The seven shards of the Shattered Star have been recovered, and the Pathfinders prepare a grand festival on Magnimar's Irespan to celebrate this incredible achievement. The culmination of this celebration is to be the reassembly of the seven shards into the legendary Sihedron itself, rebuilt for the first time in over ten thousand years. But a lot can change in that amount of time, and as the ritual to reforge the artifact finishes, ancient contingencies rumble to life, and as the dead heart of Thassilon begins to beat once again, all of Magnimar is put in terrible danger. With the power of the Sihedron on their side, the heroes take a stance against this risen evil -- but will the aid of an ancient artifact be enough to save them all? The final chapter in the Shattered Star Adventure Path, The Dead Heart of Xin is a Pathfinder Roleplaying Game adventure for 15th-level characters. This volume also includes an essay on the ancient Runelords of Thassilon, complete with threads that reach to the modern day, plus new monsters fill the Pathfinder Bestiary and Bill Ward's Pathfinder Journal fiction concludes its exploration of the seedy underbelly of the scoundrel haven of Riddleport.

"The seven shards of the Shattered Star have been recovered, and the Pathfinders prepare a grand festival on Magnimar's Irespan to celebrate this incredible achievement."--Back cover

As the heroes track the Cultists of the Whispering Way through the fog-shrouded streets of Caliphas, they lose their quarry -- but a dark patron rises with offers of aid and insights into the cult's ultimate evil. He asks only in return that the adventurers put an end to a murderer terrorizing the city's vampires. This leads the heroes into an underworld of endless night, where they must explore the vampires' deadly society and indulge its blasphemous traditions if they're to discover who's murdering the undead. What they uncover is a conspiracy of blood, and a union of evils willing to risk both life and undeath in the pursuit of ever-lasting youth A Pathfinder Roleplaying Game adventure for 11th-level characters, this volume continues the Carrion Crown Adventure Path, drawing on themes of classic horror stories and RPG adventures long-awaited by Pathfinder players. This volume also includes a gazetteer of the city of Caliphas, revelations of Urgathoa (Pathfinder's Goddess of the Undead), five terrifying new monsters in the Pathfinder Bestiary, new fiction in the Pathfinder's Journal, and much more

Varisia has been destroyed! Runelord Alaznist's alteration of the past has thrown the frontier nation into chaos, devastated cities, resurrected demon lords, and worse. The Runelord of Wrath is now primed to seize control of a ruined realm, so that she can remake it into a New Thassilon with herself as its furious queen. Only one desperate plan can set things right-a band of heroes must discover a method to travel back in time and repair the damage their enemy has wrought on history, but can they make the sacrifices necessary for victory? This adventure allows the heroes to reach the absolute height of power, but even the potent options gained at 20th level may not be enough for the party to survive the furious might of Runelord Alaznist in her seat of power! This volume of Pathfinder Adventure Path concludes the Return of the Runelords Adventure Path and includes: - "Rise of New Thassilon," a Pathfinder RPG adventure for 17th-level characters, by Greg A. Vaughan. - A brief exploration of how the Return of the Runelords Adventure Path will change Golarion in the future, including the first-ever map of the empire of Thassilon as it stood before the devastation of Earthfall, by James Jacobs. - A bestiary of monsters, including undead salamander forgemasters, living landslides, the mysterious hallowed lynxes used by runelords as pets and guardians, a planar dragon from the tumultuous Maelstrom, and the immense Great Old One Mhar itself, by John Compton, Andrew D. Geels, Lyz Liddell, Luis Loza, and David Schwartz.

This book is a cognitive semantic study of the Chinese conceptualization of the heart, traditionally seen as the central faculty of cognition. The Chinese word xin, which primarily denotes the heart organ, covers the meanings of both "heart" and "mind" as understood in English, which upholds a heart-head dichotomy. In contrast to the Western dualist view, Chinese takes on a more holistic view that sees the heart as the center of both emotions and thought. The contrast characterizes two cultural traditions that have developed different conceptualizations of person, self, and agent of cognition. The concept of "heart" lies at the core of Chinese thought and medicine, and its importance to Chinese culture is extensively manifested in the Chinese language. Diachronically, this book traces the roots of its conception in ancient Chinese philosophy and traditional Chinese medicine. Along the synchronic dimension, it not only makes a systematic analysis of conventionalized expressions that reflect the underlying cultural models and conceptualizations, as well as underlying conceptual metaphors and metonymies, but also attempts a textual analysis of an essay and a number of poems for their metaphoric and metonymic images and imports contributing to the cultural models and conceptualizations. It also takes up a comparative perspective that sheds light on similarities and differences between Western and Chinese cultures in the understanding of the heart, brain, body, mind, self, and person. The book contributes to the understanding of the embodied nature of human cognition situated in its cultural context, and the relationship between language, culture, and cognition.

Mutually assured destruction has led to decades of peace between humanity and the Trisolarans, but a new force is awakening and this delicate balance can no longer hold... Half a century after the Doomsday Battle, the uneasy balance of Dark Forest Deterrence keeps the Trisolaran invaders at bay. Earth enjoys unprecedented prosperity due to the infusion of Trisolaran knowledge. With human science advancing daily and the Trisolarans adopting Earth culture, it seems that the two civilizations will soon be able to co-exist peacefully as equals without the terrible threat of mutually assured annihilation. But the peace has also made humanity complacent. Cheng Xin, an aerospace engineer from the early twenty-first century, awakens from hibernation in this new age. She brings with her knowledge of a long-forgotten program dating from the beginning of the Trisolar Crisis, and her very presence may upset the delicate balance between two worlds. Will humanity reach for the stars or die in its cradle? Death's End is the New York Times bestselling conclusion to Cixin Liu's tour-de-force series that began with The Three-Body Problem. "The War of the Worlds for the twenty-first century . . . Packed with a sense of wonder." --The Wall Street Journal "A meditation on technology, progress, morality, extinction, and knowledge that doubles as a cosmos- in-the-balance thriller." --NPR The Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy The Three-Body Problem The Dark Forest Death's End Other Books Ball Lightning (forthcoming)

"The seven shards of the Shattered Star have been recovered, and the Pathfinders prepare a grand festival on Magnimar's Irespan to celebrate this incredible achievement."--Back cover