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​

 

[whimsychris123]

I'd need to see more of the art first, to see if it passes the dark and grim check.

It’s not grimdark, at least not in my understanding of what makes something grimdark. Are there any officially published D&D adventures you would consider grimdark?

 

[TheSword]

Tons of people (on these very boards) have complained about campaign-length adventures and said they wanted shorter adventures. Then Yawning Portal happened, and people said they wanted more. Blame your fellow ENWorlders.

Yeah it makes me sad. People don’t talk on here as a general rule about how amazing Yawning Portal was or Candlekeep. They do talk about the unified campaigns though. It takes all sorts though.

 

[Hussar]

Actually, I think the implication is that if you have a gardener, you are not a member of the “common folk”: you are at the very least a member of the upper middle class.

…At least, that’s how I explained it to my gardener.

But, you know it's much, much easier to simply presume bad faith on the part of others and then jump all over them for it. Kinda like an offhand comment about not finding the ending of LotR particularly uplifting, as if I ate a puppy. Good grief, the main character is scarred for life and never recovers, the implication is that magic drains out of Middle Earth and leaves it just Normal Earth. I don't find the story particularly uplifting, but, then again, I couldn't read the Silmarillion despite trying a few times because I found it mind numbingly boring. And, frankly, despite reading LotR more than a few times, I've never actually read it cover to cover because I keep skipping entire pages that I find mind numbingly boring.

Look, I get that for some people LotR is the epitome of the written word. I find it boring. I do. I'm sorry. It's just not something I like. And, honestly, that probably has far more to do with Tolkien fans than the work itself. I just can't get past the lionization of the writer and the work.

 

[whimsychris123]

Critical Role too is pretty polarizing. You either like that world or you don’t.

Wildemount is pretty kitchen sink if you ask me, just new and attached to Critical Role. I’m not that into Critical Role, but I like Wildemount and I’m liking what I see of Netherdeep. Get over the whole Critical Role thing, and you’ve got a quality epic fantasy adventure in a fairly standard fantasy world.

 

[Scribe]

It’s not grimdark, at least not in my understanding of what makes something grimdark. Are there any officially published D&D adventures you would consider grimdark?

1. I was kidding, considering the crusade Malmuria has been on.
2. I think Rime had some pretty grim elements.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Yeah it makes me sad. People don’t talk on here as a general rule about how amazing Yawning Portal was or Candlekeep. They do talk about the unified campaigns though. It takes all sorts though.

I love Candlekeep! Yawning Portal not-so-much, just because it's really just reprinting old adventures for a new edition. That said, I don't think it's bad... though maybe Tomb of Horrors is pretty bad .

 

[Parmandur]

Critical Role too is pretty polarizing. You either like that world or you don’t. I don’t expect everyone to like Eberron or Planescape either.

I...honestly don't think Exandria is polarizing? It's very standard D&D. That's the whole point: it's broadly appealing. And Netherdeep is pretty easy to slot into any world.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Yeah it makes me sad. People don’t talk on here as a general rule about how amazing Yawning Portal was or Candlekeep. They do talk about the unified campaigns though. It takes all sorts though.

In terms of utility I have gotten more use out of Candlekeep and the Yawning Portal than most of the other AP books that WoTC publishes because i have got to play or run some of the content.
At the frequency I get to play running a full AP is the work of several years. Short one off adventures, I get more opportunities to run or to play.
The others sit on my shelves read but otherwise un touched. I have actually stopped buying AP, or would have but I bough Witchlight because I wanted to see how it was put together and Strixhaven for the background/setting material.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I...honestly don't think Exandria is polarizing? It's very standard D&D. That's the whole point: it's broadly appealing. And Netherdeep is pretty easy to slot into any world.

I'll admit that although Exandria isn't that polarizing, CR can be. The Twitterverse drifts between too extremes of "CR is amazing!" and "CR saps all attention from everything TTRPG!"

 

[billd91]

The Twitterverse drifts between too extremes of "CR is amazing!" and "CR saps all attention from everything TTRPG!"

The funny thing is: those aren't even necessarily conflicting points of view.