title: Ramon Llull

text: In 1274, while staying at a hermitage on Puig de Randa, the form of the great book Llull was to write was finally given to him through divine revelation: a complex system that he named his "Art", which would become the motivation behind most of his life's efforts.


title: Ramon Llull

text: Llull urged the study of Arabic and other then-insufficiently studied languages in Europe, along with most of his works, to convert Muslims and schismatic Christians. He travelled through Europe to meet with popes, kings, and princes, trying to establish special colleges to prepare future missionaries. In 1276 a language school for Franciscan missionaries was founded at Miramar, funded by the King of Majorca.


title: Ramon Llull

text: About 1291 he went to Tunis, preached to the Saracens, disputed with them in philosophy, and after another brief sojourn in Paris, returned to the East as a missionary. Llull travelled to Tunis a second time in about 1304, and wrote numerous letters to the king of Tunis, but little else is known about this part of his life.


title: Ramon Llull

text: He returned in 1308, reporting that the conversion of Muslims should be achieved through prayer, not through military force. He finally achieved his goal of linguistic education at major universities in 1311 when the Council of Vienne ordered the creation of chairs of Hebrew, Arabic and Chaldean (Aramaic) at the universities of Bologna, Oxford, Paris, and Salamanca as well as at the Papal Court.


title: Ramon Llull

text: Llull called for the expulsion of Jews who were unwilling to convert to Christianity, and influenced later European monarchs to expel Jews in practice.


title: Ramon Llull

text: In 1314, at the age of 82, Llull traveled again to Tunis, possibly prompted by the correspondence between King James II of Aragon and al-Lihyani, the Hafsid caliph, indicating that the caliph wished to convert to Christianity. Whereas Llull had been met with difficulties during his previous visits to North Africa, he was allowed to operate this time without interference from the authorities due to the improved relations between Tunis and Aragon.


title: Ramon Llull

text: His last work is dated December 1315 in Tunis. The circumstances of his death remain unknown. He probably died sometime between then and March 1316, either in Tunis, on the ship on the return voyage, or in Majorca upon his return. Llull's tomb, created in 1448, is in the Franciscan church in Palma, Majorca.


title: Ramon Llull

text: Llull’s "Art" (in Latin "Ars") is at the center of his thought and undergirds his entire corpus. It is a system of universal logic based on a set of general principles activated in a combinatorial process. It can be used to prove statements about God and Creation (e.g., God is a Trinity). Often the "Art" formulates these statements as questions and answers (e.g., Q: Is there a Trinity in God? A: Yes.). It works cumulatively through an iterative process; statements about God's nature must be proved for each of His essential attributes in order to prove the statement true for God (i.e., Goodness is threefold, Greatness is threefold, Eternity is threefold, Power is threefold, etc.).


title: Ramon Llull

text: What sets Llull's system apart is its unusual use of letters and diagrams, giving it an algebraic or algorithmic character. He developed the "Art" over the course of many decades, writing new books to explain each new version. The "Art"s trajectory can be divided into two main phases, although each phase contains numerous variations. The first is sometimes called the Quaternary Phase (1274 - 1290) and the second the Ternary Phase (1290 - 1308).


title: Ramon Llull

text: The two main works of the Quaternary Phase are the "Ars compendiosa inveniendi veritatem" (ca. 1274) and the "Ars demonstrativa" (ca. 1283). The "Ars demonstrativa" has twelve main figures. A set of sixteen principles, or 'dignities' (divine attributes) comprise the general foundation for the system's operation. These are contained in the first figure (Figure A) and assigned letters (B through R). The rest of the figures enable the user to take these principles and elaborate to demonstrate the truth of statements. Figure T is important because it contains "relational principles"(i.e. minority, majority, equality), also assigned letters. The "Art" then lists combinations of letters as a sort of visual aid for the process of working through every possible combination of principles. Figure S displays the Augustinian powers of the soul (will, intellect, and memory) and their acts (willing, understanding, remembering). Figure S was eliminated from the "Art" after 1290. Even in subsequent versions of the "Art" Llull maintained that the powers of the soul needed to be in alignment for a proper operation of the "Art". This differentiates Llull's system from Aristotelian logic. Because classical logic did not take the powers of the soul into account it was ill-equipped to handle theological issues, in Llull's view.


title: Ramon Llull

text: Llull inaugurated the Ternary Phase with two works written in 1290: the "Ars inventiva veritatis" and the "Art amativa". The culmination of this phase came in 1308 with a finalized version of the "Art" called the "Ars generalis ultima". In the same year Llull wrote an abbreviated version called the "Ars brevis". In these works Llull revised the "Art" to have only four main figures. He reduced the number of divine principles in the first figure to nine (goodness, greatness, eternity, power, wisdom, will, virtue, truth, glory). Figure T also now has nine relational principles (difference, concordance, contrariety, beginning, middle, end, majority, equality, minority), reduced from fifteen. Llull kept the combinatorial aspect of the process.


title: Ramon Llull

text: Llull introduced an aspect of the system called the "correlatives" just before the final transition to the Ternary Phase. The correlatives first appear in a work called the "Lectura super figuras Artis demonstrativae" (c.1285-7) and came to undergird his formulation of the nature of being. The doctrine of correlatives stipulates that everything, at the level of being, has a threefold structure: agent, patient, act. For example, the divine principle "goodness" consists of "that which does good" (agent), "that which receives good" (patient), and "to do good" (act). Llull developed a system of Latin suffixes to express the correlatives, i.e. "bonitas" (goodness); "bonificans", "bonificatus", "bonificare". This became the basis for proving that the divine principles are distinct yet equivalent in God (each principle has the same underlying threefold structure, yet retains its own unique correlatives). This supports the combinatorial operation of the "Art" (i.e., this means that in God goodness "is" greatness and greatness "is" goodness, goodness "is" eternity and eternity "is" goodness, etc.), the Lullian proof of the Trinity (each divine principle has the three correlatives and together the principles comprise the Godhead, therefore the Godhead is threefold) and the Incarnation (the active and passive correlatives are equivalent to matter and form, and the trinitarian unfolding of being occurs on all levels of reality).


title: Ramon Llull

text: It has been pointed out that the "Art"s combinatorial mechanics bear a resemblance to zairja, a device used by medieval Arab astrologers. The Art's reliance on divine attributes also has a certain similarity to the contemplation of the ninety-nine Names of God in the Muslim tradition. Llull's familiarity with the Islamic intellectual tradition is evidenced by the fact that his first work (1271-2) was a compendium of Al-Ghazali's logic.


title: Ramon Llull

text: From early in his career Llull composed dialogues to enact the procedure of the "Art". This is linked to the missionary aspect of the "Art". Llull conceived it as an instrument to convert all peoples of the world to Christianity and experimented with more popular genres to make it easier to understand. His earliest and most well known dialogue is the "Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men", written in Catalan the 1270s and later translated into Latin. It is framed as a meeting of three wise men (a Muslim, a Jew, and a Christian) and a Gentile in the woods. They learn about the Lullian method when they encounter a set of trees with leaves inscribed with Lullian principles. Lady Intelligence appears and informs them of the properties of the trees and the rules for implementing the leaves. The wise men use the trees to prove their respective Articles of Faith to the Gentile (although some of the Islamic tenets cannot be proved with the Lullian procedure) and in the end the Gentile is converted to Christianity.


title: Ramon Llull

text: Llull also composed many other dialogues. Later in his career when he became concerned with heretical activity in the Arts Faculty of the University of Paris, he wrote "disputations" with philosophers as interlocutors. He also created a character for himself and he stars in many of these dialogues as the Christian wise man (for instance: "Liber de quaestione valde alta et profunda", composed in 1311).


title: Ramon Llull

text: Llull structured many of his works around trees. In some, like the "Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men", the "leaves" of the trees stand for the combinatorial elements (principles) of the "Art". In other works a series of trees shows how the "Art" generates all ("encyclopedic") knowledge. The "Tree of Science" (1295-6) comprises sixteen trees ranging from earthly and moral to divine and pedagogical. Each tree is divided into seven parts (roots, trunk, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruits). The roots always consist of the Lullian divine principles and from there the tree grows into the differentiated aspects of its respective category of reality.


title: Ramon Llull

text: Llull also wrote narrative prose drawing on the literary traditions of his time (epic, romance) to express the "Art". These works were intended to communicate the potentially complex operations of the "Art" to a lay audience. "Blanquerna" (c.1276-83) is his most well known novel. "Felix" (1287-9) is also notable, although it was not widely circulated during his lifetime and was only available in Catalan. It is formulated as a sort of "Bildungsroman" in which Felix, the main character, begins on a journey at the instigation of his father who has written the "Book of Wonders". The book is divided into ten chapters (echoing the encyclopedic range of the Tree of Science) as Felix gains knowledge: God, angels, heavens, elements, plans, minerals, animals, man, Paradise, and Hell. It turns out to be a metafiction, as Felix's journey ends at a monastery where he relates the "Book of Wonders" now embellished and fused with the account of his own adventures.


title: Ramon Llull

text: According to Llull's autobiographical "Vita", his "Art" was not received well at the University of Paris when he first presented it there in the 1280s. This experience supposedly is what led him to revise the "Art" (creating the tertiary version). Llull's "Art" was never adopted by mainstream academia of the thirteenth and early-fourteenth centuries, but it did accrue quite a bit of interest. A significant number of Lullian manuscripts were collected by the Carthusian monks of Paris at Vauvert and by several theologians who donated their manuscripts to the Sorbonne Library. One disciple, Thomas Le Myésier, went so far as to create elaborate compilations of Llull's works, including a manuscript dedicated to the queen of France.


title: Ramon Llull

text: In the 1360s the inquisitor Nicholas Eymerich condemned Lullism in Aragon. He obtained a papal bull in 1376 to prohibit Lullian teaching, although it proved ineffective. In Paris Jean Gerson also issued a series of polemical writings against Lullism. There was an official document issued to prohibit the Lullian "Art" from being taught in the Faculty of Theology.


title: Ramon Llull

text: Llull's most significant early modern proponent was Nicholas of Cusa. He collected many works by Llull and adapted many aspects of Lullian thought for his own mystical theology. There was also growing interest in Lullism in Catalonia, Italy, and France. Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples published eight of Llull's books in 1499, 1505, and 1516. Lefèvre was therefore responsible for the first significant circulation of Llull's work in print outside of Catalonia. It is thought that the influence of Lullian works in Renaissance Italy (coinciding with the rise of neoplatonism) contributed to a development in metaphysics, from a static Artistotelian notion of being to reality as a dynamic process. In Northern and Central Europe Lullism was adopted by Lutherans and Calvinists interested in promoting programs of theological humanism. Gottfried Leibniz was exposed to these currents during his years in Mainz, and Llull's "Art" clearly informed his "De Arte Combinatoria".


title: Ramon Llull

text: There is a significant body of alchemical treatises falsely attributed to Llull. The two fundamental works of the corpus are the "Testamentum" and the "Liber de secretis naturae seu de quinta essentia" which both date to the fourteenth century. Occultists such as Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and Giordano Bruno were inspired by these works. Despite Llull's growing identification with alchemy and Neoplatonic mysticism, others (such as Giulio Pace and Johann Heinrich Alsted) were still interested in the Lullian "Art" as a universal logic, even in the seventeenth century when Descartes and Ramus proposed competing systems.


title: Ramon Llull

text: Meanwhile, in Spain, the Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, Archbishop of Toledo, had taken up Lullism for his project of reform. Cisneros mobilized various intellectuals and editors, founding chairs at universities and publishing Llull's works. Founded in 1633, the Pontifical College of La Sapiencia on Majorca became the epicenter for teaching Lullism. The Franciscans from La Sapiencia were the ones to seek Llull's canonization at Rome in the seventeenth century. These efforts were renewed in the eighteenth century, but never succeeded. Llull was beatified in 1847 by Pope Pius IX. His feast day was assigned to 30 June and is celebrated by the Third Order of St. Francis.


title: Ramon Llull

text: Llull is now recognized by scholars as significant in both the history of Catalan literature as well as intellectual history. From 1906 to 1950 the Comissió Editora Lul·liana led a project to edit Llull's works written in Catalan. This series was called the Obres de Ramon Llull (ORL). In 1957 the Raimundus-Lullus-Institut was founded in Freiburg, Germany to begin the work of editing Llull's Latin works. This series is called the Raimundi Lulli Opera Latina (ROL) and is still ongoing. In 1990 the work on the Catalan texts was restarted with the Nova Edició de les Obres de Ramon Llull (NEORL). In the world of English-language scholarship the work of Frances Yates on memory systems ("The Art of Memory", published 1966) brought new interest to Ramon Llull as a figure in the history of cognitive systems.


title: Ramon Llull

text: Llull has appeared in the art and literature of the last century, especially in the genres of surrealism, philosophical fantasy, and metafiction. Salvador Dalí's alchemical thought was influenced by Ramon Llull and Dalí incorporated the diagrams from the Lullian "Art" into his work called "Alchimie des Philosophes". In 1937 Jorge Luis Borges wrote a snippet called "Ramon Llull' s Thinking Machine" proposing the Lullian "Art" as a device to produce poetry.


title: Ramon Llull

text: Other notable references to Ramon Llull are: Aldous Huxley's short story "The Death of Lully", a fictionalized account aftermath of Llull's stoning in Tunis, set aboard the Genoese ship that returned him to Mallorca. Paul Auster refers to Llull (as Raymond Lull) in his memoir "The Invention of Solitude" in the second part, "The Book of Memory". Llull is also a major character in "The Box of Delights", a children's novel by poet John Masefield.


title: Ramon Llull

text: With the discovery in 2001 of his lost manuscripts, "Ars notandi", "Ars eleccionis", and "Alia ars eleccionis", Llull is also given credit for creating an electoral system now known as the Borda count and Condorcet criterion, which Jean-Charles de Borda and Nicolas de Condorcet independently proposed centuries later.


title: Slammiversary (2022)

text: Slammiversary was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by Impact Wrestling. It took place on June 19, 2022 at The Asylum in Nashville, Tennessee. It celebrated the promotion's 20th anniversary, with the show being held exactly 20 years to the date of Impact's very first event, and was the 18th event under the Slammiversary chronology.


title: Slammiversary (2022)

text: Ten matches were contested at the event, with two matches contested on the pre-show and one that was a digital exclusive. In the main event, Josh Alexander defeated Eric Young to retain the Impact World Championship. In other prominent matches, Mike Bailey won an Ultimate X match to win the Impact X Division Championship, Jordynne Grace won the inaugural Queen of the Mountain match to win the Impact Knockouts World Championship, The Good Brothers defeated The Briscoes to win the Impact World Tag Team Championship, and Impact Originals defeated Honor No More in a 10-man tag team match. This event featured videos and appearances honoring the anniversary by Sting, Kurt Angle, AJ Styles, James Storm, Chris Harris and Dixie Carter.


title: Slammiversary (2022)

text: On April 23, 2022, at Rebellion, it was announced by Impact Wrestling that Slammiversary would take place on June 19, 2022, in Nashville, Tennessee.


title: Slammiversary (2022)

text: The event featured several professional wrestling matches that involved different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds, plots, and storylines. Wrestlers portrayed heroes, villains, or less distinguishable characters in scripted events that build tension and culminate in a wrestling match or series of matches. Storylines were produced on Impact's weekly television program.


title: Slammiversary (2022)

text: On May 11, Impact Wrestling announced a Gauntlet for the Gold for the May 12 episode of "Impact!", with the winner earning an Impact World Championship match against Josh Alexander at Slammiversary. On the May 12 episode of "Impact!", Eric Young won the Gauntlet for the Gold by last eliminating Chris Sabin to become the number one contender for the title. On the May 19 episode of "Impact!", Alexander would come to the aid of The Briscoes from a post match attack by Young and his Violent By Design group. This would lead to a match on the May 26 episode of "Impact!" where Violent by Design would defeat Alexander and The Briscoes when Young pinned Mark Briscoe. In an effort to weaken Violent By Design, Alexander would face Joe Doering on the June 9 episode of "Impact!", but would lose by DQ when he was caught using a VBD flag on Doering followed by a standoff with Young. There would be a tense contract signing between Alexander and Young on the June 16 episode of "Impact!" where Violent By Design would attack Scott D'Amore and Alexander ultimately leaving him bloody after a Young piledriver on the exposed wood portion of the ring.


title: Slammiversary (2022)

text: On May 11, Impact announced that Ace Austin would defend the Impact X Division Championship at Slammiversary in an Ultimate X match, and several qualifying matches would take place in the weeks leading up to Slammiversary. Kenny King, Mike Bailey, and Trey Miguel qualified for the match by defeating Chris Bey, Laredo Kid, and Alex Shelley, respectively. On the June 2 episode of "Impact!", after King defended his spot against Blake Christian, former Impact and All Elite Wrestling (AEW) wrestler Jack Evans was announced as the fifth participant. On June 3, at the Best of the Super Juniors event held by New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), Austin joined Bullet Club. Backstage after the incident, Austin's former tag team partner Alex Zayne confronted Austin and Bullet Club, only to be attacked. As a result, the following week on "Impact!!", Zayne was announced as the last participant in the Ultimate X match. On the day of Slammiversary, it was announced that, due to Evans suffering an injury, Andrew Everett would take his place in the match.


title: Slammiversary (2022)

text: On the May 12 episode of "Impact!", Knockouts executive Gail Kim announced the first ever Queen of the Mountain match, with Tasha Steelz defending the Impact Knockouts World Championship against previous champions Chelsea Green, Deonna Purrazzo, Jordynne Grace, and Mia Yim. On June 10, Impact announced that former four-time Knockouts World Champion Mickie James will serve as the match's special guest enforcer.


title: Slammiversary (2022)

text: On the May 19 episode of "Impact!", The Briscoes would successfully defend the Impact World Tag Team Championship against Joe Doering & Deaner and also The Good Brothers defeated Matt Taven & Mike Bennett. The May 26 episode of "Impact!" would feature Scott D'Amore making a tag title match at Slammiversary between The Briscoes and Good Brothers. Also on that show, The Good Brothers would taunt The Briscoes saying they can't be considered the best team till they beat them. On the June 2 episode of "Impact!", The Good Brothers would mock The Briscoes about beating them at Multiverse of Matches leading to a brawl. The June 9 episode of "Impact!" would have footage of The Good Brothers at the Briscoe Family Chicken Farm in Delaware, mocking it and having a wild brawl with The Briscoes and their father. On the June 16 episode of "Impact!", The Briscoes would defeat Jay White & Chris Bey despite having fellow Bullet Club members (The Good Brothers and Hikuleo) at ringside.


title: Slammiversary (2022)

text: On the May 26 episode of "Impact!", during a match between Impact Wrestling originals Chris Sabin and Frankie Kazarian, Honor No More (Eddie Edwards, Matt Taven, Mike Bennett, PCO, and Vincent) attacked both Sabin and Kazarian. This was after Taven and Bennett were denied a rematch with The Good Brothers Impact World Tag Team Championship The Briscoes, proclaiming that "if they can't have what they want, nobody can". Taven and Bennett went on to defeat Heath and Rhino the following week, before the rest of Honor No More came and target Rhino with steel chairs. While Rhino was stretchered out of the arena, Kazarian and The Motor City Machine Guns (Sabin and Alex Shelley) arrived before anymore damage was done. After the incident, Impact Executive Vice President Scott D'Amore announced a ten-man tag team match for Slammiversary, pitting Honor No More against a team of Impact Originals, which by then consisted of Kazarian and the Motor City Machine Guns. On the June 16 episode of "Impact!", former Impact World Champion Nick Aldis (then known as Magnus) was announced as the fourth member of the Impact Originals.


title: Slammiversary (2022)

text: After having his ankle broken by Moose seven months ago, Sami Callihan made his return at Under Siege, attacking Moose when he attempted to hold the show hostage. In the following weeks, Callihan would continue to play mind games with Moose, either attacking him after the arena lights or messing with the electronics. On the June 9 episode of "Impact!", Callihan and Moose brawled backstage, to where Callihan eventually locked Moose in a boiler room. Impact later announced that Callihan and Moose will collide at Slammiversary in a Monster's Ball match.


title: Slammiversary (2022)

text: On the May 12 episode of "Impact!", The Influence (Madison Rayne and Tenille Dashwood) would successfully defend the Impact Knockouts World Tag Team Championship against Gisele Shaw and Alisha Edwards. On the May 19 episode of "Impact!", The Influence would celebrate their win and mock Rosemary and Havok about recent Knockouts title losses, leading to Havok challenging the undefeated Masha Slamovich to a match. That match would happen on the May 26 episode of "Impact!", where Slamovich would defeat Havok soundly and quickly leading to her disappearing from Impact. On the June 2 episode of "Impact!", The Influence would mock Rosemary about Havok's disappearance leading to a match the next week. On the June 9 episode of "Impact!", Rosemary would defeat Dashwood (w/ Rayne). Afterwards The Influence would attack Rosemary until Taya Valkyrie made the save, though they had some tension from their previous feud. The June 16 episode of "Impact!" would have Rosemary and Valkyrie settling their past with each other since they have a tag title shot at Slammiversary.


title: Slammiversary (2022)

text: On May 28, at the Vegas Vacation event held by The Wrestling Revolver, Rich Swann defeated Matt Cardona to win the Impact Digital Media Championship. Afterwards, Cardona refused to give up the title, attacked Swann after the match, and made it off with the title belt. On the June 9 episode of "Impact!", Cardona appeared on a Zoom call with tag team partner Brian Myers, "relinquishing" the title to the latter after suffering a torn bicep. Myers would later challenge Swann to a Digital Media Championship match at Slammiversary to determine the "real" champion.


title: Slammiversary (2022)

text: On June 14, Impact would announce that the Reverse Battle Royal would return at the Slammiversary preshow. Raj Singh, Shera, Johnny Swinger and Zicky Dice made it known on the June 16 episode of "Impact!" that they intended to win it.


title: Slammiversary (2022)

text: The opening match on the Pre-show was for the Impact Digital Media Championship between Rich Swann and Brian Myers. Myers was in control with a spear and DDT, but Swann kept kicking out. Myers charged for the Roster Cut clothesline. Swann met him with kicks then followed with a handspring cutter. A 450 splash sealed the deal. Swann finally got the championship back in his hands.


title: Slammiversary (2022)

text: Next was the Reverse Battle Royal. In the first stage, participants start on the outside and battle to get into the ring. The field included Johnny Swinger, Chris Bey, David Young, Zicky Dice, Shera, Raj Singh, Bhupinder Gujjar, Shark Boy, Shogun, Nate Webb, Aiden Prince, Crazzy Steve, Mike Jackson, Steve Maclin, Chase Stevens, and Slash with Father James Mitchell. The participants who advanced to the next stage were Bey, Swinger, Young, Maclin, Stevens, Shark Boy, Gujjar, and Shera. In the second stage, the participants seek to eliminate each other by tossing their opponents over the top rope and out of the ring, as in a traditional battle royal. Eliminations were Stevens by Shera, Maclin by Bey, Bey by Bey when falling to the floor after hitting a cutter on the apron to eliminate Maclin, Gujjar by Young & Swinger, Shera by Young & Swinger, and Young by Swinger. The final stage between the last two participants is won by pinfall or submission. Shark Boy and Swinger were the final participants. Swinger tossed Shark Boy over the ropes thinking he won, but was reminded of the rules. Swinger warmed up with a muscle pump, then Shark Boy hit him with a Chummer to win.


title: Slammiversary (2022)

text: The opening contest was the Ultimate X match for the X-Division Championship between defending champion Ace Austin, "Speedball" Mike Bailey, Trey Miguel, Kenny King, Alex Zayne, and Andrew Everett, who replaced Jack Evans due to injury. Bailey won the match and the title.


title: Slammiversary (2022)

text: The next match was for the Knockouts World Tag Team Championship. The reuniting Rosemary & Taya Valkyrie faced The Influence (Tenille Dashwood & Madison Rayne). The match was won by Rosemary & Valkyrie.


title: Slammiversary (2022)

text: Next was a Monster's Ball match. Callihan and Moose went to war. Both men were put through tables, Callihan countered a spear for a Death Valley Driver through a barbed wire board, and Callihan hit a piledriver onto thumbtacks. Moose powered up after taking a second piledriver, so Callihan pulled out a barbed wire baseball bat. A couple of wacks and a third piledriver earned victory for Callihan.


title: Slammiversary (2022)

text: The Impact World Tag Team Championship was defended as The Good Brothers faced The Briscoes. After the Good Brothers won, America's Most Wanted appeared to toast the tag team division in Impact.


title: Slammiversary (2022)

text: The next match was a 10-man tag team match featuring the Impact Originals (The Motor City Machine Guns (Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley), Frankie Kazarian, Nick Aldis, & Davey Richards) versus Honor No More (Eddie Edwards, The OGK (Matt Taven and Mike Bennett), Vincent, & PCO). The Impact Originals won the match after much outside interference.


title: Slammiversary (2022)

text: In the next match, the first-ever Queen of the Mountain match was held for the Knockouts Championship between defending champ Tasha Steelz, Jordynne Grace, Deonna Purrazzo, Chelsea Green, and Mia Yim. Mickie James was special guest enforcer. Grace climbed the ladder for victory.


title: Slammiversary (2022)

text: The main event featured Josh Alexander facing Eric Young for the Impact World Championship. Young's allies Joe Doering and Deaner were ringside. Alexander won following a C4 Spike on exposed wood from the ring. After the match, Doering and Deaner would attack Alexander. This would cause Bhupinder Gujjar, Shark Boy, David Young, and Nate Webb to come to his aid. Honor No More (Eddie Edwards, Matt Taven, Mike Bennett and Vincent) would come out to attack them. Chris Sabin, Alex Shelley, Frankie Kazarian and Nick Aldis would join the brawl and help the others to run off Doering, Deaner and Honor No More. Alexander would then address the crowd praising the fans, wrestlers and backstage staff for helping Impact reach the twenty year milestone and beyond.


title: Laurence Olivier on stage and screen

text: Laurence Olivier (1907–1989) was an English actor who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century. He also worked in films throughout his career, playing more than fifty cinema roles. From 1935 he performed in radio broadcasts and, from 1956, had considerable success in television roles.


title: Laurence Olivier on stage and screen

text: After attending drama school, Olivier began his professional career with small touring companies before being taken on in 1925 by Sybil Thorndike and her husband, Lewis Casson, as a bit-part player, understudy and assistant stage manager for their London company. In 1926 he joined the Birmingham Repertory Company, where he was given the chance to play a wide range of key roles. In 1930 he had his first important West End success in Noël Coward's "Private Lives", and in 1935 he played in a celebrated production of "Romeo and Juliet" alongside Gielgud and Peggy Ashcroft, and by the end of the decade he was an established star. In the 1940s, together with Richardson and John Burrell, Olivier was the co-director of the Old Vic, building it into a highly respected company. There his most celebrated roles included Shakespeare's Richard III and Sophocles's Oedipus. In the 1950s Olivier was an independent actor-manager, but his stage career was in the doldrums until he joined the "avant garde" English Stage Company in 1957 to play the title role in "The Entertainer". From 1963 to 1973 he was the founding director of Britain's National Theatre, running a resident company that fostered many future stars. His own parts there included the title role in "Othello" (1964) and Shylock in "The Merchant of Venice" (1970).


title: Laurence Olivier on stage and screen

text: In 1930, to gain money for his forthcoming marriage, Olivier began his film career with small roles in two films. In 1939 he appeared as Heathcliff in "Wuthering Heights" in a role that saw him nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. The following year he was again nominated for the same award for his portrayal of Maxim de Winter in "Rebecca". In 1944 he produced, directed and appeared as Henry V of England in "Henry V". There were Oscar nominations for the film, including Best Picture and Best Actor, but it won none and the film instead won a "Special Award". He won the Best Actor award for the 1948 film "Hamlet", which became the first non-American film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. He later received Oscar nominations for roles in "Richard III" (1955), "The Entertainer" (1960), "Othello" (1965), "Sleuth" (1972), "Marathon Man" (1976) and "The Boys from Brazil" (1978). In 1979 he was also presented with an Honorary Award, at the Academy Awards, to recognise his lifetime of contribution to the art of film. He was nominated for nine other acting Oscars and one each for production and direction. Throughout his career Olivier appeared in radio dramas and poetry readings, and made his television debut in 1956.


title: Laurence Olivier on stage and screen

text: After being ill for the last twenty-two years of his life, Olivier died of kidney failure on 11 July 1989. In reflection, and about Olivier's pioneering of Britain's National Theatre, the broadcaster Melvyn Bragg wrote: "[N]o one doubts that the National is perhaps his most enduring monument". Olivier's claim to theatrical greatness lay not only in his acting, but as, in the words of the English theatre director Peter Hall, "the supreme man of the theatre of our time".


title: Laurence Olivier on stage and screen

text: This table contains Olivier's known professional theatrical roles. It also contains the occasions when he both acted and directed. It does not contain those productions where he was a director but did not appear on stage. It also omits the amateur productions in which he performed at school, mostly Shakespeare, playing, among other roles, Brutus, Puck and also female roles, including Katherina in "The Taming of the Shrew".


title: Laurence Olivier on stage and screen

text: This table contains Olivier's stage work as a director. It does not include the 15 productions in which he also appeared, which are shown in the table above.


title: Titan Quest

text: Titan Quest is an action role playing hack and slash video game developed by Iron Lore Entertainment for Microsoft Windows. It was published by THQ in 2006. It was released on Steam in 2007, and later ported to mobile devices by DotEmu and released in 2016; later versions were published by THQ Nordic. Versions for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch were released in 2018. The story follows a player-created protagonist as they navigate Ancient Greece, Egypt and China on a quest to defeat the Titans after they escape from their ancient prison. The gameplay is similar to the "Diablo" series, with player navigation being handled with a mouse-driven tile-based interface, and gameplay revolving around role-playing mechanics and real-time combat. Four expansions were released for the game: "" in 2007, "" in 2017, "" in 2019 and "" in 2021.


title: Titan Quest

text: "Titan Quest" was envisioned by game designer Brian Sullivan as a role-playing game set in Ancient Greece similar to "Age of Mythology". Production began in 2004 after a successful pitch to THQ. The script was written by Randall Wallace, while Sullivan acted as the designer. Despite being in a mythical setting, the team wanted to make the environments and towns feel as realistic as possible, leading to a large amount of research into ancient cultures. Enemies were inspired by the game's regional mythologies, with designs inspired by the stop-motion work of Ray Harryhausen. The music, composed by Scott Morton and Michael Verrette, was created to avoid the looping tracks of other games.


title: Titan Quest

text: First announced in 2005, "Titan Quest" received generally positive reviews when released, being both praised as a good example of the genre while at the same time being criticized for its traditional gameplay. Sales of the main game and its expansion have been estimated as approaching one million units. The mobile port was tricky for its developers due to adapting the game for touchscreen controls: like the console version, it received positive reviews upon release. The engine and gameplay of "Titan Quest" later became the foundation for "Grim Dawn", a video game developed by team members from Iron Lore following the studio's closure. In 2016, an improved and expanded "Anniversary Edition" was released and received very positive reviews. On November 17, 2017, THQ Nordic released an expansion over ten years after "Immortal Throne", entitled Titan Quest: Ragnarök. In May 2019 THQ Nordic released Atlantis and in December 2021 released Eternal Embers.


title: Titan Quest

text: "Titan Quest" is an action role-playing game set in the pre-Roman Ancient World: these include Ancient Greece, Egypt, and the Silk Road leading through Asia. Players take control of an avatar: players are able to choose gender, name and tunic color. The three-dimensional world is navigated through an overhead third-person view, with the player character being controlled with the mouse through a point-and-click interface, while abilities are mapped to keyboard buttons. The environment is obscured by a "Fog of War" effect which blacks out unexplored environments on the minimap. Optional text tutorials for gameplay elements are unlocked progressively throughout the game and can be viewed at any time.


title: Titan Quest

text: As they progress, players gain experience points through defeating enemies and completing quests for non-player characters (NPCs) scattered around environments: these raise a character's experience level, which grant access to fresh skills and points that can be used to upgrade character attributes such as health and energy levels, dexterity, intelligence, or strength. If the player dies, they respawn at rebirth fountains scattered through the world, although they lose some accumulated experience points. Quests are divided into Main Quests related to the central narrative, and side quests unique to particular areas of the world. Other NPCs can be found in towns and cities that act as Merchants selling equipment and items: these can be both bought and sold. Player characters have multiple equipment slots, which can take armor for limbs and torso, weapons or shields, and accessories that grant passive boons.


title: Titan Quest

text: Fighting takes the form of real-time hack and slash combat, with players attacking randomly-generated enemies highlighted by the mouse. Available weapon types for characters include swords, clubs, axes, and staves. In addition to the standard attack with an assigned weapon, offensive skills can be deployed. Using active skills triggers a cooldown meter, rendering that skill unusable until the meter depletes. Items and equipment can also be looted from fallen enemies and chests scattered through environments: these range in quality, with grey standing for low-quality gear while purple stands for a "Legendary" item, and orange denotes a Relic or Charm which can be equipped to the player to increase an attribute such as elemental damage resistance. The majority of items and equipment are randomly generated, and are associated with particular types of enemies. The world's currency, Gold, can be gained through quest completion, opening chests and defeating certain enemies. Gold is used with the various shop NPCs in exchange for their services.


title: Titan Quest

text: After leveling up for the first time, the player can access Masteries, skill tree-based upgrade systems where skill points unlocked upon leveling up can be used to access and boost different skills. Mastery abilities expend energy, which is replenished over time when skills are not in use or by using energy drinks. There are eight available Masteries to choose from (Defence, Warfare, Hunting, Rogue, Earth, Storm, Nature and Spirit). Players can access two Masteries at any one time, mixing skills from both trees. The combination of different Masteries create different character classes: for instance, combining Nature and Earth Masteries grants players the "Summoner" class, while Defense and Warfare Masteries create the "Conqueror". There are 36 possible Classes, which include pure disciplines within one Mastery and hybrids between different Masteries. After a certain point in the game, the player has access to Mystics, NPCs which can reallocate skill points for a fee.


title: Titan Quest

text: In addition to single-player, the title features cooperative multiplayer, where players can accept invitation from up to six other players to join their game session through either LAN or online connection. Alongside being able to fight enemies together, players can swap messages and exchange loot. There is also a Level Editor available, where players can access developer tools and create their own levels which can be shared with other players. The editor features a large number of options for environment customization, including adjusting the shade of environmental elements like roads.


title: Titan Quest

text: "Titan Quest" begins with a narration, detailing how the Titans once ruled the primordial darkness before the light of the Olympian Gods appeared: after a great war, the Titans were exiled and imprisoned, and the Olympians ushered in a golden age for the mortal world. An unknown time later, a trio of lesser Titans known as Telkines broke the communication conduit linking Olympus with the mortal world, and summoned armies of monsters to terrorize the world and prepare for the release of the Titans. The player character begins their quest at the village of Helos, where beasts are destroying the local crops. Fighting their way through Greece, they learn of Telkines from a group called the Order of Prometheus. After defeating the first Telkine beneath the palace of Knossos, the player then travels to Egypt and attempts to restore the connection between Earth and Olympus. The ritual fails, and they must defeat a second Telkine. The player then pursues the final Telkine along the Silk Road to China. Pursuing the Telkine to the Wusou Mountains, the player is too late to prevent the release of the Titan Typhon, who travels to Olympus to destroy the gods. After the player defeats Typhon, Zeus speaks to the player, telling them that they, a human champion, have proved humanity can live without the protection of Olympus.


title: Titan Quest

text: "Titan Quest" was the brainchild of game designer Brian Sullivan: while he was working on "Age of Empires", which sported a Grecian setting, he came up with the concept of creating a similar game while including the region's mythology. The concept work for "Titan Quest" began in 2000, when its developer Iron Lore Entertainment was formed by Sullivan and Paul Chieffo. The two brought together a skeleton team to create a demo with which to find a publisher. During this time, the game was described by producer Jeff Goodsill as being "on the drawing board". The creative leads on the project were Sullivan, Chieffo, programmer Max McGuire, and artists Rich Sullivan and Josh McHugh. According to Sullivan, the pre-production process lasted over a year. Iron Lore's January 2004 pitch to THQ was successful, and development began once they had secured a contract in 2004. The initial staff up to that time was just nine people working in a small office area: when production started and further staff were hired, the team size grew to 38, which included temporary and late development additions. Sullivan was involved in multiple areas of the development, but his main responsibility was game design and overseeing content creation. "Titan Quest" was aimed at both casual and hardcore gamers, as the necessary prices for games necessitated reaching out to a wide audience to get a profit. For this reason, the team chose the action role-playing genre. Developing the game was made more difficult by the necessity to create Iron Lore around it, recruiting and training new staff. Other studios were also involved with development. Towards the end of development, Demiurge Studios was brought in to help with the final stages during the alpha-beta-ship stages. Demiurge first helped with memory optimization; then worked on the level editor and modification functions so they worked as an independent function; and finally created installers for both the demo and the main game. Demiurge's involvement gave Iron Lore more time and energy to devote to fixing bugs and polishing gameplay. The CGI opening cinematic was created by Blur Studio.


title: Titan Quest

text: According to designer Ben Schneider, the basic story was built around the recurring motif in multiple mythologies where a younger generation of deities defeat older primal beings, with the main premise being that victory being overturned. They stayed within their mythological subject matter rather than straying into historical events: this was due to an incident during the release of "Age of Empires" where the developers needed to cut a scenario showing Korean people coming under attack from invading Japanese due to potential political and popular backlash in both countries. The game's story and script were written by Randall Wallace, a screenwriter who had written recent successful films "Braveheart" and "Pearl Harbor". "Titan Quest" was his first time writing for a video game. Together with Iron Lore staff, Wallace created a story where humans and the Olympians faced both the Titans and the mythical beasts allied with them that had retreated to the forgotten parts of the world. According to Wallace, Iron Lore wanted story to be a priority in contrast to most other video games, with the player experience focusing on growing their character and learning the world's lore from NPCs. Speaking about his experience writing for the game compared to his work on films, he needed to work within more rigid guidelines and the need to make the story fit in with the gameplay and content. This meant that some scenarios needed to be cut either due to budget limitations or some sequences working so well that they were extended. A major change from his writing for films was that it was the side characters rather than the main character that drove the story forward, so he needed to make them entertaining and important to furthering the plot. The team wanted a world with a scope beyond the main story, with material covering all of its locations. They also included NPC storytellers that would relate local legends and myths to the player in a similar way to storytellers of the time. Later, lead gameplay designer Arthur Bruno faulted the presentation as unappealing compared to the version of Greek mythology portrayed by "God of War" series, saying that the original atmosphere "was seriously lacking a sense of dread and mystery".


title: Titan Quest

text: The game's art director was Michael Sheidow, who had done concept work for "Dungeons & Dragons Online" before joining Iron Lore. Initially hired as lead artist, Sheidow was at the time feeling "burnt out" by the design approaches used for "Dungeons & Dragons Online". He became art director after the then-current art director proved inadequate for the job, and after the initial shock, set to work managing the general artwork for the title. He was in charge of a 12-strong artistic team, and they needed to create a cohesive experience without a clear narrative to guide them. They also needed to account for the four months "wasted" time under the previous art director. A large amount of research went into what environments, architecture and other elements could be put into each environment so it fit in with the game's setting. Sheidow personally did several helmet designs for the game, all based on surviving examples of early-Bronze Age helmets, along with added elements from other ancient helmet types. He created a broad range of helmet shapes which could be then adjusted with different materials to create high variation. The majority of weapon design was handled by Joe Mirabello, who claimed to have created nearly 1000 different weapons split between six types.


title: Titan Quest

text: Enemy creatures were taken from the various mythologies the team drew from, and their designs inspired by the stop-motion work of Ray Harryhausen. Sheidow valued the chance of working with mystical creatures, as his previous work had been limited to stock fantasy monsters from the "Dungeons & Dragons" universe. According to him, the process started when the chosen enemy monsters were given initial designs by lead concept artist Rich Sullivan. Each design was reviewed, and the most suitable was chosen. Creature designs needed to incorporate design choices from the game, such as the monsters' environments and individual fighting styles. They also needed to consider how much detail to put into character models depending on their relative position to the camera at any given time. When it reached the modelling stage, the monster designs were further refined to work within the restrictions of the game, then it was sent to the art time again for final adjustments and mapping of unique animations. The particle effects were handled by Travis Doggett: one of the more prominent pieces of his work were the mastery skills, which had particular themes related to their abilities. According to animator Brian Labore, model animation proved a taxing task, as there were over eighty different monsters which ranged from typical mythical beings to more exotic and unique enemies from each region. The player character also had "hundreds" of animations to incorporate.


title: Titan Quest

text: The game used a specially-developed proprietary engine developed by Iron Lore staff. This was done as, when development started, no third-party engines existed that could support the team's vision for the game: in Sullivan's words, there were "plenty of technology solutions for someone creating a shooter, but not as much for a role-playing game". One of the key parts of the new engine was an environmental creation tool dubbed "the editor" by staff. This tool combined a tile-based horizontal plain with a height-based map, and allowed for subtle adjustments to environments and terrain with easy-to-use developer tools. Level and plain boundaries were set using cliffs and plateaus within the environment. Objects such as chests and enemies could be then "dropped" into environments using a point-and-click system, some of which could be directly integrated using special "tile" elements which stitched into the wider environment for objects such as bridges and crags. All of this necessitated a large amount of research on multiple subjects, including the flora of Egypt and the appearance of Ancient Greek roads and paths. This development tool was the version released with the retail version so players could create and share their own levels. Level and map creation was handled by a three-person team, with each one needing to agree upon a specific layout and design before it went into full production. While early builds used a high amount of detail along level boundaries, the team switched to simple boundary designs as they "read better" for players and allowed better technical performance. The challenge the content creation team set themselves was creating these areas while making boundaries seem natural. This combination of height and grid-based navigation and environments had not been done when the system was being designed in 2002: most of the map was shaped using the height map, while specialist features and horizontal navigation used the grid. In a preview about the game, the developers said the game was built around "database driven modular proxies", a system where different elements within environments were seamlessly interacted and could interact freely. The artificial intelligence (AI) was designed so individual units would behave differently depending on situation and combat ability. The pathfinding for AI units such as NPCs and enemy units was handled using the PathEngine, a licensed middleware engine dedicated to this task. "Titan Quest" was one of the first major Western titles to use PathEngine.


title: Titan Quest

text: Gameplay was compared frequently to Blizzard's "Diablo" series. According to Sullivan, the comparison was inevitable as "Diablo" helped define the genre, and was emphasized by the lack of action RPGs at the time. While the core gameplay remained traditional, they attempted to innovate in other areas. Character creation was simplified to simply choosing a name and gender rather than character types being tied to classes or chosen proficiency. They also effectively removed tutorials so players could get straight into gameplay, using games like "Neverwinter Nights" as an example of tutorials impeding players during early stages. When creating the skill system, the team looked at earlier successful RPGs and considered how they could improve on them. They also wanted to avoid creating characters who had "a little of everything" while offering replayability. The result was the creation of the themed masteries, with the added element of skill acquisition not being tied to level progression, allowing for players to bank skill points for different purposes. This system was built to encourage player freedom and represent logical character progression rather than tying one character to one class. Spawn points for enemies were governed by a random generation system, of what monsters are spawned depending on both environment and player level. Loot was controlled by a database system which mixed and matched characteristics to produce "over 100,000" item combinations. Loot drops were also made to fit the types of creatures killed, in contrast to other games such as "World of Warcraft" which had animals dropping currency and weapons regardless. Loot types were also designed to be clearly visible on enemies so players could pick and choose which enemies to engage and which defeated enemy to loot. According to Bruno, the team were limited with the amount of impact and realism they could put into combat by the necessity of keeping the game within its prescribed ESRB age ratings of "E for Everyone" and "T for Teens": this meant that blood was non-existent and hit reactions were minimal, negatively affecting player impressions of the game. Multiplayer was part of the game plan from its beginnings, with the main goal being to foster a community around the game. Bruno later faulted the lack of secure multiplayer as one of the major faults with the game: THQ apparently was unwilling to invest in this.


title: Titan Quest

text: The music and sound design for "Titan Quest" was handled by Scott Morton and Mike Verrette. In his role as sound designer, Morton worked from specifications sent by other parts of the "Titan Quest" development team. This enabled the free modification of sound elements, but also meant that unexpected and large work loads with short deadlines were a constant possibility. The sound design process for each object and character that needed sound effects was the same: based on their appearance, a new sound effect would be created. In the case of monsters, different sound effects were created for different scenarios, such as them seeing the player for the first time or when in battle. The sounds within environments were designed to be "real" and "visceral". The game's audio engine enabled these sound effects to be dynamically shifted depending on their setting.


title: Titan Quest

text: The music was challenging due to drawing from multiple cultures, then being brought together into a cohesive score while keeping each region distinct from the other. To get the right feeling, the team did research into the historical musical instruments used in each of the game's regions. Rather than a linear progression of looping musical tracks, the norm for most games at the time, the score was broken up into stingers that were brought into the environment when needed. This cuing of themed musical pieces was coupled with a second system tied to environmental progression: musical pieces were arranged in the playlist, then could be cued in depending on the circumstances and environment on-screen. For vocal tracks, the lyrics were written in Ancient Greek: the main vocal piece, "When Gods Fall", was infused into the other vocal tracks and acted as a "cornerstone" for the score. The vocals were provided by Taunia Soderquist.


title: Titan Quest

text: "Titan Quest" was first announced in May 2005, with its first public exhibition being at that year's Electronic Entertainment Expo. The game released on June 26, 2006 in North America, and June 30, 2006 in Europe. According to Bruno, when originally shipped, the ESRB raised the game's rating to "M for Mature" due to the scantily-clad Nymph familiar, although the rating was later amended to its current one. In Japan, the game released on September 1, 2006: it released in English with the manual translated into Japanese. The game was released on Steam on July 17, 2007 alongside its expansion by THQ. An updated version, "Titan Quest" Gold Edition, was released on October 22, 2007 in the West and April 25, 2008 in Japan. It contained both the main game and its expansion. The "Titan Quest" intellectual property was purchased by Nordic Games after THQ began selling off its shares in the wake of its 2013 bankruptcy. Beginning in 2016, Nordic Games began supporting the game's Steam version with patches to fix gameplay and multiplayer issues, along with glitches and bugs.


title: Titan Quest

text: A port of "Titan Quest" for mobile devices was developed under license from Nordic Games by DotEmu, a French developer who had previously developed a successful mobile port of "Ys Chronicles I". The controls and interface were redesigned from the ground up to work for touchscreen controls, something the team spent months on. Despite the changes, the team worked to make the gameplay as close as possible to the original experience. They also put in additional options for actions such as targeting enemies with mastery abilities and searching for loot It released on May 19, 2016 for iOS. The Android version was released on July 7.


title: Titan Quest

text: On its release in the US, "Titan Quest" debuted at #3 in the dedicated PC game charts. In the UK, the game debuted at #25 in the multi-platform charts. In a later interview, Bruno stated that the title had sold "surprisingly well" despite a slow start, with combined sales for "Titan Quest" and "Immortal Throne" reaching over one million units by late 2008. It also continued to sell well on Steam, though exact figures were not given.


title: Titan Quest

text: "Titan Quest" received positive reviews upon release: aggregate site Metacritic recorded a score of 77/100 based on 51 critic reviews. Eric Neigher of 1UP.com enjoyed "Titan Quest" while noting that it stayed within genre traditions: he rounded off his review by saying "While it may not break, or even dent, any new ground, "Titan Quest" features a beautifully realized game world based on a tried-and-true core mechanic, with tons of replayability". Jim Rossignol of Eurogamer said that, while it stood high among its contemporary peers, "Titan Quest" did not evolve the genre enough for him to really enjoy it. GameSpy's Miguel Lopez praised the visuals, gameplay, character customization and editing tools. His main criticisms were performance difficulties and the large potential for cheating in multiplayer. GameSpot's Ryan Davis called it "the next-best thing" to a new "Diablo" title, praising its single-player campaign and multiplayer while faulting its familiar feel, inventory system and recurring technical issues.


title: Titan Quest

text: IGN's Tom McNamara generally praised the gameplay despite some awkward elements, called the sound design "well done", and positively noted its graphics despite some technical troubles. He also cited the multiplayer as the main part of the game's replay value, as it was otherwise fairly linear in design. "PALGN" reviewer Mark Marrow called "Titan Quest" "one of the best PC games on the market for the year", saying it revitalized its genre despite some minor issues with gameplay and presentation. "PC Zone"s Sam Kieldsen praised the gameplay and leveling system, along with its graphics and soundtrack. His main criticisms were its low difficulty, repetitive structure and weak storyline. VideoGamer.com's Tom Orry said the game "doesn't really do anything new", but praised its presentation and noted that it was more accessible than others within the genre. In his review of the mobile port, Shaun Musgrave of Touch Arcade shared many points of praise with earlier reviewers, along with calling it a good port despite some minor issues such as framerate drops. Gamezebo's Rob Rich praised the gameplay elements carried over from the original, and positively noted its graphical detail despite persistent framerate drops. His main complaints were the inventory system, and problems with contextual commands such as picking up items.


title: Titan Quest

text: Development on an expansion pack began shortly after the release of "Titan Quest", with preparatory work happening during the final stages of the main game's development. The expansion, "", was first announced in late 2006 and eventually released in March 2007. Set immediately after the first game, "Immortal Throne" followed the player as they investigated a new outbreak of monster attacks originating from the Underworld.


title: Titan Quest

text: Over eleven years after the release of the original "Titan Quest", the expansion "" was released for the game's "Anniversary Edition" in November 2017 by THQ Nordic. On March 24, 2020, the expansion was released on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, followed by a Nintendo Switch version in June 2020.


title: Titan Quest

text: Atlantis is the first expansion to introduce a side-act to the game, that is unrelated to the main storyline.


title: Titan Quest

text: The fourth expansion Eternal Embers was released on December 3, 2021. The DLC was developed by Digital Arrow.


title: Titan Quest

text: "Titan Quest Anniversary Edition" was released on Steam on August 31, 2016. According to Steam Spy, it exceeded 1.6 million owners within a month of its release.


title: Titan Quest

text: "Titan Quest" would be one of only three projects Iron Lore worked on in its lifetime, and the only original project alongside "Immortal Throne": after completing work on "", an expansion to "", the studio was forced to close in February 2008 due to difficulties in securing any funding for future projects. The some of team founded a new studio called Crate Entertainment and licensed the "Titan Quest" engine to develop "Grim Dawn", dubbed by staff as a spiritual successor to "Titan Quest".


title: Chuck Knoblauch

text: Edward Charles Knoblauch (; born July 7, 1968) is an American former professional baseball player. He played 12 seasons in Major League Baseball, from 1991 through 2002, for the Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees, and Kansas City Royals. He played mostly as a second baseman before moving to left field for his final two seasons.


title: Chuck Knoblauch

text: Born in Houston, Texas, Knoblauch came from a baseball family, as his uncle Eddie Knoblauch and father Ray Knoblauch played and managed in the minor leagues between the late 1930s and mid-1950s. Knoblauch played for the Bellaire High School baseball team, which also produced many other former major leaguers, including Chris Young and Jose Cruz, Jr. Knoblauch missed his senior season (1986) due to a broken leg, but he cheered from the bench as the team won the state championship.


title: Chuck Knoblauch

text: Chuck was drafted in the 18th round of the 1986 amateur draft by the Philadelphia Phillies, but did not sign. Knoblauch went on to play college baseball for Texas A&M University in College Station, where he was a second-team All-American. He later played on the 1989 team that finished the season with 58 wins, the highest total in school history.


title: Chuck Knoblauch

text: In 1988, Knoblauch played collegiate summer baseball with the Wareham Gatemen of the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL), and received the league's Outstanding Pro Prospect award. In 2001, he was inducted into the CCBL Hall of Fame.


title: Chuck Knoblauch

text: Knoblauch was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the first round of the 1989 MLB draft. Knoblauch won the American League Rookie of the Year award and a World Series ring as a member of the 1991 Minnesota Twins. In Game 7 of the World Series, Knoblauch attempted to deceive Lonnie Smith by appearing to start a double play on a Terry Pendleton double (causing Smith to get only to third base when he might have scored for the Atlanta Braves). Smith claimed he lost track of the ball and Knoblauch's decoy was not a factor.


title: Chuck Knoblauch

text: During the 1994–96 seasons, Knoblauch batted .312, .333, and .341, respectively, won the AL Gold Glove Award at second base in 1997, and stole over 40 bases in three consecutive seasons.


title: Chuck Knoblauch

text: After the 1997 season, Knoblauch was traded to the Yankees in exchange for four players (including two future All-Stars, Eric Milton and Cristian Guzmán) and US$3 million. Once a popular player in Minnesota, his request to be traded from the Twins resulted in being booed on successive trips to the Metrodome. This included throwing hot dogs, bottles, and golf balls at Knoblauch during a visit to the Metrodome in 2001.


title: Chuck Knoblauch

text: Knoblauch's arrival in New York was greeted with anticipation. Buster Olney, then with "The New York Times", predicted that Knoblauch and Derek Jeter would form the greatest double play combination in history. Though he struggled early on with the team, he hit a career-high 17 home runs as the Yankees won a then-American league-record 114 games. In game 2 of the 1998 American League Championship Series against the Cleveland Indians, Knoblauch was involved in an infamous defensive play. In the 12th inning with the score tied 1–1, Indians batter Travis Fryman bunted, and Knoblauch covered first base for a possible putout. Jeff Nelson's throw hit Fryman and rolled away, but instead of retrieving the ball, Knoblauch argued with the first-base umpire interference should have been called, while the ball was still live at which Indians baserunner Enrique Wilson was able to score from first base on the play, giving Cleveland the lead in an eventual 4–1 victory. A New York newspaper called Knoblauch a "Blauch-head". Knoblauch recovered and was an important factor in the World Series victory over the San Diego Padres, and the 1999 World Series victory over the Atlanta Braves. In Game 3 of the 1999 World Series, Knoblauch scored the game's first run and hit a dramatic two-run home run in the eighth inning to tie the score, with the Yankees eventually winning in the 10th inning. In Game 5 of 2001 World Series, Knoblauch scored the winning run, having led off the inning with a single and scoring on a single by his replacement at second base, Alfonso Soriano. The Yankees won the American League pennant every year he was with the team, winning three World Series championships.


title: Chuck Knoblauch

text: Towards the end of his career, Knoblauch's performance at the plate grew worse, with many observers believing he was preoccupied by his fielding troubles and trying too hard to hit home runs. Knoblauch was benched in the final game of the 2001 World Series (he hit just .056), and left for Kansas City as a free agent in the off season. Knoblauch played in just 80 games in left field for the Royals, batting .210, and the team declined to offer him a new contract the following year. In 2003, having failed to gain a job with an MLB team, Knoblauch announced his retirement.


title: Chuck Knoblauch

text: Once considered one of the game's best fielders (in fact, ESPN personalities nicknamed him "Fundamentally Sound" Chuck Knoblauch), Knoblauch's play deteriorated shortly into his Yankee career; his errors at second doubled from 13 in 1998 to 26 the following year; all of these were throwing errors. In 2000, he began to have difficulty making accurate throws to first base, a condition sometimes referred to in baseball as the "yips" or "Steve Sax syndrome" in more recent years.


title: Chuck Knoblauch

text: Knoblauch tried various solutions to his problem, but his throwing did not improve. He made 15 errors in less than half a season in 2000, including 10 throwing miscues. (During one game, an errant throw sailed into the stands and hit sportscaster Keith Olbermann's mother in the head). After making three throwing errors in six innings of the Yankees' 12–3 loss to the Chicago White Sox, on June 15, 2000, Knoblauch voluntarily left the game. He then left Yankee Stadium in his street clothes while the game was still in progress. He was back at second the next day, but Knoblauch never fully recovered his throwing accuracy, especially after missing most of August with an injury. Knoblauch returned to the Yankees in September, but was often used as a designated hitter in lieu of playing second; he was exclusively a DH in the Yankees' run to a World Series title. Finally, in 2001, he was reassigned to left field by manager Joe Torre, never to return to his old position.


title: Chuck Knoblauch

text: On September 25, 2009, an officer from the Memorial Villages Police Department, near Houston, was told by Knoblauch's common-law wife, Stacey Victoria Stelmach, that he hit and choked her. A police officer's affidavit alleged that "redness around her neck and swelling near her eye [were] consistent with her statement." On September 29, 2009, the Harris County, Texas District Attorney charged Knoblauch with assaulting a family member by choking, a third-degree felony in Texas. Knoblauch pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault in connection with the case on March 16, 2010. The couple was reportedly going through a divorce.


title: Chuck Knoblauch

text: On July 24, 2014, the 46-year-old Knoblauch was charged with assault of a family member, Cheri Knoblauch, whom he divorced in 2012. Due to this incident, the Twins cancelled the planned induction of Knoblauch into the Twins Hall of Fame.


title: Chuck Knoblauch

text: A four-time All-Star, in his career Knoblauch batted .289 with 98 home runs and 615 runs batted in. He stole 25 or more bases in 10 of his 12 seasons, finishing with 407 in his career — including 276 with the Twins, the most for the team since its move from Washington in . On August 18, 2018, Knoblauch returned to the new Yankee Stadium to commemorate the 1998 championship team.


title: Chuck Knoblauch

text: In December 2007, Knoblauch was included in the Mitchell report, which provided evidence that he used performance-enhancing drugs during his career. In the Mitchell report, Brian McNamee stated that he procured human growth hormone (HGH) from Kirk Radomski for Knoblauch in 2001 when he served as the New York Yankees assistant strength coach. McNamee stated that during the season, he injected Knoblauch seven to nine times with HGH. McNamee states that Knoblauch paid Radomski for the drugs through him or Jason Grimsley, and also believed that Knoblauch obtained HGH from Grimsley. Knoblauch did not respond to a request to meet with the Mitchell investigators to discuss the allegations.


title: Chuck Knoblauch

text: On December 20, 2007, Knoblauch was named in Jason Grimsley's unsealed affidavit as an alleged user of HGH. Knoblauch and Grimsley were teammates on the Yankees from 1999 to 2000.


title: Chuck Knoblauch

text: On January 11, 2008, "The New York Times" published a look at Chuck Knoblauch's post-baseball life. The article painted Knoblauch's outlook on baseball and the Mitchell report as being apathetic. As he has been retired for 5 years, he expressed "bewilderment at his inclusion" in the report and stated, "I have nothing to defend and I have nothing to hide at the same time." In 2008, Knoblauch owned a condominium and house in the Houston area, and was not interested in returning to pro baseball in any capacity.


title: Chuck Knoblauch

text: On January 22, 2008, Knoblauch was subpoenaed by the congressional committee investigating steroids in baseball after he failed to respond to an invitation to give a deposition by a January 18, 2008, deadline. On January 23, federal marshals had as yet been unable to find Knoblauch to serve him with the subpoena.


title: Chuck Knoblauch

text: On January 28, 2008, the congressional subpoena was withdrawn after Knoblauch agreed to provide a deposition on February 1, 2008.


title: Chuck Knoblauch

text: Knoblauch admitted to using HGH: "I did HGH. It didn't help me out. It didn't make me any better. I had the worst years of my career from a batting average standpoint. And I got hurt. So there was no good that came out of it for me — it was not performance-enhancing for me."


title: Slavic dragon

text: A Slavic dragon is any dragon in Slavic mythology, including the Russian "zmei" (or "zmey"; ), Ukrainian "zmiy" (), and its counterparts in other Slavic cultures: the Bulgarian "zmey" (), the Slovak "drak" and "šarkan", Czech "drak", Polish , the Serbo-Croatian "zmaj" (), the Macedonian "zmej" (змеј) and the Slovene "zmaj". The Romanian "zmeu" is also a Slavic dragon, but a non-cognate etymology has been proposed.


title: Slavic dragon

text: A "zmei" may be beast-like or human-like, sometimes wooing women, but often plays the role of chief antagonist in Russian literature. In the Balkans, the "zmei" type is overall regarded as benevolent, as opposed to malevolent dragons known variously as ", "ala" or "hala", or "aždaja".


title: Slavic dragon

text: The Polish "smok" (e.g. Wawel Dragon of Kraków) or the Ukrainian or Belarusian "smok" (смок), "tsmok" (цмок), can also be included. In some Slavic traditions "smok" is an ordinary snake which may turn into a dragon with age.


title: Slavic dragon

text: Some of the common motifs concerning Slavic dragons include their identification as masters of weather or water source; that they start life as snakes; and that both the male and female can be romantically involved with humans.


title: Slavic dragon

text: The Slavic terms descend from Proto-Slavic "*zmьjь". The further derivation that Serbo-Croatian "zmaj" "dragon" and "" "earth" ultimately descend from the same Proto-Slavic root "zьm-", from the zero grade of Proto-Indo-European "*ǵhdem", was proposed by Croatian linguist Petar Skok. Lithuanian scholarship also points out that the connection of the snake ("zmey") with the earthly realm is even more pronounced in folk incantations, since its name would etymologically mean 'earthly (being); that which creeps underground'.


title: Slavic dragon

text: The forms and spellings are Russian: "zmei" or "zmey" (pl. "zmei" ); Ukrainian: "zmiy" (pl. "zmiyi" ); Bulgarian: "zmei" (pl. "zmeiove" ); Polish "zmiy" (pl. "żmije"); Serbo-Croatian "zmaj" (pl. ); Slovene "zmaj" "zmáj" or "zmàj" (pl. "zmáji" or "zmáji").


title: Slavic dragon

text: In the legends of Russia and Ukraine, a particular dragon-like creature, Zmey Gorynych ( or ), has three to twelve heads, and


title: Slavic dragon

text: Tugarin Zmeyevich (literally: "Tugarin Dragon-son"), known as "zmei-bogatyr" or "serpent hero", is a man-like dragon who appears in Russian (or Kievan Rus) heroic literature. The name "Tugarin" may symbolize Turkic or Mongol steppe-peoples.


title: Slavic dragon

text: The Chudo-Yudo (or Chudo-iudo, ; pl. "Chuda-Yuda") is a multi-headed dragon that appears in some wondertale variants, usually considered to be water-dwelling. Some legends portray him as the brother of Koshchey the Deathless, and thus the offspring of the witch Baba Yaga; others present him as a personification of the witch in her foulest form. A Chudo Yudo is one of the guardians of the Water of Life and Death, and his name traditionally was invoked in times of drought. He can apparently assume human-like forms and is able to speak and to ride a horse. He has the ability to regenerate any decapitated heads.


title: Slavic dragon

text: The term "Chudo-Yudo" may not be a name for a specific type of dragon at all, but rather a fanciful term for a generic "monster". According to this explanation, the term is to be understood as a poetic form of "chudovishche" () meaning "monster", with a ending appended simply for the rhyme. "Chudo" in modern Russian means "a wonder", and once also had the meaning of "a giant"; "yudo" may relate to "Iuda", the Russian form of the personal name "Judas", with connotations of uncleanness and the demonic.


title: Slavic dragon

text: Three- and six-headed "zmei", slain by the titular hero in "Ivan Popyalov" (, "Ivan Cinders", Afanasyev's tale #135) appear as six-, nine-, and twelve-headed Chuda-Iuda in the cognate tale #137 "Ivan Bykovich" (). The inference is that Chudo-Yudo must also be a dragon, even though the word "serpent" ("zmei") does not appear explicitly in the latter tale. The six-, nine-, and twelve-headed Chuda-Yuda that appear out of the Black Sea are explicitly described as "zmei" in yet another cognate tale, #136 "Storm-Bogatyr, Ivan the Cow's Son" (). The Storm-Bogatyr possesses a magic sword (sword Kladenets), but uses his battle club (or mace) to attack them.


title: Slavic dragon

text: A Chudo-Yudo's heads have a remarkable healing property: even if severed, he can pick them up and re-attach them with a stroke of his fiery finger, according to one of these tales, comparable to the regenerative power of the Lernaean hydra that grows its head back.


title: Slavic dragon

text: Folktales often depict Chuda-yuda as living beyond the (the name may suggest "Stench River")—that is, in the realm of the dead, reached by crossing over the ("White-hot Bridge").


title: Slavic dragon

text: The terms "smok" ("serpent") and "tsmok" ("sucker") can signify a dragon, but also just an ordinary snake. There are Slavic folk tales in which a "smok", when it reaches a certain age, grows into a dragon ("zmaj", etc.). Similar lore is widespread across Slavic countries, as described below.


title: Slavic dragon

text: The folklore that an ancient snake grows into a dragon is fairly widespread in Slavic regions. This is also paralleled by similar lore in China.


title: Slavic dragon

text: In Bulgaria is a similar folk belief that the "smok" ("Aesculapian snake") begins its life-cycle as a non-venomous snake but later grows into a "zmei" dragon after living 40 years. Or, if the body of a decapitated snake () is joined to an ox or buffalo horn, it grows into a lamia after just 40 days, according to Bulgarian folk tradition published by in the 19th century.


title: Slavic dragon

text: There are also among the East Slavic folk the tradition that a viper transforms into a dragon. In Ukrainian folklore the viper needs 7 years to metamorphosize into a dragon, while in Belorussian folklore the requisite time is 100 years, according to one comparison.


title: Slavic dragon

text: The weather-making dragon, "ismeju" (or "zmeu"), of Romanian Scholomance folklore is also locally believed to grow out of a snake which has lived for 9 years (belief found at "Hatzeger Thal" or Hațeg).


title: Slavic dragon

text: Locally in Ukraine, around Lutsk, the rainbow is called "tsmok" ("sucker") which is said to be a tube that guzzles water from the sea and rivers and carries the moisture up into the clouds.


title: Slavic dragon

text: There is the notion (thought to be inspired by the tornado) of a Slavic dragon that dips its tail into a river or lake and siphons up the water, ready to cause floods.


title: Slavic dragon

text: In Romanian folklore, dragons are ridden by weather-controlling wizards called the Solomonari. The type of dragon they ride may be the "zmeu" or the "balaur", depending on the source.


title: Slavic dragon

text: The lamia and the hala (explained further below) are also generally perceived as weather dragons or demons.


title: Slavic dragon

text: In Bulgarian lore, the "zmei" is sometimes described as a scale-covered serpent-like creature with four legs and bat's wings, at other times as half-man, half-snake, with wings and a fish-like tail.


title: Slavic dragon

text: In Bulgaria, this "zmei" tends to be regarded as a benevolent guardian creature, while the "lamya" and "hala" were seen as detrimental towards humans.


title: Slavic dragon

text: A favorite topic of folk songs was the male "zmey"-lover who may marry a woman and carry her to the underworld, or a female "zmeitsa" (zmeitza) who falls in love with a shepherd. When a "zmei" falls in love with a woman, she may "pine, languish, become pale, neglect herself.. and generally act strangely", and the victim stricken with the condition could only be cured by bathing in infusions of certain herbs, according to superstition.


title: Slavic dragon

text: In Serbia, there is the example of the epic song "Carica Milica i zmaj od Jastrepca" () and its folktale version translated as "The Tsarina Militza and the Zmay of Yastrebatz".


title: Slavic dragon

text: In most Macedonian tales and folk songs they are described as extremely intelligent, having hypnotizing eyes. However, sometimes Zmey's could be men who would astrally project into the sky when there is a storm to battle the Lamia, a female evil version that wants to destroy the wheat. They were also known as guardians of the territory, and would even protect the people in it. Hostile behaviour was shown if another zmey comes into his territory. They could change their appearance in the form of a smoke, strong spark, fire bird, snake, cloud but almost afterwards he would gain the form of a handsome man and enter the chambers of a young maiden. They fell in love with women who were conceived on the same night as them, or born in the same day as them. He usually guards the girl from a small age and his love lasts forever. Some girls get sick by loving a zmey, and symptoms include paleness, shyness, antisocial behaviour, watery eyes, quietness and hallucinations. They didn't live a long life, because it resulted in suicide. Zmeys would kidnap girls and lead them into their mountain caves where she would serve him.


title: Slavic dragon

text: There is a pan-Balkan notion that the "zmei" (known by various cognates) is a sort of "guardian-spirit dragon" against the "evil" types of dragon, given below. One explanation is that the Balkan "zmej" symbolized the patriotic dragon fighting the Turkish dragon, a way to vent the local population's frustration at not being able to overthrow the long-time Turkish rule.


title: Slavic dragon

text: The zmaj dragon in Serbian fairy tales nevertheless have sinister roles in a number of instances. In the well-known tale "A Pavilion Neither in the Sky nor on the Earth" the youngest prince succeeds in killing the dragon ("zmaj") that guards the three princesses held captive.


title: Slavic dragon

text: Vuk Karadžić's collection of folktales have other examples. In "The Golden Apple-tree and the Nine Peahens", the dragon carries away the peahen maiden who is the hero's lover. In "Baš Čelik" the hero must contend with a dragon-king.


title: Slavic dragon

text: The or "lamya" (), derived from the Greek lamia, is also seen as a dragon-like creature in Bulgarian ethnic population, currently inhabiting Bulgaria, with equivalents in Macedonia ("lamja", "lamna"; ), and South-East Serbian areas ( ).


title: Slavic dragon

text: The Bulgarian lamia is described as reptile- or lizard-like and covered with scales, with 3–9 heads which are like dog's heads with sharp teeth. It may also have sharp claws, webbed wings, and the scales may be yellow color.


title: Slavic dragon

text: The Bulgarian lamia dwells in the bottoms of the seas and lakes, or sometimes mountainous caverns, or tree holes and can stop the supply of water to the human population, demanding sacrificial offerings to undo its deed. The lamia, bringer of drought, was considered the adversary of St. Ilya (Elijah) or a benevolent zmei.


title: Slavic dragon

text: In the Bulgarian version of Saint George and the Dragon, the dragon was a "lamia". Bulgarian legends tell of how a hero (actually a double of St. George, denoted as "George of the Flowers", "Cveten Gǝorgi", ) cuts off the heads of the three- or multi-headed Lamia, and when the hero accomplishes its destruction and sever all its heads, "rivers of fertility" are said to flow. This song about St. George's fight with the lamia occurs in ritual spiritual verse supposed to be sung around St. George's day.


title: Slavic dragon

text: One of the versions collected by ethnologist begins: " (George of the Flowers fared out / Going around his congregation /On the road he met the fallow lamia..)". Another version collected by Marinov substitutes "Yuda-Samodiva" in the place of the lamia. Three rivers gush out of the dragons head-stumps: typically one of corn, one of red wine, and one of milk and honey. These benefitted the crop-growers, vineyard growers (winemakers), and the beekeepers and shepherds, respectively.


title: Slavic dragon

text: There is some overlap or conflation of the lamia and the "hala" (or "halla"), although the latter is usually conceived of as a "whirlwind". Or it might be described as regional differences. The "lamia" in Eastern Bulgaria is the adversary of the benevolent zmei, and the "hala" or "ala" takes its place in Western Bulgaria.


title: Slavic dragon

text: This motif of hero against the evil dragon (lamia, ala/hala, or aždaja) is found more generally throughout the Balkan Slavic region. Sometimes this hero is a saint (usually St. George). And after the hero severs all its (three) heads, "three rivers of wheat, milk, and wine" flow out of the stumps.


title: Slavic dragon

text: The demon or creature known as "hala" (or ala), whose name derived from the Greek word for "hail" took the appearance of a dense mist or fog, or a black cloud. Hala was believed to be the cause of strong winds and whirlwind in Eastern Bulgaria, whereas the lamya was blamed as the perpetrator in Southwestern Bulgarian lore. In Western Bulgarian tradition, the "halla" itself was regarded as the whirlwind, which guarded clouds and contained the rain, but was also regarded as a type of dragon, alongside the folklore that the "smok" (roughly equated with "grass snake" but actually the Aesculapian snake) was a crag-dwelling whirlwind.


title: Slavic dragon

text: These "hala" were also known in East and Central Serbia. Similar lore occur in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro.


title: Slavic dragon

text: The demon "hala" was also called by other names regionally, in some parts of Bulgaria they were known as "aždarha" () or "ažder" (), in Macedonian as "aždaja" or "ažder" (), in Serbian as "aždaja" ().


title: Slavic dragon

text: The word ' or ' is borrowed from Persian "azdahā" (), and has its origins in the Indo-Iranian mythology surrounding the dragon "azidahā". As an example, in some local Croatian icons, St. George is represented as slaying the aždaja and not a "zmaj".


title: Slavic dragon

text: A "pozoj" is a dragon of legends in Croatia. In Međimurje County, the Čakovec "pozoj" was said to dwell beneath the city, with its head under the church and tail under the town square, or vice versa, and it could only be gotten rid of by a "grabancijaš" (a "wandering scholar", glossed as a "black [magic] student").


title: Slavic dragon

text: The "pozoj" is also known in Slovenia, and according to legend there is one living underneath Zagreb, causing an earthquake whenever it shrugs. Poet (1866) has published some tales concerning the pozoj in the "Slovenski glasnik" magazine, which also connected the creature to the "črne škole dijak" ("black school student"), which other Slovene sources call "črnošolec" ("sorcerer's apprentice"), and which some equate with a "grabancijaš dijak"


title: Slavic dragon

text: Dragons in Slovenia are generally negative in nature, and usually appear in relation with St. George. The Slovene god-hero Kresnik is known as a dragonslayer.


title: Slavic dragon

text: There are natural and man-made structures that have dragon lore attached to them. There are also representations in sculpture and painting. In iconography, Saint George and the Dragon is prominent in Slavic areas. The dragon is a common motif in heraldry, and the coat of arms of a number of cities or families depict dragons.


title: Slavic dragon

text: The Dragon Bridge () in Ljubljana, Slovenia depicts dragons associated with the city or said to be the city's guardians, and the city's coat of arms features a dragon (representing the one slain by Kresnik).


title: Slavic dragon

text: The coat of arms of Moscow also depicts a St George (symbolizing Christianity) killing the Dragon (symbolizing the Golden Horde).


title: Slavic dragon

text: Some prehistoric structures, notably the Serpent's Wall near Kyiv, have been associated with dragons as symbols of foreign peoples.


title: Daniel Cameron (American politician)

text: Daniel Jay Cameron (born November 22, 1985) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the 51st Attorney General of Kentucky. He is the first African-American, and the first Republican since 1943, to be elected to the office.


title: Daniel Cameron (American politician)

text: Cameron attended the University of Louisville. He worked as a law clerk for U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove for two years, and was then legal counsel to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell from 2015-17. In 2020, he was on President Donald Trump's 20-person shortlist of potential Supreme Court nominees.


title: Daniel Cameron (American politician)

text: Cameron ran in the 2019 Kentucky Attorney General election, receiving Trump's endorsement after the primary. He won with 57.7% of the vote. As attorney general, Cameron unsuccessfully challenged several of Governor Andy Beshear's COVID-19 restrictions. Following the police killing of Breonna Taylor in her home, Cameron announced the decision of his office as special prosecutor to not charge the two police officers who had shot Taylor six times and killed her, leading to widespread protests.


title: Daniel Cameron (American politician)

text: Cameron was born in Plano, Texas. He later lived in Alabama. He was raised in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. His mother was a professor at Elizabethtown Community and Technical College, and his father owned a local coffee shop. Cameron attended John Hardin High School in neighboring Radcliff.


title: Daniel Cameron (American politician)

text: Cameron was awarded a Senator Mitch McConnell scholarship to attend the University of Louisville, at which point he met McConnell for the first time. He was a defensive back on the 2006 Louisville Cardinals football team, and came off the bench to play in the first two games of the season. He graduated from the University of Louisville with a BS in 2008, and then graduated in 2011 with a JD from the university's Brandeis School of Law where he was president of the Student Bar Association.


title: Daniel Cameron (American politician)

text: Cameron was a law clerk for Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky for two years, from 2011-13. From 2013-15, for 18 months he worked for the law firm Stites & Harbison.


title: Daniel Cameron (American politician)

text: From 2015-17, Cameron served as legal counsel to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, for whom Tatenhove himself had previously worked. He was responsible for making sure that the office complied with Senate ethics rules, and helped shepherd the confirmations of conservative federal judges including Neil Gorsuch.


title: Daniel Cameron (American politician)

text: In 2017, Cameron returned to Louisville and joined the law firm Frost Brown Todd as a senior associate, in government affairs.


title: Daniel Cameron (American politician)

text: Cameron ran for Attorney General of Kentucky in 2019, and defeated State Senator Wil Schroder in the Republican primary by a margin of 132,400 (55.3%) votes to 106,950 (44.7%) votes. After the primary, he was endorsed by President Donald Trump. In the November 2019 general election, Cameron defeated the Democratic nominee, former Attorney General Greg Stumbo, with 57.8% of the vote.


title: Daniel Cameron (American politician)

text: He was the first Republican elected to be attorney general of Kentucky since Eldon S. Dummit, who served from 1944 to 1948. He is also the state's first African-American attorney general. Following Republican former Lieutenant Governor Jenean Hampton, Cameron became Kentucky's second African-American statewide officer, and the first to be independently elected (given that Hampton had shared the 2015 gubernatorial ticket with Matt Bevin).


title: Daniel Cameron (American politician)

text: Cameron's term as attorney general was scheduled to begin on January 6, 2020, but on December 17, 2019, newly elected Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear signed an executive order appointing Cameron to the office, filling the vacancy created when Beshear resigned after winning election to the governorship. Immediately after the order was signed, Cameron was officially sworn into office by US District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove, whom Cameron had clerked for after graduating from law school.


title: Daniel Cameron (American politician)

text: On March 27, 2020, Cameron called for halting abortions in Kentucky during the coronavirus pandemic, arguing it was an elective medical procedure that should fall under the statewide ban for the duration of the pandemic. During the closing days of the legislative session, the Kentucky legislature voted to give the attorney general power to regulate abortion clinics, but the legislation was vetoed by Governor Beshear.


title: Daniel Cameron (American politician)

text: Cameron initiated unsuccessful legal challenges to executive actions that Governor Beshear took to combat the spread of COVID-19. In a court filing in July 2020, Cameron asked a state judge to invalidate all of Beshear's COVID-19 orders, and to bar the governor from issuing or enforcing any further COVID-19 order. Cameron described his request as an attempt "to protect the rights of Kentuckians"; Beshear condemned Cameron's motion as "scary and reckless," and said it would endanger public health, lead to more deaths, and harm the economy. The governor noted that Cameron's filing called for the invalidation of executive action that required face masks in public places, imposed restrictions on public gatherings, expanded workers' compensation eligibility for workers who were under quarantine due to exposure to the virus, and the waiver of copays, deductibles, and other costs associated with COVID-19-related healthcare. In an interim order in July 2020, the Kentucky Supreme Court blocked efforts by Cameron and lower courts to nullify the executive orders, pending the state Supreme Court's own review. In November 2020, the Kentucky Supreme Court unanimously upheld the constitutionality of Beshear's emergency coronavirus executive orders.


title: Daniel Cameron (American politician)

text: In December 2020, after initially Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove of the Federal District Court in Frankfort, Kentucky, whom Cameron had clerked for for two years, found in favor of Cameron in his lawsuit challenging an order from Beshear that temporarily closed all elementary, middle, and high schools in an effort to combat the pandemic, the US Supreme Court refused overturned the trial court's opinion and held against Cameron.


title: Daniel Cameron (American politician)

text: In November 2022, the Kentucky Bankers Association of 150 banks doing business in Kentucky sued Cameron in Franklin Circuit Court; Cameron had the case removed to the US District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky before Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove, for whom Cameron was previously a law clerk. It said Cameron has displayed "amazing and disturbing broad overreach" by overstepping his legal authority, and did not have authority to demand detailed information from banks as part of an investigation into their environmental lending practices, which it said was a big government intrusion on private businesses that could create "an ongoing state surveillance system." Ballard Cassady, CEO of the association, said: "Kentucky banks must be allowed to make good business decisions for their bank, their customers and community without worrying about how they relate to broader ideological or political goals."


title: Daniel Cameron (American politician)

text: The police killing of unarmed 26-year-old emergency room technician Breonna Taylor in her home, as plainclothes police broke into her home without warning and fired 32 shots in her apartment at 1 AM on March 13, 2020, led to over 100 days of loud impatience across the United States. Cameron could have appointed a special prosecutor, but instead opted to have his office act as special prosecutor in the case, because of the "importance of this matter..." Over six months after Taylor was killed, Cameron announced the decision of his office as special prosecutor, following the conclusion of a state grand jury investigation into Taylor's shooting.


title: Daniel Cameron (American politician)

text: Cameron's office decided not to charge the two police officers who had shot Taylor six times and killed her. Separately, a third officer—who had not shot Taylor—was charged with wanton endangerment, but for accidentally endangering the lives of three of Taylor’s neighbors by shooting into an adjacent apartment. Cameron's announcement led to widespread grief, fury, protests, chanting crowds marching in cities across the United States, and the shooting of two police officers in Louisville.


title: Daniel Cameron (American politician)

text: On July 14, 2020, over 100 protestors organized by the social justice organization "Until Freedom" marched to Cameron's house, and organized a sit-in on his front lawn, demanding that charges be brought against the officers who had shot and killed Taylor. "Until Freedom" co-founder Linda Sarsour said: "We are here to hold Daniel Cameron accountable and make sure that he does his job, because he is not doing his job."


title: Daniel Cameron (American politician)

text: Police officers arrested 87 protestors, including Houston Texans wide receiver Kenny Stills and Porsha Williams (a member of the cast of "The Real Housewives of Atlanta"), and charged them each with several crimes including Intimidating a Participant in the Legal Process, a Class D felony. Cameron accused the protestors of trespassing on his private property and claimed the protest's purpose was to "escalate" tension and division in the community. Singer Beyoncé and Louisville native actress Jennifer Lawrence called on Cameron to prosecute the officers who killed Taylor, and a cousin of the Muhammad Ali blasted him at a rally, and urged him not to be "on the wrong side of history."