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​

 

[Minigiant]

So this is a Deep Ethereal Hub City for linked Demiplanes with new Racially diverse themes.

First thought. ACTUAL NEW IDEAS FOR A CHANGE.

Second though... wait what?

Third.. well aw its just adventures so each peice wont have too much meat lore wise.

Fourth. Ooooo adventures!

Fifth but If delve into it I'll spoil the adventures

 

[Azzy]

13 or at least 13?

15 that I'm aware of.

 

[Hussar]

I gotta admit. Way back someone said that all the kvetching was encouraging them to buy the book. I think I’d second that thought. Given the arguments I’ve seen here for why this is a bad book makes me more likely to buy it.

 

[Faolyn]

Comedy in D&D?

Giant. Space. Hamsters.

The best part about giant space hamsters is that if you use miniatures, a regular hamster is to scale with them.

 

[Maxperson]

The best part about giant space hamsters is that if you use miniatures, a regular hamster is to scale with them.

Unless it's a miniature giant space hamster.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The best part about giant space hamsters is that if you use miniatures, a regular hamster is to scale with them.

But what would be to scale with a Tyrannohamsterous Rex? Maybe a guinea pig?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Ajit's enthusiasm and love for D&D really shows through! The way he & Wes describe the Radiant Citadel, its satellite interplanar conduits connecting cultures, and the "ancestral realm" inside the crystal is very cool stuff.

Lost travelers, "flotsam" settlements, demiplanes of myth – at least the way they're talking about it is hitting several of themes right out of the AD&D A Guide to the Ethereal Plane. I also really appreciate Ajit calling it "solar punk" with aspirational utopian themes, and could see touches of Wakanda in the artwork – speaking personally, that's a very welcome genre that I haven't seen in D&D before.

Definitely feels very different from Sigil! This isn't a place where "angels and devils have a drink in the same conspiracy-ridden tavern", but rather a place where you might "meet your ancestral hero in the annual festival of the dead, and have to decide for yourself whether they were right or wrong."

Adventures in Candlekeep Mysteries seemed to vary greatly in terms of their quality, so I'm a bit cautious about these anthologies from writers I'm less familiar with. But I'm excited to see how it comes together.

This seems much more like something that adds to Spelljammer, than something that seeks to replace Planescape.

Im even more excited after watching the video.

 

[LordEntrails]

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

(i.e. "Only thing has been said is that all are 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.)

Still disagree. You conveniently forgot to quote this statement from post #1 you linked;

POC or not really don't care, since talent is not a matter of skin color

Irregardless, their is no value in continuing to try and decipher intentions of what someone has written. It's a exercise in futility, even if it does make one feel superior. And it's not my responsibility to defend someone else.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Still disagree. You conveniently forgot to quote this statement from post #1 you linked;

Again, I addressed this. I purposefully left that out (as I did the phrase in the middle of the content to clear it up a bit) to illustrate what I thought was troubling about their post. As I said before, I don't care if they said that, just like I don't care if someone says "I'm not racist" right before going on a racist rant.

Irregardless, their is no value in continuing to try and decipher intentions of what someone has written. It's a exercise in futility, even if it does make one feel superior. And it's not my responsibility to defend someone else.

I saw something in this thread that looked really racist, so I called it out. So, yeah, no need for you to defend the person that said that. If they want to defend their statement, they can. From my perspective, no matter what sentence they chose to follow it, that statement looked racist. I still haven't been convinced otherwise.

 

[pukunui]

Apologies if this has already been posted, but Ray Winninger recently tweeted: