Hidden in the remote southern range of the World's Edge Mountains lies a mysterious necropolis protected by a legendary guardian known as the Iron Medusa. When the last heir of the dungeon's long-dead noble builders hires the heroes to explore the forlorn and deadly site in search of evidence that may clear his family name, the heroes soon find themselves in over their heads. For the Tomb of the Iron Medusa does not give up its secrets lightly, and the dangerous truths that lie within these trap-laden crypts may have been hidden for a very good reason indeed. Tomb of the Iron Medusa is a Pathfinder Roleplaying Game adventure for 14th-level characters. It features an expansive necropolis of crypts and tombs, all guarded by devious traps, strange puzzles, fiendish monsters, bizarre creatures, and the undead remnants of a once-powerful aristocracy. Tomb of the Iron Medusa also includes a new monster and a fully-detailed borderland inn that can serve as both a place to begin the adventure or as any roadside tavern in any fantasy world.

The great pilgrimage center of southeastern Sri Lanka, Kataragama, has become in recent years the spiritual home of a new class of Hindu-Buddhist religious devotees. These ecstatic priests and priestesses invariably display long locks of matted hair, and they express their devotion to the gods through fire walking, tongue-piercing, hanging on hooks, and trance-induced prophesying. The increasing popularity of these ecstatics poses a challenge not only to orthodox Sinhala Buddhism (the official religion of Sri Lanka) but also, as Gananath Obeyesekere shows, to the traditional anthropological and psychoanalytic theories of symbolism. Focusing initially on one symbol, matted hair, Obeyesekere demonstrates that the conventional distinction between personal and cultural symbols is inadequate and naive. His detailed case studies of ecstatics show that there is always a reciprocity between the personal-psychological dimension of the symbol and its public, culturally sanctioned role. Medusa's Hair thus makes an important theoretical contribution both to the anthropology of individual experience and to the psychoanalytic understanding of culture. In its analyses of the symbolism of guilt, the adaptational and integrative significance of belief in spirits, and a host of related issues concerning possession states and religiosity, this book marks a provocative advance in psychological anthropology.

Now is the time to bring down the Ebon Destroyers! Too long have the secretive Vudran cultists known as the Ebon Destroyers gone unpunished for their crimes of murder and assassination. Too long has the Isle of Jalmeray suffered from their deadly machinations. The Thakur of Jalmeray has outlawed the cult, and received in response an ultimatum stating that if he doesn't revoke his edict, he and his family will die before the month is out. The heroes must locate the Ebon Destroyers' hidden temple headquarters, battle the cult leaders, and save the Thakur himself! Cult of the Ebon Destroyers is an adventure for 8th-level chararacters, written for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and compatible with the 3.5 Edition of the world's oldest RPG. Inside you'll find intrigue and espionage in the slums and palaces of the city of Niswan and a perilous trek through the dense jungle and rugged hills of southern Jalmeray to the depths of a diabolical shrine.

"This book describes the historical culture of Italy from the Early Iron Age to the Roman conquest, covering a period from roughly 900 - 300 BCE. By historical culture, I refer throughout to a broader concept of social engagement with the past than is sometimes meant by the word "history." But this move permits us, following Sahlins' suggestion, to consider all kinds of new things. There exists a substantial corpus of material, much of it archaeological, some of it newly discovered, which speaks to us about how local communities in early Italy thought and talked about their history and how they articulated their past and present. This material has yet to have much impact on the typical ways in which we reconstruct the process of "becoming historical" in Italy. Instead, the story tends to be told almost exclusively from the Roman perspective and in a teleology"--

Giant animals : Nemean lion, Calydonian boar, Rukh, King Kong -- Beastly blends : chimera, griffon, cockatrice, Sphinx -- It came from the earth : Minotaur, Medusa -- The mysterious fathoms : Charybdis, Leviathan, giant squid, Jaws -- Of flame and claw : dragons -- Hauntings : demons, ghosts, spirits -- Cursed by a bite : vampires, zombies, werewolves -- The created : The Golem, Frankenstein, HAL 9000, Terminator -- Terror resurrected : dinosaurs -- Extraterrestrial threat : aliens.

The Divine Comedy marked nothing less than the arrival of vernacular Italian as a literary language--and Dante's book is still considered Italy's greatest literary achievement. Its highly idiomatic verse, however, has long bedeviled English-language translators. Burton Raffel, whose translation of Don Quixote is acclaimed for making Cervantes more accessible to the modern generation, in this new translation for Northwestern World Classics, shows exciting new directions, preserving both the lyricism of the original and its incisive meaning. First-time readers and longtime fans of "the supreme poet" alike will cherish this clear and lyrical rendering of one of world literature's masterpieces. The Divine Comedy depicts the journey of Dante the pilgrim, guided by the poet Virgil and the love of his life, Beatrice, as he moves through the stages of his life and world. Raffel's single-volume translation of Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso follows the complete journey of a spiritual pilgrim who struggles from the depths of the inferno to the heights of paradise. In the former Dante meets many of his political enemies, suffering the punishments that match their crimes in life. And in the ninth circle of Hell, Lucifer--the ultimate traitor--is shown chewing on Brutus, Cassius, and Judas Iscariot, three others who committed horrendous acts of treason in the classical and early Jewish worlds. Dante's evocative description of Heaven is a sort of homecoming for the exiled poet. Dante's epic poem challenged the political and religious hierarchy of his time and remains a powerful and universal expression of human desires, strivings, and shortcomings.