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There seem to be a fair few DM’s Guild books aimed at fleshing out the player experience in the Radiant Citadel. Last month, I reviewed Encounters in the Radiant Citadel; this month, it’s Radiant Citadel Enterprises by Elizabeth Van Couvering. Whereas Encounters was a book of encounters for players to drop into adventures and campaigns, Enterprises appears to be more of a fleshing-out of the business ecosystem of the Radiant citadel. Let’s take a look, eh?
I should state up front that A PDF review copy of this book was provided by the author, Elizabeth Van Couvering. No further payment was provided or promised and the views represented below are entirely my own. I also never promised to write any review.
In terms of content, Radiant City Enterprises promises to introduce us to 10 businesses. These businesses include shops, guilds, and others. Each business has its own profile with a list of associated items and services, profiles of some associated NPCs, adventure hooks for players, and more. Multiplying this content out across 10 distinct businesses means that the sheer amount of content packed into these 36 pages quickly mounts up. Among these businesses, there are shops (for general goods, arms & armour, clothing, perfumes, potions & poisons, and trinkets & curiosities), Services (a restaurant and a bar/nightclub), and other organisations (a society of cartographers, a monster hunters’ guild, and a surf club & tattoo parlour).
Each of the 10 enterprises detailed in the book receives 2 pages, with the exception of the trinkets and curiosities shop, The Quiet Spirit. This one needs an extra couple of pages to accommodate a lengthy D100 table. Each enterprise profile contains a brief description of the business and a key NPC that can be used in your interactions with the organisation. These tend to be the proprietors of the businesses, and there’s a pretty diverse range of characters on display.
My favourite character is probably Citlali Gallegos, the tiefling from the cover of the book. She runs the Freedom Fighter Fundamentals smithy. As with all of the NPC profiles, we get a physical description, a piece of art, some character motivations, something about their key skills or qualities, and a character-defining quote. For Vitali, this is “The battle for freedom is never over.” I suppose this captures both her fiery spirit and perhaps also a certain sense of relief, given her chosen profession! There are a couple more characters that I really like Barham Nasri of the Monster Hunters’ Guild is quite generic, but tropes become tropes because they generally work. A fighter/paladin type, he quests to avenge the death of his family and protect others from the predation of monsters. That said, he is still kind, open, and a good leader. He embodies commitment and generosity. Another cool character is The Hooded one, proprietor of the interesting and mysterious shop, The Quiet Spirit. The artwork for the character is really cool, and I like the theatrical appearance, imp familiar, and general air of unsettling mystery that surrounds them. I also love their flavour quote which reads, “So, you are drawn to that piece. Interesting”. I like the idea that you are being studied or measured up as you explore their shop.
All of the enterprises have at least some elements that I find interesting. Conceptually, I really like The Elemental Plate, a restaurant run by four elementals. It’s a fun concept, and there are four character profiles to describe each of the four elementals. The price list gives an idea of the sort of food and drinks they sell, adding some much-needed… flavour. Do… do you get it? Flavour? Because it’s a… yeah! I also like that there’s an adventure hook idea for each of the four elementals, depending on who the party ends up talking to, or can relate to the most.
The Quiet Spirit has an interesting air of mystery to it, and an expansive table of potential trinkets and items. I like these sorts of tables. My kid-focused D&D group seems to respond to these sorts of tables particularly well, so I might end up pinching this table for a future session.
In the profile for the Parfumerie Ætheréale, players get the option to train with the proprietor, Canna Brightbane. Players can pay some gold and dedicate downtime to developing proficiency with alchemist’s supplies, a herbalism kit, or a poisoner’s kit. In addition, there’s a chance at complications arising. This again takes the form of a table, and has outcomes such as Brightbane disappearing for a time, treating you poorly, roping you into dealing with problems, or causing comments or gossip among others in the community. This is a cool little addition to the process of developing proficiency in some pretty useful and interesting skills.
I think my favourite of the enterprises is the Cartographers’ Collective. Firstly, I like it on a conceptual level. A guild of mapmakers is a prospect that makes for some cool adventure hooks. There’s the potential goal (or gold-sink, depending on how generous you’ve been to your players) of Cartographers’ Collective membership and access to maps. There are a pair of compelling characters who can act as allies or, again, as potential sources of adventure hooks. There’s even a sample map in there. As a narrative tool, this is just a really useful enterprise with a lot of scope for expansion in your campaign.
The layouts used are pretty standard, with most pages following the typical 2-column setup with a few elements that straddle the full width of the page, and some art scattered around throughout. You can see a couple of sample pages on the DM's Guild page. On the topic of art, we’re not looking at the sort of consistency that we saw in publications like Dungeon Babies. Instead, we see a decent amount of art, but with quite different styles on display. There are no bad pieces, but there are certain pieces that I like a lot better than others. I’ve already mentioned the illustration of The Hooded One, but I also loved the illustration of the club performers on page 16. Other than the front cover (which is great!) this is probably my favourite bit of art in this book. The cover art, created by Vagelio Kaliva, is really fantastic. I like it a lot. The character looks great, and the workshop she’s in is detailed and interesting.
So what do I think of the book as a whole? Well, like Encounters in the Radiant Citadel, it’s a short PDF that takes an anthology-like approach and manages to squeeze in quite a lot of content. This particular book does contain a lot more transferrable content, though. Rather than bespoke, off-the-rack, self-contained adventures, this is a book of resources. These businesses can be taken and put into your own adventures, or you can take elements and weave them through your own stories and background. There are nine new magic items in the book. I like that one, the Dagger of Peace, actually adversely affects your abilities in combat. I also like the Revealing Candle, which shows any creature’s true form, bypassing illusions or disguising spells. I could see myself using this in my own games. In terms of monsters, there are three new statblocks for a Fire Spider, a Phase Rat, and a Ghost Dragon Wyrmling. All are pretty transferrable.
As a whole, the book works well. It fulfills everything it promises, is well thought-out, is visually attractive, and seems to be pretty well-written. I really like it.
You can click here to read my review in context and with images at NoRerolls.co.uk!
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