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Covok posted:Imagine using Free League's Alien RPG during this era in campaign play. You can be a crew who escaped the Earth, only to find the monsters followed them. They go to an asteroid base and get jobs working for the recently empancipated colony, now free from the control of the corps who once ran it. They work hard and get into trouble with crime and government, risking life and limb. And, as they get closer, they find out something is stalking the base. A xeno has made it aboard and the base gets overrun. They escape to their ship only to find out one followed them home and they have to survive. I feel like I couldn't ever play this concept straight if I was GM'ing it myself. I would have almost every hint of a xenomorph ruining things be a red herring. "Oh, no, that guy who worked in the isolated part of the vents that disappeared? He actually just got transferred to Fast Food Processing and HR forgot to note it." "This grisly scene along the tram tracks? We actually just spilled a vat of barbecue sauce and then someone transporting a frozen cow carcass slipped and spilled that, and then the station cats got into it, and now looks like someone butchered an animal here." "After three months of investigation we've confirmed there was a xenomorph on board the station. Yes, was. Turned out it was a juvenile, so it sought out food it didn't have to fight for first, sniffed out the burger patty production line, got on the conveyor and because it was so hungry it didn't notice what was up ahead before it ended up in the grinder. Yes, that's why the patties have been tasting weird for a while. Yes, that's why the FDA got on our rear end for those carapace fragments we thought were from roaches. Case closed." Because at some point the idea of some poor suckers getting stalked by aliens everywhere they go, goes from horror to dark comedy by itself in my mind, due to it eventually being more and more implausible that one would've ended up there.
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Mar 8, 2023 08:27
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| # ? May 28, 2024 00:31 |
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Not to mention all the things that Alien has crossed over with. Predator, Robocop and Terminator are just a start.
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Mar 8, 2023 09:44
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Not to mention all the things that Alien has crossed over with. Predator, Robocop and Terminator are just a start. This is the point where I drop The Moontrap Timeline for people to dig through for inspiration
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Mar 8, 2023 10:41
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Upsidads posted:Like hey dog, There's a fairly new thread for it that could use your love
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Mar 8, 2023 15:15
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drrockso20 posted:This is the point where I drop The Moontrap Timeline for people to dig through for inspiration
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Mar 8, 2023 15:55
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mellonbread posted:I love the Alien comics, they took the series in a much better direction than the movie franchise did and came a lot closer to recapturing the horror element of the original film. My concern would be with longevity of the campaign. There is only so many times you can be hunted by the same creature before it starts to get a little repetitive. My group has played a couple fun one-shots of Mothership, but I would never attempt campaign play. That poo poo happens to my character once? I'm out. I'm retired. I'm not going into space anymore. I'm moving to the bottom of a gravity well and sleeping with the lights on.
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Mar 8, 2023 18:30
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My issue with most of the Alien comics is that they kept reusing the "science station experimenting on xenomorphs until WHOOPS!" and a lot of them ended with a big gunfight for seeming lack of ideas. But that's kinda perfect for a one-shot game. For a longer game, well, I liked the Colonial Marines series a lot. Although maybe that would have to be played in Dread.
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Mar 8, 2023 18:48
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Splicer posted:Two things. Oh man! Yeah I read a lot of Pohl back in the day, and the heechee books were a big hit. I think I re-read them about 10 years ago, too... at least, I have them on my shelves in the "already read" section so that's probably what that means. Also since I can't be sure, probably a good time to re-read them. They were less about being eaten by nasty aliens and more about psychological trauma and <EDIT: PLOT SPOILER REMOVED> though, IIRC. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Mar 9, 2023 |
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Mar 8, 2023 19:04
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Halloween Jack posted:Gateway is fun, it was one of the first "serious" SF novels I picked up at random from a book fair many many years ago. Gateway is a great book, the sequels taper off in quality but you do find out answers to the big mysteries eventually.
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Mar 8, 2023 19:56
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Zorak of Michigan posted:My group has played a couple fun one-shots of Mothership, but I would never attempt campaign play. That poo poo happens to my character once? I'm out. I'm retired. I'm not going into space anymore. I'm moving to the bottom of a gravity well and sleeping with the lights on.  This is the appropriate response for any character in a horror campaign. Across a Thousand Dead Worlds Splicer posted:Two things.  Well I've got to say, perusing the Amazon blurb for Gateway, it sounded real familiar! Thanks for the recommendation. I've put it on my list. In terms of similarities to Gateway, robot psychiatrists are definitely in Across a Thousand Dead Worlds. I'll have to read Gateway to find other commonalities. The ancient aliens that left behind the fleet of spaceships in the hollowed out asteroid are not called "Heechee". They are called something else that means "ancient" in old Scottish (iirc). It does look like there are some things that are unique (maybe?) to Across a Thousand Dead Worlds, but you tell me. The human explorers of the alien sites are called Deep Divers. If a Deep Diver dies or goes missing on an expeditions (you hope they are dead) the Deep Diver's loved ones will wear a black blindfold over their eyes for 24 hours. As I recall the rpg book said this was a custom taken from an Earth custom in the Philippines where the eyes of the corpse of the deceased were covered with black cloth for a day. Given that the Deep Diver community usually don't have a body for the dead or missing the tradition has migrated to relations willingly blindfolding themselves. One of the cool things in Across a Thousand Dead Worlds is that the random tables tell the story for a particular site. For example in Karum Station, the main space station around the asteroid hollowed out by the aliens, at the Red Asteroid, the main bar for Deep Divers exclusively, you may encounter a blindfolded person lead around the bar by her Deep Diver team. Also there is a very expensive to maintain but free to visit garden of Earth and Mars flora on Karum Station. If you party too hard on the space station, an option on the tables may have your character waking up by rolling over on a very expensive flower bed in the garden. So the designer of the tables really took the time to integrate details and make things thematic. PurpleXVI posted:I'd be curious to hear more about the bestiary, because my one worry with a game like this is that it's 1000 variations of: "It's super intelligent and has strange, unknowable motivations. It attacks on sight, roll for initiative." There are morale rules for antagonists but that doesn't exactly address your question. I can't find it exactly right now but I think I did read at some point that antagonists may initially just leave an expedition alone (random roll on a table). Also if they are say Lurkers, the antagonists may wait to attack at some point later during the Time Track (a mechanic new to me for tracking time). So if you are looking for more than "It attacks on sight, roll for initiative" you may be a bit disappointed because most of the creatures are suppose to harry, harass or harm the explorers. I just want to note again here that the product isn't completely done. Also there are a few other parts of the book I haven't looked through.
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Mar 8, 2023 20:11
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Now that I think about it, I actually read The Gateway Trip, which contains "The Merchants of Venus" and some short stories. It's pretty wild because, like, it opens with the story about the tour-bus operator scavenging alien artifacts, and in later chapters it tells you how e.g. humanity eventually learned that the artifacts they were selling as trinkets were actually camera film, books, tools, etc.
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Mar 8, 2023 20:25
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So I was browsing DriveThruRPG because of course I was and guess what I found. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/280814/Golgotha  quote:Welcome to Golgotha... So the premise of raiding ancient abandoned alien worlds is not new. This product was also kickstarted, curiously enough. I may pick it up at some point when I'm running Across a Thousand Dead Worlds though.
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Mar 8, 2023 20:36
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Helical Nightmares posted:There are morale rules for antagonists but that doesn't exactly address your question. I can't find it exactly right now but I think I did read at some point that antagonists may initially just leave an expedition alone (random roll on a table). Also if they are say Lurkers, the antagonists may wait to attack at some point later during the Time Track (a mechanic new to me for tracking time). So if you are looking for more than "It attacks on sight, roll for initiative" you may be a bit disappointed because most of the creatures are suppose to harry, harass or harm the explorers. I'm not disappointed that violence is an option with most enemies but, let's say we have an example enemy as a concept: The Stuffgrabber. The Stuffgrabber is an ancient, malfunctioning machine entity that is desperately trying to complete some task, real or imagined, that it was set by its creators or programming hundreds or thousands of years ago. It remembers both the task and how to accomplish it improperly, but core to its perceived objective is that certain things must be collected for it. Unfortunately, flaws in its programming and damage to its memory means that it collects a pile of "vital" items... then forgets where it is, and starts over on a new pile. Usually there's some consistent spark, though and a given Stuffgrabber may for example always incorporate uranium fuel rods in its piles. They are not initially hostile to a party, unless the party takes something from one of its piles or something it wants for one of its piles and refuses to relinquish it. So there you have an enemy that: Is potentially hostile The party may want to fight for its piles That the party may want to stalk so they can see where its piles are That the party can potentially distract or lure into a trap by finding out what item it consistently wants and using one as bait, or perhaps even use that item to bait it into fighting something else The point being that it's not just an enemy that's unknowably hostile, but a (potential) enemy that acts according to a certain logic which means there are ways to interact with it beyond "roll for initiative." Ways to avoid combat, ways to get an advantage in combat, etc. not necessarily ways to communicate with it or become its best friend, but simply something slightly deeper than a block of combat stats, which is what a lot of "unknowable alien thing"-bestiaries roll out as.
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Mar 8, 2023 21:39
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Helical Nightmares posted:Across a Thousand Dead Worlds I suppose it's like what was being said earlier about the Alien RPG. I've heard it's an excellent RPG set in the Aliens universe, but to make an RPG that evokes the feeling of Alien you can't set it in the Alien universe. A huge focus of the game would have to be about generating an unknown horrifying body horror monster for your players to be picked off by because not knowing what the creature is and what it's capable of or what it wants or where it came from is a much, much bigger part of Alien than nested mouths and acid blood. It's Almost Literally Gateway Station? Survival rules for the journey? Mental stress rules? Randomly rolled location? I can play on my own or GM for friends? Assuming the system even halfway holds up I am a very happy man. So yeah, pre-ordered.
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Mar 8, 2023 23:57
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Halloween Jack posted:Reminds me of the Wold Newton universe. Or Planetarys Century Babies.
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Mar 9, 2023 00:12
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sebmojo posted:Or Planetarys Century Babies. In my headcannon Indiana Jones is a Century Baby.
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Mar 9, 2023 01:50
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Zorak of Michigan posted:My group has played a couple fun one-shots of Mothership, but I would never attempt campaign play. That poo poo happens to my character once? I'm out. I'm retired. I'm not going into space anymore. I'm moving to the bottom of a gravity well and sleeping with the lights on. Here's the thing about the Earth War: you can't. Sorry, there is no retiring. Earth is gone. It belongs to the Xenomorphs. The colonies? Ticking time bombs. Any of them can fall to the xenos at any time. Maybe the military brings them like General August attempts to tame the alien, when he literally set loose xenomorphs on a colony to make more for his experiments. Maybe the corps bring them for research, a security failure letting them out. Or perhaps there is just a refugee that is unknowingly infected. The thing about the Earth War is there is no safe haven, no escape, no comfort. All you can do is to do your best to survive. Someone suggested a campaign of people trying to stay away from colonies to survive, living as space truckers. Slowly watching space get taken over by Xenomorphs as the amount of safe havens vanish.
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Mar 9, 2023 03:14
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Honestly that just sounds depressing in the worst way
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Mar 9, 2023 03:21
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Yeah that seems like a recipe for walking dead syndrome
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Mar 9, 2023 03:25
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I have been informed I misunderstood the commenter and that they were simply saying the game wasn't for them. And not saying it was unrealistic for a person to return to space after an encounter with a Xenomorph.
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Mar 9, 2023 03:59
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Yeah, I think I need my space-horror without "everyone is eternally doomed" horror. Maybe not with capitalism horror either? Just weird grody space nonsense
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Mar 9, 2023 05:28
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Helical Nightmares posted:
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Mar 9, 2023 09:23
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My Lovely Horse posted:It might well be but it's also kind of "why would anyone go into dungeons and fight orcs and dark elves for a living, my bard is a humble merchant" I do think, when the scenario is 'you're an ordinary space trucker and you're beset by a deadly alien', that's not going to be a premise for an extended campaign. If I wanted a big campaign, i probably would have it be about other things and drop Alien in the middle of it somewhere, but then that's Traveller, and not horror.
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Mar 9, 2023 10:53
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I feel like people would, eventually, stop letting xenomorphs loose on the few remaining colonies for nonsense reasons.
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Mar 9, 2023 14:49
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Halloween Jack posted:I feel like people would, eventually, stop letting xenomorphs loose on the few remaining colonies for nonsense reasons. If we stop letting xenomorphs loose on colonies now then our forefathers' sacrifices at the hands of ravenous xenomorph hordes will all have been in vain. When I grew up my parents let unidentified lifeforms lay eggs in our spines and let me tell you, it made me the man I am today. Here, let me show you this Yutanitube video...
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Mar 9, 2023 15:05
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Whybird posted:If we stop letting xenomorphs loose on colonies now then our forefathers' sacrifices at the hands of ravenous xenomorph hordes will all have been in vain. xenomorphs are endemic. gotta live your life!
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Mar 9, 2023 15:13
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Now that I think about it a little, what's much more likely is that some ship/station AI would misinterpret its orders and ship xenomorphs all over the place. Weyland-Yutani never wanted all that poo poo to happen, after all.
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Mar 9, 2023 15:16
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Panzeh posted:I do think, when the scenario is 'you're an ordinary space trucker and you're beset by a deadly alien', that's not going to be a premise for an extended campaign. If I wanted a big campaign, i probably would have it be about other things and drop Alien in the middle of it somewhere, but then that's Traveller, and not horror. I mean that's basically what happens in Aliens, Ripley's a space trucker who encountered a xeno and survived and then told everyone to go gently caress themselves when they asked to her go back. But they pulled her back in anyway,
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Mar 9, 2023 15:18
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gradenko_2000 posted:xenomorphs are endemic. gotta live your life! Clearly what we need to do is introduce an even more aggressive predator to reduce the xenomorph numbers. Halloween Jack posted:Now that I think about it a little, what's much more likely is that some ship/station AI would misinterpret its orders and ship xenomorphs all over the place. Weyland-Yutani never wanted all that poo poo to happen, after all. WY introduces a new automated ordering and shipping system, in this system, xenomorph eggs are item #000, which should prevent anyone from choosing it, except whenever there's an invalid order, the item defaults to 000... every single typo'd order or out-of-stock item delivery is now replaced with xenomorph egs.
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Mar 9, 2023 15:39
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They're like rabbits in Australia. Actually considering that you can probably somehow blame it on the Predators. Now picturing a game where the PCs are Predators, Terminators and at least one Robocop all like, humans aren't really a threat considering and actually more of an endangered species.
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Mar 9, 2023 15:46
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Ghost Leviathan posted:They're like rabbits in Australia. Actually considering that you can probably somehow blame it on the Predators.
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Mar 9, 2023 16:15
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Is the Alien rpg any good?
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Mar 9, 2023 16:37
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Panzeh posted:I do think, when the scenario is 'you're an ordinary space trucker and you're beset by a deadly alien', that's not going to be a premise for an extended campaign. If I wanted a big campaign, i probably would have it be about other things and drop Alien in the middle of it somewhere, but then that's Traveller, and not horror. That's actually covered in the Alien RPG...  Cessna posted:Is the Alien rpg any good? Having played it a few times I think I can say: Yeah, it's pretty good!
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Mar 9, 2023 16:42
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There are some issues with the Alien RPG but overall it's solid, and the Cinematic Play pre-made scenarios are some of the better pre-made scenarios I've seen available out there.
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Mar 9, 2023 16:45
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I think there are several Cthulhu Mythos games that go in that direction--the stars are right, the Old Ones come back, and the last humans are vermin crawling around the margins. Brian Keene wrote a lot of stuff in that vein. The reference to a "bug hunt" in Aliens seems to imply that xenomorphs aren't the only hostile alien lifeforms out there for PCs to fight. Idunno if the game recognizes any of the Dark Horse stuff, but it seems like you could also have a lot of skullduggery around drug traffickers messing with "Royal Jelly." Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Mar 9, 2023 |
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Mar 9, 2023 16:54
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Splicer posted:That'd be a neat setting, the moontrap timeline but without the improbable human victories. The monster always escaped the facility, the virus always broke quarantine, the robot uprising succeeded. Skynet is locked in combat with the cyborgs from Virus, The Blob covers 50% of Pennsylvania, Detroit is an isolated holdout of humanity kept "safe" under Omnicorp's benevolent, police-backed rule, and space prison transport just crashlanded in Critters territory. That last one's the PCs. I feel like we're halfway to my other idea of a Mortal Kombat RPG.
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Mar 9, 2023 17:12
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On the one hand if I play an Alien game I sure want there to be a Xenomorph and not spend much time waffling about with enemy soldiers or rival crews, on the other if I play D&D there's not a dragon every time. I'm on the fence.
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Mar 9, 2023 17:29
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My Lovely Horse posted:On the one hand if I play an Alien game I sure want there to be a Xenomorph and not spend much time waffling about with enemy soldiers or rival crews, on the other if I play D&D there's not a dragon every time. I'm on the fence. I think they've got the balance right. If you want a one-shot, there's a Xenomorph or something as bad as that, with multiple player-character deaths (probably). If you want a campaign of dozens of adventures, there probably isn't something as bad as a Xenomorph every adventure, or you either get ridiculous levels of player-character churn or Xenomorphs feel toothless.
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Mar 9, 2023 17:44
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Halloween Jack posted:I think there are several Cthulhu Mythos games that go in that direction--the stars are right, the Old Ones come back, and the last humans are vermin crawling around the margins. Brian Keene wrote a lot of stuff in that vein.
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Mar 9, 2023 18:11
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The Conqueror Worms. If you really wanna get depressed, there's always Disch's The Genocides.
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Mar 9, 2023 18:15
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