The official hardcover release of one of the most popular 5th Edition Tabletop RPG supplements of all time, the Compendium of Forgotten Secrets: Awakening features hundreds of new options for players and game masters alike! 50 Full-Color Illustrations, 34 Player Subclasses, Over 100 new spells, feats, and invocations, Top Rated by Popular Vote
Apply and defend against all manner of kicks, sweeps, leg locks, leg checks and kick checks by learning to master the lost study of plum flower posts. It's time to rediscover the forgotten secrets to harnessing and wielding the power of the plum flower posts in combat. The missing link for training the Wing Chun stance, this book helps intermediate students and practitioners reach the highest levels of proficiency, teaching leg skills, sticking skills, good positioning, and checking and immobilization skills. The plum flower posts consist of 11 posts--10 wooden gerk jong, or legwork posts, and one mok yan jong, or wooden man post. Together, they complete a set called the moy fa jong. The wooden dummy trains practitioners to protect the upper centerline by applying hard techniques with proper distance, position, and leg control, while the gerk jong are designed and placed to train all elements of legwork and manage the lower centerline. A valuable training tool for any and all styles and families of Wing Chun, mastering the posts ensures that you never lose a fight due to lost balance or bad positioning; fall from leg sweeps, leg locks, or leg checks; or miss the knockout because of poor distance or knockout power. Comprehensively written and supplemented with 180 full-color illustrations and photos, Wing Chun Plum Flower Posts is an essential resource for Wing Chun students, practitioners, and teachers looking to expand their knowledge base and skill set.
The Egyptologist acclaimed for re-dating the Great Sphinx at Giza sets his sights on one of the true mysteries of antiquity: the Great Pyramid of Giza. What is the Great Pyramid of Giza? Ask that basic question of a traditional Egyptologist, and you get the basic, traditional answer: a fancy tombstone for a self-important pharaoh of the Old Kingdom. This, Egyptologists argue, is the sole finding based on the data, and the only deduction supported by science. By implication, anyone who dissents from this point of view is unscientific and woolly-minded-a believer in magic and ghosts. Indeed, some of the unconventional ideas about the Great Pyramid do have a spectacularly fabulous ring to them. Yet from beneath the obvious terms of this controversy, a deeper, more significant question arises: how is it that the Great Pyramid exercises such a gripping hold on the human psyche- adding cryptic grace to the back of the one-dollar bill and framing myriad claims of New Age "pyramid power"? In Pyramid Quest, Robert M. Schoch and Robert Aquinas McNally use the rigorous intellectual analysis of scientific inquiry to investigate what we know about the Great Pyramid, and develop a stunning hypothesis: This ancient monument is the strongest proof yet that civilization began thousands of years earlier than is generally thought, extending far back into a little-known time. In tracing that story, we come to understand not only the Great Pyramid but also our own origins as civilized beings.
The real history of the New World and the visitors, from both East and West, who traveled to the Americas long before 1492 • Provides more than 300 photographs and drawings, including Celtic runes in New England, Gaelic inscriptions in Colorado, and Asian symbols in the West • Reinterprets many archaeological finds, such as the Ohio Serpent Mound • Reveals Celtic, Hebrew, Roman, early Christian, Templar, Egyptian, Chinese, and Japanese influences in North American artifacts and ruins As the myth of Columbus “discovering” America falls from the pedestal of established history, we are given the opportunity to discover the real story of the New World and the visitors, from both East and West, who traveled there long before 1492. Sharing his more than 25 years of research and travel to sites throughout North America, Carl Lehrburger employs epigraphy, archaeology, and archaeoastronomy to reveal extensive evidence for pre-Columbian explorers in ancient America. He provides more than 300 photographs and drawings of sites, relics, and rock art, including Celtic and Norse runes in New England, Phoenician and Hebrew inscriptions in the Midwest, and ancient Shiva linga and Egyptian hieroglyphs in the West. He uncovers the real story of Columbus and his motives for coming to the Americas. He reinterprets many well-known archaeological and astronomical finds, such as the Ohio Serpent Mound, America’s Stonehenge in New Hampshire, and the Crespi Collection in Ecuador. He reveals Celtic, Hebrew, Roman, early Christian, Templar, Egyptian, Chinese, and Japanese influences in famous stones and ruins, reconstructing the record of what really happened on the American continents prior to Columbus. He also looks at Hindu influences in Mesoamerica and sacred sexuality encoded in archaeological sites. Expanding upon the work of well-known diffusionists such as Barry Fell and Gunnar Thompson, the author documents the travels and settlements of trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific explorers, miners, and settlers who made it to the Americas and left their marks for us to discover. Interpreting their sacred symbols, he shows how their teachings, prayers, and cosmologies reveal the cosmic order and sacred landscape of the Americas.
In his extraplanar tower, the devious lich Valda has started a grim collection: heroes of every stripe from across the world, petrified in marble and arranged by speciality. The mad lich has nearly cracked it: twenty-two types of adventurer and counting.Arrayed within this book is the greatest expansion of rules and character options ever brought to 5th Edition D&D. Build never-before-seen characters with new races, classes, feats and more, appropriate for any setting and any story.Whether you're the Game Master or a player looking for new options, this book is a must-haveat your table. It includes: ? 5 brand new races? 59 new feats? 137 new spells? Exotic weapons and magic items? Brand new familiars
Jonathan Kellerman has distinguished himself as the master of the psychological thriller. Now L.A. psychologist-detective Alex Delaware confronts a long-unsolved murder of unspeakable brutality—an ice-cold case whose resolution threatens his survival, and that of longtime friend, homicide detective, Milo Sturgis. The nightmare begins when Alex receives a strange package in the mail with no return address. Inside is an ornate album filled with gruesome crime scene photos—a homicide scrapbook entitled The Murder Book. Alex can find no reason for anyone to send him this compendium of death, but when Milo views the book, he is immediately shaken by one of the images: a young woman, tortured, strangled, and dumped near a freeway ramp. This was one of Milo’s first cases as a rookie homicide cop: a vicious killing that he failed to solve, because just as he and his training partner began to make headway, the department closed them down. Being forced to abandon the young victim tormented Milo. But his fears prevented him from pursuing the truth, and over the years he managed to forget. Or so he thought. Now, two decades later, someone has chosen to stir up the past. As Alex and Milo set out to uncover what really happened twenty years ago, their every move is followed and their lives are placed in jeopardy. The relentless investigation reaches deep into L.A.’s nerve-centers of power and wealth—past and present. While peeling back layer after layer of ugly secrets, they discover that the murder of one forgotten girl has chilling ramifications that extend far beyond the tragic loss of a single life. A classic story of good and evil, sacrifice and sin, The Murder Book is a gripping page-turner that illuminates the darkest corridors of the human mind. It is a stunning tour de force. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Victims.
Alchemy and the Philosophers' Stone are real. This is not a joke or a scam. This book covers the full theory and practice of alchemy and how to make the Philosophers' Stone, capable of reversing the aging process and curing all disease to the effect that one could live forever. This is an ancient secret which has never before been publicly released. Please read the book before making any judgement on it; this world is not what it seems to be.
A boy arrives at a remote village in the dead of night. His name is Ludlow Fitch—and he is running from a most terrible past. What he is about to learn is that in this village is the life he has dreamed of—a safe place to live, and a job, as the assistant to a mysterious pawnbroker who trades people's deepest, darkest secrets for cash. Ludlow's job is to neatly transcribe the confessions in an ancient leather-bound tome: The Black Book of Secrets. Ludlow yearns to trust his mentor, who refuses to disclose any information on his past experiences or future intentions. What the pawnbroker does not know is, in a town brimming with secrets, the most troubling may be held by his new apprentice.
A 12-year-old boy, mourning the death of his mother, takes refuge in the myths and fairytales she always loved--and finds that his reality and a fantasy world start to meld.