FABLED LANDS is an epic series of interactive books with the scope of a massively multiplayer game world. You can choose to be an explorer, merchant, priest, scholar or soldier of fortune. You can buy a ship or a townhouse, join a temple, undertake desperate adventures in the wilderness or embroil yourself in court intrigues and the sudden violence of city backstreets. You can undertake missions that will earn you allies and enemies, or you can remain a free agent. With thousands of quests and locations to explore, the choices are all yours.

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SET OUT ON A JOURNEY OF FABULOUS ADVENTURE

The Lords of the Rising Sun hold absolute power over the exotic kingdom of Akatsurai. But proud warrior clans constantly seek to overthrow them. In the turmoil of war there are countless opportunities for a quick-witted adventurer. Will you spy for the Shogun? Will you pledge your life to the Sovereign as one of his chivalrous knights? Or just play one side against the other in your pursuit of riches and power?

Track down the elusive, raven-winged Tengu to learn the secret arts of sorcery and swordplay. Defeat the vampires, skilled in martial arts, who guard the Lost Tomb of the Necromancer. Enter the dreadful cloisters of the Noboro Monastery, where you will fight the most dangerous opponent of all ? yourself ...

A thousand quests await you and every decision is in your hands. Be whoever you choose, go anywhere you please, do anything you want ? the only limit is your imagination.

The choices are unlimited, the adventures endless, in the fantastic role-playing world of the FABLED LANDS.

A Practical, Start-to-Finish Approach to Managing, Evolving, and Transforming Legacy IT Systems For every IT executive, manager, architect, program leader, project leader, and lead analyst "Richard and Kevin introduce us to a reality that's often neglected in our industry: the problem of evolving legacy systems, a domain they call 'Brownfield development.' The authors identify the root of the problem as that of complexity, and offer an approach that focuses on the fundamentals of abstraction and efficient communication to nibble at this problem of transformation bit by bit. As the old saying goes, the way you eat the elephant is one bite at a time. Richard and Kevin bring us to the table with knife and fork and other tools, and show us a way to devour this elephant in the room." Grady Booch, IBM Fellow, co-creator of UML "Most organizations in the 21st century have an existing, complex systems landscape. It is time that the IT industry face up to the reality of the situation and the need for new development methods and tools that address it. This book describes a new approach to the development of future systems: a structured approach that recognizes the challenges of 'Brownfield' development, is based on engineering principles, and is supported by appropriate tooling." Chris Winter, CEng CITP FBCS FIET, IBM Fellow, Member of the IBM Academy of Technology Most conventional approaches to IT development assume that you're building entirely new systems. Today, "Greenfield" development is a rarity. Nearly every project exists in the context of existing, complex system landscapes--often poorly documented and poorly understood. Now, two of IBM's most experienced senior architects offer a new approach that is fully optimized for the unique realities of "Brownfield" development. Richard Hopkins and Kevin Jenkins explain why accumulated business and IT complexity is the root cause of large-scale project failure and show how to overcome that complexity "one bite of the elephant at a time." You'll learn how to manage every phase of the Brownfield project, leveraging breakthrough collaboration, communication, and visualization tools--including Web 2.0, semantic software engineering, model-driven development and architecture, and even virtual worlds. This book will help you reengineer new flexibility and agility into your IT environment...integrate more effectively with partners...prepare for emerging business challenges... improve system reuse and value...reduce project failure rates...meet any business or IT challenge that requires the evolution or transformation of legacy systems. * System complexity: understand it, and harness it Go beyond the comforting illusion of your high-level architecture diagrams * How conventional development techniques actually make things worse Why traditional decomposition and abstraction don't work--and what to do instead * Reliably reengineer your IT in line with your business priorities New ways to understand, communicate, visualize, collaborate, and solve complex IT problems * Cut the elephant down to size, one step at a time Master all four phases of a Brownfield project: survey, engineer, accept, and deploy