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!

 

[The Glen]

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

I'm not saying anything about the quality of the book until I actually read it. Maybe it's a masterpiece maybe it's bird cage liner. I won't know until I get a copy. It's an anthology past experience it's probably going to be a mixed bag. You'll get some Adventures that are better than others and some just don't hit. But that's all anthologies no matter what topic you're dealing with.

 

[bedir than]

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

In this case no. The staff have credits. No one is a first timer. One just joined Wizards full time.
There's only one way to think that this book is written by unqualified writers.

 

[Umbran]

There's only one way to think that this book is written by unqualified writers.

And even if one does think that, every single good writer in all of history has seemed unqualified to write their first good work.

 

[bedir than]

Every single good writer in all of history has seemed unqualified to write their first good work.

Sure, but it isn't the case here.
The people insisting that this book is of poor quality because of the writers are doing so because they see "written by POC" and immediately think bad writing.
We should stop reinforcing their racism.

 

[Umbran]

Sure, but it isn't the case here.
The people insisting that this book is of poor quality because of the writers are doing so because they see "written by POC" and immediately think bad writing.
We should stop reinforcing their racism.

Psst! Maybe you didn't notice, but I agree with you.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

In this case no. The staff have credits. No one is a first timer. One just joined Wizards full time.
There's only one way to think that this book is written by unqualified writers.

Sure, but it isn't the case here.
The people insisting that this book is of poor quality because of the writers are doing so because they see "written by POC" and immediately think bad writing.
We should stop reinforcing their racism.

Umbran will excuse me if I try to do his mod work now, but, this climate of prejudice doesn't help anybody having a good conversation. Please, try to assume that nobody here is a racist.
There are people that, while curious about culture interpretation, fear that the product is sold only "because made by POC". The emphasys on this point made by WOTC let think something about. Those people want a good product regardless the color of the author. Maybe those people are also upset by what they consider poor quality of recent wotc product. In this context their reaction is plausible without necessarily consider them racist.
I really appreciate the attention about those issue, but frankly try to not transform it in a reverse prejudice. It is perfectly possible to be against this kind of editorial operations without being racist. But it is impossible to explain how if made target of prejudice. And yes, there are people that have hidden racist thought behind their words, the world unfortunately is not a bed of roses, but anyway it is not correct to make the trial of intentions.

 

[Umbran]

now, but, this climate of prejudice doesn't help anybody having a good conversation. Please, try to assume that nobody here is a racist.
There are people that, while curious about culture interpretation, fear that the product is sold only "because made by POC".

So, you want people to not assume that people here are racist. But you feel it is okay to assume that WotC would try to sell you a product ONLY because it is by people of color.

If you want to be given some credit, it helps to extend some yourself.

Indeed, there's a major question here: Upon what evidence does one come to this fear that the product is sold ONLY because it is made by people of color?

 

[Ixal]

Sure, but it isn't the case here.
The people insisting that this book is of poor quality because of the writers are doing so because they see "written by POC" and immediately think bad writing.
We should stop reinforcing their racism.

In the end "written by PoC" has 0 effect on the quality. One side automatically assumes it lowers quality because reasons, the other assumes it raises quality (and uses it for marketing).
In the end "written by PoC" is about as meaningful as "written by green-eyed people".

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

So, you want people to not assume that people here are racist. But you feel it is okay to assume that WotC would try to sell you a product ONLY because it is by people of color.

If you want to be given some credit, it helps to extend some yourself.

Indeed, there's a major question here: Upon what evidence does one come to this fear that the product is sold ONLY because it is made by people of color?

Widely speaking maybe it is a prejudice too based on the fact that we have plenty of examples of this unscrupolous and amoral behaviour in marketing. But to reject this argument thinking that it is motivated by racism is to fight a prejudice with another prejudice. This leads to self-costrain people to shut up for fear of being labelled as racist and do not freely express themselves.

To narrow it to your specific question I can only report my personal feelings: I don't like this kind of operation because I find it against the cause in the long term. Since I want to live in a world where the color is definitely not an issue, I simply don't care if the skin of a person is colored or not. My feeling is that this kind of operations, even if done in good faith, reinforces the difference while trying to remove it and are not the correct way to inclusion. Since I want to judge a person by his/her work it is perfectly unuseful to me to advertise a product saying that is made by POC. It is not an added value.
The fact that every author bring a bit of his native culture into D&D is instead completely another things and I find it extremely positive and exciting. And I definitely want to buy it driven by the curiosity of see the new forms the hobby can take thanks to this approach. EDIT: despite the horrible illustrations

 

[The Glen]

In the end "written by PoC" has 0 effect on the quality. One side automatically assumes it lowers quality because reasons, the other assumes it raises quality (and uses it for marketing).
In the end "written by PoC" is about as meaningful as "written by green-eyed people".

I don't know, I've got green eyes and my stuff is bloody amazing.

Coincidence? I think not.