Axe Hall

[AlexS]

15 hours ago, g33k said:

It'd be very odd, though, for a natural boundary & natural defensive hardpoint (like the western cliff-edges) NOT to also be the territorial boundary.

I agree, which is why I hadn’t thought of it until I was drawing regional boundaries for our Esrolia book and went back to the Guide…

I think that there’s a mythical / topographical explanation and a mythical / political one for this Esrolian territorial enclave on the Plateau.

In terms of topography, the map in the Guide (and to a much lesser extent the one in the RQG core rulebook (shared by @Erol of Backford above) shows that the Plateau edge nearest to Valadon is sloping and/or stepped rather than sheer. This could be lava flow (from Lodril getting rebellious when he was being forced to make the Palace of Black Glass) or erosion (from Esrola’s other lover Heler crying all over her when she was shacked up with Argan Argar). Either way, it makes the side of the Plateau where Esrola’s throne is located a lot easier to climb - and if it had good volcanic soil that part of the Plateau itself may have seen a fair bit of farming. This could simply be by Kitori (as @Joerg suggests), but given the attraction of that super-fertile black earth for the farmers of Valadon directly below it, it’s reasonable to assume that some Esrolians may have negotiated their way into actually farming the higher ground as well. Of course, after the destruction of the OOO and his palace the black sandstorms, swarms of hungry trollkin, etc. will have made it non-viable as a farming area, but that doesn’t mean that the local Esrolians will have given up seeing it as part of their territory at least for hunting and foraging (which was my assumption in that story).

In terms of politics, it makes sense for this part of the part of the Plateau to have been shared by humans and Uz when the whole region was the Shadowlands and under the protection of the OOO. There could have been a human enclave here that maintained trading, political and magical links with the Plateau in a mirror image of the Uz district (the Dark Warrens) that sits next to the Queen’s palace in Nochet. Mythically it would have been associated with Esrola’s court when she reigned as Queen of the Plateau, sanctioned by her Darkness Trader God husband as a place for Equal Exchange to take place with the humans clustering around his wife’s throne. Allowing the humans to keep a foothold in the area around Esrola’s throne would still have made sense for the Uz rulers of the Plateau after Belintar killed the OOO and trashed the place - allies are a lot more valuable when you are no longer in charge and the new power in the land has killed your leader.

Plus (to get back to the original topic of the thread) if there were a lot of hard-as-nails Axe Maidens still hanging out in what used to be the barracks for Esrola’s personal guard (which is one role that Axe Hall could have played, given how close it is to her throne) then the default Uz response of ‘let’s just eat the puny humans now there’s no Ezkankekko to tell us not to’ might have looked like a slightly riskier proposition.

[AlexS]

14 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

This is really good

Cheers @Erol of Backford, much appreciated. As @jajagappa has said, there’s some reference to Argan Argar as husband protector in the Earth Goddesses book (as well as in the RQG core book, but in relation to Ernalda) and a lot about Norinel and Kimantor in Land of 10k Goddesses (which was my main source for Esrolia until Harald’s brilliant Nochet book came out).

And well spotted on there being a road from Nochet to Axe Hall. Probably a pilgrimage route given how steep it is, but potentially usable by the more determined traders, if we assume that the Argan Argar worshippers of the Plateau (who as you say include the fearsome Obash Broos-Smasher as well as those friendly sunglasses-wearing trader types) are happy to trade with humans there under the watchful eye of the Axe Maidens (who might just manage to keep their ZZ drinking buddies from smashing the marketplace up whenever they feel like it).

Edited September 23, 2023 by AlexS
Clarifying reference

[Joerg]

We know from the Munchrooms mercenaries that a holy axe of Babeester Gor (basicaly a rune level in itself) has no problems at all to be wielded by a trollkin and to aid trollkin. It is quite probable that the Axe Hall community has a gang of trollkin at their beck and call, possibly even up to the level of spearkin, and that they may have used food trollkin to deal with some of the shards from the Obsidian Palace.

I have no idea whether a shrine to the troll hero Tree Chopper might be appropriate at Axe Hall. Possibly yes. If so, the god-talker or shaman for this hero might be a troll or have troll associates managing some of the nearby trollkin.

There is a good chance that the temple will keep pigs as sacrificial animals. While these pigs would be a temptation to roaming trollkin, the temptation might be a lot lower with Pig Dog guardians herding them, and the pigs might be of the Tusker variety. Pigs could be fed on mushrooms, giving the temple possible tie-ins with Voralans inside the Plateau.

(Real world mushrooms aren't autotrophs, but the Gloranthan variety might actually take nourishment from ambient Darkness itself, possibly making it hungrier/stronger than it would be on its own.)

Temple slave trollkin could be fed on wild trollkin trespassing the temple gardens. Which might be protected by earth elementals swallowing or at least immobilizing pesky intruders.

The temple would need access to water (if only to have a valid brewing business for their blood beer). Luckily, there are streams and rivulets gathering on top of the plateau, which may be a lot less level than the name suggests.

[Joerg]

29 minutes ago, AlexS said:

if it had good volcanic soil that part of the Plateau itself may have seen a fair bit of farming. This could simply be by Kitori (as @Joerg suggests),

The actual nature of the topsoil of the Plateau prior to the destruction of the Obsidian Palace is not very clear, but we know that Varzor Kitor led his people of humans (and other species) accepting the Nightcult to the top of the plateau in the Silver Age and Dawn Age. Far from all the spouses or the other members of the Kitori tribe were shape-shifting Shadowlord - some shadow-lords even lived with their human kin in Orlanthi clans, like the hero Daramhy who destroyed many of the Arkating shadowlords in a vendetta for his slain wife (History of the Heortling Peoples, pages 40 and 72).

Both the Kitori tribe back then on top of the Shadow Plateau and the modern ones inhabiting the Troll Woods would have included human earth worshipers (primarily Esrola as their adopted ancestress) with some horticulture and possibly some grain cultivation, too, while also subsisting on the trade and tribute they collec and distributed. They may have included some worshipers of Orlanth or Barntar, or possibly made use of the chained god Veskarthan (Lodril) for their agriculture. WIth Belintar's destruction of the Obsidian Palace, the surface dwellings of the Kitori tribe became untenable, but they still had vast tracts of land north of the Crossline where they could do their agriculture, and earn from the nascent trade across the Pass outside of Argan Argar caravans.

Belintar might very well have offered some compensation for taking away the agricultural basis for Axe Hall, probably in shape of customary grain deliveries up the Plateau. Since his demise in 1616, the granaries up there might now run empty. 

Trollkin swarms only originated in the Second Age - Naxili Garang's questing to fight the Curse of Kin resulted in trollkin being born in litters, and becoming a staple of troll diet and society. (There were already sufficient numbers of trollkin in 562 (50 years before the quest succeeded) to make their defection from a battle against the light worshipers of Domanand a significant setback to the troll military, which suggests how much the Dark Troll population must have shrunk due to the Curse of Kin.)

 

 

[Erol of Backford]

12 hours ago, AlexS said:

sunglasses-wearing trader types

   

12 hours ago, Joerg said:

holy axe of Babeester Gor

Yes, Nose-biter, famous and free-willed. I wonder if the High Priestess commanded Nose-biter to be subservient to a rune level if it would do so?

12 hours ago, Joerg said:

Pig Dog guardians herding them

Nakasa

 

12 hours ago, Joerg said:

The temple would need access to water

There is a huge waterfall running from some river or lake up there just south of Axe Hall. It obviously has a natural spring coming up inside the brewery.

  

9 hours ago, Joerg said:

actual nature of the topsoil of the Plateau prior to the destruction of the Obsidian Palace is not very clear

If it's an Earth Related temple you bet your Bab's Booty there is fertile soil or something else comparable up there, hydroponics of sorts with decaying butchered carcasses in some sort of organic cesspool of tatsey sludge? Maybe mushrooms as well.

Edited September 23, 2023 by Erol of Backford

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, Erol of Backford said:

Nakasa

Nakasa will be kept to the Axe Hall - they are temple guardians, not herding beasts. The pig-dogs would be appropriate, and would be fierce herding animals.

 

[Erol of Backford]

15 hours ago, jajagappa said:

not herding beasts

Not at all but there could be some guarding the "temple complex" as it is surely not just one structure but an area or so we'd end up with that. Keep the pesky trollkin away for sure.

Edited September 24, 2023 by Erol of Backford

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, Erol of Backford said:

If it's an Earth Related temple you bet your Bab's Booty there is fertile soil or something else comparable up there

Well, maybe there is — I wouldn’t want to tell you to rule it out (there are/could be other earth presences) — but would bring fertility to a pile of ground glass? Maybe — only maybe — BG likes it because it is dead and black. (IIRC, flipping the Egyptian colour-coding: black = fertile soil (Nile flood plane); red = nasty burning chaos (desert, foreigners).)

[Erol of Backford]

1 minute ago, mfbrandi said:

BG likes it because it is dead and black.

But she rides shotgun for the fertility earth mother, etc... she respects life for sure and only takes it from those who don't deserve it any longer... I am guessing.

[mfbrandi]

7 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

she respects life for sure

Sure, why not, but is not one of her powers. Quite the opposite. I may respect mathematicians and help them out in a fight (although a slide rule would be more useful in a fight than I would), but if “hard sums” need doing, ask them, not me.

Everything in its right place, and Babs’ is a place of death. She may fight to defend the green fields, but they are not her green fields, they belong to Mother. I mean, her necklace is of dead body parts, not living ones — that would be creepy! 😉

[mfbrandi]

20 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

she respects life for sure and only takes it from those who don't deserve it any longer... I am guessing.

Yeah, I always said those healers had it coming to them. Swanning around thinking they were better than the rest of us.

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

Yeah, I always said those healers had it coming to them. Swanning around thinking they were better than the rest of us.

Has Healer Valley ever been located somewhere on the Surface World?

[Squaredeal Sten]

2 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Well, maybe there is — I wouldn’t want to tell you to rule it out (there are/could be other earth presences) — but would bring fertility to a pile of ground glass? Maybe — only maybe — BG likes it because it is dead and black. (IIRC, flipping the Egyptian colour-coding: black = fertile soil (Nile flood plane); red = nasty burning chaos (desert, foreigners).)

There is no reason to assume that there is not potentially fertile soil under the fragments of obsidian.  Volcanic activity often comes up through weak points in sedimentary rock layers.  So when the Palace of Black Glass was intact the rest of the plateau may have been a fertile place.   A little volcanic debris from the Gods Age would probably add to its fertility.   If you scrape off the black sand you may still have fairly good soil under it.  

Edited September 24, 2023 by Squaredeal Sten
Spelling / typing

[mfbrandi]

10 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

So when the Palace of Black Glass was intact the rest of the plateau may have been a fertile place.

Yes, I am probably imagining it wrongly: Axe Hall as in or under (what remains of) the palace (a big chunk of glass) with variously sized fragments of glass piled on top of it.

I still don’t see Babs a magical guarantor of fertility, however.

[Erol of Backford]

14 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

I mean, her necklace is of dead body parts, not living ones — that would be creepy! 😉

Creepy but fun!

14 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

but they are not her green fields

Mushrooms and roots... not citrus likely but wouldn't a large temple tend to also be somewhat able to support itself? I still think of pools of goop that grow vegetation for sustenance, some elves for gardening, well protected of course from the trolls, they are also BG initiates. Maybe the staff asks the PC's to run to Munchrooms and bring plants and or Dark Elves to assist with the garden or cavern food growth. IIRC there is a huge Chaos Garden which grows more than enough food for denizens in Shadow on the Borderlands.

 Giant mushroom blood soup with onions and other roots. The trolls want that with meat of any type thrown in.

How many at Ax Hall, I'd guess 400-500 including tent village? Pilgrims would add another 100-250 depending on season and day.

14 hours ago, Joerg said:

Healer Valley

That would be another rabbit hole and another thread. We avoid healers for instance our Basmoli was raised at the Paps and learned some basic healing skills before departing and our party leader, the Vingan was to have been a Chalana Arroy healer but decided that violence is always an option after learning some basics...

13 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

If you scrape off the black sand you may still have fairly good soil under it.

I agree, think on it, the Shadow Plateau is about the same height as the Blue Fox Hills or Rich Post. In the clips below the Shadow Mesa (it's a mesa isn't it) might look like this from say Duck Point but yes much much greener. The sand would be removed and given to the "glass blower craftsmen" who use imprisoned Lodri to create some of the most exquisite obsidian sand blow glass in all of Glorantha.

  

Ha, a new reason to come to Ax Hall besides Blood Beer.

But the Blood Beer does come in square bottomed bottles for more economical packing which also pays homage to the Earth Mother via its shape.

 Yes, yet another rabbit hole:

https://www.beachcombingmagazine.com/blogs/news/west-indies-treasure-trove-of-black-glass

Someone had mentioned a scenario near Geos by the Marsh where vampires stole the beer shipments? Does anyone recall as that would be something we could use if there is a source?

Still also trying to find a copy of the of the old scenario Into the Wasp's Nest...

 

[Erol of Backford]

3 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Yes, I am probably imagining it wrongly: Axe Hall as in or under (what remains of) the palace (a big chunk of glass) with variously sized fragments of glass piled on top of it.

Thus the glass blowing as taught by Dwarves at or before the Dawn.

GtG Lead: They invented plumbing, and later developed glassblowing. They work closely with the Quicksilver Dwarves. Lead Dwarves also specialize in making seals and wards to prevent entrance or to block off forbidden areas.

GtG p.256 Wine, grain, gold, jewelry, bronze weapons, glassware, luxury goods, feathers, cloth, silk, dyes, and spice are traded from across the world...

So there is good reason that there are black glass craftsmen working atop the Plateau or we'll play it that way and they'll have square bottomed beer bottles?

Not related but I assume Dwarves like beer...

Edited September 24, 2023 by Erol of Backford

[mfbrandi]

2 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

they'll have square bottomed beer bottles?

The one’s with the crosses () on the bottom, naturally. Consider it the Gloranthan Surgeon General’s health warning.

2 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

I assume Dwarves like beer …

If you label it “neck oil,” they will drink it.

Spoiler

[Squaredeal Sten]

4 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Creepy but fun!

Mushrooms and roots... not citrus likely but wouldn't a large temple tend to also be somewhat able to support itself? I still think of pools of goop that grow vegetation for sustenance, some elves for gardening, well protected of course from the trolls, they are also BG initiates. Maybe the staff asks the PC's to run to Munchrooms and bring plants and or Dark Elves to assist with the garden or cavern food growth. IIRC there is a huge Chaos Garden which grows more than enough food for denizens in Shadow on the Borderlands.

 Giant mushroom blood soup with onions and other roots. The trolls want that with meat of any type thrown in.

How many at Ax Hall, I'd guess 400-500 including tent village? Pilgrims would add another 100-250 depending on season and day.

That would be another rabbit hole and another thread. We avoid healers for instance our Basmoli was raised at the Paps and learned some basic healing skills before departing and our party leader, the Vingan was to have been a Chalana Arroy healer but decided that violence is always an option after learning some basics...

I agree, think on it, the Shadow Plateau is about the same height as the Blue Fox Hills or Rich Post. In the clips below the Shadow Mesa (it's a mesa isn't it) might look like this from say Duck Point but yes much much greener. The sand would be removed and given to the "glass blower craftsmen" who use imprisoned Lodri to create some of the most exquisite obsidian sand blow glass in all of Glorantha.

  

Ha, a new reason to come to Ax Hall besides Blood Beer.

But the Blood Beer does come in square bottomed bottles for more economical packing which also pays homage to the Earth Mother via its shape.

 Yes, yet another rabbit hole:

https://www.beachcombingmagazine.com/blogs/news/west-indies-treasure-trove-of-black-glass

Someone had mentioned a scenario near Geos by the Marsh where vampires stole the beer shipments? Does anyone recall as that would be something we could use if there is a source?

Still also trying to find a copy of the of the old scenario Into the Wasp's Nest...

 

I think of the Tarpit, where the Only Old One was killed, and which Is a blocked access to the Underworld basement passage,  as in the former palace of black glass.  Which would have been  big, but would not even come close to covering the whole plateau.

That would have left a lot of land for the Uz to live off of, which they would have needed with the larger pre-destruction population.  

Axe Hall at the other end of the plateau would not have been involved in the falling palace.  Sand blowing in later, yes, but no big chunks falling from the sky at Axe Hall.

 

Edited September 24, 2023 by Squaredeal Sten
Spelling / typing

[mfbrandi]

3 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Mushrooms and roots … Giant mushroom blood soup

Hmm … Babs’ little helpers carry out a sacred hit, but the targets — service users? — are unclean and cannot be returned directly to the Mother, so in lieu of burial, the corpses (less souvenirs) are thrown into the magical corpse-devouring mushroom patch. The flesh transformed into delicious mushroomness is ritually pure and can be eaten even by elves and CA goody-two-shoes. Everyone wins, especially the dead people who are … redeemed.

[Squaredeal Sten]

We have been told that temples will have shrines to associated gods.  So Ernakda temples will have shrines to Babeester Gor.  

Therefore doesn't it seem reasonable that Axe Hall, as the foremost BG temple, would have a shrine to Ernalda?  And since it is on the edge of Esrolia, perhaps shrines to other Earth goddesses, all  of whose cults BG initiates protect?

This should give enough access to Fertility that Axe Hall can have associated garden and farm areas.  So they need not haul every bite they eat up from Esrolia below the plateau.

 

[Erol of Backford]

1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

If you label it “neck oil,” they will drink it.

Could be a label on Bab's Beer!

1 hour ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Axe Hall at the other end of the plateau would not have been involved in the falling palace

I agree and so any subterranean passages, warrens, grottos, etc. would still be there. Need to map out a bit of the Redrock Caverns, and other sample below, expand that with maybe a tributary of the Styx (not unlike the Toe Hole) that runs both as a spring (maybe like the geyser on Ogre Island or Only the Old One Old Faithful) to the top of the Plateau and some of which runs to the underworld. This could be the spring water they use in making the beer along with blood of course.

Actually some of the real mapping of the Cave of the Winds, Wind Cave, etc in Colorado could be a great starting point for what is under Axe Hall... along with all the other old Rune Quest scenario cave complexes...

Who knows maybe it links to the lower areas of Snake Pipe Hollow somehow? It'd be interesting to see a company of Bab's Babes suddenly appear in the Chaos areas of the Hollow 

  

[Joerg]

11 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

I think of the Tarpit, where the Only Old One was killed, and which Is a blocked access to the Underworld basement passage,  as in the former palace of black glass.  Which would have been  big, but would not even come close to covering the whole plateau..

That's correct. While the spire stood, it left most of the area of the plateau open.

The spire of the Obsidian Palace reached all the way to the Sky Dome, but at the Dawn Yelm's passing collapsed the top floors. Plenty of material left for Belintar to bring down and pulverize 1318 years later.

The origin of the tar still is a bit of a puzzle to me. It is not a substance I would associate with obsidian, or with a glass tower being shattered.

I also wonder who would have used the upper stories in the Middle Air. The shadows above the plateau did not need it as they are still in place. Maybe it was just the stairwell for the Only Old One to be able to reach his grandmother Xentha.

11 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

That would have left a lot of land for the Uz to live off of, which they would have needed with the larger pre-destruction population.  

The Uz would mostly live in the kilometer-high stump of the plateau or below it, using mushroom farms acting as autotrophs while being fed and watered with volcanic spring liquid. Thinking of the stuff emerging from underwater Black Smokers and how that supports ecosystems of its own.

 

11 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Axe Hall at the other end of the plateau would not have been involved in the falling palace.  Sand blowing in later, yes, but no big chunks falling from the sky at Axe Hall.

It would have been like the collapses at 9/11, but with kilometer after kilometer rushing down and getting pulverized, and probably even melting and evaporating from the impact heat or releasing the heat that served to raise it up in the first place. It is remarkable that the spire did not topple and fall - if it had, remaining in one piece, it could have splashed across Magasta's Pool and almost to Pamaltela.

[AlexS]

13 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

perhaps shrines to other Earth goddesses, all  of whose cults BG initiates protect?

Particularly Esrola, whose cult will presumably also be able to claim protection from any local Uz who worship Argan Argar. Even if we assume that the immediate vicinity of Axe Hall is too Death Rune-irradiated to support ‘normal’ farming (as opposed to all the fun stuff with mushrooms and corpses imagined by @Erol of Backford and @mfbrandi), the area round Esrolia’s throne is likely to have plenty of residual fertility, and is only a couple of kilometres away.

Assuming that blood beer needs cereal mash as well as blood and water, I’d hazard a guess that the Axe Hall brewers get their barley from there. The supply could be payment in kind for BG protection of a handful of hardy Esrola-worshippers farming patches of topsoil around her throne, scraped free of obsidian dust as part of a ritual quest to restore its original fertility (sort of like a peasant version of the Kalikos expeditions but with dust storms instead of snow storms).

[AlexS]

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

The origin of the tar still is a bit of a puzzle to me

Tar is a fossil fuel. Maybe it is congealed Fireblood, traces of Lodril’s essence left in the structure of the Palace of Black Glass by its builder and released by Belintar’s magic to destroy its structural integrity?

[Joerg]

46 minutes ago, AlexS said:

Tar is a fossil fuel. Maybe it is congealed Fireblood, traces of Lodril’s essence left in the structure of the Palace of Black Glass by its builder and released by Belintar’s magic to destroy its structural integrity?

I'm a chemist IRL and have thus some ideas about what tar is - a mixture of hydrocarbons and other stuff soluble in such such as waxes and resins, solidifying at or below room temperature (depending on the actual composition) but a sticky liquid when moderately heated. Pitch (which can be distilled or cooked from both fossile carbon and from trees or tree bark) is a purified form of tar.

The most famous tar pit in our world would probably be the La Brea tarpits in LA, which gives a quite high probability that something like that is what Greg envisioned when he put it there. This does leave the question why the stairwell from the Underworld to the top of the 1000 meter high plateau would now be plugged by such a substance, at least for the upper portion above sea level.

Where does it come from? Was there this much wood and other material inside the Obsidian Palace above the ground that it got heated in the collapse, and then seeping in?

The collapse of a black glass spire surpassing Kero Fin in height (the stairwell providing access to the Night Sky before the Dawn) would have shaken the land for quite a while. Waves upon waves of broken sections of the spire would crash onto its basement, pulverizing or even evaporating. 1318 must have become a cold year, with lots of dust lingering in the atmosphere, almost a repeat of the creation of the Stone Wood on the outlet of the Footprint.

The entire plateau is likely to be riddled with caverns and tunnels. According to one source the Plateau was erected (or worked on) by Panaxles the Architect, a Silver Age hero. While I have little trouble to see a demigod like him erecting cyclopean city walls with the aid of dwarven constructs or giant workcrews, piling up a kilometer high mesa is something else, so I choose to read this that Panaxles worked on the interior and the access to the interior. (This may have included the tunnels that led below the site of Lylket, and the hidden gate to the underground port opening to the Choralinthor Bay, with great gates camouflaged as sheer rock walls.)

Clouds of dust and molten obsidian droplets and later tar will have seeped into the non-collapsed tunnels around the impact site. What used to be the hub for connecting the various caverns now was one big and irrepairable obstacle (although I can imagine that Shadow Plateau food trollkin have been engaged in clearing the aftermath for the last centuries, gnawing and munching their way through the debris). There may be more tasty bits among this debris than there are on the surface of the plateau, making the trollkin population up there quite likely the most rebellious lot (or in other words, an infestation with only caloric value).

 

We often tend to underestimate Godtime civilizations in Glorantha. The Feldichi artifacts found by the Second Council were the result of sufficiently advanced magic (as per the inversion of Clarke's theorem) and gave them access to incredible alchemy and magic. The edifice built by the chained Veskarthan/Lodril may have been advanced beyond our expectations, too, with not just filigrane and almost free-hanging spiral stairways to the sky, but also with balconies and floors with applications that would be filled through pipes driven by captured geysirs. There might have been a permanent coffee-machine hum in the palace from bubbles of gas pushing up columns of liquid in endless pipes. There may have been a heating and coolant system with Earthblood or brine. A bitch to repair when compromised, unless you had a ready resource of pitch to patch things up, so maybe that's how we get our tar.