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​

 

[Scribe]

Yeah. Real grimdark is intentional parody (like Judge Dredd and WH40K). Grimdark that takes itself seriously is unintentional self-parody.

I prefer satire, but parody is fine.

 

[Ace]

OOOOOooooh, right. Ravenloft is dark. Yes. I am a well adjusted person. I did not think Ravenloft was an unrealistically idyllic setting, and totally realized it was grim and dark to normal people like me that are normal.

Serious face edit: some of us stepped away from D&D for a bit in the 2000s to play White Wolf games, so our view of a dark setting definitely goes further than Ravenloft and Witchlight.

WW games are seriously dark. Ravenloft had its moments though.

 

[Michael Linke]

I must admit that I'm really not that familiar with the cartoon, but this is also a possibility.

It WOULD be a classic setting, and if it's a book, it would represent a new format for that setting.

I'm still convinced that the "format we haven't seen before" means a format that we haven't seen for that setting yet, not a wholly new format that they've never published anything in.

 

[Michael Linke]

WW games are seriously dark. Ravenloft had its moments though.

WW and Sword and Sorcery did a collaboration on the 3rd Ed and 3.5e versions of Ravenloft. The look of those books is at least pretty grim.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Oh man, things can't look cool anymore either?

We're very rapidly approaching 'Tyranny of Fun' again, aren't we?

 

[Parmandur]

What, we are calling the 80s cartoon's world a classic setting now?

Sure, why not? It's a setting, and it is classic.

 

[Parmandur]

I was too concise. I did't mean to imply this. I meant that, if it is correct that the next two book are SJ and DL, then the cameo isn't one of them.

Qell, there is also the big Advebture book (if that is still q thing)

 

[darjr]

 

[darjr]

For those who want to look at the art, Sage Advice has compiled it all here; Sneaky peek at the incredible ART of 'Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel' !

My favorite piece is this below. I assume this is China-inspired, but whatever it is really intrigues me about these new worlds!

View attachment 154006

Looks like it’s some kind of ceremonial path. Either for the walkers to experience or the watchers to enforce.
Or maybe it covers specific areas over the ground that needs watching?!

 

[TheSword]

Have you read the book yet? As the book hasn't been released yet, I'm going to assume that you haven't. If you haven't read it yet, how in the world can you say "this product lacks material depth"?

Because it’s another anthology of bite sized adventurettes that don’t make a campaign no matter how you stick the name of a single location in the title. Just like Yawning Portal adventures had nothing in common, and Candlekeep was only superficially linked.

Small one-shot adventures are fine for what they are. Sure you can fit them anywhere and fill a session or too that’s great. There is a reason for that though. Where is the slowly unfolding mystery revealed a layer at a time? They lack depth, they don’t build on existing NPC relationships, develop places you’ve already started to explore or provide a narrative arc (without the DM writing these things in themselves)… that’s how they can be slotted in anywhere.

I’m sure they will be good for what they are, as many of the Candlekeep adventures were good. There was a place for this kind of adventure… it was called Dungeon Magazine and ran for 20 years delivering this kind of content.

They’re not campaigns, and I seriously miss the unified, structural, crafted campaigns we saw in the first five years of 5e. Anthologies with multiple writers are much easier to publish I’m sure and require a lot less thought. I have no doubt there will be some useful stuff. I just see them as a poor alternative to the heady heights of Tomb of Annihilation, Out of the Abyss and Curse of Strahd.

I fear nothing I’ve seen in the last two years makes me think we can return to those days. That’s disappointing as I would have hoped to we would have got at least one slam-dunk in that period (No Witchlight and Strixhaven were absolutely not slam dunks for me, and judging by the recent thread on review data not for a lot of people]