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​

 

[Micah Sweet]

Defence gird and a couple of Starfury squadrons.

No one gets through, no matter what.

 

[Remathilis]

It's funny, I don't find Ravenloft hopeless. Well, not any more so than I find the real world hopeless.

Some scientists have argued that we are past the point where climate change can be stopped or reversed. Let's pretend this is true for a moment (actual scientific debates don't apply, let's just hypothesize). What do we do if the world we know is doomed? Do you give up? Do you fight to make things a little better? Do you attempt to get all you can before the end comes? Do you speed it along? Do you hold out hope something may yet be done? These are all valid answers to a world without hope. The heroes might not be able to permanently stop Strahd, but they can foil his schemes or provide temporary respite from his evil, even for a short while. That alone is worth the fight.

(As an aside: the same nihilism can be applied to other immortal evil beings in the D&D multiverse. Can you ever permanently kill Demogorgon or Vecna or Tiamat? Even if it were possible, would another evil being not take its place? Something to think about when you run Tyranny of Dragons; you've won a battle against Tiamat, but she'll be there long after you're gone still hatching plans...)

 

[eyeheartawk]

 

[Demetrios1453]

My suggestion is to send the message "Don't worry, we are opening new doors for new players to enter, but some day the old doors will be not locked forever, but they will be reopened again, here everyone is wellcome".

I suspect the ethereal plane could suffer a retcon, becoming something more like the Penumbra from "World of Darkness". Maybe recycling Ghostwalk and borrowing some ideas from the lore of "Wraith the Oblivion" and the spirit realm with their "kamis" it could become an interesting place, and more if this can be used by powerful spellcasters to create demiplanes as secret lairs.

* How the radiant citadel can defends against possible attacks by planar raiders?

Darjr posted a link to a new Dragon+ article where they talk about (among other things) the city's defence force.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Isn't that the whole theme of Ravenloft? I don't think even in the context of old editions there has ever been a case of a Domain actually getting better, even when the Darklord is defeated.

The theme is that the land is forever, irrevocably cursed. The only thing PCs can do is save individuals (those with souls, which is not everyone) from the endless cycle of Ravenloft. The land itself though is beyond saving, it's doomed.

The idea of created land and people in Ravenloft predates 5e. But the specific idea of a few people having souls but most do not is from CoS. It is decidedly not the way its always been.

 

[Faolyn]

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.

There's a difference between "I didn't like it" (spoken as a subjective opinion) and "it wasn't good and will likely never be good again" (spoken as a fact).

 

[Urriak Uruk]

It's funny, I don't find Ravenloft hopeless. Well, not any more so than I find the real world hopeless.

Some scientists have argued that we are past the point where climate change can be stopped or reversed. Let's pretend this is true for a moment (actual scientific debates don't apply, let's just hypothesize). What do we do if the world we know is doomed? Do you give up? Do you fight to make things a little better? Do you attempt to get all you can before the end comes? Do you speed it along? Do you hold out hope something may yet be done? These are all valid answers to a world without hope. The heroes might not be able to permanently stop Strahd, but they can foil his schemes or provide temporary respite from his evil, even for a short while. That alone is worth the fight.

(As an aside: the same nihilism can be applied to other immortal evil beings in the D&D multiverse. Can you ever permanently kill Demogorgon or Vecna or Tiamat? Even if it were possible, would another evil being not take its place? Something to think about when you run Tyranny of Dragons; you've won a battle against Tiamat, but she'll be there long after you're gone still hatching plans...)

If a scientist told me the world is doomed, and had irrefutable proof, I'd probably have to have the action-hero response of "Never tell me the odds!" and try to save the world anyway.

But that'd be more of a coping mechanism than any real hope!

 

[Remathilis]

If a scientist told me the world is doomed, and had irrefutable proof, I'd probably have to have the action-hero response of "Never tell me the odds!" and try to save the world anyway.

But that'd be more of a coping mechanism than any real hope!

Have you ever considered becoming a vampire hunter in Ravenloft?

But that's my point. Some would fall into despair, some would rage against the dying of the light, but a lot of people would just go about their day, working at their job, playing with their kids, watching TV, having barbecues, etc. Plenty of them wouldn't even know they were doomed.

 

[Faolyn]

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?

Last RL game I did, the PCs slew a modified Fanton Griswold (from one of the Books of S___), knowing that he would be back after a while--but it gave the children of Immol a few years of being free of having their faces stolen. They considered it a big victory.

 

[Scribe]

Some would fall into despair, some would rage against the dying of the light, but a lot of people would just go about their day, working at their job, playing with their kids, watching TV, having barbecues, etc. Plenty of them wouldn't even know they were doomed.

A little too on the nose considering thats our reality.