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​

 

[Demetrios1453]

WotC should keep an eye on the forum discussions . . . but take all the whining with copious amounts of salt. WotC does great customer surveys, and this is what should, and does, guide them. Grumpy gamers complaining has been a part of this hobby as long as I can remember, even back to the before-times, pre-internet. And it also exists in every fandom I've ever poked my head into, not just D&D.

It's fear of change. Fear of being left behind. Groundless fears, but very human ones.

Also keep in mind that its not always the same voices making contradictory complaints. The complaints only seem contradictory in the aggregate.

But . . . it's so tiring. I go through these threads for details on the upcoming products and to celebrate with fellow positive gamers . . . but my "ignore" list grows with each of these announcement threads as some of the cranky gamers just get to be too much.

I don't usually purchase adventures or adventure anthologies in dead tree formats, but this one has me excited! Both because of the very deliberate diversity push and the location of the Radiant Citadel and its connected realities sounds super neat!

I soooooooo feel you there. I was expecting excited speculation, and got a substantial amount of unexpected grumpiness instead.

 

[see]

I don't think I've heard of Union, or Dis as a cosmological hub before. Where are those detailed, so I can look them up?

Union was in the 3.0 Epic Level Handbook.

Dis being the trade center of Hell and major port on the Styx, on reflection, might well have just been something that was done in one of the campaigns I participated in rather than having been established anywhere in print.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

I'm sure it's coming.

One day, I hope, though probably not this year.

 

[Dire Bare]

I don't think I've heard of Union, or Dis as a cosmological hub before. Where are those detailed, so I can look them up?

Union is an extraplanar city detailed in the 3E Epic Level Handbook. It exists within its own mysterious demiplane, and has connections all over the multiverse, similar to Sigil. As you might guess, it caters to high-level adventurers. To me, Union always felt like Sigil, but stripped of all flavor. YMMV. You can google wiki descriptions of the city without picking up the book itself.

Dis is the second layer of Hell, an infinite, hellish city ruled by Dispater, one of the archdevils, or Lords of the Nine. It has been described in many D&D books over the decades, but in relatively recent years has been given a more multiplanar hub feel . . . I think to facilitate your players going there.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I'm not sure about Spelljammer, even less so with the unveiling of this book.

I'm still reading through this thread so someone has probably addressed this, but;

• The Spalljammer UA is not being published in this book. There are no racial options being advertised here.
• The alternate cover is certainly not the alternate cover teased, with Boo (the space hamster) and a beholder.

I'm still pretty confident that Spelljammer is coming this year, IMO as the big campaign book (like Witchlight was last year). Dragonlance IMO will take the last book space for the year, and we also get the box leaked earlier. That's... five products for the year, fairly on track for the slate of products annually for WotC.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Union was in the 3.0 Epic Level Handbook.

Dis being the trade center of Hell and major port on the Styx, on reflection, might well have just been something that was done in one of the campaigns I participated in rather than having been established anywhere in print.

No, Dis has always been up there as a major planar nexus, like the City of Brass.

 

[ersatzphil]

Heh, so, Planescape is a setting that coerces draconian alignment ... in order to prove that the alignment system is stupid?

In fairness to @Paul Farquhar's point - at least in my memory of Planescape - the central tension of the setting was less alignment, and more "what does it mean to be an alive person who lives in the afterlife?"

 

[Parmandur]

One day, I hope, though probably not this year.

Nah, this year is Splljammer and Dragonlance. I wager that Planescape is the classic Setting coming next year, however.

 

[Jer]

Dis is the second layer of Hell, an infinite, hellish city ruled by Dispater, one of the archdevils, or Lords of the Nine. It has been described in many D&D books over the decades, but in relatively recent years has been given a more multiplanar hub feel . . . I think to facilitate your players going there.

I now have visions of the Dis Chamber of Commerce sitting around a table discussing ways to get more tourists to the second layer of hell. "We need to improve our image! We're missing out on those sweet, sweet adventurer gold pieces! Just think of all of the adventurers who could be stopping here instead of skipping by right to Minauros or Stygia. There's got to be a way to get in on that action!"

 

[eyeheartawk]

And I think that's the problem some of the cranky grumpies have . . . diversity. You know, what they have in California.

That's a strawman if I've ever seen one. Nobody here has said anything even vaguely resembling that.

But . . . it's so tiring. I go through these threads for details on the upcoming products and to celebrate with fellow positive gamers . . . but my "ignore" list grows with each of these announcement threads as some of the cranky gamers just get to be too much.

On a serious note, one could say the same about the opposite, no? The same group of people with super toned arms carrying water for anything and everything D&D that gets announced.