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​

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Are they? Import taxes are mostly used to discourage trade

Not necessarily. Singapore levies a 7% import fee, and nearly all of its economy is based on being a trade hub.

If its possible to go through the portals and not be in the city.

Well, there are no portals. There are big flying crystal ships controlled by the spirits in the city.

There are also other things that look rather questionable like how food is limited but everyone is guranteed food and a basic income.
There is a fine line between a believable utopia (Star Trek thanks to replicators, but even that strains believabiliy sometimes) and unbelievable fairy tale settings. Radiant Citadel seems to fall squarely in the latter category.

Singapore is an incredibly wealthy nation with a ludicrous quality of life (minus, you know, those pesky civil rights). The notion that this can't work in the Radiant Citadel is a little silly.

In fact, Singapore has more of the deck stacked against it, since it's not offering refuge from a hostile Inner Plane, nor does it have exclusive connections to its trading partners. It just offers a stable (or else) place to do business and has a lot of competition in the region. The Radiant Citadel appears to have a near-monopoly as a trading connection and as a Deep Ethereal refuge.

I get that the Radiant Citadel offends some folks' real world political sensibilities, which is fine, since it's an overtly political book -- I wouldn't have been surprised if they had tried to get AOC to review it -- but the economic basis of the city actually works in real life.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Especially if its possible for traders to go from jewel to jewel without entering the city.

It does not appear to be the case. I suppose one could try and convince an incarnate to flip and authorize it, but even then, it would be just one crystal moving between the Ethereal and their prime location.

 

[Ixal]

Not necessarily. Singapore levies a 7% import fee, and nearly all of its economy is based on being a trade hub.

Well, there are no portals. There are big flying crystal ships controlled by the spirits in the city.

Singapore is an incredibly wealthy nation with a ludicrous quality of life (minus, you know, those pesky civil rights). The notion that this can't work in the Radiant Citadel is a little silly.

In fact, Singapore has more of the deck stacked against it, since it's not offering refuge from a hostile Inner Plane, nor does it have exclusive connections to its trading partners. It just offers a stable (or else) place to do business and has a lot of competition in the region. The Radiant Citadel appears to have a near-monopoly as a trading connection and as a Deep Ethereal refuge.

I get that the Radiant Citadel offends some folks' real world political sensibilities, which is fine, since it's an overtly political book -- I wouldn't have been surprised if they had tried to get AOC to review it -- but the economic basis of the city actually works in real life.

7% is very low. Most nations have import taxes in the 10-20% range.

Import tax rates broken down by country | Zonos Docs

Import tax rates vary significantly by country. This guide will cover some need-to-know terms, followed by a table of international tax and de minimis rates.

docs.zonos.com

Also what drives the economy in Singapore is its electronics industry and banking and not trade taxes.

What makes the Singapore economy tick?

The robust Singapore economy drives thousands of global professionals to its shores each year – but what makes it so attractive? Read on to find out.

www.guidemesingapore.com

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Also what drives the economy in Singapore is its electronics industry and banking and not trade taxes.

What makes the Singapore economy tick?

The robust Singapore economy drives thousands of global professionals to its shores each year – but what makes it so attractive? Read on to find out.

www.guidemesingapore.com

ROFL

Fly in or out of Singapore. There are cargo ships surrounding it as far as the eye can see.

Yes, they're pivoting to other industries, but saying they're a success because of electronics and banking is like saying Dubai runs on the banking industry. Those are modern day pivots after they made their fortunes on trade and oil, respectively.

 

[Ixal]

The economy simply would not work as presented. Traders would only come to the Citadel if they can leave with more than what they arrived with, be it goods or money. That means trade taxes, and that includes the entry fee traders must pay, can't alone finance the goods bought from those traders.

But what other ways to finance itself does the Citadel have? The book paints a rather bleak picture about the industry it can support. Even just supplying its population is hard. Food is already stretched as described in the book and animal products have to be imported with huge tarrifs.
Water is completely ignored but lets assume they solved that as otherwise the city would not exist.
Clothes? Already gets tricky. You need either grown fabrics, not possible because all areas are needed for food, or animal skin and products which have to be expensively imported.
Building materials are also a problem With all spaces required for food there is no room for tree farms. And fossilized bone, the only thing they have, is also limited as removing too much risks the integrity of the city.
A fossilized corpse also does not tend to have much in the way of raw material (and mi ing directly under your city is a bad idea anyway), so all the tools from hammers to music instruments have to be imported at least in part.
And the list goes on.

So how does the city afford all the imports? What industry does it have? As described it has high tarrifs for everything in addition to the guessing fee, meaning it can't even import raw ressources and export manufactured goods for competitive prices.

What the author also didn't seem to understand is thats not the 'rich traders' that pay the tax, but the consumer as the trader will simply increase prices accordingly or not come at all. So how does the population pay the high prices for goods? With the guranteed basic income which ensures they have access to them? Where does the city get the money for that? And how does it ensure a balanced trade ratio instead of a deficite when it doesn't produce anything?

Edit: Yes, Cargo ships bringing raw ressources and exporting electronics. Or bring things for resale and redistribution in SEA. All this is encouraged by low taxes and trade agreements and not by high taxes and entry fees like in the Radiant Citadel. It does its best to drive traders away.

The Citadel could of course employ strongarm tactics by not allowing any trade between traders from other realms and also not allowing them to pass through and instead requiring them to sell to local traders first who then sell it to traders from realms. But that doesn't fit with the utopian picture the book paints and also, because of the high taxes, it would limit the trade to luxury goods that can't be reasonably obtained otherwise. Probably ot enough to finance basic consumption of the city. Not to mention that it is a very bad idea to anger foreign traders that way when your life depends on them.

 

[Vaalingrade]

"You arrive in a new world with connections to several other worlds. The potential for new adventures abound. What are you going to do first."

"CHECK THIER BOOKS. BRING ME AN ACCOUNTANT."

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

"We decided to create a setting that leans into ideas of a collectivist utopia."

"But no society operating under the capitalist principles of rational self interest would ever look like that!"

 

[Marandahir]

"We decided to create a setting that leans into ideas of a collectivist utopia."

"But no society operating under the capitalist principles of rational self interest would every look like that!"

Exactly. Mic drop right there.

 

[Nikosandros]

"You arrive in a new world with connections to several other worlds. The potential for new adventures abound. What are you going to do first."

"CHECK THIER BOOKS. BRING ME AN ACCOUNTANT."

View attachment 265606

 

[Hussar]

I suspect you're overstating how these borders function in a quasi-medieval world, even one with magic.

Sorta?

As in if you started landing your ship and selling your goods without going through the proper ports, you were smuggling.

It’s not like smuggling was bringing in illicit goods. Those didn’t exist for the most part. If you had a hindred tons of cocaine in your hold (yes I understand the anachronistic nature of that) no one would bat an eye because it’s not illegal.

But land your trading ship outside of authorized ports could get you hanged.

 

[pemerton]

The economy simply would not work as presented. Traders would only come to the Citadel if they can leave with more than what they arrived with, be it goods or money. That means trade taxes, and that includes the entry fee traders must pay, can't alone finance the goods bought from those traders.

The way a real-world trade hub works is that traders from many placers bring their goods their and exchange them for mutual benefit. And then the hub charges transaction taxes, and/or service fees (eg for accommodation, for access to market places, etc), and the income from those taxes and fees supports life in the hub.

From the traders' point of view, they are losing some of their "in principle" profit, but that is the cost of dealing with an intermediary. (I mean, traders are themselves intermediaries between producers and consumers.)

I haven't read the Radiant Citadel book, but if the place is described as a trade hub, presumably it is working on more-or-less the model I've just described. Goods come in, goods go out, and the Citadel pays for itself out of the money earned by acting as an intermediary.

There are practical difficulties with levying a progressive tariff - for instance, traders have incentives to split their activities into smaller components to reduce their overall tax burden. On the other hand, that sort of disaggregation itself generates costs, and so if the progressive rates are set with those disaggregation costs in mind, and there are some other regulatory efforts made to monitor fraudulent transaction-splitting, we can imagine it working.

Nothing I've read about the Radiant Citadel makes it seem any more economically absurd than The Shire, which is one of the most beloved of fantasy settings.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Nothing I've read about the Radiant Citadel makes it seem any more economically absurd than The Shire, which is one of the most beloved of fantasy settings.

Oh, crap. Break my heart: What's wrong with the Shire?

 

[pemerton]

Oh, crap. Break my heart: What's wrong with the Shire?

Not 100% sure if you're serious here - but the Shire has a material standard of living comparable to an early modern British village (food, clothes, metal goods, etc) although its size and geography suggest it should more closely resemble (say) an isolated Russian village or a Central African village in the same period. Whereas Britain was, in the early modern period, emerging as a centre of world trade and production, the Shire is in the middle of nowhere and depends upon the free services of the Rangers to maintain its splendid isolation.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Not 100% sure if you're serious here - but the Shire has a material standard of living comparable to an early modern British village (food, clothes, metal goods, etc) although its size and geography suggest it should more closely resemble (say) an isolated Russian village or a Central African village in the same period. Whereas Britain was, in the early modern period, emerging as a centre of world trade and production, the Shire is in the middle of nowhere and depends upon the free services of the Rangers to maintain its splendid isolation.

Huh. Fair.

Maybe Tom Bombadil somehow made this all possible, despite all evidence to the contrary.

 

[pemerton]

Maybe Tom Bombadil somehow made this all possible, despite all evidence to the contrary.

I've never really understood Tom Bombadil, but if one wants to make the fiction internally consistent this could be one way of doing it.

I tend to just ignore the economics (and the sociology - no actual human society with the sort of technologies JRRT describes has manifested the same sort of social stasis as he depicts) and enjoy the theology and romance.

 

[Micah Sweet]

"We decided to create a setting that leans into ideas of a collectivist utopia."

"But no society operating under the capitalist principles of rational self interest would ever look like that!"

Does that actually answer any of @Ixal 's questions?

 

[Ixal]

The way a real-world trade hub works is that traders from many placers bring their goods their and exchange them for mutual benefit. And then the hub charges transaction taxes, and/or service fees (eg for accommodation, for access to market places, etc), and the income from those taxes and fees supports life in the hub.

From the traders' point of view, they are losing some of their "in principle" profit, but that is the cost of dealing with an intermediary. (I mean, traders are themselves intermediaries between producers and consumers.)

I haven't read the Radiant Citadel book, but if the place is described as a trade hub, presumably it is working on more-or-less the model I've just described. Goods come in, goods go out, and the Citadel pays for itself out of the money earned by acting as an intermediary.

There are practical difficulties with levying a progressive tariff - for instance, traders have incentives to split their activities into smaller components to reduce their overall tax burden. On the other hand, that sort of disaggregation itself generates costs, and so if the progressive rates are set with those disaggregation costs in mind, and there are some other regulatory efforts made to monitor fraudulent transaction-splitting, we can imagine it working.

Nothing I've read about the Radiant Citadel makes it seem any more economically absurd than The Shire, which is one of the most beloved of fantasy settings.

Problem is there is no need for the Citadel as an intermediary as traders can simply take another portal out and are at the end of their trade route where they get much better prices thanks to lower taxes and also can take goods back instead of relying that the Citadel has something they need on sale at inflated prices thanks to taxes, thus increasing their profits.
Trade hubs tend to take low taxes to encourage trade. The Citadel does the opposite takes high taxes which is usually done to protect domestic products from competition.

The other problem is that the writer of the book did not understand how import taxes work and specifically calls out consumer goods the Citadel has to import like animal products to be taxed heavily which in the end only hurts your own people as they are the ones who have to pay the price. In some cases they even hurt themselves as everyone in the Citadel gets a basic income to support themselves with a dignified lifestyle, meaning the Citadel has to pay out more money in order for the people to pay increased prices because of taxes, negating the entire point of the high import taxes in the first place.
And when popular dishes in the Citadel includes saffron you know that they have to pay a lot of money because how else would the people living in the Citadel make money without any apparent form of industry in the city which lacks raw resources to make something and also heavily taxes any resources coming into the city which means any manufactured goods produced with them would be extra expensive and thus traders are unlikely to buy it as they can't profit from it.

 

[pemerton]

@Ixal, I can't comment on the portals you're referring to, although I thought someone upthread suggested that they don't exist in the setting?

But I don't find your other comments very persuasive. 18th and 19th century Britain was a trade hub that also had high tariffs on imported essentials (the Corn Laws). In principle, the money raised from those tariffs could have been used to support public welfare rather than the navy. The passage that @Whizbang Dustyboots quoted upthread seems to make it pretty clear that the rationale for high and progressive taxes is not to curb consumption, but to generate a public fund for providing widespread social support and social services. This is not an unknown idea in political economy!

 

[Irlo]

Problem is there is no need for the Citadel as an intermediary as traders can simply take another portal out and are at the end of their trade route where they get much better prices thanks to lower taxes and also can take goods back instead of relying that the Citadel has something they need on sale at inflated prices thanks to taxes, thus increasing their profits.

There are no portals.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Problem is there is no need for the Citadel as an intermediary as traders can simply take another portal out

There are still no portals.

Trade hubs tend to take low taxes to encourage trade. The Citadel does the opposite takes high taxes which is usually done to protect domestic products from competition.

As has been mentioned, we don't actually know the tax rates.

The other problem is that the writer of the book did not understand how import taxes work and specifically calls out consumer goods the Citadel has to import like animal products to be taxed heavily which in the end only hurts your own people as they are the ones who have to pay the price.

I believe the goal there, by the writers, is to suggest that a lot of the diet on the citadel is vegetarian in nature.

The citadel and the book in general are explicitly not trying to emulate medieval Europe by way of 1970s Midwestern America, as is typical of D&D.