A new line of massive monsters debuts with this menacing black dragon. A fearsone dragon hearalds the arrival of the new Dungerons & Dragons(R) Icons product line! Part of the D&D(R) miniatures Game portfolio, these new, non-randomized figures portray the larger side of the Dungeons & Dragons creature collection. These limited edition monsters are proportionally sized per D&D roleplaying rules to be either Gargantuan (4"x4"base) or Colossal (6"x6" base). These preminum figures will only be available to collect for a limited time after each release.
From the creator of the popular blog The Monsters Know What They’re Doing comes a compilation of villainous battle plans for Dungeon Masters. In the course of a Dungeons & Dragons game, a Dungeon Master has to make one decision after another in response to player behavior—and the better the players, the more unpredictable their behavior! It’s easy for even an experienced DM to get bogged down in on-the-spot decision-making or to let combat devolve into a boring slugfest, with enemies running directly at the player characters and biting, bashing, and slashing away. In The Monsters Know What They’re Doing, Keith Ammann lightens the DM’s burden by helping you understand your monsters’ abilities and develop battle plans before your fifth edition D&D game session begins. Just as soldiers don’t whip out their field manuals for the first time when they’re already under fire, a DM shouldn’t wait until the PCs have just encountered a dozen bullywugs to figure out how they advance, fight, and retreat. Easy to read and apply, The Monsters Know What They're Doing is essential reading for every DM.
“As the book’s subtitle indicates, Mr. Ziegler uses one of the world’s great rivers as a vehicle to pursue this story—and what a vehicle it is. . . . [He] writes beautifully, and with the fervor of a naturalist.” —The Wall Street Journal “The writing is superb . . . a true labour of love, Black Dragon River is a triumph.” —The Spectator Black Dragon River is a personal journey down one of Asia’s great rivers that reveals the region’s essential history and culture. The world’s ninth largest river, the Amur serves as a large part of the border between Russia and China. As a crossroads for the great empires of Asia, this area offers journalist Dominic Ziegler a lens with which to examine the societies at Europe's only borderland with east Asia. He follows a journey from the river's top to bottom, and weaves the history, ecology and peoples to show a region obsessed with the past—and to show how this region holds a key to the complex and critical relationship between Russia and China today. One of Asia’s mightiest rivers, the Amur is also the most elusive. The terrain it crosses is legendarily difficult to traverse. Near the river’s source, Ziegler travels on horseback from the Mongolian steppe into the taiga, and later he is forced by the river’s impassability to take the Trans-Siberian Railway through the four-hundred-mile valley of water meadows inland. As he voyages deeper into the Amur wilderness, Ziegler also journeys into the history of the peoples and cultures the river’s path has transformed. The known history of the river begins with Genghis Khan and the rise of the Mongolian empire a millennium ago, and the story of the region has been one of aggression and conquest ever since. The modern history of the river is the story of Russia's push across the Eurasian landmass to China. For China, the Amur is a symbol of national humiliation and Western imperial land seizure; to Russia it is a symbol of national regeneration, its New World dreams and eastern prospects. The quest to take the Amur was to be Russia’s route to greatness, replacing an oppressive European identity with a vibrant one that faced the Pacific. Russia launched a grab in 1854 and took from China a chunk of territory equal in size nearly to France and Germany combined. Later, the region was the site for atrocities meted out on the Russian far east in the twentieth century during the Russian civil war and under Stalin. The long shared history on the Amur has conditioned the way China and Russia behave toward each other—and toward the outside world. To understand Putin’s imperial dreams, we must comprehend Russia’s relationship to its far east and how it still shapes the Russian mind. Not only is the Amur a key to Putinism, its history is also embedded in an ongoing clash of empires with the West.
Harkness, a medieval peasant with a millennial’s mindset, is quite happy to sit back and make quips while everyone else does the hard work. His calculated laziness is interrupted when the gods send an ancient and terrible scourge-by-dragonfire upon his village, and he is forced (peer-pressured, really) into trying to save his fiancée from the dragon who has kidnapped her. When Harkness is sent by the village elder to find the one weapon that is capable of killing the beast, his real plan is to go off on his own and use his village’s money to live the high life. This, of course, would require ditching his two companions: Karla, an aspiring troubadour whose passion makes up for her lack of adventuring skills, and Aldric, whose kindheartedness does not make up for his lack of intelligence. Harkness sees this journey as a paid vacation under the pretense of world-saving, but it quickly turns serious when he realizes what’s at stake when he is forced to actually care about something—or at the very least, pretend to.
Melville’s Moby Dick unfolds in a world of dragon hunters in Black Leviathan, an epic revenge fantasy from German award-winning author Bernd Perplies. Beware! A shadow will cover you, larger than that cast by any other dragon of this world. Black as the lightless chasm from whence it was born at the beginning of time. In the coastal city Skargakar, residents make a living from hunting dragons and use them for everything from clothing to food, while airborne ships hunt them in the white expanse of a cloud sea, the Cloudmere. Lian does his part carving the kyrillian crystals that power the ships through the Cloudmere, but when he makes an enemy of a dangerous man, Lian ships out on the next vessel available as a drachenjager, or dragon hunter. He chooses the wrong ship. A fanatic captain, hunts more than just any dragon. His goal is the Firstborn Gargantuan—and Adaron is prepared to sacrifice everything for revenge. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
From the author of The Monsters Know What They’re Doing comes a follow-up strategy guide with MOAR! monster tactics for Dungeon Masters playing fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Keith Ammann’s first book based on his popular blog, The Monsters Know What They’re Doing, unpacks strategies, tactics, and motivations for creatures found in the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. Now, in MOAR! Monsters Know What They’re Doing, he analyzes the likely combat behaviors of more than 100 new enemies found in Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes. Your campaign will never be the same!
Chronicles modern racial profiling developed by New Jersey State Troopers that was used against minority motorists on the New Jersey Turnpike, also known as the Black Dragon. Also covers the war between black and white troopers and the New Jersey Senate hearings into the profiling and how that resulted in the impeachment of a New Jersey Supreme Court justice.
A small but mighty book for the world's greatest roleplaying game filled with unique monsters, rich lore, and player options based on a novel line of neutral dragons
Discover everything there is to know about dragons—the most iconic of D&D monsters—in this quintessential reference guide. Meet Fizban the Fabulous: doddering archmage, unlikely war hero, divine avatar of a dragon-god—and your guide to the mysteries of dragonkind. What is the difference between a red dragon and a gold dragon? What is dragonsight? How does a dragon’s magic impact the world around them? This comprehensive guide provides Dungeon Masters with a rich hoard of tools and information for designing dragon-themed encounters, adventures, and campaigns. Dragonslayers and dragon scholars alike will also appreciate its insight into harnessing the power of dragon magic and options for players to create unique, memorable draconic characters. Introduces gem dragons to fifth edition! Provides Dungeon Masters with tools to craft adventures inspired by dragons, including dragon lair maps and detailed information about 20 different types of dragons Adds player character options, including dragon-themed subclasses for monks and rangers, unique draconic ancestries for dragonborn, additional spell options, and a feat Presents a complete dragon bestiary and introduces a variety of dragons and dragon-related creatures—including aspects of the dragon gods, dragon minions, and more Reveals the story of the First World and the role the dragon gods Bahamut and Tiamat played in its creation and destruction
An art-filled sourcebook for all things draconic in the Dungeons & Dragons world, this title includes information on playing dragons and dragon-like creatures, how to run a dragon in a fight, and how to both fight dragons and work with them as allies. The book itself is designed in a prestige format, with heavy use of art throughout and constructed of premium materials. (Games/Gamebooks/Crosswords)
