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​

 

[Vaalingrade]

Thought so. Nice deflection but not my point. It's the stories I can't logically tell here if I run it 'as is'. And it doesn't provide anything like a unique hook I haven't seen dozens of times.

If you don't want to tell the stories the setting is designed for, there's a ton of other settings. They do all different things and that's the point. Basically, you're asking to block the stories RC is meant to tell because you want to play another setting.

 

[Azenis]

If you don't want to tell the stories the setting is designed for, there's a ton of other settings. They do all different things and that's the point. Basically, you're asking to block the stories RC is meant to tell because you want to play another setting.

When I purchase a product and I see adventures that could use a little more bulk and a wasted page count on a setting that severely limits the kinds of hooks I can use....well yeah that's a writing mistake that should not have been made. I wasn't looking for Sigil (because I already have Sigil) but I was looking for some utility and types of adventures I haven't seen before. I got some of that but the setting is drek (barring to tee up my players to tear the thing down).

 

[Vaalingrade]

I was looking for some utility and types of adventures I haven't seen before.

Basically, you got them, you just didn't like them. Which is fine... until you start acting like not writing for you specifically was a mistake.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Thought so. Nice deflection but not my point. It's the stories I can't logically tell here if I run it 'as is'. And it doesn't provide anything like a unique hook I haven't seen dozens of times.

Alternately, I'm not interested in rebutting the imaginary version of this book you keep tossing out, while ignoring most of my responses.

You don't appear interested in anything other than starting a fight here. Go with Gygax, man.

 

[Umbran]

You might find a dwarven crime lord, but not in a standard D&D dwarven society.

Depends on what you call "crime lord". I could easily see a member of dwarven bureaucracy who uses the rules to their advantage...

"Oh, yes, well, it is in the Magistrate's purview to assign fees and charges for code violations..."

 

[Azenis]

Depends on what you call "crime lord". I could easily see a member of dwarven bureaucracy who uses the rules to their advantage...

"Oh, yes, well, it is in the Magistrate's purview to assign fees and charges for code violations..."

Yeah, corrupt bureaucrats can be nice foils for adventurers since they typically can't punch their way out of the problem.

 

[jasper]

Let see who has the power in the Citadel. One CR 20 boss, the head cop is CR 8. Your quick reaction force is a minimum 12 archmages, CR 12 20 mages CR 6, Infinite CR 3 Veterans . The DM makes up the rest of citizens who will stand and fight.
The toll booth is has the following staff 24/7/360. Guards 6 CR 1/8, Mage 1 cr 6, PRiest 1 CR 2. Which means adventurer party with 5 members returning from the Shadow of the Sun will only being paying a toll if they want to. Or they have to be happy that Head Cop or boss is asking them to handle problems outside the citadel.

And the shieldbears love brain washing felony lawbreakers... The worst offenders are sentenced to a controversial Djaynaian punishment wherein the criminal is subjected to a ritual that prevents them from repeating their crime and then is banished from the city.........

The opening chapter of RC is fun but I roll my eyes most of the times when reading it. Plus I don't want to pay $50 for a McDonalds Hamburger.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

and whoever wrote the Shieldbearer code I suspect really doesn't have much experience actually playing the game

This is kindof a gross thing to keep repeating.

Everyone who worked on the book plays D&D.

Perhaps entertain the idea that rather a lot of people play the game differently than you do.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Depends on what you call "crime lord". I could easily see a member of dwarven bureaucracy who uses the rules to their advantage...

"Oh, yes, well, it is in the Magistrate's purview to assign fees and charges for code violations..."

Which is an example of adapting the challenges to suit the setting, rather than expecting all settings to have the same types of challenge.

Bureaucracy doesn't have to be corrupt or evil in order for it to pose a challenge for players.

 

[pemerton]

So, we explicitly have that the poorest people pay nothing, or have to make an approved trade in order to be able to stay. No one is getting in for free.

Rich people are paying something, but we don't know anything about how expensive it is, except that taxes on imports are high. They can choose to pay more -- I would assume this is like Carnegie "choosing" to donate libraries all across the US to erase his legacy as a robber baron in the 19th century and rich people slapping their names on university buildings now -- but nowhere does it suggest they pay nothing.

In fact, it says the exact opposite about people whose donations to the citadel are deemed insufficient by the incarnates.

After reading the complaints in this thread, I was surprised at how innocuous the passage from the book turned out to be!

Could and probably should the authors have included more detail on what the standard fee is? Yep.

Frankly, a GM who is using this sort of material - which is oriented towards GM-curated settings and adventures - should be capable of making up some fees, and some official responses, that make sense in their game.

The idea that this is a deal-breaker for a setting book is pretty weird to me.

@Ruin Explorer, you refer to "punishment" and "or else" but the text refers to "risk[ing] the rebuke of the city’s guards". Isn't the most obvious form of rebuke going to be "That's not enough - please pay some more?"

And again, in this sort of heavily GM-curated play, can't the GM call for an INT or WIS check to be made to see if the players have a sense of what will be accepted as a fair payment?