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]

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.

As has been posted a few posts up, one of the adventures is based on Mughal India.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Don't know if it is a bunch of random stuff. And don't know if the people hired are very talented one. Only thing has been said is that are all POC. Very laudable from an inclusivness point of view. But I'd still prefer to buy products written by talented writers (POC or not really don't care, since talent is not a matter of skin color).

Mod Note:

How about this: work from an assumption of competence until proven otherwise, as opposed to one of PoC tokenism.

 

[Parmandur]

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.

Wesley Schneider said in the YouTube interview that D&D has literally never had a location actually in the Deep Ethereal before, more of a pure DM blank space. Genuinely new.

 

[Parmandur]

Very definitely intrigued with the variety.

Yeah, it becomes more apparent why they chose the rather dramatic hub structure they did: it allows them to get a really huge variety of material in there.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I remember when the fact that not every problem had to be solved through combat was touted as one of the hallmarks of old school D&D that made it superior. Guess those goalposts are pretty maneuverable.

That's the problem with these boards; when you make an assertion, people often disagree in the far extreme. Light and fluffy is not synonymous with problem-solving out of combat.

I look forward to being misinterpreted.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Wesley Schneider said in the YouTube interview that D&D has literally never had a location actually in the Deep Ethereal before, more of a pure DM blank space. Genuinely new.

Eh, there have been some demiplanes in the Deep Ethereal, but nothing major. An interplanar hub there is definitely something new though. That's something that really caught my eye, as I stated earlier.

 

[Parmandur]

Eh, there have been some demiplanes in the Deep Ethereal, but nothing major. An interplanar hub there is definitely something new though. That's something that really caught my eye, as I stated earlier.

Like actual detailed, mapped out locations, or just off-hand mentions? D&D has a long history, to be sure, so he well could have missed some.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Do these people who are afraid of being left behind do anything to try and keep up? Or do they just wring their hands about how unjust life is?

There's nothing to be done beyond giving the new stuff a chance. If you do and you still don't like it, you are left behind.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Like actual detailed, mapped out locations, or just off-hand mentions? D&D has a long history, to be sure, so he well could have missed some.

Yes. The 2e Guide to the Ethereal Plane (a Planescape product) detailed maybe a dozen or so demiplanes in the Deep Ethereal, with I would say an average of 2 to 5 pages of description. And several did have maps. Most were uninhabited, though, or had at most a few inhabitants (Neth, the Demiplane That Lives, was its own inhabitant). So even then, a high population city in the Deep Ethereal is still unprecedented...

 

[Parmandur]

Yes. The 2e Guide to the Ethereal Plane (a Planescape product) detailed maybe a dozen or so demiplanes in the Deep Ethereal, with I would say an average of 2 to 5 pages of description. And several did have maps. Most were uninhabited, though, or had at most a few inhabitants (Neth, the Demiplane That Lives, was its own inhabitant). So even then, a high population city in the Deep Ethereal is still unprecedented...

Awesome! The more you know.

I'll still give him that in terms of a full setting type location that Adventurers can call home...pretty original still.