Clone is worded in a way that the "clone" is referred to by a couple of different terms:
This spell grows an inert duplicate of a living, Medium creature as a safeguard against death. This clone forms inside a sealed vessel and grows to full size and maturity after 120 days; you can also choose to have the clone be a younger version of the same creature. It remains inert and endures indefinitely, as long as its vessel remains undisturbed.
At any time after the clone matures, if the original creature dies, its soul transfers to the clone, provided that the soul is free and willing to return. The clone is physically identical to the original and has the same personality, memories, and abilities, but none of the original's equipment. The original creature's physical remains, if they still exist, become inert and can't thereafter be restored to life, since the creature's soul is elsewhere.
So, it's essentially called a "duplicate of a creature," a "version of a creature", and "the clone." I would think it's clear enough that the "same personality, memories, and abilities" are traits that the clone only inherits after a soul transfers to it... but even before a soul transfers to it, it seems to me like the clone is a creature for whom we are not provided stats (since they can't meaningfully be a combatant or take any actions), not a mere object in the shape of a creature.
Of course, you might also argue that a clone is essentially a corpse... which it's a little fuzzy whether corpses (not just unconscious creatures) are creatures or objects too... but I think that the Clone spell's product is functionally distinct from a corpse, even if you would rule that a corpse is not a creature.
But, the fact that the clone remains "inert and endures indefinitely" sure makes it sound like it can't be killed (short of destroying the vessel it's contained in)... which would suggest that it isn't biologically active? But then again, neither is a Petrified creature, though not exactly using the same sort of language...
In totality, what do you think, creature or object? What's the most important part of why you come down on that decision?
The sealed container it's in is an object, and the spell ends if the container is disturbed, so it's hard to come up with a situation where it matters, but it's probably a soulless creature, much like your body when you cast Magic Jar, that is in suspended animation, similar to Imprisonment.
Well, now hold on a minute. Clone does not end if the vessel is disturbed. The clone is "inert and endures indefinitely as long as the vessel remains undisturbed," but that isn't to say that jostling it or even probing it with magic necessarily kills the clone, renders it unfit, or stops it from maturing. I mean, to some extent obviously you can damage the vessel in a way that messes up the clone, or maybe cracking it open takes it off life support/suspension and subjects the clone to biological needs like breathing, eating, and exposure (despite still being comatose)... but I don't see a requirement that the clone even be in the vessel at the time that your spirit tries to use it? There's no mention of the soul going to the vessel, only of the vessel being useful for keeping the clone "inert and enduring indefinitely," and as the place where it forms and matures.
Clone doesn't say what happens when the clone is removed from the vessel at all, but seems to imply it's not a good thing to happen. Any debate beyond that is conjecture and personal rulings.
While it is in the vessel, the creature/object nature of the clone doesn't seem relevant. It seems very hard to target it with anything without cracking open that egg.
I would personally generally treat the soulless clone as an object at all times, regardless of the state of the vessel. These rules seem to use the presence of a soul or other animating spirit to be the line between creature and object. A construct is an object plus magical animating spirit. A skeleton is corpse plus logical animating spirit. A corpse is an object, but it is also a pathway through which one may cast a spell targeting a creature that has died. It is an object and it is a past-creature. The clone is an object and possibly a future-creature, though no spells I can think of will target a future-creature. That being said, if a powerful caster needs to target the clone with a spell meant for creatures, then I would assess on a case by case basis. Powerful magic should feel powerful, not bypassed by trivial debate about the nature of living-but-inert flesh.
General lore-wise; I feel that if an enemy finds your vessel and breaks it open - that clone is super ruined straight away. If the vessel is opened by misadventure or if the wizard needs to crack it open in some emergency and run off with the clone-corpse then I would give them maybe a few hours to find a new vessel or complete the soul transfer before the clone becomes unviable dead flesh.
Recall that the vessel isn't necessarily opaque, a glass tube full of clone and goo is a classic trope, so it's probably not as difficult to target the clone with spells as you seem to be thinking. Whether it's a "creature" you can see or an "object" you can see has several implications for what sorts of shenanigans you might try to get up to with that... the clear glass may still provide a spell line of effect barrier for certain spells, but there's bound to opportunities for edge applications.
There's plenty of fictional precedents for clones being ruined when they're cracked open early, and some precedents for them waking to become soulless infants never intended to live their own lives, and some precedents for them continuing to live as comatose bodies that are vulnerable but not necessarily doomed once removed from their life supporting vat. I don't think that using A vs B vs C is an issue of one of those being mandated by the spell's text (well, B is clearly not RAW, but A or C seem valid), all we really know from the text of Clone is that the vessel provides for the clone to "form," "mature," and remain "inert and endure indefinitely." The vessel is clearly "safe," but that isn't to say that the world outside is "lethal" to the clone-creature, any more than it is to defenseless unconscious creatures in general? Or... it is, under a different DM's interpretation.
At the very least, I'd rule out object. Objects are supposed to be inanimate, and an inert clone clearly grows. Ruling it as an object also creates a narrative problem because objects are immune to poison damage. If a clone is physically identical to a living creature that could be killed by poison, it stands to reason you could "kill" its clone with poison too.
So that leaves "creature" or "neither." I don't see any impediment to ruling it's a creature considering your body is left in a nearly identical state to a mature but inert clone during Astral Projection, and a petrified creature is also inert in a sense but doesn't become an object either.
I was also thinking about trees a fair amount while thinking about this post…. A plant monster can be a creature, and so can a beast monster or even just a normal tiny beasts… but are normal plants like trees or bushes considered creatures or objects?
I would rather not create a new “neither” category. creatures objects and magical effects seems robust enough to me that every “thing” should be able to fit into one of those three categories, which are the tags that 5E seems to usually throw around to refer to “things”… I guess maybe you could add substances as a fourth category too, I think that there’s the occasional feature that refers to substances and that might be useful for talking about things like oceans and streams so that they don’t become objects, or to distinguish an area from the terrain and substances found within it…
anyway getting way off topic, I just don’t want to call clones neither creature nor object :p
I am of the opinion that it is an object same as corpse. Like a corpse, it can become a creature, but it is just an object (created by magic) until it does.
Recall that the vessel isn't necessarily opaque, a glass tube full of clone and goo is a classic trope, so it's probably not as difficult to target the clone with spells as you seem to be thinking. Whether it's a "creature" you can see or an "object" you can see has several implications for what sorts of shenanigans you might try to get up to with that... the clear glass may still provide a spell line of effect barrier for certain spells, but there's bound to opportunities for edge applications.
But, I mean, what cases are you actually asking about? Let's say you can cast a spell at the clone-corpse as if it were a creature - what are you actually asking?
Would you be able to charm the clone-corpse and have that enchantment continue through to when the soul occupies it? No. Not because the clone isn't a creature, but because whatever creature it might be now, it is a different creature when the soul arrives.
Would you be able to damage the clone-corpse as if it were a creature? Yeah, sure. But not because it is a creature. It has no HP, no AC, no save roll modifiers, no nothing. But you can damage it because that makes sense and then it is damaged and maybe ruined and no longer able to house the soul.
I think trying to "decide" ahead of time whether the clone-corpse is an object or a creature then expecting all other rulings to fall in line is a bit of a fool's errand. Ask us a real applicable question about what you want to do with this theoretical clone-corpse and we will give our best views as DMs and players, but the query as-is seems to not actually be a question of rules and mechanics at all.
I’m going with object. The reasoning is because I’m jumping to several conclusions regarding creatures turning into objects when they die. The last sentence of the spell describes some consequences of the original body becoming inert due to the spell. I take those consequences of inert and apply them to the clone. Since I assume that an inert clone can’t be brought to life, it’s dead, and an object.
Depending what we call this clone, there’s some significant implications for True Polymorph, Animate Object, Polymorph, Create Undead, etc. All very abstract and useless, I’m sure, just trying to figure out at this point if it’s less objectionable on paper for the archwizard’s clone to be the true polymorphed clay golem, or the vessel around it :)
Depending what we call this clone, there’s some significant implications for True Polymorph, Animate Object, Polymorph, Create Undead, etc. All very abstract and useless, I’m sure, just trying to figure out at this point if it’s less objectionable on paper for the archwizard’s clone to be the true polymorphed clay golem, or the vessel around it :)
I would rule that if any of those spells were cast successfully on the unsoulled clone, then at the very least the clone is no longer a viable host. Gotta start from scratch...
I was also thinking about trees a fair amount while thinking about this post…. A plant monster can be a creature, and so can a beast monster or even just a normal tiny beasts… but are normal plants like trees or bushes considered creatures or objects?
For most purposes it's fine to treat them as part of the terrain.
I would rather not create a new “neither” category. creatures objects and magical effects seems robust enough to me that every “thing” should be able to fit into one of those three categories, which are the tags that 5E seems to usually throw around to refer to “things”… I guess maybe you could add substances as a fourth category too, I think that there’s the occasional feature that refers to substances and that might be useful for talking about things like oceans and streams so that they don’t become objects, or to distinguish an area from the terrain and substances found within it…
I don't think the rules are written assuming everything can be objectively categorized into a fixed number of disjoint buckets.
There's a few categories that are fairly objective, but outside of freebies like "creature", "magical effect" or "point in space", things get subjective and context-sensitive fast. Even "creature" is somewhat subjective, because at some point living things get too small to consider them meaningful individual targets or give them useful stat blocks. Does Sleep put mosquitoes to sleep, and if so, how many of them count as 1 HP?
"Object" is even more subjective because someone has to decide if a chain is 1 object or 30 objects tangled together, and at what point something is too small or too large. There's definitely things that are non-magical and non-living but fail the criteria for an object, yet can still be a valid target for some game rules. A burning fire is not an object but it can still be manipulated with Control Flames. And a 5x5 area of a lake is not a discrete object either but Shape Water will freeze it. Specific game rules can target things that don't fall into preconceived categories.
So to me "is a tree an object" is a question that can't be answered and has no useful applications. A better question is "does it make sense to treat this particular tree as an object for the purposes of Fireball?"
If trees are objects when it matters and not when it doesn’t…. I don’t understand how that’s meaningfully different from just saying trees are objects. Unless the intent is to rule inconsistently? In which case, that’s no fun for players, to be told interaction A is fine but B fails in an inconsistent way.
If trees are objects when it matters and not when it doesn’t…. I don’t understand how that’s meaningfully different from just saying trees are objects. Unless the intent is to rule inconsistently? In which case, that’s no fun for players, to be told interaction A is fine but B fails in an inconsistent way.
I don't see any other practical way to run a game of make-believe written in natural language. There's always pathological cases the rules can't account for, there's nothing encoded in the molecules of a chair that fundamentally designates it as an object, and it might make more sense for me to treat a wagon as one object for the purposes of Enlarge/Reduce but as a collection of objects that individual break when the wagon gets rammed by an elk. "Object" is an extremely convenient shorthand for non-creature things you can pick up and carry, but its definition is still fluid and not every rule might agree 100% on what kind of object it considers relevant.
In my experience being consistent is far less important than producing a result that's satisfying and intuitive.
If trees are objects when it matters and not when it doesn’t…. I don’t understand how that’s meaningfully different from just saying trees are objects. Unless the intent is to rule inconsistently? In which case, that’s no fun for players, to be told interaction A is fine but B fails in an inconsistent way.
The real problems are the term 'object' (since normally, bodies are objects alive or dead) and 'creature' (which seems to assume animate, rather than merely being defined as 'living'). They are completely meta designations and therefore easier to trip over.
I agree here. It seems that most (all?) examples of creatures are animate in some fashion. Plants are living things, but don't count as creatures unless they can attack you, for example. It's a bit hazy. The corpse example is enlightening as well. You're a creature, and then you're not. Clone does kind of feel like the same thing.
That said, it'd be a nice bit of horror if, in a particular campaign, the sealed container was actually suppressing the clones ability to become an independent creature instead, acting a bit like a magic jar for the clones soul. So when the original caster dies, it enters the "magic jar" and possesses the clone, whose actual soul is shunted off to the great beyond never having known life. What happens if a good spellcaster discovers this, and now has to warn his other good friends not to use clone any more ;) Will they believe him? OR DID THEY ALREADY KNOW !!!! dun dun dun!
Coder, I agree that trying to define a 5E system of natural laws that answers whether bacteria are "creatures", "objects", "neither", or "substances" isn't useful. But again, what I'm concerned about is, things like a tree (or corpse, etc.) being defined as an object when the player tries to do something interesting with them that requires a creature, but being defined as a creature when the player tries to do something interesting with them that requires an object, as some eternally shifting "gotcha!" from the DM. It should be easy enough to pick one of the two extremes and commit to it for commonly encountered "things" like trees, corpses, or even clones, without it leading to a slippery slope where you're unable to treat a wagon / wagon parts intuitively.
DMs and players should engage each other in good faith. I doubt in practice you'd need to constantly flip-flop on how you categorize a tree, but even if you did, players would probably accept it if the end result makes sense to them. The real "gotcha" moments in my D&D career have been the times the group settled for a nonsensical or unsatisfying outcome because That's What The Rules Say or because of some previous precedent, and no one wanted to rock the boat.
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Clone is worded in a way that the "clone" is referred to by a couple of different terms:
So, it's essentially called a "duplicate of a creature," a "version of a creature", and "the clone." I would think it's clear enough that the "same personality, memories, and abilities" are traits that the clone only inherits after a soul transfers to it... but even before a soul transfers to it, it seems to me like the clone is a creature for whom we are not provided stats (since they can't meaningfully be a combatant or take any actions), not a mere object in the shape of a creature.
Of course, you might also argue that a clone is essentially a corpse... which it's a little fuzzy whether corpses (not just unconscious creatures) are creatures or objects too... but I think that the Clone spell's product is functionally distinct from a corpse, even if you would rule that a corpse is not a creature.
But, the fact that the clone remains "inert and endures indefinitely" sure makes it sound like it can't be killed (short of destroying the vessel it's contained in)... which would suggest that it isn't biologically active? But then again, neither is a Petrified creature, though not exactly using the same sort of language...
In totality, what do you think, creature or object? What's the most important part of why you come down on that decision?
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The sealed container it's in is an object, and the spell ends if the container is disturbed, so it's hard to come up with a situation where it matters, but it's probably a soulless creature, much like your body when you cast Magic Jar, that is in suspended animation, similar to Imprisonment.
The sealed container it's in is an object, and the spell ends if the container is disturbed,
Clones are, therefore, all cats until the container is opened.
Well, now hold on a minute. Clone does not end if the vessel is disturbed. The clone is "inert and endures indefinitely as long as the vessel remains undisturbed," but that isn't to say that jostling it or even probing it with magic necessarily kills the clone, renders it unfit, or stops it from maturing. I mean, to some extent obviously you can damage the vessel in a way that messes up the clone, or maybe cracking it open takes it off life support/suspension and subjects the clone to biological needs like breathing, eating, and exposure (despite still being comatose)... but I don't see a requirement that the clone even be in the vessel at the time that your spirit tries to use it? There's no mention of the soul going to the vessel, only of the vessel being useful for keeping the clone "inert and enduring indefinitely," and as the place where it forms and matures.
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Clone doesn't say what happens when the clone is removed from the vessel at all, but seems to imply it's not a good thing to happen. Any debate beyond that is conjecture and personal rulings.
While it is in the vessel, the creature/object nature of the clone doesn't seem relevant. It seems very hard to target it with anything without cracking open that egg.
I would personally generally treat the soulless clone as an object at all times, regardless of the state of the vessel. These rules seem to use the presence of a soul or other animating spirit to be the line between creature and object. A construct is an object plus magical animating spirit. A skeleton is corpse plus logical animating spirit. A corpse is an object, but it is also a pathway through which one may cast a spell targeting a creature that has died. It is an object and it is a past-creature. The clone is an object and possibly a future-creature, though no spells I can think of will target a future-creature. That being said, if a powerful caster needs to target the clone with a spell meant for creatures, then I would assess on a case by case basis. Powerful magic should feel powerful, not bypassed by trivial debate about the nature of living-but-inert flesh.
General lore-wise; I feel that if an enemy finds your vessel and breaks it open - that clone is super ruined straight away. If the vessel is opened by misadventure or if the wizard needs to crack it open in some emergency and run off with the clone-corpse then I would give them maybe a few hours to find a new vessel or complete the soul transfer before the clone becomes unviable dead flesh.
Recall that the vessel isn't necessarily opaque, a glass tube full of clone and goo is a classic trope, so it's probably not as difficult to target the clone with spells as you seem to be thinking. Whether it's a "creature" you can see or an "object" you can see has several implications for what sorts of shenanigans you might try to get up to with that... the clear glass may still provide a spell line of effect barrier for certain spells, but there's bound to opportunities for edge applications.
There's plenty of fictional precedents for clones being ruined when they're cracked open early, and some precedents for them waking to become soulless infants never intended to live their own lives, and some precedents for them continuing to live as comatose bodies that are vulnerable but not necessarily doomed once removed from their life supporting vat. I don't think that using A vs B vs C is an issue of one of those being mandated by the spell's text (well, B is clearly not RAW, but A or C seem valid), all we really know from the text of Clone is that the vessel provides for the clone to "form," "mature," and remain "inert and endure indefinitely." The vessel is clearly "safe," but that isn't to say that the world outside is "lethal" to the clone-creature, any more than it is to defenseless unconscious creatures in general? Or... it is, under a different DM's interpretation.
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At the very least, I'd rule out object. Objects are supposed to be inanimate, and an inert clone clearly grows. Ruling it as an object also creates a narrative problem because objects are immune to poison damage. If a clone is physically identical to a living creature that could be killed by poison, it stands to reason you could "kill" its clone with poison too.
So that leaves "creature" or "neither." I don't see any impediment to ruling it's a creature considering your body is left in a nearly identical state to a mature but inert clone during Astral Projection, and a petrified creature is also inert in a sense but doesn't become an object either.
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I was also thinking about trees a fair amount while thinking about this post…. A plant monster can be a creature, and so can a beast monster or even just a normal tiny beasts… but are normal plants like trees or bushes considered creatures or objects?
I would rather not create a new “neither” category. creatures objects and magical effects seems robust enough to me that every “thing” should be able to fit into one of those three categories, which are the tags that 5E seems to usually throw around to refer to “things”… I guess maybe you could add substances as a fourth category too, I think that there’s the occasional feature that refers to substances and that might be useful for talking about things like oceans and streams so that they don’t become objects, or to distinguish an area from the terrain and substances found within it…
anyway getting way off topic, I just don’t want to call clones neither creature nor object :p
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I am of the opinion that it is an object same as corpse. Like a corpse, it can become a creature, but it is just an object (created by magic) until it does.
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But, I mean, what cases are you actually asking about? Let's say you can cast a spell at the clone-corpse as if it were a creature - what are you actually asking?
Would you be able to charm the clone-corpse and have that enchantment continue through to when the soul occupies it? No. Not because the clone isn't a creature, but because whatever creature it might be now, it is a different creature when the soul arrives.
Would you be able to damage the clone-corpse as if it were a creature? Yeah, sure. But not because it is a creature. It has no HP, no AC, no save roll modifiers, no nothing. But you can damage it because that makes sense and then it is damaged and maybe ruined and no longer able to house the soul.
I think trying to "decide" ahead of time whether the clone-corpse is an object or a creature then expecting all other rulings to fall in line is a bit of a fool's errand. Ask us a real applicable question about what you want to do with this theoretical clone-corpse and we will give our best views as DMs and players, but the query as-is seems to not actually be a question of rules and mechanics at all.
I’m going with object. The reasoning is because I’m jumping to several conclusions regarding creatures turning into objects when they die. The last sentence of the spell describes some consequences of the original body becoming inert due to the spell. I take those consequences of inert and apply them to the clone. Since I assume that an inert clone can’t be brought to life, it’s dead, and an object.
perhaps it’s Pre-dead, awaiting to live?
Depending what we call this clone, there’s some significant implications for True Polymorph, Animate Object, Polymorph, Create Undead, etc. All very abstract and useless, I’m sure, just trying to figure out at this point if it’s less objectionable on paper for the archwizard’s clone to be the true polymorphed clay golem, or the vessel around it :)
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It's an object, in the same way a corpse is. In fact, that's what it is - a corpse that won't rot so long as it remains inside its vessel.
I would rule that if any of those spells were cast successfully on the unsoulled clone, then at the very least the clone is no longer a viable host. Gotta start from scratch...
For most purposes it's fine to treat them as part of the terrain.
I don't think the rules are written assuming everything can be objectively categorized into a fixed number of disjoint buckets.
There's a few categories that are fairly objective, but outside of freebies like "creature", "magical effect" or "point in space", things get subjective and context-sensitive fast. Even "creature" is somewhat subjective, because at some point living things get too small to consider them meaningful individual targets or give them useful stat blocks. Does Sleep put mosquitoes to sleep, and if so, how many of them count as 1 HP?
"Object" is even more subjective because someone has to decide if a chain is 1 object or 30 objects tangled together, and at what point something is too small or too large. There's definitely things that are non-magical and non-living but fail the criteria for an object, yet can still be a valid target for some game rules. A burning fire is not an object but it can still be manipulated with Control Flames. And a 5x5 area of a lake is not a discrete object either but Shape Water will freeze it. Specific game rules can target things that don't fall into preconceived categories.
So to me "is a tree an object" is a question that can't be answered and has no useful applications. A better question is "does it make sense to treat this particular tree as an object for the purposes of Fireball?"
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If trees are objects when it matters and not when it doesn’t…. I don’t understand how that’s meaningfully different from just saying trees are objects. Unless the intent is to rule inconsistently? In which case, that’s no fun for players, to be told interaction A is fine but B fails in an inconsistent way.
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I don't see any other practical way to run a game of make-believe written in natural language. There's always pathological cases the rules can't account for, there's nothing encoded in the molecules of a chair that fundamentally designates it as an object, and it might make more sense for me to treat a wagon as one object for the purposes of Enlarge/Reduce but as a collection of objects that individual break when the wagon gets rammed by an elk. "Object" is an extremely convenient shorthand for non-creature things you can pick up and carry, but its definition is still fluid and not every rule might agree 100% on what kind of object it considers relevant.
In my experience being consistent is far less important than producing a result that's satisfying and intuitive.
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I agree here. It seems that most (all?) examples of creatures are animate in some fashion. Plants are living things, but don't count as creatures unless they can attack you, for example.
It's a bit hazy.
The corpse example is enlightening as well. You're a creature, and then you're not. Clone does kind of feel like the same thing.
That said, it'd be a nice bit of horror if, in a particular campaign, the sealed container was actually suppressing the clones ability to become an independent creature instead, acting a bit like a magic jar for the clones soul. So when the original caster dies, it enters the "magic jar" and possesses the clone, whose actual soul is shunted off to the great beyond never having known life. What happens if a good spellcaster discovers this, and now has to warn his other good friends not to use clone any more ;) Will they believe him?
OR DID THEY ALREADY KNOW !!!! dun dun dun!
Coder, I agree that trying to define a 5E system of natural laws that answers whether bacteria are "creatures", "objects", "neither", or "substances" isn't useful. But again, what I'm concerned about is, things like a tree (or corpse, etc.) being defined as an object when the player tries to do something interesting with them that requires a creature, but being defined as a creature when the player tries to do something interesting with them that requires an object, as some eternally shifting "gotcha!" from the DM. It should be easy enough to pick one of the two extremes and commit to it for commonly encountered "things" like trees, corpses, or even clones, without it leading to a slippery slope where you're unable to treat a wagon / wagon parts intuitively.
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DMs and players should engage each other in good faith. I doubt in practice you'd need to constantly flip-flop on how you categorize a tree, but even if you did, players would probably accept it if the end result makes sense to them. The real "gotcha" moments in my D&D career have been the times the group settled for a nonsensical or unsatisfying outcome because That's What The Rules Say or because of some previous precedent, and no one wanted to rock the boat.
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