D&D 5E Ajit George Talks About Radiant Citadel's Creators

Project Lead Ajit George shared a post on social media about the development of and creators of Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel.

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...

www.enworld.org

Hi all,
I'm so unbelievably excited and proud to tell you that I have conceived and co-led the first book written entirely by people of color in Dungeons & Dragons’ 49-year history: Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel!

In June of 2020, I pitched the idea to Jeremy Crawford and Wes Schneider at the D&D Studio for a book written by Black and brown writers. The idea was to create new places and lands based on our cultures, histories, myths, and lived experiences. To my surprise and joy, they agreed and asked me to co-lead it with Wes Schneider!
Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel is an anthology of 13 compelling adventures that introduces 16 new locations, along with characters and monsters. The first location, the titular Radiant Citadel, was created and written by myself. You have never seen anything like it in D&D before.

There is so much we've accomplished with this unbelievable book:

• I am the first-ever PoC Project Lead for a D&D book.
• This is the first D&D book conceived, created, and written entirely by PoCs: Sixteen writers in total.
• This is the first D&D book where the cover art and alt-cover art were both created by women of color: Evyn Fong and Sija Hong.
• The co-Art Director is a woman of color: Emi Tanji.
• The Marketing Lead is a woman of color: Sara Chan.
• Two of the rules developers are PoCs: Makenzie De Armas and Taymoor Rehman.
• One of the editors is a PoC: Jessica Ross.
• Three cultural consultants are women of color: Nivair H. Gabriel, Jaymee Goh, and Carmen Maria Marin.
• Almost two-thirds of the artists were PoCs and they created more than two-thirds of the art for the book.
• One of our narrative design consultants (and also my wife), is a woman of color: Whitney Strix Beltrán. She was with me from the very first day to the very last. I am eternally grateful for all she's done.
• Additionally, half of the writers are women and several writers come from the LGBTQIA+ community.

More than 50 Black and brown people came together to work on this book and support its creation. I am overwhelmed by the scope of our accomplishments.

The sixteen writers for the book are: Justice Ramin Arman, Dominique Dickey, Basheer Ghouse, Alastor Guzman, D. Fox Harrell, T.K. Johnson, Felice Tzehuei, Surena Marie, Monidipa Mondal, Mario Ortegón, Miyuki Jane Pinckard, Pam Punzalan, Erin Roberts, Terry Romero, Stephanie Yoon and myself.

I am also grateful to everyone in the D&D Studio who made this book possible including Ray Winninger, Jeremy Crawford, Chris Perkins, Steve Scott, Amanda Hamon, James Wyatt, and of course my partner through it all, Wes Schneider.

And to friends who helped with so many different ways, especially John Stavropoulos (who was the system and narrative design consultant) and Jess Ross (who was one of the editors). Both were there from the start in leadership meetings and helped with so many parts in the first several months.

Finally, I want to thank my talented and capable wife Whitney Beltrán. I juggled my full-time job and leading this project and she supported me every day. She was also my narrative design consultant and weighed in or saw everything I did. This book is brilliant in part because of her.

I genuinely believe Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel is one of the finest books ever to bear the D&D logo. It is a layered book that hits upon complex and powerful themes. You can play it at the surface and have a lot of fun, or you can delve deeper with the questions it asks of you. Either way, it will offer hundreds of hours of incredible gameplay and new stories.

I can’t wait for it to be released on June 21st and to share it with the world!

 

[Ixal]

We don't have to guess. These are real people being diminished in this statement. Actual authors and artists whose names and histories are public.

As I am writing from a phone I did not check the wiki entries of all authors and I was commenting on the general idea of PoC automatically affecting quality and perspective in one way or the other as that is what is used to advertise.

Edit: To show what I mean, I looked up Ajit George. Accrding to his facebook he lives in Seattle and studied in Texas. Now its possible that he at one point imigrated to the US, I didn't find any information about his place of birth, but based on what I know about him his perspective wouldn't be much different than from many other authors in the US.
(Note that is not an attack on him as a person or his writing ability, just an example that PoC does not automatically mean having a (vastly) different perspective)

 

[Umbran]

Because this book is being advertised as boasting solely PoC authorship. It's part of the marketing for this book.

It is "part of" the marketing, and that implies it is sold "ONLY because it is made by people of color"?

I think there's an unsubstantiated leap there.

Please, substantiate that leap, if you can.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

This is just the person who was leading the project marketing it under the conditions they pitched it and ran the project under. I don’t see any issue with what they set out to do and will let the work itself speak for itself when I see it.

I can nitpick the advertising and the words (my Chinese and born in China spouse does not like being referred to as either brown or POC as an example), but how does that build up the creators and the people that want to enjoy the book?

I will see what WoTC’s version of Tanelorn ends up being like and hopefully can use elements of it in my game.

 

[darjr]

 

[darjr]

 

[Morrus]

3 thread, to be precise. The first concerning aestethic of illustration. The 2nd and 3rd talking about a new product advertised as made by POC. The third particular is focused around the POC authors. In this context my opinion, while maybe not agreed by you, is perfectly in-topic. Giving that, the truth is that I keep talking about that because I feel that you block me for what I say while pretending it is for how I say it.
If hypocrisys is finally taken apart and you ask me clearly to stop express myself on these topics then I've no problem to stop writing.
Also, I suggest you to read carefully all my intervention, because my position is not offensive. It is out of the chorus, maybe, but I'm really upset by this use of inclusivity issues that I found diminishing and pharisaical . And this is because I really care about. Then you are obviously free to believe what you want and starting from the fact that this is your house, you have all the rights to ask me to exit.

So you do care, then? People don’t write essays about things they don’t care about.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I can nitpick the advertising and the words (my Chinese and born in China spouse does not like being referred to as either brown or POC as an example), but how does that build up the creators and the people that want to enjoy the book?

And this helps answer some what I asked in my original post here. When did society start calling anyone who is not Caucasian or African brown? That feels like a disservice to the people of some regions/ethnicities and a subtle way to be racist against them. Using People of Color is a good term and does not have the same negative feel of using a color to lump a bunch of different people together. The tweets announcing this book that said it is made by a bunch of PoC are cool. The tweets pushing that it is by a bunch of black and brown people are not.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Because this book is being advertised as boasting solely PoC authorship. It's part of the marketing for this book. If they didn't think it was an advertisable feature they wouldn't mention it, or even seek to make a solely PoC authored book in the first place.

Pretty much. Only real downside is not having Chris Perkins to lend his expertise, due to accute whiteness disqualifying his contributions. At worst the end product will suffer from wildly variable tone and quality between the adventures, which makes it no different from the other 5e anthology books.

To most people yes, to some no. If this was universally accepted, why are there posts on this thread specifically praising it? There's a growing amount of people that are sympathetic to the Kimberle Crenshaw perspective that subjective identity and power structures created around them is the primary driving force of society. In this belief, those of any identity infuse everything they say and do with the essence of their identity, and it becomes a moral imperative to selectively exclude those with negative identities that cause repression and do the opposite with those with positive ones. If you're inclined to believe that then all PoC authorship becomes a major selling point. As I type this Umbran provides an example of this:

This point of view is becoming fairly pervasive, and the division between it's adherents and it's skeptics is really the driving force of this thread.

Mod Note:

Excuse me: “…accute whiteness disqualifying his contribution.”? And you’re done in this thread.

There’s a saying: “if you can see it, you can be it.” Seeing someone like you in an unfamiliar role can be an uplifting and inspirational thing, and can be a catalyst for bringing fresh faces into a field.

Advertising that a product was done by PoC is a sign that- in a hobby still dominated by white males- there is room for professionals who don’t fit that mold. It‘s not that whiteness is a disqualifier, it’s that non-whiteness no longer is.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I can nitpick the advertising and the words (my Chinese and born in China spouse does not like being referred to as either brown or POC as an example), but how does that build up the creators and the people that want to enjoy the book?

I'm of a differing opinion and of a Chinese background but born and raised in Canada, while I certainly don't refer to myself as brown, I definitely feel being referred to as "yellow" offensive, though I'm fine with saying I'm a Banana (it's like being the opposite of Weeaboo) which other people of my background might take offense to. I'm fine with saying I'm a POC or not-white, if I'm going to be labelled a colour than it might as well be "gold" but "golden" in English sort of implies elderly which I'm not there yet.

 

[Charlaquin]

Sorry, posted before seeing the mod note.