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Locations in Malor
Amaxug
Hollow of Hungering
Blackwing Keep
Wraithbane Lake
The Flensing Dunes
Damnatus
Realm of the Discarded
Fort Purgatum
Necrotus
The Dolorous Citadel
The Screaming Mountains
Peccatum
Morg
Other Locations
Crevasse of Crawling Chaos
The Everchanging Labyrinth
The Abyssal Aristocracy of Malor
The 'lowest' major layer of Malor is Amaxug, a grotesque mutation of a rainforest perpetually wracked with storms that crash down from a lurid purple sky. The vast majority of this plane is comprised of the Amaxug Jungles themselves, where twisted demonic versions of beasts and plants sprout from and consume each other in a relentless frenzy.
The Temple of Ruin deep within the jungles is the home of the Demon Prince Demogorgon, one of the more terrible Godsliver Fiends, and ironically enough it is when Demogorgon goes on one of his periodic rampages through the jungles that they become almost safe. Following in his wake means that one will encounter very little left alive, or willing to risk drawing his attention by starting up a new battle - though with demons being demons, there are always exceptions.
A wide stretch of the Amaxug Jungles is the stagnant Mangroves of Decay, a particularly vile location that is constantly vomiting up new and terrible diseases and parasites. However, nothing is permitted the simple mercy of death here. The Mangroves of Decay, as their name suggests, enforce a perpetual rotting state onto their victims—healing and eating at them simultaneously.
Strangely enough for a realm as Chaotic as Malor, the Amaxug layer follows an almost-logical progression from the vibrant jungles through the mangroves to the desolation of the Hollow of Hungering, where corruption proved to be stronger than recovery. Withered and twisted trees reach out of a stinking morass, its clutching muck so toxic as to burn the skin where it touches.
Whilst the trees continue to try snaring passing creatures for their food, they are too slow and weak to be any threat. The victims of the mire also tend to sink beneath the surface and decay into more of it, losing any value as sustenance. Even demons can succumb to the poison of this place if they stay too long. A sense of constant, inescapable starvation suffuses this region.
Among the few creatures that do well in the Hollow of Hungering are gargoyles, for they are immune to its poison in a way that foreshadows their origins. Those few who find the crumbling Blackwing Keep hidden in this region, and see the statues of its master, would swiftly understand the reason behind this - for it was the Demon Prince Fraz-Urb'luu who made this place his home, and first wove strange spells to bind the sludge into the solid forms of gargoyles.
Blackwing Keep was never meant to be accessible by landbound creatures, but it is in such a state of collapse due to the long absence of its master that numerous breaches in its walls have appeared over time. Fraz-Urb'luu has yet to locate them all, let alone start his minions repairing them, and they are a constant source of paranoia for him. He has few treasures left to him, but the thought of losing them to thieves is a persistent one.
A worryingly clear lake that seems impervious to the pollution trying to slip into it from the adjacent Mangroves of Decay or the Hollow of Hungering, its surface remains completely undisturbed even when one of the powerful storms of the Amaxug layer sweeps over it. Most fiends avoid it out of habit, considering the lake to be far too similar to the Cocytus for their liking, though they cannot explain why.
Wraithbane Lake is, astonishingly, completely harmless to most creatures. Its waters may even be drunk safely by mortals and is exactly as refreshing as it appears. However, should any incorporeal undead approach, the lake will boil and erupt in a frenzy, raining back down onto the ghostly visitor as acid and trying to melt them away. This quality has only recently become known further afield, but has already started drawing in qutrub eager to experiment with this potential new weapon.
The deepest planar portions of the Crevasse of Crawling Chaos are enveloped by the Flensing Dunes, an actively malevolent territory which whips up sandstorms at every opportunity, seeking to scour the flesh from travellers with sand like broken glass. These assaults are not constant, for that would be too predictable and easy to defend against, but are only generated at times of distraction or vulnerability.
A Gate of Baphomet is located within the Flensing Dunes, and unsurprisingly it is by far the least-used of them all. There are not even any guards in the area, inside or out, for Baphomet appreciates the power of anyone that can survive to enter his domain through that Gate - and if trying to leave it, will probably be killed off by the Dunes anyway and so no guards are needed.
The Damnatus layer of Malor is an appropriately peculiar mixing of the bright and the dark. Much of it is a gloomy and oppressive environment of windswept ash, cracked obsidian, and pumice fields—and then the origin of this is revealed as the volcanoes in constant eruption, hanging from the sky and vomiting onto the lava ocean below.
These, the Inverted Calderas, are kept from overwhelming the entire layer only because of the Acheron flowing past and simply absorbing much of the lava before it leaves Damnatus. More minor layers with similar situations are not so lucky, but Damnatus actually has a thriving demonic populace which excels in the manufacture of obsidian arms and armor, and in drawing elemental power from the inexhaustible fires.
The Realm of the Discarded is a crude kingdom of pleasure fiends, cambions, tieflings, and other such entities; who were cast out from their original homes and even ejected from Fort Purgatum when its heyday came to an end. They exist now in a degenerative squalor, violating and mutilating each other out of sheer habit, but no longer deriving any pleasure from their monstrosity.
The most famous, and by far the most successful, product of this place was Brathelathor. This pleasure fiend happened to answer a summoning on the Material Plane one day... and encountered the Dweller in the Vale. The degeneracy of the fiend was morbidly gratifying, for it showed that even the immortals could be corrupted by Sin, and so Brathelathor was elevated to the position of Lord of Lust.
For a time, Fort Purgatum was one of the most visited locations in Malor, and not just by demons, but by free-willed mortals battling through the planar wards to come here of their own accord. The arts of conjuration and binding were studied here, and Malorish secrets previously known only to the gods were eventually uncovered by generations of demoniacs, living and breeding and dying here.
Exactly what happened to leave it abandoned is unknown. The most likely theory is that its master was revealed to have been an archdevil of Barathus, posing as a Demon Prince, and upset enough of their guests to incite a cataclysmic battle. Cambions and tieflings descended from this earlier time continue to keep watch over it, just in case their master and ancestor ever returns.
Perhaps the most infamous of the major layers of Malor is Necrotus. Once it used to be a truly lifeless expanse of no value or purpose, until the Godsliver Fiend Orcus chose it as his home. Within months, Necrotus became the domain of all kinds of undead, swarming mindlessly over the layer and destroying themselves accidentally as the crush of bodies became too great to be sustained.
In response to this, other Demon Princes began to invade. Necrotus was now a prize to be taken, rather than a trifle to be ignored. Though individually any one of them would have had the power to seize Necrotus, their eagerness to claim it all at once was the undoing of this. They turned on each other with just as much relish as they did the undead of Orcus, and their individual campaigns ground to a halt, though they were never repelled.
Over the millennia, a considerable part of Necrotus changed from its former blandness to the Fields of Pain. Literally awash with demonic ichor, corpse remnants, shattered weapons and chipped armors, the Fields of Pain are an eternal battlefield between everything and anything that finds itself upon them. A Gate of Baphomet is also located here, luring many who seek to escape the war into a far greater horror.
The Dolorous Citadel is the personal domain of Orcus, a grim and colorless palace dedicated to the twisted beauty of undeath. It is also the place where Orcus resurrects should he ever be killed, for the Godsliver Fiend is himself undead and thus unbound by the normal rules which apply to immortals. Indeed, Orcus has been slain several times, only to later reform and take his revenge quite unexpectedly.
Further afield than just Necrotus, Orcus is in something of a difficult situation, for he is opposed to both Vornoth and Grlarshh, and cannot decide just how to go about overcoming one of these divine foes without also empowering the other. The vast majority of his time is spent seated upon his throne in the Dolorous Citadel, contemplating ways and means of survival and triumph, and granting audience to any with the potential to aid him.
On this layer, the Crevasse of Crawling Chaos is embedded within the Screaming Mountains, a region of barren peaks and sheer cliffs that even the undead of Orcus rarely manage to reach. The Screaming Mountains are so named for the peculiar quality of the echoes here: any cry of pain or terror or despair reverberates forever, creating a cacophony of agony that can deafen the unprotected, even greater demons.
This is not helped by the sounds filtering down from the Ascent, a cloud-shrouded mountain that reaches up into the tiny independent layer of Malor that is Mount Viazmos. There, two of the most sadistic Demon Princes, Pazuzu and Inanna, perform acts of grotesquery that make even other demons shudder to contemplate. Hags worship Inanna as their creator, and hope to reach her chambers should they suffer the misfortune of dying.
The 'highest' major layer of Malor is Peccatum, an expanse of desiccated hills and mountains, broken only by the Phlegethos scorching its way through the land. The mountains are often named Dragonslaughter Peaks, following the murder of Fafnir and Meretseger by their daughter Tiamat, and her subsequent killing of Zilant, all three of which were dragon-like Godsliver Fiends.
The effective 'entrance' to the Crevasse of Crawling Chaos is located on this layer, plunging all the way down to Amaxug without pause, whilst not entirely existing external to the divided layers it connects internally. One of the most well-known and commonly used Gates of Baphomet can also be found here, simply because it is the most accessible of them all.
A significant portion of Peccatum is infested with a demonic fungus that grows to truly absurd sizes, and from a distance can be mistaken for a strange kind of tree. The Sporefields are harvested by demons for their value in both alchemy and enchanting, and whilst the fungus cannot survive outside of Malor as yet, efforts to transplant it onto other Outer Planes are underway.
The personal retreat of Vornoth in Malor is Morg, a literal bone stronghold carved into the spinal column of dead Fafnir. The bones of the murdered Godsliver Fiend are effectively impenetrable, and it required the personal attention of the Darkest God to excavate Morg out of them, making the fortress perhaps his most secure holding.
Tiamat established her own domain directly above Morg at Pinnacle Lair, ostensibly to watch for any threats which may come from the air against it. Her attention is mostly focused on her perceived rivalry with Bahamut, however, and ironically enough an airborne approach is perhaps the safest way to draw closer to Morg if one does not want to be detected.
Perhaps the metaphysical abyss from which Malor gained its colloquial synonym of "The Abyss," the Crevasse of Crawling Chaos stretches from the 'top' of Malor to the 'bottom', passing through each of the major layers and many of the minor ones. The Crevasse is as self-contained as any of the layers and does not have an exterior outside of them, so to speak—despite being deeper than any layer through which it passes, for even distance is malleable here.
The demons which live here are the most twisted and hideous of them all, and they only survive at all because the laws of reality are more flexible in the Crevasse than even elsewhere on Malor. Protoplasmic abominations squelch through the Scoured Tunnels, fungal phosphorescences stalk the Mycotic Halls, tenebrous insanities lurk in the Suppurating Gloom; and nothing is identical to anything else.
There is a Gate of Baphomet somewhere within the Crevasse, believed to be approximately equivalent to its presence on the Damnatus layer, but nobody really cares to verify its exact location. Servants of Baphomet regularly travel through this Gate to capture the demons of the Crevasse for their sport, and bringing them this prey is an excellent way to be invited to join in the fun and games. Few who do this ever realize until it is too late that this invitation means they will become prey themselves.
The Demon Prince Baphomet is one of the oldest of them all, born from the viscera produced by the first of all battles in Malor. He immediately burrowed through the layers, carving out tunnels and chambers that existed as their own self-contained layer of the plane, accessible only through the various Gates he left open to lure in victims to the vast maze he created.
The Everchanging Labyrinth is exactly what its name implies, and its geography and composition constantly change according to no pattern or rule. It is filled with everything that can hunt and rage and murder, and it serves no purpose but to degrade sentient beings into mere prey. The most evil of minotaurs roam the Everchanging Labyrinth as they please.
Domain: Temple of Ruin, within the Amaxug Jungles
Position: Demon Prince
Significant Titles: Herald of Catastrophe, Ender of Hope, Ruinous Lord of Duality
A Brief Overview
Demogorgon is one of the three surviving Godsliver Fiends of Soggoth the Calamitous, and by far the most dangerous of them all, kept from rampaging through the cosmos only because his two heads can rarely agree on which place to annihilate first. When united in purpose, they command powers which surpass those of any other Godsliver Fiend, even Asmodeus, but which are exhausted all the more swiftly due to the limitations of a single body.
His sister Lamashtu claims that Demogorgon is not actually one Godsliver Fiend, but is merely the vessel for two of them whose bodies were melded into one. In her opinion, each of his heads, Aameul and Hathradiah, are the only individual remnants of the originating Godsliver Fiends that combined into Demogorgon, perhaps before Soggoth even finished their creation.
Whatever the truth of this, Demogorgon is widely understood to be the single greatest weapon of Vornoth, held in frustrating reserve only to keep the fullest extent of his power hidden from the gods of Goodness. The other Demon Princes consider him to be one of their less threatening rivals, interestingly enough, since they know exactly what to say to turn his heads against each other.
Only wily Baphomet has cautioned against overuse of this tactic, believing that eventually it might cause Aameul and Hathradiah to split apart physically. The risk of suddenly creating two independent Godsliver Fiends instead of a single manageable one is too great to be ignored. Typically, some of the more impulsive Demon Princes, such as Pazuzu, have taken this warning as a challenge.
Domain: The Arned Sea, on the Material Plane
Position: Demon Prince
Significant Titles: Kraken Lord, The Piscine Emperor, That Most Unutterable Hideousness
A Brief Overview
The very existence of Dagon is refuted by most sane scholars, for the research shows that alone of the elder evils of the universe, he is physically present in the Material Plane. For some foolish demoniac to attract the attention of such a being, without the protective wards which lie between the planes, is one of the most horrifying prospects they can imagine. On the land, their efforts to prevent this have met with considerable success, and Dagon is virtually unknown; beneath the waves, however, the merrow and sahuagin join in terrible worship of this primordial monstrosity. They refer to him as Cutulu.
Though currently quiescent, roiling endlessly within his lightless temples at the bottom of the ocean, dreaming of indescribable horrors, Dagon is almost woken by the passage of sentient beings over his domain. His mouth opens the merest fraction, siphoning the waters and all who presume to traverse them down to be consumed—hence the random but invariably destructive nature of the Arned Maelstrom.
A Godsliver Fiend of Yorsot, Dagon was originally confined to the Five Rivers, with the singular power to move through their waters as he pleased, even if this would carry him outside of Malor. In time, he grew bored of seeing the same Hellish vistas over and over, and to his confusion found himself even less welcome in the Heavens, and so began to consider a new possibility. Following the souls of the damned entering the Hells, Dagon began to burrow through the Confluence of the Five Rivers, gradually piercing through into the Material Plane itself.
This effort was extremely costly, and fortunately he entered into a deep sleep almost at once. In the few moments of his wakefulness however, the undefended world was wracked by terrible nightmares and visions of aquatic madness. Only through the immediate and direct intervention of Reeanan the Bright, borrowing power from Dekk himself, was the world spared a total descent into insanity, and Dagon's power is now kept at bay by the Archfey Amphitrite.
Domain: Pinnacle Lair, along the Spine of Fafnir
Position: Demon Prince, Shield of Morg
Significant Titles: Chromatic Empress, She of Prismatic Glory, The Parricide
A Brief Overview
Tiamat is one of the more valued servants of Vornoth, having taken up position as the self-appointed protector of Morg, the Darkest God's personal retreat on Malor. Her lair is located just above the fortress itself, carved into the spinal column of her deceased father Fafnir, a Godsliver Fiend of Grlarshh. It was Tiamat, in fact, who killed him, using the poison of her mother Meretseger, a Godsliver Fiend of Soggoth; herself ambushed and slain by Tiamat simply to steal that poison for herself.
Exhilarated by her success and the rush of power surging through her upon consuming their souls, she proceeded to launch a direct assault on a very surprised Zilant. He was a Godsliver Fiend of Nij, relatively sedate and helpful to the other Godsliver Fiends, and who had nothing in common with Tiamat or her parents save for looking vaguely draconic. Tiamat slew him nonetheless.
These murders mark Tiamat out of the Hellish crowd as the single most effective killer of Godsliver Fiends, most of whom were either felled with the aid of armies, or after already exhausting themselves against each other. Fortunately, her rampage was stopped before it really began when Adramelech presented her with a stark ultimatum: to submit to Vornoth and live to become one of the most powerful beings in existence, or continue on her current path and eventually succumb to the limitless legions of her enemies. Tiamat, though wrathful and destructive, was not stupid, and she agreed.
Tiamat is locked in an eternal struggle with Bahamut, who she believes to be the only thing standing in her way of complete control over all dragonkind. That Bahamut himself has never claimed to exert any control over dragons is utterly irrelevant to her, as is the fact that even chromatic dragons treat her claims of being their creator and master as ludicrous.
Domain: The Altar of Tears, atop Mount Viazmos
Position: Demon Prince
Significant Titles: Maidensbane, Ravisher of Innocence, Prince of Dark Delights
A Brief Overview
Something of an inspirational figure among the demonic masses, Pazuzu is known for being one of the most abusive and bestial of Demon Princes, excelling in causing emotional agony and forcibly subjugating others for his own base gratification. Being a Godsliver Fiend of Yorsot, he is also beyond the abilities of most who would contest him, but unlike most bullies who cringe when confronted, Pazuzu is driven into a frenzy by defiance.
There is no way to deal with Pazuzu safely. Submission arouses his sadism, belligerence riles him to fury, compassion encourages contrariness, and indifference provokes his pride. Those few who dare to invoke him make sure to have plentiful sacrifices for his abominable appetites ready, and must hope that he is sated before noticing them.
Some of the most studious demoniacs have noted that Pazuzu may be more readily satisfied by the presentation of pleasure fiends to him, though this carries the commensurate risk of offending them. It is also recorded that should Pazuzu accept this offering, the rewards he grants are vastly more potent. Few are able to survive the ritual needed to invoke Pazuzu either way, so for the most part he is not called upon even by those with the knowledge to do so.
It is believed that his tryst with Lamashtu, which produced the first harpies from their shed feathers, is perhaps the only time Pazuzu has ever sought to seduce another. This has been taken personally by their grotesque daughter Inanna, who devotes considerable resources both in the Hells and on the Material Plane to attempting to attract Pazuzu's romantic attentions. Pazuzu enjoys stringing her along and seeing just how far she will go, deliberately restraining himself from paying even violent attention to her so as to further her indignity.
Domain: The Chambers of Indulgence, within Mount Viazmos
Position: Demon Prince
Significant Titles: Queen of Screams, The Despoiler, Daughter of Suffering, The Lustful Crone
A Brief Overview
Spawned after a brief affair between Lamashtu and Pazuzu, Inanna is the exemplar of degeneracy. It is her name and her titles that are referenced most frequently by the preachers of the Material Plane as an example of what evil does to the soul and the body. Where the typical pleasure fiend is devilishly tempting, desirous of seduction and free-willed submission, Inanna is offensive to the senses and forces herself on those she has taken a fancy to.
She is the mother of hags and is worshipped as such by the loathsome beasts, who offer the usual half-hearted praise to Vornoth that all such creatures must—for now, it does not matter that they do not fully believe, only that they continue to succour him with their worship. On Forntol, cults to her are regularly exterminated by the kassa and hilken, who are curiously skilled in the unearthing of these vile assemblages and utterly ruthless in their destruction.
Inanna also has the rare distinction of being acknowledged by Pazuzu as something of an equal when it comes to the violation of their prey. The pair even inhabit the same general territory without much in the way of argument, and the last major altercation between the two was nearly a thousand years ago. Even that was a minor affair, consuming barely seventy thousand demons in the bloodshed that did not last a week. Indeed, her interest in Pazuzu is of a different kind entirely.
Whereas most daughters would be pleased to avoid the kind of attention from their fathers which Pazuzu is known for, Inanna has taken his lack of interest in her personally. She is said to have spoken at length about this with her mother Lamashtu and even the Lord of Lust Brathelathor, but for the time being, Pazuzu is enjoying watching her efforts from afar.
Domain: Blackwing Keep, within the Hollow of Hungering
Position: Demon Prince
Significant Titles: King of Gargoyles, The Liar Above Liars, Waster of Powers
A Brief Overview
Formerly a Demon Prince who had mastered summoning to the extent of being able to force other Demon Princes to manifest before him and perform degrading acts for his entertainment, Fraz-Urb'luu was eventually overthrown when his habit of draining magical energies was turned against him by his humiliated enemies, who saw this as the biggest impediment to being revenged upon him. Their simplistic, effective plan was to create a unique artifact that would transport whoever used it into the Maelstrom of Friction, and gave it to an assassin to use.
When Fraz-Urb'luu drained the artifact of its magic, the energies promptly tried to hurl him into oblivion. The Demon Prince retained enough strength to redirect the forcible teleportation, ending up almost powerless, but alive, in the Material Plane. There he swiftly expended what little magic he had left to him to create a small army of servants to aid him in surviving long enough to escape, and the descendants of these are the gargoyles of the modern day.
During his early attempts to return to Malor, he encountered a promising young mage named Seldorius, who calmly imprisoned him in a bas-relief for several centuries. This proved to be a temporary measure, however, and Fraz-Urb'luu was eventually able to trick a pair of particularly gullible adventurers into freeing him, absorbing both the magic of their weapons and themselves to power his escape.
Fraz-Urb'luu returned to Malor to see his former territory under the control of many lesser Demon Princes, and was forced to supplicate Pazuzu for aid in reclaiming it, which for some reason he granted. It was also only after this meeting that Fraz-Urb'luu became known for his complete inability to tell the truth, no matter how obvious and feeble the lie might be. Whatever price he paid may not have been worth it, for whilst he can still steal magic, it is only for a limited time and from very close range, and he retains no innate magical ability himself, not even the least fragment of his former mastery of summoning.
Domain: The Everchanging Labyrinth, spread across Malor
Position: Unbowed Prince
Significant Titles: The Huntsbeast, The Horned King, Heartsfeaster, Changer of Ways
A Brief Overview
Baphomet is perhaps the oldest and strongest of the Demon Princes not themselves a Godsliver Fiend, having been born from the viscera left behind after the first of all Malor's battles. He is, as with all his ilk, a terrifying and hideous creature with a capacity for destruction that mere mortals cannot comprehend, and most immortals do not wish to. Unfortunately, Baphomet is also one of the wiliest and most foresighted of Demon Princes. Unlike almost all others, he can restrain his impulses in favor of a subtle plan lasting decades or even centuries. For this reason alone he has risen above his rivals to become the de facto leader of the Unbowed Princes, those rare few who have yet to bend the knee to Vornoth and instead align themselves still with Grlaarshh, or instead demand of the Darkest God that he prove himself to them.
Baphomet was once the jailer of the archdevil Minos, sealed away in the most inaccessible regions of his Everchanging Labyrinth and guarded by the most evil of minotaurs. It was due to the actions of Adramelech, hired by Paimon, that Minos was eventually freed, and ever since then Baphomet has particularly loathed the servants of Mephistopheles and Mammon, over any other devils.
He is also one of the most active Demon Princes when it comes to the Material Plane, showing a particular interest in the piratical Selfhaven Archipelago and crumbling realm of Ishia. It is whispered that the success or failure of whatever grand scheme he is involved in there will determine whether he throws his considerable weight behind Vornoth or Grlarshh, and the resultant leaning of Malor as a whole.
Domain: The Dolorous Citadel, within Necrotus
Position: Unbowed Prince
Significant Titles: Schemer in Darkness, Master of Bones, Clutcher of That Most Terrible Rod
A Brief Overview
One of the two surviving Godsliver Fiends of Tormossh, Orcus has come to represent that aspect of finality which will eventually claim even the undead. When Vornoth called for his execution, Orcus fled to Malor and performed a singular ritual to commit planar suicide—ending his original attachment to Carcus, and resurrecting him as a native of Malor. The process weakened him drastically, but has made him into a kind of undead divinity, and thus even more difficult to keep dead despite the number of times he has been believed destroyed.
Though Orcus is descended from the God of Death, he is an avid practitioner of all the necromantic arts, and is said by his followers to have developed skills that even Vornoth is ignorant of. His legions of the damned are practically infinite, endlessly rising again even after being felled, and led by undead necromancers with the secret knowledge of self-resurrection and the capacity to raise new servants in the middle of battle.
This is the only reason that Orcus continues to withstand the siege that has transformed part of his realm into the Fields of Pain, leaving Orcus himself relatively exposed—but unconcerned, since even being slain whilst on Malor will not end him forever. He believes the only beings who truly have the power to kill him are Vornoth and Grlarshh, and so he considers both threats to himself. The current situation of the latter, admittedly, makes Orcus think that supporting him is less of a danger than that which Vornoth represents.
Orcus spends much of his time seated upon his throne, considering the future and how best to gather the power needed to ensure his place in it. He has come to the conclusion that all living things must die and be converted to the undead to give him a fighting chance against Vornoth but is uncertain as to whether or not this act will also empower Grlarshh, adding to his problems. He is currently debating whether the subsequent annihilation of all undead things could be a solution to this. In the meantime, he sits and waits for inspiration.