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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...

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.

journey_citadel.jpg

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.


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."

citadel_cover.jpg

Regular cover by Even Fong

citadel_alt.jpg

Alternate Cover by Sija Hong
 

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Parmandur

Book-Friend
Yeah, that's the most initially attractive thing about it for me. What I most love about Sigil--and there's a lot--is its role as a neutral ground hub for all sorts of planar travel and commerce; kind of a Babylon Five for the universe of ideas. From the recent descriptions, it reads to me like the Radiant Citadel is going to do something similar for the Deep Ethereal, but with specific focus on the indefinitely many Prime Material universes. I love that idea.
Yeah, there is a lot of potential. And presuming based on the information available that Spelljammer is coming up, it is very compatible with a spacefaring campaign, just as last year Candlekep ended up being very compatible with Strixhaven (just make "Candlekeep" the Strixhaven Library, and everything fits like a glove).
 

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Levistus's_Leviathan

5e Freelancer
It does have some good ideas. But what it mostly did for me was tell me that the people who make the game I love think that parts of its past which really resonated with me are stupid and need to be replaced. Of course I know they're just a company, but I took it personally and I haven't seen WotC the same since.

It's my issue, but I'm still angry about it.
Remember, Weiss and Hickman were pretty heavily involved in making Curse of Strahd. I'm sure that if the whole "only a few people in the domain have souls" thing bothered them, they would have spoken up about it, like they did recently about the Dragonlance UA.

IMO, if the original creators of the setting are fine with it, I don't really see what the fuss is about.
 

Parmandur

Book-Friend
I think they were asking is how the hub will be set up - will each group have its own exclusive neighborhood, or will it be completely mixed, or somewhere between the two?
Aaaah, yes, I see. Well, we do have the map of the Radiant Citadel itself already with the locations marked, and it is actually a fairly compact place: it doesn't actually look large enough to have really hard and fast neighborhoods, more of a small town (or military base) vibe.

1648248145578.png
 


Parmandur

Book-Friend
Remember, Weiss and Hickman were pretty heavily involved in making Curse of Strahd. I'm sure that if the whole "only a few people in the domain have souls" thing bothered them, they would have spoken up about it, like they did recently about the Dragonlance UA.

IMO, if the original creators of the setting are fine with it, I don't really see what the fuss is about.
The fuss on that front is that the Hickmans hate-hate-HATED the 2E Setting: so Curse of Strahd reflects their vision in I6 and ignored the 2E version, and VRGtR doubles down on that difference. Which is fine, but it was a choice. People who were fans of the Setting in 2E or 3E, however, have different tastes than the Hickmans.
 

G

Guest 7034872

Guest
Aaaah, yes, I see. Well, we do have the map of the Radiant Citadel itself already with the locations marked, and it is actually a fairly compact place: it doesn't actually look large enough to have really hard and fast neighborhoods, more of a small town (or military base) vibe.
Good point--I'd not noticed that, but you're right. Compare the size of that city map with Waterdeep, for instance. "City" might overstate the case, no?
 

Parmandur

Book-Friend
I hope to Christ this isn't meant to be be Sigil 2.0 because good grief.
Ray Winninger said on Twitter that it wasn't a replacement for Sigil, with a winky face. We have a Classic Setting next year, and the choices at this point are Planescape or Dark Sun (unless they do Birthright or Mystarra...which I doubt), and I don't think Dark Sun's odds look hot at the moment.
 


Parmandur

Book-Friend
Good point--I'd not noticed that, but you're right. Compare the size of that city map with Waterdeep, for instance. "City" might overstate the case, no?
It's a bit of a funny duck: it' clearly urban, and cosmopolitan...but not that large, and it can't be that huge a population. Very, very different vibe from a Sigil or a Ravnica type location.
 

Ray Winninger said on Twitter that it wasn't a replacement for Sigil, with a winky face. We have a Classic Setting next year, and the choices at this point are Planescape or Dark Sun (unless they do Birthright or Mystarra...which I doubt), and I don't think Dark Sun's odds look hot at the moment.
Thank you! That's good to hear. Pity re: Dark Sun but once we knew Dragonlance was on the way, it was more or less a done deal that one of Dark Sun or Planescape were out of the picture.

I do feel this slightly boosts the still-wild Planesjammer theories though given where it's located. And if we did get Planesjammer, there'd still be room for DS. I believe this is what children today refer to as "copium" lol.
 

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