But when did this happen? in the revised dark sun rulebook it talks about him been a pyreen.
Before that he was a human who was warped in body and mind. In body he was ugly but in mind he was perfect, powerful of intellect and creator of magic.
Personally i prefer the idea of rajaat been a human, a being who hates himself so much that he wants to destroy his own race
- as a pyreen he is crazy but there is no pathos.
Do you think of him as a pyreen or human? and does it matter to you, or is rajaat's race irrelevant to his purpose (namely genocide)?
I always had a knack for ignoring inconvenient 'facts' about DS.
Rajaat being a pyreen was one of them, there was nothing wrong with him being a pristine tower mutation, hating his self and therefore hating any of the mutations from the 'pure' halflings.
Why they had to make him a pyreen is anybodies guess.
Before that he was a human who was warped in body and mind.
A fine example of how one can accept changes in continuity and not think twice. I did, so much that I don't recall Rajaat having ever been human in canon.
I think, if Rajaat is simply a twisted and powerful human, there's no real contrast. The Pyreen though are painted as 'the best mixture of all the other races, beings of goodness and purity'. For Rajaat to be a twisted Pyreen, it shows much more contrast, rather like the original contrast of dark elves in comparison to their surface dwelling brethren (Pre-Drizzt dark elves). 'Oh look, another evil human' holds much less weight than saying that he is Athas' version of the Fallen Angel.
Either version though, its fairly apparent that he hates his own race. I always imagined him as being so horribly deformed that one could not clearly tell which race he belonged to (and even in the Green Age, I highly doubt the pyreen were a prolific race that many knew about).
Originally posted by Mach2.5
A fine example of how one can accept changes in continuity and not think twice. I did, so much that I don't recall Rajaat having ever been human in canon.
Same here.
In fact, I agree with Dawn, don't recall seeing anywhere that his race was specified before the revised box set.
I'm sticking with pyreen though, fits better.
They are powerful psionicists and very powerful druids. They
travel about Athas attempting to set things right, although it
looks like a hopeless battle. Few know of their existence, and
fewer still have ever met one. They are sworn enemies of defilers,
and their actions indicate they are bent on the destruction of
the sorcerer-kings.
Pyreens are also known as "peacebringers". ;)
Originally posted by NytCrawlr
Same here.
In fact, I agree with Dawn, don't recall seeing anywhere that his race was specified before the revised box set.
I'm sticking with pyreen though, fits better.
I have a vague memory that it is, although I can't quite pin it down.
Having said that, how many products mentioned Rajaat at all, before the revised?
Pyreens are also known as "peacebringers".
If Rajaat would be a human there wouldn't be the same evil twist in him being known as the "Warbringer".
I really need to start a DS game, I have much I want to explore, I just hope I can find some DS players as into the game as you guys on this board.
Lyra(sp?) in the Tribe of One seems to really not like Rajaat.
Go figure!
Originally posted by Mach2.5
A fine example of how one can accept changes in continuity and not think twice. I did, so much that I don't recall Rajaat having ever been human in canon.
Either version though, its fairly apparent that he hates his own race. I always imagined him as being so horribly deformed that one could not clearly tell which race he belonged to (and even in the Green Age, I highly doubt the pyreen were a prolific race that many knew about).
Same line of thinking here. The contrast of the Warbringer coming from the "Peacebringer" race is too good to leave out of the setting.
Is there anywhere that says that Rajaat hunted down fellow Pyreens?
I want to say in the 2e revised box set they stated he was hunting them down the same time he declaired the jihad against the druids.
I have yet to complete a full index for the PP, but to my current knowledge, the PP does not pointedly identify Rajaat's race. However there are some occasions in the text with which we may find some use. The sorcerer-monarchs' history lesson after the destruction of Borys in CS for instance provides a suitable example, where Andropinis offers us an image of Rajaat, although it must be remembered that we are speculating as to the verisimilitude of the illusion.
Andropinis gestured, and the scene shifted to an isolated turret in one of the smaller villages, where a single figure sat by a glass window poring over a stack of books. There was no way to describe the man's appearance except as hideous, for he had a huge head with a flat, grossly elongated face. His eyes were half-covered by flaps of skin, while his long nose, lacking a bridge, ended in three flaring nostrils. He had a small, slitlike mouth with tiny teeth and a drooping chin. His body was contorted and weak, with humped shoulders and gangling arms. (CS, 278-9)
This passage is useful in giving us something to work with, as I believe it is the only canon description of a pre-skeletal Rajaat. In a paragraph soon following however, we find perhaps our most telling evidence for Rajaat's humanity. The Oba narrates:
"Rajaat came to us early in the Green Age, one of the many hideous accidents spawned from the Rebirth," said the Oba. "His only blessing was a supreme intellect which he used to become the first sorcerer. He spent centuries trying to reconcile his brutal appearance with his human spirit. In the end, even his powerful mind could find no answer. He came to revile himself as nothing but a deformed accident." (CS, 279)
Even in this however the evidence is not as qualitative as we might prefer. For instance, Troy Denning frequently used terms such as "man" to refer to male dwarves, muls, elves and the like, and whereas "human" is considerably clearer for our purposes, we must note that the term "human" is one of the most oft used words to relate "morality" and/or "elevated consciousness" in the English lanaguage, and therefore Denning may have simply used the word "human" to describe Rajaat's "human" soul when it was not necessarily his intention to label Rajaat as human at all. This possibility of course is only compounded by Lalali-Puy's statements that Rajaat was "one of the hideous accidents spawned from the Rebirth" and that he "came to revile himself as nothing but a deformed accident."
Despite all this, it seems more logical to me that Rajaat was human, or as we shall see, "humanish", despite occasional pyreen imagery. First of all, we should note that the PP never once mentions pyreen at all in the text, despite numerous opportunities, and therefore if Denning wished to clearly cast Rajaat as pyreen, he chose not to do it. Second, no effort is made to clearly portray Rajaat as other than human, and indeed, a good sprinkling of examples could be provided to imply Rajaat's association with humanity. We have in CS' prologue for instance a description of Rajaat's skull, which we are told seems "remotely human, though the slender jawbones, drooping chin, and flat cheekbones insinuated that this was not entirely true" (CS, 1). It is a curious passage, but it is one which may be taken in many ways, for just as it may imply actual non-humanity, it could also arguably simply be that Rajaat's body was not entirely human, just as Joseph Merrick's frame could callously be described in a similar manner, although I think this argument to be weak.
Some of the better evidence though comes from the argument that if Rajaat was actually pyreen, it seems logical that he would create a champion to destroy this race as well, and therefore the fact that there does not appear to have been a champion so assigned implies that Rajaat was not aware of the pyreen in general (which makes sense if he indeed was not pyreen, as pyreen are extremely secretive [and it seems they probably were even before the Cleansing Wars, cf. DSMC1]) and therefore would not know to destroy them. Of course, it could be argued that Rajaat chose to deal with the pyreen himself due to their special nature, intended one or a group of the champions to hunt down the pyreen after their own assigned race was annihilated (this must have been the case with other races regardless, as even a score of champions would not have destroyed all Rebirth races if they were limited to just the ones they were directly assigned against), thought he had wiped them out in the sorcerous wars before the Cleansing Wars, or even chose not to destroy them for any number of reasons (one being that he himself was pyreen and therefore could not bring himself to do it, or marked them as an exception to the genocides). Other arguments exist as well. For example, if Rajaat were pyreen and wanted to destroy all the Rebirth races (except for humans, as the champions believed [CS, 280]), his genocidal plans would have likely seemed quite ridiculous to the prospective champions, and even if Rajaat claimed to intend suicide for himself, such would have implied that the champions and all the humans would have to destroy themselves, which obviously makes no sense. This perhaps is one of the better logical arguments against Rajaat's pyreen blood, for if he were pyreen, who are obviously of the Rebirth, there would have been two races that were to be spared, and this cannot be, as the Oba clearly states that "all during the Cleansing Wars, Rajaat told us that humans would be the only race left when we finsihed" (CS, 280). Still, even this may be circumvented by 2nd box apologists, who could argue that Rajaat did not know he was pyreen through whatever manner, or that he was able to appear as human, as pyreen are racially ambiguous. The latter is the more plausible pyreen solution, and indeed, it ties neatly into the theme that Rajaat was a being infused with self hate, and therefore Rajaat's champions and other minions may have allowed for the philosophical conundrum of Rajaat's exclusion from genocide due to an appreciation of the level of Rajaat's hatred for himself, and the respect they, at least in lip service, afforded to him for leading such an awe-inspiring crusade.
If the pyreen theory is to be taken however, despite the humanish insinuations supplied above, it should be noted that by all accounts Rajaat is extremely old. The Oba herself makes mention that "Rajaat came to us early in the Green Age" (CS, 279), and given his knowledge in the PP of the Blue Age and his ability to declare it a mistake etc., I could see the argument that Rajaat indeed may have been an original Pristine Tower creation, and therefore he may indeed be his own beast, so to speak, and not necessarily be identified as pyreen. Then again he may indeed be pyreen after his initial creation from the Tower. Still, this argument does not sit comfortably with me. Although the background is largely 2nd box, I aesthetically prefer a Rajaat who discovers the secrets of the Blue Age himself, and disfavor the image of an originally halfing Rajaat. In the logical realm, this aesthetic preference comes into play in that Rajaat's genocides lose their more insane and thus "fatally flawed" character if Rajaat actually saw the Blue Age and himself was a part of that era. It is more satisfying that Rajaat believe, out of some carnal, misguided need, that the Blue Age was better than the Green, and thus fixates on this as people in the real world are wont to fixate on some Golden Age, be it the 1950's America or, more to point, some glorious **** prehistory which, although never existing, Hitler strove to "re"-instate even though he never saw it.
If we are to take Denning as strict canon however, I must admit that he portrays an extremely ancient Rajaat who existed at or near the beginning of the Green Age, and that indeed, to offer some conclusive answer to the original query of this thread, Rajaat is of a slightly ambiguous racial origin, although I again certainly lean towards a more human Rajaat. To follow another of DracoChapel's queries, it is, beyond the canon arguments, important to me to have a more human Rajaat, for if he is human, gamers and readers can identify more strongly with his self-hatred and genocide, and thus view him in much more personal terms as a truly terrible monster, one which is among the best sculpted, fatally flawed beings in the D&D universe. As a human, or humanish, he is a first rate villain. Were he pyreen however, especially an original pyreen from the Pristine Tower, we lose much of Rajaat's deeper pathos, as DracoChapel puts it. Especially if he is from the Blue Age, we find Rajaat's purpose changed from some deep inner need to somehow correct his own horrid self by manically turning to some golden age as the only terrible soluation, and instead we have a more shallow arch-villain, and, frighteningly, an arch-villain who has actually seen the Blue Age, and thus casts a more legitimate argument to the genocides, as Rajaat is one of the few beings who might actually be able to decide from the vantage of experience that the Blue Age really was better. Indeed, I must disagree with Mach2.5, for a pyreen Rajaat, even if not as old as the Blue Age, still marks him as a higher being, closer to an angel. The pyreen of Athas are cast as extremely wise, loftier beings of truly good heart. To have such a being be a master of genocides makes his nature less identifiable to PC races as well as players/readers. Indeed, even Milton's Satan is of a more human nature, whose issues we can identify with, but Rajaat as a pyreen, with such a loftier intelligence and wisdom, once again only takes Rajaat out of a more identifiable sphere and instead perhaps even validates his genocides, as a higher being with a dazzling intellect surely has a better prospect of deciding matters of world fate than lesser beings.
Regardless, as I end here, it is my understanding that Denning had little or even no command of DSMC1 where the pyreen are first listed (Timothy B. Brown wrote this supplement without Denning), as the PP is largely lacking in the monsters described there (vs. Simon Hawke's Tribe of One series, which uses monsters in DSMC1 frequently, and even opens his novels with a pyreen), and therefore it is possible to me that Denning, at least in initial conception, was not aware of pyreens, as indeed the Peace Bringers may not have even been conceived of at that time by Brown. Indeed, once more, Denning certainly fails to note Rajaat as pyreen. Rather, he prefers a more ambiguous racial status, perhaps to further the aura of mystery around Rajaat, but what he does emphasize is Rajaat's human nature, which I think is most important. We lose the identifiable, flawed Rajaat if his wisdom and nature is the stuff of loftier beings. To have a truly Dark Sun arch-villain, we need a Rajaat with a human soul, and even if he may have been born to an elf mother, a dwarf father, or whatever you might have, it is a Rajaat with a human soul with human weaknesses that becomes the horror which even the sorcerer-kings find to be the worst, maddest evil in the world.
Regardless of all, it is all our game and story, so let us do with it and its characters as we please.
NOTE: As to issues of Rajaat's powers and longevity, I hope to address in another thread, but I do not believe that Rajaat necessarily need be pyreen to explain his extremely long life. We must consider his drawing upon the power of Athas' world soul, etc...
Response to Elonarc: I find your comment on the peace-bringer war-bringer parallel quite fascinating, but it seems more logical to me that the pyreen developed their title peace-bringers in response to Rajaat's Warbringer, and not the other way around, for the peace-bringer title makes the most sense only in contrast to Rajaat the Warbringer and his minions. This however seems quite debatable.
Response to Elonarc: I find your comment on the peace-bringer war-bringer parallel quite fascinating, but it seems more logical to me that the pyreen developed their title peace-bringers in response to Rajaat's Warbringer, and not the other way around, for the peace-bringer title makes the most sense only in contrast to Rajaat the Warbringer and his minions. This however seems quite debatable.
WOW
I never thought I would get a reply to that after that much time.You might have a point, though "my" Rajaat will stay being a Pyreen. I find the idea of him being a human quite, well, bland.
Rajaat as a human seems too bland as well. We deal with human cruelty and destructiveness (sp?) in real life, its just more fun (to me) to have an inhuman major opponent. After all... the Sorcerer-Kings are all human, why does Rajaat also need to be human?
I need provide no citations for the extreme antiquity of Rajaat. All published sources of which I am aware, whether strict canon or not, agree that Rajaat is indeed quite ancient. The PP, one of our most authoratative sources, mentions Rajaat "came to us early in the Green Age." Therefore I think it must be yielded that Rajaat is truly a long lived being, as xlorepdarkhelm most properly reminds us must have been the case for Rajaat to have invented magic, etc.
The question simply put is, how did Rajaat live so long? In strict 1st box period canon sources we are left in the dark on this matter. We still however may investigate the matter. Nothing in the PP of which I am aware makes direct reference to Rajaat's command of the Way (I am relatively certain of this, although I may have missed a reference), but nonetheless I think it is implied that Rajaat is, shall we say without exageration, an arch-grand-master of psionics, as sorcerer-monarchs seem unable to best Rajaat with the Way or even cause him any concern (CS, 314). If he is such a powerful practitioner of the Way, the First Sorcerer may keep himself alive through a mastery of psionics, which apparently is possible, as the Dragon Kings supplement makes mention of it (p. 78). Of course it need hardly be said that 2nd box era material pointedly makes reference of Rajaat's extreme psionic powers (2nd Box Set, Wanderer's Chronicle, p.12 "great command of the Way"), although a considerable portion of such powers according to the 2nd box would of course have been provided to Rajaat through his pyreen heritage, as all pyreen are very powerful psionicists as a matter of course.
Other possibilities for Rajaat's longevity exist. As discussed in my previous post on this thread, Rajaat's unknown ancestry may provide him with the longevity required, as of course dwarves etc. may live centuries, and it is only "centuries" that Rajaat lives until he reaches the garden at the Jagged Cliffs (the significance of which I shall shortly come to) if we do indeed accept the chronology of the 2nd box (we may derive "centuries" in that Rajaat takes "centuries" of wandering time and about 200 years in the "garden" [WC, p.12]).
It is at the garden however that our argument becomes more complex. I shall examine the possibility here that Rajaat may have survived long enough to reach the Garden (I shall capitalize "Garden" from here on) whereat he achieved some measure of immortality. Of course, all this depends upon the acceptance of 2nd box era material, which in my view takes a back seat to 1st box era publishings, including the PP, which of course makes no mention of the Garden or any such things. However, I still try to support 2nd box material if it is not in contradiction to 1st box factual and thematic precedents. Therefore, accepting the Garden event, we need have Rajaat only survive "centuries" to reach this time and place. It is at the Garden however that I again shall provide the possibility that Rajaat achieved his immortality (is it truly immortality?).
The Wanderer's Chronicle informs us that after years of experiments, Rajaat finally turned to drawing from the life force (spirit of the land?) of Athas itself, and that this nearly destroyed him and ruined the Garden permanently (p. 12). The Chronicle also informs us that Rajaat could not control such forces. I postulate here that this event may have modified and/or enhanced Rajaat's powers to an extreme degree. Nothing published of which I am aware states this directly, but nonetheless, I shall provide an abrievated argument as to why this may be so.
The main reason is that the powers Rajaat displays upon his release in the Cerulean Storm are undeniably deific in magnitude. Immediately upon his release the sun turns blue! Indeed, the entire city of Ur Draxa changes with great haste into some sort of growing halfling metropolis, and even animal life comes into being all around Rajaat's person at a truly alarming rate. To me, these powers cannot have been gained in any "traditional fashion." Rajaat for instance requires no gestures or material components to turn the sun blue; this event simply happens upon his whim immediately after his release. This being so, I have great difficulty in discovering how Rajaat achieved such levels of power. Even if he is as schooled as the greatest halfing nature master there ever was, the halfings themselves seemed unable to empower the sun so as to return blue, nor does it seem likely to me that nature masters were capable of commanding the elements (such as water) as Rajaat does in the CS. I do not favor Lynn Abbey's dubious Dark Lens connections with the Elemental Planes either, as this argument, as is frequently noted in this forum, is contradicted by the vortices canon from the Dragon King's supplement and elsewhere. Indeed, everything save Abbey's books portrays the Lens as not having elemental planar connections, and that rather the Lens draws from the sun itself or any other available power source (spells, psionics, etc.). Therefore I can see no canon precedent for Rajaat receiving his ungodly powers from the Lens, for indeed he needs not even be in contact with it, nor does he grasp the Lens even upon reclaiming his freedom, leaving the Lens to Tithian until trouble comes from the heroes and renegade champions. Surely, if the Lens were the source of Rajaat's more extreme powers, he would take better care of it. The Pristine Tower source also seems questionable, as the Tower seems only capable of taking power away from the sun, and not bestowing power directly from itself, as the halfling nature masters use the Tower to draw power from the blue sun, turning it to the bright one of the Green Age. The Tower is an instrument, not a battery.
No, the only source of Rajaat's near infinite powers to me seems to be his encounter in the Garden. I theorize that Rajaat, upon drawing upon the life energy of Athas itself, may have somehow permanently bonded himself to the Spirit of the Land of Athas (the whole planet), thereby gaining him direct and permanent access to the power of the Elemental Planes. Indeed, it seems to me that the only way Rajaat could have done what was portrayed in the Cerulean Storm would be if Rajaat had infinite spell access, including 8th, 9th, 10th and quest level spells, to the Elemental Spheres (para-elemental and quasi-elemental?) as well as the Sphere of Cosmos. He would have to literally be capable of, in my mind, releasing the flood gates to the elemental planes even without spell gestures, words and material components, thus allowing him to accomplish feats such as turning the sun blue. Such powers, in addition to his abilities with the Way (which may have been essentially infinite at this point) and his wizardly abilities (as he seems to be able to cast any wizard spell, perhaps even 10th level magic, at will [although wizard spells from his require gestures and the like] and without memorizing any spells from spellbooks) seem to me one of the only ways to explain Rajaat's abilities as portrayed in the CS.
It is from this bonding/infusion or whatever one might call it at the Garden that Rajaat, in my mind, may have received something akin to true immortality and near (in game terms at least) omnipotence. Certainly a vortex may have been attracted as well to the event, but Rajaat never demonstrates the ability to cast templar spells, and to me, among other difficulties with the vortex possibility, the vortex is simply not possible of releasing such vast quantities of pure elemental might... all a sorcerer-monarch's templars together, even if granted full spell access, would be unable to cause the sun to turn blue again, I do believe. No, the relationship of Rajaat to the life force of the planet itself seems one of the most logical possibilties, and could possibly explain Rajaat's extreme longevity if the pyreen thesis is denied by anyone.
Of course, all this may still be a possible soluation to Rajaat's extreme powers anyway even if the First Sorcerer was pyreen. It is surely a difficult subject to definitively answer, but hopefully this investigation will have its uses to those who wish to deal with the issue.
Again though, as I note from the responses to my previous postings, the nature of Rajaat is and I think should remain a matter largely of taste and not of canonical disputation, and whereas some of my views as to Rajaat's race are discussed in an above post, those such as Master Ivan, Elonarc and xlorepdarkhelm should hold their own weight based on how smooth and intellectually pleasing a human or pyreen Rajaat would be in gameplay or story.
NOTE 1: Any remarks as to the powers of Rajaat or concerning their above postulated source would be most welcome, as I would like to solve as definitively as possible this quisquous matter.
NOTE 2: Vortices attracted to Rajaat himself at the Garden may also be denied especially considering the fact that attracted vortices may have not have wished to bond themselves with the Spirit of Athas, from which Rajaat was drawing. It would be like drawing from an elemental lord, for the spirits of Athas surely are linked and draw from the the elemental planes themselves, and thus it would be rather ridiculous for a living vortex to draw from Rajaat, as in the end his power would only be drawing from the elemental planes anyway. It would be similar to a symbioltic relationship, one which I imagine would be little sating to a living vortex which itself would be linked to the elemental planes.
The main reason is that the powers Rajaat displays upon his release in the Cerulean Storm are undeniably deific in magnitude. Immediately upon his release the sun turns blue! Indeed, the entire city of Ur Draxa changes with great haste into some sort of growing halfling metropolis, and even animal life comes into being all around Rajaat's person at a truly alarming rate. To me, these powers cannot have been gained in any "traditional fashion." Rajaat for instance requires no gestures or material components to turn the sun blue; this event simply happens upon his whim immediately after his release. This being so, I have great difficulty in discovering how Rajaat achieved such levels of power. Even if he is as schooled as the greatest halfing nature master there ever was, the halfings themselves seemed unable to empower the sun so as to return blue, nor does it seem likely to me that nature masters were capable of commanding the elements (such as water) as Rajaat does in the CS.
I think this is more symbolic of what happened to him while he was trapped in the Hollow to be honest.
Two reasons, it took all the champions to take him down to a point where they could seperate his essence from his physical form and trap both seperately, and once he was released in CS he had power on a grander scale, so much so that the SM's (even though they were minus two of their kind) with the help of the heroes had to work together in order to trap him again, if he is indeed trapped again (I don't think he truly is personally).
This also caused the death of the Abalanche-Re and the Dragon via his artifacts before his release (though that was something he probably instilled during the creation of said artifacts), the death of Tek and the banishment of Andy after his release.
To me, what he was displaying was new found power that he had somehow obtained while he was in the Hollow, whether it was a pact with the paraelemental Rain or something else entirely that granted it, we will never know because the story was never truly finished unfortunately.
Sacha's jaw fell open. "He's changed." A knowing smile crept across the head's lips, and he said, "This time, he won't fail. Athas shall return to the Blue Age." -CS, 304
This of course may imply these "elemental" powers are new, although it is possible Rajaat chose not to show them before his imprisonment. Still, Sacha seems to be quite familiar with Rajaat, and I lean towards the image of a Rajaat who really has changed since his initial imprisonment.
The problem lies in that Rajaat was trapped in the Hollow. Certainly he seems capable of communication within the Hollow (as with the Shadow Giants), but this communication seems limited to the Black and his own magical items and artifacts, and then only when these items are broken and bleed out the sorcerous essence which seems directly tied to Rajaat. Nibenay and Hamanu also emphasize the isolation of the Hollow when they warn Sadira that she will be unable to retrieve Rikus from it, despite all her powers. I suppose it is possible that the shadow halflings made the pact with the a para-elemental plane during Rajaat's imprisonment somehow, but pacts would have had to have been made, it seems to me, with multiple elemental planes, and even with such pacts, it is difficult for me to imagine how Rajaat could reshape Ur Draxa and even make Blue Age life forms out of nothing (or transform them out of something?). Also, it seems unlikely to me that the para-elemental plane of the sun (or, for Troy Denning, the Plane of Fire) would cooperate with the elemental plane of water or para-elemental plane of rain. The statues changing from Draxan generals to noble halflings would also imply a relationship with the elemental plane of earth. It is difficult for me to accept that the halflings could make so many pacts with so many different planes, and it is even more difficult for me to accept that all these planes were willing to deal with each other.
Of course another possibility is that Rajaat, while in the Hollow, set his "supreme intellect" to the task of increasing his power, and thus somehow calculated how to gain the extreme powers he displays upon his release. Still, even for one such as Rajaat, this seems like a stretch.
I suppose in the end, as you noted NytCrawlr, it is difficult to say what was the case. I suppose one would have to appeal to Denning himself, if he even knows.