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​

 

[Parmandur]

For the three unknown Settings:

• Dominique Dickey is African American
• Stephanie Yoon is Korean
• Jane Miyuki is Japanese

So we have:

• 4 African-American Settings
• 5 East Asian & Pacific Settings
• 3 Latino/Mesoamerica Settings
• 3 Central/South Asian Settings

Pretty cool mix!

 

[darjr]

Day 2 of its wider known existence and not quite two days in preorder it’s 152 out of all books on Amazon. And by the best seller tag it was probably too 100 for a shirt while.

 

[Parmandur]

I think the word is absolutely an optimistic work, but otherwise agree. But I also view pessimism as less rational than optimism, so we probably aren't actually that far off in the particulars of our readings.

For Tolkien, hope wins in the end....ultimately.

 

[Faolyn]

It seems to me like they lifted several ideas from the MCU movies:

Living on/in the corpse of a dead alien = Knowhere, from Guardians of the Galaxy.

A spirit land where your ancestors appear as animals = Black Panther movie, where he visited the spirit of his father and others who are living in the spirit realm as panthers.

And the whole thing has a multiverse connection too = Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness or Spiderman, No Way Home or Spiderman: Into the Spider-verse.

The MCU movies stole all these things from Planescape, you mean.

 

[Parmandur]

The MCU movies stole all these things from Planescape, you mean.

No, D&D stole from 60's-70's Marvel Comics, which stole every idea not under copyright or trademark...and even some of those, if they could.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

I think a few things are simultaneously true:

1) For some people, myself included, the main cover for this book isn't appealing at all. I don't personally demand that every game book cover feature something perilous, terrifying, etc. But I'm definitely drawn to images that show a situation or environment that gets my creative juices flowing, and specifically where I can imagine being a player, or running a game/encounter. To me, the Radiant Citadel cover is like a spot illo that accidentally made its way to the cover. I don't care if that dorky creature escapes with its ill-gotten produce. I wouldn't care as a player, and if I described that scene as a GM, it'd be of no interest to my players. And the environment pictured? Again, who cares? A bazaar! Not a backdrop for tales of derring-do, however grim or hopeful. Maybe a place for a dreaded shopping run or other logistics before the adventure actually gets going.

2) Those noting that you shouldn't literally judge a book by its cover are right. Even the additional art that's been shared in this thread shows that there are many tones available in this book, and that the setting is a place where adventures can happen. It's not all rascally Pokemon and (imo) not-so-well-rendered people delighted by fruit raining down on their heads.

3) And yet, covers are a very big deal in TTRPGs. They're like all the other elements that makes a book more than just a plain text file. Layout, information design, illustrations, are a big part of why Free League has become such darlings, and why so many WotC books are considered so "polished." Great covers become iconic, in part because they set or reinforce the tone for the game, and because they spark the imagination. In my opinion TTRPG covers have a greater impact than novel covers (novels being solely about the text, with covers just a marketing element) or movie posters (again, pure marketing, and usually not reflective of the film's moving images). I think gaming book covers are a lot closer to comic or graphic novel covers, or even magazine covers, which are incredibly important, tying into the visual style of the contents.

Given how rarely WotC publishes (compared to a monthly magazine or comic, for example) it's not like we can assume any covers are accidental, or anything but carefully planned. So reading a lot, maybe even too much, into every cover they produce is, I think, understandable. What is this cover trying to do? Who is it trying to appeal to? What does it have to do with how you'll use the book? From the smallest indie game to the biggest, covers matter. And if they establish a tone or play mode or whatever else that seems cuddly and drained of traditional types of adventurous pretend-play, I don't think that's so easily brushed off, or strictly about critics supposedly pining for nothing-but-grimdark. The covers for Wanderhome and the Root RPG are plenty cute. Cuter than a pile of puppies. But they also make me want to play those games, to get into adventures. The bazaar on the Radiant Citadel cover? Um...guess it'd be a good backdrop for a rad no-filter selfie?

 

[ersatzphil]

No, D&D stole from 60's-70's Marvel Comics, which stole every idea not under copyright or trademark...and even some of those, if they could.

To put my philosophy hat back on for a moment, the idea of a multiverse goes back to the ancient greeks. From Plutarch's Moralia:

It is reported that King Alexander the Great, hearing Anaxarchus the philosopher discoursing and maintaining this position: That there were worlds innumerable: fell a-weeping: and when his friends and familiars about him asked what he ailed. Have I not (quoth he) good cause to weep, that being as there are an infinite number of worlds, I am not yet the lord of one?

 

[Yaarel]

Hobbits/halflings are cute and fluffy. Fairy dragons.

 

[Shardstone]

This thread is heavily characterized by people's inability to accept that they aren't meant to buy every single D&D product that comes out.

No one cares if you don't like the books released this year. There's other people who play D&D who I'm pretty sure haven't liked some of the books you have bought as well.

Seriously, you guys have gotten soooooo many books so far, so many adventures that retread or reintroduce old content, and you think its right to say that books like these are a bad direction and shouldn't exist?

Especially when in Ajit's interview, he talks about wanting to make a book where he can see people like him in it. The white privilege in unironically stunning.

 

[Fallen star]

"New things can be scary" is what I tell my 3rd graders when I explain why some parents don't like the way we learn math.

New things can also be bad. Fortunately humans have evolved the capacity to assess and make judgements on things before we experience them.