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​

 

[Paul Farquhar]

And as i said, I'm not complaining about it. I specifically said that the diverse and (for D&D) unconventional settings are a feature, not a bug. But it may make the book less useful to some people.

It makes it more useful to me. I've pretty much drained the well of my own cultural heritage dry. Fresh ideas are most welcome.

 

[Samurai]

It seems to me like they lifted several ideas from the MCU movies:

Living on/in the corpse of a dead alien = Knowhere, from Guardians of the Galaxy.

A spirit land where your ancestors appear as animals = Black Panther movie, where he visited the spirit of his father and others who are living in the spirit realm as panthers.

And the whole thing has a multiverse connection too = Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness or Spiderman, No Way Home or Spiderman: Into the Spider-verse.

 

[pukunui]

You can't complain about a product for not being good for doing something it was never designed to do.

According to the sales pitch, that is something it was designed to do. From the product page:

• Each adventure can be set in any existing D&D campaign setting or on worlds of your own design

It seems to me like they lifted several ideas from the MCU movies:

Living on/in the corpse of a dead alien = Knowhere, from Guardians of the Galaxy.

A spirit land where your ancestors appear as animals = Black Panther movie, where he visited the spirit of his father and others who are living in the spirit realm as panthers.

And the whole thing has a multiverse connection too = Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness or Spiderman, No Way Home or Spiderman: Into the Spider-verse.

Or they took inspiration from the same real world cultural stories as the MCU.

 

[Older Beholder]

Looks amazing. This had me at ‘city in the ethereal plane’

I can always use more shorter adventures, so these anthologies are a preference for me. Personally, I love the alt cover.

Curious what the 11 new monsters will be as well.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

According to the sales pitch, that is something it was designed to do. From the product page:

So yeah ...

I think that means "via a portal to the Radiant Citadel".

 

[pukunui]

I think that means "via a portal to the Radiant Citadel".

That's not how I'm reading it. Every single 5e adventure so far has been written so as to be "plug and play". Want a giant lair? Grab one from Storm King's Thunder. Your PCs are visiting a duergar city in the Underdark? Use Gracklstugh from OotA. Need a short adventure to fill a gap in the main campaign? Take your pick from the ones in Candlekeep Mysteries. And so on. I doubt this book will be any different.

While the non-European cultural elements won't be easy to ignore, I fully expect the Radiant Citadel framing device to be little more than window dressing when it comes to the adventures themselves. Just like how the Yawning Portal Inn has no real impact on any of the adventures in Tales from the Yawning Portal.

 

[Hussar]

It seems to me like they lifted several ideas from the MCU movies:

Living on/in the corpse of a dead alien = Knowhere, from Guardians of the Galaxy.

A spirit land where your ancestors appear as animals = Black Panther movie, where he visited the spirit of his father and others who are living in the spirit realm as panthers.

And the whole thing has a multiverse connection too = Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness or Spiderman, No Way Home or Spiderman: Into the Spider-verse.

I'm thinking that both probably dipped into the same well of inspiration. It's not like any of these concepts are new from the MCU.

 

[pukunui]

Curious what the 11 new monsters will be as well.

According to the D&D Beyond ad, one is a "wynling".

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Living on/in the corpse of a dead alien = Knowhere, from Guardians of the Galaxy.

This predates the MCU. Githyanki have lived on the petrified remains of dead gods in the Astral Plane for decades. That is probably where they got their inspiration for this, IMO.

A spirit land where your ancestors appear as animals = Black Panther movie, where he visited the spirit of his father and others who are living in the spirit realm as panthers.

This seems to be a pretty common part of lots of folklore in general. It's more likely (IMO) just a shared aspect of inspiration from the source cultures, even if it could be an instance of direct inspiration.

And the whole thing has a multiverse connection too = Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness or Spiderman, No Way Home or Spiderman: Into the Spider-verse.

Multiverses in D&D also predates the MCU. It could have been inspired by Marvel's more recent focus on the Multiverse, but I'm guessing it's more of just a coincidence or following a trend that the general audience seems interested in at the moment.

 

[Hussar]

For "ancestor's appearing as animals" see Neil Gaiman's Ananzi Boys for more on that. Or American Gods.

Heck read them anyway. They are fantastic books.