Your heroes come alive in the capital of N’wari, and it’s a festive atmosphere. It’s time for the March of Vice, a carnival-like celebration where the fun-lovers throw their sins and vices into the sea. It is loud and colourful. There’s street food and rides and a huge Mardi Gras-style parade. And then they travel on a dead body.
This is the original hook for “Ways of Vice”, written by D&D Adventure of Fifth Level. TK Johnson in the future Journey through Radiant Citadel, Throughout the adventure, players will face betrayals, political assassinations, threats from a liberal ruling class, a greedy new guildmaster, labor organizers and a vampire Boo Haag.
The Radiant Citadel, a vast floating city in the heart of the ethereal plane, provides the launching point for new voices in the world of D&D. Radiant Citadel was long ago founded by people from 27 different civilizations, mysteriously abandoned, and then rediscovered by 15 of those civilizations. The city itself is a lively setting, but it also links to the Material Plane through something called the Concorde Jewels that connect the Radiant Citadelle to newcomers and D&D’s official settings yet to be discovered.
Image: KNIIO / Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast welcomes writers to bring their stories here Radiant Citadel And celebrate their “living legacy and that of our communities, not only racial but cultural as well,” Johnson said. Everything from the festival to the setting of Boo Haag to Alive and Navarri draws inspiration from Johnson’s own family history in places like Louisiana and the Caribbean, along with Gullah Geechi folklore.
“I was very happy to be on a project where we got to celebrate our identity instead of building it up as another,” Johnson told Polygon. “I’m so excited for all these new settings.”
The Adventures of Johnson is a story of unsolved murders set against a backdrop of greed, power and control. The quest for the “vice of vice,” as Johnson put it, “is how far people go to indulge in their faults.” While the capital city of Zinda has thrived and flourished through the export of a unique plant, a new guildmaster named Madame Samira has risen to the ranks of the city’s ruling class, the Kings of Coin. His connection to that plant, his creation, and the lure of the archetype alive, along with Samira’s own personal misery, set the backdrop for the adventure. The rulers, to whom Madame Samira has joined, “put their family’s legacy at stake for just a little money and power.” It will be up to the adventurers to tackle the murders as well as a Haitian-inspired vampire known as the Vampire.
Image: Ijiwa “Edge” Ebenebe / Wizards of the Coast
But “Ways of Vice” doesn’t have to be solved through retaliatory killing and violence. everywhere Radiant CitadelK Adventures, the author wanted to stay away from punching problems until they were fixed. Johnson explained, “One of the great things we talked about as a whole writing group is that there are many ways in which our adventures can be solved without violence. Most adventures involve solving them. There are non-violent alternatives to it.”
Johnson wants “Wage of Vice” to fit Radiant CitadelBig solarpunk and hoppunk themes of optimism and community. Sure, D&D might be “a box of knives you’re given to solve every problem,” but Johnson says they wanted to avoid it where they could. “Even if Samira and the Kings of Coin are trying to use this to their advantage, you don’t have to.”
Journey through the Bright Citadel Arriving July 19th in stores and online, and hardcover copies cost $44.99. It will also be available in digital formats for $29.99, including Roll 20, Fantasy Grounds, and through the D&D Beyond toolset.
