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​

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Not talking about murder. Talking about taxes. Do you pay extra taxes? Do you know anybody that does? Do you like paying taxes? Let alone know someone that wouldn't cheat (or not take every deduction they could) if there were no direct personal consequences for doing so?

I mean, I agree with paying taxes, and pay my taxes happily, and take a very dim view of people who skip out on their bill. I find the mindset that taxes are some onerous burden to be egregiously anti-social.

Recrimination is a direct personal consequence in a setting wherein all participation is voluntary as described here. Losing access to trade partners in the citadel, eventually becoming unwelcome there entirely, would be a catastrophic loss.

You also cited upthread some very strange idea that immigrant populations don’t have anti-crime social pressure and moral culture? What on Earth!? Have you ever lived in a mostly immigrant community? Do you realize that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than natural born citizens in nearly every case in the world, IRL?

It’s an optimistic space city. One of the things that it assumes is that people in such a place would behave differently than RL humans in our present and past, but…that’s a safe assumption. Environment changes behavior. Changes in social structure change behavior. People are very adaptable.

And there probably are people who skip out on paying their taxes. And when confronted by their peers, most of them get it together and stop acting like selfish children.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

But as a reminder, this is a commercial product and that section is supposed to facilitate (i.e. provide adventure seeds and the like) & spark ideas for a DM and their game.

And it does so. Not for you, and that’s fine, but most people I know who have used it love the citadel and have used it beyond the scope of the book.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Yeah and I hope that's intention, but why the hell would this specific bit of text be there if it is?!
Like yo what does that even mean expect "if you don't tip big enough the guards will either not let you in, wasting everyone's time, or let you in, but think you're a cheap wanker and give you a hard time". Absolute nightmare. I know @Whizbang Dustyboots thinks it's funny but I can't think of a better way to get a panic attack than screwing up tipping, personally. And I don't normally do panic attacks.

I took that to mean "rich people can't claim the 'Too Poor to Pay Clause™' and expect to be let in". Not something really meant to be applied to PCs. If PCs are expected to pay when they venture to the Radiant Citadel, I'm pretty sure they would have included that in the adventure.

How are you going to know that though? The DM can't be expected to be psychic. I guess if you operated with incredibly strong rules on player support and X cards and so on you might learn it, but even I didn't truly realize how alarming that kind of stuff was to me until this conversation. I guess this is perhaps the first time I've seen how an X card would benefit me about something that I genuinely might bump into in a game (normally people center the discussion of them on stuff no DM I know would ever allow, like sexual assault in a game).

Do DMs normally not know their players well? And ADHD extreme enough to cause a panic attack over a guessing game probably would have been noticed by the DM before this would come up.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm doubting that the vague tax laws in Radiant Citadel are up - ending campaigns.

There being a cute animal wasn't hitting, so there needed to be a new thing to target.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I said I didn't have any issue with people who want more lore. I personally don't want much lore in the products I want, but understand if others want more.

I want actual settings again instead of adventures set in settings with a few limp character options hastily thumbtacked to it.

 

[MichaelSomething]

but it's entirely unclear how much, it very much appears that you don't know how much, and you "risk the rebuke of the city's guards", if you get it wrong. What that even means? Absolutely unclear.

Nothing is explicit here. Very little is well-explained. This is like something you'd write if you were intentionally trying to cause a problem,

So you're saying the tax code takes inspiration from the USA?

 

[Vaalingrade]

So you're saying the tax code takes inspiration from the USA?

Nah. Rich people actually pay something in the Citadel.

Also, I feel like that quote is actually talking about two different things:

There's a toll to get in. That's the one poor people and people with good intentions don't pay.

Then there's a thing where you can offer the secret song (hope they don't figure out that you get that for free with a 3e Prestige class) or some art where the people don't have eyes for some reason to the Incarnate to 'stay in the Citadel', which I take as permission to live there permanently.

 

[dave2008]

I want actual settings again instead of adventures set in settings with a few limp character options hastily thumbtacked to it.

That is not what we have gotten IMO. We have settings, it is just very light on lore. Then we get short adventures in those settings too.

I personally think this is a good approach. However, I think it would be better to have a bit more setting info than the last few offerings. I think Eberron (RftLW) got it about right for me.

 

[Smackpixi]

The cost to get into the Radient Citadel is, “well, how much you got?”. It‘s a negotiation and the supplied ethics and motivations of the people the PCs must negotiate the fees with are to hit rich people harder than poor people. How could it be any more clear?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

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

So, pure fantasy then. Just like the Radiant Citadel.