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Yelmalio/Elmal again


g33k

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2 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

...

The reason for my original question is that two of our PCs, in a typical RQG Lightbringer group, are minor member of Yelmalio / Elmal.  In D&D terms, they "took a dip" to get the two good rune spells and some weapon skills. Yeah, we do some powergaming...

Too late to change for us, but wondering if that was o.k.  If Yelmalio is friendly, yes.  Otherwise, well, they got away with it and next time we will know better.

I think Yelmalio vs Elmal are really mostly a societal/cultural issue.

"Elmal" in Heortling cultures is the allied god, a faithful ally.  They will cooperate with "taking a dip" (although not in such powergame-y terms -- they want actual faithfulness, worship, earnest regard from their Initiates).

"Yelmalio" will be much more stand-off-ish, lthe priests much ess likely to accept Orlanthi who come to them saying they want to Initiate...

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1 hour ago, Jeff said:

Feel free to create a new Elmal thread, but this is way off topic.

OK; but could you comment on the similarities/differences (in CoRQ:Solar) between Elmal vs. Yelmalio?  In that sense -- content of the CoRQ set -- it doesn't seem at all off topic...

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21 minutes ago, g33k said:

OK; but could you comment on the similarities/differences (in CoRQ:Solar) between Elmal vs. Yelmalio?  In that sense -- content of the CoRQ set -- it doesn't seem at all off topic...

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/8780-notes-on-the-many-suns-and-the-sun-gods-of-prax/?do=findComment&comment=127075

This topic is really about the release schedule, not the contents.

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One thing to bear in mind is that few religions in Glorantha are monolithic blocs of attitudes and beliefs (the Lunars and Rokari are perhaps the most 'centralized'), and between and within Yelmalio temples there will be a variety of attitudes. Those who live among Orlanthi, whilst 'different' still share many Orlanthi attitudes, and there will also be different individual outlooks. Yes, there are differences, but there's no reason a Yelmalion initiate can't get along with an Orlanthi initiate; things may get more complicated at Rune levels, but.... I suspect that in Sartar, the difference between the modern worshippers of Yelmalio and their ancestors who worshipped Elmal are not particularly deep.

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There is no Elmal v. Yelmalio. They are the same god, same archetypes, and fit in the same place in cosmic mythology. We all know Yelmalio - he's that last light that survived after the Sun went to the Underworld. He's in the night sky as Lightfore, the brightest planet in the heavens, which follows the same route as the Sun. 

In much of central Genertela, we have a network of Sun Dome temples which anchor the Yelmalio cult. We've got several in Dragon Pass, several more in Saird, one in Prax, a few in Aggar and Talastar, etc. Let's say altogether that network has about 160,000 or so initiates. That's a BIG cult. The cult really got rolling in the early Second Age, when it helped break the power of the trolls (lets call it the "mini-Darkness" following the Gbaji Wars).

After the Dragonkill War, the Hendriki of Heortland were cut off from that. And the Orlanth cult was SO predominant in Hendrikiland, their tiny Yelmalio cult found ways to claim an association with Orlanth to survive. They harkened back to the Dawn Age Orlanthi, when Yelmalio was worshiped in conjunction with Orlanth as "Elmal".

But with the Resettlement of Dragon Pass in the 1400s and the resumption of trade with Peloria in the 1500s, the truncated (Y)Elmal(io) cult came into contact with Yelm (the Lunars helped with this). They looked to magical riches of Yelm and started joining that cult - and they started a civil war in Sartar against the Orlanth Rex cult. Monrogh went to the Hill of Gold and saw the fullness of Yelmalio. Yelmalio is Neutral towards Orlanth, and as long as Orlanth respects Yelmalio's place in the world, Yelmalio can respect Orlanth's. And guess what guys? We are already initiates of Yelmalio! No need to try to tie ourselves into pretzels trying to initiate to Yelm - we are already Yelmalio!

For the sake of people who really loved the KoDP video game, we kept a small Elmal subcult as a possibility in the Yelmalio cult writeup, but as far as I am concerned, that subcult is maybe a generation away from being extinct.

 

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8 minutes ago, Jeff said:

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For the sake of people who really loved the KoDP video game, we kept a small Elmal subcult as a possibility in the Yelmalio cult writeup, but as far as I am concerned, that subcult is maybe a generation away from being extinct.

Honestly, I think it adds to Glorantha to have "Elmal" as a separate (but not really) thing.  The same at the core, but with some very-different external trappings (and relationships).  Yelmalio, Lightfore, Cold Sun, Last Light in the Dark, with "Hill of Gold" as a core myth; neutral towards Orlanth.  Elmal, faithful thane, trusted ally, with "Elmal Guards the Stead" as a core myth & thus an adopted Orlanthi-pantheon god.

It speaks to religious schisms and regional variants in ways that feel right in a myth-heavy world like Glorantha.

So, thank you for keeping that in the Yelmalio write-up!

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Just now, g33k said:

Honestly, I think it adds to Glorantha to have "Elmal" as a separate (but not really) thing.  The same at the core, but with some very-different external trappings (and relationships).  Yelmalio, Lightfore, Cold Sun, Last Light in the Dark, with "Hill of Gold" as a core myth; neutral towards Orlanth.  Elmal, faithful thane, trusted ally, with "Elmal Guards the Stead" as a core myth & thus an adopted Orlanthi-pantheon god.

It speaks to religious schisms and regional variants in ways that feel right in a myth-heavy world like Glorantha.

So, thank you for keeping that in the Yelmalio write-up!

I don't actually think it adds much mythic value and actually causes us to lose something important about the interplay of cults and gods. But we kept the option because there are a lot of KoDP fans!

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Just now, Jeff said:

... and actually causes us to lose something important about the interplay of cults and gods ...

Huh.

Can you say more about this?
Or point me to prior comments that explored/expanded on this theme?

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There's a pretty interesting metaphysical question underlying this one- ''What does the Cult Compatibility Table represent?" That is, does it represent the relationship between gods, the opinions of the cult membership, the opinions of the cult leadership, the opinions of the broader community, some combination of these? If we take it the first option, which is certainly how we tend to talk about matters- Orlanth is opposed to the Red Goddess, not the Orlanth cult leadership to the Red Goddess cult leadership, Orlanth cult membership to the Red Goddess cult membership, or Sartar's population to the population of the Lunar Empire, is how we tend to talk about that H in the table. 

But if we accept that Yelmalio and Elmal are the same entity, and Yelmalio is N on the table and Elmal was F with regards to Orlanth, how does that work? Did the gods, residents of the Godtime that supposedly only changes when Lunars are using their salacious Lunar Ways to alter it, change with Monrogh's revelations? Weren't these revelations an attempt to salvage the relationship of Elmal worshipers to the dominion of Orlanth? So why would they make Yelmalio less friendly to Orlanth? 

Should we assume that Elmal also was N on that table? Doesn't that require significantly reinterpreting or Xing out the Elmal mythology that actually exists? Maybe we should understand this as a social phenomenon instead. After all, isn't it meant to be a method for shaping the initial interactions between members of different cults? But then we must ask "Which society?" and "Should these initial interactions dictate the ability of cults to interact with one another period? Shouldn't there be room for differences of opinion?" Many questions. 

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I think it is important to ground this topic in play. Each cults book announces  on it's front page 'xx playable cults'.

The minimum criteria for a cult to be potentially playable in a campaign is that the character has easy access to a cult shrine, and some access to a cult temple. For a city based campaign, like that in the starter pack, this will be not be an issue for, I think, any cult in the first two books.

When  the sea book comes out with something like the cult of wachaza, GMs will have a decision to make, as to whether to disallow players picking that cult, add an excuse to have an implausibly-located temple, or set their campaign somewhere else. But that's a future-RQ problem.

Things get a bit trickier with a clan-based campaign like six seasons in sartar, assuming that clan has the usual 0 to 1 temple to anyone other than Orlanth and Ernalda, You can't really quietly fully accommodate all possible cults; you get a temple and you get a temple, and so do you too. But you can always plausibly add a shrine to any deity a player worships, if it is at all plausible they do worship it. And you can always hand-wave a visit to the closest city in campaign downtime.

I think all the cults in the RQ:G main rules can plausibly have such a shrine; Yelmalio is about the hardest to accomodate. Or would be, if Elmal did not exist, or Yelmalio and Elmal were magically-distinct deities.

 

 

 

 

 

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13 minutes ago, Eff said:

"Should these initial interactions dictate the ability of cults to interact with one another period? Shouldn't there be room for differences of opinion?"

Basically, different masks for a main cult can shift the cult relations mainly in favor of compatibility in exchange for some restrictions.

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40 minutes ago, Eff said:

Maybe we should understand this as a social phenomenon instead. After all, isn't it meant to be a method for shaping the initial interactions between members of different cults? But then we must ask "Which society?"

Absolutely.

I seem dimly to remember that back in the neolithic days of RQ2, one would occasionally get “these cults stand in this relation here but this other relation elsewhere”, but maybe my mind is playing tricks.

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21 hours ago, g33k said:

I think Yelmalio vs Elmal are really mostly a societal/cultural issue.

It is easiest to think of Elmal as Yelmalio in his Orlanth/Wilderness Years, where Yelmalio helped Orlanth and his kin.

In my Glorantha, many Yelmalians choose to forget the Orlanth/Wilderness Years and concentrate on the nice myths but many Elmali choose to remember Yelmalio helping Orlanth and call him Elmal.

 

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Don't overthink this. Yelm is worshipped in different ways in the Grazelands, among the Pent nomads and in Dara Happan aristocracy. Orlanth is worshipped in different ways in Sartar and in the West. Humakt is in some regions more of a Death God and less of a War God. Eurmal has a lot of different aspects that differs a lot.

The Gods have different names in different parts of the world. The Elmal/Yelmalio schism is (in my view) based on the god having different names in official publications.

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2 hours ago, Eff said:

But if we accept that Yelmalio and Elmal are the same entity, and Yelmalio is N on the table and Elmal was F with regards to Orlanth, how does that work? Did the gods, residents of the Godtime that supposedly only changes when Lunars are using their salacious Lunar Ways to alter it, change with Monrogh's revelations?

I'd lean more toward the mortal understanding of Gods are the stories people tell of them. So when you've structured your Yelmalio Stormfriend subcult to focus exclusively on when Yelmalio walked the world and aided the Storm tribe, Orlanthi ask their god what he thinks of that and he comes back with "yeah that was pretty cool of him," then they warm up to and become friendlier with your worship practices.

Or I guess in the context of the broader Yelmalio cult, Orlanth likes the stories where Yelmalio is a friend, and dislikes the stories where he is an enemy. Taking all those stories together, it leaves the cult as something you can't fully trust, but also can't bring yourself to dislike. Their perspective is alien to you and their actions are unreliable, but they have a history of being cool when it really matters. Comfortably neutral.

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2 hours ago, g33k said:

Huh.

Can you say more about this?
Or point me to prior comments that explored/expanded on this theme?

So the Solar-Air rivalry is hardbaked into the setting's cosmology. Three Feathered Rivals, Rival Cousins, Uncle Sun and Vengeful Storm, all that. The dark cloud that ends a sunny day. Elmal is the result of Greg trying to imagine the Orlanthi understanding of Solar magic at the Dawn - when Lightfore was but a friendly spirit who had aided everyone survive the Darkness. Understandable - at the Dawn even Kyger Litor and Orlanth worked together. But as Time progressed, ancient mythic conflicts reasserted themselves. When the Dragon Pass folk encounter the Sons of the Sun in Peloria, they discover that mythic rivalry and it continues through time. Yelmalio is that part of the Solar Pantheon able to survive in the Lesser Darkness - the world ruled by Orlanth. Both Orlanth and Yelm are largely absent from the world in the Greater Darkness - both are in Hell and need to reconcile. But Yelmalio is still there, ever weaker, ever dimmer, but never extinguished.

Now most human societies need to straddle these ancient mythic rivals - just as the Aesir and Vanir both get worship, and devas and asuras both play their part in the Vedas. Sartar in particular needs to straddle having Orlanth Rex as the cult of rulership, but the powerful cult of Yelmalio is only neutral to Orlanth. 

 

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Just now, Jeff said:

So the Solar-Air rivalry is hardbaked into the setting's cosmology. Three Feathered Rivals, Rival Cousins, Uncle Sun and Vengeful Storm, all that. The dark cloud that ends a sunny day. Elmal is the result of Greg trying to imagine the Orlanthi understanding of Solar magic at the Dawn - when Lightfore was but a friendly spirit who had aided everyone survive the Darkness. Understandable - at the Dawn even Kyger Litor and Orlanth worked together. But as Time progressed, ancient mythic conflicts reasserted themselves. When the Dragon Pass folk encounter the Sons of the Sun in Peloria, they discover that mythic rivalry and it continues through time. Yelmalio is that part of the Solar Pantheon able to survive in the Lesser Darkness - the world ruled by Orlanth. Both Orlanth and Yelm are largely absent from the world in the Greater Darkness - both are in Hell and need to reconcile. But Yelmalio is still there, ever weaker, ever dimmer, but never extinguished.

Now most human societies need to straddle these ancient mythic rivals - just as the Aesir and Vanir both get worship, and devas and asuras both play their part in the Vedas. Sartar in particular needs to straddle having Orlanth Rex as the cult of rulership, but the powerful cult of Yelmalio is only neutral to Orlanth. 

 

Now King of Dragon Pass introduced Elmal as Orlanth's sidekick (he got called Orlanth's thane in KoS, but that has more wiggle-room and was also a nice gesture to David Hall who kept the lights on for Glorantha for several years). The treatment of Elmal lost all that tension- it worked in the closed environment of KoDP (which is a great video game), but it did not work for the Sartar Dynasty era setting.

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4 hours ago, Jeff said:

But Yelmalio is still there, ever weaker, ever dimmer, but never extinguished.

Hmm … is this a clue to the uptightness of Yelmalio? Never blown out might be a bad thing, especially from a Lunar/Nysalorean POV?

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54 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Hmm … is this a clue to the uptightness of Yelmalio? Never blown out might be a bad thing, especially from a Lunar/Nysalorean POV?

In the Grey Age, the Lightfore cult was spread in Peloria by the horse nations. As Dara Happa woke up, the nascent cities claimed that Lightfore was wrestled into a consistent path by their patron Antirius, who of course became the Lightfore god - of course the horse nation ruling class continued to worship Lightfore their way. When the Sun arose at the Dawn, at first they figured that this was Lightfore carrying the Sun Disk - and they contacted the Sun through Lightfore. But at some point, the Pure Horse People were able to contact the Sun directly, and later the Dara Happens were able to contact even more of Sun, who they realised was the returned Yelm. Such a glorious return!

But the Lightfore cult remained, among the cattle herding horse nomads, and among the hill barbarians. and among those too common to approach Yelm but too noble to follow Lodril. Nysalor made great use of the Lightfore cult (even if the cult was Neutral towards Nysalor), as they could fight in the hills and against the trolls. But fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, Yelmalio is hostile towards the Red Goddess.

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6 hours ago, Dr. Devici said:

Or I guess in the context of the broader Yelmalio cult, Orlanth likes the stories where Yelmalio is a friend, and dislikes the stories where he is an enemy. Taking all those stories together, it leaves the cult as something you can't fully trust, but also can't bring yourself to dislike. Their perspective is alien to you and their actions are unreliable, but they have a history of being cool when it really matters. Comfortably neutral.

Playing devil's advocate, I like stories of Elmal as friend but for all I have read once Sartar Sun County is established, Yemalio has more or less overshadowed Elmal and they are not really neutral as they have sided against the Orlanthi more then they have with them, at least up until the changeup in the Praxian Sun County. From say 1602 until Agarth is firmly in power in Prax it seems the Yelmalians are more pro Yelm/Lunar than anything else or seems so to me?

I forget the first battle that they fought against the lunars after 1602 but it was quite a few years later was it not?

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1 hour ago, Erol of Backford said:

Playing devil's advocate, I like stories of Elmal as friend but for all I have read once Sartar Sun County is established, Yemalio has more or less overshadowed Elmal and they are not really neutral as they have sided against the Orlanthi more then they have with them, at least up until the changeup in the Praxian Sun County. From say 1602 until Agarth is firmly in power in Prax it seems the Yelmalians are more pro Yelm/Lunar than anything else or seems so to me?

I forget the first battle that they fought against the lunars after 1602 but it was quite a few years later was it not?

Again, that is not really the case. First the Yelmalions fought for Sartar throughout the reign of Tarkalor and Terasarin - even against the Lunar Empire. In Prax, the Yelmalions aided Dorasor, fought against the Lunars, then accepted the Lunars under the sort-of anti-, sort of pro- Count Solanthos, The Yelmalio cult is neutral towards Orlanth, but is hostile towards the Red Goddess.

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4 hours ago, Jeff said:

In the Grey Age, the Lightfore cult was spread in Peloria by the horse nations. As Dara Happa woke up, the nascent cities claimed that Lightfore was wrestled into a consistent path by their patron Antirius, who of course became the Lightfore god - of course the horse nation ruling class continued to worship Lightfore their way. When the Sun arose at the Dawn, at first they figured that this was Lightfore carrying the Sun Disk - and they contacted the Sun through Lightfore. But at some point, the Pure Horse People were able to contact the Sun directly, and later the Dara Happens were able to contact even more of Sun, who they realised was the returned Yelm. Such a glorious return!

Plentonius calls the Gray Age the reign of Kargzant, the nomad name for a Lightfore identity, known to the urban Dara Happans as Reladivus, one of the eight planetary sons, the guardian of the south-east, and of Nivorah. The only Planetary Son who did not enter the Underworld when Umath broke the Perfect Sky.

Orlanth slaying the Emperor caused Yelm to disintegrate, spawning Antirius as a separate entity, while Kargzant, Shargash and Verithurus(a) were still (or again) in the sky. Until the second appearance of Antirius at the Hill of Gold, both these entities populated the Storm Age.

After the Dawn, there is a re-constituted sun in the sky, identified as Yelm and at the very least including Antirius. Then in 109 or 110 S.T. there is the Bridling of Kargzant, binding that nomad Lightfore entity to the (nightly) Sunpath. Only afterwards the entities Antirius and Kargzant are united in the same stellar body.

That Bridling of Kargzant followed the Hyaloring reign over Dara Happa (Vuranoste and his non-emperor sons). What happened in this event?

 

4 hours ago, Jeff said:

But the Lightfore cult remained, among the cattle herding horse nomads, and among the hill barbarians. and among those too common to approach Yelm but too noble to follow Lodril. Nysalor made great use of the Lightfore cult (even if the cult was Neutral towards Nysalor), as they could fight in the hills and against the trolls. But fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, Yelmalio is hostile towards the Red Goddess.

Part of this might be harkening back to Reladivus resenting the hell taint of his siblings Verithurus(a) and Shargash.

It was the appearance of Lightfore Daysenerus at the Battle of Night and Day which broke the compromise at that event, with the Black Eater forming in reaction. It seems to have been a cult from the Arcos Valley, which seems to have quite a bit of Lightfore worship, both by nomads and by non-rider goat herders. The Daysenerus forces were part of the Dara Happan muster. Fighting Heortlings and trolls was right down the Dara Happan alley, even with the temporary cooperation with the Second Council in Dorastor the Breaking of the Council had re-kindled ancient hatred between these groups.

Palangio was not the hero who manifested Daysenerus (that was the Dara Happan general Elmgatum who gave his life for this manifestation of the sun god of his Vanchite forces), but he accepted the manifested god and became its avatar, carrying the god all over the Bright Empire and ruling over the hostile barbarians (except in Fronela, although the cult did reach there).

The Nysalorean acceptance of Chaos was not "sanctioned" by the cult, but much of that happened outside of their presence. Palangio overcame Arkat in Ralios without having to resort to employing Chaos, but with the previous foes of Arkat bringing in "cheats" like the Telmori gift or the false immortality of the Tanisoran Vampire Kings the cult's association with the Bright Empire was tainted in the perception of its foes.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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YGWV, I like to include the Yelmalio / Elmal issue in my Glorantha.

First as a reference to the Yelmalio / Elmal discussions in the fanbase. Scholars and officials confirm Yelmalio and Elmal being the same deity and encourage the use of the name Yelmalio, minimizing the specificities of Elmal. Meanwhile, in rural clans, aging grumpy grognards still maintain stubbornly the traditions of Elmal as Orlanth's thane. Elmal is the god that protected them in the darkest moments, while Orlanth was away. Elmal/Yelmalio as husband-protector of Ernalda introduces an interesting love triangle between the king, the queen and the fidel thane. Quite a powerful myth 🙂

By heroquesting in Yelmalian myth, the PC may have opportunities to help reviving Elmal's particularities (or to extinguish them of course). Which will have repercussions on negociations between the whole Yelmalio cult and the Orlanth-rex nobility of independant Sartar.

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I look at the Yelmalio /Elmal dichotomy as two cultures differing interpretations of the same ideal: that of Duty Before Glory.

Whether Elmal and Yelmalio are the same or separate gods is almost unimportant, except for certain doctrinaire pedants [it must be said that these are FAR more prevalent in cult of Yelmalio than that of Elmal].

Now, there will always be conflict between Storm and Sky, which means you're not going to get Yelmalions and Elmalists to kiss and make up any time soon. But the fact remains that Elmal DOES have a place in the Storm pantheon and some Sartarite clans use Elmal as their divine road to Orlanth.

The major difference between Elmal and Yelmalio IMG is that Yelmalio goes marching around looking for glory and has abandoned their horse aspect and Elmal is more focused on horsemanship and protecting the clan tula.

And one wonders what a Shield Push game between the two cult groups might turn out like. Probably a brawl with some rules thrown in it.... 😁

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10 hours ago, Jeff said:

But fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, Yelmalio is hostile towards the Red Goddess.

But that is what one would expect, no? The sun dies daily. The moon dies weekly. They know letting go and so have the possibility of illumination and rebirth. But the light god who cannot let go — cannot let death, darkness, and chaos in — is reduced to a wan light-without-heat. So we see why to some Yelmalio is admirably tenacious and to others pitiable — always the little sun.

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