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​

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

The Main character, the psionicist hero of the Verdant Passage kept slaves. 5 novels. He freed them after they did a peaceful revolt. Slavery was not just done by the sorceror kings. Slavery was a trope in Dark Sun. It was not clear it was evil.

Plus one class you pretty much were a slave from the start. Its repeated hundreds of times because in Dark Sun it is not the same case as Drow or the evil monsters keeping slaves.

Also, hasn't it been argued by lots of posters in one of those insanely long and in the end locked threads that inclusion of slavery in D&D, no matter in what narrative function or moral aspect, is badwrong?

Or maybe that was another forum...

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

It was not clear it was evil.

Seriously?

The main character was a slaver-owner, so it wasnt clear slavery was a bad thing?

How about the main character was a flawed character set in evil ways. Maybe said hero became a better person in the novel, I dont know. But just because the slave-owner is the ''hero'', it does not mean that this is less a clearly evil thing.

Do people actually played dark-sun as the slave-owning, nature-destroying evil guys? I dont think this is the kind of ''grey morality'' people really want to explore in their fiction.

I always though Dark Sun was about opposing an unfair oppressing system and trying to slow environmental destruction.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah. I’m absolutely here for some hopepunk, solarpunk, non-murder everything you come across D&D. Grimdark is so tedious and boring and pretentious.

Again, "optimistic" and "cute" are not synonyms. You can support one without caring for the other.

In this case, it does sound like there will be a variety of tones, and many people do like anthologies. Also, as @Scribe has mentioned, I'd much rather they make new stuff, even if I'm not excited about it, than that they butcher old stuff I do like.

Though it seems they're going to do that too.

 

[Redwizard007]

It's not the same, but it also doesn't prevent the setting from being published. Yes, Slavery on Dark Sun has the added ickiness of how the Mul are "created", but that really isn't that different from the Mind Flayers and how they'd experiment on their slaves (poor Grimlocks and Derro), which has been included a ton in 5e.

I'd like to expand on this a little.

Gladiators, I'm assuming we are talking about gladiators, may have usually been slaves, but so were half the other characters. Slave is a social class. A background in today's game. It was quite common to start a game of DS with everyone as slaves. Their primary objective was almost always, "let's, like, not be slaves anymore, Scoob."

Edit: quoted AT6 instead of Mournblade94 somehow. Stupid mobile.

 

[Mournblade94]

Deleted due to technical difficulties

 

[Micah Sweet]

You mean the “everyday man” that were all princes, heir to a throne, and angels?

Oh and four hobbits.

But yes certainly a triumph of the everyday man.

Hobbits represented the everyday man in LotR. Explicitly.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Tolkien's Middle Earth has got a bittersweet touch. He was a war veteran, with scars in the soul most of civilians who have enjoyed a peaciful life can't understand. There is a touch of tragedy, and the nostalgic for the past, lost forverer and it will be never return.

Evil creatures and characters in D&D do horrible actions, and we need good sense when telling those things could cause a disconfort for people from the real life, maybe victims and survivors of true criminal actions.

 

[Redwizard007]

Hobbits represented the everyday man in LotR. Explicitly.

Well, I've never had that kind of relationship with my gardner, but you do you.

 

[jayoungr]

(But Spelljammer hints DO seem to strongly suggest that Spelljammer IS coming at some point.)

At this point, I'm not so sure about that--I think it's become sort of an in-joke.

 

[Mournblade94]

Seriously?

The main character was a slaver-owner, so it wasnt clear slavery was a bad thing?

How about the main character was a flawed character set in evil ways. Maybe said hero became a better person in the novel, I dont know. But just because the slave-owner is the ''hero'', it does not mean that this is less a clearly evil thing.

Do people actually played dark-sun as the slave-owning, nature-destroying evil guys? I dont think this is the kind of ''grey morality'' people really want to explore in their fiction.

I always though Dark Sun was about opposing an unfair oppressing system and trying to slow environmental destruction.

Let me rephrase it to say for todays political environment where you may start out as slaves (many characters did) and you frequently encounter slaves in the town going about their business its clear its not just evil people holding slaves.

It in no way is the same as Fantasy drow slaves being used in experiments, or Mind flayer slaves being chattel. It is slaves going about mundane tasks, OR being used in Experiments, OR being used for entertainment. It is not in any way similar to how slavery is used in D&D now. Slavery was a part of everyday life as if you were playing a game in the Roman Empire or the American South.

I cannot see the current crowd of D&D Players playing in a world with mundane everyday slaves, playing in societies where slavery is part of the NORMAL Economy, or even as slaves trying to free themselves. Even posing that is simply a PR Risk and I doubt WOTC would do it.

Evil Underdark races using slaves is not the same dynamic as Dark Sun's society.