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​

 

[pemerton]

Dragonlance has a more valuable name than Maztica

Just a little bit . . .

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've been mulling taking the Goodman Games collection of B1/2, and using that a s a feeder into San Citlan, making a Presidio en la Frontera campaign helping with local banditos...

I picked up Latin American Monsters specifically to flesh out San Citlan and I might also translate a bunch of the existing monster names into Citlanés, the not-Spanish language spoken there.

Taking a page from Coco, I will probably want to create alebrijes as a new type of creature (celestials? fey? undead?), although they're just folk art figures in Mexico, and not actual spirits like they are in the movie.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I picked up Latin American Monsters specifically to flesh out San Citlan and I might also translate a bunch of the existing monster names into Citlanés, the not-Spanish language spoken there.

Taking a page from Coco, I will probably want to create alebrijes as a new type of creature (celestials? fey? undead?), although they're just folk art figures in Mexico, and not actual spirits like they are in the movie.

I think Celestial would work for alebrijes. But Fey would work, too.

 

[Hussar]

I wonder how many people would want to play a historically accurate colonialist Mexico where you can only play evil characters and you earn experience by raping, murdering and working to death the indigenous population. Indigenous characters are NPC only to reflect the total lack of power in the face of one of the most horrific genocides in history.

Any takers? No? Then maybe it might be a good idea not to draw on whitewashed fantasy settings.

Just a thought.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I wonder how many people would want to play a historically accurate colonialist Mexico where you can only play evil characters and you earn experience by raping, murdering and working to death the indigenous population. Indigenous characters are NPC only to reflect the total lack of power in the face of one of the most horrific genocides in history.

Any takers? No? Then maybe it might be a good idea not to draw on whitewashed fantasy settings.

Just a thought.

So it's either that or we pretend those horrible events never happened? Is this another one of those binaries in design and worldbuilding I've heard so much about?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I wonder how many people would want to play a historically accurate colonialist Mexico where you can only play evil characters and you earn experience by raping, murdering and working to death the indigenous population. Indigenous characters are NPC only to reflect the total lack of power in the face of one of the most horrific genocides in history.

Any takers? No? Then maybe it might be a good idea not to draw on whitewashed fantasy settings.

That's not what's going on in this book. A number of the settings are explicitly dealing with the consequences of colonialism, slavery and other real world problems. It's a mature book that tackles mature themes.

And what's the alternative? Pseudo-Western European fantasy that pretends the High Middle Ages were all fine and dandy? I don't know that tethering D&D to that very narrow view of heroic fantasy is a good idea, either.

Radiant Citadel brought in writers who would approach this all with sensitivity, had a lot of cross-pollination to make sure no one stepped in it too badly, and is largely successful.

 

[Hussar]

That's not what's going on in this book. A number of the settings are explicitly dealing with the consequences of colonialism, slavery and other real world problems. It's a mature book that tackles mature themes.

And what's the alternative? Pseudo-Western European fantasy that pretends the High Middle Ages were all fine and dandy? I don't know that tethering D&D to that very narrow view of heroic fantasy is a good idea, either.

Radiant Citadel brought in writers who would approach this all with sensitivity, had a lot of cross-pollination to make sure no one stepped in it too badly, and is largely successful.

That's my point. People want to set this in Maztica which pretends that everything was fine and dandy. It largely completely ignored the whole horrific history behind the setting.

There are very, very good reasons to let Maztica go and present a fresh take on these kinds of settings.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

That's my point. People want to set this in Maztica which pretends that everything was fine and dandy. It largely completely ignored the whole horrific history behind the setting.

There are very, very good reasons to let Maztica go and present a fresh take on these kinds of settings.

OK, I was misunderstanding you. I agree with you about Maztica. If it ever came back, it would need to be very different -- so different that the nostalgics would almost certainly not be happy with it anyway.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

OK, I was misunderstanding you. I agree with you about Maztica. If it ever came back, it would need to be very different -- so different that the nostalgics would almost certainly not be happy with it anyway.

They could do an Ixalan situation where the conquerers are very clearly the bad guys. However, since it wasn't like that in the original version, I doubt returning to it would be a good idea.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

They could do an Ixalan situation where the conquerers are very clearly the bad guys. However, since it wasn't like that in the original version, I doubt returning to it would be a good idea.

Yeah, I think that's the only safe way to do it.

But if one had to do a colonialist campaign setting, I think it'd be better to start scratch and have it be an extra-dimensional invasion by a non-player species, just so we avoid a situation where people would be tempted to play the colonizers brutally slaughtering the original inhabitants.

The concept is probably best left to horror or indie games, though, to be honest.