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​

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I agree that the story ends in a high. I would say that Tolkien achieves a precision realism, psychologically: his work is neither optimistic nor pessimion balance, but keeps it real.

I think the word is absolutely an optimistic work, but otherwise agree. But I also view pessimism as less rational than optimism, so we probably aren't actually that far off in the particulars of our readings.

If someone thinks LotR is tragic, it feels like they should be told about the house of Húrin (and everything it touched). Or Númenor. LotR might be as happy an ending as Tolkien can do. (Luckily he included Appendix A (v) and we get more Arwen... ).

There's a ton of tragic in the history of Middle Earth, and the story itself contains some tragedy of course, but overall it is a triumph of hope and faith in and love of/loyalty to eachother over incredible evil.

 

[Mournblade94]

I hate all this cute, silly art that wotc is putting on their covers. Check out this book I found. It's like they made it for kids. There's even a unicorn! What is this, lisa frank dnd??!1?

I get what youre going for but look at the other art styles around adult fantasy at the time. The new book is definitely a fun fluffy tone compared to its contemporaries.

 

[Scribe]

This isn't a grimdark module! It was never going to be, and isn't being advertised as one. I honestly don't understand why you are focusing so much on what this isn't instead of what it is: an anthology of adventures with different tones inspired by different cultures.

I am absolutely sure there's something in it for you to be excited about.

Its a side tangent, as people before me had brought up grimdark a number of times, and I was perplexed as to why.

I'm not particularly interested in the anthology as presented so far.

Its very petty and weird.

Its a particular form of spite, that is 'social media' acceptable.

 

[Arilyn]

It reminds me of a mix between the Troll Market from Legends of Arcadia/Trollhunter and the Goblin Market from Hellboy II. Both of those things are awesome and make me more rather than less interested. Granted, the first show I mentioned is a kids show, but it's also Guillermo del Toro and full of the kind of whimsy I love. Grimdark is starting to get a bit stale for me frankly.

I find the cover very inviting too, a place I'd love my character to visit. Not getting the complaint of fluffy just cause of a cute creature flying overhead!

I think this could be a really interesting change of pace and I love the adventures being based on a variety of other cultures.

 

[Vaalingrade]

This one is favourite, of Day of the Dead with actual undead ancestors.

So cool!

This kind of thing is why I'm against the 'undead are always evil' deal because it's purposefully blocking off interesting and vibrant ideas.

I don't know if folks have pinned each adventure to their author (and likely cultural inspiration) yet, so I'm going to try and piece it together!

Salted Legacy - Surena Marie (Thailand)
Written in Blood - Erin Roberts (US Black South)
The Fiend of Hollow Mine - Mario Ortegon (Northern Mexico)
The Wages of Vice - TK Johnson (Louisiana, Caribbean)
Sins of Our Elders - Stephanie Yoon
Gold for Fools and Princes - Dominique Dickey
Trail of Destruction - Alastor Guzman (Mesoamerica)
In the Mists of Manivarsha - Mimi Mondal (Bengal, Gangaridai, Sundarbans, Ratargul, Assam, Purulia, Bagan, Myanmar)
Between Tangled Roots - Pam Punzalan (Luzan, Philippines)
Shadow of the Sun - Justice Ramin Arman (Iran)
The Nightsea's Succor - Jane Miyuki (unconfirmed, but the last name so probably by default)
Buried Dynasty - Felice Kuan (China)
Orchids of the Invisible Mountain - Terry Hope Romero (Venezuela)
The Radiant Citadel itself - Ajit George
Beyond the Radiant Citadel (one of the gazetteers I think) - Basheer Ghouse (India, Mughal Empire and Thughluq Dynasty)

Before you ask, I used only the culture/nations names used by the authors themselves in their own tweets. I used their words, so please don't @ me!

These adventures also seem to be in order (roughly) by level. Shadow of the Sun is 11 level, for example.

Really looking forward to the Iranian and Venezuelan concepts in particular as I've never seen them done in the space.

 

[Cadence]

There's a ton of tragic in the history of Middle Earth, and the story itself contains some tragedy of course, but overall it is a triumph of hope and faith in and love of/loyalty to eachother over incredible evil.

I didn't read my first copy of the Silmarillion until it fell apart because I wanted to be depressed by it

“It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding on to something. That there is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for.”

 

[Faolyn]

And as i said, I'm not complaining about it. I specifically said that the diverse and (for D&D) unconventional settings are a feature, not a bug. Personally they make me MORE likely to buy the book compared to a similar adventure compilation like Candlekeep. But it may make the book less useful to some people.

Well, have you (generic you, here) fleshed out every single culture of every single race in your campaign setting? Because you can decide that the newly-freed nation is comprised of bullywugs and nobody else knew or cared that they were being dominated by a hobgoblin kingdom until right now when you run the adventure.

Obviously, we don't know how easy it is to do that--maybe the adventure has some very specific elements that can't easily be adapted. But most of the currently-published adventures take place in the Realms, and it's actually not easy to adapt them for a homebrew setting or other D&D setting (how easily can any Waterdeep-based adventure be adapted to take place in Greyhawk?). Absolutely none of them would fit in my homebrew world without massive rewrites to both adventure and world. Only a few would fit into Ravenloft (my preferred official setting), but even those would need rewriting.

So saying the book might be less useful to some people isn't saying anything new. All of the published adventures are going to be less useful or completely useless to some people.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't know if folks have pinned each adventure to their author (and likely cultural inspiration) yet, so I'm going to try and piece it together!

Salted Legacy - Surena Marie (Thailand)
Written in Blood - Erin Roberts (US Black South)
The Fiend of Hollow Mine - Mario Ortegon (Northern Mexico)
The Wages of Vice - TK Johnson (Louisiana, Caribbean)
Sins of Our Elders - Stephanie Yoon
Gold for Fools and Princes - Dominique Dickey
Trail of Destruction - Alastor Guzman (Mesoamerica)
In the Mists of Manivarsha - Mimi Mondal (Bengal, Gangaridai, Sundarbans, Ratargul, Assam, Purulia, Bagan, Myanmar)
Between Tangled Roots - Pam Punzalan (Luzan, Philippines)
Shadow of the Sun - Justice Ramin Arman (Iran)
The Nightsea's Succor - Jane Miyuki (unconfirmed, but the last name so probably by default)
Buried Dynasty - Felice Kuan (China)
Orchids of the Invisible Mountain - Terry Hope Romero (Venezuela)
The Radiant Citadel itself - Ajit George
Beyond the Radiant Citadel (one of the gazetteers I think) - Basheer Ghouse (India, Mughal Empire and Thughluq Dynasty)

Before you ask, I used only the culture/nations names used by the authors themselves in their own tweets. I used their words, so please don't @ me!

These adventures also seem to be in order (roughly) by level. Shadow of the Sun is 11 level, for example.

Thank you for starting this! Beyond the Radiant Citadel is an Epilogue that has two Gazeteers, apparently, and note the following, so Jane Miyuki wrote the second epilogue Gazeeter (16 writers, includingAjit Geoge, for 13 Adventures and 3 free-floating Gazeteers):

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Here the message WotC wants to send is "This is not a clone of Lord of Rings, king Arthur in Camelot, Warcraft or Game of Thrones", D&D is a opened door to unexplored new world thanks power of your imagination".

Radiant Citadel is in the Etheral Plane, not in the Astral Sea. Do you notice what it means? Maybe we see a retcon and the plane become a place more interesting, in the same level than the Feywild and the Shadowfell. Maybe the ethereal plane and the Spirit Realm will be fused or mergered.

The "ghost elves" live in the Ethereal Realm. They appeared in Dragon Magazine when it was published by Paizo. WotC is the owner of the copyright about those creatures, isn't it? I like the shadar-kai like cousins of elves, drows (and shens), and also the star elves.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Thank you for starting this! Beyond the Radiant Citadel is an Epilogue that has two Gazeteers, apparently, and note the following, so Jane Miyuki wrote the second epilogue Gazeeter (16 writers, includingAjit Geoge, for 13 Adventures and 3 free-floating Gazeteers):

Thanks! I updated my comment to fix it, and add Fox!