The Pied Piper pipes the village free of rats, and when the villagers refuse to pay him for the service he exacts a terrible revenge.

NOW THE ACCLAIMED HBO SERIES GAME OF THRONES—THE MASTERPIECE THAT BECAME A CULTURAL PHENOMENON Winter is coming. Such is the stern motto of House Stark, the northernmost of the fiefdoms that owe allegiance to King Robert Baratheon in far-off King’s Landing. There Eddard Stark of Winterfell rules in Robert’s name. There his family dwells in peace and comfort: his proud wife, Catelyn; his sons Robb, Brandon, and Rickon; his daughters Sansa and Arya; and his bastard son, Jon Snow. Far to the north, behind the towering Wall, lie savage Wildings and worse—unnatural things relegated to myth during the centuries-long summer, but proving all too real and all too deadly in the turning of the season. Yet a more immediate threat lurks to the south, where Jon Arryn, the Hand of the King, has died under mysterious circumstances. Now Robert is riding north to Winterfell, bringing his queen, the lovely but cold Cersei, his son, the cruel, vainglorious Prince Joffrey, and the queen’s brothers Jaime and Tyrion of the powerful and wealthy House Lannister—the first a swordsman without equal, the second a dwarf whose stunted stature belies a brilliant mind. All are heading for Winterfell and a fateful encounter that will change the course of kingdoms. Meanwhile, across the Narrow Sea, Prince Viserys, heir of the fallen House Targaryen, which once ruled all of Westeros, schemes to reclaim the throne with an army of barbarian Dothraki—whose loyalty he will purchase in the only coin left to him: his beautiful yet innocent sister, Daenerys.

Powered by HTML, this Zweihander eBook edition is published with a nuanced reflowable document layout. It includes: Reflowable text and images Sidebar navigation via device contents Hyperlinked Table of Contents and Index for fast, easy searches Hyperlinked cross-references throughout the book Tap and zoom illustrations This digital format differs from standard fixed layouts and PDFs. We highly suggest users download a sample before purchasing. WELCOME TO GRIM & PERILOUS GAMING Featured on Forbes.com, ranked one of the best-selling fantasy tabletop role-playing games at DriveThruRPG, and having sold over 90,000 copies worldwide, ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG is a bloodier, grimmer, and grittier version of classical tabletop role-playing games. This revised edition is published in celebration with Andrews McMeel Publishing and features a refreshed layout, new artwork, rules clarifications, color plates by Dejan Mandic, and errata. ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG is a game where your characters will: Live in a gritty, "realistic" fantasy world Make morally grey decisions & enact vicious reprisals Uncover insidious plots & political intrigue Take part in heart-pumping chase scenes Venture into the wilderness & survive its perils Desperately fight in clandestine & open field combat Defend themselves from injuries, madness, & mutations Encounter sanity-blasting creatures & their minions Using the Powered By ZWEIHÄNDER d100 game engine, you will create grim characters, write perilous adventures, and build your own low fantasy & dark fantasy campaigns. These rules are a perfect fit for Renaissance and medieval-styled adventures, too. You can also use this book to create your own home-brewed worlds, whether inspired by the works of Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher, George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones, Glen Cook’s Black Company, Myke Cole’s The Armored Saint, Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane, Scott Lynch’s Gentlemen Bastard series, or other "grimdark"-inspired media. This all-in-one game includes most of what you need to play: a character creation guide, game mastery rules, and a bestiary brimming with creatures both fair & foul. All that’s left are a few friends, pencils, and a handful of dice. ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG awaits, and the fate of your grim & perilous tale hangs in the balance!

This is the first systematic scholarly study of the Ottoman experience of plague during the Black Death pandemic and the centuries that followed. Using a wealth of archival and narrative sources, including medical treatises, hagiographies, and travelers' accounts, as well as recent scientific research, Nükhet Varlik demonstrates how plague interacted with the environmental, social, and political structures of the Ottoman Empire from the late medieval through the early modern era. The book argues that the empire's growth transformed the epidemiological patterns of plague by bringing diverse ecological zones into interaction and by intensifying the mobilities of exchange among both human and non-human agents. Varlik maintains that persistent plagues elicited new forms of cultural imagination and expression, as well as a new body of knowledge about the disease. In turn, this new consciousness sharpened the Ottoman administrative response to the plague, while contributing to the makings of an early modern state.