Airports Bendigo used to think his biggest problem was that he was named for a road sign. That was before he was magically transported to the realm of Albemarle where creatures of fantasy are real, and Earth is just a myth known only to wizards. Now his greatest challenge is finding a way to defeat an evil warlock, slay a vampire warlord, and rescue a kidnapped princess. And if that’s not enough, it all has to be done in a week! A manageable task, perhaps, for the greatest of sorcerers; but how can a thirteen-year-old boy hope to succeed? And how will he keep secret the fact that he has no powers when everyone thinks he’s a specialty wizard conjured to save them all?
Taking a fresh look at arcane magic in the D&D game, this guide provides new ideas that put arcane magic into the hands of the players and Dungeon Masters in interesting ways. It also provides new types of feats, spells, warlock invocations, prestige classes, and magic items for characters that cast arcane spells.
This volume introduces three new magic subsystems for the D&D game. They introduce new base classes and spellcasting mechanics, and include new feats, prestige classes, magic items, and spells.
From the bestselling, award-winning author of 1491 and 1493—an incisive portrait of the two little-known twentieth-century scientists, Norman Borlaug and William Vogt, whose diametrically opposed views shaped our ideas about the environment, laying the groundwork for how people in the twenty-first century will choose to live in tomorrow's world. In forty years, Earth's population will reach ten billion. Can our world support that? What kind of world will it be? Those answering these questions generally fall into two deeply divided groups--Wizards and Prophets, as Charles Mann calls them in this balanced, authoritative, nonpolemical new book. The Prophets, he explains, follow William Vogt, a founding environmentalist who believed that in using more than our planet has to give, our prosperity will lead us to ruin. Cut back! was his mantra. Otherwise everyone will lose! The Wizards are the heirs of Norman Borlaug, whose research, in effect, wrangled the world in service to our species to produce modern high-yield crops that then saved millions from starvation. Innovate! was Borlaug's cry. Only in that way can everyone win! Mann delves into these diverging viewpoints to assess the four great challenges humanity faces--food, water, energy, climate change--grounding each in historical context and weighing the options for the future. With our civilization on the line, the author's insightful analysis is an essential addition to the urgent conversation about how our children will fare on an increasingly crowded Earth.
This is a first-of-its-kind step-by-step guide that will help you produce genuine results in magic and become an actual wizard, witch, or necromancer. This book will grant you an understanding of the many forgotten mysteries of the occult. Since the beginning of time, the command of the divine has served as a leading source of debate in the Bible, history, and the deep learnings of life. In this unique book, we teach you the secrets of magic and the occult based on the Scripts of Osari The Wise (a real wizard from the late 1800s). Learn his secrets behind chaos magic, white magic, Druidism, witchcraft, and necromancy. The contents include: Secret understandings of the soul, magic, and meditation The practice of dark and white magic, exorcism, and Druidism A list of books you must read to develop the wizard in you The languages of wizards and witches A guide to wizards? meditation and mana regeneration How to practice witchcraft, necromancy, and wizardry Creating spells, potions, and magical symbols How to create your own magic staff, magic wand, and ring of power And much more... Full of rules, principles, tips, and techniques to help you become a wizard, witch, or necromancer, this book is for everyone who wishes to practice real Magic, and understands the difference between a real wizard and a fake one. Included are paragraphs from the unreleased "The Scripts Of Osari The Wise," which were suppressed and nearly destroyed by the Catholic Church in the early 1900s.
The sequel to The Warrior Heir by New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Cinda Williams Chima. Sixteen-year-old Seph McCauley has spent the past three years getting kicked out of one exclusive private school after another. And it's not his attitude that's the problem: it's the trail of magical accidents—lately, disasters—that follow in his wake. Seph is a wizard, orphaned and untrained, and his powers are escalating out of control. After causing a tragic fire at an after-hours party, Seph is sent to the Havens, a secluded boys' school on the coast of Maine. At first, it seems like the answer to his prayers. Gregory Leicester, the headmaster, promises to train Seph in magic and initiate him into his mysterious order of wizards. But Seph's enthusiasm dampens when he learns that training comes at a steep cost, and that Leicester plans to use his students' powers to serve his own wicked agenda. In this companion novel to The Warrior Heir, everyone's got a secret to keep: Jason Haley, a fellow student who's been warned to keep away from Seph; the enchanter Linda Downey, who knew his parents; the rogue wizard Leander Hastings; and the warriors Jack Swift and Ellen Stephenson. The only question is: Does Seph have the strength to survive this wizard war?
Life-like characters is one of the most exciting technologies for human-computer interface applications today. They convincingly take the roles of virtual presenters, synthetic actors and sales personas, teammates and tutors. A common characteristic underlying their life-likeness or believability as virtual conversational partners is computational models that provide them with affective functions such as synthetic emotions and personalities and implement human interactive behavior. The wide dissemination of life-like characters in multimedia systems, however, will greatly depend on the availability of control languages and tools that facilitate scripting of intelligent conversational behaviour. This book presents the first comprehensive collection of the latest developments in scripting and representation languages for life-like characters, rounded off with an in-depth comparison and synopsis of the major approaches. Introducing toolkits for authoring animated characters further supports the ease of use of this new interface technology. Life-like characters being a vibrant research area, various applications have been designed and implemented. This book offers coverage of the most successful and promising applications, ranging from product presentation and student training to knowledge integration and interactive gaming. It also discusses the key challenges in the area and provides design guidelines for employing life-like characters.
Necromancy has been forbidden in the Five Kingdoms for centuries, its secrets erased from existence... until now. High Prince Henry's dark mage, Dredmort, has discovered a myhical artifact that will provide him with the power to unleash an ancient evil not seen in Anoria for centuries. Khaldun lost his parents to the plague when he was only a child. The wayfarer sorcerer, Nomad, has raised him and trained him to be a wizard like his father. He's reached an age where most mages would go off to the university to continue their studies, but they won't admit him because he's a wayfarer. Living in the shadow of his father's legacy, Khaldun longs to prove himself; when the opportunity arises, will he be equal to the task? Mira grew up with the wayfarers, but her mother sent her to a faraway holding to live with her father many years ago. But she despised the constraints of the highborn life, and yearned for the freedom of the wayfarers. Older now, she's chosen to return to the troupe, immediately rekindling her relationship with Khaldun. Although Mira's also a mage, her powers have taken a strange turn--making her a target for the high prince. But the very night that Mira returns, their world is turned upside down. When soldiers pursue a rogue messenger through their camp, Khaldun and Mira find themselves drawn into a conflict that could forever alter the future of the continent. Henry is now poised to plunge Anoria into darkness and despair; can Khaldun and Mira stop him before it's too late? Wizard is the first book in the Mage Saga, an epic fantasy series. If you like sword-and-sorcery fantasy, filled with magic and mystery, adventure and suspense, then The Mage Saga will keep you on the edge of your seat, wanting more!
