Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel
Cover art by Evyn Fong
Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel is a collection of thirteen adventures for Dungeons & Dragons that can be played individually or as a loose campaign using an extraplanar location, The Radiant Citadel, as the hub connecting various lands where the adventures take place. The adventures are short and provide enough variety in gameplay and character levels that they can easily be used in any existing campaign or as one-shot adventures. But, the true strength of this book is that it thinks outside the box about D&D adventures. The settings are refreshingly not European-styled lands but rather pull from other parts of our world bringing along touchstones of the cultures that might be found there. Some adventures are more roleplay-heavy, others are more exploration-heavy. Some are mysteries relying on the characters to figure out exactly what is really happening, others are event-based and things will happen as the story progresses requiring the characters to react. Most have at least one combat encounter to spice things up a bit. This is also an excellent book to keep in your DM Toolkit for putting together a quick game or for kit-bashing pieces into something else.
The Radiant Citadel
The Radiant Citadel is a hub location with lots of potential. Situated in the Ethereal Plane, it allows for quick access to 15 lands scattered across the multiverse of the Prime Material Plane. People from these 15 lands freely come and go to this place and many who seek refuge find it here. It is a melting pot but also a bit of societal forum where ideas are exchanged and refined then brought back to their homelands.
Because of the multiple cultures that interact here, the governing body is representative of each and strives for a positive, enlightened, and inclusive ideal. Crime is first met with rehabilitation rather than punishment, governance is transparent and ever-evolving, and basic needs are provided for all. This is very idyllic, but the writers do leave the door open for politics, factions, and drama. It is highly utopian, but not perfectly utopian.
There is also the opportunity to expand the Radiant Citadel if you choose. The history of the Citadel states that there were once 27 lands that connected to the Citadel but the other twelve have been lost and are sought after. This itself could be its own campaign mixed in with the adventures found in the book.
The Lands
The lands of the Radiant Citadel are not whole worlds, but rather nations, regions, and kingdoms found throughout the Prime Material Plane. They could all be on the same Prime world or they could be across a dozen prime worlds. The writers leave that up to the DM to decide. This is refreshing because so often when the idea of planar travel is presented, the tendency is to paint with a broad stroke. We often see tv series (especially in the sci-fi genre) where explorers and travelers move from world to world and everyone on that world is of the same culture. That is clearly not the case here. Most of the lands are small portions of a larger landmass which may be or may not be one of many on that world. Each adventure takes place in a different land and is concluded with a small gazetteer about that land. There's enough to flesh it out, give you some hallmarks to run with and then everything else is in your own imagination.
The cultures of these lands echo a wide variety of non-European real world cultures but are then layered onto some of the D&D cultures as well. For example, in the first-level adventure Salted Legacy the entire adventure takes place in an Asian-style night market but deals with a feud between two rival families of vendors, one kobolds and the other gnomes. You get the influence of the Asian culture while still firmly sitting in a D&D world. This is the correct way to use non-European cultures in your games without making them stereotypical or appropriating that culture.
The Adventures
Each adventure is relatively short and many of them can be played in a single session or two. They work very well as one-shots or as a loose campaign of episodic adventures. Each one is written from the perspective that the players are outsiders who have recently traveled to the land where it is set and must navigate the nuances of the local peoples as they investigate the story.
There are suggestions for how the players arrive at the land from the Radiant Citadel along with a couple of tips for placing the land in existing official campaign settings (usually Forgotten Realms and one other world.) From there, a kit-bashing DM could use these suggestions on where to set this in their own homebrewed world.
The adventures provide enough variety in play styles that there should be an adventure or two that suits each player's tastes. From political intrigue to monster hunting, this book does a great job of showing diversity in play. These adventures are not heavy on combat encounters. There's usually one or two. This makes scaling them relatively simple if you are prone to do so.
The Worldbuilding Wrap-up
I already mentioned a few ways where a DM could take the ideas, concepts, and elements of Radiant Citadel and make them their own. The book itself is very modular, utilizing the Quest Hub model with the Radiant Citadel itself. The lands can easily be dropped into any world as is or they can be weaved into the setting. The monsters are interesting and the NPCs are diverse and unique. Don't be afraid to borrow any of this and make it your own.
Lastly, here at DMing the World, I strive to point out ways to incorporate the real world into your RPG games. This can be done haphazardly by turning one common trope or element into a stereotype that poorly represents that culture. This book shows the correct way to use real-world cultures in your RPGs. It's not about one shallow element but the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, art, music, history, and beliefs of those cultures. Blending all of that together makes for a deeply fascinating place to hang your story. I highly recommend picking this collection of D&D adventures up.
