely no problem with giving new talent a chance, but this is just - something that should be some web articles or Dungeon magazines - not a premium $50 hardcover release.
Between this, Candlekeep, and the Matt Mercer book, does WotC even write anything anymore - or just farming out everything to freelancers?

Actually, these writers do have proven track records, for 3rd parties and on the DMsGuild. Making it this far is already the big leagues.

 

[Zaukrie]

This. I like the idea of not having it all be combat, I'm not sure I love the implementation yet.

Looking forward to looking at the book and seeing

 

[Parmandur]

"Surf's up, bro!"

Not sure what was Californiesque in the description??

I think that was a stand in for whinging about a word that rhymes with "bespoke."

 

[DarkCrisis]

Except it doesn’t replace SJ or PS in any way. There’s a finite number of crystals that connect to a finite number of Prime worlds. At a single finite hub city floating in the Ethereal.

It’s not the huge omniversal nexus Sigil is, nor does it cover Wildspace travel between worlds like SJ does. Is there some overlap in themes? Sure. But it’s very limited unless the DM expands the Citadel beyond what they’ve outlined that it covers so far.

But I can’t stop you from being all doom and gloom. That’s a choice you have to make for yourself.

Doesn't it though? Why introduce TWO planar city books that basically fulfill the same function?

This may not put Spelljammer to bed but I'd def say there is a lot less of a chance of a Planescape book when this new book fills the exact same role.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

In terms of trying to get more cultural diversity into D&D this was a pretty brilliant move by WotC. Instead of trying to revamp older takes or publish one new D&D world, they've used this book to essentially create a new campaign setting where a bunch of different civilizations based on non-European real world cultures (and authored by writers from those cultures) intermingle.

As for similarities to Sigil and Planescape, it was my understanding that Sigil was mostly a jumping off point for exploring the Outer Planes, right? This new Radiant Citadel is more of a central hub for a finite number of Material Plane worlds that are essentially conducting interplanetary trade.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

I thought the adventures in Candlekeep were disappointing and too short for anything more than a distraction during a regular game. And most of them were very lackluster with no actual adventure. Just "go here and talk to this guy and get this book, then come back."

It was? Compared to other stuff I've seen from WotC it seems to have quickly fallen off the radar.
There are people who will love anything with the D&D logo on it. Me, I'm pretty much the opposite. I don't like most of what they produce, which is fine. The past several years have been nothing but "psych up the old fans by suggesting something they want" then rip the rug out from under them by phoning in some freelance product.

Subscribe word by word. I'm just playing Candlekeep as player and find the adventures embarassing. We are more or less in the middle of the book and no one is able to remember the previous adventure. If I can frankly express myself I find that D&D content is starting to upset me.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't know what was the price points back in the floppy soft cover adventure days. How much would 13 adventures have cost back then if they had been sold individually as softcovers?

IIRC, adjusted for inflation, it was $20-30 for a 16-33 page Adventure. These collections are way more cost efficient.

 

[Parmandur]

The Paizo adventures aren't like 3 pages either.

Based on page count, these 13 Adventures are probably ~16 page modules.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

A HUNDRED pages of Gazeteers? No.

Take a look at Candlekeep and it's Gazeteer.

MAYBE you'll get 10 pages of Gazetteer on the Radiant Citadel itself, like you do on Candlekeep. But each adventure is going to be it's own self-contained story in what looks like different locations based on the actual stories involved. "In the Mists of Manivarsha", for example, reads to me like a Ravenloft adventure. You'll get a little primer on Manivarsha as part of the adventure, maybe a map of the Realm of Dread itself...

Dunno where you got the idea that a 224 page book (Confirmed by Morrus) would be 100 pages of Setting and around 100 pages of adventure for 13 separate adventures.

Candlekeep is merely a large Library Keep vs the Radiant Cidatel which is a city with a demiplane at it's heart that connects to 15 civilizations, that is more comparable to Baldur's Gate or Waterdeep in their adventure books in size. And there are two new lands (civilizations) that also get Gazeteers, who knows how big and detailed those are.

Candlekeep is simply a location in FR, the Radiant Citadel is functionally a new setting.