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​

 

[Scribe]

If nothing can be accomplished, nothing matters.

See, to me anyway, it still matters to the PCs. Its still real enough to them.

So to me it still asks an interesting question of "How do you react when you know its hopeless, do you still do the right thing when it doesnt matter, and what does that say about you?"

Its a question I personally love.

 

[darjr]

Dragon + article is out!

Dungeons & Dragons | The World's Greatest Roleplaying Game

The official home and digital toolset for Dungeons & Dragons. Dive into D&D books, create a character, and more!

dnd.dragonmag.com

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I understand you feel that way.

But again, what does this change add from the previous interpretation, where the denizens of the various domains where imagined to be about as real as any other NPC? How is this change better?

I will add, like most lore "rules" 5E Ravenloft does openly provide exceptions.

The biggest is Valachan, where Chakuna has successfully supplanted Baron Urik. It provides the context that yes, someone CAN defeat the Darklord and remove them from power... but someone needs to take their place.

In Darkon, the Darklord Azalin has disappeared, and the Domain is slowly fading into the mists. Another example that yes, a Darklord can be free, or perhaps permanently defeated (what Azalin's fate is, is not provided). That will destroy, or perhaps free the domain.

And lastly, there is Klorr, where islands (hinted to be destroyed domains like Sithicus and Cavitius, who lost their Darklords) are in orbit around a burning eye, their inevitable fate to be totally destroyed.

Those who dwell upon the crumbling land masses trapped in the domain constantly count the hours until their end. Few know how they came to Klorr or when new islands are added to the cycle, only that the Mists closed in and doomed them. Amid the realm's surreal skies float the ruins of lost and failed domains—among them, a tower like a blackened rose and a city of skulls—as well as timeless echoes of domains that yet exist. Those cast away amid this orderly apocalypse grow ever more desperate to defy the doomsday clock and the will of a hidden Darklord, the obsessed clockmaker named Klorr.

Anyway, the point is that a Darklord returning after defeat is the norm, but it's not actually the only outcome. The 5E book provides plenty of context to defy that norm and create your own outcomes.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

See, to me anyway, it still matters to the PCs. Its still real enough to them.

So to me it still asks an interesting question of "How do you react when you know its hopeless, do you still do the right thing when it doesnt matter, and what does that say about you?"

Its a question I personally love.

Yeah my view of hopeless grimdark media is probably vociferously negative enough that I ought to keep it to myself, here.

 

[Scribe]

Yeah my view of hopeless grimdark media is probably vociferously negative enough that I ought to keep it to myself, here.

We can all find pleasure in different things.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I will add, like most lore "rules" 5E Ravenloft does openly provide exceptions.

The biggest is Valachan, where Chakuna has successfully supplanted Baron Urik. It provides the context that yes, someone CAN defeat the Darklord and remove them from power... but someone needs to take their place.

In Darkon, the Darklord Azalin has disappeared, and the Domain is slowly fading into the mists. Another example that yes, a Darklord can be free, or perhaps permanently defeated (what Azalin's fate is, is not provided). That will destroy, or perhaps free the domain.

And lastly, there is Klorr, where islands (hinted to be destroyed domains like Sithicus and Cavitius, who lost their Darklords) are in orbit around a burning eye, their inevitable fate to be totally destroyed.

Those who dwell upon the crumbling land masses trapped in the domain constantly count the hours until their end. Few know how they came to Klorr or when new islands are added to the cycle, only that the Mists closed in and doomed them. Amid the realm's surreal skies float the ruins of lost and failed domains—among them, a tower like a blackened rose and a city of skulls—as well as timeless echoes of domains that yet exist. Those cast away amid this orderly apocalypse grow ever more desperate to defy the doomsday clock and the will of a hidden Darklord, the obsessed clockmaker named Klorr.

Anyway, the point is that a Darklord returning after defeat is the norm, but it's not actually the only outcome. The 5E book provides plenty of context to defy that norm and create your own outcomes.

But none of those alternatives actually meaningfully differ from "nothing changes". "You cannot change things" is essentially the same as "you can change things, but only ever for the worse, or at best in a totally meaningless mostly cosmetic way".

 

[doctorbadwolf]

We can all find pleasure in different things.

Not all things a person can enjoy are good things for a society to encourage people to enjoy, but yes, as long as you aren't hurting people you can enjoy whatever you want.

 

[Scribe]

Not all things a person can enjoy are good things for a society to encourage people to enjoy...

Well, that would be a whole other contentious discussion though.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

* How the radiant citadel can defends against possible attacks by planar raiders?

Defence gird and a couple of Starfury squadrons.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

But none of those alternatives actually meaningfully differ from "nothing changes". "You cannot change things" is essentially the same as "you can change things, but only ever for the worse, or at best in a totally meaningless mostly cosmetic way".

Isn't that the whole theme of Ravenloft? I don't think even in the context of old editions there has ever been a case of a Domain actually getting better, even when the Darklord is defeated.

The theme is that the land is forever, irrevocably cursed. The only thing PCs can do is save individuals (those with souls, which is not everyone) from the endless cycle of Ravenloft. The land itself though is beyond saving, it's doomed.