A world-shaping event revives old favorites, introduces new complications—and moves hero Drizzt Do'Urden into a restored era of the Forgotten Realms Alone and with his fate hanging in the balance, Drizzt Do'Urden reflects on the lives of the trusted allies who stood by his side throughout his early life—the friends now known as the Companions of the Hall. Unbeknownst to him, the goddess Mielikki has given Bruenor, Catti-brie, Regis, and Wulfgar the chance to return to the world they left behind. Reborn as children but with their memories still intact, the friends must find a way back to one another—and to their lone Companion, Drizzt. Meanwhile, three seemingly unrelated commoners, growing up across the far reaches of the Forgotten Realms, display incredible feats of power. Against all odds, they hold the fate of Drizzt Do'Urden in their hands—a fate that is far from certain. For in the shadows, a cunning cabal of wizards is watching, intent on hunting the "Chosen" mortals who have been blessed by the gods. These wizards know something mere commoners do not: Long-forgotten gods have begun to stir. Long-lost lands have begun to tremble. The world around them is about to change—and these wizards will do whatever it takes to turn the coming chaos to their advantage. The Companions is the first book in the Sundering series and the twenty-seventh book in the Legend of Drizzt series.

Danon's army sweeps across the Kingdom of Delfinnia and Luxon, the only one capable of stopping the annihilation of the realm embarks on a desperate quest to cure himself of the deadly Void Sickness that threatens his life. To find the cure, Luxon must travel through the Magic Gates and find the Waters of Magic, but in doing so, he will be sent to new worlds and even through time. There he will uncover the shocking truth about Danon and another he calls friend and mentor. Elsewhere dragons ravage the eastern lands spurring Kaiden to reform the Knights of Niveren and in the south, the King's Legion, led by the usurper Ricard makes a desperate stand against Danon's hordes. As the world turns ever darker, one hope remains. The legendary sacred sword Asphodel remains hidden. The Quest is on to claim the blade and perhaps push back the evil threatening creation itself.

Discover the monstrous realm of Ikoria in this thrilling story, inspired by Magic: The Gathering's card set Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths! Lukka is a proud captain of the Coppercoats, the elite military force that defends Drannith from the savage monsters lurking outside its city walls. For the Coppercoats, the only good monster is a dead monster. Lukka's world is forever altered when he unexpectedly forms a mystical connection with a ferocious, winged cat. But such bonds are high crimes in Drannith, punishable by death. Running for his life, Lukka flees the very home he was sworn to protect. Now an outcast monster "bonder," Lukka must survive the wilds of Ikoria while being ruthlessly hunted by his former brothers-in-arms, including the sadistic General Kudro. With help from planeswalker Vivien Reid, can Lukka learn to tame his newfound powers before he wields vengeance--and an army of nightmarish monsters--against his beloved Drannith?

A place of great beauty, Thuringland and its tributary states exist on the edge of perilous balance of power, resources, and control. Every aspect of life on Thuringland is connected, but there are those who will risk that precious equilibrium for their own needs. The Dragonlord Seldric, bearer of the all-powerful Dragoncrown, controls the dragons upon which so much of life depends. Their fiery breath produces magical coins, used for both commerce and energy. The dragons protect the realm and enforce control of the tributary lands; all are dependent on them. Life in Thuringland could not exist without the odious burden of slavery, and too many races are considered to be little more than commodities by those in power. In the jungle of Sinjer, a race of proud warriors fights for survival, freedom, and dignity. The Sinjeryan all-female raceleft the world of men behind to free themselves from oppression, but Seldrics demands for tribute women as his protectors and concubines challenges that. As one of the proud Sinjery Dragonflyers, Seldrics present concubine Trallalair will do anything to end her races odious tribute. At Hells Breach, an open portal to the underworld from which demons and zombies threaten all life, poets wielding magical words fight to save their world. When a seemingly unconnected string of events frees the dragons, no one is safe from their wrath. Can brave champions of many races come together to restore the realms balance of power before it is too late?

The councilors had placed a book upon the table, its cover pale blue edged in silver. The title was The Theosophon. They slid it towards me. Philomena Wilcox, Ph.D., retired professor of music, pianist, passionate devotee of Russian composers like Scriabin and Rachmaninov, thinks she is merely editing a series of prolix journals by the desert recluse Blaise. One day in 2029 she took delivery of 7,000 pages of his arcane diary entries spanning a 20-year period. His story what he thinks and writes about is exceedingly odd, mystical, and perplexing. He is anticipating a planetary event to take place in 2033. Soon enough, Philomena discovers she, impossibly, is part of this story, in fact, will be a keystone in this epochal event. It's as if through the journal pages Blaise talks directly to her and pulls her into his world of wisdom-angels, geomantic patterns, and designer planets. The pages are encoded with activation triggers. Over a three-year period, she starts to remember her true story, her astonishing past. It's a nonstop tutorial in the Mysteries. Taught by the human Blaise and his angelic mentors, also called Blaise, seemingly right now, in the present moment. Except upwards of 35 years or more separate them in the world of linear time. Her familiar world starts to fall apart. The event is called the Theosophon. Blaise writes about it, but she designed it. That's startling enough, but Philomena is astonished to remember that she designed it eons ago in another galaxy. The Earth was created as a performance stage for it. The Theosophon is a multidimensional musical event involving the collective consciousness of humanity, the Earth, and the spiritual world. The overture of the fulfillment of the purpose of the Earth and humanity. Yes, Philomena is an integral part of this unique event, but it will cost her more than she ever thought possible.

Behaving Badly in Early and Medieval China presents a rogues’ gallery of treacherous regicides, impious monks, cutthroat underlings, ill-bred offspring, and disloyal officials. It plumbs the dark matter of the human condition, placing front and center transgressive individuals and groups traditionally demonized by Confucian annalists and largely shunned by modern scholars. The work endeavors to apprehend the actions and motivations of these men and women, whose conduct deviated from normative social, cultural, and religious expectations. Early chapters examine how core Confucian bonds such as those between parents and children, and ruler and minister, were compromised, even severed. The living did not always reverently pay homage to the dead, children did not honor their parents with due filiality, a decorous distance was not necessarily observed between sons and stepmothers, and subjects often pursued their own interests before those of the ruler or the state. The elasticity of ritual and social norms is explored: Chapters on brazen Eastern Han (25–220) mourners and deviant calligraphers, audacious falconers, volatile Tang (618–907) Buddhist monks, and drunken Song (960–1279) literati reveal social norms treated not as universal truths but as debated questions of taste wherein political and social expedience both determined and highlighted individual roles within larger social structures and defined what was and was not aberrant. A Confucian predilection to “valorize [the] civil and disparage the martial” and Buddhist proscriptions on killing led literati and monks alike to condemn the cruelty and chaos of war. The book scrutinizes cultural attitudes toward military action and warfare, including those surrounding the bloody and capricious world of the Zuozhuan (Chronicle of Zuo), the relentless violence of the Five Dynasties and Ten States periods (907–979), and the exploits of Tang warrior priests—a series of studies that complicates the rhetoric by situating it within the turbulent realities of the times. By the end of this volume, readers will come away with the understanding that behaving badly in early and medieval China was not about morality but perspective, politics, and power.