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​

 

[Azzy]

I doubt the chose the syphillitic marsupial with sickle claws and an obligate addiction to a tree that burns forests down to further its progeny as a 'non-life-endangering' symbol.

Hey, it's one of the "cute" ones.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Hey, it's one of the "cute" ones.

Fair.

 

[Guest 7034872]

Huh. See, I don't think "cute" when I look at the Radiant Citadel cover (or the alternate); I think "mescaline."

 

[Retreater]

I'm a woman. I love the cover and find it incredibly evocative. It makes the world come alive, makes it more than the dungeons and battlefields. The rest of my group (four men and another woman), all agree it's a beautiful cover. We've all squee'd over the Day of the Dead image as well.

And just for the record, I hate shopping in real life with the fury of a thousand suns.

I guess that's one of the things about art - it's really subjective. Art can have different effects on people regardless of age, gender, or other factors. For me (and I don't suspect it has anything to do with me being a man or my age) that cover does absolutely nothing for me. The cover of Rime of the Frost Maiden (even though I didn't care for the adventure) is atmospheric and foreboding. My players were eager to run into the creature depicted (though their characters would've been terrified).
But Radiant Citadel - it does nothing for me. To be fair, neither do any of the "limited foil cover" (Hydro?) things - I think they're ugly and wouldn't want them in my collection.
And if the cover art is actually evocative of what Radiant Citadel is about (shopping excursions with no danger) - then I wouldn't want to play it either.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

shopping excursions with no danger

Yeah, no. That's not what the Radiant Citadel book is about at all. That's just nonsense. There's like one adventure where it's a cooking competition. Then there are other adventures with tyrannical angelic theocracies, ghost stories, the Day of the Dead with Undead, and so on.

 

[Retreater]

Yeah, no. That's not what the Radiant Citadel book is about at all. That's just nonsense. There's like one adventure where it's a cooking competition. Then there are other adventures with tyrannical angelic theocracies, ghost stories, the Day of the Dead with Undead, and so on.

I didn't figure that's what it was - that's why I think the cover is a "bad" one (i.e. not depicting the theme and content). Again, I don't like the Hydro covers either, because they don't really show what the book is about.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Again, I don't like the Hydro covers either, because they don't really show what the book is about.

I think it's pretty difficult to "show what a book is about" for D&D 5e adventures. Especially for adventure compilation books like this one. What are you going to put on the cover that can summarize the overall theme and content of the dozens of adventures contained in this single book? It's much easier to make covers that illustrate the overall theme of a book if it's just a single adventure (like Tyranny of Dragons or Rime of the Frostmaiden) or a setting book (Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft or Eberron: Rising from the Last War) than for an adventure compilation book.

I personally love most of the Hydro74 covers. Sure, there are some that I'm not very fond of (Witchlight, mainly), but stuff like the Hydro74 Spelljammer books and Eberron: Rising from the Last War are some of my favorite D&D covers ever.

 

[Faolyn]

I guess that's one of the things about art - it's really subjective. Art can have different effects on people regardless of age, gender, or other factors. For me (and I don't suspect it has anything to do with me being a man or my age) that cover does absolutely nothing for me. The cover of Rime of the Frost Maiden (even though I didn't care for the adventure) is atmospheric and foreboding. My players were eager to run into the creature depicted (though their characters would've been terrified).
But Radiant Citadel - it does nothing for me. To be fair, neither do any of the "limited foil cover" (Hydro?) things - I think they're ugly and wouldn't want them in my collection.
And if the cover art is actually evocative of what Radiant Citadel is about (shopping excursions with no danger) - then I wouldn't want to play it either.

RofFM does have a cool cover, but it's also a single adventure with a single theme. RC is about a hub which you go from to have adventures of different types, not just the adventures in the book.

And there's plenty of interesting things to do, including dangerous things, on a shopping trip. Every marketplace has dark alleys, thieves, fences, underhanded dealers of shady objects and services, antiques of unknown provenance and ability, and esoteric shops that weren't there yesterday and will be gone tomorrow. And interplanar marketplaces have even more than that.

 

[Parmandur]

I think it's pretty difficult to "show what a book is about" for D&D 5e adventures. Especially for adventure compilation books like this one. What are you going to put on the cover that can summarize the overall theme and content of the dozens of adventures contained in this single book? It's much easier to make covers that illustrate the overall theme of a book if it's just a single adventure (like Tyranny of Dragons or Rime of the Frostmaiden) or a setting book (Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft or Eberron: Rising from the Last War) than for an adventure compilation book.

I personally love most of the Hydro74 covers. Sure, there are some that I'm not very fond of (Witchlight, mainly), but stuff like the Hydro74 Spelljammer books and Eberron: Rising from the Last War are some of my favorite D&D covers ever.

Sight more or less unseen, I think the choice makes sense for Radiant Citadel, because the Level 1 intro Adventure is likely going to represent the biggest shared experience for people who play the book.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I didn't figure that's what it was - that's why I think the cover is a "bad" one (i.e. not depicting the theme and content). Again, I don't like the Hydro covers either, because they don't really show what the book is about.

I don't particularly love the cover either, but I also don't understand the fixation folks have on covers... the expression "Don't judge a book by its cover," seems especially relevant in this case. Some of these adventures sound really, really good. Like so good, I want to take the small region of some of them and build a whole world out of it.