Domains at War


Book Description

Tomorrow you will bring the battle to the foe. Tonight you walk among the troops you'll lead. The mercenaries are veterans and sleep while they can, but the peasants levied from your lands seek courage in tales of your previous victories. In the cover of darkness, you can listen rather than lead. Remember when you were like them? Back when you first entered the dungeon, you wielded a sword to fight for gold, glory, and the favor of the gods. Winning these earned you a throne. Now you wield an army, and fight for the right to rule the domains at war. Domains at War: Campaigns (D@W) is a supplement for Autarch's best-selling Adventure Conqueror King System (ACKS). Using the rules herein, your fantasy RPG characters can raise armies, campaign against enemy forces, and conquer domains. It includes a comprehensive campaign toolkit for use in ongoing games, fully compatible with ACKS's rules for mercenaries, strongholds, magic, and rulership. D@W: Campaigns also includes a streamlined system for resolving the outcome of pitched battles between army-sized forces, ideal for resolving battles between NPC commanders, where the adventurers are bystanders or front-line participants. Domains at War: Campaigns is compatible with any fantasy RPG system that uses twenty-sided dice and shares concepts like hit points and armor class. If your players are ready to rule, then your campaign is ready for the Domains at War: Campaigns rules.




ACKS Core First Printing


Book Description

Your Journey from Adventurer to King Begins Now! Enter a world where empires totter on the brink of war, and terrible monsters tear at the fragile borderlands of men; where decaying cities teem with chaos and corruption, nubile maidens are sacrificed to chthonic cults and nobles live in decadent pleasure on the toil of slaves; where heroes, wizards, and rogues risk everything in pursuit of glory, fortune, and power. This is a world where adventurers can become conquerors - and conquerors can become kings. Will you survive the perils of war and dark magic to claim a throne? Or will you meet your fate in a forgotten ruin beyond the ken of men? The Adventurer Conqueror King System (ACKS) is a new fantasy role-playing game that provides the framework for epic fantasy campaigns with a sweeping scope. With the Adventurer Conqueror King System you can: Play 12 different classes, including the fighter, mage, thief, cleric, assassin, bard, bladedancer, explorer, dwarven craftpriest, dwarven vaultguard, elven nightblade, and elven spellsword. Easily customize your character using a unique, optional proficiency system. Make your fighter a berserker or your mage a necromancer! Buy, sell, and trade common merchandise, precious silks and spices, and even monster parts and magic items in a balanced and integrated game economy. Construct strongholds, establish kingdoms, and carve out a realm for your character. Run a thieves' guild and send your minions to carouse, smuggle, steal, and commit other hijinks. Establish a wizard's sanctum and explore the forbidden arts. Crossbreed horrific monsters in an underground laboratory, enact powerful magical rituals, build golems, craft magic items, or even transform yourself and your followers into undead monsters. Build and run a living world for adventure on a grand scale. With game mechanics built to support emergent play, ACKS is the ultimate RPG for sandbox campaigns. Whether you want to crawl through dungeons, trade with merchant caravans, run a merchant emporium, conquer an empire, or even raise an undead legion, ACKS supports your playstyle with simple, fast-playing game mechanics."




Domains at War


Book Description

Tomorrow you will bring the battle to the foe. Tonight you walk among the troops you'll lead. The mercenaries are veterans and sleep while they can, but the peasants levied from your lands seek courage in tales of your previous victories. In the cover of darkness, you can listen rather than lead. Remember when you were like them? Back when you first entered the dungeon, you wielded a sword to fight for gold, glory, and the favor of the gods. Winning these earned you a throne. Now you wield an army, and fight for the right to rule the domains at war. Domains at War: Battles (D@W) is a supplement for Autarch's best-selling Adventure Conqueror King System (ACKS). Using the rules herein, you can run massive battles between opposing armies using playing pieces on the tabletop. Designed specifically for battles where RPG characters are in command, D@W: Battles makes the deeds and decisions of those characters the focus of its gameplay, and works hard to integrate their actions into the flow of battle. Built from the same mathematics that power ACKS, it generates outcomes like what you'd get if you fought it out on the one-on-one roleplaying scale. Domains at War: Battles is compatible with any fantasy RPG system that uses twenty-sided dice and shares concepts like hit points and armor class. With Domains at War: Battles, we invite RPG gamers to bring the epic scope of pitched battle to their tabletops!




The Oxford Guide to International Humanitarian Law


Book Description

International humanitarian law is the law that governs the conduct of participants during armed conflict. This branch of law aims to regulate the means and methods of warfare as well as to provide protections to those who do not, or who no longer, take part in the hostilities. It is one of the oldest branches of international law and one of enduring relevance today. The Oxford Guide to International Humanitarian Law provides a practical yet sophisticated overview of this important area of law. Written by a stellar line up of contributors, drawn from those who not only have extensive practical experience but who are also regarded as leading scholars of the subject, the text offers a comprehensive and authoritative exposition of the field. The Guide provides professionals and advanced students with information and analysis of sufficient depth to enable them to perform their tasks with understanding and confidence. Each chapter illuminates how the law applies in practice, but does not shy away from the important conceptual issues that underpin how the law has developed. It will serve as a first port of call and a regular reference work for those interested in international humanitarian law.




The Fifth Domain


Book Description

An urgent warning from two bestselling security experts--and a gripping inside look at how governments, firms, and ordinary citizens can confront and contain the tyrants, hackers, and criminals bent on turning the digital realm into a war zone. "In the battle raging between offense and defense in cyberspace, Clarke and Knake have some important ideas about how we can avoid cyberwar for our country, prevent cybercrime against our companies, and in doing so, reduce resentment, division, and instability at home and abroad."--Bill Clinton There is much to fear in the dark corners of cyberspace: we have entered an age in which online threats carry real-world consequences. But we do not have to let autocrats and criminals run amok in the digital realm. We now know a great deal about how to make cyberspace far less dangerous--and about how to defend our security, economy, democracy, and privacy from cyber attack. Our guides to the fifth domain -- the Pentagon's term for cyberspace -- are two of America's top cybersecurity experts, seasoned practitioners who are as familiar with the White House Situation Room as they are with Fortune 500 boardrooms. Richard A. Clarke and Robert K. Knake offer a vivid, engrossing tour of the often unfamiliar terrain of cyberspace, introducing us to the scientists, executives, and public servants who have learned through hard experience how government agencies and private firms can fend off cyber threats. With a focus on solutions over scaremongering, and backed by decades of high-level experience in the White House and the private sector, The Fifth Domain delivers a riveting, agenda-setting insider look at what works in the struggle to avoid cyberwar.




Kingdoms & Warfare


Book Description

Kingdoms and Warfare, the sequel to Strongholds & Followers, is a 5th edition supplement that introduces Domain-level play to your game, allowing players to become Regents running a Kingdom, Duchy, or Barony! Or a Church! A Thieves' Guild! A Bard's College! Whichever you choose, it's your Domain. Your domain can take actions, raise armies, conduct espionage, and wage war! Kingdoms and Warfare also adds mechanics for player Titles for several different organizations. Titles give your characters new, limited abilities and proficiencies that let them shore up the deficiencies of a limited-class party. Expanded rules for Warfare allowing faster, more balanced battles, more and different kinds of units. New Maneuvers allow characters to directly command their units, executing daring ploys that can change the course of war! New rules for the Tide of Battle create a connection between the Encounter your characters are fighting and the Battle your units are waging. New rules for using PCs and monsters as units, as well as more advice for building an army and waging war. The rules for Warfare in Strongholds & Followers are only the beginning of a more robust system.Any book of new rules as big as this requires an adventure to show you how to use it. The Regent of Bedegar acts as a sequel to the Siege of Castle Rend and introduces players to Domain Level play. The heroes manage their new domain, putting out fires in Gravesford and other local towns while encountering various organizations in Aendrim, some friendly, some not so much.




Next War


Book Description

"...a useful addition to the literature of the changing character of war. Its scoping and focus, and its application of the identified disruptors to current challenges offer immediate insights for today’s commanders and defence policymakers." — The Wavell Room The nature of war is constant change. We live in an era of exponential technological acceleration which is transforming how wars are waged. Today, the battlespace is transparent; multi-domain sensors can see anything, and long-range precision fire can target everything that is observed. Autonomous weapons can be unleashed into the battlespace and attack any target from above, hitting the weakest point of tanks and armored vehicles. The velocity of war is hyper-fast. Battle shock is the operational, informational, and organizational paralysis induced by the rapid convergence of key disrupters in the battlespace. It occurs when the tempo of operations is so fast, and the means so overwhelming, that the enemy cannot think, decide, or act in time. Hit with too many attacks in multiple domains, all occurring simultaneously, the enemy is paralyzed. In short, the keys to decisive victory in war is to generate battle shock. Imagine a peer fight against Communist China, a new war in Europe against a resurgent Russia, or a conflict against Iran in the Middle East. How can our forces survive an enemy-first strike in these circumstances? Can we adapt to the ever-accelerating tempo of war? Will our forces be able to mask from enemy sensors? How will leaders execute command and control in a degraded communications environment? Will our command posts survive? Will our commanders see and understand what is happening in order to plan, decide, and act in real time? This book addresses these tough questions and more.




Into the Odd


Book Description

Into the Odd contains everything you need to create a character and explore an industrial world of cosmic meddlers and horrific hazards. This is a fast, simple game, to challenge your wits rather than your understanding of complex rules.You seek Arcana, strange devices hosting unnatural powers beyond technology. They range from the smallest ring to vast machines, with powers from petty to godlike. Beside these unnatural items that they may acquire, your characters remain grounded as mortals in constant danger.The game is 48 pages, containing:Original artwork from Jeremy Duncan, Levi Kornelsen, and others.The fastest character creation out there, getting you playing as soon as possible.Player rules that fit on a single page, keeping a focus on exploration, problem solving, and fast, deadly combat.The complete guide to running the game as Referee. From making the most of the rules to creating your own monsters and Arcana. Sample monsters, arcanum, traps, and hazards.Character advancement from Novice to Master Rules for running your own Company, and taking it to war with an original mass combat system.Complete guide to the Odd World, from the cosmopolitan city of Bastion and its hidden Underground, through to backwards Deep Country, the unexplored Golden Lands.The Iron Coral, sample expedition site to test the players' survival skills.The Fallen Marsh, a deadly wilderness to explore.Hopesend Port, a settlement to regroup and sail on to further adventure.Thirteen bonus pages of tools and random tables from the Oddpendium.




Artificial War


Book Description

Military conflicts, particularly land combat, possess thecharacteristics of complex adaptive systems: combat forces arecomposed of a large number of nonlinearly interacting parts and areorganized in a dynamic command-and-control network; local action, which often appears disordered, self-organizes into long-range order;military conflicts, by their nature, proceed far from equilibrium;military forces adapt to a changing combat environment; and there isno master voice that dictates the actions of every soldier (i




A History of the Art of War


Book Description