Dragons of Autumn Twilight
Dragons of Autumn Twilight is a 1984 fantasy novel by American writers Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, based on a series of Dungeons & Dragons game modules. It was the first Dragonlance novel, first in the Chronicles trilogy, along with the Dragonlance Legends trilogy, are regarded as the core novels of the Dragonlance world; the Chronicles trilogy came about because the designers wanted novels to tell the story of the game world they were creating, something to which TSR, Inc. agreed only reluctantly. Dragons of Autumn Twilight details the meeting of the Companions and the early days of The War of the Lance; this novel corresponds with the first two Dragonlance game modules, Dragons of Despair and Dragons of Flame, but with a different ending. The novel introduces many of the characters that are the subject of short stories; the title Dragons of Autumn Twilight follows a pattern with the other novels in the series, Dragons of Winter Night and Dragons of Spring Dawning, as they all start with Dragons, followed the names of the seasons, Autumn and Spring, as well as a series of time, Twilight and Dawning.
Margaret Weis includes allusions to A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, one of her favorite stories. References include But there was something disquieting about him—secret, self-contained, solitary as an oyster and The fate of mankind is my business; this quote is turned from meaning good to meaning harm. The novels take place on the fantasy world of Krynn, created for the gameplay; the world once worshiped the True Gods, a pantheon unique to the Dragonlance saga, but has come to believe that the True Gods have abandoned the world and those in it. The world is just starting to recover from the loss of the True Gods and a group has sprung up seeking to replace the True Gods; the main focus of the novels is the continent Ansalon and the characters Tanis Half-Elven, Sturm Brightblade, Caramon Majere, Raistlin Majere, Flint Fireforge, Tasslehoff Burrfoot and Riverwind. The book begins with the return of a group of friends, consisting of Tanis, Caramon, Raistlin and Tasslehoff, who had separated to pursue their own quests and pledged to return in five years.
Kitiara Uth Matar, the half sister of the twins Caramon and Raistlin, was supposed to be there as well, but only sent a mysterious note. On the eve of their reunion, the Companions discover that the village where they are meeting has been taken over by a religious order called the Seekers, they are collaborating with the Dragon Highlords, who are preparing for the conquest of the continent of Ansalon. The Companions soon discover; when Goldmoon, a plainswoman in the same inn as the companions, heals a Seeker with her staff, the Companions are confronted by Highlord forces and are forced to flee the village. The next day, the group is attacked by Draconians, reptilian creatures that serve as foot soldiers in the Highlords' army; the Companions are driven into the woods, where they are attacked by undead and rescued by a centaur. The group is charged to go to the ruined city of Xak Tsaroth to retrieve the Disks of Mishakal, an object containing the teaching of the True Gods that will be instrumental for the restoration of the faith in the True Gods.
After a lengthy trip on the backs of pegasi and several encounters with the forces of darkness, the companions enter Xak Tsaroth and meet some gully dwarves and awkward creatures. One of the dwarves, leads them to the dragon Khisanth, killed by the holy power of the Blue Crystal Staff; when this happens, Goldmoon is presumed dead. However, they find her resting at the foot of a statue of Mishakal, which now bears the Blue Crystal Staff, Goldmoon is blessed with true clerical powers; the Companions leave with the Disks of Mishakal. Bupu gives an ancient spellbook to Raistlin; when they return to the village to regroup they find. The Companions are captured by the Highlord armies and are chained in a slave caravan along with an elf named Gilthanas, the son of the leader of the elven nation of Qualinesti; the group is freed by Porthios. They flee to Qualinesti, where Tanis is reunited with his childhood sweetheart, the exceptionally beautiful elven princess, Laurana Kanan. Laurana is still in love with Tanis and wants to marry him, but Tanis breaks her heart by telling her he is now in love with Kitiara.
The Elven King Solostaran convinces the Companions to lead an attack on the slave-mine Pax Tharkas to free the slaves from the control of the local Dragon Highlord. The Companions journey through a secret passage underground to Pax Tharkas and devise a plan to free the slaves. Laurana, desperate to win Tanis back, secretly follows the Companions; when Tanis discovers Laurana has followed them he angrily rebukes her for acting like a spoiled child. Laurana resolves to try to prove; the Companions infiltrate Pax Tharkas and Goldmoon heals Elistan, a dying Seeker, converts him to the faith of the true gods. He becomes the first cleric of Paladine, Goldmoon turns the Disks of Mishakal over to him; the Companions help the slaves break free. Laurana proves her worth in the battle by fighting bravely; the Dragon Highlord Verminaard and his red dragon Ember arrive to crush the revolt, but the insane red dragon Flamestrike kills Ember, while the Companions cut down Verminaard. A mysterious figure called "The Everman” appears at a celebration following the freeing of the slaves, but flees after being spotted.
According to Tracy Hickman, "The restoration of truth and faith are... to a great extent
Dragon (magazine)
Dragon was one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products. TSR, Inc. launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, The Strategic Review. The final printed issue was #359 in September 2007. Shortly after the last print issue shipped in mid-August 2007, Wizards of the Coast, the publication's current copyright holder, relaunched Dragon as an online magazine, continuing on the numbering of the print edition; the last published issue was No. 430 in December 2013. A digital publication called Dragon+, which replaces the Dragon magazine, launched in 2015, it is created by Dialect in collaboration with Wizards of the Coast, restarted the numbering system for issues at No. 1. In 1975, TSR, Inc. began publishing The Strategic Review. At the time, roleplaying games were still seen as a subgenre of the wargaming industry, the magazine was designed not only to support Dungeons & Dragons and TSR's other games, but to cover wargaming in general.
In short order, the popularity and growth of Dungeons & Dragons made it clear that the game had not only separated itself from its wargaming origins, but had launched an new industry unto itself. TSR canceled The Strategic Review after only seven issues the following year, replaced it with two magazines, Little Wars, which covered miniature wargaming, The Dragon, which covered role playing games. After twelve issues, Little Wars ceased independent publication and issue 13 was published as part of Dragon issue 22; the magazine debuted as The Dragon in June 1976. TSR co-founder Gary Gygax commented years later: "When I decided that The Strategic Review was not the right vehicle, hired Tim Kask as a magazine editor for Tactical Studies Rules, named the new publication he was to produce The Dragon, I thought we would have a great periodical to serve gaming enthusiasts worldwide... At no time did I contemplate so great a success or so long a lifespan."Dragon was the launching point for a number of rules, monsters, magic items, other ideas that were incorporated into official products of the Dungeons & Dragons game.
A prime example is the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, which first became known through a series of Dragon articles in the 1980s by its creator Ed Greenwood. It subsequently went on to become one of the primary campaign'worlds' for official Dungeons and Dragons products, starting in 1987; the magazine appeared on the cover as Dragon from July 1980 changing its name to Dragon Magazine starting November 1987. Wizards of the Coast purchased TSR and its intellectual properties, including Dragon Magazine, in 1997. Production was transferred from Wisconsin to Washington state. In 1999, Wizards of the Coast was itself purchased by Inc.. Dragon Magazine suffered a five-month gap between #236 and #237 but remained published by TSR as a subsidiary of WotC starting September 1997, until January 2000 when WotC became the listed de facto publisher, they removed the word "magazine" from the cover title starting with the June, 2000 issue, changing the publication's name back to Dragon. In 1999 a compilation of the first 250 issues was released in PDF format with a special viewer including an article and keyword search on a CD-ROM package.
Included were the 7 issues of The Strategic Review. This compilation is known as the software title Dragon Magazine Archive; because of issues raised with the 2001 ruling in Greenberg v. National Geographic regarding the reprint rights of various comic scripts, printed in Dragon over the years and Paizo Publishing's policy that creators of comics retain their copyright, the Dragon Magazine Archive is out of print and hard to find. In 2002, Paizo Publishing acquired the rights to publish both Dragon and Dungeon under license from Wizards of the Coast. Dragon was published by Paizo starting September 2002, it tied Dragon more to Dungeon by including articles supporting and promoting its major multi-issue adventures such as the Age of Worms and Savage Tide. Class Acts, monthly one or two-page articles offering ideas for developing specific character classes, were introduced by Paizo. On April 18, 2007, Wizards of the Coast announced that it would not be renewing Paizo's licenses for Dragon and Dungeon.
Scott Rouse, Senior Brand Manager of Dungeons & Dragons at Wizards of the Coast stated, "Today the internet is where people go to get this kind of information. By moving to an online model we are using a delivery system that broadens our reach to fans around the world." Paizo published the last print editions of Dragon and Dungeon magazines for September 2007. In August 2007, Wizards of the Coast announced plans for the 4th edition of the Dungeons & Dragons game. Part of this announcement was that D&D Insider subscriber content would include the new, online versions of both Dungeon and Dragon magazines along with tools for building campaigns, managing character sheets and other features. In its online form, Dragon continues to publish articles aimed at Dungeons & Dragons players, with rules data from these articles feeding the D&D Character Builder and other online tools. In the September 2013 issue of Dragon an article by Wizards of the Coast game designer and editor Chris Perkins announced that both Dragon and its sibling publication Dungeon would be going on hiatus starting January 2014 pending the release o
Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering is both a collectible and digital collectible card game created by Richard Garfield. Released in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast, Magic was the first trading card game and has twenty million players as of 2015, over twenty billion Magic cards produced in the period from 2008 to 2016 alone. Magic can be played by two or more players in various rule formats, which fall into two categories: constructed and limited. Limited formats involve players building a deck spontaneously out of a pool of random cards with a minimum deck size of 40 cards. In constructed formats, players create decks from cards they own—usually 60 cards, with no more than 4 of any given card, except for "basic land" cards; the game is played in person with printed cards, or using a deck of virtual cards through the Internet-based software Magic: The Gathering Online, or on a smartphone or tablet, or through other video games such as Magic: The Gathering Arena. Each game of Magic represents a battle between wizards known as planeswalkers who cast spells, use artifacts, summon creatures as depicted on individual cards in order to defeat their opponents but not always, by draining them of their 20 starting life points.
Although the original concept of the game drew from the motifs of traditional fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, the gameplay bears little similarity to pencil-and-paper adventure games, while having more cards and more complex rules than many other card games. New cards are released on a regular basis through expansion sets. An organized tournament system played at the international level and a worldwide community of professional Magic players have developed, as well as a substantial resale market for Magic cards. Certain cards can be monetarily valuable due to their rarity in production and utility in gameplay, with prices ranging from a few cents to thousands of dollars. Richard Garfield was a doctoral candidate in combinatorial mathematics at University of Pennsylvania when he first started to design the game. During his free time he worked with local volunteer playtesters to help refine the game, he had been brought on as an adjunct professor at Whitman College in 1991 when Peter Adkison first met with Garfield to discuss Garfield's new game RoboRally.
Adkison saw the game as promising, but decided that Wizards of the Coast lacked the resources to produce it at that point. He did like Garfield's ideas and mentioned that he was looking for a portable game that could be played in the downtime that occurs at gaming conventions. Garfield presented the general outline of the concept of a trading card game, it was based on Garfield's game Five Magics from 1982. Adkison saw the potential of this idea and agreed to produce it. Magic: The Gathering underwent a general release on August 5, 1993. While the game was called Magic through most of playtesting, when the game had to be named a lawyer informed them that the name Magic was too generic to be trademarked. Mana Clash was instead chosen to be the name used in the first solicitation of the game, everybody involved with the game continued to refer to it as Magic. After further consultation with the lawyer, it was decided to rename the game Magic: The Gathering, thus enabling the name to be trademarked.
A patent was granted to Wizards of the Coast in 1997 for "a novel method of game play and game components that in one embodiment are in the form of trading cards" that includes claims covering games whose rules include many of Magic's elements in combination, including concepts such as changing orientation of a game component to indicate use and constructing a deck by selecting cards from a larger pool. The patent has aroused criticism from some observers. In 2003, the patent was an element of a larger legal dispute between Wizards of the Coast and Nintendo, regarding trade secrets related to Nintendo's Pokémon Trading Card Game; the legal action was settled out of court, its terms were not disclosed. Magic was an immediate success for Wizards of the Coast. Early on they were reluctant to advertise the game because they were unable to keep pace with existing demand. Magic attracted many Dungeons & Dragons players, but the following included all types of other people as well; the success of the game led to the creation of similar games by other companies as well as Wizards of the Coast themselves.
Companion Games produced the Galactic Empires CCG, which allowed players to pay for and design their own promotional cards, while TSR created the Spellfire game, which included five editions in six languages, plus twelve expansion sets. Wizards of the Coast produced a game about modern-day vampires. Other similar games included trading card games based on Star Star Wars. Magic is cited as an example of a 1990s collecting fad, though the game's makers were able to overcome the bubble traditionally associated with collecting fads; the success of the initial edition prompted a reissue in 1993, along with expansions to the game. Arabian Nights was released as the first expansion in December 1993. New expansions and revisions of the base game have since been released on a regular basis, amounting to four releases a year. By the end of 1994, the game had printed over a billion cards; until the release of Mirage in 1996, expansions were released on an irregular basis. Beginning in 2009 one revision of the core set
Traveller (role-playing game)
Traveller is a science fiction role-playing game, first published in 1977 by Game Designers' Workshop. Marc W. Miller designed Traveller with help from Frank Chadwick, John Harshman, Loren K. Wiseman. Characters journey between various star systems and engage in activities such as exploration and space battles, interstellar trading. Characters are defined not by the need to increase native skill and ability but by achievements, wealth and political power. Key features derived from literary sources are incorporated into Traveller in all its forms: Human-centric but cosmopolitan: The core rules focus on human characters, but there is ample support for using and playing aliens. Space travel: Interstellar travel is through the use of the faster-than-light jump drive, which moves a ship through "jump space" a few light-years at a time; each jump always takes about one week. Normal-space travel is accomplished through efficient and powerful gravitic drives. Newtonian physics tends to be followed. Limited communication: There is no faster-than-light information transfer – meaning no ansible, subspace radio or hyper-wave.
Communication is limited to the speed of travel. Decisions are made on the local level, rather than by a remote authority. Conflict resolution: Planets fight out internal wars, commerce is a major driving force of civilization. Sociological: Interstellar society is stratified. Affairs are managed by independent nobility, who make use of classic titles such as Baron and Archduke. Diversity within Limits: Career options, ship design, subsector design, decisions made during character generation limit and frame reality; the definitions create a diverse space, within limits. Morals and mortality: People remain people and continue to show courage, wisdom and justice, along with cowardice and criminal behavior. Traveller uses a lifepath-style system for character generation. Characters get their skills and experience in a mini-game, where the player makes career choices that determine the character's life right up to the point before adventuring begins. A character can be human, alien, or of a genetically engineered species.
A character can be civilian, military, or noble, a young cadet or a tried-and-true veteran, each with strengths and weaknesses. Death during character generation is a possibility in some editions, a mechanic that became infamous. Characters are described by six primary characteristics: strength, endurance, intelligence and social standing; these characteristics are generated with a roll of two six-sided dice. Other general characteristics exist, such as psionics and sanity. There are variant characteristics, such as charisma and caste, which replace a primary characteristic, to add nuance to alien characters. Extra-sensory perception, telekinesis and other psychic abilities are organized and standardized into "psionics". Depending on their choice, characters can be psionic; each rule system has its own task mechanic for resolving character actions. Some systems use two or three six-sided dice, while others use multiple six-sided dice or a twenty-sided die. Target numbers are determined by the referee, who takes into account task difficulty, skill level, a characteristic.
Situation and equipment used can provide a penalty to a roll. Depending on the task, a success may require rolling below the target number. Equipment emphasizes wilderness exploration, hazardous environments, combat; as a result, equipment lists are heavy on vehicles, sensor equipment, rations, personal armor, weapons. Low-technology: Since primitive worlds exist near technological worlds, primitive weapons are typically included, such as swords, shields and bows. High-technology: And since high technology is available, cybernetic implants and non-sentient robots also show up in equipment lists, as well as artifacts from ancient, vanished technological civilizations. Hard Sci-fi Flavor: While there are energy weapons, there is a strong presence of slug-throwing weapons such as rifles and pistols; the prevailing theory is. Rules for starship design and combat are like games unto themselves with a complex balance of ship components fitting within certain hull volumes, technology levels, modifiers based upon characters' skills.
It is complex enough to be able to generically represent most starships used in role-playing games, flexible enough to support custom add-ons to the system. Computer programs have been created to predict starship combat using Traveller rules; the most famous case involved Douglas Lenat applying his Eurisko heuristic learning program to the scenario in the Traveller adventure Trillion Credit Squadron, which contained rules for resolving large space battles statistically. Eurisko discovered exploitable features of the starship design system that allowed it to build unusual fleets that won the 1981 and 1982 championships; the sponsor stated that if Lenat entered and won the next year they would stop the sponsorship, so Lenat stopped attending. Worlds represent a wide spectrum of conditions, from barren planetoid moons to large gas giant worlds, from uncolonized territory to planets with tens of billions of people. Most worlds tend to be
Western Kentucky University
Western Kentucky University is a public university in Bowling Green, United States. It was founded by the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1906, though its roots reach back a quarter-century earlier. In the fall 2016 semester, enrollment was 20,000; the main campus, undergoing expansion and renovation since the 1990s, sits atop a hill overlooking the Barren River valley. WKU operates a satellite campus in Bowling Green and regional campuses in Glasgow, Elizabethtown-Fort Knox and Owensboro; the roots of Western Kentucky University go back to 1876 with the founding by A. W. Mell of the owned Glasgow Normal School and Business College in Glasgow, Kentucky; this became the Southern Normal School and Business College. In 1890, Potter College was opened as a private women's college by Pleasant J. Potter. In 1906, Henry Hardin Cherry sold the Southern Normal School and became president of the Western Kentucky State Normal School, which had just been created by an act of the Kentucky General Assembly. Southern's student body and its building became the new school, with classes beginning on January 22, 1907.
In 1909 Potter College closed and Western bought the buildings and property of the school. In 1911, Western relocated to its present site on the property, Potter College. In 1922, the school was authorized by the state to grant four-year degrees and was renamed "Western Kentucky State Normal School and Teachers College"; the first four-year degrees were awarded in 1924. In 1927, the school merged with Ogden College; the name changed again in 1930 to "Western Kentucky State Teachers College". The school was authorized to offer the Master of Arts degree in 1931. Another name change took place in 1948, when the school became "Western Kentucky State College". WKSC merged with the Bowling Green College of Commerce, the Bowling Green Business University, in 1963. Bowling Green Business University had been a part of the Southern Normal School and had been sold off by Henry Hardin Cherry when Southern Normal School was transferred to the state; the structure of the institution changed at this time. Bowling Green College of Commerce maintained its identity in this way.
The Graduate School became a constituent college. In 1965, three additional colleges were created. In 1966, Western Kentucky State College became Western Kentucky University. For many years, the college was popularly known as "Western," as indicated in its fight song, "Stand Up and Cheer." However, in recent years it has indicated. On July 1, 2017, Timothy C. Caboni became the university's 10th president. WKU is divided into the following academic colleges: The College of Education and Behavioral Sciences The Gordon Ford College of Business Ogden College of Science And Engineering Potter College of Arts and Letters The College of Health and Human ServicesAn academic range of eighty majors and seventy minors are offered, toward the following degrees: Bachelor of Engineering Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of Fine Arts Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies Bachelor of Science Bachelor of Science in Nursing Bachelor of Music Bachelor of Social WorkWKU offers fifteen associate degree programs and five certificate programs.
The Graduate School is now the Office of Graduate Studies and Research, which offers: Master of Accountancy Master of Arts Master of Arts in Education Master of Business Administration Master of Science Master of Science in Nursing Master of Social Work Master of Public Administration Master of Health Administration Master of Public Health Doctor of Education Doctor of Nursing Doctor of Physical TherapyWKU has been named one of the top producers of Fulbright scholars in the US. As of 2007, twenty-seven alumni of WKU's photo and print journalism programs have been awarded thirteen Pulitzer Prizes, including eleven alumni recognized for their coverage of the Carrollton bus crash; the school publishes the College Heights Herald. Western Kentucky University's forensics team is ranked as one of the country's best, they have won the American Forensic Association and National Forensic Association national championships multiple times since 2003. It has won the International Forensic Association's international championship every year it has attended.
They remain the nation's only team to win the AFA, NFA, IFA, NFA debate championship in the same year, a feat it has accomplished multiple times. The team hosts several tournaments for junior high and senior high students each fall, as well as a large speech and debate summer camp each July. WKU is home to a master's degree program in folklore, it is unique among American folklore programs for its public folklore program and is one of the few schools in Kentucky to offer a focus in historic preservation. In the fall of 2009, WKU started a bachelor's degree program in popular culture studies. A doctoral program in educational leadership has been offered at WKU since 2009. Western Kentucky University was ranked the 26th top college in the United States by Payscale and CollegeNet's Social Mobility Index college rankings. In the rankings of "America's Best Colleges 2009," WKU is No. 10 among public master's universities in the South, up from No. 12 in the 2008 rankings. According to Forbes 2009 rankings of America's top 600 colleges, Western Kentucky University is ranked No.
434, making it Kentucky's second highest ranked public college. WKU's Regional Campuses are in Glasgow, Elizabethtown-Fort Knox and Owensb
Fantastic art
Fantastic art is a broad and loosely defined art genre. It is not restricted to a specific school of geographical location or historical period, it can be characterised by subject matter – which portrays non-realistic, mythical or folkloric subjects or events – and style, representational and naturalistic, rather than abstract – or in the case of magazine illustrations and similar, in the style of graphic novel art such as manga. Fantasy has been an integral part of art since its beginnings, but has been important in mannerism, magic realist painting, romantic art, symbolism and lowbrow. In French, the genre is called le fantastique, in English it is sometimes referred to as visionary art, grotesque art or mannerist art, it has had a circular interaction with fantasy literature. The subject matter of Fantastic Art may resemble the product of hallucinations, Fantastic artist Richard Dadd spent much of his life in mental institutions. Salvador Dalí famously said: "the only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad".
Some recent Fantastic Art draws on the artist's experience, or purported experience, of hallucinogenic drugs. The term Fantasy Art is related, is applied to recent art inspired by, or illustrating, fantasy literature; the term has acquired some pejorative overtones. Fantastic art has traditionally been confined to painting and illustration, but since the 1970s has been found in photography. Fantastic art explores fantasy, the dream state, the grotesque and the uncanny, as well as so-called "Goth" art. Genres which may be considered as Fantastic Art include the Symbolism of the Victorian era, Surrealism. Works based on classical mythology, which have been a staple of European art from the Renaissance period arguably meet the definition of Fantastic Art, as art based on modern mythology such as JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth mythos unquestionably does. Religious art depicts supernatural or miraculous subjects in a naturalistic way, but is not regarded as Fantastic Art. Many artists have produced works.
Some, such as Nicholas Roerich, worked exclusively in the genre, others such as Hieronymus Bosch, described as the first "fantastic" artist in the Western tradition, produced works both with and without fantastic elements, for artists such as Francisco de Goya, fantastic works were only a small part of their output. Others again such as René Magritte are classed as Surrealists but use fantastic elements in their work, it is therefore impossible to give an exhaustive list of fantastic artists, but a selection of major and influential figures is listed below. Giuseppe Arcimboldo John Bauer William Blake Arnold Böcklin Hieronymus Bosch Brueghel Marc Chagall Giorgio de Chirico Richard Dadd Salvador Dalí Paul Delvaux Monsù Desiderio Gustave Doré Max Ernst Caspar David Friedrich Henry Fuseli Francisco de Goya Hans Baldung Grien Matthias Grünewald Thomas Häfner Max Klinger Gustave Moreau Giovanni Battista Piranesi Arthur Rackham Odilon Redon Nicholas Roerich Henri Rousseau Yves Tanguy Clovis Trouille George Frederic Watts The rise of fantasy and science fiction "pulp" magazines demanded artwork to illustrate stories and to promote sales.
This led to a movement of science fiction and fantasy artists prior to and during the Great Depression, as anthologised by Vincent Di Fate, himself a prolific SF and space artist. In the United States in the 1930s, a group of Wisconsin artists inspired by the Surrealist movement of Europe created their own brand of fantastic art, they included Wisconsin-based artists Marshall Glasier, Dudley Huppler and John Wilde. Their art combined macabre humor and irony, in direct and pointed contradiction to the American Regionalism in vogue. In postwar Chicago, the art movement Chicago Imagism produced many fantastic and grotesque paintings, which were little noted because they did not conform to New York abstract art fashions of the time. Major imagists include Roger Brown, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, Ed Paschke, Karl Wirsum. Non-European art may contain fantastic elements, although it is not easy to separate them from religious elements involving supernatural beings and miraculous events. Sculptor Bunleua Sulilat is a notable contemporary Asian Fantastic artist.
Dream art Outsider art Society for the Art of Imagination Surrealism Vienna School of Fantastic Realism Gruyères Castle Coleman, A. D.. The Grotesque in Photography. New York: Summit, Ridge Press. Watney, Simon. Fantastic Painters. London: Thames & Hudson. Colombo, Attilio. Fantastic Photographs. London: Gordon Fraser. Johnson, Diana L.. Fantastic illustration and design in Britain, 1850-1930. Rhode Island School of Design. Krichbaum, Jorg & Zondergeld. R. A.. Dictionary of Fantastic Art. Barron's Educational Series. Menton, Seymour. Magic Realism Rediscovered 1918-1981. Philadelphia, The Art Alliance Press. Day, Holliday T. & Sturges, Hollister. Art of the Fantastic: Latin America, 1920-1987. Indianapolis: Indianapolis Museum of Art. Clair, Jean. Lost Paradise: Symbolist Europe. Montreal: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Palumbo, Donald. Eros in the Mind's Eye: Sexuality and the Fantastic in Art and Film. Greenwood Press. Stathatos, John. A Vindication of Tlon: Photography and the Fantastic. Greece: Thessaloniki Museum of Photography Schurian, Prof. Dr. Walter.
Fantastic Art. Taschen. ISBN 978-3-8228-2954-7 BeinArt
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. It was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc.. The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997, it was derived from miniature wargames, with a variation of the 1971 game Chainmail serving as the initial rule system. D&D's publication is recognized as the beginning of modern role-playing games and the role-playing game industry. D&D departs from traditional wargaming by allowing each player to create their own character to play instead of a military formation; these characters embark upon imaginary adventures within a fantasy setting. A Dungeon Master serves as the game's referee and storyteller, while maintaining the setting in which the adventures occur, playing the role of the inhabitants of the game world; the characters form a party and they interact with the setting's inhabitants and each other. Together they solve dilemmas, engage in battles, gather treasure and knowledge.
In the process, the characters earn experience points in order to rise in levels, become powerful over a series of separate gaming sessions. The early success of D&D led to a proliferation of similar game systems. Despite the competition, D&D has remained as the market leader in the role-playing game industry. In 1977, the game was split into two branches: the rules-light game system of basic Dungeons & Dragons, the more structured, rules-heavy game system of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. AD&D 2nd Edition was published in 1989. In 2000, a new system was released as D&D 3rd edition, continuing the edition numbering from AD&D; these 3rd edition rules formed the basis of the d20 System, available under the Open Game License for use by other publishers. D&D 4th edition was released in June 2008; the 5th edition of D&D, the most recent, was released during the second half of 2014. As of 2004, D&D remained the best-known, best-selling, role-playing game, with an estimated 20 million people having played the game, more than US$1 billion in book and equipment sales.
The game has been supplemented by many pre-made adventures, as well as commercial campaign settings suitable for use by regular gaming groups. D&D is known beyond the game itself for other D&D-branded products, references in popular culture, some of the controversies that have surrounded it a moral panic in the 1980s falsely linking it to Satanism and suicide; the game has been translated into many languages. Dungeons & Dragons is a open-ended role-playing game, it is played indoors with the participants seated around a tabletop. Each player controls only a single character, which represents an individual in a fictional setting; when working together as a group, these player characters are described as a "party" of adventurers, with each member having their own area of specialty which contributes to the success of the whole. During the course of play, each player directs the actions of their character and their interactions with other characters in the game; this activity is performed through the verbal impersonation of the characters by the players, while employing a variety of social and other useful cognitive skills, such as logic, basic mathematics and imagination.
A game continues over a series of meetings to complete a single adventure, longer into a series of related gaming adventures, called a "campaign". The results of the party's choices and the overall storyline for the game are determined by the Dungeon Master according to the rules of the game and the DM's interpretation of those rules; the DM selects and describes the various non-player characters that the party encounters, the settings in which these interactions occur, the outcomes of those encounters based on the players' choices and actions. Encounters take the form of battles with "monsters" – a generic term used in D&D to describe hostile beings such as animals, aberrant beings, or mythical creatures; the game's extensive rules – which cover diverse subjects such as social interactions, magic use and the effect of the environment on PCs – help the DM to make these decisions. The DM may choose to deviate from the published rules or make up new ones if they feel it is necessary; the most recent versions of the game's rules are detailed in three core rulebooks: The Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide and the Monster Manual.
The only items required to play the game are the rulebooks, a character sheet for each player, a number of polyhedral dice. Many players use miniature figures on a grid map as a visual aid during combat; some editions of the game presume such usage. Many optional accessories are available to enhance the game, such as expansion rulebooks, pre-designed adventures and various campaign settings. Before the game begins, each player creates their player character and records the details on a character sheet. First, a player determines their character's ability scores, which consist of Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence and Charisma; each edition of the game has offered differing methods of determining these statistics. The player chooses a race such as human or elf, a character class such as fighter or wizard, an alignment, other features to round out the character's abilities and backstory, which have varied in nature through differing editions. During the game, players describe their PC's intended actions, such as punching an opponent or pi
