Nolgroth

You make good points but I think I am starting to see something of a trend here. Sometimes, the players don't need to know so much. Kal-Turak should have an extensive section in the GM section. Just leaving subtle hints that the world is getting darker and more dangerous is really all that the players should need to know. Having a name makes him seem less threatening. Also, did I miss it or is there not a write-up for Kal-Turak in the Turakian Age. I have a vague recollection that he was sort of covered under the "if he has stats, we can kill him" meta rule. And I am reading forward. Slower than I would like. I am currently doing a detailed read of the races (as opposed to the quick skim I did earlier). Perhaps I am strange, but why would drakira need breasts? Seems that they would be very reptilian/avian about feeding their young. I know, gross, but lizard breasts seem weird. Like you, I agree with the birth rate thing and was brainstorming ways to keep the flavor of being "outbred" by humanity without the silly "one child once" thing. I was thinking, if live birth is a thing, small "litters of 3-5" young once in a lifetime or a clutch of eggs (which seems more dragon-like to me) once. Even with a moderately high infant mortality rate, that will still leave enough viable offspring for the drakine to not immediately die off. A similar idea is to have much longer gestation periods. Finally, keeping the "one child once" thing but it is a recent thing caused by KT himself. Would explain the gradual decline and a few mothers in a given sample size could still produce more healthy numbers. Enough to hold on until the end of the age maybe. The human sub-cultures seem very modern friendly with lighter skinned to the west, moderately dark in the middle and dark to the east. Part of me kind of winces at that BUT, it is also familiar and that makes it easy to conceptualize. Same with the ubiquitous D&D Fantasy races. For many players, it is like slipping on a pair of old slippers. I need to finish the Races section before I comment further. I am currently about to start Elves and go on from there.

Welcome to the Hero Boards. Probably not the most appealing thread for somebody just jumping on, as it is a discussion about the current "down" trend with Hero Games right now. Still, happy to see new people pop in.

The line IS blurry. I draw away from the mechanical and go into narrative reasons for my own judgment. If you have to learn and train, it is a skill. If it is innate, it is a talent. Of course, that is not an easy thing to distinguish and there are examples from both sections that could easily cross over into the other. Defense Maneuver, for example, could represent either some mystical martial arts training or Spiderman's preternatural awareness that constantly saves him from unexpected attack. Ultimately, it really falls onto the individual GM to determine what shelf to put any mechanical construct in the game. For me, throwing everything under one category or another is...messy. The Hero System already resembles a weighty textbook and Hero characters are often more complicated than some legal contracts* I've read. Anything that helps me organize the flow and presentation of information is something good. * Yes, that's hyperbole.

Fame as the modern equivalent to worship. Works for me. Brings a whole new meaning to the lyrics of Fame by Irena Cara...

All good ideas. I might quibble with a couple on my list. Seriously. I took an already trimmed list and trimmed and condensed it even more. Some skills, like Cramming, Defense Maneuver and Rapid Attack, might fall better into the Talents category than Skills. Streetwise in an outlier. It functions almost like a combination of Expertise and Diplomacy. Might drop that altogether and require both of the previous skills for a street smart character. So yeah, no list begins with perfection. I was merely tinkering with the idea for the purpose of contribution. I have no arguments against your Everyman and Skill Level points.

Depends on which setting I am running/working on at the moment. In my Ulûm setting, which is a deliberate homage to Dark Sun, the Gods are actually the God-kings of the Ulûmite City-States. They rarely show themselves but are considered really powerful wizards. So much so that legends persist of single God-kings wiping out entire opposing armies. Only one of the God-kings acts openly and he wages a near constant war with tribes from the outside. There are no clerics in the D&D sense. The God-kings' servants tend to be very well trained magi, but there are no gods to grant power. There is a single godly entity who also grants no favors to worshipers. He is tied to myths of the end times and is said to be the only thing that can kill a God-king. Outside of the Ulûm "nation", gods are pretty much individual to each nomadic tribe. A lot of them share characteristics but have different names. Most are based on distant memories of an alien species called the Annuki (based on the Anunnaki from Zecharia Sitchen's work), that came to Ulûm in the distant past and then left as some sort of catastrophe wiped out much of the lift on the planet. My Corinareth setting has very D&D-like religions and clerics, though the gods themselves act through seers, oracles, dreams, etc to get mortals moving on the right track. Truth be told, I lost the list of gods somewhere but the ones from the 4th Edition D&D books would slip in there seamlessly, so I don't bother. Another setting is based on a slightly different Earth, but the gods/divine entities of a given region/religion would apply just as they would in the "real" world. There are massively powerful entities that might as well be gods, but like Lovecraft's entities, they have cults and followers that act on their behalf while they exist in a sort of semi-hibernation. A final setting, not really worked on, is based on the late Mesolithic/early Neolithic time frame and a totemic religion, similar to Shamans in Shadowrun was what I imagined for that setting. I had been reading Chronicles of an Ancient Darkness and playing Far Cry Primal a lot when this was percolating in my brain. In all of my settings, gods are vitally important to the day-to-day societal structure but they are not present in the sense of Ares coming down and fighting in the Trojan War sort of thing. That might actually be an interesting divergence from my normal thing.

Been a long time since I read the Hero Universe document. Thanks for posting it. At the time, I was vehemently against the idea that every Hero product was shoehorned into a semi-contiguous timeline. Even now, I have my problems with the idea but I also understand that need for a sense of continuity between settings. It can be very rewarding for the person(s) creating these settings to have that continuity.

Nothing wrong with trimming the Skill List for a specific game/campaign. The Hero System skill list is designed around maximum flexibility but is not necessarily great for every game (Computer Programming in Fantasy, for example - and yes I know there are extreme closet cases where this might be appropriate but for most campaigns, it would not). The important thing is to come up with a list of skills that have a narrative "attractiveness" for the game you are running and don't duplicate existing mechanics. The Perception skill from your list could be retooled to represent Enhanced Perception from the Enhanced Senses power, but you should probably just stick with Enhanced Senses. Similarly Endurance is already covered by the Endurance characteristic. If you want to handle Pushing, then use the existing Pushing rules. I think I have a fantasy Skill List around here....found it. Looking at it though, I would trim mine even more. For example, Mimicry and Ventriloquism can be rolled up into one skill. Acting and Disguise into another. I suppose my list would look something like; Acrobatics [Acrobatics, Breakfall] Acting [Acting, Disguise] Analyse Climbing Combat Skill Levels Crafting (category) [Examples: Crafting (Weaponsmith), Crafting (Brewing), etc - mostly replacing the clunky Professional Skill catch-all] Cramming Defense Maneuver (if you allow it) Diplomacy [Charm, Conversation, High Society] Espionage [Cryptography, Forgery, Lip Reading] Expertise (category) [Examples: Expertise (Arcana), Expertise (Religion), Expertise (Demonology) - mostly replacing the clunky Knowledge and Science Skills] Fast Draw Gambling Infiltration [Concealment and Stealth] Language Mental Combat Skill Levels Mechanics [Lockpick, Mechanics, Security Systems] Nature [Survival, Tracking] Persuasion [Interrogation, Intimidation, Persuasion, Trading] Rapid Attack Riding Sleight of Hand (for Picking Pockets and minor prestidigitation) Streetwise Teamwork Two-Weapon Fighting Weapon Familiarity If you require your Wizards to pass a Skill Roll before casting spells, you might add Power in there. You could rename it to something like Sorcery or Spellcasting or whatever. The above list should be pretty manageable. Skill Levels and Skill Enhancers would no longer function exactly the same. Or rather, because so many skills have been condensed into single skills, the costing structure would be off. You might very well just dump Skill Levels/Enhancers altogether and have each skill be improved singularly. Combat Skill Levels would not be affected. Everyman Skills would change too. Again, so many condensed skills would increase the value of any given Everyman Skill. On the other hand, having a fair bit of the Skill List as Everyman Skills would be similar to the Trained/Untrained skills for D&D. YMMV.

Good replies. I look forward to reading more about them (elves and such). I just can't shake the feeling that these extra species were more of the "you need this to have a high fantasy rpg setting" kind of thing. I will keep an open mind and hope that I am proven wrong. Humans in other settings are the dominant species, but you might be excused if you didn't immediately grasp that. The descriptions of other species and their sub-races are quite often more detailed than that of humans. All too often this comes at the expense of making humans boring. If anything, Steve has gone above and beyond the call of duty by detailing the human nations, barbarian tribes and ethnic groupings in TA. It is actually one of the better treatments on diverse populations. I think that, had Steve just stuck with the really generic flavorless text that most settings/games use for humans, it would not have made the non-humans so bland in comparison. He sort of did the opposite of most world setting designers and that makes TA stand out all the more. For me, that is definitely a feature of the setting.

Turakian Age Reread: The Second Epoch and the species overview. Okay, been a little while, but I have recovered from last week's illness and was able to drag myself away from Subnautica long enough to read a bit. The Second Epoch is where I start to have some disconnects with the setting. The biggest disconnect is the Hargeshite splinter. I skimmed through the section on the gods and whatnot, but it seems to me that the gods, in general, are very present in the lives of the faithful, what with miracles being provided and all that. So that brings up the issue with Hargesh. If his tenets were the new ones that the followers of the gods are supposed to follow, why are traditionalists still getting miracles granted to them? If Hargesh truly is a heretic, why are the Hargeshites getting miracles granted? I may have missed something in there, but there is little to no information beyond the differences in regards to the Grey gods and a nice little patriarchal oppression of women. It just seems counter to the idea that the gods are actively involved in the events of the world. 3333: The coming of Kal-Turak has a lot of interesting little bits to it, but if it were a movie, it would feel rushed. Again, I realize space requirements but I just didn't get the "Oh my, it's the Great Oogly Moogly Big Bad" vibe from him. Everything seemed really forced about him. I did note, with some wry amusement, that Kal-Turak is to the Lord of the Graven Spear as Morgoth is to Sauron. Still, the story of his birth and his demonic mother, now torn asunder but still alive, has a lot of dark potential to it. Even his realm and the great wall could be interesting, if played correctly. Ol' Kal just needs both a more active presence and a more subtle one. In all honesty though, I would probably omit Kal-Turak from Ambrethel altogether, or at least throw a lot more details about his rise to power in there. Merging with the racial thing, the birth of Kal-Turak changes the tone of things greatly. It would also be an ideal time for orcs, trolls and all that to make their debut appearance. I dunno, but it seems like this brand new player, nearly on the cosmological scale, could demonstrate a lot of power by literally warping/corrupting a group of people into things from your worst nightmare. It would also be very genre appropriate. The period of time just after the fall of the Spearlord seems just more like a time rife with adventure possibilities. There are still scars and echoes from this time of great evil but still a kind of open-endedness. Once the Age Eponymous Big Bad Dude comes into the picture, that sense of possibility closes up. Entirely my opinion. Beating the Dead Horse, Finale: Humans and Drakine; those are the two main species. The section on Barbarian tribes gets 3x the word count that the elves do. Same with the section on Knights. Well, maybe 2.5 times the word count. Dwarves fare no better and it only gets worse from there. There is a bit about the religious schism of the elves but really, to me it felt like a desperate attempt to make the elves interesting. I see this as a feature to the setting. The Drakine history hints at being descended from an even more epic age. I see no reason why the Elves and Dwarves could not have had their heyday during this previous age. Now, there are remnants of the two species left over during the First Epoch. They can even muster a fairly decent fighting force. But the battle with the Lord of the Graven Spear is their last hurrah. From then on, they gradually fade until disappearing completely. The dwarves retreat into their subterranean realm and eventually cut off their interaction with the surface world. You can still have those kinds of characters, but the closer you get to the official present day (5,000), the fewer of them wander the world of Men and Drakine. The rest of the species, can similarly be of limited numbers. To me, their inclusion is just a check box checked. They certainly have no compelling place within the setting. This will also be the last time I mention that little tidbit in my re-read commentary. I'm hardly done reading the Turakian Age, but the context by which I filter the information has pretty much been set. I do appreciate the setting more this time around and that's a good thing. I think the next thing I plan on doing is finishing the section on the regions, with all the nations. A quick disclaimer: I have no intention of running the Turakian Age. If I ever did, I doubt it would be with the Hero System. I no longer have the patience for power builds that look like some sort of contract with clauses and exceptions spelled out. I am therefore not going to read or comment on the game mechanics sections. Also, if y'all think this is not the appropriate thread, just let me know. Seemed like a good place to go over my impressions of the material.

Thanks for the well wishes. I am normally don't sleep more than six hours a day. No reason other than the ol' body just doesn't seem to need it. With this stupid cold, I've been sleeping almost twice that and I still feel wiped out. Hate getting sick. As to why the Blue Gods stand idle (or "weep") as the text says, I am going to attribute that to Mordak's part in the great creation plan. Something that, like a legal contract, has little clauses built in to allow for the rise of such evils. Plus, it might just be that the Blue gods sometimes need to remind people not to take them for granted. Let some evil dude rise up every couple of thousand of years and then send heroes in to save the day and remind folk of how important the Blue gods are to maintaining peace and prosperity or something like that. By Kal-Turak's time, maybe the power of the Blue gods is diminishing. Maybe they become the titans of ancient Greece and are cast down by younger, more vital gods. Who knows? I don't own a copy of Valdorian Age, which is the next chronological entry into the Hero Universe (as I recall). No idea if any of the gods carry over or if they are relics of an ancient, mysterious past.

Got up to the Lord of the Graven Spear and the end of the First Epoch. I really like the inverted King Arthur trope here, where the Spearlord conquers much of the known world with the aid of a magic spear. SO much more detail could have gone into this. Hell, you could really make an entire chapter about this period of time and the time after where kingdoms are rising and falling all over the place, for that matter. In fact, the period of time just after the death of the Spearlord seems way more interesting to me than the default campaign assumption of eventually fighting Kal-Turak. Luckily (and also somewhat frustratingly) a lot of the details surrounding the Spearlord are vague and GM dependent. This character has the potential to be one of the most interesting villains around. Hate to say it, but much more interesting than the titular villain, Kal-Turak. If I were to write the Spearlord's story, I would actually give him a name and make him a little less directly evil. Heck, in some parts of the world, he might have become a bit of a folk hero. He was, after all, a somewhat permissive leader that might well have brought stability to some nations/regions that had not experienced it before. But that's me projecting my own tastes into the setting. Let me finish the book as written before I get into all of that. My reading is slowed down considerably by a head/chest cold. Every time I cracked open the book to start reading, I would suddenly jolt awake with a couple of minutes having passed by. Was hoping to get the history lesson done today.

Annihilation: Reminded me of the Colour Out of Space by HP Lovecraft and I would be honestly surprised (and skeptical) of any claims that it wasn't. I think it was a tremendously well done show that had some genuinely creepy moments. The narrative conceit of the story being told via interview removed any sense of actual tension in terms of wondering what happens to the protagonist. I don't really spoil that, as it is made pretty clear really soon in the movie. Not sure about the ending. I don't think that there could have been any ending that was satisfying to everyone. Gotham, Final Season: About what I was expecting. Didn't like the deformed Joker character. I did like the reinvigorated Selena Kyle as she crawled and tumbled over cars during one scene. Screamed, "this girl is going to be Catwoman someday." All in all, entertaining but not in any deep sort of way. Arrow, Final Season (to current episode): Meh. Figured they would bring back some much missed characters for the final sendoff. Happy that they are sending it off without it just getting dumped. The only Arrowverse show I started and intend to finish. History Guy, History Deserves to Be Remembered: If you like interesting bits of history that the common person is simply not exposed to, then this is the YouTube channel for you. I am nearly caught up on his extensive library that covers anything from World War (both), the history of traffic lines, Bass Reeves ( a black US Marshall that the Lone Ranger is based upon), the first female attorney in the US and so very many more. Each episode is between 10-20 minutes long and I've noticed a trend to spotlight the underdog hero whenever possible. The only issue I have with his channel is that the early episodes have the theme music turned up really high. Other than that, my favorite YouTube channel.

Difficulty scales to your level. Strangely enough, even when grouped with higher power characters. A decent build is not quite as essential as it used to be, but finding a good combination will help you. Later on, dungeons will require the best build you can must but also dole out some of the best rewards. You will find it almost a natural zero-to-hero progression. One of the things that they did right. MMO-things I hate about it: 1. The crafting system is a grind and while you can build higher-end items, that requires either special forges found out in the wilderness or very rare and difficult-to-acquire-enough-of ingredients. 2. Other players. Not only do you have to deal with idiotic names like ButtyMcFartface69, much of the world loot (like crafting goods, chests, etc.) are not instanced. First come. First serve. I've literally seen trolls hang out by loot spawn points long after the loot has spawned just to snatch it up as you run towards it. 3. Limited quest journal space and almost every town you come upon can easily fill that journal with other NPCs tagging along after you, demanding your attention so that they can give you a quest you can't accept. 4. Limited storage that costs a LOT of in-game currency to upgrade. Sometimes it felt like I was working at increasing my bank and bag space more than playing a game. And, yes, it gets progressively more expensive as you go. 5. Rapidly respawning enemies. Yes, a trope of MMO games, but one I hate. If you are okay with that, then it is less frustrating to go between towns and dungeons. Things I like about it: 1. Pretty decent intro areas. The tutorial area is horrible because of #2 above. Depending on your patience level, get through it as fast as you can and loot everything you can find. It's the faction-specific starts that are great. 2. Decent stories. 3. A pretty world with lots of character.

Okay, started to delve into the history of Ambrethel. What I really liked about this section is that it made me want to open up the sections on the first of the human kingdoms and regions. It did little to make me change my position about human versus drakine. I need to delve further, of course, in order to give the other species a fair shake. Right now, though, the other playable species/races are looking more and more like boxes that needed to be checked off in order to make an epic fantasy rpg setting. Getting back to the early history, my biggest compliment and complaint is that the text left me wanting more...and there was a lot of information that was not available. Sure, a lot of that can and should be filled in by the individual GM. I almost feel like I need to build a timeline of events to see how things play out over the larger area. Also, the creation myth section is so bland and vague that it could have been replaced with something more concise. The format of the TA book makes a bit of light research a must. Learning the lore of, say, the Sirrenic Empire is going to involve jumping through at least a couple of sections. Maybe the NPC and GM sections will even have more information. This scattering of information has also sort of dictated how I approach the consumption of information from the TA book. A chapter by chapter review is simply not going to satisfactorily educate me on the lore of the setting. This might have been one of the things that caused my initially lukewarm response way back in the day. Also a warning to anybody just jumping in on the setting. Homework is required. So far, enjoying myself.

Uh...you're welcome? I don't specifically dislike multiple species in a setting. It's just I rather think that a well-designed setting only needs humans (or another predominant species) and maybe a couple more, at most. I could actually see TA being Humans and Drakine. There could be hints at older, now lost species. In fact, there should be. I can almost picture TA being a surrogate for the Fourth Age of Middle Earth, when the world starts shedding dwarves, elves and hobbits. The Drakine rise and fall during the TA and eventually become the "serpent people" so prevalent in Pulp Fantasy (Valdorian Age) and maybe rise again as a force to be reckoned with for the Atlantean Age before finally descending into another long period of decay that leads to yet more tales of serpent people during the modern, horror themed pulps. As I said above, I am re-reading (as opposed to referencing) the entire TA book for the first time in over a decade. I'll see if the "kitchen sink" aspect of the setting persuades me this time around. Personally, I think I'll skip MERP and most editions of D&D. If anything, my advancing age has guided me towards me rules-lite systems like FATE. I only cling to Hero because I am familiar with it.

I started a re-read of the Turakian Age book today. I, admittedly, didn't go beyond the Introduction today, but I figure I will probably read a few pages to a chapter every couple of days until I get through it. So far, my impression of the Turakian Age re-read is going pretty well. I do not have quite the same hardline stance against its inclusion into the Hero Timeline. Not much else of note beyond the Chapters summary. I'll have more commentary as I read further into the book.

I love tailored settings. So much so, that I am building (they never seem to get done) about a half-dozen of them for the fantasy genre alone. Then my problem becomes that I want to run/play all of them so I end up trying to figure how to throw them all together. I usually end up with the kitchen sink setting. 😕

Hero is a vast system that dares you to learn it. Luckily for you, it can be learned in small chunks and, if you can avoid some of the frustration traps, can be a very rewarding system. Let's see if we can help you. The GM, when planning his campaign decides a total number of points for the characters. This total number of points is usually based on whether it is a Champions (superhero) game, some version of fantasy or sci-fi, or whatever. Each character is given that many CP to start building their characters. Now in most, if not all, games, some of those points are contingent on taking Complications. So you might see something the looks like 275/75. In this example, the characters would all get 200 points straight out. To get the other 75, they need to buy Complications equal to 75 points. It is also common practice for the GM to assign point ranges for powers in an attempt to balance out the characters, but that is another topic. Hero is designed around a reasoning for affect principle. You look at the narrative aspect of the power and build from there. The Lightning Toss attack is actually an easy power to create. You start with something that deals damage. That's either going to be Blast or Ranged Killing Attack. For our purposes, I am going to choose Blast. It takes a second or so for the power to build up, so I am going to add Extra-Time: Full Phase and Flash has to be moving at full speed for the ability to work (at least from the TV show). I don't have my books with me but I am going to say that is a -1/2 Limitation. So the power would look a little like Lightning Toss: 12d6 Blast (60 Active Points) Extra-Time: Full Phase (-1/2), Must follow a Full Move (-1/2). Total Cost: 30 Points. The reason Full Move gets a cost break is that there are penalties for making an attack on the run. If that is just special effect, then he wouldn't get points. That is also part of the core rules philosophy; if an ability gives you a substantial advantage, you pay points for it. If you are mechanically disadvantaged by taking something, you get a cost break. Things that are purely narrative are usually things that you don't have to pay for. That's a whole conversation into itself. A Turn (12 seconds) is divided into 12 1-second Phases. Your character's Speed characteristic dictates which of those Phases your character goes on. There is a chart in the book (don't have it handy but I will edit in page references later). If more than one character goes on the same Phase, the highest Dexterity goes first and so on. Each action is either a 0, 1/2 or Full Phase action. Most actions are 1/2 Phase by default. Any attack action ends that Phase for the character. So it is possible to move half of your Movement (1/2 Phase) and Attack (1/2 Phase). Again, I will edit in some handy references later.

My favorite YouTube channel.

Not really any single player, as I have encounter this phenomena many times over a long gaming career. It usually goes along these lines. This is one of two or three really hot button topics for me. Bob never really liked Mike. Whether something happened outside of the game or just not liking "the cut of Mike's jib," Bob just detests Mike. To make matters worse, Mike has no clue regarding the situation and if he does, he doesn't understand why there is a problem. To Bob, though, Mike is an unwelcome addition to the gaming group. Now, for the most part, Bob is able to constrain his darker impulses but somewhere along the line, he passes a note, "I backstab/attack Mike's character." The ensuing conversation, carried out via passed notes basically turns out that there is no valid in-character reason, it's just that today Bob has decided to show his proverbial ass. This has happened to me in literally every single campaign I have ever run. The two players may be different, but the situation is almost identical. I ended my last online campaign (way back in 2009) because of this. The "Bob" in that situation was a close friend to two of the other players. That left the "Mike" in that scenario and one other player. As I didn't want to cause discord and malcontent, I just walked away from the group and the game. I could have handled it better, but that move completely took the wind out of my proverbial sails. I have created two solutions to this. I explain both to a group when we first start playing. The first one is a strict "no notes" policy. The only time a note can be passed is if it pertains to something outside of the game. A valid example would be something like "Hey, my daughter has a dance recital at 6, can you find a way to write me out for the night that doesn't involve killing my character?" Other than that, everything must be announced at the table. Roleplaying is a group event that should be shared anyway. If somebody insists on passing the "Backstab" note anyway, I immediately cease the game. I have to, because the situation is one of those that genuinely makes me angry. I explain why (leaving out the involved names) and promise to give the campaign a second chance next session. If it repeats itself, then once again I explain the situation and resign my position within the gaming group. Now, this is not to say that conflict between two characters is not allowed. If the campaign events suggest this as a viable course of action and the players are good sports about it, party conflict can be an amazingly rich story development. It is the underhanded, one player trying to ruin the experience for another that pisses me off.

C:TNM remains the only version of Champions I actually played more than one session of.

Long As I Can See the Light - Creedence Clearwater Revival

Been awhile since I ran a game and studied the deep esoterica of Hero System, but I would judge that Aid would require AoE. It is a good method if the spell wears off but might get prohibitively expensive to do so. Transform is not something I would recommend. Barrier is your best bet if the change is permanent. The special effect of transforming the rock to this new "dense rock" can easily be simulated using that rule more easily than others. Just toss on a "Only to harden the existing rock" requirement (which, at best, I would allow a -¼ Limitation on) and define it as the existing rock in the defined area. I know the Barrier power says "create," but sculptors "create" art from existing clay or stone. This is much the same concept. Just my $0.02.

Thanks for the info. I will consider your offer.