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​

 

[Faolyn]

In-universe, it's an invented kid with an invented mother, explicitly created to add dramatic backdrop to an eternal evil beings torment. They are explicitly considered props. They might as well be actors who complain about the script and their screen time backstage while raiding the catering table.

That's literally the case with every RPG setting though, since nobody in any of those settings are actually real; they're creations of the DM, in order to add a reason for the PCs to go kill other creatures the DM created.

And anyway, even if they're only props, they don't know that they're props. They're not on the clocks, and when they die, it's not like their blood is just colored corn syrup, and they don't hang out with the monsters off-stage. They suffer and die just like any "real" person does.

 

[Remathilis]

Why is it meaningless? Does the fact that you can't permanently save the majority of a Domains' population mean that trying to ease their suffering for a time is somehow not worth the effort?

That is the victory in Ravenloft: helping make things bareable for a little while longer. The fact you can't permanently cure a disease is not an excuse to not ease the suffering of the victim.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

It's pretty funny how on this thread, many people are complaining this new book is "proof that 5E is too noblebright/noblepunk" and 5E Revanloft exists and says "EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING IS DOOOMED!"

 

[Shardstone]

Even if this is a lighter setting, and if we've had other lighter adventures, I just can't wrap my head around what people's issue is.

Why is everyone so offended that we get a series of lighter, more fun, more palatable adventures? Why is it wrong for 5E to want to sell the books a portion of its demographic wants? Why do so many people on this forum complain specifically about the fact that D&D is a game for everyone and not just for them?

The book hasn't come out. I'm not very excited for it, but it sounds good. It sounds like it was a made with PASSION. The people who worked on it sound excited to share their cultures with the world, and for EVERYONE to interact with it however they choose through the book.

I mean for god's sake, they even say that the 12 Cultures all have problems! Sometimes they war with each other! Sometimes, those worlds face problems! You deal with them, come back to the Radiant Citadel, and chill for a bit then go to the next one. And it isn't like a hub is some insane new "soft and cuddly" idea. All the Dark Souls games have a hub, and those games are BLEAK, SCARY, AND LETHAL. Having a hub is just another way to have some much needed rest between adventures, explore some characterizaiton, and be human for a while. It gets rid of the problem where everything feels like a 3 month adventure because weeks or months can be spent AT the hub, which is a complaint everyone has had so far!!

Like, what do you people want??? Just accept that you don't have to buy WotC books ALL THE TIME. You DON'T HAVE TO BUY WOTC BOOK. Most of you are 30+, have been playing multiple editions, and have so much material tht you could run games for the REST of your lives without problem. Its some of you are SO ADDICTED to buying whatever WotC puts out, that when they release a product you don't like, you have a complete meltdown and start doom-saying how WotC is going to naughty word because they care about their WHOLE audience and not just you.

Does htis mean every first party book has been good? No. And normally I'm all about complaining about WotC and their books. But the complaints in this thread have just been so ironically childish and utterly entitled that I am flabbergasted. 51 pages of people looking at press releases and a few videos and coming to the conclusion that this is one of the worst things for the hobby yet.

 

[Remathilis]

A little too on the nose considering thats our reality.

That was intentional.

 

[Guest 7034872]

So, the discussion has moved from how overly optimistic this hopeful Setting is, to how bleak the horror Setting Ravenloft is...?

Apparently so.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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

Absolutely, and one I don't think I should be part of. I'll leave that to people whose opinion is less likely to hurt feelings or make anyone genuinely angry.

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.

And now you can't even save individuals. It went from eye-rollingly bleak to absolutely pointless on every level.

That level of "no happy endings" can be enjoyable in a Stephen King book, but I'm not playing a character in a Stephen King book. If I want to be a character with no genuine agency within the fiction, I'll play a game that is actually built from the ground up to do that, not a game that is built to let you play a heroic character with genuine agency, made by a team that mostly builds relatively optimistic game elements for a game of heroic fantasy where you can actually make a difference.

 

[Parmandur]

Absolutely, and one I don't think I should be part of. I'll leave that to people whose opinion is less likely to hurt feelings or make anyone genuinely angry.

And now you can't even save individuals. It went from eye-rollingly bleak to absolutely pointless on every level.

That level of "no happy endings" can be enjoyable in a Stephen King book, but I'm not playing a character in a Stephen King book. If I want to be a character with no genuine agency within the fiction, I'll play a game that is actually built from the ground up to do that, not a game that is built to let you play a heroic character with genuine agency, made by a team that mostly builds relatively optimistic game elements for a game of heroic fantasy where you can actually make a difference.

Well, the good news is that there is a book coming out focused primarily on facilitating that experience.

Ravenloft does show that WotC is willing to go bleak and dark.

 

[Vaalingrade]

That's literally the case with every RPG setting though, since nobody in any of those settings are actually real; they're creations of the DM, in order to add a reason for the PCs to go kill other creatures the DM created.

Wait.

They're not real?

Does this mean I'm not actually a terrifying god making and unmaking them as I see fit?

 

[Scribe]

If I want to be a character with no genuine agency within the fiction, I'll play a game that is actually built from the ground up to do that, not a game that is built to let you play a heroic character with genuine agency, made by a team that mostly builds relatively optimistic game elements for a game of heroic fantasy where you can actually make a difference.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didnt they specifically call this out in the Guide to Ravenloft? That the baseline premise of 5e doesnt quite match up with it?

Or was that just forum conjecture.