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!

 

[AnotherGuy]

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

Coincidence? I think not.

I can vouch for your stuff being amazing.

 

[Umbran]

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".

You know, "quality" has many meanings. Interestingly, you seem to be using "quality" as if it is a quantitative thing - a thing has high, or low, quality. It is on a scale. But there is also "quality" in the sense speaking about traits of the work that are not easily put on a strictly ranking scale, so called "qualitative aspects".

In the US, being written by people of color means that the work comes from folks who have different perspectives than the majority of creators in RPG history. It is reasonable to expect that this will have impact upon many qualitative aspects of the work - it is apt to be of a different quality, have a different feel than other works.

So I disagree that being written by people of color has 0 effect on the quality. It should have many impacts of several qualities of the work.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

So I disagree that being written by people of color has 0 effect on the quality.

You are right, because you use quality with a different meaning. But this do not imply that your interlocutor was wrong. He simply was using quality with another meaning.

 

[BookTenTiger]

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".

This is only true if you ignore social, historical, and economic contexts.

 

[dragoner]

I saw this on my radar, as Mimi Mondal, an sf writer, tweeted about it.

 

[JThursby]

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.

Because this book is being advertised as boasting solely PoC authorship. It's part of the marketing for this book. If they didn't think it was an advertisable feature they wouldn't mention it, or even seek to make a solely PoC authored book in the first place.

In the end "written by PoC" has 0 effect on the quality.

Pretty much. Only real downside is not having Chris Perkins to lend his expertise, due to accute whiteness disqualifying his contributions. At worst the end product will suffer from wildly variable tone and quality between the adventures, which makes it no different from the other 5e anthology books.

In the end "written by PoC" is about as meaningful as "written by green-eyed people".

To most people yes, to some no. If this was universally accepted, why are there posts on this thread specifically praising it? There's a growing amount of people that are sympathetic to the Kimberle Crenshaw perspective that subjective identity and power structures created around them is the primary driving force of society. In this belief, those of any identity infuse everything they say and do with the essence of their identity, and it becomes a moral imperative to selectively exclude those with negative identities that cause repression and do the opposite with those with positive ones. If you're inclined to believe that then all PoC authorship becomes a major selling point. As I type this Umbran provides an example of this:

In the US, being written by people of color means that the work comes from folks who have different perspectives than the majority of creators in RPG history. It is reasonable to expect that this will have impact upon many qualitative aspects of the work - it is apt to be of a different quality, have a different feel than other works.

This point of view is becoming fairly pervasive, and the division between it's adherents and it's skeptics is really the driving force of this thread.

 

[AnotherGuy]

At worst the end product will suffer from wildly variable tone and quality between the adventures, which makes it no different from the other 5e anthology books.

This may be a valid concern if you were to use the book as is.

The other side of the argument being that if we take something like say ToD. Many, including some on this site, did not like the AP - I absolutely loved it and made it my own, yes with a lot of DM effort. Could something like this happen with an Anthology book, most likely.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

Because this book is being advertised as boasting solely PoC authorship. It's part of the marketing for this book. If they didn't think it was an advertisable feature they wouldn't mention it, or even seek to make a solely PoC authored book in the first place.

Pretty much. Only real downside is not having Chris Perkins to lend his expertise, due to accute whiteness disqualifying his contributions. At worst the end product will suffer from wildly variable tone and quality between the adventures, which makes it no different from the other 5e anthology books.

To most people yes, to some no. If this was universally accepted, why are there posts on this thread specifically praising it? There's a growing amount of people that are sympathetic to the Kimberle Crenshaw perspective that subjective identity and power structures created around them is the primary driving force of society. In this belief, those of any identity infuse everything they say and do with the essence of their identity, and it becomes a moral imperative to selectively exclude those with negative identities that cause repression and do the opposite with those with positive ones. If you're inclined to believe that then all PoC authorship becomes a major selling point. As I type this Umbran provides an example of this:

This point of view is becoming fairly pervasive, and the division between it's adherents and it's skeptics is really the driving force of this thread.

I find your post very smart. My sincere compliments. I'd like to add only one thing: it is impossible to have a good conversation about the point if the skeptics are automatically labelled as racist/omophobe/etc. and I really hope that this attitude could be changed because I find it (widely speaking) a severe problem for democracy.

 

[Ixal]

You know, "quality" has many meanings. Interestingly, you seem to be using "quality" as if it is a quantitative thing - a thing has high, or low, quality. It is on a scale. But there is also "quality" in the sense speaking about traits of the work that are not easily put on a strictly ranking scale, so called "qualitative aspects".

In the US, being written by people of color means that the work comes from folks who have different perspectives than the majority of creators in RPG history. It is reasonable to expect that this will have impact upon many qualitative aspects of the work - it is apt to be of a different quality, have a different feel than other works.

So I disagree that being written by people of color has 0 effect on the quality. It should have many impacts of several qualities of the work.

The effect of the perspective is much less than what people think.
A PoC in the US was, in the many cases, still born, raised and socialised in the US. Likely (but not guranteed) in different economical conditions because of the high level of seggregation in the US, but a perspective of for example a British or Italien author, regardless of skin color, would bring much more diversity than having another American who happens to be PoC.
So PoC alone does not automatically mean a different perspective unless the person also comes from a different country/culture (and in that case his skin color doesn't matter)

 

[bedir than]

The effect of the perspective is much less than what people think.
A PoC in the US was, in the many cases, still born, raised and socialised in the US. Likely (but not guranteed) in different economical conditions because of the high level of seggregation in the US, but a perspective of for example a British or Italien author, regardless of skin color, would bring much more diversity than having another American who happens to be PoC.
So PoC alone does not automatically mean a different perspective unless the person also comes from a different country/culture (and in that case his skin color doesn't matter)

We don't have to guess. These are real people being diminished in this statement. Actual authors and artists whose names and histories are public.