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​

 

[Urriak Uruk]

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

Oh I agree. The number of times I've read "I love Critical Role, BUT..." is nauseating.

 

[Parmandur]

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!"

Well, the idea can be polarizing in some circles...but not widely polarizing, I would think.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Well, the idea can be polarizing in some circles...but not widely polarizing, I would think.

I'd say it's as polarizing as a subject in TTRPG circles can get. I think the debate is kind of dumb and has even become boring, but I still see it constantly. Vox Machina's show premier even made people make similar arguments about the TV show and it was just so cyclical.

 

[Faolyn]

Building a wall in the air is kinda cool-looking but so laughably impractical no amount of "rule of kewl" and "style over substance" is going to justify that.

It gives a solid place to stand watch on, and a good place to put siege weaponry, if needed. It's clearly not supposed to be a "keep out" wall.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

So essentially we agree on your core point. Yes this book is an apple, and I prefer oranges. I’ll eat apples from time to time, but I already have a cellar full of apples and don’t need any more of them.

Witchlight is definitely a marmite product. Fae have a pretty specific style and they clearly wanted to write something more whimsical as well as catering to a younger audience. Which is fine they shouldn’t try and keep everyone happy every time it’s a fools errand.

I mostly agree on both of these. I'm perfectly happy with the whimsical nature of Prismeer in Witchlight, because it fits what a lot of people know about fairy tales. Not everyone can or should be pleased by a single D&D book, which was kind of the point of my last post. IMO, these types of books have a really important place in recent releases. Not just because they're good for new DMs and people that just want something new, but also because this book is using a lot of different cultures and mythologies that D&D hasn't been to before, as well as the fact that these kinds of books are perfect for giving freelancers their "big break" in the publishing industry.

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 mean, sure, but I also don't think that the fact that some people don't like the world is at all a good criticism of an adventure book. Seriously, the adventure is great. Netherdeep is an awesome and terrifying location, the Rival Party is full of genuinely likeable and relatable NPCs that would be really easy to get the party to attach to (either as enemies or allies), Ruidium is a great way to reinforce the urgency of the adventure as well as give some cool (and dangerous) magic items for the party to use, and the story's subversion on the classic "Chosen One" trope is really interesting and a great basis for an adventure, especially with how it relates to the other lore of the setting. Furthermore, Explorer's Guide to Wildemount and the Tal'dorei books make continuing the story after the main quest is complete, or allowing the party to go on a random side quest mid-adventure, extremely easy and they give some great plot hooks that literally no other D&D setting book can hope to compare to.

The closest comparison that I could make with how well the different Critical Role books can/do complement each other is by showing how badly the various Forgotten Realms adventures connect with the SCAG. The SCAG really doesn't have any adventure hooks, any advice for running adventures in the setting, doesn't have any new monsters, magic items, or adventures to tie into any of the Sword Coast adventures, and how difficult it is to use one of the cities from the SCAG in one of the adventures in the Forgotten Realms. When I was running a Forgotten Realms adventure I had to constantly flip back and forth between the SCAG, Storm King's Thunder, and Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, searching for random information spread across the poorly formatted books in order to get an idea of how to work the different cities and villages into the players' travels through the Sword Coast and its main settlements.

Explorer's Guide to Wildemount is just objectively better designed and implemented setting book than the SCAG. Netherdeep is much easier to follow and find information in than basically all of the Forgotten Realms adventures and has a more solid plot hook.

And I say all of this that hasn't watched any of the seasons of Critical Role, doesn't particularly like Tal'dorei, and was first introduced to the setting through Explorer's Guide to Wildemount. The book is just great. All other 5e setting books should strive to be as good as it is. The SCAG wishes that it could be as good as Explorer's Guide to Wildemount.

Strix haven, either your cup of tea or not.

I didn't mention Strixhaven, so I didn't see how it relates to my post. I don't like Strixhaven. The book is almost as bad as the SCAG, for me.

To my mind they had a structure that worked, a kitchen sink campaign setting with unified campaigns that could easily be based into that world or repurposed as needed. They’ve taken a step away from that in the last two years. I was just hoping they would shift back to it. They haven’t. I understand why, I’m just not happy about it.

Again, Netherdeep is absolutely that sort of an adventure. Even if you don't like the theme, Witchlight also follows that same "kinda kitchen sink, kinda linear adventure" pattern. Both Icewind Dale and Descent into Avernus also have that formula.

I totally get that we fundamentally disagree on this. I’m just sharing my opinion, rather than trying to start an argument.

I was just reacting to how you seemed to automatically despise the book even when it hasn't been released yet.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Just needed to say this really made me laugh, and a little laugh emoji wasn't sufficient to convey just how funny I found it

Hey ya know sometimes it be like that.

I figure we have all been there.

 

[Hussar]

On the floating wall in the art

This is why we can't have cool fantasy in D&D. "OH noes, there's a floating wall in the setting, it makes no sense, it must be bad" is the same reaction we get to flying castles, floating islands or anything else that hasn't been done to death a hundred times over in a hundred other books.

I look at that image of the flying wall (and yeah, the point that it might tie into the INVISIBLE MOUNTAINS in an adventure is kinda on point) and think, wow, that's really cool. I wonder why it's like that?

Others look at it and stamp their feet that it cannot possible work and it must be the stupidest thing ever.

Whatever happened to keeping an open mind?

 

[Maxperson]

This must be like a Rorschach test - the first thing I see is a happy tapir-dolphin and his frisky dog pal, probably longing to go to the happyfun Radiant Citadel. ;-)

While I don't buy into the Sardior theory, I do see all the gem dragon colors on that alternate art cover.

 

[Faolyn]

I go away for a few hours and there's a zillion more pages. So I don't know if anyone has pointed this out.

So there's an aurumvorax...

And... maybe an ebon tiger from Mystara?

It's not made of "black fire" like the ebon tiger is (according to the 3e MM), but I could see D&D keeping the ebon/dark part and going for a more crystalline thing. Although my Eberron-loving friend says it reminds him of Irian the Eternal Day.

And this...

Looks like maybe a re-imagining of the elemental grue.

 

[Maxperson]

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... ).

Beren and Luthien was a happier ending I think.