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​

 

[jasper]

Candlekeep is merely a large Library Keep vs the Radiant Cidatel which is a city with a demiplane at it's heart that connects to 15 civilizations, that is more comparable to Baldur's Gate or Waterdeep in their adventure books in size. And there are two new lands (civilizations) that also get Gazeteers, who knows how big and detailed those are.

Candlekeep is simply a location in FR, the Radiant Citadel is functionally a new setting.

But if they follow Candlekeep example, 3 adventures will happen inside the Citadel. And one or two adventures will totally ignore the lore in front of the book. At least the buy in of it being a demiplane will give an excuse not to adventure in the Citadel.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

Wait. Re Ravenloft. That is the point. If they lack "souls", namely consciousnesses, then they cant suffer. They are like a computer game mimicking the facial expressions of pain. They dont suffer, just like a photograph of a sad person doesnt itself suffer.

If they can suffer, they have "souls".

VG Cats! Comics

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well this is a discussion board and not anyones personal journal. So if posters are going to come in and make claims—that current dnd art is only cute and silly, that the game is moving in a particular direction, that the fan base is happy when other people don’t get the product they want—they’ll encounter people who read their claims and respond to them.

There were two separate posters who claimed that other people's unhappiness with an upcoming product was a selling point for them.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

But if they follow Candlekeep example, 3 adventures will happen inside the Citadel. And one or two adventures will totally ignore the lore in front of the book. At least the buy in of it being a demiplane will give an excuse not to adventure in the Citadel.

Turns out the Radiant Citadel (or even the Preserve of the Ancestors which is just a spiritual bio dome chiseled right into the Auroral Diamond itself) isn't a Demiplane, it's simply a peaceful city in the Ethereal Plane, that serves as a safe Haven to recupe and stock up on stuff/spend downtime between adventures. The 13 adventures and 2 Gazeteers in the back are all set outside of the Citadel in the 15 unlost Worlds/Civilizations that founded the city.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

The sad thing, is that if a world like that was actually fleshed out and done properly instead of in a snapshot featurette I would be absolutely stoked. Unfortunately here we will have unconnected vignettes that will only ever offer a glimpse. Believe me if this book was split into three chapters each in a different cultural setting or had continuity from the cultural settings in Candlekeep I think that would be awesome.

We have two entirely new, non-MtG campaign settings in the pipeline for next year. We can't know for certain until we get some actual info on them, but it's entirely possible that at least some of the mini-settings explored in Radiant Citadel could tie into those setting books.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Is it really bad to have to think about the game world you're running in?

As I said, I have no problem thinking about my game world. That particular idea, and the to my mind horrible implications of it, could have used some story development from the people who dropped it into their how to do horror in D&D book.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Here's the original quote:


Michael Linke didn't say he didn't like it. He said it was literally not good and never would be good again. This is what I was talking about in my other thread. He's stating this as an objective fact, when it's an opinion, and certainly not one that was universally shared--I liked the Silence but not the Astronaut part of the story, which annoyed me.

He said it hasn't been THAT good again, not good period. While it could have been stated more politely, to my ears that still sounds like an opinion.

 

[TwoSix]

We have two entirely new, non-MtG campaign settings in the pipeline for next year. We can't know for certain until we get some actual info on them, but it's entirely possible that at least some of the mini-settings explored in Radiant Citadel will tie into those setting books.

It would be cool if some of the mini-settings had connections to existing material. Maybe some of them will be new crystal spheres in Spelljammer. There's plenty of room to put new cultures in the huge amount of loosely defined areas in Eberron, Toril, Krynn, etc.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, if that isn't the most existential question about participation on a hobby enthusiast board, I don't know what is.

Maybe the point of posting news and information about new and upcoming products on a hobby enthusiast discussion board is for people to discuss and maybe even enthuse about them. Shocking, I know.

What i was trying to say was that if you want to remove all negativity from a thread, you should remove everything and just leave it as a press release. The better solution to me is to state how you feel either way and move on. Enthusiasm is great. Critisizm is great. Complaining how people have different opinions from you is exhausting and of little use, IMO.

 

[TwoSix]

He said it hasn't been THAT good again, not good period. While it could have been stated more politely, to my ears that still sounds like an opinion.

Especially considering that in the quoted statement, the phrase "I feel" was used directly before the supposedly contentious statement. Like, I'm totally on-board with liberally caveating one's statements with some form of "IMO" (especially considering the amount of people who DO believe their opinions are inviolate facts), but the necessary caveating literally happened within the sentence!