D&D 5E Ajit George Talks About Radiant Citadel's Creators

Project Lead Ajit George shared a post on social media about the development of and creators of Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel.

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...

www.enworld.org

Hi all,
I'm so unbelievably excited and proud to tell you that I have conceived and co-led the first book written entirely by people of color in Dungeons & Dragons’ 49-year history: Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel!

In June of 2020, I pitched the idea to Jeremy Crawford and Wes Schneider at the D&D Studio for a book written by Black and brown writers. The idea was to create new places and lands based on our cultures, histories, myths, and lived experiences. To my surprise and joy, they agreed and asked me to co-lead it with Wes Schneider!
Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel is an anthology of 13 compelling adventures that introduces 16 new locations, along with characters and monsters. The first location, the titular Radiant Citadel, was created and written by myself. You have never seen anything like it in D&D before.

There is so much we've accomplished with this unbelievable book:

• I am the first-ever PoC Project Lead for a D&D book.
• This is the first D&D book conceived, created, and written entirely by PoCs: Sixteen writers in total.
• This is the first D&D book where the cover art and alt-cover art were both created by women of color: Evyn Fong and Sija Hong.
• The co-Art Director is a woman of color: Emi Tanji.
• The Marketing Lead is a woman of color: Sara Chan.
• Two of the rules developers are PoCs: Makenzie De Armas and Taymoor Rehman.
• One of the editors is a PoC: Jessica Ross.
• Three cultural consultants are women of color: Nivair H. Gabriel, Jaymee Goh, and Carmen Maria Marin.
• Almost two-thirds of the artists were PoCs and they created more than two-thirds of the art for the book.
• One of our narrative design consultants (and also my wife), is a woman of color: Whitney Strix Beltrán. She was with me from the very first day to the very last. I am eternally grateful for all she's done.
• Additionally, half of the writers are women and several writers come from the LGBTQIA+ community.

More than 50 Black and brown people came together to work on this book and support its creation. I am overwhelmed by the scope of our accomplishments.

The sixteen writers for the book are: Justice Ramin Arman, Dominique Dickey, Basheer Ghouse, Alastor Guzman, D. Fox Harrell, T.K. Johnson, Felice Tzehuei, Surena Marie, Monidipa Mondal, Mario Ortegón, Miyuki Jane Pinckard, Pam Punzalan, Erin Roberts, Terry Romero, Stephanie Yoon and myself.

I am also grateful to everyone in the D&D Studio who made this book possible including Ray Winninger, Jeremy Crawford, Chris Perkins, Steve Scott, Amanda Hamon, James Wyatt, and of course my partner through it all, Wes Schneider.

And to friends who helped with so many different ways, especially John Stavropoulos (who was the system and narrative design consultant) and Jess Ross (who was one of the editors). Both were there from the start in leadership meetings and helped with so many parts in the first several months.

Finally, I want to thank my talented and capable wife Whitney Beltrán. I juggled my full-time job and leading this project and she supported me every day. She was also my narrative design consultant and weighed in or saw everything I did. This book is brilliant in part because of her.

I genuinely believe Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel is one of the finest books ever to bear the D&D logo. It is a layered book that hits upon complex and powerful themes. You can play it at the surface and have a lot of fun, or you can delve deeper with the questions it asks of you. Either way, it will offer hundreds of hours of incredible gameplay and new stories.

I can’t wait for it to be released on June 21st and to share it with the world!

 

[Mournblade94]

This is fantastic.
WOTC likes to use a framing device for their adventure anthologies--the yawning portal, candlekeep library, and now this radiant citadel. I'm not sure how necessary that is and I wonder if it constrains the adventure writing at all (alternatively, it could be a useful starting point for developing an idea).

Hopefully Kim Mohan had no involvement in this project

Why is Kim Mohan bad now? I'd think his input would be perfect for this project. I've enjoyed his work for a long time.

 

[Jer]

A pet peeve of mine is the free use of PUNK as a suffix. Are they fighting the establishment with Hope?

Yes.

Hopepunk is a subgenre of speculative fiction, positioned as a counter to grimdark. Works in the hopepunk subgenre are about characters fighting for positive change, radical kindness, and communal responses to challenges.

Hopepunk - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

When a D&D sourcebook using as source of inspiration manga, manhua and manhwa and Asian cultures? I don't ask a return of Kara-Tur yet, I would rather better than sooner.

Here the message should be "Everybody is wellcome". The goal is giving a good feeling, good vibes, for everybody.

Sometimes the saturation causes the reject. For example the Far-West movies were very popular decades ago, but too many were produced, and then the audence started to be not interested any more, looking for other things.

* What about "Storytelling points" as a secondary type of reward? It wouldn't help at all for leveling up, but they would be useful for no-combact actions, for examples special contacts to get special information, or special feats for things as cooking, farming, crafting..

 

[bedir than]

When a D&D sourcebook using as source of inspiration manga, manhua and manhwa and Asian cultures?

India and Persia are two of the Asian cultures in this book.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

Why do you keep talking about it then?

It's all you've talked about on multiple threads for two days now.

3 thread, to be precise. The first concerning aestethic of illustration. The 2nd and 3rd talking about a new product advertised as made by POC. The third particular is focused around the POC authors. In this context my opinion, while maybe not agreed by you, is perfectly in-topic. Giving that, the truth is that I keep talking about that because I feel that you block me for what I say while pretending it is for how I say it.
If hypocrisys is finally taken apart and you ask me clearly to stop express myself on these topics then I've no problem to stop writing.
Also, I suggest you to read carefully all my intervention, because my position is not offensive. It is out of the chorus, maybe, but I'm really upset by this use of inclusivity issues that I found diminishing and pharisaical . And this is because I really care about. Then you are obviously free to believe what you want and starting from the fact that this is your house, you have all the rights to ask me to exit.

 

[The Glen]

Are you saying the book is the worst-written dribble on the planet?
I do not think it is exceptional that a non Euro-centric setting has been published. Known World/Mystara much? Nevermind Kara-Tur etc.

Sadly, the art is not to my taste, but I'm curious of the book's contents, mostly because you've got quite a few new enthusiastic people that can surprise you.
Our table experimented with a multi-cultural buzz early on in our campaign when the party became embroiled in the political and economic tensions within Selenica given that its a hot spot for quite a few of the setting's cultures and 3 of the Great Merchant Houses. I loved fleshing out that city and its characters.

So, the question is will there be enough for me to use from Radiant Citadel for our table's game at that price?

You should be able to relocate all these adventures to Mystara due to its real world culture fantasy analogies.
India=Sind
Persia=Hule
Arabia=Ylaruam
Polynesia=Ierendi
Mongolia=Ethengar
Native American=Atruaghin
China=Ochalea
Japan=Myoshima
Melonesia=Pearl Islands
Equatorial Africa=Tanagora
South/Central America=Savage Baronies

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

You should be able to relocate all these adventures to Mystara due to its real world culture fantasy analogies.
India=Sind
Persia=Hule
Arabia=Ylaruam
Polynesia=Ierendi
Mongolia=Ethengar
Native American=Atruaghin
China=Ochalea
Japan=Myoshima
Melonesia=Pearl Islands
Equatorial Africa=Tanagora
South/Central America=Savage Baronies

Yes but the good of this book maybe is that it's written directly by people who belongs to that culture.
I mean is different from a culture interpreted by western people.

 

[DEFCON 1]

A pet peeve of mine is the free use of PUNK as a suffix. Are they fighting the establishment with Hope? Cyberpunk as a genre meant something. Punk has now just come to be a suffix used to say "Type of genre".

I'm a particular fan of the wrestling genre of cmpunk.

 

[The Glen]

Yes but the good of this book maybe is that it's written directly by people who belongs to that culture.
I mean is different from a culture interpreted by western people.

You still need to get people that are quality writers. I've read books about my culture written by people of my culture that a tree unfortunately had to give its life for. People will appreciate quality no matter who makes it. And people will skip over doggerel again without looking at the authors pedigree.

 

[Umbran]

You still need to get people that are quality writers.

Sure. But judgement on that needs to wait for the actual product, now doesn't it?