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​

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

I look at it this way. 5e is now coming up on 10 years old. Between WotC and 3PP if you cannot find material that suits your play style, you are just not trying hard enough. You've basically got a choice of anything you want. It's right there. For pretty much any price point. Shoestring budget or deep pockets.

Everyone is getting something.

True. But I am primarily DMing via Beyond/AboveVTT/Discord. Getting WotC books via Beyond that integrates with sheets etc is very much preferable to 3PP.

My current campaign is morphing into Spelljammer territory. I've found some pretty good 5e conversions on DM's guild and have the old books as pdf, so things work. But having 'jammer integrated in Beyond would be so much easier.

That's why I even bother to advocate for WotC 5e Spelljammer on forums. For me and my players there is a practical difference between WotC stuff and 3PP, even though the options certainly are there.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Yeah, obviously Doctor Who hasn't been good since 1979.

I can out-Grognard you! Dr. Who has never been good!

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

If it's Ethereal, it's Spelljammer. Think Taratuga for the Citadel.

If it's Astral, it's Planescape and Sigil.

That's why I was confused by Astral Elves being included with (Ethereal) Spelljammer and Star Frontiers races in UA recently.

Traditionally, Planescape covered both the Astral and the Ethereal, since the Ethereal contains the Inner Planes as well as the majority of demiplanes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

See, public opinion of an author has absolutely nothing to do with my appreciation or lack thereof of their work. They are completely unrelated spectrums to me except in so far as I will accept a recommendation if I trust the source. It seems very limiting to me to let other people affect your enjoyment of the work.

That being said, while I do not share your opinion of Tolkien, you don't have to apologize for finding the legendarium boring. People don't like what they don't like.

 

[eyeheartawk]

That being said, while I do not share your opinion of Tolkien, you don't have to apologize for finding the legendarium boring. People don't like what they don't like.

I did not care for The Godfather. It insists upon itself.

 

[Micah Sweet]

One time at an LGS, an obvious Whovian asked me how much I liked the new Dr Who season at the time. I said "The impossible Astronaut season was amazing, and I feel like every season since, I've wanted it to be that good again, and it just hasn't been and probably never will be." He looked at me quietly for a beat, then said "Wow. You're a jerk."

Many people take someone not sharing their opinion about something personally, and assign all sorts of nasty motives to it. In the wilds of 2022, sometimes the only way to avoid this is to avoid engaging with others.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Ravenloft has never exactly been cheerful, but the 5e incarnation deliberately went out of its way to remove any possibility of the PCs actually ever achieving anything meaningful, or that they can be satisfied with. It's primarily two factors.

First, darklords are now explicitly stated to ALWAYS return after defeat/destruction. This has sometimes been hinted at as a possibility in previous editions, so it's not a new thing, but I don't believe it's ever been stated in so stark and unambiguous a manner. Your PCs greatest successes are meaningless.

Second, VRGtR doubled down hard on the 'nothing and nobody is real here, NPCs are simply phantoms generated by the Mists to be backdrops and stage dressing to the darklord's torment' angle that CoS introduced, in contrast to prior editions where Domains were physically transported from the origin worlds and populated by the descendents people unlucky enough to get dragged along. This means that not only can you not get satisfaction from defeating a darklord, but you can't even get tiny satisfaction from saving an NPC from a darklord's lowliest minion creature. The NPC is a soulless puppet of the Dark Powers and so is the minion. The Dark Powers will probably regenerate both of them when your back is turned, so they can continue to play their parts, unless they only existed to interact with you in the first place and somehow torment the Darklord thereby. And if you're a PC who's native to one of these domains - all your loved ones are fake, your parents are phantom shadows, your family are soulless puppets of the Dark Powers. The only reason the book says that YOU aren't in the same boat is because it cops out in a shamelessly cowardly manner on following through on its own logic. There's nothing worth saving, nothing worth fighting, nothing worth protecting. It all means nothing.

While the idea of fake people in Ravenloft actually does predate Curse of Strahd, in every other particular and sentiment I agree wholeheartedly with this, to the point where I honestly don't understand why this isn't more of a problem for people. Does no one care that their heroism is meaningless now?

 

[Mournblade94]

Yeah, but there's a big question about how often those judgements are correct.

Now, you're essentially talking about risk management. So, maybe the thing isn't great, or not to your liking. You are out some money, and some time reading it.

If your money and time budgets are honestly so bound up that the costs associated with one product you don't like is a real issue... well, then you actually have some major life challenges we aren't in a position to address. I'm honestly sorry that you can't afford that risk.

Otherwise, honestly, there's not a whole lot of need to make that judgement ahead of time. Certainly there no need to judge before folks in the community have actually gotten hands on the product to give it a solid review and playtest.

In fairness though, isn't this what people do? Even Before Forums. Just sitting around your FLGS before the net people look through the preview books of Marvel, TSR, WHite Wolf, whatever and just talk about it. Some were excited, others were complaining.

Its a forum discussion, and this sort of thing has happened probably since time began. Its a conversation. The problem is people use these conversations as proxies for what ever their real world beliefs may be, If that was taken out I think the conversation would be much friendlier.

Also the only way to communicate with a company is through your wallet ultimately. If I buy this book with its Adventures made for streamers or the comdy improv first adventure which I have no interest in I am communicating I want more of this. My individual decision matters nothing. But I can add to those that do not wish to see adventures of this sort.

D&D is becoming more modern fantasy, and less fantasy medieval. I don't like that aesthetic so I won't contribute when they veer from that. I am also not angry at the swath of people that do like it. I just will not run games of that sort.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

While the idea of fake people in Ravenloft actually does predate Curse of Strahd, in every other particular and sentiment I agree wholeheartedly with this, to the point where I honestly don't understand why this isn't more of a problem for people. Does no one care that their heroism is meaningless now?

Why is it meaningless? Does the fact that you can't permanently save the majority of a Domains' population mean that trying to ease their suffering for a time is somehow not worth the effort?

 

[eyeheartawk]

Why is it meaningless? Does the fact that you can't permanently save the majority of a Domains' population mean that trying to ease their suffering for a time is somehow not worth the effort?

It's like winning a round in that one show where the points don't matter and everything is made up.