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​

 

[Ixal]

You'd almost think that places like Venice, Florence, Hue or various other major trading hubs never existed.

The book says the entrance fee is paid according to the person's conscience. So, basically, how virtually every charitable organization works. And funnily enough, there are charitable organizations out there that are bringing in rather large sums of money.

It's hardly an unusual way to do things. Churches have been operating this way for centuries. It's not like you must pay to sit in church. Yet, funnily enough, as I pass through the cities of Europe and now Japan, I can see big, beautiful churches and temples, all built and paid for through willing donations.

I fail to see how this is all that unusual. And, frankly, it's a rather refreshing change from the typical anachronistic capitalistic societies that D&D typically pumps out where we use cash for everything.

We're actually arguing about the economic system of a rock that is powered by a giant magical crystal hanging in an extra-planar void? Seriously?

It's like arguing about time travel based on Doctor Who.

Except the mind reading guards turn you away when they think you do not pay enough. Huge difference.

And you simply assume that the Radiant Citadel is a well visited trade hub without offering an explanation why. Trade hubs encouraged trade, the Citadel discourage it. And because of the way the notportals work the next big city in another realm is just 1 mile or less away. Would Venice have been a trade hub if Rome would have been just 1 mile next to it and Venice had high taxes? No it would not have been.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Radiant Citadel doesn't need to be a well visited trade hub when it had druids dishing out goodberrys on every street corner.

Fantasy trumps real world economics.

 

[Ixal]

Radiant Citadel doesn't need to be a well visited trade hub when it had druids dishing out goodberrys on every street corner.

Fantasy trumps real world economics.

Which works for food and the book is pretty clear that they don't do that and instead farm every small green space possible and still have limits restrictions on food.

But then there are also other things. Water is just assumed to exist, clothes, building material, firewood (or equivalent), basic tools and so on. And that is just the basic. The book mentions artists and musicians several times so you also need musical instruments, art supplies and so on. Everything the Citadel needs apart from some basic food they grow on their own needs to be imported and financed. And just taxing traders is not enough to finance buying from said traders as every tax you levy is just added to the price of the product.

 

[Hussar]

Except the mind reading guards turn you away when they think you do not pay enough. Huge difference.

/snip

Umm, that's not true. There's nothing in the text that says that that's true. At worst, they tut tut you a bit.

 

[Ixal]

Umm, that's not true. There's nothing in the text that says that that's true. At worst, they tut tut you a bit.

"risk the rebuke of the city's guards"
When the guard at the entrance rebukes you, you do not get in. But yes it depends on what definition of rebuke you use. The toll still has to be paid though, its not optional. Only the price can in some instances be negotiated.

 

[Hussar]

Which works for food and the book is pretty clear that they don't do that and instead farm every small green space possible and still have limits restrictions on food.

But then there are also other things. Water is just assumed to exist, clothes, building material, firewood (or equivalent), basic tools and so on. And that is just the basic. The book mentions artists and musicians several times so you also need musical instruments, art supplies and so on. Everything the Citadel needs apart from some basic food they grow on their own needs to be imported and financed. And just taxing traders is not enough to finance buying from said traders as every tax you levy is just added to the price of the product.

Oh, come on. Show me a single D&D city that actually gives that level of detail. Where are the farms around Waterdeep? Or Baldur's Gate for that matter? How does Greyhawk actually function?

This is just picking nits.

 

[Hussar]

"risk the rebuke of the city's guards"
When the guard at the entrance rebukes you, you do not get in. But yes it depends on what definition of rebuke you use. The toll still has to be paid though, its not optional. Only the price can in some instances be negotiated.

Umm, that's not what rebuke means.

Rebuke means they say bad things to you. He rebuked me does not mean I get turned away and cannot enter. It means they weren't very polite.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Water is just assumed to exist, clothes, building material, firewood (or equivalent), basic tools and so on. And that is just the basic.

All of these can be created out of thin air with magic.

 

[Ixal]

Oh, come on. Show me a single D&D city that actually gives that level of detail. Where are the farms around Waterdeep? Or Baldur's Gate for that matter? How does Greyhawk actually function?

This is just picking nits.

Its not nitpicking when the book, in the very few pages dedicated about the city, talks about it. If you don't want to be talked about the problems of supplying food, don't write about how hard it is to get food, how limited your farming area is and how you have to import it. When you do, you have to accept that people are talking about it. Same with the taxes and tariffs.

 

[Irlo]

Its not nitpicking when the book, in the very few pages dedicated about the city, talks about it. If you don't want to be talked about the problems of supplying food, don't write about how hard it is to get food, how limited your farming area is and how you have to import it. When you do, you have to accept that people are talking about it. Same with the taxes and tariffs.

The book does not indicate that Citadel has to import food or that it's hard to get.