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​

 

[DEFCON 1]

Ah well, just means my money goes to 3rd parties that are making amazing content.

You say this as though you think it is a bad thing. It's not. Not at all. And I'm pretty sure WotC is perfectly happy with anyone and everyone buying third-party material, because at the end of the day you are still playing D&D. You are keeping D&D's name alive and inspiring others to play this game you love, even if you haven't dropped $60 to $100 to them over the last few years. People knowing you are playing D&D is better advertising for them in the long run than whatever book or two you would have bought.

 

[Parmandur]

For me the issue is that these sound like they will be too cultural and won't fit into my campaign world because of that. I'll have to see how inspired by the various cultures these are before I will buy it.

You know, that's a fair critique. Ajit George is working overtime to sell me on it, personally, it does seem like there will be a lot of fresh ideas.

 

[Marandahir]

That's my only gripe, they are intruding on my space.

Might be able to integrate it, might not, still I like the idea and probably will purchase.

Heh, that's a concern I might have too since my homebrew setting was using ethereal plane shenanigans (alongside a merged feywild and shadowfell + ravenloft mists) as a major setting hook.

That said, I'm just super impressed by what they've come up here, and if I can mine it for ideas to enhance my own games, that's great! If I can adapt the adventures or the citadel to my games, even better! And if it's ultimately incompatible and I can't integrate it, I also still like the idea and will certainly purchase.

 

[Al'Kelhar]

Read these posts (#1 and #2). It is absolutely a fair reading of their posts.

(i.e. "Only thing has been said is that are all POC. I'd prefer to buy products written by talented writers." - this heavily implies that they think that the book will be of poor quality due to the fact that its writers are all BIPOC.)

No, it doesn't.

You seem to have forgotten the words @Stefano Rinadelli used in post #81 immediately after the words from that post you've quoted. Those words are "(POC or not really don't care, since talent is not a matter of skin color)".

I think a fair reading of that post was that, in the poster's view, the colour of the authors' skins was irrelevant to the quality of their work.

Whether that was a deliberate sin of omission on your part or not I'll leave it up to others to form their own views.

I think there are uncharitable assumptions being made by many in this discussion. This is the internet, after all.

Cheers, Al'kelhar

 

[Umbran]

I lived in Toronto for 11 years, and I can safely say I've never seen a raccoon painted blue fly away with fruit... never seen it sober, that is.

Well, the raccoons are too ornery to paint blue until they've knocked back a couple to relax...

 

[Redwizard007]

For me the issue is that these sound like they will be too cultural and won't fit into my campaign world because of that. I'll have to see how inspired by the various cultures these are before I will buy it.

It's literally a hub. I highly doubt you can't handle switching up the tone and setting for a few sessions of world hopping.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

No, it doesn't.

You seem to have forgotten the words @Stefano Rinadelli used in post #81 immediately after the words from that post you've quoted. Those words are "(POC or not really don't care, since talent is not a matter of skin color)".

I think a fair reading of that post was that, in the poster's view, the colour of the authors' skins was irrelevant to the quality of their work.

Whether that was a deliberate sin of omission on your part or not I'll leave it up to others to form their own views.

I think there are uncharitable assumptions being made by many in this discussion. This is the internet, after all.

I don't care what words followed up that statement. I cut off the end because it wasn't necessary. Saying "All we know is that it's made by POC, I would prefer if we had talented writers" is not at all made okay by following that up with "I don't care if they're POC or not, talent isn't based on skin color". It's like saying "I'm not racist, but . . ."

The post literally said, "All we know is all of them are POC, which is great from an inclusiveness standpoint, but I'd still rather buy products written by talented writers". They were complaining about the quality of a product that has not been released yet and connected the assumed poor quality to the skin tone of the writers. If that's not racist dogwhistling, I don't know what is.

"I don't care about the skin color of the writers, but I'm going to assume something about the quality of the product based solely on the skin color of the writers" is absolutely what they were saying.

A good question is "would someone have said this for any other product"? For me, the answer is very easily an absolute "no". No one would have written "I don't care about the skin color of the writers, but I'd prefer if this book was written by talented writers" for literally any other D&D product. If WotC hadn't stated that the book was only written by POC, the post we're discussing wouldn't have happened. That, to me, speaks volumes.

 

[Faolyn]

Can people please stop pretending that comedy and whimsy in fantasy are new things? Or that they are bad for the genre?

Or that comedy and whimsy weren't in D&D from the beginning?

Seriously, half the material components for spells are jokes or puns. Dragonlance has three "comedy" races in it, and even if they're obnoxious today they were supposed to be fun. Spelljammer was basically built on comedy and whimsy. Monsters like flumphs, nilbogs, modrons (especially once tony DiTerlizzi got his pens on them), and more. Half the old D&D Gazetteers were designed to be silly ("Top Ballista"). Heck, Zagyg was the god of comedy.

 

[ersatzphil]

edit: Decided against it.

 

[Azzy]

What happened to Sigil? A bullet to the head of the Lady of Pain? (only a few will understand)

A big piece of D&D history and storyline was just swept under the rug for a shiny radiant new dejà vue.

The cover art is rather bad. For both.

This and Sigil are only tangentially comparable—Sigil, a hub at the center of the Outlands at the center of all the outer planes that leads to all planes. This, a hub in the deep ethereal between civilizations of 13 prime material planes.