Tome of Adventure Design PoD Softcover

Tome of Adventure Design PoD Softcover
Author: Frog God Games
Publisher:
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2020-07-17
Genre:
ISBN: 9781943067367

A fantasy adventure game, at its very heart, is about developing an open-ended "story" of the characters. The referee is in charge of the fantasy world, and the players direct the actions of their characters in that fantasy world. Neither the referee nor the group of players has complete control over what's going to happen, and the result is an evolving set of surprises for both the referee and the players. Unlike the players, as the referee and creator of the game world, most of your "work" is done ahead of time. To some degree or other, you have to create the groundwork for the adventure before the game starts. Even though no battle plan survives contact with the enemy - and if you're an experienced referee you know exactly what I mean - the game has to start ... with a starting point. This might just be a vague set of ideas, or it might be as complex as a set of maps with a detailed key and well thought-out encounters for the players to run into. The Tome of Adventure Design is organized as a series of "books," each one providing resources at every step of the way. The vast majority of the content of each book is made up of random generation tables that we created over a quarter of a century (sigh) for our own use. It shoud be said up front that these are tables for deep design - in other words, most of them are too long, and contain too many unusual or contradictory entries, for use on the spot at the gaming table. There are already many excellent books of tables for use on the fly; the tables in these books are different. They work best as a tool for preparation beforehand, providing relatively vast creative resources for browsing and gathering, rather than quick-use tables designed to provide broad, fast brushstrokes. Our shorter tables tend to deliver cryptic results designed to shock the reader's creativity into filling in the gaps, whereas the longer tables are unusably vast for easy random generation, being designed to shock the reader's creativity into operation by presenting a sea of possibilities.

Lands of Lost Borders

Lands of Lost Borders
Author: Kate Harris
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2018-01-30
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 034581679X

NATIONAL BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE RBC TAYLOR PRIZE WINNER OF THE EDNA STAEBLER AWARD FOR CREATIVE NON-FICTION "Every day on a bike trip is like the one before--but it is also completely different, or perhaps you are different, woken up in new ways by the mile." As a teenager, Kate Harris realized that the career she most craved--that of a generalist explorer, equal parts swashbuckler and philosopher--had gone extinct. From her small-town home in Ontario, it seemed as if Marco Polo, Magellan and their like had long ago mapped the whole earth. So she vowed to become a scientist and go to Mars. To pass the time before she could launch into outer space, Kate set off by bicycle down a short section of the fabled Silk Road with her childhood friend Mel Yule, then settled down to study at Oxford and MIT. Eventually the truth dawned on her: an explorer, in any day and age, is by definition the kind of person who refuses to live between the lines. And Harris had soared most fully out of bounds right here on Earth, travelling a bygone trading route on her bicycle. So she quit the laboratory and hit the Silk Road again with Mel, this time determined to bike it from the beginning to end. Like Rebecca Solnit and Pico Iyer before her, Kate Harris offers a travel narrative at once exuberant and meditative, wry and rapturous. Weaving adventure and deep reflection with the history of science and exploration, Lands of Lost Borders explores the nature of limits and the wildness of a world that, like the self and like the stars, can never be fully mapped.

Icarus at the Edge of Time

Icarus at the Edge of Time
Author: Brian Greene
Publisher: Knopf
Total Pages: 33
Release: 2008
Genre: Icarus (Greek mythology)
ISBN: 0307268888

A futuristic reimaging of the classic Greek myth, as a boy ventures through deep space and challenges the awesome power of black holes. The beauty of the book lies in the images, provided by NASA and the Hubble Space telescope, and printed on board rather than paper.

Once Upon a Broken Heart

Once Upon a Broken Heart
Author: Stephanie Garber
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Total Pages: 357
Release: 2021-09-28
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1250268389

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! ONCE UPON A BROKEN HEART marks the launch of a new series from Stephanie Garber about love, curses, and the lengths that people will go to for happily ever after For as long as she can remember, Evangeline Fox has believed in true love and happy endings . . . until she learns that the love of her life will marry another. Desperate to stop the wedding and to heal her wounded heart, Evangeline strikes a deal with the charismatic, but wicked, Prince of Hearts. In exchange for his help, he asks for three kisses, to be given at the time and place of his choosing. But after Evangeline’s first promised kiss, she learns that bargaining with an immortal is a dangerous game — and that the Prince of Hearts wants far more from her than she’d pledged. He has plans for Evangeline, plans that will either end in the greatest happily ever after, or the most exquisite tragedy.

Crossroads of Twilight

Crossroads of Twilight
Author: Robert Jordan
Publisher: Tor Fantasy
Total Pages: 623
Release: 2010-07-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1429960744

The Wheel of Time is now an original series on Prime Video, starring Rosamund Pike as Moiraine! In Crossroads of Twilight, the tenth novel in Robert Jordan’s #1 New York Times bestselling epic fantasy series, The Wheel of Time®, Rand al'Thor and his allies endure trials by fire amidst battles, sacrifices, and treachery. Fleeing from Ebou Dar with the kidnapped Daughter of the Nine Moons, whom he is fated to marry, Mat Cauthon learns that he can neither keep her nor let her go, not in safety for either of them, for both the Shadow and the might of the Seanchan Empire are in deadly pursuit. Perrin Aybara will stop at nothing to free his wife Faile from the Shaido Aiel. Consumed by rage, he offers no mercy to those he takes prisoner. And when he discovers that Masema Dagar, the Prophet of the Dragon, has been conspiring with the Seanchan, Perrin considers making an unholy alliance. Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn himself, has cleansed the Dark One's taint from the male half of the True Source, and everything has changed. Yet nothing has, for only men who can channel believe that saidin is clean again, and a man who can channel is still hated and feared—even one prophesied to save the world. Now, Rand must gamble again, with himself at stake, and he cannot be sure which of his allies are really enemies. Since its debut in 1990, The Wheel of Time® by Robert Jordan has captivated millions of readers around the globe with its scope, originality, and compelling characters. The last six books in series were all instant #1 New York Times bestsellers, and The Eye of the World was named one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read. The Wheel of Time® New Spring: The Novel #1 The Eye of the World #2 The Great Hunt #3 The Dragon Reborn #4 The Shadow Rising #5 The Fires of Heaven #6 Lord of Chaos #7 A Crown of Swords #8 The Path of Daggers #9 Winter's Heart #10 Crossroads of Twilight #11 Knife of Dreams By Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson #12 The Gathering Storm #13 Towers of Midnight #14 A Memory of Light By Robert Jordan and Teresa Patterson The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time By Robert Jordan, Harriet McDougal, Alan Romanczuk, and Maria Simons The Wheel of Time Companion By Robert Jordan and Amy Romanczuk Patterns of the Wheel: Coloring Art Based on Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Out Of Control

Out Of Control
Author: Kevin Kelly
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 666
Release: 2009-04-30
Genre: Science
ISBN: 078674703X

Out of Control chronicles the dawn of a new era in which the machines and systems that drive our economy are so complex and autonomous as to be indistinguishable from living things.

Ex Libris

Ex Libris
Author: Ross King
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2013-06-30
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1448189608

Responding to a cryptic summons to a remote country house, London bookseller Isaac Inchbold finds himself responsible for restoring a magnificent library pillaged during the English Civil War, and in the process slipping from the surface of 1660s London into an underworld of spies and smugglers, ciphers and forgeries. As he assembles the fragments of a complex historical mystery, Inchbold learns how Sir Ambrose Plessington, founder of the library, escaped from Bohemia on the eve of the Thirty Years War with plunder from the Imperial Library. Inchbold's hunt for one of these stolen volumes - a lost Hermetic text - soon casts him into an elaborate intrigue; his fortunes hang on the discovery of the missing manuscript but his search reveals that the elusive volume is not what it seems and that he has been made an unwitting player in a treacherous game.

The Age of Em

The Age of Em
Author: Robin Hanson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 522
Release: 2016
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0198754620

Robots may one day rule the world, but what is a robot-ruled Earth like? Many think that the first truly smart robots will be brain emulations or "ems." Robin Hanson draws on decades of expertise in economics, physics, and computer science to paint a detailed picture of this next great era in human (and machine) evolution - the age of em.

Collecting the Art of G. I. Joe

Collecting the Art of G. I. Joe
Author: R. Carson Mataxis
Publisher:
Total Pages: 62
Release: 2015-07-15
Genre:
ISBN: 9780996578608

This 62 page 8"x11" celebration of the painted art of G.I.Joe: A Real American Hero features every carded figure, vehicle, playset, poster and peripheral product featuring painted art released from 1982-1983. This soft cover book features 100# paper and an epic card stock AccuFoil 11"x16" wraparound cover!

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
Author: Christopher Paolini
Publisher: Tor Books
Total Pages: 848
Release: 2020-09-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250762901

Now a New York Times and USA Today bestseller! Winner of Best Science Fiction in the 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards! To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is a brand new epic novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eragon, Christopher Paolini. Kira Navárez dreamed of life on new worlds. Now she's awakened a nightmare. During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira finds an alien relic. At first she's delighted, but elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move. As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a galaxy-spanning odyssey of discovery and transformation. First contact isn't at all what she imagined, and events push her to the very limits of what it means to be human. While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity's greatest and final hope . . . The Fractalverse Series To Sleep in a Sea of Stars Fractal Noise At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.