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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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uju32 said:
Yes. Dresden hurt it with magic and soulfire, and Injun Joe mauled it in shapeshifter form.
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Hurt it how badly, though?
Didn't it flee, not because it thought it would/could lose, but because winning would/could have been too difficult/costly? I thought someone mentioned that here?

Does likely rule out having obscene soak, or at least having it without taking some form of additional action.
Does not necessarily rule out Perfect Defenses, if it was not given the opportunity to use them, or was unprepared to use them (sort of like how we wouldn't have BSM available if we had no liquids close at hand… does blood count for triggering BSM? Not necessarily our own).
Do we know how this one would compare to Shagnasty? Probably not.
For all we know this fucker could be more powerful still.
 
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uju32 said:
Just replacing the two Carpenter family cars is gonna be a hundred kay if we buy new; roughly forty for a top trim Honda Odyssey minivan before taxes, and a new F-250-class 2008 model pickup for Michael is gonna be fiftyish top trim. Before taxes.
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Seems weird to buy cars when our craft specialization is mechanical. We should be able to make cars that are better then top of the line. Or quickly give a junker a tune up.
 
uju32 said:
@DragonParadox
QUESTION
1)How many additional people are we looking at? Human, whampire, ghoul?
2)Whats Molly's estimate about when she should have the people here prepared for winter?
3)Can we use the entrypoint at the Nazi barbershop as a focus to map Undertown?


Nope.
Not that we've seen.
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  1. Three vampire are guaranteed, with as many as a dozen more out there once word gets out. As for humans there are probably hundreds in the tunnels. It's anyone's guess how many of them are minded to join the Jade Dogs
  2. It's Chicago, by November you should be done with it
  3. Not really, you would have to use undertown itself
 
DragonParadox said:
Three vampire are guaranteed, with as many as a dozen more out there once word gets out. As for humans there are probably hundreds in the tunnels. It's anyone's guess how many of them are minded to join the Jade Dogs
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Uh. I don't think that we can handle hundreds at the moment. Socially at least we can likely manage food and shelter for them, but I don't know how we manage internal conflicts. We don't have DPE advantage when dealing with normal humans and using exalancys for that many will quickly mote tap us.

Edit: On second thought so long as we are motivated by giving them food and shelter TLF should apply. So we actually should be able to manage. Also our empathy skill is good. 7 dice with -4 DC reductions should give us superhuman results on the regular even without spending essanse or stunting. But I hope someone can come up with some stunts anyway.

_____________________

I know that it doesn't really fit Dad's idiom*, but we could just give him enough money that he doesn't need to work and instead focuses all that time on knighting and his family.

*That is to say normal work a day white picket fence family man. He would still have the white picket fence and be a family man, but he would be missing the normal hard working bit.

Makes me think of Superman parallels. Clark Kent works at the daily planet to keep himself grounded, but if he married Louis and raised a family maybe he would not consider his mundane work to be such a important part of his life comparatively. Shame the comic books won't allow his life to progress.
 
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Michael enjoys the work, keeps his hands busy while he thinks and he likes making things for people. It is a different sort of help than being a knight of the cross but in its own way no less fulfilling.
 
Yog said:
@DragonParadox , naagloshii is described as "virtually its own ley line, its own well of power". Would Essence-Dissecting Stare be able to locate it, like it does Dragon Nests?
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When it is outside its home territory and as long as it is not purposefully trying to go dark yes. Inside its territory it can just draw on the land freely and if it goes dark it does not have access to magic beyond its native shape-shifting, but it also cannot be tracked by anything short of the Sight.
 
What has Broken Seeker been doing for the past month? It's on a timer well out of it's own lands so it isn't going to just hangout. It would be using it's time productively, but how? We haven't heard about any magic users being killed and we are fairly plugged into that network.
 
fictionfan said:
What has Broken Seeker been doing for the past month? It's on a timer well out of it's own lands so it isn't going to just hangout. It would be using it's time productively, but how? We haven't heard about any magic users being killed and we are fairly plugged into that network.
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What little we know is that it twice tried to frame Dresden.

And that Daedalus was working on trying to contain it. The poor fools.
 
TonedMite said:
Hurt it how badly, though?
Didn't it flee, not because it thought it would/could lose, but because winning would/could have been too difficult/costly? I thought someone mentioned that here?

Does likely rule out having obscene soak, or at least having it without taking some form of additional action.
Does not necessarily rule out Perfect Defenses,
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Perfect defenses is not a thing in either Dresden files or World of Darkness and the existence of them would make for a very different world.

The fact that we can even get perfect defenses is part of our OCP status.

I will mention also that perfects aren't something you generally use to fight those weaker then you. Other passive defenses like soak are better for that. Perfects are a tool for punching up. There is a reason that we haven't bothered with them.

The existence of Perfects has very important narrative implications that a world basically works around.
 
fictionfan said:
Perfect defenses is not a thing in either Dresden files or World of Darkness and the existence of them would make for a very different world.

The fact that we can even get perfect defenses is part of our OCP status.

I will mention also that perfects aren't something you generally use to fight those weaker then you. Other passive defenses like soak are better for that. Perfects are a tool for punching up. There is a reason that we haven't bothered with them.

The existence of Perfects has very important narrative implications that a world basically works around.
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There's propably some prefect-like effects out there, if only as a logical extrapolation of the powers that do exist.
It's just neither as common nor as broad as among Exalted.

For example a Wizard that has stopped caring about the Laws could propably use a Time effect paired with Corrospondence to not be whereever a specific attack hits.
It's propably dangerous and definitly requires serious skill in a discipline that is almost entirely forbidden to Wizards of this world, but it would translate as a perfect dodge against any non-perfect attack.
 
Artemis1992 said:
There's propably some prefect-like effects out there, if only as a logical extrapolation of the powers that do exist.
It's just neither as common nor as broad as among Exalted.

For example a Wizard that has stopped caring about the Laws could propably use a Time effect paired with Corrospondence to not be whereever a specific attack hits.
It's propably dangerous and definitly requires serious skill in a discipline that is almost entirely forbidden to Wizards of this world, but it would translate as a perfect dodge against any non-perfect attack.
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Yes by the Mage the Ascension rules wizards should be godkings ruling over the other supernatural factions. However the World of Darkness world building doesn't support that and the Dresden files world building supports it even less.
 
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Artemis1992 said:
There's propably some prefect-like effects out there, if only as a logical extrapolation of the powers that do exist.
It's just neither as common nor as broad as among Exalted.

For example a Wizard that has stopped caring about the Laws could propably use a Time effect paired with Corrospondence to not be whereever a specific attack hits.
It's propably dangerous and definitly requires serious skill in a discipline that is almost entirely forbidden to Wizards of this world, but it would translate as a perfect dodge against any non-perfect attack.
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Katrina used a perfect to shoot Molly in the head not that what she did could be precisely reproduced by a mortal.
 
fictionfan said:
Yes by the mage the ascension rules wizards should be godkings ruling over the other supernatural factions. However the World of Darkness world building doesn't support that and the Dresden files world building supports it even less.
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Mage the Ascension Mages are held back by their paradigms and by sane GMs.
Understanding that your character can't do everything his ratings in different Spheres might allow seems to me as the most vital part of any Mage-game.

Similarly I wouldn't let Dresden-Mages do everything they theoretically could as extrapolated from some individual feat either, but neither would I avoid cool tricks just because they look a bit too close to being perfect.
 
TonedMite said:
Hurt it how badly, though? Didn't it flee, not because it thought it would/could lose, but because winning would/could have been too difficult/costly? I thought someone mentioned that here?

Does likely rule out having obscene soak, or at least having it without taking some form of additional action.
Does not necessarily rule out Perfect Defenses, if it was not given the opportunity to use them, or was unprepared to use them (sort of like how we wouldn't have BSM available if we had no liquids close at hand… does blood count for triggering BSM? Not necessarily our own).
Do we know how this one would compare to Shagnasty? Probably not.
For all we know this fucker could be more powerful still.
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It did flee for that reason. But not until after getting its shit rocked. Injun Joe said Dresden almost took it, which may or may not have been trash talk. And we saw Injun Joe made it bleed. We honestly have no way of knowing how badly it was hurt in canon, since it appears to be one of those things that regens as easily as it breathes.

It did not appear to have any access to Perfect combat effects in canon. It did have an Intellectus variant.

Conservation of detail suggests this is Shagnasty.
It was canonically involved in a plot involving the White Court and Madrigal Raith's sister Madeline, after all
And yes, sufficient blood(or sweat, or any other liquid) will trigger BSM.
fictionfan said:
Seems weird to buy cars when our craft specialization is mechanical. We should be able to make cars that are better then top of the line. Or quickly give a junker a tune up.
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There are more new safety features in a 2008 vehicle than there is on a 1998 model.
Which is also a reason to buy high end luxury cars at top trim; the safety measures that will trickle down to mainstream cars in five to ten years start there first.

In a situation where there isnt a requirement for custom work, it makes a lot more sense to buy an automobile rather than to build one. Our time is money, especially at the moment when we're still setting up. At most she'll put a spell on the cars later after unlocking them to make the cars repair themselves or give themselves armor.

Note how Molly's cars are a standard Toyota Echo and a standard, if high end, Mercedes CLS.

Think of it this way:
1AP: Making diamonds = ~450k
1AP: Rebuilding a 1998-era minivan, or several of them.

If you spend 1AP to make money, you can spend part of it on a new car and still have most of the cash for other things.
Rebuilding an old minivan just gives you a refurbished old minivan.
Some things make more sense than others.
DragonParadox said:
Michael enjoys the work, keeps his hands busy while he thinks and he likes making things for people. It is a different sort of help than being a knight of the cross but in its own way no less fulfilling.
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To paraphrase something I remember, the key word in Knight of the Sword is not Sword, its Knight.
 
uju32 said:
Note how Molly's cars are a standard Toyota Echo and a standard, if high end, Mercedes CLS.

Think of it this way:
1AP: Making diamonds = ~450k
1AP: Rebuilding a 1998-era minivan, or several of them.

If you spend 1AP to make money, you can spend part of it on a new car and still have most of the cash for other things.
Rebuilding an old minivan just gives you a refurbished old minivan.
Some things make more sense than others.
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Normally I would argue that buying a car would take 1 AP worth of work, but we have a financial assistant to manage that sort of thing for us.
 
fictionfan said:
Perfect defenses is not a thing in either Dresden files or World of Darkness and the existence of them would make for a very different world.

The fact that we can even get perfect defenses is part of our OCP status.
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There are two broad categories of perfect defenses in Dresden Files:
1) Mab and other highest-grade mantle holders are immortal. The flaws of invulnerability are as follows: it doesn't work on Halloween, the mantle itself can potentially be destroyed (for example, if a Winter Lady stops being a virgin, the mantle gets broken)
2) Nicodemius has an artifact (Judas' noose) that renders him invulnerable, except to the attacks via strangulation with that noose.


Anyway, more comments about the update:
1) Making a tunnel to a warehouse of ours. Double-Shield Tunnel Boring Machines generally go at the rate of ~ 100 meters per day. With TTC we can assume 1 kilometer per day, a bit less actually, because we'll also need to do something with the earth being removed. I'll assume that, as the crow flies, the warehouse is within seven kilometers from the Last Station. We could probably do it in a week or so.
2) It's unlikely that whatever it is in the tunnels, is naagloshii, but, if it is, we are in great luck. Closed space favors us greatly, as it makes it harder for naagloshii to flee, and allows for easier confinement
3) Radioactive waste? Ok, that bears investigation. Because that's not just stuff that falls off a back of a wagon. That's controlled substances. What the hell is it doing here? How did it get here? What origin does it have? Fomori have been modeled after Pentex, and this is Pentex-like sh*t exactly.
4) Assuming we are helping everyone, it's important to remember that we are doing everything at -3 to -4 difficulty discount. This is an area of urban blight, and this definitely counts as protecting and feeding people. We could probably organize mushroom farms and stuff like that here. An interesting point is that the masquerade is likely to be non-existent here, or at least much thinner. We should take this into account. This is also a very fertile place for a cult flashpoint. As an Infernal, we posses discount on Prayer Eating charms. Those need to be bought in sequence (1 dot - 2 dots - 3 dots) at 2 XP per dot, meaning we'll need to spend 12 XP to get the following:
hear prayers (•)
The Exalt seats herself, empties her mind, and al-
lows her worshipers' prayers to flow into her conscious-
ness. This Charm allows the character to monitor the
supplications and wishes of her followers, so long as
they speak their prayers in at least a faint whisper; un-
spoken prayers cannot reach the character's ears. She
can even use this Charm to pick up distress calls from
imprisoned or endangered worshipers, so long as their
entreaty for help is part of a heartfelt prayer.
System: The Exalt must relax as completely as she is
able, in a place relatively free of distractions, and make a
Stamina + Occult roll against difficulty 6. Success allows
her to hear prayers uttered within a number of miles equal
to her (Essence rating x 5). These prayers must be issued
with sincerity, and they must be directed to the Exalt.
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Prayer Appraisal (••)
The Exalt gazes into the eyes of one of her worship-
ers, and therein sees his innermost hopes and desires.
The distinction of "worshiper" is crucial; if the subject
doesn't genuinely acknowledge the Exalt as a supernat-
ural being capable of exercising miraculous guidance
over his life and worthy of deep reverence, this Charm
reveals nothing whatsoever – although even that can
be useful in its way, as it allows the Exalt to weed out
the faithless from her congregation.
Prayer Appraisal can function even across the
Gauntlet or Shroud, allowing the Chosen to surrepti-
tiously gauge the hearts of the faithful.
System: The Exalt gazes into her subject's eyes, and
the player rolls Perception + Empathy. If the subject is
actively offering prayers to the Exalt, the difficulty is
the lowest of 4 or the target's Willpower. Otherwise,
this roll is made against the highest of the two values.
The more successes rolled, the more clearly the Exalt
reads her worshiper's heart.
• One success: The Exalt knows if the subject is sin-
cerely praying, and what general thing they most want
from her: "I want my grandmother to live."
• Two successes: As with one success, but the Exalt
also knows why the target desires the thing they want: "I
want my grandmother to live so I can get into her will."
• Three successes: The Exalt also gets a short sum-
mary of the target's prayers over the last month, along
with their reasoning. Furthermore, she learns the
subject's name, her Demeanor, and a few very broad
strokes of her personal history.
• Four successes: As three successes, but the Exalt
also learns the target's Nature, Willpower score, most
of their personal history, and mystical ties or bonds that
might hold power over them (such as a blood bond, or
being conditioned to possession by a ghost), their current
thoughts and feelings, any long-term plans, and finally,
the Exalt knows if her worshiper has ever lied to her.
• Five successes: The target's soul is an open book
to the Exalt – all of their thoughts, history, dreams, de-
sires, memories (even edited or suppressed ones), and
ugly secrets are laid bare before her.
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Fulfill Prayer (•••)
The Exalt very lightly sets her fingers upon the
threads of fate and fortune, tugging them into closer
alignment with an offered prayer so that it is more
likely to come true. This is a very minor miracle: it
can't raise the dead or conjure wealth from thin air. It
merely nudges reality toward desirable outcomes, and
the more humble the prayer, the more likely it is to be
granted. It cannot cure a worshiper's cancer, but might
drive it into remission for a few years – or at least until
the postulant sees his son graduate.
The Exalt cannot answer her own prayers, but
there's nothing stopping her from lavishing her favor
upon the prayers of others that best align with her own
wishes or agenda.
System: The Exalt spends 1 Essence and makes a
Perception + Occult roll with a difficulty equal to the
local Gauntlet rating. The more successes garnered,
the more strongly fate and fortune will work to grant
the selected prayer. This is a matter of storytelling rath-
er than solid systems, but protecting "blessed" actions
from botches or granting free specialties are within rea-
son, if some systems manifestations of this Charm are
needed. This Charm can't answer prayers more than a
week old, and the prayers must be offered directly to
the Exalt in the sincere and uncynical belief that she
is a supernatural being capable of using her power to
grant miracles to those she favors.
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This is, essentially, a discount VEE. We are likely to be rolling difficulty 3 (BSM, TLF and/or ATB), and with WHWH, stunting and an excellency we should be rolling >15 successes regularly. >15 successes is "other celestial exalts start thinking you are showing off" level of success. Once we are set in the Dragon Nest and can regenerate essence quickly, we could easily start mass prayer granting.

I still have no idea about a stunt, but we definitely should be helping the people too. Probably starting with organizing them and getting them to follow us? Or maybe feeding them.
 
Yog said:
1) Mab and other highest-grade mantle holders are immortal. The flaws of invulnerability are as follows: it doesn't work on Halloween, the mantle itself can potentially be destroyed (for example, if a Winter Lady stops being a virgin, the mantle gets broken)
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Or sacrificed on the alter.
Yog said:
2) Nicodemius has an artifact (Judas' noose) that renders him invulnerable, except to the attacks via strangulation with that noose.
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Don't know if that's actually perfect. The biggest example of him demonstrating it was a bunch of guys shooting him which he quickly healed, but the bullets did in fact damage him. It's possible if there had been enough gun to tear him into literal pieces it would have killed him or that he wouldn't be able to quickly heal aggregated damage.

The ability to heal multiple lethal wounds a turn is really nice it would be well worth the weakness we should loot him*, but it doesn't imply any sort of perfect. If he gets burned to ash and then regenerates that starts being convincing evidence.

*It would be even better for us since CCC applies to grapples.
 
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If we only go by Nicodemius shown feats we are more invulnerable then he is. Our soak when charged up is totally sufficient to have a guy shoot an entire clip of bullets into us without flinching. Shame the charging up costs so much essance.
 
Could we just take the most vulnerable humans in for now? Molly would want to help everyone, but I doubt we can actually do the job right now.

The money isn't the hard part, I don't think our current income is enough to take care of hundreds of destitute people if we want to do it properly, but we've extensively covered how to improve that situation. Converting it into leverage is harder but if we really want to we can open a real charity*, open a few soup kitchens, and do most of the work out in the open.

I think a bigger issue would be defending everyone. We'd be drawing a lot of attention and pulling the "food supply" of a lot of monsters who aren't interested in getting better to one place.

We can and should help them, but I don't want to call every lower order predator in the city down on the heads of the Jade Dogs and anyone we're helping through them without some serious prep work first.

fictionfan said:
Well if we are now able to make something like half a million per AP I am not sure that going for a lottery is actually worthwhile.
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This is pocket change compared to the needs of hundreds. Especially fragile humans suffering from chronic exposure and malnutrition.

Making sure that one baby we heard actually grows up without complications will probably cost more than a new BMW, and that's just one kid.

We should absolutely do this, but we should also make sure we've got a comical amount of money so that we can get these people proper preventative medical care, education, food, clothing, housing, the whole nine yards.

More than that, we need a self sustaining system for providing those things so that we don't run out when we get swamped by people in need.

We could just throw bedrolls and cans of spam at them once a month and call it a day, but it'd really grind my gears if we could do this properly and just didn't bother.

TonedMite said:
Fair enough, and if Amorrachius can't harm this fuck… is there anything Amorrachius can't harm, if it really needs to?
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Amoraccius is an angel willingly trapped in a sword for the purpose of empowering a mortal to go out and fulfill the highest ideals of his creator. We don't know how strong he is, but they start at planet busting.

It's also worth noting how important purpose and sacrifice are to the supernatural in the DF. Generally power comes with a purpose, and what binds you is itself leverage over the world. There's stuff you can get without that, especially as a mortal, but the big league immortals generally follow this trend.

Sacrifice is another significant element in all kinds of ways, not all of them as literal as sucking the power out of stuff.

Amorrichus the sword can, from a certain perspective, be seen as the willing sacrifice of what little autonomy a minimum planet busting entity had to empower a mortal to fulfill a specific role in line with the greater purpose of the angel's existence.

I'd be surprised if there was anything it couldn't cut if it really needed to, but it isn't God's favorite razor or something; the literal edge of the blade isn't the most dangerous thing it can leverage against you.


fictionfan said:
Maybe we should give them a call? I don't like them either, but I would prefer if they were doing a better job with Broken Seeker.
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I'd prefer to work through the library here. It might end up being the case that they're assholes too, but right now we're already sort of exposed to them. Daedalus doesn't think much of us right now, but if we become interesting they seem highly likely to exploit any leverage they can get even if it's unjust or counterproductive.

More than that they're so incompetent at the moment that I don't really trust them to avoid screwing up whatever we work with them on.

They need a babysitter from another agency to make sure they sit in the back and eat glue instead of screwing with stuff they aren't equipped to handle.
Prospalz said:
Rapid regen would be pretty great regardless, tbh. Infernals got combat regen charms, but they aren't super.
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fictionfan said:
Don't know if that's actually perfect.
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Given how much damage he's tanked with that thing and the way it seems the injuries do physically pile up my thought is that it's not (just) healing.

Under this system I think it'd basically give him infinite wounds at an ever increasing injury malus and some fast healing.


* Actually we should do this asap anyway, and not just or even initially for food. We need to get actual legitimate medical care for our people on the long term, which is complicated by their lack of IDs and homes. Eventually we need to change that, but we can get them care much sooner by going through a route that doesn't require them to get good fake papers.

Plenty of charities do stuff similar to this, so I don't think it'd be too hard to just make one and be upfront about the fact that they have no IDs. The healthcare system probably won't care as long as they have a known entity on the hook for the bill.
 
BronzeTongue said:
Given how much damage he's tanked with that thing and the way it seems the injuries do physically pile up my thought is that it's not (just) healing.

Under this system I think it'd basically give him infinite wounds at an ever increasing injury malus and some fast healing.
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Seems like jumping the gun to say infinite. I don't think that he has taken so much as 10 health levels of damage in a single scene. Molly taking a machine gun to the chest was only 3 health levels. Admittedly she had armor on.
 
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