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​

 

[Vaalingrade]

The Radiant Citadel is closest. You could say maybe it calls out to people who have better hearts but then you're edging towards the "magical mind control" or even some kind of ideological quasi-eugenics (not quite eugenics, but like, eugenics of thought).

~glances aside at forum that calls out to people who like D&D~

 

[Paul Farquhar]

What happens to the Citadel if it runs out of money?

The make more out of magic.

NB, seen Orville? Check out them replicators.

 

[Azenis]

Which makes no sense whatsoever in a world full of magic and monsters.

I find most people are pretty ignorant about history, and even proper historians (of which I know we have a few here) can't agree on what life was really like.

Why would it be relatable? I've never lived 500 years in the past, just as I've never lived on a crystal floating in the Ethereal plane.

Not talking about what things were achtually like but what PCs expect or know from watching/reading likely a trove of Fantasy commonly available.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

As an aside, the Federation in TNG doesn't appear to tax individuals on a routine basis. That is part of why it functions so well. It's a post-scarcity society where all your basic needs - housing, food, clothing, entertainment and more - are provided for, and where you're given huge opportunities to do exciting things. As several TNG and other Trek episodes have said, not everyone takes advantage of that, but that's fine.

I imagine the Federation might tax any entity it feels is taking advantage, and almost certainly has laws (post-Roddenberry leaving anyway) preventing people taking more than their fair share, but you don't have to work, and then give some of the products of that labour to the government (well, at least not in the human part of the Federation - you might on, say Bajor or Vulcan).

~glances aside at forum that calls out to people who like D&D~

Yeah, but that would be if this forum was called "A Better Class of Human Being" or something, wouldn't? "Good people not dumb people" or something like that. This isn't about a shared interest - this is about having very specific ethics/morality/ways of thinking.

That's what makes it creepy. They're not all there just because they love giant glowing crystals, which would be the direct equivalent of ENworld. Unless we're saying people who like giant glowing crystals are inherently more moral/ethical than others! Maybe they are! Who knows lol.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The make more out of magic.

NB, seen Orville? Check out them replicators.

Which begs the question, why tax at all then? It doesn't make sense.

See my example with the Federation. Because it's post-scarcity, it doesn't seem to tax (or not routinely).

The issue with the Radiant Citadel is that it's cargo-cult stuff. They tax not because it makes sense for them to tax, they tax because IRL, tax is important to keeping our society functioning, so it's presenting the RC as a cargo-cult devotion to that.

 

[eyeheartawk]

Arguing about how taxes would work in baby Planescape Radiant Citadel is peak gamer.

I approve.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The issue with the Radiant Citadel is that it's cargo-cult stuff.

Then maybe they are a cargo cult? Maybe they levy a tax because it's tradition?

Where are the bathrooms? Where are the citrus fruits? I've never seen one! Where are the rules for scurvy? I need to taste the diarhea-tinged verisimilitude!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You're paying for a hub zone with low conflict. If someone want to laugh in the face of the tax collectors? They can hoof it through the astral and become Dreadnaught feces, or get shot by British hippos. Have fun.

Ethereal, in this case. Which, while it's less well-explored, is definitely at least as dangerous.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Ethereal, in this case. Which, while it's less well-explored, is definitely at least as dangerous.

There are less jokes about the ethereal. And that is the most important part of anything.

 

[Arilyn]

If you don't like the setting being too utopian, disrupt things. The Incarnates disappear, there's a murderer on the loose, the players discover there is some magical mind manipulation going on to keep peace. Do they mind or do they want to go all Kirk on the place? I'm sure there's plenty of ways to disrupt the status quo.