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]

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.

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.

Ancestral spirit animals and planes of dead/sleeping cosmic enitites are both older than steel

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

Ancestral spirit animals and planes of dead/sleeping cosmic enitites are both older than steel

Crom beg to differ! ;-)

 

[Ace]

More "cute and fluffy D&D?"
I dislike the aesthetic of D&D these days - displacer beast kittens, flying lemurs, etc. It makes it look childish. Couple that with "talking through problems with the bad guys" from recent campaigns, and I'm not interested at all.
It could've been Planescape.

I think the guys in charge of D&D think that a lot of younger players either prefer cozy D&D or are triggered by seriously dark and scary themes. I don't think is true but than I don't have their market research.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There is a lot of shared influence between 60/70s Doctor Strange comics and early D&D planer stuff.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think the guys in charge of D&D think that a lot of younger players either prefer cozy D&D or are triggered by seriously dark and scary themes. I don't think is true but than I don't have their market research.

In my experience it's teenagers who like to be grimdark edgelords. It's older players who grow out of it and admit to liking cuddly kittens.

 

[humble minion]

I think the guys in charge of D&D think that a lot of younger players either prefer cozy D&D or are triggered by seriously dark and scary themes. I don't think is true but than I don't have their market research.

I dunno, I just think that there was a bit of a movement in WotC to balance things out a bit after a decidedly grimdark stretch. Tomb of Annihilation was about an undead stillborn god fetus. Frostmaiden had human sacrifice (by Lawful Good towns no less!) all over the place, among other things. And then there was what was possibly the bleakest and most nihilistic incarnation of Ravenloft D&D has ever seen.

 

[Minigiant]

In my experience it's teenagers who like to be grimdark edgelords. It's older players who grow out of it and admit to liking cuddly kittens.

Why do you think people complained so much about Beastmaster rangers.

You don't roleplay bathtime downtime washing demonstink and horrorguts off your cute battle pets? I swear none of the magic shops have pet shampoo.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Why do you think people complained so much about Beastmaster rangers.

You don't roleplay bathtime downtime washing demonstink and horrorguts off your cute battle pets? I swear none of the magic shops have pet shampoo.

You make me feel really guilty about sacrificing Mr Buffo my steel defender last week!

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I think the guys in charge of D&D think that a lot of younger players either prefer cozy D&D or are triggered by seriously dark and scary themes. I don't think is true but than I don't have their market research.

They literally just made several books with dark themes. Netherdeep, Ravenloft, and Rime of the Frostmaiden all have horrific elements in them. Even Witchlight touches on some darker themes, like a lot of fairy tales (Shadar-Kai carnies having to damn someone to Ravenloft in order to escape the Domains of Dread, an old hag imprisoning and enslaving children, the horrific Jabberwock, etc).

I don't think WotC is at all scared of putting darker/more mature themes in their books, even the ones that are supposed to be fairly "lighthearted," like The Wild Beyond the Witchlight.

 

[Nilbog]

LotR is uplifting? Really? Completely depressing ending where magic dies, elves leave, The Shire is in ruins and Frodo, our Ringbearer, is so destroyed by the ordeal that he can't ever go home again.

Your definition of uplifting is different from mine.

Triumph of the everyday man against overwhelming odds, finding happiness. All things come to an end, eras change and as for middle earth I thought it was a good ending, each to their own I guess