Playing With Dragons

Caught in traffic. Trapped in a cubicle. Stuck in a rut. Tangled up in red tape. In the real world, sometimes you feel powerless—but not in Dungeons & Dragons (D & D). In this fantasy-adventure, you have all kinds of special powers. You can slay the evil dragon, overcome the orc or the ogre, haunt the werewolf, and triumph over sinister trolls. You venture into strange realms, encounter strange creatures, and use magical powers. Your character grows and develops with every adventure. With this guide, you can learn the ins and outs of D & D and start playing right away. Dungeons & Dragons For Dummies gives beginners the basics of the complex game and helps experienced players fine-tune their roleplaying. It guides you through: Creating your character (a powerful fighter, a sneaky rogue, a crafty sorcerer, or a charismatic cleric), and character advancement The races: humans, dwarves, elves, and halflings The types of character actions: attack rolls, skill check, and ability checks The 6 abilities: strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, charisma Feat requirements and types Playing the game, including moving in combat, attacking with a weapon (melee attacks or ranged attacks), and damage and dying Picking skills, armor, weapons, and gear Choosing spells if your character is a sorcerer or domains for a cleric Building encounter or combat strategies and using advanced tactics Maximizing your character’s power with the acquisition of the right magic items: armor, weapons, potion, scroll, ring, wand, staff, rod, plus wondrous items D & D game etiquette Becoming a Dungeon Master There’s even a sample play session that walks you through typical play, gets you comfortable using the battle grid and character markers, lets you test player characters against each other and against monsters, and shows you how to add story elements to create an adventure. Produced in partnership with Wizards of the Coast, written by D & D game designers, and complete with a battle grid, a sample dungeon map, and a glossary, this guide arms you with the knowledge to create and equip a character and empowers you to enter the captivating, fascinating world of D & D.

There be dragons all over the Bible. From the great sea monsters of Genesis to the great dragon of Revelation, dragons appear as the Bible opens and closes, and they pop their grisly heads up at various junctures in between. How did they get there and what on earth (or indeed in heaven) are they doing there? This is a book for those who find standard discussions of faith and suffering frustrating. Andy Angel opens up the rich biblical tradition of living with God in the midst of suffering. He takes the reader on a journey of exploration through biblical texts that are often overlooked on account of their strangeness--texts about dragons. He shows how these peculiar passages open up a language of prayer through suffering in which people share their anger, weariness, disillusionment, and even joy in suffering with God. Angel explores how such "weird" Scriptures open up a whole new way of praying and reveal a God who approves of honest spirituality, a spirituality that the Bible holds open but too many of its interpreters do not.

How to Train Your Dragon: To Berk and Beyond! features all the fan-favorite characters from the acclaimed films. Follow Hiccup and Toothless on their daring adventures with this interactive scrapbook packed with removable items, posters, activities, and more. Before Hiccup became chief and Toothless the Alpha of the dragons, Berk’s most famous Dragon-Racing pair kept a notebook filled with thoughts and observations on inventions, mapmaking, and the bond between dragon and rider. Or that was the plan until every Viking on the island decided to add their comments and drawings, too. Now new Dragon Riders everywhere can learn to read their dragon’s mind with Ruffnut and Tuffnut, decipher runes with Snotlout, and even chart a journey across the islands with an exact replica of Hiccup’s map. The notebook even includes a collectible set of Gobber’s own Dragon-Racing figures! So take flight with your favorite dragon and start exploring in DreamWorks Dragons: To Berk and Beyond! Includes: 8 standing punch-out figures A replica of Hiccup’s map Dragon airmail postcards Hiccup’s invention sketches Collectible dragon cards Create-your-own-dragon stickers DreamWorks Dragons © 2015 DreamWorks Animation LLC. All Rights Reserved.

A beautifully tender story touching on the range of emotions immigrants may feel when leaving their home countries – excitement and sorrow, fear and courage. Anita watches the dragons high above her as she hops from one cement roof to another in her village in the Dominican Republic. But being the valiant princesa she is, she never lets them scare her. Will she be brave enough to enter the belly of the beast and take flight to new adventures? A Barnes & Noble Bookseller Favorite. A BookTrust Book of the Month. A Love Reading For Schools Book of the Month. “A gorgeous story about the love of one’s homeland and the courage it takes to emigrate”—Kirkus Reviews, STARRED “Anita's courage as she flies off with the dragons to a new land will linger long after the final page”—Girls Read The World “What a punch this book packs. Hannah Carmona’s lyrical narrative is paired with THE dreamiest artwork by Anna Cunha – I’m obsessed with the color palette, and the gentle simplicity of her spreads is calming, yet full of energy”—The Little Literary Society

Harkness, a medieval peasant with a millennial’s mindset, is quite happy to sit back and make quips while everyone else does the hard work. His calculated laziness is interrupted when the gods send an ancient and terrible scourge-by-dragonfire upon his village, and he is forced (peer-pressured, really) into trying to save his fiancée from the dragon who has kidnapped her. When Harkness is sent by the village elder to find the one weapon that is capable of killing the beast, his real plan is to go off on his own and use his village’s money to live the high life. This, of course, would require ditching his two companions: Karla, an aspiring troubadour whose passion makes up for her lack of adventuring skills, and Aldric, whose kindheartedness does not make up for his lack of intelligence. Harkness sees this journey as a paid vacation under the pretense of world-saving, but it quickly turns serious when he realizes what’s at stake when he is forced to actually care about something—or at the very least, pretend to.

Walk the line between magic and madness in this thrilling tale of identity, intrigue, and obsession set in the classic City of Splendors Tennora Hedare would give anything to be a wizard, but her well-to-do family has other plans for her future—and they're far more befitting of a lady. But when a mysterious, blue-eyed woman comes to Waterdeep, making fantastical claims, a life of excitement and magic is suddenly within Tennora's grasp. The woman, named Nestrix, offers her a bargain: She will help Tennora achieve her dreams if, in turn, Tennora will help return her to her true form as a legendary blue dragon. However, soon after Tennora seals the deal, a bounty hunter insists that Nestrix is no dragon, but a real human—a violent, criminally insane human who murders anyone who fails her. Now questioning with whom she should place her trust, Tennora begins to realize that the price of adventure and magic is danger unlike any she has ever imagined. The God Catcher is the fifth book in a series of standalone novels set in Watedeep.