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Sir William Jardine, 7th Baronet

Sir William Jardine, 7th Baronet of Applegarth FRS FRSE FLS FSA (23 February 1800 – 21 November 1874) was a Scottish naturalist. He is known for his editing of a long series of natural history books, The Naturalist's Library.

Life and work
Jardine was born on 23 February 1800 at 28 North Hanover Street in Edinburgh, the son of Sir Alexander Jardine, 6th baronet of Applegarth and his wife, Jane Maule. He was educated in both York and Edinburgh then studied medicine at Edinburgh University.

From 1817 to 1821 he lodged with Rev Dr Andrew Grant at James Square, an arrangement made by his father. Grant was minister of St Andrew's Church on George Street.

In his early years, aged only 25, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh his proposer being Sir David Brewster.

He was a co-founder of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, and contributed to the founding of the Ray Society. He was "keenly addicted to field-sports, and a master equally of the rod and the gun". While ornithology was his main passion, he also studied ichthyology, botany and geology. His book on fossil burrows and traces, the Ichnology of Annandale, included fossils from his ancestral estate. He was the first to coin the term ichnology, and this was the first book written on the subject. His private natural history museum and library are said to have been the finest in Britain.

Jardine made natural history available to all levels of Victorian society by editing the hugely popular forty volumes of The Naturalist's Library (1833–1843) issued and published by his brother in law, the Edinburgh printer and engraver, William Home Lizars. The series was divided into four main sections: Ornithology (14 volumes), Mammalia (13 volumes), Entomology (7 volumes), and Ichthyology (6 volumes); each prepared by a leading naturalist. James Duncan wrote the insect volumes. The artists responsible for the illustrations included Edward Lear. The work was published in Edinburgh by W. H. Lizars. The frontispiece is a portrait of Pierre André Latreille.

His other publications included an edition of Gilbert White's Natural History of Selborne which re-established White's reputation, Illustrations of Ornithology (1825–1843), and an affordable edition of Alexander Wilson's Birds of America.

Jardine described of a number of bird species, alone or in conjunction with his friend Prideaux John Selby. He died on 21 November 1874 in Sandown, Isle of Wight.

Family and descendants
He was married to Jane Home Lizars, and through her was brother-in-law to John Lizars FRSE and William Home Lizars. After Lady Jardine's death he married the daughter of the Rev. William Samuel Symonds, the well-known geologist.

Jardine's daughter, Catherine Dorcas Maule Jardine, married Hugh Edwin Strickland and produced many of the illustrations for Illustrations of Ornithology (identifiable by her initials, CDMS).

The Olympic rower Sir Matthew Pinsent is a direct descendant of Jardine.

The Naturalist's Library
Jardine edited the series of books that were published a part of The Naturalist's Library, and include (in the order in which they were published):
 * 1) 1833, Ornithology: Humming Birds: Part I, by Jardine with a memoir of Carl Linnaeus
 * 2) 1833, The Natural History of Monkeys, by Jardine with a memoir of Comte de Buffon
 * 3) 1833, Ichthyology: British Fishes: Part II, by Robert Hamilton with a memoir of Alexander von Humboldt
 * 4) undated, Ornithology: Humming Birds: Part II, by Jardine with a memoir of Thomas Pennant
 * 5) 1834, Mammalia: Vol. II: The Felinae, by Jardine with a memoir of Georges Cuvier
 * 6) 1834, The Natural History of Gallinaceous Birds: Vol. I, by Jardine with a memoir of Aristotle
 * 7) 1835, The Natural History of Fishes of the Perch Family, by Jardine with a memoir of Joseph Banks
 * 8) 1835, Entomology: Vol. III: British Butterflies, by James Duncan with a memoir of Abraham Gottlob Werner
 * 9) 1836, The Natural History of Parrots, by Prideaux J. Selby with plates by Edward Lear and a memoir of Thomas Bewick
 * 10) 1836, Mammalia: Vol. V: Pachyderms, by Jardine with a memoir of Hans Sloane
 * 11) 1836, The Natural History of British Moths, Sphinxes, &c., by James Duncan with a memoir of Maria Sibylla Merian
 * 12) 1837, The Natural History of the Ordinary Cetacea or Whales, by Jardine with a memoir of Bernard Germain de Lacépède
 * 13) 1837, The Natural History of Foreign Butterflies, by James Duncan with a memoir of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
 * 14) 1837, The Natural History of the Birds of Western Africa, by William Swainson with a memoir of François Levaillant
 * 15) 1838, The Natural History of the Birds of Great Britain and Ireland: Part I: Birds of Prey, by Jardine with a memoir of Robert Sibbald
 * 16) 1838, The Natural Arrangement and Relations of the Family of Flycatchers or Muscicapidae, by William Swainson with a memoir of Albrecht von Haller
 * 17) 1838, A History of British Quadrupeds, by William MacGillivray with a memoir of Ulisse Aldrovandi
 * 18) 1839, The Natural History of the Amphibious Carnivora, Including the Walrus and Seals, Also of the Herbivorous Cetacea, &c., by Robert Hamilton with a memoir of François Péron
 * 19) 1839, The Natural History of Dogs: Canidae or Genus Canis of Authors: Including Also the Genera Hyaena and Proteles: Vol. I, by Chas. Hamilton Smith with a memoir of Peter Simon Pallas Nest of the Common Humble-Bee Plate 15 Jardine.jpg)", engraved by William Home Lizars]]
 * 20) 1840, The Natural History of Dogs: Canidae or Genus Canis of Authors: Including Also the Genera Hyaena and Proteles: Vol. II, by Chas. Hamilton Smith with a memoir of Félix de Azara
 * 21) 1840, Introduction to Entomology, by James Duncan with memoirs of Jan Swammerdam and Charles De Geer
 * 22) 1841, The Natural History of Marsupialia or Pouched Animals, by G. R. Waterhouse with a memoir of John Barclay
 * 23) 1841, The Natural History of Horses: The Equidae or Genus Equus of Authors, by Chas. Hamilton Smith with a memoir of Conrad Gessner
 * 24) 1841, The Natural History of the Fishes of Guiana: Part I, by Robert H. Schomburgk
 * 25) 1841, The Natural History of Exotic Moths, by James Duncan with a memoir of Pierre André Latreille
 * 26) 1842, The Natural History of the Birds of Great Britain and Ireland: Part III: Rasores and Grallatores, by Jardine with a memoir of John Walker
 * 27) 1842, An Introduction to the Mammalia, by Charles Hamilton Smith with a memoir of Dru Drury
 * 28) 1843, Ichthyology: Fishes, Particularly Their Structure and Economical Uses, by J. S. Bushnan with a memoir of Hippolito Salviani
 * 29) 1843, The Natural History of the Fishes of Guiana: Part II, by Robert H. Schomburgk with a memoir of Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
 * 30) 1844, The Natural History of Game-Birds, by Jardine with a memoir of Stamford Raffles
 * 31) 1852, The Natural History of Beetles, by James Duncan with a memoir of John Ray
 * 32) undated, Ornithology: Pigeons, by Prideaux John Selby with a memoir of Pliny the Elder
 * 33) 1859, Entomology: Bees, by Jardine with a memoir of François Huber
 * 34) 1860, Ichthyology: British Fishes: Part I, by Robert Hamilton with a memoir of Guillaume Rondelet
 * 35) 1860, Ornithology: Birds of Great Britain and Ireland: Part IV, by Jardine with a memoir of Alexander Wilson
 * 36) 1862, Ornithology: Birds of Western Africa: Part I, by W. Swainson with a memoir of James Bruce
 * 37) 1864, The Natural History of the Nectariniadae, or Sun-Birds, by Jardine with a memoir of Francis Willughby
 * 38) 1866, Mammalia: Deer, Antelopes, Camels, &c., by Jardine with a memoir of Petrus Camper
 * 39) 1866, Mammalia: Goats, Sheep, Oxen, &c., by Jardine with a memoir of John Hunter
 * 40) 1866, Ornithology: Parrots, by Prideaux John Selby with a memoir of Thomas Bewick
 * 41) 1866, Ornithology: Birds of Great Britain and Ireland: Part II, by Jardine with a memoir of William Smellie

Later supplements include the following titles: The Natural History of Man, Humming Birds Volume 3 and a single volume that collated the memoirs of "great naturalists".

title: Sir William Jardine, 7th Baronet


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Avitus of Vienne

Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus (c. 450 – February 5, 517/518 or 519) was a Latin poet and bishop of Vienne in Gaul. His fame rests in part on his poetry, but also on the role he played as secretary for the Burgundian kings.

Avitus was born of a prominent Gallo-Roman senatorial family related to Emperor Avitus.

Life
His father was Hesychius, bishop of Vienne, where episcopal honors were informally hereditary. His paternal grandfather was a western Roman emperor whose precise identity is not known. Apollinaris of Valence was his younger brother; their sister Fuscina became a nun.

Avitus was probably born at Vienne, for he was baptized by bishop Mamertus. About 490 he was ordained bishop of Vienne. In 499 Vienne was captured by Gundobad, king of the Burgundians, who was at war with Clovis, king of the Franks, where he came to the attention of that king. Avitus, as metropolitan of southern and eastern Gaul, took the lead in a conference between the Catholic and Arian bishops held in presence of Gundobad at Sardiniacum near Lyons. He won the confidence of King Gundobad, and converted his son, King Sigismund to Catholicism.

A letter of Pope Hormisdas to Avitus records that he was made vicar apostolic in Gaul by that pontiff; and in 517 he presided in this capacity at the Council of Epaon for restoring ecclesiastical discipline in Gallia Narbonensis. Avitus appears also to have exerted himself to terminate the dispute between the churches of Rome and Constantinople which arose out of the excommunication of Acacius; his later letters suggest that this was accomplished before his death.

Upon his death, Avitus was buried in the monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul at Vienne.

Writings
The literary fame of Avitus rests on his many surviving letters (his recent editors make them ninety-six in all) and on a long poem, Poematum de Mosaicae historiae gestis (also known as De spiritualis historiae gestis), in classical hexameters, in five books, dealing with the Biblical themes of original sin, expulsion from Paradise, the Deluge, and the Crossing of the Red Sea. The first three books offer a certain dramatic unity; in them are told the preliminaries of the great disaster, the catastrophe itself, and the consequences. The fourth and fifth books deal with the Deluge and the Crossing of the Red Sea as symbols of baptism. Avitus deals freely and familiarly with the Scriptural events, and exhibits well their beauty, sequence, and significance. He is one of the last masters of the art of rhetoric as taught in the schools of Gaul in the 4th and 5th centuries. His poetic diction, though abounding in archaisms and rhythmic redundancy, is pure and select, and the laws of metre are well observed. Writing in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Thomas Joseph Shahan says "that Milton made use of his paraphrase of Scripture in writing Paradise Lost." Avitus also wrote a poem for his sister Fuscina, a nun, "De consolatoriâ castitatis laude".

The letters of Avitus are of considerable importance for the ecclesiastical and political history of the years between 499 and 518. Like his contemporary, Ennodius of Pavia, he was strenuous in his assertion of the authority of the Apostolic See as the chief bulwark of religious unity and the incipient Christian civilization. "If the pope," he says, "is rejected, it follows that not one bishop, the whole episcopate threatens to fall" (Si papa urbis vocatur in dubium, episcopatus videbitur, non episcopus, vaccilare. — Ep. xxxiv; ed. Peiper). His letters are also among the important primary sources of early Merovingian political, ecclesiastical, and social history. Among them is a famous letter to Clovis on the occasion of his baptism. Avitus addresses Clovis not as if he was a pagan convert, but as if he was a recent Arian sympathiser, possibly even a catechumen. The letters document the close relations between the Catholic Bishop of Vienne and the Arian king of the Burgundians, the great Gundobad, and his son, the Catholic convert Sigismund.

There was once extant a collection of his homilies and sermons, but they have all perished except for two, and some fragments and excerpts from others.

The so-called Dialogues with King Gundobad, written to defend the Catholic faith against the Arians and which purports to represent the famous Colloquy of Lyon in 449, was once believed to be his work. Julien Havet demonstrated in 1885, however, that it is a forgery of the Oratorian, Jérôme Vignier, who also forged a letter purporting to be from Pope Symmachus to Avitus.

Letters

 * Avitus of Vienne, Selected Letters and Prose. Tr. by Danuta Shanzer and Ian Wood. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2002, 464 pp. (Translated Texts for Historians).

Poems

 * Michael Roberts, ed. and trans., Biblical and Pastoral Poetry, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 74 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2022).
 * Ulrich C.J. Gebhardt, ed. and trans. (Latin-German), De spiritalis historiae gestis. Von den Ereignissen der geistlichen Geschichte, Sammlung Tusculum (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2021).
 * Nicole Hecquet-Noti, ed., Histoire spirituelle, Tome II: (Chants IV-V), Sources Chretiennes 492 (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 2005).
 * M. Hoffman, ed., Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus. De spiritalis historiae gestis Buch 3 (Munich: K.G. Saur, 2005).
 * George W. Shea, trans., The Poems of Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus (Tempe, Ariz.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1997).
 * Daniel J. Nodes, ed., The Fall of Man: De spiritalis historiae gestis libri I-III, Edited from Laon, Bibliothèque Municipale, Ms. 273, Toronto Medieval Latin Texts 16 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1985).
 * Abraham Schippers, ed., De mundi initi (Kampen: Kok, 1945).

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Avitus of Vienne


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Talk:Congregation

Congregations are not places, they are people
Congregations are people who use, administer, or manage places of worship. Places of worship are not themselves congregations though they may be recognized with them. Pknkly (talk) 13:05, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

title: Talk:Congregation


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John Murray Forbes

John Murray Forbes (February 23, 1813 – October 12, 1898) was an American railroad magnate, merchant, philanthropist and abolitionist. He was president of both the Michigan Central railroad and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad in the 1850s. He kept doing business with Russell & Company.

Early life
Forbes was born on February 23, 1813, in Bordeaux, France. His father, Ralph Bennett Forbes, was a member of the Forbes family, descended from Scottish immigrants who attempted unsuccessfully to start a trade from Bordeaux. His mother, Margaret Perkins, was a member of the Boston Brahmin Perkins family merchant dynasty involved in the China trade. Among his siblings, his older brother was Robert Bennet Forbes, sea captain and China merchant.

His paternal uncle was John Murray Forbes, lawyer and diplomat, and his maternal uncle was merchant Thomas Handasyd Perkins. Among his cousins was the botanist Francis Blackwell Forbes.

In 1814, his parents moved back to the Captain Robert Bennet Forbes House in Milton, Massachusetts. Forbes attended school at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, then at Round Hill School in Northampton, Massachusetts, from 1823 to 1828.

Career
Forbes was one of three brothers sent by their uncle to Canton, China, and achieved some financial success during a short time spent trading opium in Canton. However, unlike his brother Robert, who devoted himself to the China trade, Forbes returned to Boston and became an early railroad investor and landowner.

As with Jay Gould and E. H. Harriman, Forbes was an important figure in the building of America's railroad system. From March 28, 1846, through 1855, he was president of Michigan Central Railroad, and he was a director and president of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, he helped with the growth of the American Middle West. In addition, he founded J.M. Forbes & Co., an investment firm in Boston in 1838.

In 1860, he was an elector for Abraham Lincoln. He served as the Chairman of the Republican National Committee during the administration of President Abraham Lincoln. Staunchly pro-Union, he is given credit for founding the New England Loyal Publication Society in early 1863 (Smith 1948). After the Civil War, Forbes was elected as a 3rd Class (honorary) Companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.

Forbes was a delegate to the Republican conventions of 1876, 1880 and 1884, he eventually became displeased with the Republican party and worked successfully to get Democrat Grover Cleveland elected president.

Philanthropy
He supplied money and weapons to New Englanders to fight slavery in Kansas and in 1859 entertained John Brown.

Forbes's many philanthropic activities included the re-establishment of Milton Academy, a preparatory school south of Boston, Massachusetts in 1884.

Personal life
Forbes married Sarah Swain Hathaway (1813–1900). They resided in Milton, Massachusetts, and summered on Naushon Island in Dukes County, Massachusetts. They had two sons and four daughters:

 * Ellen Randolph Forbes (1838–1860).
 * Alice Hathaway Forbes (1838–1917), who married Edward Montague Cary (1828–1888) in 1875.
 * William Hathaway Forbes (1840–1897), who married Edith Emerson (1841–1929), the daughter of poet Ralph Waldo Emerson. William became the first president of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and father of William Cameron Forbes.
 * Mary Hathaway Forbes (1844–1916), who married Henry Sturgis Russell (1838–1905) in 1863.
 * John Malcolm Forbes (1847–1904), the yachtsman and horseman who married Sarah Coffin Jones (1852–1891) in 1873.
 * Sarah Forbes (1853–1917), who married William Hastings Hughes (1833–1909) in 1887.

Forbes died of pneumonia on October 12, 1898, in Milton, Massachusetts.

Descendants
His cousin Francis Blackwell Forbes (1839–1908) is the great-grandfather of 2004 U.S. Democratic presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry. His 4x great-grandson is Jonathan Meath, a renowned Emmy award-winning television producer.

Legacy
In the September 1899 issue of Atlantic magazine, Edward Waldo Emerson (Ralph Waldo Emerson's son), published Forbes' biography. The Emerson and Forbes families were close as Forbes' son, William, married Ralph's daughter, Edith Emerson. In Letters and Social Aims, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of Forbes:

"'Never was such force, good meaning, good sense, good action, combined with such domestic lovely behavior, such modesty and persistent preference for others. Wherever he moved he was the benefactor... How little this man suspects, with his sympathy for men and his respect for lettered and scientific people, that he is not likely, in any company, to meet a man superior to himself,' and 'I think this is a good country that can bear such a creature as he.'"

The small community of Forbes, Missouri, is named for him.

title: John Murray Forbes


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Talk:Pilates

Neutral point of View
There is a reoccurring negative slant to much of the contributions in this article, focusing on what Pilates is NOT, rather than what it is. For example: "There is however only limited evidence to support the use of Pilates to alleviate problems such as lower back pain." There was no previous mention in the article about back pain. It seems the only reason this is included out of the blue is to provide a negative comment.

"...it has not been shown to be an effective treatment for any medical condition other than evidence that regular Pilates sessions can help muscle conditioning in healthy adults, when compared to doing no exercise." The first claim is based on an Australian government research on what to include/exclude from claims payable, not a biased report. And the second half adding the phrase "when compared to doing no exercise" offers no value to the statement other than to be negative. The same can be said for all exercise, that it helps when compared to doing none.

The entire section "Effectiveness" is all negative and needs some positive references. Gftrain (talk) 18:32, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

 * The context is the use of Pilates 'to alleviate ill health' - mentioning that the evidence only supports such a use in very limited circumstances is not 'out of the blue'. It looks like you are asking for a WP:FALSEBALANCE - wikipedia reflects the overall consensus of good sources. We do not seek out sources of one opinion or another to try to avoid taking a position on straightforward factual matters. Why_Wikipedia_cannot_claim_the_Earth_is_not_flat is relevant. MrOllie (talk) 18:44, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 January 2024
[Pilates] In the opening paragraph, please replace "contrology" with "controlology."

Not done: Google ngrams lists both spellings as approximately equal, but Joseph Pilates himself seems to have spelled it the shorter way. PianoDan (talk) 18:54, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 October 2022
Remove "There is however only limited evidence to support the use of Pilates to alleviate problems such as lower back pain.[5] Evidence from studies show that while Pilates improves balance, it has not been shown to be an effective treatment for any medical condition[6]"

Replace with "There is significant evidence to support the use of Pilates in conjunction with other medical modalities can work to alleviate problems such as recurring injury, injury post-rehabilitation, and common lower back pain . Twenty-three studies, published between 2005 and 2016 assessed the efficacy of Pilates in the rehabilitation of low back pain, ankylosing spondylitis, multiple sclerosis, post-menopausal osteoporosis, non-structural scoliosis, hypertension and chronic neck pain. The majority of those clinical trials found Pilates as a rehabilitation tool to be effective in achieving desired outcomes, particularly in the area of reducing pain and disability. " Gftrain (talk) 23:03, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. Such a change to the lead will be contentious, please establish a consensus to change it. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:53, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 October 2022 (2)
At the end of the Description section please add the following:

There is a significant difference between a Classical approach and a Contemporary Approach to Pilates. While the classical method utilizes an imprinted spine, or flat back, during exercise, contemporary methods focus on maintaining a neutral spine, or natural curvature of the back. Some Classical Pilates organizations include: Polestar Pilates, Peak Pilates. Some Contemporary Pilates Organizations include: STOTT PILATES, Balanced Body. Gftrain (talk) 23:14, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: Unsourced and promotional. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:49, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 October 2022 (3)
Add a section and content:

In Media

The Pilates method, specifically STOTT PILATES, has been spotlighted in the media. It can be seen being done by social influencers as well as sports documentaries. Merrithew’s STOTT PILATES Equipment can been seen on the Disney+ Star Series “The Kardashian’s”, and in NHL All-Star Connor McDavid’s documentary Whatever it Takes. Kourtney Kardashian has an article for her wellness brand “Poosh” that describes Pilates as “a super-effective way to get killer abs and a strong core.”

Kyle Lowry, NBA Champion when discussing his weight loss routine said he implemented bike riding and extreme Pilates. When asked what extreme Pilates was, "I do private classes. It's 45 minutes to an hour straight of just work. It's not as much stretching, but a lot of strengthening. We keep the room hot. I tell them to turn the air conditioning off, and we just go in there and work. We're focused and I have good teachers. It's fun. It's something completely different from what I do every day". Gftrain (talk) 23:28, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: Promotional, undue, and poorly sourced. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:48, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: English 102
— Assignment last updated by PrezNell (talk) 18:17, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 February 2023
Link to “Review of the Australian Government Rebate on Natural Therapies for Private Health Insurance” is currently dead. It should update with either: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Review%20of%20the%20Australian%20Government%20Rebate%20on%20Natural%20Therapies%20for%20Private%20Health%20Insurance&publication_year=2015&author=Department%20of%20Health https://web.archive.org.au/awa/20191108002458mp_/https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/4899F1657E19A6F4CA2583A50020140D/$File/Natural%20Therapies%20Overview%20Report%20Final%20with%20copyright%2011%20March.pdf Jdw11 (talk) 02:38, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Google Scholar
 * Updated link to Australian web archive

Wiki Education assignment: Research Process and Methodology - FA23 - Sect 202 - Thu
— Assignment last updated by Kiki6789 (talk) 18:10, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Pilates


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Index of logarithm articles

This is a list of logarithm topics, by Wikipedia page. See also the list of exponential topics.
 * Acoustic power
 * Antilogarithm
 * Apparent magnitude
 * Baker's theorem
 * Bel
 * Benford's law
 * Binary logarithm
 * Bode plot
 * Henry Briggs
 * Bygrave slide rule
 * Cologarithm
 * Common logarithm
 * Complex logarithm
 * Discrete logarithm
 * Discrete logarithm records
 * e
 * Representations of e
 * El Gamal discrete log cryptosystem
 * Harmonic series
 * History of logarithms
 * Hyperbolic sector
 * Iterated logarithm
 * Otis King
 * Law of the iterated logarithm
 * Linear form in logarithms
 * Linearithmic
 * List of integrals of logarithmic functions
 * Logarithmic growth
 * Logarithmic timeline
 * Log-likelihood ratio
 * Log-log graph
 * Log-normal distribution
 * Log-periodic antenna
 * Log-Weibull distribution
 * Logarithmic algorithm
 * Logarithmic convolution
 * Logarithmic decrement
 * Logarithmic derivative
 * Logarithmic differential
 * Logarithmic differentiation
 * Logarithmic distribution
 * Logarithmic form
 * Logarithmic graph paper
 * Logarithmic growth
 * Logarithmic identities
 * Logarithmic number system
 * Logarithmic scale
 * Logarithmic spiral
 * Logarithmic timeline
 * Logit
 * LogSumExp
 * Mantissa is a disambiguation page; see common logarithm for the traditional concept of mantissa; see significand for the modern concept used in computing.
 * Matrix logarithm
 * Mel scale
 * Mercator projection
 * Mercator series
 * Moment magnitude scale
 * John Napier
 * Napierian logarithm
 * Natural logarithm
 * Natural logarithm of 2
 * Neper
 * Offset logarithmic integral
 * pH
 * Pollard's kangaroo algorithm
 * Pollard's rho algorithm for logarithms
 * Polylogarithm
 * Polylogarithmic function
 * Prime number theorem
 * Richter magnitude scale
 * Grégoire de Saint-Vincent
 * Alphonse Antonio de Sarasa
 * Schnorr signature
 * Semi-log graph
 * Significand
 * Slide rule
 * Smearing retransformation
 * Sound intensity level
 * Super-logarithm
 * Table of logarithms
 * Weber-Fechner law

title: Index of logarithm articles


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Prideaux John Selby

Prideaux John Selby FRSE FLS (23 July 1788 – 27 March 1867) was an English ornithologist, botanist and natural history artist.

Life
Selby was born in Bondgate Street in Alnwick in Northumberland, the eldest son of George Selby of Beal and Twizell (d.1804), and his wife, Margaret Cook. He was educated at Durham School.

He studied at University College, Oxford. He succeeded in 1804 to the family estates at Beal, and added to the landholdings there at a cost of some £14000 in about 1840. He sold the Beal estate amounting to 1450 acre in 1850 for £47000 (£0 at today's prices). He died at Twizell House and was buried in Bamburgh churchyard.

Family
In 1810, he married Lewis Tabitha Mitford (1782–1859) daughter of Bertram Osbaldeston Mitford (1748–1800) of Dennet's Hall in Leicester. They had three daughters.

Work
Selby is best known for his Illustrations of British Ornithology (1821–1834), the first set of life-sized illustrations of British birds. He also wrote Illustrations of Ornithology with William Jardine and A History of British Forest-trees (1842).

Many of the illustrations in his works were drawn from specimens in his collection. In addition to the above works he contributed to Jardine's Naturalist's Library the volumes on the pigeons (1835) and the parrots (1836), the latter illustrated by Edward Lear. He was for some time one of the editors of the Magazine of Zoology and Botany.

His collections were sold in 1885 and became dispersed. The South African birds collected by Andrew Smith went to the Zoology Museum of the University of Cambridge.

Further references
Bowey, K. and Newsome, M. (Ed) 2012. The Birds of Durham. Durham Bird Club. ISBN 978-1-874701-03-3

title: Prideaux John Selby


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Torg

Torg is a cinematic cross-genre tabletop role-playing game created by Greg Gorden and Bill Slavicsek, with art by Daniel Horne. It was first published by West End Games (WEG) in 1990. Game resolution uses a single twenty-sided die, drama cards and a logarithmic results table, which later formed the basis for WEG's 1992 sci-fi RPG Shatterzone and 1994 universal RPG Masterbook. WEG produced over fifty supplements, novels and comics for the first edition. A revised and expanded core rule book was produced in 2005, with a single adventure. After WEG closed in 2010, Torg was sold to Ulisses Spiele, who, after a successful crowdfunding campaign, published a new edition called Torg: Eternity in 2018.

Torg is set on Earth during an alien invasion, and players play archetypal heroes from differing genres. The game's title, Torg, refers to an in-game title that individual leaders of the invasion strive to achieve.

Overview
Torg is set in a near future setting, known officially as "the near now". At the game's starting point, Earth has been subjected to an inter-dimensional invasion by a series of "High Lords", who have changed the natural laws of large swaths of the planet to reflect those of their home dimensions. The players assume the role of "Storm Knights": people from Earth and the various invading realms, who possess limited reality-altering abilities and who oppose the plans of the High Lords.

Game mechanics
Torg branded itself as a "cinematic" game and tried to emphasize game play in a manner similar to adventure films such as Indiana Jones. Terminology used in the game reflects this fact. For example, adventures are divided into sub units known as "acts" and "scenes". Conflict resolution also reflects the cinematic nature of the game. Actions are resolved by a player rolling a twenty-sided die against a difficulty number. The degree by which the roll exceeds the difficulty number of the task influences how successful the player is at the action. Rolls of 10 or 20 allow the player to roll again, adding their new roll to the previous. This can be continued indefinitely as long as the player rolls a 10 or 20, allowing for fantastic feats in a cinematic style. The wound system, which stresses incapacitating damage over lethal kinds, also mimics the style of adventure films, wherein the hero may often be incapacitated, but is rarely killed.

In addition, Torg uses an unusual card-based system to augment gameplay. From Torg 's unique "Drama Deck", a hand of cards are dealt to each player at the beginning of the game. The rest are stacked in front of the game master. Cards can be used by both players and game masters to influence play. Whenever a combat encounter begins, the game master flips over a card which dictates certain advantages and disadvantages for the players and the non-player characters (NPCs). Players can also use cards to give themselves advantages, or even plotlines, which could result in extra points.

Players are rewarded with "possibility points", which can be spent to improve the characters abilities, similar to many other role-playing games. However, unlike in most role-playing games, possibility points (or "possibility energy") also exists as an in-game phenomenon, and characters may spend these points to achieve certain effects, such as healing, or warping reality.

Character creation is limited. Both the basic set, as well as subsequent supplements, provide several character templates based on general archetypes such as "Eidenos Hunter", "Vengeful Human" or "Werewolf". These come complete with a general background story and a pre-set roster of attributes and possessions. Player input is limited to distributing points among an array of skills. Eventually, further supplements allowed for more freedom in designing characters.

Characters
Player characters were all "Storm Knights." These were people who were able to alter reality in limited ways. Storm Knights came from all of the different realities in the game, but opposed the invaders for various reasons. Some of the Storm Knights were natives of the invaders' home worlds, and some were natives of Earth who had "flipped" to the invaders' reality. A person became a Storm Knight by experiencing a reality crisis which linked them to a particular reality.

The primary way in which Storm Knights were able to shape reality was the ability to impose the rules of their own reality on a limited area of another reality. Each reality, or "cosm," had a set of four "axioms," which delineated what could be achieved under its rules. The most important of these for gameplay were the technological, magical, and spiritual axioms. For ordinary people, violating the laws of a reality is hard, and becomes increasingly impossible over time. For example, when the Neolithic reality of The Living Land invaded North America, soldiers found that their guns and radios no longer worked because the tech-axiom of the cosm only allowed for a Neolithic level of technology. Storm Knights, however, carried their own reality with them. Normally, they could perform under their own reality wherever they went, sometimes requiring a check against their reality skill, the one skill possessed by all Storm Knights, to accomplish feats which particularly violated the rules of a reality.

Storm Knights could also spend possibility energy in order to influence reality. One way they could do this was to impose their own reality temporarily on a limited area around them. The most common use of possibility energy was to effect rapid healing.

Notable features
Torg is designed to allow players to derive enjoyment from how characters, equipment, and environments of the various realities interact, such as having Terminator-style futuristic cyborgs adventure alongside Dungeons & Dragons-style mages in an Indiana Jones-style pulp setting. It also allows playing a game with an explicitly epic or 'cinematic' overtone (as in Star Wars or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as opposed to RPGs like Vampire: The Masquerade or Dungeons & Dragons).

Torg provides a unified mechanics system suitable for any setting; character attributes and game mechanics use a single sliding scale ('18' can equally mean an hour of time, a truckload of weight, an expert marksman's skill, or $4,000) and a unified method of task resolution involving a 20 sided die. At the same time it provides an open-ended die mechanic: one twenty-sided die roll, read through a bonus chart, gives the bonus to a character's skill for that attempt. Barring special circumstances, the die may be rolled again (and the subsequent total added to the first roll) each time a 10 or a 20 is rolled. Along with re-rolls gained through spent possibilities, card play, and other possible influences, this allows truly spectacular feats to be accomplished by player characters.

The game's backstory involves 'possibility energy', which can be used by Storm Knights to achieve heroic feats. In the game mechanics a spent possibility gives a player a chance to make an additional die roll, potentially leading to greater success. Similarly, an included deck of cards provides bonus rolls or skill points and contains ideas for additional character interaction. Some of these cards can be used instead of Possibility energy. It places an emphasis on groupwork and character interaction by exchange and giving of cards, coordination rules, and the use of "group powers."

At the time of its release Torg's 'Infiniverse' campaign was an ambitious attempt at creating an interactive campaign setting. Subscribers to West End's Infiniverse magazine received response forms, through which they could inform WEG of the progress of their campaigns. Player input actually influenced the campaign setting through a 'rumor' system ('rumors' were introduced in Infiniverse magazines and published adventures, and the majority of responses would determine whether that rumor was 'true' or not). While innovative, the Infiniverse campaign ultimately foundered after the first year or so.

Setting
The game setting describes a number of different realities, each a different genre, self-contained but with two elements common to all: a Darkness Device and its linked ruler, the High Lord. Together each is an individual cosm with its own four axioms and three World Laws. Each cosm survives by invading other realms and converting them to its reality. The inhabitants of most invaded realms transform into those of the invading cosm, while a few become Storm Knights. Storm Knights are the player characters of Torg. The conversion drains possibility energy which feeds the Darkness Device and High Lord. Earth is an unusual 'realm rich in possibility energy and the only way to access all of it was to have a number of cosms invade at once. This was organized by The Gaunt Man, High Lord of Orrorsh, the most successful and powerful of the High Lords. Initially six cosms invaded, all are detailed in the Worldbook, then in their own sourcebook.

Core Earth
A near future Earth with basic magic and religious miracles, and without a Darkness Device and High Lord. Its alternate history has the United States government taken over by a shadowy cabal known as the Delphi Council. Core Earth is detailed in The Delphi Council Worldbook Volume I.

The Living Land
A primitive, mist-filled Lost World-style jungle that covers two separate areas of North America; a strip on West coast, and a larger area on the east coast. The invading cosm, Takta Ker is home to humanoid dinosaurs called edeinos, ruled by the High Lord Baruk Kaah and its Darkness Device, a huge forest called Rec Pakken. Technology and magic are almost nonexistent, but the inhabitants' religion gives them powerful miracles. The Living Land sourcebook was the first published for Torg in 1990.

The Nile Empire
A pulp action cosm combined a restored Ancient Egypt that invaded North Africa. It is characterized by 1930s technology working side by side with Egyptian magical astronomy and "weird science" powers and gizmos. Costumed Mystery Men patrolled the alleyways of Cairo. Ruled by Dr. Mobius, also known as Pharaoh Mobius, one of the most devious High Lords. His darkness device was a crocodile-headed idol called Kefertiti. The Nile Empire sourcebook was the second published for Torg in 1990.

Aysle
Aysle, is a magical cosm with many of the elements of traditional fantasy fiction, including knights, dwarves and dragons. It covers most of the United Kingdom and parts of Scandinavia. Aysle is ruled by the High Lord Pella Ardinary and her Darkness Device, an ornate crown called Drakacanus. High magic and low-technology are the dominant axioms, with Aysle having its own internal war between light and dark. The Aysle sourcebook was the third published for Torg in 1990.

The Cyberpapacy
Covering France, this is a realm which was initially a repressive, medieval theocracy (that wielded real miracles). En route to Core Earth it melded with a virtual reality and gained cyberpunk technology and attitudes. Ruled by the Cyberpope Jean Malreaux I, his darkness device Ebenuscrux took the shape of a prototypical circuit cross, the symbol of the realm's strange transhumanist version of Gallican Catholicism. This "GodNet" was realm of circuitry and mind, an artificial reality contained within the networked computers of the realm, and stylized as a jazzed-up realm of churches and religious artifacts. Storm Knights unlucky enough to be defeated here could be jacked into the virtual Hell, from which no one ever returned.

Nippon Tech
An ultra capitalist nightmare society covering most of Japan where lies and betrayal were as common as breathing, and where martial artists, computer hackers, and yakuza fought to bring down the corporate-controlled government. Ruled by 3327, who was assisted by a darkness device named Daikoku that took the form of a laptop computer.

Orrorsh
A Gothic horror realm ("Orrorsh" is an anagram of "horrors") set in Indonesia where the realm's Victorians considered it their White Man's Burden to protect the natives from the unspeakable monsters roaming the countryside. The greatest enemy in Orrorsh, however, was the enemy within: the realm would attempt to seduce Storm Knights to the side of Wickedness. Originally ruled by the greatest of the High Lords, Lord Byron Salisbury (aka The Gaunt Man) from his sinister holdfast, Illmound Keep. His darkness device, Heketon, took the shape of an enormous human heart. He also possessed a powerful artifact, a mirror named Wicked, that permitted him to gain insight into the Nameless One. Early in the war, the actions of several Storm Knights locked The Gaunt Man into a kind of reality bubble; during this interregnum several monstrous beings known collectively as the Hellion Court ruled in his place.

As the game progressed, more realms were added:

The Land Below
Not a realm per se but a pocket dimension created as an experiment between the Nile Empire and the Living Lands. This dimension featured primitive tribesmen, giant apes, and hostile native animals, all similar to the Pellucidar and Tarzan books of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Later this dimension intruded upon Core Earth's reality in the eastern United States ("The Land Above"), supplanting some of the Living Lands.

Space Gods
A high-technology, spacefaring society out of Chariots of the Gods that had visited South America centuries before. The Akashans had their own colonial empire of alien races which could be added to the game at the game master's discretion. This realm introduced advanced biotech and psionics to the Possibility Wars. it also introduced the idea of reality trees, a non-invasive organic device capable of merging two realities without damaging the inhabitants. This realm was not controlled by a High Lord. However, a sentient group-mind virus known as the Comaghaz had infected some percentage of the Akashan population, including one of its highly placed citizens, Sarila, and sought to perpetuate itself. The Akashans have no darkness device or means of creating inter-cosmic portals, but came this cosm through naturally occurring wormholes called stargates; many of them don't even realize they are in a different cosm, thinking they have only found another galaxy.

Tharkold
The home of a race of magic and technology-using demons that lead a thousand-year war against their world's native human population. Tharkold has been compared to something of a cross between The Terminator and Hellraiser movies. In the game, the Tharkoldu originally planned to invade the Soviet Union, but the Soviet Army defeated them with the help of an Earth psychic. They later established a small realm in Los Angeles, and subsequently took partial control of Berlin, splitting their reality with the New Nile Empire. Ruled by Jezrael, a human slave/soldier who took control after the previous High Lord, the technodemon Kranod, failed in his invasion attempts. The darkness device took the form of a carved rod and was named Malgest.

Terra
Not an invading realm but rather the home cosm of the invaders from the Nile Empire, this was a more straightforward pulp realm without the ancient Egyptian trappings and magic.

According to the cosmology of Torg, in the beginning each dimension, or cosm, was separate from every other. However, a ravenous entity known as The Nameless One, who fed on the energy of the cosms, created several intelligent machines known as Darkness Devices and scattered them throughout the cosms. Wherever they landed, the Darkness Devices bonded with an inhabitant of the cosm, giving him great power. Those who possessed Darkness Devices were known as High Lords. Through the power of his Darkness Device, a High Lord could rip open a portal to other cosms. By sending an invasion force through the portal, the High Lord could slowly remake the target cosm into a duplicate of his own while concurrently draining the target cosm of its possibility energy. Because the invader's reality remade the physical laws of the beachhead, his armies were much more effective in combat than the target's defense force. For instance, if a low-tech, high-magic cosm invaded a higher-tech cosm, the defenders' guns would stop working while the invaders would have access to spells for which the defenders had no known defense. In this way, invading other cosms provided both new lands to conquer and tremendous power which a High Lord could use to extend his lifespan, give himself new abilities, and even modify the physical laws of his home cosm. Amongst the cosms known in Torg, the most successful and powerful High Lord was The Gaunt Man, High Lord of Orrorsh. He had been invading and destroying other cosms for thousands of years before the game opened. According to the backstory of Torg, the Gaunt Man stumbled across the cosm of Earth in his travels and was astounded by the amount of possibility energy available for the taking. Unfortunately for him, that same amount of energy made it impossible for the Gaunt Man to simply invade Earth as he had so many others; the energy backlash would have overwhelmed his portal. The Gaunt Man therefore began forming alliances with the High Lords of several other worlds. They would all invade Earth near-simultaneously, spreading the energy backlash across all their fronts. This invasion is the setting for the game—each invader brings his own, strikingly different realm to Earth so that different physical locations across the globe also have different laws of reality.

Players could design characters for any of these realms, so a party of adventurers might contain a magician, a cop, a vampyre hunter, a super-hero, a cybernetically-enhanced gunrunner, a dwarf miner, a six-foot dinosaur priest, or a beetle-like alien with a bad temper, and any of these characters might eventually learn sword fighting, kung fu, magic, or net-hacking.

Game history
The title was originally an acronym for the in-house development name: The Other Roleplaying Game. Unable to find a better name, the name was adopted as the official name and applied to the game. Names that were considered but rejected include Shadow Wars, Shadow Spawn, Twilight Shadows, and Endless Earth.

Torg initially achieved some success in a saturated market. Reviews (both contemporary to the release of Torg and since then) generally cited the uniqueness of the cinematic elements (e.g., the drama deck), the flexibility of rules system, and the expansiveness of the setting. However, various factors such as poor quality control in new products, a large amount of required game material to purchase, and unwillingness to use the Internet as a medium, meant that by 1994 only a few hardcore fans remained. Various attempted sales of the property and failed attempts at revising and resurrecting the game ensued. In 1995, Omni Gaming Products released the first issue of a new Infiniverse magazine, ignoring many of the series-ending events of WEG's final published adventure War's End in the interest of continuing the game under their own management. This quickly fell through.

By 2004, Torg was again under ownership of West End Games (although WEG itself was under new ownership) and a new version was under development. An announcement by WEG's then-current owner on the official Torg forums explained further:

"To that end, we are beginning our "countdown to the new Torg" event at GenCon 2005; at this event we will have at least two products designed for established Torg fans, but which will hopefully be approachable enough for new people who would want to get started in the grandeur of the Torg universe early.

Ultimately, 2005 came and went without the arrival of the new Torg game. Due to expending resources and time to developing and publishing the new D6 games also by WEG (D6 Fantasy, D6 Adventure, & D6 Space), it became necessary to push Torg into 2006. The new release date was to be in the Fall of 2006.

"Without giving too much away, this will be the beginning of a grassroots effort to get people excited and thinking about Torg again. Those waiting for next year's second edition will get a well-tested system and a universe ready for multi-genre action, and fans who want to come along for the ride through the coming year will learn more about the secrets and mysteries of the Torg universe than they've ever known before."

In addition to an upcoming second edition ("Torg 2.0"), WEG released Torg Revised & Expanded (dubbed Torg 1.5), in order to invigorate interest among longtime fans and to generate interest in backstock of first edition Torg merchandise. This book was released in May 2005 as a PDF file, and was slated to be released as a limited-edition hardback in June 2005, though the release date was subsequently pushed back to July and finally released in August. A limited run of leftover softcover editions, printed for distribution at the 2005 Origins RPG convention, were also made available on WEG's website. The announced Torg 2.0 was never produced.

Torg Supplements

 * WEG20501	Torg boxed set, includes Rulebook, Adventure Book, Worldbook, 156 Drama deck cards + 10 blank cards, and 1d20, 1990.
 * WEG20501	The Lizard and the Lightning, adventure, included in Rulebook, 1990.
 * WEG20551	The Destiny Map, gamemaster screen and part 1 of the Relics of Power adventure trilogy, 1990.
 * WEG20552	The Possibility Chalice, part 2 of the Relics of Power adventure trilogy, 1990.
 * WEG20553	The Forever City, part 3 of the Relics of Power adventure trilogy, 1990.
 * WEG20505	The Living Land, sourcebook and adventures,1990.
 * WEG20506	The Nile Empire, sourcebook and adventures, 1990.
 * WEG20507	Aysle, sourcebook and adventures, 1990.
 * WEG20508	Cyberpapacy, sourcebook and adventures, 1990.
 * WEG20509	Nippon Tech, sourcebook and adventures, 1991.
 * WEG20510	Orrorsh, sourcebook and adventures, 1991.
 * WEG20511	Space Gods, sourcebook and adventures, 1991.
 * WEG20512	Tharkold, sourcebook and adventures, 1992.
 * WEG20513	The Delphi Council, sourcebook and adventures, 1992.
 * Creatures of Orrorsh, 1992.
 * WEG20515	Terra, sourcebook and adventures, 1994.
 * WEG20567	Kanawa Land Vehicles, list of various vehicles with descriptions and statistics, 1992.

Torg: Eternity
When West End Games ceased operations in July 2010, Torg was sold to a German game company, Ulisses Spiele. The July 31, 2014, email newsletter from DriveThruRPG announced that Ulisses Spiele were planning new Torg titles for 2015. Meanwhile, the company had made most of the back catalog available for purchase as PDF downloads in their webstore, aside from the original boxed set.

In 2016 Ulisses Spiele announced that new edition would be released in 2017 under the title, Torg: Eternity.

Ulisses Spiele started a Kickstarter on May 31, 2017, for the new edition of Torg, named "Torg Eternity". The Kickstarter succeeded, generating $355,992 against a goal of $8,000.

Ulisses Spiele continued to run Kickstarters for the release of additional sourcebooks. Early setting changes included the renaming of Nippon Tech to Pan-Pacifica, and Tharkold's permanent arrival in Russia as part of the original invasion of the cosm.

Sourcebooks
The following core sourcebooks have been produced to date.

 * UNA10000 Core Rules (2017), ISBN 9783957526830
 * UNA10020 The Living Land
 * UNA10045 The Nile Empire
 * UNA10058 Ruins of the Living Land
 * US82017 Aysle
 * US82039 The Cyberpapacy
 * US82058 Heroes of the Possibility Wars Volume 1
 * US82065 Tharkold
 * US82112 Orrorsh
 * US82129 Pan-Pacifica

Adventures
The following supplements have been produced to date.

 * UNA10004 Day One (2017), ISBN 9783957526861
 * UNA10007 Delphi Missions - Rising Storm (2017), ISBN 9783957529091
 * UNA10022 The God Box
 * UNA10024 Delphi Missions - Living Land
 * UNA10047 The Fires of Ra
 * UNA10049 Delphi Missions - Nile Empire
 * US82021 Revenge of the Carredon
 * US82022 Delphi Missions - Aysle
 * US82034 When Cosms Collide
 * US82043 Unhallowed Data
 * US82044 Delphi Missions - Cyberpapacy
 * US82056 Relics of Power Redux
 * US28067 Blood on the Blasted Lands
 * US82068 Delphi Missions - Tharkold
 * US82131 Operation: Soft Sell
 * US82132 Delphi Missions - Pan-Pacifica

Drawbacks
While the breadth of Torg was one of its most exciting features, it could also cause significant problems. Because the scope of the game was so broad, and it incorporated such a wide variety of skills, the game became unwieldy to some players. Further, in some cases simple rules given in the basic set were thrown out or expanded in sourcebooks, so that players moving between campaigns sometimes found the rules were not what they were used to; even some of the character templates from the boxed set were not completely compatible with the rules in the sourcebook for their home cosm. This breadth of scope also served to ratchet up the game's expense: each of the game's realms was detailed in its own sourcebook, and those sourcebooks included rules that weren't covered in the main rulebook. For instance, if a character wanted to build his own magic spells, the player needed to own (or at least have access to) the Aysle sourcebook. Likewise, psionics were covered in the Space Gods sourcebook, martial arts in the Nippon Tech book, pulp powers and gizmos in The Nile Empire and Terra sourcebooks, and cyberware/bionics in the Cyberpapacy's. Note, however, that if a Cyberpapacy character wanted to hack the GodNet, they needed yet another supplement for those rules. While this allowed a group to take their game in any direction they wished, it made it difficult to keep up with all the rules. This is especially true because long-term campaigns tend to lead to cross-genre characters, such as mages with cybernetics, or espionage agents who learned the Occult. It reached a point where even published adventures would forget, ignore, or skim over previously established rules. Successive materials suffered from power creep: as more books were released, the rules and equipment tended to escalate the relative level of power available to player characters and NPCs alike. The Living Lands Sourcebook, while initially formidable, was soon superseded by advanced alien weaponry, more powerful miracles, cybernetics, occult magic, and psionics published in subsequent books. The later material displayed a penchant for humor, often at the cost of breaking the mood. The edeinos of the Living Lands proved a popular target, transforming to other realities and becoming among other things "Skippy the Edeinos" (who in the campaign setting came complete with an action figure), a Nile Empire "Rocket Ranger" named Captain Verdigris, and an Elvis impersonator. Supplements such as The High Lords Guide to the Possibility Wars went so far as to address this issue and advise readers to read the original material on edeinos to make them more dangerous/serious and ignore the trend WEG had itself established. The Nile Empire also often slipped from the genre of pulp heroes into outright self-referential parody. For example, Nile Empire ninja engaged in elaborate martial art moves and high-pitched battle cries, compared to their stealthy Nippon Tech counterparts who would mock them. Scene titles in the published adventures were often elaborate puns, and there was a Five Realms role-playing game-within-the-game where the author Jeff Mills was a parody of game designer Greg Gorden, and who eventually went on to help save the world in the final published adventure, War's End. One advantage of the game was that with a virtual army of "Storm Knights," player characters could be fit in to anywhere on the planet. However, this led to a huge "supporting cast" of characters. The initial characters featured in the first trilogy of novels were implied to have great destinies but for the most part slid into obscurity. Individual writers and artists had their own preferred cast of characters they featured in the published supplements, novels, and adventures they worked on. One supplement, the Character Collection, featured a contest of reader submissions for best characters. The five winners were then incorporated into a subsequent published adventure. The result was an overly large cast of characters where no one individual or group made an impression or could be identified as the primary identifiable characters of the game.

Another problem stemmed from the fact that visiting other realms meant travelling to geographic locations and cultures with which many players and gamemasters were not familiar. For example, there is a specific reference to 1930s gangsters "with an Arab slant," though most players simply did not know how to give such a "slant." Similarly, a lot of references were made to the culture clash between the Victorians and Indonesians, without specific information. In practice, this tended to be ignored in the game's own adventure modules, despite the vague references to culture in the rules books. Also, as not surprising for a U.S. game aimed at U.S. customers, Torg was highly U.S.-centric. At one time or another every invading cosm except one occupied part of the United States, and most of the real-world political focus was on the U.S. government, which was taken over in a political coup by a fascist Senator. Four of the ten book-length adventure modules were set in the United States, with three of those (City of Demons, Operation Hard Sell, Central Valley Gate) set in California. The final major act of the concluding adventure, War's End, was also set in California. Finally, in some quarters the game was criticized for its alleged anti-Japanese sentiment, as the Nippon Tech realm played into many of the fears and concerns of Japanese business dominating the U.S. industries in the late 80s/early 90s. The portrayal of the Cyberpapacy provoked claims of anti-Catholicism as well with its papacy that among other things spread an artificial AIDS virus. It has to be said that within the game it was actually the Core Earth Japanese and Catholics who were "good guys" fighting evil invaders who embodied these stereotypes. However, that distinction was often lost upon many, and WEG did heavily promote these stereotypical elements in their gaming products even while attributing them to fictional invaders.

Reception
In the July 1990 edition of Games International (Issue 16), Paul Mason found the combat mechanics fairly pedestrian, saying, "All that can be said of this is that it is serviceable and not overly complex." He also found that "the artwork is weak for a product of this prestige." He concluded, "the game reminds me just a little too much of Pacesetter's doomed introductory product Sandman, which featured a similar heady, eclectic blend."

In the February 1991 edition of Dragon (Issue 166), Jim Bambra liked the multi-genre aspect of the game, in which players could be immersed in a medieval fantasy London one session and in a cyberpunk Paris the next. He also liked the quick resolution for skill checks and combat; although it did require some table checking, it was fast and adaptable. He noted that magic and healing were "neatly handled and fit into the system with a minimum of fuss." Bambra criticized the varying quality of the rules, saying, "some places are very clear, but re-readings are needed to grasp to what is being said in other areas." He also found the quality of artwork varied greatly. Overall, Bambra thought Torg was "a major addition to the role-playing games currently available."

In the July 1992 edition of Dragon (Issue 183), Martin Wixted called Torg "one of the most gripping role-playing games I have ever encountered." However, he cautioned that it was "not for the rule-dependent gamer."

In the August 1992 edition of Dragon (Issue 184), Rick Swan reviewed Tharkold, a supplement describing the demons invading Los Angeles. Of Tharkold, Swan said that West End designers "have hit their stride." He noted that "absent in previous TORG products but delightfully present here is an undercurrent of black humor."

In a retrospective review of Torg in Black Gate, Matthew David Surridge said "The possibility energy that made the player characters heroes was, in essence, imagination. Torg, as a game, was literally driven by imagination on numerous different levels."

Reviews

 * Challenge #44 (1990)
 * White Wolf #21 (June/July, 1990)
 * Review in Shadis #8

title: Torg


text:
Talk:Kaffir (historical usage in southern Africa)

The article currently says that kaffir in south Africa refers to 'aboriginals'. This would restrict it to the Hottentots surely? Does not the usage of kaffir among South African whites refer to all those of 'Black' (African) origin? Imc 15:33, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Confusion between "Keffir" and "Kafir"
I would move the whole thing to "Kafir" (the Arabic/Muslim term for unbeliever/heathen) and have "Kaffir" or "Keffir" (the South African term) be a subheading or separate article. —iFaqeer | Talk to me! 20:18, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

 * I agree. I have a dutch dictionary with two separate entries. One with double ff and one with one f. May be we should even have two different articles. Andries 20:30, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

And also, could the discussion of the beveridge be moved to "Kefir" ? I have never seen the word tranliterated as "Kaffir," and it does not sound that way at all in either Russian or Ossetian. Maybe it is closer in one of the other languages of the Causauses, I do not claim to speak them, but I think this would be a good way to avoid confusion. --VonWoland 05:05, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

from fics
1: Kaffir War of 1878; Caffre also spelled Caffer, or Kaffir, also called African Wildcat, or Egyptian Wildcat; Kaffir Lime - Cat repellant? 2: Pyramid of Chefren "Khafre" -Unpopular Pharaoh - Herodotus 3: Kafiristan - descendants of Alexander the Great (Hindu Kush) 4: Kefir - Russian Yogurt (Goat Milk) 5: Latin caper, capr-, goat ;Kahf hebrew letter; Cape "goat hide", Capella "small goat" 6: Kaffirs or Kafirs Arabic for Infidels; "And Pantagruel made himself merry    with all this; for I dare boldly say that he was the best little gaffer     that was to be seen between this and the end of a staff." 7: Kafir-Kalash "Goat sacrifice" to Sajigor (Dionysus?);"The Caucasus is    identified as Mount Kaf in Burton's translation of the Arabian Nights" 8: Khnum-Khufu - Cheops pyramid, Khnum - Goat God, Tutankhamen Symbols of    Power - Gold Shepherds crook and flail 9: Cape of Good Hope (Cape of Storms) (British Kaffraria) Jan van Riebeeck 1652 presented with the Boer Goat by the Khoi people 10: Gafr - Welsh "goat", Gafar German "to seize", Gaffer Hook - to drag the speaker offstage, Egyptian Heiroglyphs only use consonants and do not represent vowels - KFR - Chefren from greek translation, Khafre the modern translation

Researched the name for a chess alias. Originally thought kafir had a relation to killing goats. Goat's milk, cat's and pharoahs seem to be more plausible. The Sphinx is next to Chefren's pyramid End

someone else

This is anecdotal to be sure, but I went to high school in Australia with an ex-pat white South African during the early 1980s, and he used "kaffir" as an insult period, not merely as a word equivalent to the English "nigger". Sometimes he was in earnest, sometimes he was joking, but his use of the word "kaffir" was usually directed to *white* Australians. I can't imagine the same effect being obtained in my own cultural milieu by referring to a Caucasian using words such as "nigger" or some of the many derogatory terms used for Australian Aboriginals

why is the Hebrew etymology for village improbable?
This is mentioned as the etymology in the old Dutch dictionary that I have. There are several Hebrew words in Dutch language, such as "jatten" (=stealing, from jat = hand.) or "mazzel", (which means good luck). Andries 17:11, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * well, I suppose it's possible. But why would a word for village end up as a derogarory word for native? The 'hebrew' words you quote are 'rotwelsch', I suppose, i.e. underworld slang. But why 'village'? But I suppose if it's in your dictionary, we may as well leave it in place. dab (ᛏ) 17:49, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * It is very well possible that the word "kaffir"" ended as a pejorative word. The same happened to some extent with the Dutch word "boer" (meaning farmer) that now also means an uncivilized, rude person. Same could have happened for villager. Andries 18:17, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * sure, but seeing that the kaffir were seen as subhuman, not just as 'boorish', I think this is not a compelling explanation. The 'beetle' seems to be more credible. But as I said, it's not impossible, and I'll not revert you, I really don't care, as long as you don't remove the alternative explanation. dab (ᛏ) 18:29, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What is the Dutch word that's referred too? In my old Dutch dictionary, I find "kever", and I also know about German "Käfer", though I believe both these words are being pronounced with the first syllable having a long vowel.

Problems with the article
This article has many problems/errors of which I only corrected the most obvious one.I removed "by White Afrikaaner settlers".
 * It is not only used by whites
 * It is not only used by Afrikaners
 * Kaffir was an English and a Dutch word before long before Afrikaans as a language or the Afrikaners as a people existed. It later entered the Afrikaans language as "kaffer"
 * "Afrikaaner settlers" makes no sense. The Afrikaners did not settle in South Africa. Dutch, Germans, French and other Europeans settled in South Africa. A group of them started calling themselves Afrikaners much later. The term only came into common usage 200 years after the original settlement. I also think that it is strange to call a people who have lived in a country for more than 300 years, and have a large aboriginal genetic component "settlers". By the same token, it would be strange to call all non-native Americans "settlers".

The etymology section is a mess. The Oxford English Dictionary only lists the arabic "kaffir" as source. Online Etymology Dictionary also has this as the origin and adds :Early Eng. missionaries used it as an equivalent of "heathen" to refer to Bantus in South Africa (1792), from which use it came generally to mean "South African black" regardless of ethnicity, and to be a term of abuse since at least 1934.

The sentence "The derogatory Afrikaans usage would have taken over this meaning with the extra offensive connotation that Africans were black pests" is also problematic.
 * It is not only used as a derogotary term in Afrikaans, but in English as well. Who used it as a derogotary first? Your guess is as good as mine, but chances are that it gradually developed simultaneously in Afrikaans and English in the early part of the 20th century.
 * When "kaffir" took on it's derogotary meaning (early 20th century), the Afrikaans language was already developed, and the connection with the dutch word for beetle (kever) would not make sense.

I will do more research on the etymology and then edit the article. --Siener 14:41, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Revision
I have tried to put the article into logical sections and removed the unsubstantiated etymologies (beetle, village etc). None of these suggestions is given credence in the Oxford Dictionary of South African English, which is the undisputed master work in reference to S.A. English origins - ODSAE gives only kafir (Arabic) - infidel, with alternative transliteration kaffer in Dutch and Afrikaans. Also corrected some POV/wrong statements - e.g. kaffir not used to refer to native Africans, it refers specifically to black Africans. It's important to remember that:
 * The word kaffir was in use 60 years before the Dutch first settled in South Africa
 * Kaffir did not always have its modern, derogatory meaning in South Africa - ODSAE does not show pejorative use until 1851, by which time the word had been used in English for at least 260 years. Humansdorpie 14:59, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Derogatory word
I've reinstated the key opening statement informing the reader that the word is derogatory. Also removed the reference to Muslim and white African use - infers that no other religious or ethnic groups use the word in a derogatory sense. Also qualified blacks to black people, and stressed that during the colonial period the word was sometimes used in a neutral sense. Humansdorpie 20:45, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
 * It originally had no negative connotations. And I would stress that it still is often used neutrally in South Africa by many people. Altough I need to say that it adds to the flavour. It was the "liberal" (mostly English) Whites that gave it the negative meaning. --196.207.47.60 (talk) 19:11, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Relation to Kafirs
Could the relationship to Kafirs be made explicit somewhere? --Janto 12:04, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Kafirs seems to have some basic flaws - mainly the fact that it appears to have been written in about 1900 and is neither neutral nor accurate. I've made a suggestion at Talk:Kafirs to turn it into a disambiguation page Humansdorpie 13:05, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Black people
For someone coming to this article with no knowledge of this word or its context, it's not helpful or informative to be told that the word refers to certain African people - one might as well say that the word dago refers to certain European people. I have restored the original wording. Humansdorpie 18:09, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Recent move
I'm sorry, but moving this page to "South Africa Kaffir people" is simply wrong. They are not a "people", signifying a single, unified ethnicity, but the word was a general term, applied to anyone with a dark skin. dewet|™ 13:08, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

 * Indeed, South Africa Kaffir people may not be a good name. At the very least, it should be in the plural, "South Africa Kaffir peoples"; and since "South Africa" is more likely to be read as the country than as "southern Africa", perhaps it should be "Southern Africa Kaffir peoples", or just "African Kaffir peoples".  We can still rename it something else. But as for the move itself, it was necessary because the olf "Kaffir" article was a sink for too many senses of the word, some of them just meaningless sound coincidences, several of them very charged because of racial or religious connections. Also there were other similarly named articles, with very confusing redirects and many wrong links. I could not see how to clean up that mess without breaking the historic "neutral" sense away from the ethnic slur and the other senses. By the way, I got to that page because I needed to create another article for the Sri Lanka Kaffirs. That seems to be a fairly well-defined and still extant ethnic group; while related historically and etymologically to the "Kaffir=African Black" sense, they are neither "people with dark skin", not just any "African Blacks". Clearly, even the generic "Kaffir=African Black" sense is not really as generic as you imply. All the best, Jorge Stolfi 17:35, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

 * PS. Moreover, I gather that in Jamaica the people of Indian descent use "kaffir" to refer to those of African descent, while in South Africa they themselves would be called "kaffir" by people of European descent. So even the ethnic slur sense is a bit more complicated than just "dark skin"... Jorge Stolfi 17:45, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

 * I've moved the article to Kaffir (Historical usage in southern Africa), and have been working to expand the article a little. I think the use of the term "kaffir people", even in the historical context, was a horrifying generalisation, lumping a very diverse, and probably unrelated in many cases, group of people together. Having a page by that name encourages people to use the term in articles on history, when a moreb specific reference to an actual ethnic group (eg: Xhosa people) would be more informative, and non-derogatory. -Kieran 17:55, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Well done; I think the move and expansion are both sensible and good. dewet|✉ 18:35, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


text:
Talk:Torg

Redirect Request
The following link refers to the game in this article and should simply redirect here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TORG

Done.

Not a video game
Is there some category for this? It's a pen and paper thing, not a videogame.

Highly recommended
Okay, okay, sorry but I have to say it: This game is absolutely awesome. You have to be careful about what to ignore; just take the basic set + world books and create your own campaign with it; the later official books were, sorry to say, mediocre to garbage. But the system, the setting -- they're absolutely cool. -- Nils Jeppe 18:30, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Claim: TORG was originally The Other Roleplaying Game
Since I expect someone to challenge it: That TORG was once the working title meaning "The Other Roleplaying Game" is common wisdom in the industry. This claim appears to be supported by this Usenet that claims to be from Ray Winninger, one of Torg's developers. A message purporting to be from Scott Palter of West End Games claims other titles that were considered included Shadow Wars, Shadow Spawn, Twilight Shadows, and Endless Earth. Alan De Smet | Talk 22:20, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Dead Links to WEG
The links to WEG's site are both dead. I imagine they've updated where things are by now. I'll take a look, unless someone beats me to it. Nimbex 15:15, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Notability
Why is the notability of this game in question?
 * First, it's a major RPG by West End Games, itself once a major rpg games producer;
 * Second, it's setting is truly unique, even when considering the many and varied fictional universes devised in modern times;
 * Finally, for actually having a series of novels based upon it, a rarity for any game.

In addition, the game itself, while not currently "active" is still officially in West End's publication plans (according to them) so it is not an abandoned property as many other RPGs listed on Wikipedia are.

I'd say that all of this makes it notable enough to deserve its own wikiarticle (though it does need better sourcing). -Wilfredo Martinez (talk) 19:25, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
 * In answer to your question, the notability of the article Torg is questioned because, apart from you opinion, there is no evidence of notability in this article. Note that is not to say that that this topic is non-notable, it is just that the state of the article as this time has warranted a Notability cleanup template so that editors and readers alike are alerted to this issue. Claims of notability must adhere to Wikipedia's policy on verifiability; it is not enough to simply assert that this meets a criterion without substantiating that claim with reliable sources. If you can cite reliable secondary sources in support of your assertion, then I would have to agree with you. --Gavin Collins (talk) 21:42, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

 * It will be difficult to find sources for that, the game was published before the Internet was popular, and I am not sure you'll find much secondary gaming literature from the early 90s. I must wonder what this eagerness to get rid of the article is all about. You'd have to start purging about half of Wikipedia, I don't even want to know how many articles there are related to obscure things from Star Wars or Star Trek... and yet, purging this kind of article simply doesn't seem like a good way to spend your time. Sure the article could use some streamlining and editing but it's not like it's an overly huge article, or a collection of many tiny articles.

 * Anyway, to be more constructive: Torg was indeed quite popular when it was published; if I recall correctly it was one of the best selling RPG products in the early 90s (I can not offer support for this claim; I've looked). It had a pretty original background and highly unique mechanics. Moreover, it did have one innovation that should not be forgotten: WEG tried to make the official TORG campaign participatory, that is, subscribers to the Infiniverse magazine/newsletter could send in feedback forms about the outcome of their game sessions and the campaign would move forward according to what the result of these forms were.

 * The game mechanics of TORG served as the basis for the Masterbook series, and as such were used for the Indiana Jones role playing game, and the Shatterzone game (and I believe a few other fringe products).

 * Finally, please note that TORG is a game, and not a book per se, although there were also several novels published in the line. What makes a role-playing game notable? -- Nils Jeppe (talk) 14:13, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

 * Again, I can't take your opinion: please provide evidence of notability. Although this is a game, it is published in a book like format, so WP:BK is a suitable (but not perfect) guideline to apply in this case. --Gavin Collins (talk) 22:19, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

 * That's not the original game Torg, that's a supplemental sourcebook for the game. (A possible clue could have been the title of the Amazon book, "Torg: Aysle - The Sourcebook of Magical Reality"., not just "Torg".)  The original distribution for Torg was in a box, with several pamphlets and character sheets inside -- not a book.  A general notability tag would be much more appropriate in this case, and a separate role-playing game tag would be appropriate for other RPGs.  An RPG is not fiction, it's a game, regardless of distribution method.

-- ArglebargleIV (talk) 23:19, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It may have come in box, but a box is not a game either, it is packaging. I have had this debate about whether a game is book or not on my talk page already, and my view is that a game is a game, not a book. However, if it comes with a book of instructions or in a book format such as Torg (ISBN 9780874313000), this indicates that the game relies upon a book for its rules, rather than a computer program. A general notability tag is fine, but the notability (books) template is probably the nearest specific cleanup template (based on WP:BK) that can be applied. I am not saying this is perfect, but it is a close approximation to the notability guidlelines currently being drawn up for games: see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Role-playing games/Notability. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:02, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

It's ridiculous that popular early 90s RPG Torg could be considered for deletion on notability grounds. That's exactly why I dislike Wikipedia more and more. Perhaps this link could help save it. http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=1051 It references a review in Dragon #191 (not available online, unfortunately). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.16.111.59 (talk) 05:33, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Torg is also notable for one being the early work of one of its contributors: Bill Slavicsek, who is now head of Roleplaying Design and Development over at Wizards and Coast, the industry leader. Slavicsek's work is of interest then, given his massive clout in the gaming world.

I am sorry to see your absurd crusade continue, Gavin. --Swordwraith —Preceding comment was added at 19:57, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I want to save this article too, because I have the opinion that Torg is relevant and notable in a discussion on role-playing games, but there are a couple things wrong with this article that need to be fixed. After some time has been given to fix/add the citations required for the article, the article should be re-evaluated and, likely, merged with the West End Games article. However, until that happens, I'm going to see about finding sources and editing the page. I'd like to see it saved. (Another note: Paranoia doesn't have an article at all and I could argue that it's "more" notible that Torg.) Grantor (talk) 06:42, 3 April 2008 (UTC) And I just noticed that this was not on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Role-playing games listing of Notibility flagged games, so I added it. Grantor (talk) 06:53, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
 * First: popularity, uniqueness and innovation are not Wikipedia criteria for notability. However, Bill Slavicsek's contributions, the attached novels and that Torg clearly associated with West End Games (notible for the first Star Wars RPG), there is some weight to notibility arguements. But I agree that without citations, there is no objective evidence that Torg is "notable". It may be important, but that's not the same as notable.
 * Second: the article is an extremely long description of the product, apparently from the eyes of someone familiar with it. Not one citation to prove this. The only way to verify that the assertions made in the article are accurate would be to buy them and read them yourself. It is also too long, including such things as a two line description of each cosm that was published. The drawbacks section is particularly bad about making assertions (in great detail) that need citation.
 * Third: As sad as it may be that a TV series can have a page for each episode (and this is allowed mostly by the show's popularity, not official "notability") many role-playing games never make it past a single line reference on the publisher's wiki page. Torg, in fact, does not even have a line; it's just a single word, expecting curious people to link to the complete article. Unfortunately, Role-playing games do not currently have a clear set of guidelines for defining their notability. And this is not the place to argue that this sub-genre of publishing should follow different rules (although I think that this argue does need to be pushed where they are discussing it).

 * All editors will welcome any input you can give to this article, especially in finding reliable sources for it. I know (or am 99% sure) that they exist, but having searched online from time to time I haven't been able to turn up much.  Of course this doesn't mean anything in particular, other than that they aren't online (which isn't so surprising considering that Torg's popularity crested before the internet explosion).  P.S.  And check Paranoia (role-playing game) for the article you seek on that game, which can also use much work.  (However, the book Hobby Games: The 100 Best, edited by James Lowder, contains an essay on Paranoia to be used as a source for that article.)  --Craw-daddy | T | 22:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

 * Just poking my head in Shadis Magazine #8 which includes an article regarding Torg and White Wolf Magazine #35, which does as well are available for sale at DriveThruRPG. I'm not sure how to include this in the article yet, but I'll include it as soon as I've read up on Wikipedia rules.  In other news West End Games still has the old Infiniverses available as direct downloads.  This should probably be sourced into the article at some point. ABCoLD (talk) 16:12, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, regardless of all the above discussion,
It is worth mentioning here the ultimate fate of Torg (as copied from the West End Games article): "West End Games is currently selling off all of their properties and working to close down operations. TORG was sold to a German game company, Ulisses Spiele."

I think the fact that a major German gaming company (Das Schwarze Auge is huge in Germany, and they released the German version of Pathfinder) was interested in specifically acquiring the rights to Torg helps reinforce the idea that it is notable enough to have its own Wikipedia article. 71.229.72.185 (talk) 18:40, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

title: Talk:Torg


text:
Viasat (Nordic television service)

Viasat was a satellite and pay television brand, co-owned by the Swedish media group Viaplay Group in the Nordic countries, Antenna Group in Hungary, and by Viasat World internationally. Founded in Sweden in 1991, Viasat has previously been owned by Modern Times Group. The channels of both companies were broadcast from London.

In 2020, Viasat formed a joint venture with Canal Digital to form the company Allente. The merger was completed on April 13, 2021.

Satellite platforms
The Viasat signals was received from the Astra 4A and SES-5 satellites at 4.8°E with any DVB-S receiver equipped with a NDS VideoGuard descrambling module. Viasat does not have a platform of their own outside the Nordic and Baltic countries, so they have to rely on third party distributors in Eastern and Central Europe.

In May 2016, MTG announced the launch of Viasat Ultra HD, the first ultra-high-definition television (UHD) channel in the Nordic region and its first UHD Sports channel. The channel will feature selected live sport events especially produced in Ultra HD and launch in the autumn in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland via SES-5. Viasat will also be launching an Ultra HD set-top box from Samsung and a TV-module to enable existing UHD TVs to display the channel.

Nordic countries
The Nordic Viasat-branded operations are owned by Viaplay Group. The brand is no longer used for the advertising-funded and free-to-air channels of Viaplay Group.

V Film and V Series
V Film and V Series channels are common for the four Nordic markets.
 * V Film Premiere
 * V Film Action
 * V Film Hits
 * V Film Family
 * V Series

Sports
The available sports television channels differ across the Nordic markets due to the varying broadcasting rights. In Denmark most of the Viaplay-owned sports channels use the brand TV3 (TV3 Sport and TV3 Max).

 * V Sport Ultra HD (Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark)
 * V Sport Golf (Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark)
 * V Sport Live 1-5 (Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark)
 * V Sport 1 (Sweden, Finland, Norway)
 * V Sport Extra (Sweden)
 * V Sport Premium (Sweden and Finland)
 * V Sport Football (Sweden and Finland)
 * V Sport Vinter (Sweden and Finland)
 * V Sport Motor (Sweden and Finland)
 * V Sport Premier League (Norway)
 * V Sport Premier League 1-4 (Norway)
 * V Sport+ (Norway)
 * V Sport 2 (Norway)
 * V Sport 3 (Norway)
 * V Sport+ Suomi (Finland)
 * V Sport 1 Suomi (Finland)
 * V Sport 2 Suomi (Finland)

International channels
Pay channels (owned by Viasat World):
 * Viasat Nature
 * Viasat Explore
 * Viasat History
 * Viasat Kino (previously TV1000 East) (Baltic states and Ukraine)
 * Viasat Kino Action (previously TV1000 Action East) (Baltic states and Ukraine)
 * Viasat Kino World (previously TV1000 World Kino) (Baltic states and Ukraine)
 * Viasat Kino Comedy (previously ViP Comedy East) (Baltic states and Ukraine)
 * Viasat Kino Megahit (previously ViP Megahit East) (Ukraine)
 * Viasat Serial (Ukraine)
 * TV1000 (Balkan states and Moldova)
 * Epic Drama (in Central and Eastern Europe)
 * Viasat True Crime (Poland)

Pay channels in Russia, Central Asia, Caucasus and Moldova (owned by Viasat Russia):
 * Viju Nature (previously Viasat Nature)
 * Viju Explore (previously Viasat Explore)
 * Viju History (previously Viasat History)
 * Da Vinci Russia
 * Viju TV1000 (previously TV1000)
 * Viju TV1000 Action (previously TV1000 Action)
 * Viju TV1000 Russkoe (previously TV1000 Russkoe Kino)
 * Viju TV1000 Novella
 * Viju+ Premiere (previously ViP Premiere)
 * Viju+ Megahit (previously ViP Megahit)
 * Viju+ Comedy (previously ViP Comedy)
 * Viju+ Serial (previously ViP Serial)
 * Viju+ Planet (previously Viasat Nature/History HD)
 * Viju+ Sport (previously Viasat Sport)

Hungary
Owned by Antenna Group.

Pay channels:
 * AXN Hungary
 * Viasat 2 Hungary
 * Viasat 3 Hungary
 * Viasat 6 Hungary
 * Viasat Film Hungary

DBS Channels
In addition to their own channels, Viasat carry several third-party channels on their platform.

Country specific
Sweden:
 * SVT1 (also in HD)
 * SVT2 (also in HD)
 * SVT24 (timesharing with Barnkanalen)
 * SVT Barnkanalen (timesharing with SVT24)
 * Kunskapskanalen
 * TV4
 * Sjuan
 * TV4 Film
 * TV4 Fakta
 * TV4 Science fiction
 * TV4 Sport
 * TV4 Komedi
 * TV4 Guld
 * TV4 News
 * Kanal 5
 * Kanal 9
 * Kanal 11
 * TNT
 * MTV Sweden
 * Nickelodeon Sweden
 * Comedy Central Sweden

Denmark:
 * DR1
 * DR2
 * DR3 (HD)
 * DR K
 * DR Ramasjang
 * DR Ultra
 * TV 2 Denmark
 * TV 2 Charlie
 * TV 2 Film
 * TV 2 News
 * TV 2 Zulu
 * Kanal 4
 * Kanal 5
 * 6'eren
 * 7'eren
 * 24 Nordjyske
 * MTV Denmark

Norway:
 * NRK1
 * NRK2
 * NRK3/NRK Super
 * TV 2 Norge
 * TV 2 Filmkanalen
 * TV 2 Nyhetskanalen
 * TV 2 Sport
 * TV3 (Norway)
 * TVNorge
 * FEM
 * MAX
 * VOX
 * MTV Norway

Slovakia:
 * RTVS

Lithuania:
 * Lietuvos Rytas TV
 * LRT Televizija
 * LRT Lituanica
 * LNK
 * TV1
 * BTV
 * Sport1

Transnational

 * Animal Planet Europe (only in the Baltics)
 * BBC World News
 * Cartoon Network (6.00-21.00, time-sharing with TCM Europe)
 * CNBC Nordic
 * CNN International
 * Discovery Channel Europe (only in the Baltics)
 * Disney Channel Scandinavia
 * E!
 * Euronews
 * Boomerang (Nordic) (launched on 30 September 2010 as a 24-hour channel)
 * The God Channel
 * MTV Live HD
 * Nat Geo Scandinavia
 * Nat Geo HD
 * Nat Geo Wild
 * Nickelodeon Scandinavia (6.00-18.00, time-sharing with VH1 Europe)
 * Nick Jr. (Sweden)
 * NHK World
 * NTV Mir (only in the Baltics)
 * Playboy TV (time-sharing with Viasat Nature/Crime)
 * Disney Junior Scandinavia (time-sharing with Viasat Film Drama)
 * Ren TV (only in the Baltics)
 * RTR Planeta (only in Estonia and Lithuania)
 * RT
 * Spice Platinum (time-sharing with Viasat Explorer)
 * Spice Private (also known as Viasat Ticket 2 Erotic)
 * STS International (only in the Baltics)
 * Disney XD Scandinavia (defunct in December 31, 2020)
 * TCM Nordic (Turner Classic Movies) (21.00-6.00, time-sharing with Cartoon Network Nordic)
 * VH1 Europe (18.00-6.00, time-sharing with Nick Jr Sweden)
 * CBS Reality
 * MTV Europe
 * Penthouse HD1
 * Penthouse HD2
 * Space Channel 3D

World record
The live 3D broadcast of the 2011 UEFA Champions League final match between Manchester United and Barcelona was provided by Viasat in 3D format in Gothenburg (Sweden). The football match was broadcast on EKTA screen. This Ukrainian produced 3D LED TV made The Guinness Book of World Records.

title: Viasat (Nordic television service)