Exalted is a high fantasy tabletop role-playing game originally published by White Wolf Publishing in July 2001. The game is currently in its third edition. It was originally created by Robert Hatch, Justin Achilli and Stephan Wieck, and was inspired by world mythologies and anime.

Influences
The setting is strongly influenced by Tanith Lee's Tales from the Flat Earth, Michael Moorcock's Hawkmoon, Lord Dunsany's The Gods of Pegana and Yoshiaki Kawajiri's Ninja Scroll. Other influences include Glen Cook's The Black Company; Sean Stewart's Resurrection Man, The Night Watch, and Galveston; Homer's Odyssey, the Bible, and Wu Cheng'en's Journey to the West.

System
The game uses ten-sided dice and a variation of the Storyteller System to arbitrate the action, and, as with many other RPGs, requires little beyond the rulebooks themselves, dice, pencil, and paper. The Exalted version of the rules were derived from the trilogy of White Wolf Publishing games Trinity (formerly known as Aeon), Aberrant, and Adventure! where the idea of a fixed target number of 7 or higher was first introduced.

Characters may be frequently presented with challenges that normal human beings, even within the context of the game, would find difficult, deadly, or simply impossible. However, as the chosen champions of greater powers, each Exalt possesses Charms, which may either enhance their natural capabilities or manifest as shows of great power. An Exalt with low-level Archery Charms might find her arrows hitting with preternatural accuracy, while greater faculty might allow her to shoot without difficulty to the edge of her vision, or turn a single arrow into a deadly rain of ammunition.

The Exalted frequently power their Charms with accumulated Essence, a universal energy that flows through and comprises Creation and other worlds. While normally their Essence recovered slowly through rest, in the first two editions they could also regain it more quickly by performing stunts, actions given special description and embellishment by the players. Stunts in Third Edition no longer regenerate Essence, but combat automatically causes Essence stores to refill quickly. However, stunts continue to exist, and their primary benefit—adding extra dice to the actions they describe, thus enhancing the possibility of success—remains.

History
Exalted has mechanical and thematic similarities to White Wolf's previous game series, the old World of Darkness, but exists in its own product line, called the Age of Sorrows. The game has a sales record on par with the company's flagship title, Vampire: The Masquerade, the second edition core rulebook achieving a sales ranking at No. 23,558 on Amazon.com with a 4.5-star mean user review rating based on 31 user reviews as of January 2019.

The initial advertisements for Exalted placed the Age of Sorrows as the pre-history of the old World of Darkness. Meanwhile, some oWoD supplements also supported this; the Hunter Apocrypha gave a vision of the past that said that Hunters gained their power from the broken shards of the souls of great heroes of a lost age, which seems to suggest that Hunters carry fragments of Solar Essences. Likewise, the Kindred of the East supplement gave a structure of the Wheel of Ages (mirrored in First Edition books as the Ages of Man) that seemed to accommodate the integration of Exalted and the classic World of Darkness, the former the First and Second Age, and the latter being the Fifth Age.

However, once the game was released such connections rapidly became uncertain: names and themes from the World of Darkness line run throughout the material, but rarely in a way that suggested a direct connection between one and the other. Per the commentary of multiple developers, the connections are deliberately tenuous, allowing players to be free to treat it as a prehistory or as its own world as it may suit their individual game. The similarities between Exalted and the Chronicles of Darkness are even weaker, primarily intersecting only where the Chronicles reused material from its predecessor. Second Edition briefly implies that its story is the prehistory of our own world on its back cover, but this idea is not explored in any depth beyond this; while the last book of Second Edition would posit a modernized world with the Exalted, it was clearly a technologically advanced version of Creation – the world of Exalted – rather than Earth. As of Third Edition, most references to the World of Darkness or Chronicles of Darkness are treated more as inspirational material rather than anything important for the history of the setting or needed to understand it.

Shards of the Exalted Dream, the final Second Edition product, was published in January 2012. Development of Exalted's Third Edition was officially announced in October 2012. The Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for Exalted Third Edition ran in 2013 from May 9 to June 8, reaching its $60,000 funding goal within 18 minutes, raising a total of $684,755 and breaking Numenera's record for the most funded tabletop RPG Kickstarter. Backers received the PDF in October 2015, POD in April 2016, and deluxe editions shipping to backers in March 2017.

Since then the game has continued to be produced by Onyx Path Publishing through a license with Paradox Interactive, produced as PDFs with print-on-demand options. In addition, major supplements have received crowdfunding for special print runs of deluxe editions, which also fund additional material from stretch goals and limited rewards. As of July 2023, the sourcebooks for Dragon-Blooded, Lunar Exalted, Exigents, and Sidereal Exalted have been crowdfunded, with Abyssal Exalted and Alchemical Exalted currently in development.

In December 2019, Onyx Path Publishing announced it would be producing and crowdfunding Exalted Essence, a streamlined version of the rules to introduce new players to Exalted's setting and mechanics. The Exalted Essence core rulebook is explicitly not new full edition, and is instead aimed to be compatible with the lore of Third Edition's setting and supplements, while presenting mechanics to play all ten canonical Exalt types in a simplified manner. It launched its Kickstarter campaign in May 2021, finishing with $349,260 out of an initial goal of $35,000. The Print on Demand and PDF version went on same in June 2023.

Promotions
In March 2008, White Wolf Publishing unveiled a promotion that would allow 2,500 Dungeons & Dragons players to exchange their copy of their 3.5 Edition Player's Handbook for a copy of the Exalted Second Edition Core Rulebook. The promotion was called "Graduate your Game" and has received mixed reviews from fans of both games. The success of this promotion was not revealed.

Setting

Background
The history of the setting begins with the Primordials: vast entities akin to Greek primordial deities or the Outer Gods of H. P. Lovecraft's works, even going so far as to use similar epithets to the latter. They shaped Creation – a flat world of finite extent – from the primordial chaos, and placed the gods to watch over it.

In time, the gods decided to overthrow the Primordials, but were forbidden from taking arms against their makers. Instead, the most powerful of the gods imbued exceptional humans with their power (the titular Exalted) to fight for them; the blessings they bestowed (also known as Exaltations) would pass on to new champions with their death, allowing a new hero to rise when one fell. Upon victory, the gods retreated to the Heavenly city of Yu-Shan to oversee from on high, and left Creation to the Exalted and Humanity.

However, the Exalted suffer from the Great Curse uttered upon the dying breaths of the slain Primordials. The Solar Exalted—those empowered by the Unconquered Sun and mightiest among the Exalted—eventually grew decadent and corrupt from this influence, and were slaughtered in a massive insurrection known as the Usurpation by their servants and advisors. After the Usurpation, the majority of the Exaltations of the Solar Exalted were locked away, and an organization known as the Wyld Hunt was organized to kill all the others, and to drive the Lunar Exalted from the civilized lands of Creation.

During the intervening age, the Terrestrial Exalted became the rulers of the world, ruling in a shogunate. After the Great Contagion (a plague originating from the lands of the dead) and the Balorian Crusade (an invasion by the Fair Folk) wrought devastation across Creation, a young captain of the Dragon-Blooded armies gained access to powerful weapons of the First Age. With these, she saved Creation and then asserted her rulership over much of the it, dubbing herself the Scarlet Empress. Nearly eight hundred years later—in the present day of the game—there are eleven Great Houses of the Realm, nearly all of whom claim direct descent from the Empress.

Five years prior to the default starting point of the game, the Empress vanished. By the present of the game it is believed she will not return, and the Realm stands on the brink of civil war. Simultaneously, the Solar Exaltations locked away have returned. With the Great Houses ignoring the threat of the Celestial Exalted to position themselves to take control of the Realm, the number of Solar Exalted in Creation is growing. Thus, the backdrop to the setting sees the newly arisen Solars (among various other heroes and villains) struggling to survive long enough to make their mark upon the fate of Creation, for good or for ill.

The flat world of Creation is the primary setting of Exalted. Creation has two continents, the Blessed Isle and an unnamed super-continent which covers the northern, eastern and southern edges of Creation, populated by many nations and tribes, with the settled regions along the inner coast of this super-continent being known collectively as the threshold. The Blessed Isle is located in the center of Creation. The Realm rules the Blessed Isle and its proximate archipelago directly, and indirectly rules numerous tributary states known as satrapies along the threshold.

Surrounding Creation is the infinite ocean of pure chaos known as the Wyld. The cosmology of Exalted also includes the Underworld, the celestial city of Yu-Shan, the demon realm of Malfeas, and the machine world of Autochthonia.

Types of Exalts
At the core of the setting, there are several different types of Exalted, any type of which could play the role of protagonist or antagonist of the game. The Exalted of Creation can be divided into two categories: Terrestrial Exalted and Celestial Exalted. Celestial Exalted, being the chosen of the Celestial Incarnae, are significantly more powerful than Terrestrial Exalted, and can live for millennia, but their numbers are limited by a fixed number of Exaltations passing from mortal life to mortal life at any given time. Terrestrial Exalted are the Chosen of the Elemental Dragons; while less powerful, the Dragon-Blooded inherit Exaltation from their ancestors.

The Abyssal, Alchemical, Getimian, and Infernal Exalted technically fall outside of the two categories, though their power level is comparable to that of Celestial Exalted. Liminal Exalted and Exigents also fall out outside of these categories and are normally on par with Terrestrial Exalted, although some Exigents can manifest power comparable to the Celestial Exalted. A brief synopsis of each type is given here, organized by how these Exalts are often arranged in texts for much of the line's history, followed by Exalts who appeared in later texts in order of appearance.

Most types of Exalted have certain collective predispositions toward or against other Exalt types by culture, and may be viewed differently by the various mortals of Creation. Centuries of Terrestrial hegemony and propaganda play a part in this: the Dragon-Blooded and their world-spanning empire are often seen as demigods and heroes, for instance, while the Lunar Exalted are often seen as monstrous and dangerous.

Solar Exalted (Chosen of the Unconquered Sun, Lawgivers)
The default protagonists of Exalted and the champions of the chief of the gods, a being known as the Unconquered Sun. There are five castes of Solar Exalted: Dawn (warriors and generals), Zenith (priest-kings of the Unconquered Sun), Twilight (scholars and sorcerers), Night (spies and assassins) and Eclipse (ambassadors and diplomats).

Solars are regarded as monstrous demons by much of the mortal world due to centuries of propaganda by the Realm.

The nature of Solar Charms tends to express itself instead through human excellence taken to superhuman extremes, and as such their raw prowess in most skills easily exceeds any of the others.

Lunar Exalted (Chosen of Luna, Stewards)
Presented as the most anarchistic and chaotic of the Exalted. In the sourcebooks, they are often referred to as cunning shapeshifters, skilled fighters, and capable generals.

Within the game's history, they were very tightly bound to the First Age Solars. While many stood and died beside their Solar friends and spouses in the Usurpation, others fled to the edges of Creation and remade themselves to fight a long war against the Dragon-Blooded. Lunars now follow at best a loose tribal hierarchy and often ritually tattoo each other to protect themselves from the warping effects of the Wyld.

Second Edition materials detailed the Lunar Exalted's subversive influence on Creation's societies and revealed the Thousand Streams River Project, a complicated system of social engineering designed to create self-sufficient human societies that do not require Exalted leadership to function. Several major societies within the game were declared the results of centuries of subtle, behind-the-scenes guidance, with varying degrees of success.

Third Edition again changes aspects of the Lunar Exalted. Lunars were not inherently linked to Solar Exalted and instead early in the First Age the two groups went to war to settle who would have greater hegemony in Creation. The conflict was ended with negotiated peace and mutual cooperation instead, sealed with ritualized marriages that linked most Solar and Lunar Exalted together into supernatural bonds. When the First Age ended, the Lunars turned their attention to the Terrestrial Shogunate by fighting a long term insurgency against the Dragon-Blooded and Sidereal hegemony. Their castes were reforged by the Lunars themselves to better reflect the needs of the world they now found themselves in. The Silver Pact exists as a support network of Lunars seeking to destroy the successor-states of the Shogunate and protect Lunars from reprisal of the Wyld Hunt and other Lunar enemies.

Sidereal Exalted (Chosen of the Five Maidens, Viziers)
These Celestial Exalted are few, yet are described as major players in the fate of Creation. Sidereals are peerless martial artists and excel at foreseeing and manipulating fate. They are often presented as secret agents of the Bureau of Fate of the Celestial City of Yu-Shan, the home of the gods, directing events in the mortal world from behind the scenes.

They were the viziers, prophets and cunning advisers of the First Age. Toward the end of the First Age, a prophecy came to them that warned that without action, Creation would fall to darkness. Seeking to save the world, the Sidereals looked into the future and saw two options: attempt to reform of their maddening kings, or destroy the Solar Exalted and raise up the Dragon-Blooded in their place. The Sidereals, possibly under the effects of the Great Curse laid upon them by the Neverborn, elected the path that offered a guaranteed future for Creation. As such, they orchestrated the end of the First Age, known as the Great Usurpation.

Sidereals slip from the minds of those who meet them, mortal and Exalt alike, which can be beneficial to Sidereal characters or harmful, depending on their intended goals as player characters and non-player characters. Some unpredicted events prior to the "present" setting of Exalted, such as the Great Contagion, have jarred their faith in their precognitive abilities. Meanwhile, the loss of the Scarlet Empress, their secret ally at the top of the Scarlet Dynasty, has greatly weakened their influence.

In the present, a growing rift between the Bronze Faction (which supports the Dragon-Blooded hegemony) and the Gold Faction (which backs the newly returned Solars) renders the Sidereal Exalted uncertain of their future.

Some aspects of Sidereal Exalted have been reframed in Third Edition. There is no longer a mention of a Great Prophecy, and instead the Sidereals who conspired to perform the Solar Purge did so under presumption it was the best option based on what information they had. In addition, the relationship between the Factions has been reframed, with the Bronze Faction being more about status quo (which the Realm and Dragon-Blooded were critical to preserving) and whose leadership are those who supported the original Solar Purge. Meanwhile, the Gold Faction is more about reformation of the world (which Solar support is a notably powerful clique within that Faction), rather than support of Solar Exalted in themselves.

Terrestrial Exalted (Chosen of the Elemental Dragons, Dragon-Blooded)
There are five elemental aspects to the Dragon-Blooded: Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and Wood. In the history of Exalted, they were the elite infantry and servants to the rest of the Exalted in the First Age. This is reframed in 3e to be more the officers and champions of the armies comprising most of humanity during the Divine Revolution, and later allies to the Celestial Exalted and local nobility throughout the First Age. They are less powerful than other types of Exalted, but most of their strength lies in their inheritance – rather than being chosen by a god, the Dragon-Blooded have the potential to share their Exaltation through their bloodline. With their comparatively massive numbers, along with the help and guidance of the Sidereal Exalted, they were able to overthrow the Solar Exalted at the height of their power and end the First Age.

The most prevalent Dragon-Blooded in Creation make up the ruling class of the Realm, currently the most powerful empire in Creation. The state-sanctioned faith known as the Immaculate Order paints the Solar and Lunar Exalted as dangerous Anathema who will bring ruin to the world if allowed to exist. Because of this, the Realm organizes the Wyld Hunt, which actively seeks out dangers to the Realm (such "Anathema" include many other types of Exalted, rogue gods, and the Fair Folk) and destroys them. This practice had effectively kept the Solars from rising to power again since the end of the First Age, but has faltered with the recent disappearance of the Scarlet Empress and the subsequent power struggle among the Great Houses.

The ruling Dragon-Blooded of the Realm are made up of the eleven Great Houses. Most houses were founded by and named after one of the Scarlet Empress's Exalted offspring, though at least two are descended from the Empress's late husbands and consorts, and a few are named after people the Empress legally adopted as her children.

Abyssal Exalted (Chosen of the Void, Deathknights, Death's Lawgivers)
Loyal servants of the Deathlords, the Abyssal castes are a dark reflection of their Solar counterparts; Dusk (soldiers, generals, and martial champions), Midnight (priests and leaders), Daybreak (scholars and artisans), Day (assassins and spies), and Moonshadow (bureaucrats and diplomats).

In the present of Exalted, the Neverborn sow their revenge from beyond the grave through their Deathlord servants. The source materials, primarily the second-edition sourcebook The Manual of Exalted Power: Abyssals, present the Deathlords as the vengeful ghosts of First Age Solars slaughtered in the Usurpation. They have varied goals, but most strive not to conquer or corrupt Creation, save as a path to the Neverborn's desire: the complete destruction of existence.

The greatest agents of the Deathlords in the world of the living are the Abyssal Exalted, also known as Deathknights: dark reflections of the Solar Exalted. They field vast undead armies, bolstered by ancient knowledge long since lost to the living but still readily available among the lingering dead, and a powerful form of magic known as necromancy. Several sourcebooks present the Abyssals and the Deathlords as having a tentative foothold in Creation, representing a grave threat.

Alchemical Exalted (Chosen of Autochthon, Champions, Colossi, Patropoli/Matropoli)
 Creations made from clay and the Magical Materials, built in the world of Autochthonia. They were introduced in the supplement Time of Tumult. Alchemicals serve the Great Maker Autochthon, a Primordial who assisted the gods by sharing the secret of Exaltation with them. The Champions are infused with the souls of dead Autochthonian heroes, serving as protectors of a parallel world made up of the body of Autochthon himself, and enforce the will of its theocratic government. They divide themselves into six castes according to which material was mainly used in their construction. Instead of wielding Essence directly and using their Charms in a "magical" fashion like other Exalted do, the Alchemicals have Charms "installed" like peripheral parts. As Alchemical Exalted grow in power, they also increase in size, eventually physically joining with Autochthon and forming living, sapient cities.

The Alchemicals are not subject to the Great Curse, as they did not fight in the Primordial War. In gameplay, in place of curse-driven insanity, they have a Clarity track which measures their psychological distance from humanity. Those Alchemicals who have been infected with Autochthon's illness have a Dissonance track instead, measuring their madness, corruption, and drive to violate boundaries.

Infernal Exalted (Chosen of the Yozis, Akuma, Green Sun Princes)
The Yozis — the Primordials who were overthrown but did not die — created the Infernal Exalted from fifty stolen Essences of Solar Exalts. While First Edition hinted at their existence, they did not get official rules until the Second Edition's Manual of Exalted Power - The Infernals (April 2009).

The Infernals also known as Green Sun Princes have the full resources of the demon realm at their disposal, along with numerous Yozi cults which already exist in creation, and learn the transformative Charms of the Yozis themselves. It is implied that despite currently reveling in their power, the vast majority of Infernal Exalted will grow disillusioned with the alien Yozis and ultimately go rogue. The Infernals' Primordial power gives them the potential to grow into new Titans themselves, not bound by the same shortness of vision their current patrons possess.

In First and Second Edition Exalts could make pacts with the Yozis, often facilitated through the acquirng of forbidden text known as the Broken-WInged Crane. These were known as Akuma. They often gained notable power for their pledges to Hell, namely in Merits, additional access to magical power, and Yozi Charms in the case of 2e. In exchange their free will was destroyed, and they became slaves to the Yozis.

The presentation of Infernal Exlated has changed notably in Third Edition. They are first detailed in Exalted Essence and receive a prestige spread in Crucible of Legend. While remaining Chosen of the Yozis, they do not use Yozi Charms, instead drawing heavily on them for their themes and inspiration. They are Chosen from individuals who see themselves as wronged or oppressed in some fashion, justifiably or not. With the Yozis forever trapped in Hell, they hope that by corrupting the Chosen of the gods to their power they can inflict revenge on a Creation that has rejected them. Their Castes are named for the postiions of celestial bodies and roughly correspond to the Solar Castes, though focused on how the Exalt was put down by the world: Azimuth from vicitms of violence and war, Ascendants by those considered expendable or impure, Horizons from those denied knowledge, Nadirs from those subject to imprisonment either literally or metaphorically, and Penumbra by those subjected to the caprice of those in power.

Akuma have not come up in context of Third Edition yet, but developer statements imply it is no longer a singular mechanical implmentation and instead a descriptor for Exalted infernalists as a whole.

Liminal Exalted (Chosen of the Dark Mother)
Liminal Exalted first appeared in Masters of Jade in late Second Edition without being fully detailed. They became more defined as of the Exalted Third Edition core rules and have since appeared throughout the line, with their own full sourcebook forthcoming. They are first presented as playable in Exalted Essence. (June 2023)

The Liminals "stand at the border between life and death, humanity and monstrosity". They are created when someone attempts to bring another person back from death; resurrection is explicitly impossible in Exalted, but some will still try. On occasion, this attempt draws the attention of some other power that raises the corpse to life again. The new Liminal possesses the memories of the body that she wears, but does not possess the same soul, and thus do not have the same personality. Like the Dragon-Blooded, they are divided among five aspects—Breath, Blood, Flesh, Marrow, and Soil—depending on the motives of the person who created them.

Exigents (Chosen of the Little Gods)
Exigents are new kind of Exalt introduced in Third Edition. They are first showcased in the Exalted Third Edition rulebook, and detailed in full in Exigents: Out of the Ashes (forthcoming), which includes information on them, how they are created, as well as four ready-to-play Exigents (the Strawmaiden, the Puppeteer, Architects, and the Sovereigns of Uluiru).

Exigents are the Chosen of the Little Gods, which is any god lesser than the Incarna. The secret of Exaltation is not known to gods normally, and the price needed to Exalt is taxing enough that it is unlikely many gods could do it anyways. A deity in great need can petition to the Unconqured Sun to grant them a portion of the Flame of Exigence — a wonder obtained by him and the other Incarna in the early days of the Divine Revolution — which acts as a catalyst allowing a god to create a Chosen. it still dminishes the god in some fashion, and many weaker deities are destroyed by the process.

Exigents themselves are often singular, unique Exaltations that do not persist after the Chosen dies, though this can vary. Some are inherited like Celestial Exalted. Others have an artifact or familiar of some sort which is inherited by each Exaltation. Others are Exalted by a source that has some means to Exalt more Chosen of that particular sort. The Flame of Exigence can also be traded or stolen, resulting in illicit Exigents not fitting the purpose of the original divine petiiton. Sometimes multiple gods participate in the creation of an Exaltation with the Exigence, which can result in patchwork Exalts with conflicting and often strained natures as a result.

Most Exigents are on par with the Terrestrial Exalted, though a few stand on par with Celestial Exalts, though the god who Chooses does not impact this. The Strawmaiden Janest is on par with Celestial Exalted despite being Chosen of a field god, while Sovereigns remain Terrestrial despite the source of their Exaltation incorporating the blood of the dead Incarna of the Aurora.

Exigents serve as a way to introduce unique, custom Exalts that don't fit within one of the established categories of Exalted, or which draw on the unique themes of particular gods of the setting that would not be reflective of the way the other Exalted might but don't justify the setting needs of introducing a whole new Exalt host.

Getimian Exalted (Chosen from Discarded Destinies)
Getimian Exalted are an Exalt type introduced in Third Edition. They are hinted at early on but are treated as another full Exalt sort starting with The Realm. They appear as a playable Exalt type in Exalted: Essence. (June 2023) They also receive a prestige spread and deeper information on their place in the setting in Crucible of Legends.

The Getimian Exalted are heroes whose destinies could have changed the world, but instead were never born as Heaven discarded those destinies in favor of another path. Originally created by the titans Oramus and Sacheverell during the Divine Revolution, they were deemed too costly to use and hidden away. The rogue Sidereal Exalt Rakan Thulio rediscovered their Exaltations, and brought them into the world again to serve in his War Against Heaven.

Getimians find themselves appearing in Creation having never existed before, remembering a different Creation where they were notable heroes, called their Origin. The Getimian Origin is explicitly not an alternative universe that existed but only one which could have been. The Getimian did not exist until the moment they Exalt, and their memories are of a world that simply never was. Current writers have often used the film It's a Wonderful Life as an example of the Getimian condition. Their four Castes are named for the four seasons and draw on what the notable way the Getimian impacted their world as a mortal: Springs brought beauty, Summers brought conquest, Autumns brought sacrifice, and Winters brought order.

The Getimian Exalted have Essence split into two pools: Still and Flowing, and unlike the other Exalted types, their Charms interact with their separate pools in different ways: Some of their Charms can only be powered by one or the other, or cause different effects depending on which one is used. Their magic often involves forms of spacial manipulation, internal and external alchemy, and bringing into reality aspects of their Origin.

Other magical beings
Alongside the various types of Exalts found in Creation, there are also other magical creatures that use the same Essence that Exalts use to power their magical effects. The following are the most prominent types of magical beings.

 Behemoths
 Behemoths are unique, immortal monsters. There are two broad categories of behemoths: Primordial Behemoths, created by the Primordials in the Time of Glory before the Primordial War. Some, now known as Hekatonkheires, were killed during that war and now serve the Neverborn in the Underworld. Wyld Behemoths appear as monsters under the control of Fair Folk, but they are not truly separate beings from their masters, and are merely the aggressive tendencies of powerful Fair Folk come to life.

 Dragon Kings
 The Dragon Kings are not Exalted; they are supernatural creatures offered as a player character type. The Dragon Kings are dinosaurlike beings of great power. Dragon Kings are sworn in allegiance to their creator, the Unconquered Sun, and can remember their past lives with great clarity. Although they once ruled Creation, the majority of their perpetually-reincarnating souls were annihilated during the war against the Primordials. After the First Age ended in war and disease, what remained of their civilization collapsed. They still exist in the Second Age, though hidden in the farthest corners of Creation. Rules for playing Dragon Kings are presented in the Exalted Player's Guide in First Edition and the Scroll of the Fallen Races in Second Edition.

 Fair Folk
 Like the Dragon Kings, they are an alternative player character type to the Exalted. They know themselves by their own word, Raksha; however the superstitious in Creation, rightly fearing that to name them is to invoke them, call them the Fair Folk with the hope of flattering and placating them. In one sense, they are very similar to the Primordials: primeval beings whose existences precede and are not bound by the physical reality of Creation. They are natives of the Wyld, which they call Rakshastan – the place that exists between Creation and the Unshaped Chaos.

 The Fair Folks prey upon mortal souls and do a brisk slave trade with The Guild, a powerful economic organization in Creation. The Unshaped are the most powerful of their number, but lack the means to stabilize themselves by assimilating the personhood of mortals and as such are incapable of existing in Creation for any great duration. Rules for playing Fair Folk are presented in Exalted: The Fair Folk in First Edition; Second Edition rules are included in Graceful Wicked Masques: The Fair Folk.

 God-Blooded

 Refers to, as a collective whole, offspring of a mortal or animal and a magical being, or the mortal offspring of two magical beings, in which case they take after the more powerful of the two. The resulting offspring bears traces of its mystical parentage. According to the authors, they stand somewhere between divinity and mortality: less than Exalted, but more than human. Those with awakened Essence can purchase the same types of Charms as their supernatural parent, though their power is limited by a low Permanent Essence trait and a small Essence pool.

 There are several subtypes of God-Blooded, mostly named for their supernatural parentage: God-Blooded are the children of gods and elementals, Demon-Blooded are the offspring of demons, Ghost-Blooded are the children of ghosts using powerful Charms to help them reproduce with mortals, and Half-Caste are the children of powerful Exalts (although exceedingly rare). The Fae-Blooded are the children of a union between the Raksha and mortals. The Mountain Folk can also produce God-Blooded offspring, but there is no specific term for them. Rules for playing God-Blooded characters are presented in the Exalted Player's Guide in First Edition, and Scroll of Heroes in Second Edition.

 Mountain Folk

 Also known as the Jadeborn, creatures of the Great Maker, Autochthon: when Creation was initially formed by the Primordials, some among the Unshaped were incorporated into the substance of the created world. Sensing that these other, native intelligences of Chaos had been snuffed out in the Creation of inanimate elements, Autochthon took pity on them. Salvaging whatever it could discern of their prior selves, Autochthon resurrected them – still formed of the earthen materials they had calcified into, but alive, and with at least a glimmering memory of the intelligent entities they had once been.

 The Mountain Folk, like many of the Exalted, are divided into Castes: Artisans, Warriors, and Workers. The vast majority of the Mountain Folk are Unenlightened – limited in intelligence, creativity, and supernatural power. A small minority of Workers and Warriors—as well as the entire Artisan Caste—are Enlightened, with much greater creativity as well as both mundane and supernatural potential. Mountain Folk society is ruled by the Artisan Caste, who make up the nobility, with Unenlightened Warriors and Workers making up the commoners and Enlightened Warriors and Workers occupying an intermediate position. Rules for playing the Mountain Folk are presented in First Edition's Exalted: The Fair Folk and Second Edition's Scroll of the Fallen Races.

 Spirits

 Spirits are divided into four broad categories: demons, elementals, ghosts, and gods. With the exception of elementals, spirits are naturally immaterial, generally require Charms to materialize in Creation, and will reform when killed unless some supernatural effect prevents them from doing so. Rules for playing ghosts in First Edition are presented in Exalted: The Abyssals, and rules for Second Edition are presented in The Books of Sorcery, Vol. V: The Roll of Glorious Divinity II: Ghosts & Demons. Rules for playing elementals and gods are presented in The Books of Sorcery, Vol. IV: The Roll of Glorious Divinity I: Gods & Elementals.

Yozis and Demons
 The Yozis are exiled, imprisoned and twisted Primordials. As the makers of the world and the gods, they are at once grandiose beings and complex pantheons: Each Primordial has multiple souls, which are independent sapient beings in their own right and possess their own sapient spiritual fragments. These souls, and the entities which they craft, birth, or otherwise create, are the demons of Exalted.

 Due to the terms of the Yozis' surrender, all demons can be summoned and bound by a powerful enough sorcerer.

 Elementals
 Elementals maintain Creation, and with a few exceptions, embody one of the five elements: air, earth, fire, water or wood. Elementals are naturally material, requiring Charms to dematerialize, and with a few exceptions, cannot reform when slain. Unlike other spirits, their growth is largely unrestricted. The most powerful elementals are the Lesser and Greater Elemental Dragons. Elementals are generally outranked by gods of similar power. While Sorcerers can summon and bind demons through sorcery, the Elementals conjured through a similar spell are brought into being whole-cloth, and frequently cease to exist at the end of their binding.

 The elementals of Autochthonia embody one of the machine world's elements: crystal, metal, oil, lightning or steam, and cannot be summoned through sorcery.

 Ghosts
 The most common type of ghosts, referred to as ghosts or the dead, are the hun or higher souls of mortals who have refused to pass into Lethe and reincarnation due to their attachment to their mortal lives. These ghosts are much weaker than Exalted, and they can only respire Essence in the Underworld and Shadowlands. Hungry ghosts generally come into existence due to betrayal, vengeance or a traumatic death. Initially, a hungry ghost includes both the higher soul and the po, or lower soul, but the hun soon moves on, leaving the hungry ghost largely mindless. Unlike other ghosts, hungry ghosts are naturally material in Creation at night. Nephwracks are ghosts who have been corrupted by the Neverborn. Unlike uncorrupted ghosts, they are capable of using necromancy. The Deathlords are thirteen ghosts of powerful Solar Exalted who have been empowered by the Neverborn, and although they are not technically Exalted, they have access to Abyssal Charms. Spectres, also known as plasmics, are bizarre creatures spawned by the nightmares of the Neverborn. The category of Hekatonkhire includes the ghosts of demons, devas and Primordial behemoths, as well as the manifested nightmares of the Neverborn. The Neverborn are the ghosts of slain Primordials. Immensely powerful, they are difficult to rouse from their slumber, and their power seems largely constrained to the Labyrinth. Only mundane ghosts and Hekatonkhire can be summoned through necromancy, and only mundane ghosts can be summoned through sorcery.

 Gods
 Most gods are members of the Celestial Order, which is stratified into two divisions: the Celestial Court, composed of gods of concepts, and the Terrestrial Bureaucracy, made up of the gods of physical objects and locations. Technically, all members of the Celestial Court outrank all members of the Terrestrial Bureaucracy. In practice, Terrestrial courts are largely independent.

 Outside of the Celestial Order, there are also the machine spirits of Autochthonia, unemployed gods whose domains have been usurped or destroyed, rogue gods who have abandoned their duties, and forbidden gods who have been exiled due to madness, an abhorrent nature or because they sided with the Primordials.

Essence
Essence is the mystical force which the Exalted and gods manipulate to gain their supernatural powers, as well as the energy that forms all things. Within the game, the mystical force "Essence" is always capitalized to distinguish from other uses of the word.

Magical Materials
The Magical Materials are used to forge artifacts and weapons. Each material is associated with a type of Exalted, as well as one of the Castes of Alchemical Exalted, who are partially constructed from that material. These materials are all easily enchanted, and each one resonates with a particular type of Exalted. This resonance makes any item that is both constructed from one of the Magical Materials and attuned to an Exalt's anima preternaturally deft and sure in that Exalt's hands. It also gives the Exalt access to the powers of any hearthstone mounted on the item. Third Edition expands on this with the concept of Evocations, Charms tied to a given artifact based on its material construction, legend, and Exalted resonance. Some Evocations gain additional affects when the Exalt wielding them are of the Resonant material, while the Evocation may not work at its full effect if the Exalt is Dissonant with that material.

 Jade  The most common Magical Material, and associated with the most numerous of the Exalted, the Dragon-Blooded. There are five colors of jade which correspond to one of the five elements of Creation: blue jade resonates with Air, white with Earth, red with Fire, black with Water, and green with Wood.

 Starmetal  The rarest of the Magical Materials, forged from meteors. In later First Edition, these meteors were a result of the execution of gods in Heaven. This is not retained in the Exalted Second Edition core rulebook, but later re-introduced supplement Oadenol's Codex. Third Edition again discards the need to kill gods to create starmetal, instead describing it as the result of concentrated Essence from the sky and constellations. Like its wielders, the Sidereal Exalted, starmetal re-weaves fate and involves itself with divine functions.

 Moonsilver  Lunar Exalted consider this metal to be a gift from their patron, Luna. It must be harvested by moonlight, using no crafted tools, forged at night and cooled only with water that has never seen the sun. Like the protean Lunars, moonsilver can shift into new forms easily.

 Soulsteel  This metal is made from human souls and the substance of the Labyrinth of the Underworld. It is jet black, and agonized faces of the souls it contains can be seen moving and screaming in the metal. Unsurprisingly, this material is used almost exclusively by the Abyssal Exalted. Soulsteel weapons draw upon the forces of death and the underworld.

 Orichalcum  A magical form of gold used primarily by the Solar Exalted, though it has associations with the Dragon Kings and in Third Edition the Infernal Exalted as well. Orichalcum is rarely found in pure deposits; usually, it is created out of gold that has been heated by lava and sunlight reflected from mirrors of occult design.

 Adamant  A form of magical diamond, adamant is super-solid crystal that is refined down to the sharpest substance known. It is largely present within the body of the Primordial Autochthon, but was also known in Creation during the First Age. This material is used primarily by the Alchemical Exalted, though the Exalted of the First Age occasionally made items out of the material.

Books
See the list of Exalted sourcebooks for further information.

ReviewsPyramid''

See also
 Storytelling System.
 White Wolf's World of Darkness.
 White Wolf Publishing

References

External links
 Exalted Wiki, a Wiki containing fan-created material and archived quotes by the developers

White Wolf Publishing games
Role-playing game systems
Fantasy campaign settings
Fantasy role-playing games
Role-playing games introduced in 2001

Exalted


The complexity of constraint satisfaction is the application of computational complexity theory to constraint satisfaction. It has mainly been studied for discriminating between tractable and intractable classes of constraint satisfaction problems on finite domains.

Solving a constraint satisfaction problem on a finite domain is an NP-complete problem in general. Research has shown a number of polynomial-time subcases, mostly obtained by restricting either the allowed domains or constraints or the way constraints can be placed over the variables. Research has also established a relationship between the constraint satisfaction problem and problems in other areas such as finite model theory and databases.

Overview

Establishing whether a constraint satisfaction problem on a finite domain has solutions is an NP-complete problem in general. This is an easy consequence of a number of other NP-complete problems being expressible as constraint satisfaction problems. Such other problems include propositional satisfiability and three-colorability.

Tractability can be obtained by considering specific classes of constraint satisfaction problems. As an example, if the domain is binary and all constraints are binary, establishing satisfiability is a polynomial-time problem because this problem is equivalent to 2-SAT, which is a polynomial-time problem.

One line of research used a correspondence between constraint satisfaction problem and the problem of establishing the existence of a homomorphism between two relational structures. This correspondence has been used to link constraint satisfaction with topics traditionally related to database theory.

A considered research problem is about the existence of dichotomies among sets of restrictions. This is the question of whether a set of restrictions contains only polynomial-time restrictions and NP-complete restrictions. For relational restrictions (see below) this question was settled in the positive for Boolean domains by Schaefer's dichotomy theorem and for any finite domain by Andrei Bulatov and Dmitriy Zhuk, independently, in 2017.

Restrictions

Tractable subcases of the general constraint satisfaction problem can be obtained by placing suitable restrictions on the problems. Various kinds of restrictions have been considered.

Structural and relational restrictions

Tractability can be obtained by restricting the possible domains or constraints. In particular, two kinds of restrictions have been considered:

 relational restrictions bound the domain and the values satisfying the constraints;
 structural restrictions bound the way constraints are distributed over the variables.

More precisely, a relational restriction specifies a constraint language, which is a domain and a set of relations over this domain. A constraint satisfaction problem meets this restriction if it has exactly this domain and the relation of each constraint is in the given set of relations. In other words, a relational restriction bounds the domain and the set of satisfying values of each constraint, but not how the constraints are placed over variables. This is instead done by structural restrictions. Structural restriction can be checked by looking only at the scopes of constraints (their variables), ignoring their relations (their set of satisfying values).

A constraint language is tractable if there exists a polynomial algorithm solving all problems based on the language, that is, using the domain and relations specified in the domain. An example of a tractable constraint language is that of binary domains and binary constraints. Formally, this restriction corresponds to allowing only domains of size 2 and only constraints whose relation is a binary relation. While the second fact implies that the scopes of the constraints are binary, this is not a structural restriction because it does not forbid any constraint to be placed on an arbitrary pair of variables. Incidentally, the problem becomes NP-complete if either restriction is lifted: binary constraints and ternary domains can express the graph 3-coloring problem, while ternary constraints and binary domains can express 3-SAT; these two problems are both NP-complete.

An example of a tractable class defined in terms of a structural restriction is that of binary acyclic problems. Given a constraint satisfaction problem with only binary constraints, its associated graph has a vertex for every variable and an edge for every constraint; two vertices are joined if they are in a constraint. If the graph of a problem is acyclic, the problem is called acyclic as well. The problem of satisfiability on the class of binary acyclic problem is tractable. This is a structural restriction because it does not place any limit to the domain or to the specific values that satisfy a constraints; rather, it restricts the way constraints are placed over variables.

While relational and structural restrictions are the ones mostly used to derive tractable classes of constraint satisfaction, there are some tractable classes that cannot be defined by relational restrictions only or structural restrictions only. The tractable class defined in terms of row convexity cannot be defined only in terms of the relations or only in terms of the structure, as row convexity depends both on the relations and on the order of variables (and therefore cannot be checked by looking only at each constraint in turn).

Uniform and non-uniform restrictions

The subcase obtained by restricting to a finite constraint language is called a non-uniform problem. These problems are mostly considered when expressing constraint satisfaction in terms of the homomorphism problem, as explained below. Uniform problems were also defined in the settings of homomorphism problems; a uniform problem can be defined as the union of a (possibly infinite) collection of non-uniform problems. A uniform problem made of an infinite set of non-uniform problems can be intractable even if all these non-uniform problems are tractable.

Tree-based restrictions

Some considered restrictions are based on the tractability of the constraint satisfaction problem where the constraints are all binary and form a tree over the variables. This is a structural restriction, as it can be checked by looking only at the scopes of the constraints, ignoring domains and relations.

This restriction is based on the primal graph of the problem, which is a graph whose vertices are the variables of the problem and the edges represent the presence of a constraint between two variables. Tractability can however also be obtained by placing the condition of being a tree to the primal graph of problems that are reformulations of the original one.

Equivalence conditions

Constraint satisfaction problems can be reformulated in terms of other problems, leading to equivalent conditions to tractability. The most-used reformulation is that in terms of the homomorphism problem.

Constraint satisfaction and the homomorphism problem

A link between constraint satisfaction and database theory has been provided in the form of a correspondence between the problem of constraint satisfiability and the problem of checking whether there exists a homomorphism between two relational structures. A relational structure is a mathematical representation of a relational database: it is a set of values and a set of relations over these values. Formally, , where each  is a relation over , that is, a set of tuples of values of .

A relational structure is different from a constraint satisfaction problem because a constraint is a relation and a tuple of variables. Also different is the way in which they are used: for a constraint satisfaction problem, finding a satisfying assignment is the main problem; for a relation structure, the main problem is finding the answer to a query.

The constraint satisfaction problem is however related to the problem of establishing the existence of a homomorphism between two relational structures. A homomorphism is a function from the values of the first relation to the values of the second that, when applied to all values of a relation of the first structure, turns it into a subset of the corresponding relation of the second structure. Formally,  is a homomorphism from  to  if it is a function from  to  such that, if  then .

A direct correspondence between the constraint satisfaction problem and the homomorphism problem can be established. For a given constraint satisfaction problem, one can build a pair of relational structures, the first encoding the variables and the signatures of constraints, the second encoding the domains and the relations of the constraints. Satisfiability of the constraint satisfaction problem corresponds to finding a value for every variable such that replacing a value in a signature makes it a tuple in the relation of the constraint. This is possible exactly if this evaluation is a homomorphism between the two relational structures.

The inverse correspondence is the opposite one: given two relational structures, one encodes the values of the first in the variables of a constraint satisfaction problem, and the values of the second in the domain of the same problem. For every tuple of every relation of the first structure, there is a constraint having as values the correspondent relation of the second structure. This way, a homomorphism corresponds to mapping every scope of every constraint (every tuple of every relation of the first structure) into a tuple in the relation of the constraint (a tuple in the corresponding relation of the second structure).

A non-uniform constraint satisfaction problem is a restriction where the second structure of the homomorphism problem is fixed. In other words, every relational structure defines a non-uniform problem, that of telling whether a relation structure is homomorphic to it. A similar restriction can be placed on the first structure; for any fixed first structure, the homomorphism problem is tractable, because then there are only a polynomial number of functions from the first structure to the second. A uniform constraint satisfaction problem is an arbitrary restriction to the sets of structures for the first and second structure of the homomorphism problem.

Conjunctive query evaluation and containment

Since the homomorphism problem is equivalent to conjunctive query evaluation and conjunctive query containment, these two problems are equivalent to constraint satisfaction as well.

Join evaluation

Every constraint can be viewed as a table in a database, where the variables are interpreted as attribute names and the relation is the set of records in the table. The solutions of a constraint satisfaction problem are the result of an inner join of the tables representing its constraints; therefore, the problem of existence of solutions can be reformulated as the problem of checking whether the result of an inner join of a number of tables is nonempty.

Dichotomy theorems

Some constraint languages (or non-uniform problems) are known to correspond to problems solvable in polynomial time, and some others are known to express NP-complete problems. However, it is possible that some constraint languages are neither. It is known by Ladner's theorem that if P is not equal to NP, then there exist problems in NP that are neither polynomial-time nor NP-hard. For constraint problems with a fixed constraint language and no structural restrictions, such intermediate problems do not exist as proven by Andrei Bulatov and Dmitriy Zhuk, independently, in 2017. If no Ladner languages are expressible as constraint satisfaction problems, the set of all constraint languages can be divided exactly into those defining polynomial-time and those defining NP-complete problems; that is, this set exhibits a dichotomy.

Some particular cases of the Bulatov and Zhuk result were already known. The most well known such result is Schaefer's dichotomy theorem, which proves the existence of a dichotomy in the set of constraint languages on a binary domain. More precisely, it proves that a relation restriction on a binary domain is tractable if all its relations belong to one of six classes, and is NP-complete otherwise. Bulatov proved a dichotomy theorem for domains of three elements.

Another dichotomy theorem for constraint languages is the Hell–Nesetril theorem, which shows a dichotomy for problems on binary constraints with a single fixed symmetric relation. In terms of the homomorphism problem, every such problem is equivalent to the existence of a homomorphism from a relational structure to a given fixed undirected graph (an undirected graph can be regarded as a relational structure with a single binary symmetric relation). The Hell–Nesetril theorem proves that every such problem is either polynomial-time or NP-complete. More precisely, the problem is polynomial-time if the graph is 2-colorable, that is, it is bipartite, and is NP-complete otherwise.

Sufficient conditions for tractability

Some complexity results prove that some restrictions are polynomial without proving that all other possible restrictions of the same kind are NP-hard.

Datalog

A sufficient condition for tractability is related to expressibility in Datalog. A Boolean Datalog query gives a truth value to a set of literals over a given alphabet, each literal being an expression of the form ; as a result, a Boolean Datalog query expresses a set of sets of literals, as it can be considered semantically equivalent to the set of all sets of literals that it evaluates to true.

On the other hand, a non-uniform problem can be seen as a way for expressing a similar set. For a given non-uniform problem, the set of relations that can be used in constraints is fixed; as a result, one can give unique names  to them. An instance of this non-uniform problem can be then written as a set of literals of the form . Among these instances/sets of literals, some are satisfiable and some are not; whether a set of literals is satisfiable depends on the relations, which are specified by the non-uniform problem. In the other way around, a non-uniform problem tells which sets of literals represent satisfiable instances and which ones represent unsatisfiable instances. Once relations are named, a non-uniform problem expresses a set of sets of literals: those associated to satisfiable (or unsatisfiable) instances.

A sufficient condition of tractability is that a non-uniform problem is tractable if the set of its unsatisfiable instances can be expressed by a Boolean Datalog query. In other words, if the set of sets of literals that represent unsatisfiable instances of the non-uniform problem is also the set of sets of literals that satisfy a Boolean Datalog query, then the non-uniform problem is tractable.

Local consistency

Satisfiability can sometimes be established by enforcing a form of local consistency and then checking the existence of an empty domain or constraint relation. This is in general a correct but incomplete unsatisfiability algorithm: a problem may be unsatisfiable even if no empty domain or constraint relation is produced. For some forms of local consistency, this algorithm may also require exponential time. However, for some problems and for some kinds of local consistency, it is correct and polynomial-time.

The following conditions exploit the primal graph of the problem, which has a vertex for each variable and an edge between two nodes if the corresponding variables are in a constraint. The following are conditions on binary constraint satisfaction problems where enforcing local consistency is tractable and allows establishing satisfiability:

 enforcing arc consistency, if the primal graph is acyclic;
 enforcing directional arc consistency for an ordering of the variables that makes the ordered graph of constraint having width 1 (such an ordering exists if and only if the primal graph is a tree, but not all orderings of a tree generate width 1);
 enforcing strong directional path consistency for an ordering of the variables that makes the primal graph having induced width 2.

A condition that extends the last one holds for non-binary constraint satisfaction problems. Namely, for all problems for which there exists an ordering that makes the primal graph having induced width bounded by a constant i, enforcing strong directional i-consistency is tractable and allows establishing satisfiability.

Tree-based conditions

Constraint satisfaction problems composed of binary constraints only can be viewed as graphs, where the vertices are variables and the edges represent the presence of a constraint between two variables. This graph is called the Gaifman graph or primal constraint graph (or simply primal graph) of the problem.

If the primal graph of a problem is acyclic, establishing satisfiability of the problem is a tractable problem. This is a structural restriction, as it can be checked by looking only at the scopes of the constraints, disregarding their relations and the domain. An acyclic graph is a forest, but connectedness is usually assumed; as a result, the condition that is usually considered is that primal graphs are trees.

This property of tree-like constraint satisfaction problems is exploited by decomposition methods, which convert problems into equivalent ones that only contain binary constraints arranged as a tree. The variables of these problems correspond to sets of variables of the original problem; the domain of such a variable is obtained by considering some of the constraints of the original problem whose scope is contained in the corresponding original set of variables; constraints of these new problems represent equality of variables that are contained in two sets.

If the graph of one such equivalent problem is a tree, the problem can be solved efficiently. On the other hand, producing one such equivalent problem may be not be efficient because of two factors: the need to determine the combined effects of a group of constraints over a set of variables, and the need to store all tuples of values that satisfy a given group of constraints.

Necessary condition for tractability

A necessary condition for the tractability of a constraint language based on the universal gadget has been proved. The universal gadget is a particular constraint satisfaction problem that was initially defined for the sake of expressing new relations by projection.

The universal gadget

A relation that is not present in a constraint language may be "simulated" by constraints using the relations in the language. In particular, a new relation can be created by placing a set of constraints and using only some of their variables. If all other constraints use only these variables, this set of constraints forces these variable to only assume specific values, practically simulating a new relation.

Every constraint satisfaction problem and subset of its variables defines a relation, which is composed by all tuples of values of the variables that can be extended to the other variables to form a solution. Technically, this relation is obtained by projecting the relation having the solutions as rows over the considered variables.

The universal gadget is based on the observation that every relation that contains -tuples can be defined by projecting a relation that contains all possible columns of  elements from the domain. As an example, the following tables shows such a projection:

 a b c d e f g h             b d
 ---------------             ---
 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0        ->   1 1
 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0             1 0
 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0             0 0

If the table on the left is the set of solutions of a constraint satisfaction problem, its variables  and  are constrained to the values of the table to the right. As a result, the constraint satisfaction problem can be used to set a constraint whose relation is the table on the right, which may not be in the constraint language.

As a result, if a constraint satisfaction problem has the table on the left as its set of solutions, every relation can be expressed by projecting over a suitable set of variables. A way for trying to obtain this table as the set of solution is to place every possible constraint that is not violated by the required solutions.

As an example, if the language contains the binary relation representing the Boolean disjunction (a relation containing all tuples of two elements that contains at least a 1), this relation is placed as a constraint on  and , because their values in the table above are ,  again, and . Since all these values satisfy the constraint, the constraint is placed. On the other hand, a constraint with this relation is not placed on  and , since the restriction of the table above to these two variables contains  as a third row, and this evaluation violates that constraint.

The universal gadget of order  is the constraint satisfaction problem containing all constraints that can be placed in order to obtain the table above. The solutions of the universal gadget include the rows of this table, but can contain other rows. If the solutions are exactly the rows of the table, every relation can be expressed by projecting on a subset of the variables. However, even if the solutions include other rows, some relations can still be expressed. A property of the universal gadget is that it is able to express, by projection, every relation that can be expressed by projection from an arbitrary constraint satisfaction problem based on the same language. More precisely, the universal gadget of order  expresses all relations of  rows that can be expressed in the constraint language.

Given a specific relation, its expressibility in the language can be checked by considering an arbitrary list of variables whose columns in the table above (the "ideal" solutions to the universal gadget) form that relation. The relation can be expressed in the language if and only if the solutions of the universal gadget coincides with the relation when projected over such a list of variables. In other words, one can check expressibility by selecting variables "as if" the solutions of the universal gadget were like in the table, and then check whether the restriction of the "real" solutions is actually the same as the relation. In the example above, the expressibility of the relation in the table on the right can be checked by looking whether the solutions of the universal gadget, when restricted to the variables  and , are exactly the rows of this table.

Solutions as functions in the universal gadget

A necessary condition for tractability can be expressed in terms of the universal gadget. The solutions of such a gadget can be tabulated as follows:

 a b c d e f g h
 ---------------
 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0    (solutions that exist by definition)
 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0
 ---------------
 ....
 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 0    (other solutions are possible)
 ....

This table is made of two parts. The first part contains the solutions that exist by definition of this problem; the second part (that may be empty) contains all other solutions. Since the columns of the table are by definition associated to the possible -tuples of values of the domain, every solution can be viewed as a function from a -tuple of elements to a single element.

The function corresponding to a solution can be calculated from the first part of the table above and the solution. As an example, for the last solution marked in the table, this function can be determined for arguments  as follows: first, these three values are the first part of the row "c" in the table; the value of the function is the value of the solution in the same column, that is, 0.

A necessary condition for tractability is the existence of a solution for a universal gadget of some order that is part of some classes of functions. This result however only holds for reduced languages, which are defined below.

Squashing functions and reduced domains

Squashing functions are functions used to reduce the size of domain of constraint languages. A squashing function is defined in terms of a partition of the domain and a representative element for each set in the partition. The squashing function maps all elements of a set in the partition to the representative element of that set. For such a function being a squashing function it is also necessary that applying the function to all elements of a tuple of a relation in the language produces another tuple in the relation. The partition is assumed to contain at least a set of size greater than one.

Formally, given a partition  of the domain  containing at least a set of size greater than one, a squashing function is a function  such that  for every  in the same partition, and for every tuple , it holds .

For constraint problems on a constraint language has a squashing function, the domain can be reduced via the squashing function. Indeed, every element in a set in the partition can be replaced with the result of applying the squashing function to it, as this result is guaranteed to satisfy at least all constraints that were satisfied by the element. As a result, all non-representative elements can be removed from the constraint language.

Constraint languages for which no squashing function exist are called reduced languages; equivalently, these are languages on which all reductions via squashing functions have been applied.

The necessary condition for tractability

The necessary condition for tractability based on the universal gadget holds for reduced languages. Such a language is tractable if the universal gadget has a solution that, when viewed as a function in the way specified above, is either a constant function, a majority function, an idempotent binary function, an affine function, or a semi-projection.

References

Constraint programming

Complexity of constraint satisfaction


Otto Roquette (April 19, 1824 – March 18, 1896) was a German author.

Life and work
Roquette was born in Krotoschin, Prussian Province of Posen. The son of a district court councillor, he first went to Bromberg (modern Bydgoszcz) in 1834, and from 1846 to 1850 studied Philology and History in Heidelberg, Berlin, and Halle. After tours in Switzerland and Italy, he moved to in Berlin in 1852. He became a teacher in Dresden in 1853. He returned to Berlin in 1857 and in 1862 became a professor of literary history at the War Academy until he changed to the Vocational Academy (now the Berlin Institute of Technology) in 1867. In 1868 he joined the Vandalia-Teutonia Berlin. From 1869 he taught at the Polytechnic in Darmstadt (now TU Darmstadt). In 1893 he was named to the Geheimrat. Roquette befriended the German author Paul Heyse and, like Heyse, was a member of the literary group "Rütli".

Roquette's pseudo-romantic and epigonic lyric poetry and his fairy tale-laden epic verse is representative of Butzenscheibenlyric. From 1850 on, his works were extremely popular and especially beloved in conservative circles. His fashionable post-revolution poetry was a deliberate departure from the politically tinged verse of the pre-March era. His celebrated verse-epic on themes of love, wine, and youth, Waldmeisters Brautfahrt, first appeared in 1851 and enjoyed sensational success for a book at that time – appearing in more than 50 editions over thirty years.

Roquette's work was popular with some Lieder composers, such as Pauline Volkstein. His 1851 poem Noch ist die blühende, goldene Zeit was fit to a well-known folk tune in 1863 by the musician Wilhelm Baumgartner. Roquette was also a novelist, playwright, literary historian and autobiographer

Roquette died in Darmstadt. Later generations found Roquette's work to be predominantly shallow and of little artistic value, and it is virtually forgotten today.

Works
 1850: Walpurgis
 1851: Orion
 1851: Waldmeisters Brautfahrt (Verse-Epic)
 1852: Liederbuch (under the title "Poems" 1859)
 1852: Der Tag von St. Jakob
 1853: Das Reich der Träume
 1854: Herr Heinrich
 1855: Haus Haidekuckuck (Verse-Epic)
 1855: Das Hünengrab
 1858: Heinrich Falk (Novel)
 1959: Erzählungen
 1860: Leben und Dichten Johann Christian Günther's (Scholarly work, biography)
 1862: Neue Erzählungen
 1864: Susanne
 1866: Die Legende von der heiligen Elisabeth (Libretto to an Oratorio by Franz Liszt)
 1867: Luginsland
 1867: Pierrot
 1867–76: Dramatische Dichtungen
 1868: Krachmost
 1869: Das Paradies
 1870: Novellen
 1871–75: Welt und Haus (Novella)
 1873: Gevatter Tod
 1873: Rhampsinit
 1873: Die Schlangenkönigin
 1877: Euphrosyne (Novel)
 1878: Das Buchstabirbuch der Leidenschaft (Novel)
 1878: Im Hause der Väter (Novel)
 1879: Geschichte der Deutschen Dichtung von den ältesten Denkmälern bis auf die Neuzeit (Scholarly work, literary History)
 1879: Die Prophetenschule (Novel)
 1883: Friedrich Preller
 1884: Neues Novellenbuch
 1884: Das Haus Eberhard
 1884: Unterwegs
 1884: Tage des Waldlebens
 1884: Baum im Odenwald
 1887: Große und kleine Leute in Alt-Weimar
 1890: Frühlingsstimmen
 1890: Des Lebens Mummenschanz
 1892: Ul von Haslach
 1894: Siebzig Jahre (Autobiography)
 1895: Sonderlinge
 1896: Krethi und Plethi
 1896: Von Tag zu Tage (posthumous)

References

Ludwig Julius Fränkel: Roquette, Otto. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 53, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1907, pp. 469–478.
Ursula Perkow: Wie Otto Roquette zum Dichter wurde. Mit Waldmeister aus Handschuhsheim auf dem Weg zum Ruhm. In: Jahrbuch des Stadtteilvereins Handschuhsheim, Heidelberg 1997, pp. 88–95 (Internet-Ausgabe)

External links

1824 births
1896 deaths
People from Krotoszyn
Writers from the Province of Posen
German male writers

Otto Roquette


Carlos Everton Francis (born 21 August 1962) is an English former professional footballer who played in the Football League for Birmingham City and Hereford United, and in the Alliance Premier League for Enfield.

Francis was born in West Ham, London. He joined Birmingham City as an apprentice in June 1979, and turned professional the following year. A pacy winger, Francis made his debut in the First Division on the opening day of the 1982–83 season, in the starting eleven for a 3–0 defeat at Manchester United. He was the first black player to appear for the club. He made one more start and three substitute appearances that season, but his inconsistency restricted his first-team football. In December 1983 he joined Fourth Division club Hereford United on a month's loan, where he played five league games. Francis was released in 1984, and he went on to play three games without scoring in the Alliance Premier League for Enfield in the 1984–85 season.

References

External links
 Photo and career stats at sporting-heroes.net

1962 births
Living people
Footballers from West Ham
English men's footballers
Men's association football wingers
Birmingham City F.C. players
Hereford United F.C. players
Enfield F.C. players
English Football League players
National League (English football) players
Black British sportsmen

Carl Francis


World and Town is a novel by Gish Jen that follows a Chinese American widow and her friendship with a family of Cambodian immigrants. The novel describes the difficulties encountered in the lives of characters as they embrace immigration, rationalism, and religious fundamentalism.

Set in New England, the novel begins in early 2001 and describes the life of Hattie Kong, a widowed retired high school teacher. Kong's quiet life is interrupted when a family of Cambodian immigrants moves to her town. The family came to the United States as refugees from the Khmer Rouge. By the time that Kong meets them they are impoverished and racked by family conflicts and alcoholism. Kong soon develops a close friendship with the family's teenage daughter. The narrative concludes shortly after the September 11 attacks.

The daughter of a missionary, Kong prides herself on her liberalism and compassion and rejection of superstitious beliefs. Throughout the novel, she struggles with a dislike of the worldview embraced by other skeptics and a difficulty living in harmony with the beliefs of others.

The novel's point of view alternates between multiple characters, a technique praised by Donna Rifkind in her review of the book in The New York Times. Jen often employs Black humor throughout the book as she described the stress and suspicion of many characters.

In his review of the book in The Washington Post, Ron Charles praises Jen for combining different themes with "endearing finesse", but faults her treatment of fundamentalist Christianity as "cliche".

References

2010 American novels
Fiction set in 2001
Chinese-American novels
Books by Gish Jen
Alfred A. Knopf books

World and Town


Francosuchus is a dubious genus of probably basal phytosaur known from the Late Triassic (late Carnian stage) of Bavaria, southern Germany. It was named by Oskar Kuhn in 1933 and the type species is Francosuchus broilii. In the same article Kuhn also named a second species Francosuchus latus. Both species were known solely from their holotypes, two partial skulls that were housed at the Bavarian State Collection for Palaeontogy and Geology. Both specimens were collected at Ebrach Quarry, bed number 13 from the late Carnian-aged Blasensandstein Member of the Hassberge Formation. As the holotypes were destroyed during World War II and poorly documented, Francosuchus and its species are usually considered to be nomina dubia.

Kuhn (1936) described and named a third species of this genus, Francosuchus angustifrons, on a basis of another skull from the same quarry, bed number 9. This species was recently reassigned to Paleorhinus, because it shares unique synapomorphies with P. bransoni (the type species of Paleorhinus), and a species-level phylogenetic analysis of phytosaurs found the species to be sister taxa. Friedrich von Huene (1939) described and named a fourth species, Francosuchus trauthi. It was synonymized with Paleorhinus, but a re-description of the species by Butler (2013) found no evidence to support the synonymy, or even a phytosaurian identification. Although it is based solely on a rostrum fragment, "F." trauthi was found to possess a unique combination of characters that distinguish it from all other Triassic tetrapods. Thus it was reassigned to a new genus, Dolerosaurus, referable to Tetrapoda incertae sedis.

References

Phytosaurs
Prehistoric reptile genera
Late Triassic reptiles of Europe
Triassic Germany
Fossils of Germany
Taxa named by Oskar Kuhn
Fossil taxa described in 1933

Francosuchus


is a Japanese actor from Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture. He is known for his breakout role in Aibō where he portrays Section 7 Clerk Sergeant Keichi Itami as well as his appearances in the Initial D series as the voice of Seiji Iwaki and Kamen Rider Decade as the villain Apollo Geist. On June 26, 2012, Kawahara announced his engagement to Kio Matsumoto, eldest daughter of famous kabuki actor Matsumoto Kōshirō IX. They married on October 29, 2012, with Aibō co-star Yutaka Mizutani and his wife Ran Ito as witnesses.

References

1961 births
Japanese male actors
People from Kitakyushu
Living people

Kazuhisa Kawahara (actor)


Shams ad-Dīn adh-Dhahabī (), also known as Shams ad-Dīn Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿUthmān ibn Qāymāẓ ibn ʿAbdillāh at-Turkumānī al-Fāriqī ad-Dimashqī (5 October 1274 – 3 February 1348) was an Islamic historian and Hadith expert.

Life
Of Turkic descent, Adh-Dhahabi was born in Damascus. His name, ibn adh-Dhahabi (son of the goldsmith), reveals his father's profession. He began his study of hadith at age eighteen, travelling from Damascus to Baalbek, Homs, Hama, Aleppo, Nabulus, Cairo, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Hijaz, and elsewhere, before returning to Damascus to teach and write.  He authored many works and was widely renown as a perspicuous critic and expert examiner of the hadith. He wrote an encyclopaedic biographical history and was the foremost authority on the canonical readings of the Qur'an. Some of his teachers were women. At Baalbek, Zaynab bint ʿUmar b. al-Kindī was among his most influential teachers.

Adh-Dhahabi lost his sight two years before he died, leaving three children: the eldest, his daughter, Amat al-'Aziz, and his two sons, 'Abd Allah and Abu Hurayra 'Abd al-Rahman. The latter son taught the hadith masters Ibn Nasir-ud-din al-Damishqi and Ibn Hajar, and through them transmitted several works authored or narrated by his father.

Teachers
Among adh-Dhahabi's most notable teachers in hadith, fiqh and aqida:
 Abd al-Khaliq bin ʿUlwān
 Zaynab bint ʿUmar bin al-Kindī
 Abu al-Hasan 'Ali ibn Mas'ud ibn Nafis al-Musali
 Ibn Taymiyyah Taqi ad-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah
 Ibn al-Zahiri, Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn 'Abd Allah al-Halabi
 Al-Dimyati, the foremost Egyptian authority on hadith in his time.
 Ibn Daqiq al-'Id, whom he identified in his youth as Abu al-Fath al-Qushayri, later as Ibn Wahb.
 Jamal-ud-din Abu al-Ma`ali Muhammad ibn 'Ali al-Ansari al-Zamalkani al-Damishqi al-Shafi`i (d. 727), whom he called "Qadi al-Qudat, the Paragon of Islam, the standard-bearer of the Sunna, my shaykh".
 Ahmad ibn Ishaq ibn Muhammad al-Abarquhi al-Misri (d. 701), from which al-Dhahabi received the Suhrawardi Sufi path.
 Ibn al-Kharrat al-Dawalibi

Notable students
 Imad ad-Din Isma'il bin 'Umar bin Kathir
 Zain ad-Din 'Abd ar-Rahmān ibn al-Hasan as-Sulamī (Ibn Rajab)
 Shams-ud-din Abu al Mahasin Muhammad ibn Ali al-Dimashqi
 Taj al-Din al-Subki
 Ibn Asakir
 Khalīl ibn Aybak al-Ṣafadī
 Ibn al-Furat
 Also Shams al-Din Dhahabi has written about bibi Heravi and her famous role in Tarikh al-Kabir.

Works
Adh-Dhahabi authored nearly a hundred works of history, biography and theology. His history of medicine begins with Ancient Greek and Indian practices and practitioners, such as Hippocrates, Galen, etc., through the Pre-Islamic Arabian era, to Prophetic medicine  as revealed by the Muslim prophet Muhammad to the medical knowledge contained in works of scholars such as Ibn Sina. The following are the better known titles:

Tarikh al-Islam al-kabir () 'Great History of Islam' (50 vols., in Arabic); Ibn Hajar received it from Abu Hurayra ibn adh-Dhahabi; comprising over 30,000 biographical records.
Siyar A'lam al-Nubala' () ('The Lives of Noble Figures'), 28 volumes, a unique encyclopaedia of biographical history.

al-'Uluww
al-Mowqizah
Al-'Ibar fī khabar man ghabar ()
Tadhhib Tahdhib al-Kamal; abridgement of al-Mizzi's abridgement of al-Maqdisi's Al-Kamal fi Asma' al-Rijal, a biographical compendium of hadith narrators from the Six major Hadith collections.
Al-Kashif fi Ma`rifa Man Lahu Riwaya fi al-Kutub al-Sitta; abridgment of the Tadhhib.
Al-Mujarrad fi Asma' Rijal al-Kutub al-Sitta; abridgment of the Kashif.
Mukhtasar Kitab al-Wahm wa al-Iham li Ibn al-Qattan.
Mukhtasar Sunan al-Bayhaqi; selected edition of Bayhaqi's Sunan al-Kubara.
Mukhtasar al-Mustadrak li al-Hakim, an abridgement of Hakim's Al-Mustadrak alaa al-Sahihain.
Al-Amsar Dhawat al-Athar (Cities Rich in Historical Relics); begins with a description of Madina al-Munawwara.
Al-Tajrid fi Asma' al-Sahaba; dictionary of the Companions of the prophet Muhammad.
 (The Memorial of the Hadith Masters); chronological history of the biography of hadith masters. Ibn Hajar received it from Abu Hurayra ibn adh-Dhahabi.
Tabaqat al-Qurra (Categories of the Qur'anic Scholars); Biographic anthology.
Al-Mu`in fi Tabaqat al-Muhaddithin, a compendium of hadith scholars (Muhaddithin).
Duwal al-Islam (The Islamic Nations); concise political histories of Islamic nations.
Al-Kaba'ir (Cardinal Sins)
Manaaqib Al-imam Abu Hanifa wa saahibayhi Abu Yusuf wa Muhammad Ibn al-Hasan (The Honoured status of Imam Abu Hanifa and his two companions, Abu Yusuf and Muhammad ibn Al-Hasan)
Mizaan-ul-I'tidaal, a reworking of al-Kamil fi Dhu'afa' al-Rijal by Ibn 'Adi al-Jurjani (d. 277 H)

See also
Islamic scholars

References

1274 births
1348 deaths
14th-century biographers
14th-century Syrian historians
14th-century Muslim scholars of Islam
14th-century scholars
14th-century Arab people
Atharis
Hadith scholars
Scholars from the Mamluk Sultanate
Encyclopedists of the medieval Islamic world
Historians of the medieval Islamic world
Writers from Damascus
Shafi'is
Syrian Sunni Muslim scholars of Islam
Proto-Salafists
14th-century jurists
Biographical evaluation scholars
Critics of Ibn Arabi

Al-Dhahabi


Chandrakasem Rajabhat University (CRU) is a tertiary educational institution in the north of Bangkok, Thailand. It offers post-diploma certificates and degree level education from the bachelor's degree to master's degree, with Ph.D offered in several majors.

Founded in 1940, Chandrakasem was Thailand's first training college for secondary school teachers. In 1991 Chandrakasem Teachers College was named an outstanding tertiary educational institute by the Ministry of Education. The following year, King Bhumibol Adulyadej bestowed the name Chandrakasem Rajabhat Institute on the former college.

On 14 June 2004, all Rajabhat institutes nationwide were upgraded by the king, who signed the Rajabhat University Act of B.E 2547 (2004), which was announced in the Royal Gazette for implementation on 15 June 2004. This raised all Rajabhat institutes to Rajabhat universities, creating a close-knit group of Thai universities dedicated to preserving the Thai heritage and subject to the National Tertiary Education Commission of the Ministry of Education.

References

Rajabhat University system
Universities and colleges established in 1940
Universities and colleges in Bangkok
1940 establishments in Thailand
Universities in Thailand

Chandrakasem Rajabhat University


The McPherson Playhouse, known as The Mac, is a theatre and concert hall in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Part of the Centennial Square complex on the north side of downtown Victoria, adjacent to the intersection of Pandora and Government streets across from the CTV Vancouver Island studios and the Victoria City Hall, it was originally built as a Pantages Theatre in 1914. In the 1960s it was donated, with supporting funding for its renovation, to the people of Victoria by Thomas Shanks McPherson. It became part of the Centennial Square redevelopment, finished in 1965. Renovations preserved and refurbished the Neo-Baroque auditorium but added a modern lobby and various technical improvements.

The theatre hosts professional, community and amateur events year-round and is operated as a licensee/rental venue, under the administration of the Royal and McPherson Theatres Society, which also manages the Royal Theatre. The theatre has one large balcony and two sets of boxes, and has a total capacity of 772.

References

External links

Official website

Buildings and structures in Victoria, British Columbia
Historic buildings and structures in British Columbia
Theatres completed in 1914
Theatres in British Columbia
Culture of Victoria, British Columbia
Music venues in British Columbia
Tourist attractions in Victoria, British Columbia
1914 establishments in British Columbia

McPherson Playhouse


Broomistega is an extinct genus of temnospondyl amphibian in the family Rhinesuchidae. It is known from one species, Broomistega putterilli, which was renamed in 2000 from Lydekkerina putterilli Broom 1930. Fossils are known from the Early Triassic Lystrosaurus Assemblage Zone of the Beaufort Group in the Karoo Basin of present-day South Africa, a region that had been an enclave of Gondwana. Specimens of B. putterilli were once thought to represent young individuals of another larger rhinesuchid such as Uranocentrodon, but the species is now regarded as a paedomorphic taxon, possessing the features of juvenile rhinesuchids into adulthood.

In 2013, a well-preserved skeleton of Broomistega was discovered alongside the skeleton of the cynodont Thrinaxodon (a mammal relative) in a cast of a burrow. The individual probably entered the burrow while the cynodont was in a state of aestivation (dormancy), and afterwards a flash flood filled the burrow with sediment to preserve both bodies together.

Paleobiology
Broomistega is the only rhinesuchid known from the Triassic Period. Its presence in the Early Triassic indicates that rhinesuchids survived the Permo-Triassic Mass Extinction about 252 million years ago. However, compared to the diversity of rhinesuchids that existed in the Permian Period, Broomistega is a very rare component of the Early Triassic Karoo fauna. It may have been the last surviving representative of the group, making it a relict taxon.

Association with Thrinaxodon

The most complete skeleton of Broomistega, specimen BP/1/7200, was discovered in the sandstone cast of a burrow (BP/1/5558) after the cast was scanned at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in 2013. The cast was first found in the Karoo Basin of South Africa by paleontologist James Kitching in 1975, but was left unprepared for many years. Part of a skull of a cynodont was exposed on the surface of the cast, allowing Kitching to attribute it to the genus Thrinaxodon. Only after the synchrotron scanning was the Broomistega skeleton found. All bones are preserved except for a few phalanges of the right hind foot, and nearly all of the bones are articulated as they were in life. The skeletons do not show evidence of stiffening due to rigor mortis after death, but are pressed against the sides of the burrow as the animals would have been when alive. The skeleton of BP/1/7200 is preserved belly-up, resting on the right side of the Thrinaxodon skeleton. This position was probably the result of the individual being pushed on top of the Thrinaxodon by floodwater entering the burrow.
Broomistega is not thought to have been a burrowing animal and was instead semiaquatic. The Thrinaxodon individual preserved in BP/1/5558 was probably the original occupant of the burrow, and the Broomistega individual probably entered the burrow later. The joints of BP/1/7200 are not well developed, indicating that the individual was a juvenile with large amounts of cartilage in its skeleton. Several ribs on the right side of the skeleton are broken, indicating that the individual was severely injured before entering the burrow, probably by being crushed. The animal was still alive when it entered the burrow because the rib fractures show evidence of healing, but the injury probably impacted its ability to breathe and to move about. Two holes are present on the skull roof of BP/1/7200. Although they resemble bite marks, they do not match with the teeth of the Thrinaxodon specimen.

The presence of two different species of large vertebrates in the same burrow is unusual. Modern examples of this association are usually the result of predator-prey interactions (for example, a predator storing the body of its prey in the burrow) or mutualistic relationships whereby the original occupant gains protection from predators by the presence of the second inhabitant. However, the benefit of cohabitation usually only works when there are multiple burrows, casting doubt on the possibility that the Thrinaxodon was benefiting from the presence of the Broomistega. Because the Broomistega skeleton lacks any sign of damage caused by the Thrinaxodon, the two were probably not predator and prey. The most likely explanation for the association as of 2013 is that the Thrinaxodon tolerated the Broomistega or was unable to remove it, possibly because it was aestivating. As is the case with many modern amphibians, the Broomistega probably entered the burrow to seek temporary shelter. During the Early Triassic the Karoo Basin was seasonally arid, so the Thrinaxodon may have been aestivating to conserve energy during a time when resource availability was low and the normally aquatic Broomistega may have entered to burrow to escape the hot and dry conditions of its environment.

References

Triassic temnospondyls of Africa
Articles containing video clips
Early Triassic amphibians of Africa
Fossil taxa described in 2000

Broomistega


Peter Paul Benazech (1744? - 1783?) was an English engraver.

Life and work
Benazech is said to have been born in London about the year 1744. He was a pupil of François Vivares, and worked as a draughtsman and engraver both in London and in Paris. His engravings  are mostly of landscapes and marine subjects, the best being those after Dietrich and Vernet.

He also engraved a series of anatomical plates, a set of seven scenes from the Seven Years' War, and, in conjunction with Pierre-Charles Canot, four plates of engagements between the English and French fleets, after Francis Swaine. Besides these he engraved Peasants playing at Bowls after Adriaen van Ostade, and views in England after Chatelain and Brooks.

The year of his death is not known, but his latest dated plate is "The Tomb of Virgil" after Hugh Dean, engraved in 1783. His son, Charles Benazech, was a notable portrait and history painter.

Notable engravings
Peasants playing at Bowls; after Adriaen van Ostade.
Fishermen; after Vernet.
Return from fishing (after Vernet).
A Calm at Sea (after Vernet).
Morning (after Vernet).
Four large landscapes (after Dietrich - engraved in 1770 and 1771).
 The Calm  (after Pierre Antoine Patel)

References

Attribution:

External links
Peter Paul Benazech online (Artcyclopedia)
Engravings be Benezach (Grosvenor prints)

1740s births
Year of death unknown
English engravers
Artists from London

Peter Paul Benazech


Sefton is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England. It is located to the south west of Maghull and to the north east of Great Crosby. It is on the flood plain of the River Alt. The village is bisected by the B5422, Brickwall Lane. At the 2001 Census the population was recorded as 772. This increased to 855 at the 2011 Census.

Civil parishes in Merseyside

Sefton, Merseyside


Sir Albion Henry Herbert Richardson   (2 October 1874 – 7 July 1950) was a British barrister and Liberal Party politician.

The son of James Henry Richardson of Hendon, he was privately educated in France and Germany.

He worked as a lawyer, and became a partner in a London legal firm. In 1912 he was called to the bar at Gray's Inn. In the meantime he had entered politics, having been elected to the Commons as Member of Parliament for Peckham at the general election of December 1910, unseating the sitting Conservative MP.

During the First World War Richardson was appointed to a number of committees: he was chairman of the Appeal Tribunal for the County of London, and served on the Committee on the Employment of Aliens in Government Offices with Lord Justice Sir John Eldon Bankes and James Craig.

At the 1918 general election he was re-elected as Peckham's MP as a Coalition Liberal. In 1919 he was appointed by the Home Secretary to examine allegations of abuse of conscientious objectors by the Governor of Wandsworth Prison. He was subsequently appointed on a number of occasions to enquire into and report upon allegations against the police. In 1918 he was awarded the CBE and in 1919 was knighted. He stood down from parliament at the 1922 general election.

Richardson returned to his legal career, working mainly in the area of commercial law. In 1930 he "took silk" and became King's Counsel and was made a bencher of Gray's Inn. In 1931 was appointed Recorder of Warwick. In 1936 he became Recorder of Nottingham, an office he held until his death. He was elected Treasurer of Gray's Inn for 1944.

He died at his London home in July 1950 aged 75, and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium.

References

External links

1874 births
1950 deaths
Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
UK MPs 1910–1918
Members of Gray's Inn
British King's Counsel
People from Hendon
Lawyers from London

Albion Richardson