In case you didn't know, Dungeons and Dragons (commonly referred to as D&D or DnD) is a Fantasy Tabletop Roleplaying Game which was first published in 1974.
Although it's gone through a fair few rule changes over the years, the core premise has remained the same - a group of players create characters, form a party, and explore the world set out by the Dungeon Master (DM).
The DM basically acts as the game designer and the game engine, describing the world to the players, processing their actions, playing the role of any non-player characters they might meet, and running any combat encounters that might occur.
Now, when it comes to DMing a campaign you basically have two options. The first is to grab an official campaign printed by Wizards of the Coast and run that.
They usually take up between two and three hundred pages and contain everything you need to run an adventure for your players.
The second method is to run a campaign you've written yourself, and this is known as Homebrewing. You can keep it true to the official D&D settings or change everything to a custom setting - including the races and classes the players can play.
The latest entry by Wizards of the Coast aims to appeal to members of both schools of thought. It consists of thirteen short(ish) adventures which stand alone in their own right and can be inserted into your homebrew story to pad it out or can be strung together consecutively as one long campaign running from level 1 to level 14.
Wizards have released books of standalone adventures, but they've never done it in this format before. Each adventure involves the Radiant Citadel, an extraplanar refuge in the mists of the Ethereal Plane.
There are a thousand reasons your players might end up there, either in the short or long term. Although it connects to the Material Plane, it isn't accessible from everywhere - it's largely entered via the Concord Jewels, which are linked to set locations in the Material Plane.
This makes it a convenient way to connect locations in a campaign that you've written yourself or another pre-written campaign.
The players may find a Concord Jewel, travel to the Radiant Citadel, be given a task or find themselves wrapped up in something (one of the thirteen adventures which are level appropriate for them at the time), before exiting the citadel to another linked location to continue the main adventure.
I actually think this is a really artful and elegant way of doing things, and it's something that will definitely appeal to a lot of DMs. There is essentially one adventure for each level, with the exception of the first one which spans levels 1 and level 2.
This is all set out in a table at the start of the book, making it easy to grab and go. In addition, the book does a good job of condensing the setting into the first seventeen pages, meaning you don't have to read the whole book just to run one or two of the adventures contained within it.
Along with the campaign, I also received the upcoming Campaign Case: Creatures. This new case equips Dungeon Masters with 64 weighted plastic discs in three sizes (to represent different sizes of creatures), five sheets of illustrated creature clings, and a really great-looking storage carry case.
The clings stick to the discs (they're the same plastic material as a parking permit, which I admit is a strange analogy but hopefully it helps explain it) in a non-adhesive way, allowing you to reuse them countless times. Not only are there creatures, but also generic symbols and letters, making them an awesome way to bring your campaign to life on the battle map.
Campaign Case: Creatures definitely deserves an honourable mention here, as it's a perfect retail solution to something D&D players have been hacking for years.
Whether it's buying minis online or cutting out pieces of card and taping them to coins, we long to have situations laid out in front of us visually and Wizards have really hit the nail on the head with this. It's great quality, really well designed, and ticks all of my boxes.
I can see myself getting hundreds of hours of use out of this, and I really can't recommend it enough to anyone who can spare the money to buy it. I also look forward to getting my hands on the Campaign Case: Terrain, which will be released shortly after.
The adventures contained within Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel are bite-sized, requiring only basic preparation to run them. As someone who is generally prepping for sessions in the hours before, I can easily see myself grabbing this book and reading through one of the adventures before a session, and being ready to go with very little background work required.
This generally isn't the case with Wizards campaigns, since you need to know the finer details of where the story is headed right from the outset.
This will be a blessing for busy DMs since typically D&D books have to be read cover to cover more than once before use unless you're exceptionally familiar with the world.
While we're on the subject, Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel seems great for beginners - the early adventures are simple and fun, with a lot of emphasis on roleplaying and problem solving rather than complex encounters designed to oppress the players from the first minute (I'm looking at you Curse of Strahd).
It's also great for first-time DMs, since it doesn't swamp you with details and a complex story. It contains tips on how to play characters, both specifically and generally, and covers a lot of eventualities in case your players try to do something strange.
The adventures themselves are varied and fun, with the players being given quests ranging from resolving light-hearted conflicts between market vendors through whimsical contests, right through to preventing otherworldly forces from tearing the land apart.
Verdict: 5/5
At its heart, this book is just good old-fashioned D&D that's great for a group of beginners who have never played the game before but will also have something for even the most seasoned of Dungeon Masters.
Players battle dragons, settle ghosts, explore swamps, mines, and even the Feywilds, cure a curse threatening a city, search for a missing local champion, and even find themselves in a city ruled by angels.
Although the adventure revolves around the Radiant Citadel, it doesn't remain there - the Citadel is just a means of linking together all of these great moments. Each adventure introduces a new location, which can in itself lead to something else of your own creation. You could run each adventure consecutively, which would itself lead to a lengthy campaign, or you could use them as springboards for something bigger - the possibilities really are endless.
My only real disappointment is the lack of an optional overarching plot point. As someone who would probably look to run the adventures consecutively as one long campaign, I'd need to find some motivation for my players to remain in the Citadel and to partake in all of these adventures. It would have been good to have the first and last adventures somehow link together, or have an optional set of circumstances for this case.
I'd also like to have seen some new backgrounds, subclasses, or even races native to the Radiant Citadel - it seems a shame to create this whole new location but nothing exotic that the players can grab hold of.
Overall though, Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel is one of the most pleasant and ethereal Dungeons and Dragons books I've picked up in a long while. Despite its shortcomings, this book is an absolute must-own for any DM, and should likely be considered as the first port of call for anyone looking to get into being a versatile Dungeon Master.
Much like the Radiant Citadel itself, it's an absolute gem - a relic of ingenuity and collaboration that will delight visitors for years to come.
Dungeons and Dragons: Journey Through the Radiant Citadel is available digitally from July 19th 2022, with the physical hardback arriving in the UK on August 9th 2022. In addition, Campaign Case: Creatures is available for pre-order from local game stores and online retailers.
