Rime is a wild mage. She can bend the very fabric of reality, but at a cost - a cost to her health and her sanity. Her power is unstoppable but it leaves her empty, weak, and often unconscious. Jonas is a squire on the run - running away from the shadow of murder. They travel together to find the one person that can save Rime from the wild magic, from the inexorable madness and death that comes to those who are born to ignore the rules of the universe. The Gray Witch of the Wheelbrake Marsh, a creature out of a fairy tale. The anti-epic fantasy, the nascent genre of SWORDPUNK: Fantasy Action A La Carte. Earnestly written in the shadow of Lieber and Moorcock. Love the book/ hate the book? www.spell-sword.com
A painted sword is their only protection from evil sorcery, strange creatures, and enemy forces. On the spell-crossed Phaer Isle, teenage Xemion dreams of being a great swordsman. When he finds a blade-shaped stick, he fashions it to look like a real sword. Knowing that the laws of their cruel Pathan conquerors would require a death sentence for possession of such an object, his friend Saheli demands he destroy it. He agrees, but insists on performing just one sword ceremony. When his mastery of the weapon, a skill long forgotten, is witnessed by a mysterious man named Vallaine, the two friends are invited to join a planned rebellion. At first they refuse, but when a sadistic official discovers their transgressions, they are forced to flee their home and embark on a dangerous journey to the ruins of the ancient city of Ulde, where rebel forces are gathering. Armed with only their wits and the painted sword, they face Thralls, Triplicants, dragons, rage-wraiths, and a host of other spell-crossed beings. As they approach the Great Kone, source of all spell-craft, Saheli’s fear of magic and Xemion’s attraction to it bind them in a crossed spell of their own — one that threatens to separate the two forever.
Although Darkover was a world inhabited by humans as well as semi-humans, it was primarily forbidden ground to the Terran traders. Most of the planet's wild terrain was unexplored, and many of its peoples seclusive and secretive. But for Andrew Carr there was an attraction he could not evade. Darkover drew him - and when his mapping plane crashed in unknown heights, Darkover prepared to destroy him. Until the planet's magic asserted itself - and his destiny began to unfold along lines predicted only by phantoms and wonder workers of the kind Terran science could never acknowledge.
Max and Olivia have discovered that Morgana Le Fay is plotting to use a mysterious 'swordspell' against King Arthur. They don't know what the spell is or how to stop it, and Olivia also has her training for the Squire's Challenge to worry about. But things are made even worse when Merlin is called away unexpectedly, leaving Max and Olivia without his magical protection. With the help of Sir Lancelot, Sir Bertram, Adolphus the dragon, Ferocious the rat and Vortigern the duck, the Pendragon children must quickly uncover Morgana's evil plan before it is too late for Arthur and Camelot. Join Max and Olivia for more magical fun in their fourth hilarious adventure!
A practical guide to the famed medieval book of pre-kabbalistic Jewish magic, freshly interpreted and revealed for the first time with instructions on how to use the spells. The Sword of Moses is one of the earliest Jewish magic books, which describes a rite for adjuring angels to assist in controlling and wielding the "Sword of Moses" for magical purposes. The rite involves a short period of purification and then the adjuring of four sets of angels, each higher than the last. These angels in turn give the magician the power to control the Sword through a series of divine names that work as magical spells. The spells, 137 in all, have a wide variety of uses, including healing, harm, love, sex, exorcising demons, divination, and more. This work was first translated by Moses Gaster in 1896, but he removed many of the spells, making the text unusable for magic. The Magic of the Sword of Moses is the first book to show in detail, exactly how a magician can use the Sword—how to do the purification ritual, adjure the angels, and pronounce and use the divine names for each spell.
Bhaal sat on his most prized possession, a golden and ivory throne bought with the money he had earned during the adventures of his youth. It rose up from the floor like the stump of a once magnificent tree. Two huge armrests flanked each side of the seat, fanning out at the top to end in a smooth flat surface. Gold, etched with runes, spiraled and swirled through the structure everywhere. The sides were as the bark of a tree, rippled and pitted as if worn by time and water damage. The back reached up high enough to support his slender shoulders and bent back into a curl like the edge of aged parchment. Bhaal, however, was in stark contrast to the throne. His once statuesque body had wasted away. He was nothing more than skin and bones. The stench of his breath was that of a carcass. The dark black orbs that were his eyes stared straight ahead from his skull into the hallway before him. He had the look of someone seeing into eternity. A tarnished bronze crown sat on filthy, dusty black hair. His tunic had rotted away to nothing more than tatters. A rusted shirt of chain mail rested upon it, torn away at the waist. His leather breeches had dry rotted away from the knees down. A rusted chain skirt covered his thighs. Its links were broken and jagged at the seams. High top plate boots, rusted from years of neglect, covered his feet. The heavy coating of dust upon him told those who looked at him that he had not moved in years. It was hard to tell that Bhaal was still alive, but alive he was. He had somehow managed to live far beyond his own time, existing without eating or moving. The physicians had given up long ago on trying to figure out what it was that kept him so. Theologians had inspected him. Philosophers debated his refusal to die in his present state. In truth, he had not spoken in twenty years, even though the wilderness and upstart usurpers carved away at his vast empire until all he still owned was the small town of Nineveh that rested at the base of his small keep. And then there was the sword. An elegant bronze and Damascus steel broadsword reaching up from the base of the throne to the palm of Bhaals hand. Its point made a gouge in the floor. Red rubies adorned the hilt and pommel, and even through years of non-use the whole sword was immaculately polished and clean. It was the sword that had carved out Bhaals once mighty empire, and thousands of legends were attributed to the revered artifact. Forged from pure dark iron found only on the plains of the Abyss, it was rumored to have dispatched more than one daemon from existence.
The nine martial disciplines presented in this supplement allow a character with the proper knowledge and focus to perform special combat maneuvers and nearly magical effects. Information is also included on new magic items and spells and new monsters and organizations.
The sixth book in the Sword-Dancer saga continues the legendary adventures of Tiger and Del, magic wielders and skilled warriors The South had always been Tiger’s home. Left as an infant to die in the desert, his real origins were unknown. When he won his freedom from the tribe who enslaved him by slaying a deadly sandtiger, he joined the elite brotherhood of Southron sword-dancers, swearing a lifelong oath to abide by their code of honor. Del was a woman of the North. She had seen her family brutally murdered and her brother carried away to the South to be sold into slavery. Motivated by revenge, she studied with the greatest of Northern sword-masters and became the deadliest sword-singer in the North. Together these two legendary fighters had forged an unlikely partnership of equals, sharing adventures, danger, and eventually love. But when Tiger forfeited an important sword dance to rescue Del, he broke his sworn code of honor—and his sentence was death. Fugitives from both the North and the South, Tiger and Del flee to the distant island of Skandi. Tiger has been told he resembles the people who comes from this remote land, and now, Tiger seeks his true identity. But Skandi proves no safe haven. Abducted by priest-mages, altered in mind and body, Tiger is forced to acknowledge that he possesses his own special brand of magic. A personal magic that carries its own price: Tiger will only have ten or twelve more years to live. But as Tiger and Del struggle to escape, Tiger’s long-dormant power begins to manifest. He falls victim to visions he cannot dismiss, dreams of a dead woman luring him into the crystal sands of the Punja, the South’s deadliest desert. “Find me,” she bids him, “and take up the sword.” Initially, Tiger rebels, refusing the siren song of his dreams. But at last, helpless to deny the compulsion in his own blood, Tiger must accept his magic and his fate. Yet can he avoid paying the terrible price that they threaten to extract?
He's a part-time Imperial hero, full-time thief. Lucky for him, she's not that kind of Inquisitor. Illusionist and novice spy Alan Campbell just got out of one relationship only to have another woman walk into his life: the Lady Camilla Favonius of the Imperial Inquisition. He's close to broke and left without orders. She wears plate armor in the field and around her heart. Is the lady just what the Plague Doctor ordered, or will his efforts to get a job and woo her only leave him jaded...or dead? From the city of Harrowick to the perilous depths of the Grass Sea, Alan will have to fight a corrupt syndicate, earn his place in the Thieves' Union, and face down monsters and the risen dead if he wants a happy ending. All the while, in the real world, Robert Osmark is as close to losing his company as he's ever been, and both Sandra and Jeff will have to pick sides once the battle lines are drawn. Brazen thievery, Death caught off-balance, the Dawn Elves' dirty secret, and unexpected love in Inquisitor's Foil, the third book of the Illusionist series. From James A. Hunter-author of Viridian Gate Online, Rogue Dungeon, War God's Mantle, and the Yancy Lazarus Series-and D.J. Bodden, author of The Black Year Series, comes an epic new entry into the Expanded Universe of Viridian Gate Online that you won't want to put down!
