Like the Tales from the Yawning Portal and Candlekeep Mysteries books published before it, Journeys through the Radiant Citadel is a collection of adventures for Dungeons & Dragons players to enjoy. These adventures are perfect for dragging and dropping into an ongoing homebrew campaign or officially published campaign sourcebook. Another similar feature of Journeys is in its offering of a location hub for player characters to set out from: The Radiant Citadel.
Of the three books, the Radiant Citadel is the most extensive location hub yet. The Radiant Citadel is a city of immigrants that floats through the foggy mists of the Ethereal Plane, a ray of light that stands in spite of the Ethereal's unknown terrors, and a common meeting ground for travelers from far and strange worlds. In a book named after a location as grand as this, surely there are more such places inside that deserve our undivided attention.
7 Yeonido (Sins Of Our Elders)
Yeonido is a city surrounded by a curving wall that consists of a number of different districts. It can be found in the Sins of our Elders adventure. Notable places inside the town include The Tea Shop, the beautiful Estate Gardens, and the beautiful public space that is the Park of the Elders.
However, what really brings Yeonido to life are the familial clans of noble dragonborn that rule here. Garbed in elegant, flowing Asian-themed robes, the clans of Yeonido make up a structured society in which love is bound by the tethers of familial duty. It's the perfect location for exploring emotional, heartfelt stories of love, duty, social hierarchy, and the heavy weight that might lie on the hearts of those born into nobility.
6 Twin Gods Observatory (Trail Of Destruction)
The Twin Gods Observatory is an over 200-foot tall tower that's home to a number of scholars known as the Watchers of the Ashes. Standing in the shadow of a looming volcano, this tower serves as a perfect point for its scholars to keep note of the happenings of the volcanic environment nearby.
The real reason for mentioning this observatory though comes from the adventure inspiration it provides. During the adventure Trail of Destruction, player characters begin to explore the tower only for seismic activity to suddenly topple it while they and a number of scholars are still inside. From there, it's a dash for the player characters to save as many of the Watchers as they can (including their leader who roosts at the tower's apex) before the observatory comes crashing down.
5 Forest Of Hands (In The Mists Of Manivarsha)
The Forest of Hands is yet another adventure location ripe for inspiring Dungeon Masters to create similar environments of their own. This area is a swampy forest that is filled with the region's notorious angul trees: plants that stink like an old carcass and drip a bright red sap that looks like blood.
Furthermore, the angul trees' leaves are long and narrow like fingers sticking out from the branches. It's amazing how three simple details such as this can breathe a boatload of life into an environment. With these three details, what could have just been another forest adventure has now transformed into a unique and memorable tromp through a spooky, albeit natural, environment.
4 Flames Everlasting Skybridge (Between Tangled Roots)
This skybridge is built from the bones of Dragons that are capable of flying like snakes slithering through water. Consequently, the bridge stretches miles through the sky over hills and sea connecting an ordinary travelway to an island that would otherwise be difficult to reach.
The bridge stretches so far that the adventure it's featured in even provides a small random encounter table for travelers making their way across it. After all, a bridge positioned a hundred feet over a gigantic body of water seems like a ripe place for a combat encounter to me.
3 Secret Grotto (Buried Dynasty)
Buried Dynasty is a take on the classic trope of the NPC providing the quest being the true villain all along. However, it does add a considerable amount of nuance to this claim as the villain's alignment is True Neutral and she only ultimately betrays the characters in order to preserve the peace within a centuries-old dynasty. What is the cost of a couple of foreigners' lives in comparison to the stability of an entire country?
In this well-wrought adventure, the Secret Grotto is the location to which the PCs are teleported upon being betrayed. Inside, the PCs are met with an endless army of stone warriors that can only be defeated by finding the secret trigger to the room's closed door. Assuming they survive, the PCs then encounter all of the information that explains the betrayal of the NPC who hired them as well as provides an encounter with a chained gold Dragon that serves to show the desperation of their employer.
2 The Drought Elder (Orchids Of The Invisible Mountain)
This shattered husk of an ancient leviathan worm drifts through the thick soup of the Far Realm: a place no mortal should ever visit. The Far Realm is home to aberrations, madness, and illogical things. It is a place where time nor gravity exists, and it lies on the outside of reality. To put it simply, it is utter chaos.
In this soupy haven of chaos, the Drought Elder's floating body provides an incredible adventure location for PCs to explore. As the characters move through the Elder's cavernous body, they are attacked by creatures that have made the place their home. Eventually, the PCs must make their way to the worm's head where its lifeless jaws still clench the item they seek.
1 The Radiant Citadel
Last but not least is, of course, the Radiant Citadel itself. The Citadel is made up of tiers of land filled with city structures that jut out from the Auroral Diamond that floats through the Ethereal Plane. This indestructible, incredible gemstone provides everything that the city's inhabitants need, including water, life, energy, and even incarnate collections of gemstones that take the shapes of animals and represent the desires, hopes, and values of each distant land to which the Radiant Citadel is linked.
Additionally, the Citadel is home to the Concordant Jewels that flit about it and allow for travel to and from this hallowed place. Other notable locations include the House of Convalescence where resurrection magic requires no components, the Palace of Exile where refugees from other worlds recuperate, and more. Needless to say, the Radiant Citadel can function perfectly as the home base for any adventuring campaign, but especially one interested in visiting many worlds.
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