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​

 

[Rabulias]

But anyway, I'm hugely intrigued by this new location. The Deep Ethereal is not somewhere that's been covered much (outside the 2e Ethereal Plane book).

It did get about half a page in 3.5's Manual of the Planes.

I'm amused that it's still listed as TBA but they have the picture up there now.

I think Amazon is really gun-shy now about spoiling titles.

 

[Azzy]

Man, with all the whining going on in this thread, we have enough lyrics for an emo compilation.

Personally, this book sounds neat. Especially with the adventures being based in non-medeival European min-settings (can't wait to see how these are presented). I will likely get this one (even though I don't need any more adventures).

 

[ersatzphil]

Not sure how Planescape or Ravenloft fit into the theming of the book. I'd figure it'd be more likely something like an updated Mystara country.

One of the civilizations could be wherever Kalakeri got pulled into the mists from.

 

[LordEntrails]

Most of those look to be PDF only.

I'm talking high quality, hard cover, complete catalog, 'break out the credit card' type special edition.

Most of those are available in both hard cover and soft cover print versions. If you only want print versions, change the filter on the left side for Format to Print and you will only get ones with print versions.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Well, the Multiverse is quite MASSIVE so it would make sense that throughout that very same MASSIVE Multiverse, that there are a number of various Planar Hubs that exist. Which also includes Sigil AND The Radiant Citadel.

Sigil's big claim to fame is that it is THE Planar Hub of the Multiverse. A big name like Disney World/Las Vegas or whatever other famous landmark that exists out there in the world. When ya think of cities, ya think of New York City. Likewise, when you think of Planar Hubs, Sigil is the one. Just like New York City, there are other cities out there.

Although, I too wish it was Sigil as well. But at least this is something new at least that became to be because of 5E.

Yep. If Sigil is NYC, I'm happy to imagine the Radiant Citadel as Singapore, Dubai, or Morocco. Plenty of other big hubs in the world, and they don't have to all look the same.

 

[Parmandur]

@Henadic Theologian so here is info on one of the non-Adventure mini-Gazetters:

 

[Parmandur]

Some more teases of component adventures and their cultural roots:

 

[Demetrios1453]

Some more teases of component adventures and their cultural roots:

Very definitely intrigued with the variety.

 

[humble minion]

I'll wait til we see the table of contents, but on a knee-jerk reaction this is looking like a no-buy for me. Nothing against the Radiant Citadel itself, it always seemed a bit silly (though maybe it was an in-world viewpoint) that Sigil was presented as The Centre Crossover Point Of Everything, so i have no issues with their being another metasetting hub. And nothing against a diversity of new settings, this is something I've wanted for ages.

But for me, an anthology of short adventures - each in its own mini-setting - is the worst possible way to present it. I'm not a fan of adventure compilations to start with (though i can see why some do like them), and this particular format seems likely to double down on the stuff i dislike about them. The settings lack almost all useful detail because so much page space is eaten by adventure material, and the adventures are reduced to railroads or merely a couple of connected encounters because the writers have to squeeze a basic outline of the setting into their very limited pagecount. And they're making the compression problem even worse by making the book only 212 pages, which is VERY thin. Eberron was 320, FFS. I suspect this was largely what caused the issue Panzerlion had with Candlekeep - an editor hacked back context and detail to fit an overly compressed page count, and chose poorly or ignorantly about what to hack. If you're giving me a setting, give me a setting. If you're giving me adventures, give me adventures (but don't expect me to buy them because I'm not DMing and I don't want to spoil myself for something I might play through). Don't try to Frankenstein the two together like Strixhaven did. But WotC fairly clearly disagrees with me here.

If it was a setting book, just about the Radiant Citadel and some of the places you could reach from there, I'd be all over it. But a grab-bag of mini-adventures? No.

 

[Tonguez]

Looks fun, has the ethereal plane had cities and cultures before? My idea of ethereal is a whole lot less concrete

but in terms of a series of mini adventures to plug in, awesome

ps is this the India inspired product discussed ladt week.