The world is not only Awakened -- it's wired. Cyber and bioware implants make your meat body better-than-flesh, while the wireless Matrix enhances your perceptions with hyper-real senses. Deals are made in steel and lead more often than gold or nuyen; success and failure live only a razor's edge apart. Creatures of myth and legend walk the streets, while the arcane skills of spellslingers are in high demand. Above it all, monolithic megacorps bleed the world dry, sabotaging each other in covert cutthroat competition as they go to war over the bottom line You're a shadowrunner, a street operative, scratching out a living on the mean sprawl streets. You may be human, elf, dwarf, ork or troll. From lethal street samurai to well-connected info brokers, spell-slinging mages or code-cracking hackers. No matter what, you're a -- professional corporate pawn or "deniable asset," -- you get the job done. Shadowrun, Fourth Edition offers a completely new rules system that is simple, integrated and accessible. The state-of-the-art has also been advanced, introducing a new level of augmented reality, new gear, new magical discoveries, and more. This hardcover rulebook contains all the rules gamemasters and players need to create characters and ongoing adventures set in the popular Shadowrun universe. Note that the Shadowrun, Fourth Edition will replace the Shadowrun, Third Edition rules set. Source material from previous editions will still be compatible.

    Imprisoned for mass-murder, he escapes with the help of two strange men and a mysterious benefactor. Unfortunately for Drake, they don’t just want a piece of the action. They want it all. Gift Horse: Mutilated by rival convicts, Marco Vance is brought back from the brink of death. Outfitted with the latest cybernetic enhancements, he returns to the Regional Atlanta Metroplex as the conquering criminal kingpin. But, his savior demands that he deliver a message to repay his debt. A message that no one will forget.Money Is Everything: Street gangs hunt a deposed crime boss carrying a case of cash. Pursued and friendless, he can trust no one. Except someone he can buy. Luckily, Noose the genetically engineered dwarf mercenary is always for hire. But, what is his price?Total length about 15,000 words.Includes a free 8000 word excerpt of the full-length novel DEAD DWARVES DON'T DANCE.

    Is it the power of summoned demons? An application of the Blood's mystic properties? The will of spirits? Or is it something else altogether? Only those who master its dark secrets can know.Hidden Lore RevealedBlood Magic: Secrets of Thaumaturgy provides the answers to long-asked questions about this most powerful of Kindred Disciplines and explores a gamut of new possibilities. Included in the book are new paths and rituals as well as details on the lesser known but similar arcane practices. What is it about Thaumaturgy that has allowed the Tremere to ascend to prominence in the modern nights? This book examines the answer.Blood Magic: Secrets of Thaumaturgy includes: A complete look at Thaumaturgy, from its dark origins to its modern practice; A wealth of new paths and rituals; Other path and ritual systems like Necromancy and Koldunic Sorcery

    The truth is magic'ae the universe can be crafted with a simple working of your will. Mages have taught this truth throughout the ages, but the proponents of technology have crushed the mystic masters. Join the last stand in the war for reality.Mage: The Ascension places you in the midst of supernatural intrigues and inner struggles. The more secrets you learn, the more important your wisdom and power become. Mage drags spirituality and metaphysics screaming through the streets of a postmodern nightmare.The heroes of Mage: The Ascension, revised in the tradition of Vampire: The Masquerade, have lost their war for reality -- but the struggle continues in this quintessential volume. All of the Traditions are updated and elaborated upon, along with the history of mages in the World of Darkness. Explore the revised rules for the Spheres, Resonance and Paradox. See the devastating changes that signal the end for the Ascension War.

    We are the celebrities, the heroes, the villains, the legends, the shining icons of our times. We are novas, and we will bring about a new golden Age... and you will like it.Golden age -- or Hell on Earth? To the residents of the Trinity Universe, the 21st century was a monstrous era when mad gods ran rampant across the world. But is this truth -- or OpNet propaganda? What was the Age of Aberrants really like? Find out the truth. It's not what you expect.Aberrant is a core rulebook and prequel to the Trinity science-fiction game. Set in the early 21st century, before the devastating war against humanity, this new complete roleplaying game allows you to be one of these doomed beings of vast power, and to experience their struggles to avoid the coming cataclysm.

    Each species struggles to ensure its own survival among the stars in a war that will herald the beginning of mankind's greatest chapter--or foretell its violent, bloody end.Danny Liberty was a good reporter...too good. When his investigations struck too close to the heart of the corrupt Terran Confederacy, he faced a simple choice: continue his current series of exposés, or take a hazardous new assignment covering the Marines on the front lines of the Koprulu Sector. It didn't take him long to decide...Behind the attacks of the Zerg and the Protoss lies the story of a lifetime, but every piece of information blurs the mystery further. Thrown into the middle of a war where the outcome will determine mankind's very survival, the only thing that Danny Liberty knows for sure is that the only person he can trust to keep him alive is himself.

    Troika! Numinous Edition is the new edition of our popular Troika! RPG, a complete science-fantasy RPG full of critically acclaimed writing, built-in wonder and room for everyone at the table to go wild!Inside the book you will find; a full automated character creation system that generates exciting starting points for players to build upon; weighty lists of spells and enemies to encounter; a baked-in plane-hoping setting which draws you into the world and allows you space to build upon its sturdy foundations.Lavishly illustrated by Jeremy Duncan, Dirk Detweiler Leicthy, Sam Mameli, and ENnie award winning Andrew Walter

    She’d loved the thrill of staring off the ship’s stern, watching the Sun slowly shrink, peering as closely at the white-hot thrusters as she could before Virgil shut off her visor. She’d loved looking forward at Acadia’s magnetic scoop, trying to catch some glimpse of the invisible cone that was funneling the vacuum’s stray atoms into its antimatter furnace. In those days, she’d even grinned at the dizzying challenge of spacewalking on a rotating cylinder. But that was five years ago . . .Acadia — the latest work of fiction from critically acclaimed author, James Erwin (Rome, Sweet Rome) takes to the far reaches of space to weave a tale of intrigue and suspense among the stars.

    100,000 years ago, the galaxy was populated by a great variety of beings. But one species--eons beyond all others in both technology and knowledge--achieved dominance. They ruled in peace but met opposition with quick and brutal effectiveness. They were the Forerunners, the keepers of the Mantle, the next stage of life in the Universe's Living Time. And then they vanished. This is their story. Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting is a young rebellious Forerunner. He is a Manipular, untried, yet to become part of the adult Forerunner society, where vast knowledge and duty waits. He comes from a family of Builders, the Forerunners' highest and most politically powerful rate. It is the Builders who create the grand technology that facilitates Forerunner dominance over the known universe. It is the Builders who believe they must shoulder the greatest burden of the Mantle, as shepherds and guardians of all life. Bornstellar is marked to become a great Builder just like his father. But this Manipular has other plans. He is obsessed with lost treasures of the past. His reckless passion to seek out the marvelous artifacts left behind by the Precursors, long-vanished superbeings of unknowable power and intent, forces his father's hand. Bornstellar is sent to live among the Miners, where he must come to terms with where his duty truly lies. But powerful forces are at play. Forerunner society is at a major crux. Past threats are once again proving relentless. Dire solutions, machines and strategies never before contemplated, are being called up, and fissures in Forerunner power are leading to chaos. On a Lifeworker's experimental planet, Bornstellar's rebellious course crosses the paths of two humans, and the long lifeline of a great military leader, thus forever changing Bornstellar's destiny ...and the fate of the entire galaxy.

    Players can organize the monsters in this pack, alphabetically, according to when they show up in an adventure, according to monster type, or any other way they see fit. And the binder is large enough to hold additional monster sheets from Monstrous Compenium Volumes Two and Three!

    Eleven exploratory ships carrying humans escaping a degenerating Earth are discovered by a more advanced space-faring civilization, the Ildaran Empire. The empire helps the refugees - by now the several-generations-later offspring of the original voyagers - settle suitable planets and sends diplomats with a few of them to Earth to establish trade and diplomatic relations.Meanwhile, both Terran and Ildaran authorities bring hidden agendas to their first-contact discussions, and asEarth attempts to become a player in this new arena, its ambassadors are thrust into a foreign world of alien life forms, backstabbing politics, bitter feuds, and a deadly struggle to become the supreme force in the universe.

    However, though I think some of them are great, some aren’t, and some are profoundly dated. I am aware that there are those out there, who will just buy these without a second thought, so I have to edit, be selective, and I damned well have to show some respect for my readers. Kindle in this respect can be a danger for a known writer, because you can publish any old twaddle and someone will buy it. Time and again, I’ve had fans, upon hearing that I have this and that unpublished in my files, demanding that I publish it at once because surely they’ll love it. No they won’t. A reputation like trust: difficult to build and easy to destroy. I’ve therefore chosen stories other people have published here and there, and filled in with those I really think someone should have published. Here you’ll find some Polity tales, some that could have been set in the Polity (at a stretch) and some from the bleak Owner universe. Enjoy! Neal Asher 04/06/18

    He has returned to his homeworld to rest, but his only real plan is to avoid the war he sees coming to the Protectorate.Captain Karl Charpentier is his oldest friend—Captain and pilot of an interstellar jump-courier. Crewless and drowning in debt due to a series of mistakes, Karl turns to his newly unemployed friend with a desperate plan to solve all his problems.To save his friend’s ship and career, Ivan must help him take his courier into an illegal race through a deadly region of space—a race run by the very people Karl Charpentier owes money to.How could it possibly go wrong?

    Willing to go anywhere, rescue anyone, as long as that “anyone” has forked out enough advance cash to justify the effort. Reporter Simone Hart has embedded herself with a DocWagon team to see what their life is really like, and she’s in for a wild ride. From an OD’ing celebrity to an aggressive team of hackers, from pesky gangs to an extremely rich and powerful client teetering at death’s door, this night will give the team all they can handle. But will they survive long enough to remember that in the Sixth World, nothing is truly random? Full of memorable characters and rich Sixth World flavor, DocWagon 19 is a thrilling ride with the people struggling to save lives in a sprawl with a million ways to make people dead. Strap in, hold on, crank up the siren, and get ready for a crazy ride-along through the full chaos of the Shadowrun setting.

    They say that vengeance is a dish best served cold, but to the men and woman who went with him over the border to deliver that vengeance, it was dish served hot, and out of the barrel of a gun and cannon, and from the air. Yet in victory came defeat as he found three hundred years later in the world he woke up in. One far different from the one he'd left behind when he went into cold sleep. Now he had to find a place in this strange new world, one without the means to wage war against an alien race raping the planet of its young people. First, he had to build an army, navy and air force from scratch while fending off attacks from the aliens and the secret government that wanted to put him and his men back into cold sleep or the grave.