Chris Goodwin

FYI: The big white "K" in the upper left corner of the video is a link to the Kickstarter page. It took me a few minutes of clicking around to figure it out. Here's a plain old link to it:
 
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/herogames/champions-now
 
I like the idea, will download the sample and check it out.
 
I like the retro art for the video thumbnail, but one minor criticism: The male character on the far right has no lower right leg. At least some of his lower leg and foot should be visible behind the lady's feet. The guy with the star on his chest on the left side seems to have the same issue with his lower left leg. (ETA: It seems like they may have been erased when putting the characters over the lettering. It looks like they both have some faint leg outlines remaining.)
 
Best of luck!
 

I am so in. Having a version of classic Champions built around the kind of wild gaming back in the day before things were too codified, a new rule set, and essays built from play experience and love of the game and genre all appeal to me.

You don't "Need" Hero Designer for 5th or 6th edition Hero either. But it's useful.
 
Lucius Alexander
 
Palindromedary Now!

I'm one of Ron Edwards' Patreon supporters, so I knew this was coming.
 
rjcurrie is correct about the two rule sets.
 
Ron tends to work on the principle that setting details (mainly) emerge during play. As such, big data dumps are pointless or possibly harmful. So setting is a DIY thing, based on some very basic information from the GM plus what the players come up with for their characters. (DNPCs, Hunteds, other supporting cast, PC motivations).
 
For comparison, Aaron Allston apparently did write up a background history for his Strike Force campaign, but most of his setting grew out of play.
 
A lot of Ron's writing on early Champions can be found on his old blog: https://adeptpress.wordpress.com/tag/champions-rpg/

I could dig up at least a dozen character sheets from the 80's where I could disagree with you.  ?  I swear to you, I could add up a column of numbers three times and get four different results!  

Progress! It's taken me months longer than it should have due to my ongoing health problems, but I've finally finished the Incan and South American Mythology chapter of MYTHIC HERO. Woot!
 
Now to move on to the last major world mythology left to me (though by no means the last one I have to research and write about): Celtic! First task: update my bibliography. That should take me the rest of the day, at least.

Main issue: prefabs and character files (.hdp and .hdc, respectively) have a large amount of similarity, but they _are_ different. Simply renaming a .hdc file to .hdp is going to cause issues — as noted. Don’t do that. If you _have_ done that and run into errors AND have HD set to reload prefabs on launch, you’re going to need to either delete the file in question (to prevent HD from trying to load it on launch) or delete your appPrefs.xml file (to remove all settings that tell HD what to do on launch beyond the basics).

Yes, I would like to see that. Because new gamers need something that gets them into the action now and simplifies character generation. They can always include the nitty gritty under the hood stuff for the people who DO want to customize further.
 
Plot Point Campaigns. I really love Necessary Evil. It's well put together and is pretty easy to convert to Hero. The Deadlands PP books are supposed to be good too.
 
PS sorry if I replied to this one before. I don't remember if I have and my original post keeps getting likes so...

Because you are brilliant

Yes, if we're talking the Hero Games of our dreams, something for the builders, and something for the out-of-the-boxers, would be ideal. The sad reality is, both groups of fans together don't seem to have enough buying power to make it happen, at least not any more.

Hi! Been a Champions nut for a very long time (1985, 3rd ed) but been quite inactive over the last decade and a half. Ran a lot of 3rd and 4th ed but skipped over Fuzion (ugh) and 5th ed. Champions Complete has recently fallen into my lap and the old juices are starting to flow again.

How did you come up with your 'handle' (forum name)?
  I picked up a nickname as "The Missing Link" at my first proper job. Link is "Rinku" in Japanese which I was always a fan of. Nothing to do with Zelda - but because of Link from Zelda I got into the habit of sticking the "m" for missing in front to make a handle. 

What was the first tabletop RPG you played?
  1st Edition Traveller, circa 1980.

What was the first tabletop RPG you GMed?
  Ditto.

What are you currently playing/GMing?
  Playing 2nd Ed Space:1889 (Ubiquity version) with the old gang via Skype. Prepping to run Champions 6th after we finish that campaign.

 

Edit: Just added a profile picture. Never played Captain Third in a tabletop game, but he's appeared in City of Heroes, DCUO, Pirates of the Burning Sea and has a miniature (pictured). Probably I should have a picture of Robo-bushi or Dwarfstar who go back to my actual Champions playing days, but Cap started as a wargaming tournament in-joke and the first drawing of him was as a forum profile portrait, so hey.

Unfortunate is a good word. The economic downturn was pretty horrific, especially to small press games like Hero. Equally unfortunate was the decision, on Hero Games part, to just give up. E-publishing is a much less desirable alternative to traditional methods, but it was something that may have kept Hero Games a little healthier than it currently is.
 
Of course, this is "Monday morning quarterbacking" at its finest.

That is in fact what I do, and I assume everyone else does as well. But it doesn't change the fact that the 6e Vehicles book is referenced by other 6e books, and here we are many years later and it still doesn't exist (and is likely never to exist). It's just a less than ideal situation. And the question was, which books would you like to see published, and this is a logical one to choose.

I'd like to see all-in-one books that present a simplified version of the rules (no more complex than the 3e-era rules used in Champions, Danger International, etc.), along with a game world to play in, NPCs, a couple of adventures, etc. 

FH Campaign Setting as detailed and interesting as Harn.  Fully detailed out history for multiple kingdoms, cultures, travel, food, economics, cities, magic and lore.  A campaign setting is not a series of adventures, it is a place with a history and feel that makes it come alive.  The best campaigns I have played in and run have come from a campaign setting with a solid foundation to build upon.  Once that is done then encourage the writing of adventures (single shot or series) that are played in the setting.  There might be some 'rules' around how much an adventure can change the setting or history.
 
And if you really want to go hog wild make it possible to use the setting and adventures with Realm Works
 
Miniatures would be awesome - especially female miniatures that don't look and dress like strippers.

I actually have contact with a couple of mini sculptors and if I can manage to sell enough books, I want to put out some of the unique critters in my world as miniatures.  Even if its just a Velkonn or Attercop figure in a box set or something, it would be super nice to have.  I am busting my chops to put out that game world by my lonesome.
 
What I'd like to see is a champions campaign like the FH one people are talking about here; a fully fleshed out world with lots of adventures and storylines etc.  We kinda have one with the Champions Universe and city settings but they're really not tied together like a campaign and there needs to be campaign "paths" available, premade campaigns and lots more adventures.
 
Otherwise, I want to see Champions Down Under, updated Champions of the North and Kingdom of Champions, and a lot more electronic support for the game: die rollers, apps, etc.
 
 
Its less expensive than you'd think.  Yes, licensing Game of Thrones will cost you but other settings like Codex Aleria or Mistborn?  Not so much.  Urban Fantasy Hero with Dresden Chronicles as a setting probably is doable.  Remember, its not just a valuable product for Hero, its advertising and revenue for the owners of these properties, they're willing to work with you.  Just ask Steve Jackson.

In the June issue of Scientific American, theoretical physicist Yasunori Nomura discusses an idea he's had to resolve one of the big problems with the Cosmological Inflation theory. I hope that I understand him well enough to adequately summarize his argument.
 
The starting point is that a fraction of a second after the Big Bang singularity, the nascent universe experiences a moment of incredibly fast expansion that flattens out space-time, accounting for the near-perfect flatness of space seen today. The problem is that the phase change from the inflation phase to normal expansion can't be perfect: Parts of space keep inflating, almost instantly becoming bigger than the "normal" universe. Bits of space-time keep bubbling out of the perpetual inflation, creating new universes in a "multiverse."
 
Unfortunately, it follows that in such an endlessly multiplying Multiverse, anything imaginable -- no matter how improbable it may seem -- not only happens, it happens an infinite number of times. This makes the whole notions of probability and prediction meaningless.
 
Nomura, however, tries to link inflation with another theory that seems to predict everything: the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. In this interpretation, every possible outcome of a quantum mechanical event actually happens, in an endlessly splitting "tree" of diverging universes. The math works; it's just hard to imagine the universe actually functioning this way.
 
Nomura also draws on a similarity he sees between the event horizon of a black hole and the "event horizon" of the observable universe. Just as no matter or energy can pass from the interior of a black hole to the outside (but information possibly can), nothing beyond a particular distance can ever affect us because it's receding faster than the speed of light.
 
Nomura thinks the bubbling multiple universes of inflation theory do not exist in a super-energetic but otherwise ordinary, larger space-time. Rather, he thinks they exist in the probability "space" of Many Worlds quantum mechanics. Even if every possible outcome in some sense occurs, they still have different mathematical probabilities. (How, I don't know. I just take mathematicians' word for it.)
 
Now, I tend to roll my eyes when another theoretical physicist says his Great Idea will Revolutionize Everything if the math pans out. Nomura, however, says his theory has produced a testable prediction: The universe should include observable areas of negatively curved space. (He doesn't spell out how one detects negatively curved space, but I presume the effect would resemble that of a negative gravitational field. Perhaps "gravitational" lensing, but the lens is concave instead of convex?) If the "conventional" inflation theory is correct and all the multiple universes exist in a wider space, any instances of negative special curvature can still exist, but the curvature should be much less -- so much less that Nomura doubts they could be detected at all.
 
So, that's one more thing for the deep-space astronomers to look for. Kudos to Nomura for producing a theory that can be tested.
 
Also, unrelated: I just heard that LIGO detected another pulse of gravitational waves.
 
Dean Shomshak

Big announcement about the Jolrhos Field Guide.  I've gotten it about 90% rough writing done, and should have the first pass complete by the end of April.  There will be a lot of work to do after that, but I'm hoping for a Fall release.
 
However, the big news is that I'm working with someone to do a kickstarter for the book.  If this goes through I'll be able to reach a broader audience and maybe even get a nice painted cover from a major artist.  Hopefully with enough funding I can put out a version for Savage Worlds and even D&D.  I don't want to get ahead of myself, but keep an eye out for more news.

Carratu
Carratu are small maples that produce large amounts of sap.  Only found along ocean shores, these gnarled plants are twisted by the winds and never grow larger than four meters in height.  It is only when the sap runs clear that it has any herbal potency, which is not common.
Effect: Lifestoring* for one day
Addictive: no
Origin: Ocean Shore
Rarity: -3
Preparation: Sap smeared on victim’s lips
Storage: d3 days
Cost: 13 silver
 
*Lifestoring is a concept I swiped from MERP.  
 

Certain herbs in the listing have the effect “Lifebringing” which is a specific effect for Jolrhos Fantasy Hero.  A Lifebringing herb is one that is able to restore life to an apparently deceased victim.  Such a victim is not fully dead; they are only mostly dead and can be restored to life with the proper magic.
 
A mostly dead person is one that has been reduced to a Body score equal to negative their starting Body or lower, but not for an extended time.  The soul will remain in or near the body for one minute plus one turn per point of original Constitution the body had in life.
 
A Lifebringing herb when applied to such a mostly dead person will take them up to 1 in all stats, including body and stun.  The victim will be unable to move or act except short statements, and will spend most of their time sleeping and healing.  All stats will recover at the same rate as Body through natural healing until the character’s body and Constitution scores are healed to full, at which point all stats will heal equal to the character’s recovery per hour to full.
 
A mostly dead character brought to life will have their entire body impaired until all of their stats are fully healed.

 
 
A Lifestoring herb is one which when properly applied will extend the length of time which a character is “mostly” dead. The Lifestoring effect will keep a body in this stasis state for as long as the given herb specifies, usually much longer than typical for a body.
 
When the herb is applied, the normal time period which a body will remain mostly dead remains as long as the herb's Lifestoring ability continues, then the countdown starts again.  Further, that given herb cannot be used to maintain a body’s connection to its soul, although a different Lifestoring herb could be then used.

 

 
There isn't really a resurrect spell in Jolrhos, as such.  There are lifestoring and lifebringing herbs, or a necromantic spell which seems to bring someone back to life, but the transformation of corpse to animated body (which seems alive) 'heals' back at the same rate that person would recover body naturally over time.

Hi.  Remember me?  I used to be very active on these boards some years ago.  I remember some of you.  Hi.  I've been away a long time, and haven't been Heroing or RPGing at all.  I don't have the group I used to have to play with.  Then t'other day, the thought occurred to me to look up something I wrote on these boards way back when.  And thoughts have been going through my head of my old fantasy campaign world.  I don't know if I'll resume my former activity level here, but maybe I'll at least stop in to keep up-to-date.  I have the 5th edition (FREd), but not the 6th, and many of the 5th edition books (and some earlier ones, too - 4th, 3rd).

 

If you were around when I last e-roamed these e-halls, you may remember my avatar.  I probably should change it, since it's source is no longer relevant.  But I'll keep it for now in case it jogs your memory.

 

How did you come up with your 'handle' (forum name)?

My parents came up with it, actually.

 

What was the first tabletop RPG you Played?  

Red Box DnD, like everyone else, followed quickly by 1st ed. AD&D.  It was the only game in town.

 

What was the first tabletop RPG you GMed?  

Module B1 - "In Search of the Unknown"  A rather generic title - couldn't any module be described the same way?  Was there ever a module called "The Place that We Already Know Everything About"?

 

What are you currently Playing/GMing?  

Not currently playing/GMing any RPGs, but if I could, I'd love to start GMing Fantasy Hero again, or playing Hero in nearly any genre.  I've been mostly playing board games recently, which I also greatly enjoy.

 

When did you start to play Hero?  

I guess it would have been 3rd ed. Champions in the early '80s.  Never went back to that previous system, except for a few isolated times when that's what they were playing, and it was deendee or nothing.

First off, PhilF, let me say Thanx! for taking so much time to write out what you'd like to see in Mythic Hero. It's always great to hear from fans who have strong opinions about a book and are willing to express them in a polite and constructive manner. So take 2 XP out of petty cash and treat yourself to something nice -- maybe an CSL with your favorite attack.
 
On to answers and observations about the points you made.
 
1. When I started writing MH back in 2011, it was still a Hero Games project rather than a personal project, and the guys around the office jokingly called it "Steve's Deities & Demigods." So I'm afraid I have to disappoint you a bit by explaining that the main thrust of MH, by and large, is to provide character sheets for the gods and heroes of world mythology (including game stats for weapons and other objects of myth).
 
However, the operative phrase here is Steve's DDG. I have the deepest respect for the authors of the DDG, a book I love and treasure, but to compare the DDG to MH is like comparing The Pokey Little Puppy to War And Peace. When I write about gods and mythoi, I include far, far more information than the DDG does. I cover the cosmology, the setting, the magic system (if one exists that's worth writing up in game terms), the major myths pertaining to each god and hero (and often the minor ones), relevant monsters and villains, and all sorts of other great stuff.
 
By way of example, look at the Hindu Mythology chapter in the DDG. If memory serves, it's 7 or 8 pages long, and more than half of those pages are basically whitespace. The Hindu Mythology chapter in MH is over 70,000 words long -- and most of that's not game stats, believe me. When I set out to cover a mythos, I cover it. In fact, there's so much info in MH that I am considering a separate publication where I strip out the gaming-related information and put out a book with just the researched, scholarly material.
 
(Another fun data point:  the bibliography for MH, which is far from complete at this time, is already over 6,000 words long. So if you want to follow up on my work, you'll know where to start. )
 
1a. Are you going to be fighting the gods? Quite possibly! World mythology is replete with stories of conflicts between gods and mortals -- be those conflicts physical, mental, social, magical, or just plain weird. And for that I think a character sheet can be helpful. Plus, as you observe, someone may want to play God vs. God, or pit two Greek heroes against some dudes from Aztec myth, or what have you.
 
1b.  But here's the great thing:  you can completely ignore the character sheets if you want to. Just flip on past 'em and read the text (and look at what I plan to be awesome artwork!). The fact that they're there for gamers who want them doesn't mean the book is pointless for gamers who don't want them.
 
1c. Plus, even if you don't want the character sheets as a whole, you might find bits of them -- like the HERO System stats for Mjolnir, or Zeus's thunderbolts, or Maui's magic fishhook -- useful or fun to have. If nothing else they're good argument fodder.
 
1d. In the final analysis, though, it comes down to this:  I want to do character sheets for gods. And this project is all about me doing what I find fun, fascinating, and hopefully of use to a lot of gamers. I've been at it for years, and have years to go. I'm not going to make any money off of it -- in fact, I expect to spend tens of thousands of dollars out of my own pocket bringing the book to print. So I'm going to do it exactly how I want to do it, and that means character sheets for gods.
 
2.  Pretty much everything in your Section II is covered in the character sheets for the individual deities, or when they don't have a sheet just in the text describing them. (Though of course many gods aren't important enough to merit more than a line or two explaining who they are.) Naturally, not every god gets the same coverage; sometimes certain data are available for God X but not for Gods Y and Z. But I am doing (literally) years' worth of research about all this stuff so you don't have to!
 
3.  Virtually nothing that you describe in your Section III will be in MH. That's not the purpose of the book; that's an entirely separate subject. If and when I happen to come across a useful detail about priests or temples or what not, I often throw it into the text, but most gods don't have any info about that sort of thing. After all, in many cases, those details are simply unknown to modern scholars.
 
However, all that being said, I have an idea for a stretch goal for the Kickstarter I'll hold for the book. It's to write a second book, in PDF, which would provide a one-page description (no more) of the priesthood, temple, etc. of any god important enough to get a character sheet in MH. But these would be entirely fictional -- where I know real world details I will use them, but for the most part I am just going to make things up to create religions that are appropriate for gaming.
 
There will be some information and guidelines for creating your own pantheons and gods for your games, but I don't plan for it to be extensive (at least, not right now). Again, that's not really the main focus of the book.
 
4.  Virtually nothing that you describe in your Section IV will be in MH. However, where the material justifies it, I have written up complete magic systems for the magics specific to a mythology and/or its culture. To name just a few, I've already written up Finnish, Egyptian, Hawaiian, East Slavic (Russian), and Australian Aborigine magic systems. In fact, I have enough new magic systems that after MH comes out, I may extract them and publish them separately for gamers who don't want all the mythology stuff.
 
 
It occurs to me that it might help people see what I'm talking about if I provided a sample chapter. I'll ponder on that, and if I like the idea I will mock up a crude layout and provide a link.
 
Anyhow -- I hope that helps to explain where I'm comin' from. If you have further suggestions or questions, by all means fire away!

If you mean White Wolf's Mage (I'm only familiar with the original WoD) you still had your various magical spheres, with power levels in them, and a handy chart that told you what so many dots in which sphere was capable of.  It also specified a few other limitations, like if you wanted to be able to create something from "thin air" you needed at least two dots in Prime.  I would say that that magic system absolutely qualifies as a hard magic system, because it systematizes magic to the extent that the players and GM can figure out whether a given effect is possible.  
 
If by Mage you mean something else, then I'm interested to hear more.  
 
It could be fun, true, but the old school saying "rulings not rules" applies here.  Consistent rulings become rules; inconsistent rulings become empty gaming tables...

I actually kind of "reject" the Mysterious magic concept, especially in my games. (especially if we are dealing with my Quasi- Byzantine era campaign, or a campaign where magic and firearms co-exist). It's definitely a  personal taste issue, but anything "Mysterious" rarely remains such, because humans are curious creatures, and are also endlessly looking for patterns, even where they may not exist (superstitions).  Everything gets put into a framework, and the ambitious will rules lawyer reality given the chance. Magic is a tool, with predictable results in a game, just as science or engineering, it just uses different rules and equipment. It has a different flavor, then, but it's still a tool for manipulating reality like a shovel and fire are as well.
 
Most traditional spell-casting in folklore is very much in the same vein as a recipe for cooking the family Christmas cookies. One learns at the elbow of an elder, and it taught the steps one at a time, in sequence to get the desired result. Experience modifies it to make the results more consistent, and creative individuals will try different ingredients to experiment, Eventually when she's old, the family will ask for it to be written down so the knowledge of the recipe is not lost. Sometimes it's well written, sometimes it's not and steps are misplaces, forgotten, or badly explained as the language shifts. Some people can follow instructions or have a talent for cooking, and some people wont. The differences between Magic and cookies thought tend to be societal, with the overarching culture coloring people's perceptions of magic and what is, and what isn't acceptable.
 
In Roman Times, magic was believed in, but a lot of small household charms were within the knowledge of  everyone, as were small rituals.  In the Dark Ages, anyone that could read was nigh unto a wizard, but anyone saying they could practice magic was a heretic and consorting with the devil, and therefore burned. In the Renaissance a general spirit of curious research gave us Alchemy, and the beginning of science, and by the enlightenment, witch burning was no longer practiced in Western Europe, and the scientific method was used, and soon gave birth to engineering and the industrial revolution.

Having Firearms presupposes having a supporting society, that  carries a more Renaissance view of the world, rather than a dark age, or barbarian outlook. It supposes  the primary users of said weapons are no longer tribal, or feudal, but proto-nation states with economies large enough to support a class of experimenting "renaissance men", as well as being able to support standing armies and navies (Small, but professional at this time, or even mercenaries). None of that prohibits the existence of magic in a campaign, but it will definitely "color" the attitude about magic.  Making magic "mysterious" presupposes that there is an organization that decides the morality of knowledge, and has the power, and the motive to suppress knowledge, and remove it from society, and cause severe social penalties, including death upon those that continue to quest for such forbidden knowledge.  
 
Mystery is generally just in it's simplest term a lack of knowledge, and all of us even in this modern age have blind spots in our knowledge about something, whether it be cars, computers, firearms, or the law, all forms of knowledge we trade with specialists for money to maintain our standard of living. IF one looks at magic like the ability to draw or paint, as in it's a mystery, and not everyone knows how to do it, speaking as an artist, it's the product of observation, practice, book learning and time, and the more of each one spends on one's art, the better they get. Artistic Talent is just how much self motivation does one have to put in all that time and effort to learn? The same could be said if we looked back at magic as cooking, where a few years on Culinary school may give one a leg up on using exotic ingredients, and cooking techniques to prepare meals at the highest skill,  and different schools teaching different skills.  This would relegate Grandma's Christmas cookies to  "hedge magic", though also a beloved local or family ritual. This sort of read still allows anyone with a school diploma so command respect and high fees  in society, but it's not the dark age folklore flavored image. How magic is viewed by "the Characters" is dependent upon how magic if viewed by society.  Sure magic will be mysterious, if knowing about it means danger to one's immortal soul, or membership in the church, the town or the polity.

So I reject "Mysterious Magic" for Mystery's sake, and lay it all out fair and open to the players, and in general it's another tool, and a tool, like a gun is neutral, and dependent on the motivations of the user, and the perception of the tool by society.

I've got an essay inside me somewhere on this subject.  I'll try to cook it down some for here, but there's a lot to it...
 
RPGs in general, and the HERO System in particular, like to highly quantify and systematize as much as they can.  Partly so that we can figure out how to make a game out of it, and partly so that game can be fun and fair.  (For instance, look at the weapon lists; both modern firearms and fantasy hand weapons have lots and lots of variation.)  
 
Brandon Sanderson talks a lot about what has been called Sanderson's Laws of Magic.  Sanderson's First Law of Magic is:
 
 
Link.  For magic to be fun, useful, and not-game-breaking in an RPG both the GM and player need to understand it.  Sanderson talks some about a "soft magic system", which would be a magic system that the author doesn't explain as well; Tolkien's magic system would fall into this.  The drawback to a soft magic system is that the author -- and by extension, the GM and players -- can't use it to solve problems.  Sanderson sez:
 
 
You could have an unexplained magic system in your games, either soft or hard yet unexplained, but the trap here is that figuring it out ends up being a puzzle between the GM and players.  Think of Original D&D, the 0th edition in the original white pamphlets.  Those original books didn't include a thief class, and there was no "climb walls" skill.  That didn't mean that characters couldn't climb walls; it's just that in order to climb a wall, the DM would ask the player, "How are you going to climb it?"  The player would then describe to the DM how they're hammering pitons into the wall, tying off their safety lines, finding their handholds and footholds, and so on.  I assert that in order for a magic system to "feel like magic", which seems to be most players' and GMs' holy grail, your entire magic system has to be done like this.  The GM absolutely must understand the system, but when the player says "I want to cast my (x) spell," the DM then asks, "How are you going to cast it?"  The GM then has to actually come up with the spell -- the gestures, incantations, material components, even obscure things if applicable like phases of the moon, zodiacal positions, whether the character currently has the correct moral status, and the like.  That means that either the PCs have to be able to do the research, or go through a lot of frustrating experimentation that doesn't work.  Or else the GM relents and lets the character cast the spell, but then it's either a Deus Ex Machina, or else it's a hard magic system.  

And read what I wrote.  "The characters may not understand the mechanisms by which the fireball appears, but they know that if they have a small booger of bat poo and sulfur squished together, make gestures X, Y, and Z, and chant M, the fireball appears, and it's consistently a sphere of fire 20 feet in radius that appears within 120 feet... That's not mysterious."