Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Castles of the Inner Sea provides a detailed overview of six of Golarion's most storied citadels, bastions that might serve as the setting of entire adventures, homes to allies and enemies, or the headquarters of the land's most capable adventurers. Each features elaborate overview maps and detailed descriptions of the most noteworthy floors, structures, or dungeons. Famous and infamous castles explored in this 64-page book include: * Castle Everstand, a magically created bastion of heroic knights that protects Lastwall from endless tides of rampaging orcs. * Castle Kronquist, the haunted keep of a vampirc conqueror and his legion of ancient undead abominations. * The Cloud Castle of the Storm King, an elusive, soaring structure inhabited by a tempestuous clan of cloud giant wanderers. * Citadel Vriad, the infamous fortress of Varisia's Hellknights, a grim edifice from which the lawless never return. * Highhelm, an unbreechable mountain fortress that holds the capital of an entire dwarven nation. * Icerift Castle, ruins chilled by arctic cold and a tragedy that endlessly hungers for mortal life. Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Castles of the Inner Sea is intended for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the Pathfinder campaign setting, but can easily be used in any fantasy game setting.

The exciting world of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game comes alive in this giant 320-page, full-color hardcover campaign setting! Fully revised to match the new Pathfinder RPG rules, this definitive volume contains expanded coverage of the 40+ nations in the world of Golarion's Inner Sea region, from ruin-strewn Varisia in the north to the sweltering jungles of the Mwangi Expanse in the south to crashed sky cities, savage frontier kingdoms, powerful city-states, and everything in-between. A broad overview of Golarion's gods and religions, new character abilities, magic items, and monsters flesh out the world for both players and Game Masters. Plus, a beautiful poster map reveals the lands of the Inner Sea in all their treacherous glory.

Whether they're the starting points of incredible campaigns, communities facing unfathomable dangers, or merely places for adventurers to rest and resupply, vibrantly detailed towns are vital to any fantasy adventure. Towns of the Inner Sea explores six small but richly detailed settlements from the Pathfinder campaign setting. Each entry provides insights into the town's history, culture, and residents, as well as what dangers lurk in the shadows. Numerous adventure hooks, full-page maps, and stat blocks for key NPCs make these towns fully realized settings, ready for Game Masters to drop into campaigns whenever they're needed. This book contain details on the following distinctive towns: ►Diobel: What you can't get in Absalom, you can get in this notorious smuggler's port. ►Falcon's Hollow: Were monsters and curses not enough, the ambitions of this town's greedy overseers would still trap its residents in mud and sawdust. ►Ilsurian: Torn between rival city-states, this Varisian town bows to no master. ►Pezzak: This sheltered port defies the rulers of the devil-dominated nation of Cheliax, its rebel spirit burning strong despite its scheming overlords. ►Solku: This pious fortress-town faces constant threats from nearby gnoll tribes, and while its walls stand unbreached, none can say for how much longer. ►Trunau: Trapped on the wrong side of the border with the orcs of Belkzen, the citizens of this stronghold stand fast against savagery. Towns of the Inner Sea is intended for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the Pathfinder campaign setting, but can easily be used in any fantasy game.

Considering Castles and Tenshu -- Modern Castles on the Margins -- Overview: "from Feudalism to the Edge of Space" -- From Feudalism to Empire -- Castles and the Transition to the Imperial State -- Castles in the Global Early Modern World -- Castles and the Fall of the Tokugawa -- Useless Reminders of the Feudal Past -- Remilitarizing Castles in the Meiji Period -- Considering Heritage in Early Meiji -- Castles and the Imperial House -- The Discovery of Castles, 1877-1912 -- Making Space Public -- Civilian Castles and Daimyo Buyback -- Castles as Sites and Subjects of Exhibitions -- Civil Society and the Organized Preservation of Castles -- Castles, Civil Society, and the Paradoxes of "Taisho Militarism" -- Building an Urban Military -- Castles and Military Hard Power -- Castles as Military Soft Power -- Challenging the Military -- The military and Public in Osaka -- Castles in War and Peace: Celebrating Modernity, Empire, and War -- The Early Development of Castle Studies -- The Arrival of Castle Studies in Wartime -- Castles for town and country -- Castles for the empire -- From feudalism to the edge of space -- Castles in war and peace II: Kokura, Kanazawa, and the Rehabilitation of the -- Nation -- Desolate gravesites of fallen empire: what became of castles -- The imperial castle and the transformation of the center -- Kanazawa castle and the ideals of progressive education -- Losing our traditions: lamenting the fate of japanese heritage -- Kokura castle and the politics of japanese identity -- "Fukko": hiroshima castle rises from the ashes -- Hiroshima castle: from castle road to macarthur boulevard and back -- Prelude to the castle: rebuilding hiroshima gokoku shrine -- Reconstructions: celebrations of recovery in hiroshima -- Between modernity and tradition at the periphery and the world stage -- The weight of Meiji: the imperial general headquarters in hiroshima and the -- Meiji centenary -- Escape from the center: castles and the search for local identity -- Elephants and castles: odawara and the shadow of tokyo -- Victims of history I: Aizu-wakamatsu and the revival of grievances -- Victims of history II: Shimabara castle and the Enshrinement of loss -- Southern Barbarians at the gates: Kokura castle's struggle with authenticity -- Japan's new castle builders: recapturing tradition and culture -- Rebuilding the Meijo: (re)building campaigns in Kumamoto and Nagoya -- No business like castle business: castle architects and construction companies -- Symbols of the people? conflict and accommodation in Kumamoto and Nagoya -- Conclusions.

Slavery is back. America, 1962. Having lost a war, America finds itself under Nazi Germany and Japan occupation. A few Jews still live under assumed names. The 'I Ching' is prevalent in San Francisco. Science fiction meets serious ideas in this take on a possible alternate history.

THE STORY: The home of the Blackwoods near a Vermont village is a lonely, ominous abode, and Constance, the young mistress of the place, can't go out of the house without being insulted and stoned by the villagers. They have also composed a nasty s

Foreclosures are hitting record highs; unemployment is skyrocketing, and the economy is in shambles. Equally broke and futureless, 28-year-old James Brooke, a graduate architect, coffee-addict, and self-described average nobody has returned to his small hometown in West Ohio. Torn between his fanciful dreams and the need to pay off bills, he struggles to find his own identity while facing a harder-than-ever reality. But living under his father's rooftop while keeping his head in the clouds soon turns out to be a bad combination, and the mounting student debt forces him to settle for any job he can find. That's when he stumbles across a new coffee shop, a wayward girl with a talent for storytelling, and his own unresolved past. This unexpected set of things could help him figure out what his place in the world is-if that place even exists. Paper Castles is a story about the search for meaning in times when everything seems meaningless.