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I read Fall of Cadia and mostly liked it, but two things kinda stuck out to me: 1. It seemed like early in the book the author was going for a minor theme, of the black marketeer and the chaos agent and the observer pilot, that Cadia being a militarized society has made it a hellhole even without Chaos attacks, and that the combat troops being constantly centered has made them mostly huge assholes who lorded over everyone else. In the second half that all kind of disappeared and everyone became your standard heroes and villains. I felt like it was kind of a missed opportunity, anyone else think so? 2. Why is Abbadon surrounded by generic and uninteresting Chaos lords? Where the gently caress are the Ezekarion? Khayon is probably in Imperial custody by this point but Kibre, Moriana, and Telemechos should all be hanging out. Or do other authors avoid using them since they’re ADB’s guys?
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Nov 1, 2023 11:13
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von Metternich posted:I read Fall of Cadia and mostly liked it, but two things kinda stuck out to me: Spoiler tags because the book is brand-new. I loved the Chaos agent and criminal sections and the themes were consistent, I just don't think the themes were what you think they were. It actually ties in precisely with the conversation this thread was having just a few pages ago. Cadia is a militarized hellhole and the Imperium treats its citizens like slaves, because the Imperium is a very bad place, and the Chaos agent sections explain just how easy it is to use that to turn citizens to the worship of the Ruinous Powers. But they're still the Ruinous Powers. They're still explicitly a worse evil than the Imperium. The Chaos agent causes enormous death and misery in exchange for a taste of power that lets him manipulate and control people, and he uses that power not for any grand purpose but just to gently caress people, literally and figuratively. He compels women into his bed and makes people eat coins for fun. He increases aggregate suffering to achieve a temporary respite from suffering for himself. The agent was never presented as a good person, nor a viable alternative to the evil of the Imperium. The Khornate daemon prince also plays on the same theme to an extent. He hoped that by becoming a daemon he would free himself from the suffering of the Nails, and much to his surprise, being directly hooked in to the Blood God hurts a lot worse than a pain machine in your brain. The criminal character is presented to illustrate how you can be a bad person, even a murderer, without automatically serving Chaos. Serving Chaos is a choice, and you don't have to make it, even if you're selfish and in it for yourself. The observer pilot was just a classic war-story plot thread I thought, and a well-written one. Sometimes you play the classics, just like the engineering unit holding the line in the mountain pass and their major becoming a war hero who ends up indirectly popping the head of an inquisitor. Nothing groundbreaking about either of their plot arcs, but I thought they were enjoyable to read. Robert Rath is a very good writer. Also I absolutely love the tiny meaningless flourishes he throws in. In The Infinite and the Divine, it's mentioned that a junior Imperial admiral wants "a fourth skull on his lapel" because of course the Imperium uses skulls for rank markings instead of stars. And in Fall of Cadia there's the aquila-framed aviator sunglasses  Also the Ezekarion aren't in this book because they all die in Black Legion 3 
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Nov 1, 2023 13:00
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Kylaer posted:Also the Ezekarion aren't in this book because they all die in Black Legion 3 Rest of post was good, but this... how dare you
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Nov 1, 2023 13:07
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Biplane posted:Rest of post was good, but this... how dare you  Also, how could I leave out kudos for this line, which proves Rath truly understands what 40K is all about : "I am sorry, Morkath. I have disappointed you. But in my experience, that’s what fathers do."
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Nov 1, 2023 13:11
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Kylaer posted:
You're a MONSTER I agree that the chaos agent isn't meant to be a heroic character, but the complaints he has about combat units getting the best of everything while everyone else is struggling, are real. I guess what I'd like to see is non-chaos or genestealer rebels, and how they deal with the fact that, as you said, the horrors the fascists are protecting you from actually exist. Do they fall in line? Do they decide that they'd rather throw off their oppressors anyways, even if it means being mutated/eaten/whatever? Do some of them turn to chaos and then decide it's not worth it? Or that it was? How do more 'heroic' characters like Dante or Guillemin deal with the fact that the rebels have legitimate grievances, or even that they're creating more chaos cults due to their severity? The rebels from the beginning of Emperor's Spears are kind of what I'm looking for, I think, the group that overthrew the planetary governor due to widespread famine and then got murdered by the Mentors. I'm explicitly not looking for utopian sci-fi or the Federation, anything these kind of rebels would win would be very localized and short-term or symbolic. And they don't have to be chill space socialists, maybe they're a fundamentalist cult movement that the Ecclesiarchy disapproves of, or a militia that's mad that abhumans are stealing all the jobs/corpse starch. But I want to see characters break out of their rigid categories and get messy and confused. In conclusion, Inequality is the real "I" of Terror. Thank you for coming to my presentation. (I don't know, maybe I'm expecting more from this setting than it's capable of giving, but there's no other sci-fi I read that scratches this particular itch either, so  )
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Nov 1, 2023 13:51
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I want the same, and I am hopeful that the newest wave of authors (Robert Rath, Mike Brooks and Nate Crowley) may bring us some content along those lines. I get the impression reading their works that all of them would be able to dig into that avenue of storytelling in a satisfying way. Rath seems to be making a niche for ongoing storytelling using the Assassinorum, Brooks has the Alpha Legion and that unsanctioned-psyker recurring character that he clearly intends to do something with, seems like lots of potential to develop new storylines once they've established themselves. Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.
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Nov 1, 2023 14:18
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Kylaer posted:I want the same, and I am hopeful that the newest wave of authors (Robert Rath, Mike Brooks and Nate Crowley) may bring us some content along those lines. I get the impression reading their works that all of them would be able to dig into that avenue of storytelling in a satisfying way. Rath seems to be making a niche for ongoing storytelling using the Assassinorum, Brooks has the Alpha Legion and that unsanctioned-psyker recurring character that he clearly intends to do something with, seems like lots of potential to develop new storylines once they've established themselves. if it makes you feel better Rath writes most of the history stuff for extra history and they usually have a pretty good lense of stuff and don't like lie or sugar coat poo poo so he at least understands poo poo.
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Nov 1, 2023 14:30
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I'm in the middle of Fall of Cadia but I just want to say that Fantasy and Sci-Fi authors who have read a history book (Tolkien, Martin, Herbert) are almost always better than those who have not (Sanderson, a significant amount of the Black Library stable). Not even saying you're a bad writer if you haven't, I even like Sanderson's stuff as meaningless pulp novels to kill time at work, but dear God I can tell the difference.
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Nov 1, 2023 14:41
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I think Roboute is on record in saying the way the Imperium handles things is incredibly ignorant and shooting themselves in the foot and its one of the many things hes trying to unfuck. Dante is probably too busy trying to hold his half of things together currently to care, honestly.
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Nov 1, 2023 14:50
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Kylaer posted:I want the same, and I am hopeful that the newest wave of authors (Robert Rath, Mike Brooks and Nate Crowley) may bring us some content along those lines. I get the impression reading their works that all of them would be able to dig into that avenue of storytelling in a satisfying way. Rath seems to be making a niche for ongoing storytelling using the Assassinorum, Brooks has the Alpha Legion and that unsanctioned-psyker recurring character that he clearly intends to do something with, seems like lots of potential to develop new storylines once they've established themselves. The bit in the recent Alpha Legion story where the Alpha legion character says the Imperium uses explicitly fascistic framing for it's enemies straight from Eco's Ur-Fascism book made me laugh.... also the opening where the POV character changes as they are killed by the next POV character for a good portion of the opening was darkly funny.
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Nov 1, 2023 14:52
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AnEdgelord posted:I'm in the middle of Fall of Cadia but I just want to say that Fantasy and Sci-Fi authors who have read a history book (Tolkien, Martin, Herbert) are almost always better than those who have not (Sanderson, a significant amount of the Black Library stable). Not even saying you're a bad writer if you haven't, I even like Sanderson's stuff as meaningless pulp novels to kill time at work, but dear God I can tell the difference. yeah this. its not always the case(martins kinda mixed) but if you read alot of history or theology or humanities in general, you have richer earth to plant your story in because you have a better idea of creating deeper belevable world and characters reacting to it. I had the idea of a character for a while, some ordo hereticus inquisitor who leans radical in the sense that he has more of a liberation theology of the god emperor and less about shooting randos for saying their prayers wrong. also i had an idea of basicaly writing a version of the last church but its about lorgard coming back and having some discusion with some random xeno or human leader while everything outside is going to poo poo and its mostly lorgar sorta arguing with himself because he has sorta realized he has been duped and he is starting to feel some sense of guilt mixed with frustration because he is slowly realzing his need to worship something is deeper then "wrong God" but he also has sorta sunk cost himself. idk. I like lorgar because he is just kinda sad weirdo who wants a strong daddy or something to make him feel not alone and safe but he is to inscure to not kiss boot. Dapper_Swindler fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Nov 1, 2023 |
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Nov 1, 2023 14:58
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Speaking of Mike Brooks, this weeks Black Library news is that Brutal Kunnin is getting a special- I mean SPESHUL EDDISHUN. https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/11/01/we-looted-the-entire-first-chapter-from-brutal-kunnin-and-you-can-read-it-here/  The rest of the article is just the first chapter of the book. Definitely feels like they couldn't figure out what else to write for the necessary word count.
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Nov 1, 2023 15:04
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OPAONI posted:the opening where the POV character changes as they are killed by the next POV character That was Harrowmaster, right? I really liked that, too.
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Nov 1, 2023 15:07
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Harrowmasters version of the Alpha Legion I think is a really great characterization of them that I hope remains the main branch of the faction going forward, also I'd love to just read more about that main character, his best friend psyker, and please more about the schola progenium girl they've turned into a space marine. She had a friend in her short story that wasn't mentioned in harrowmaster. It's more interesting than being secret loyalists to me, and more interesting than being plans within plans wheels within wheels secret agent plotters who have no knowable goal, but also those versions of the Alpha Legion also still exist. Great way to handle it. Sharkopath fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Nov 1, 2023 |
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Nov 1, 2023 16:39
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"I am Alphariu-" "Shut up nerrrrrd!"
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Nov 1, 2023 16:43
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Kylaer posted:"I am Alphariu-" Also an excellent bit.
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Nov 1, 2023 16:51
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Sharkopath posted:Harrowmasters version of the Alpha Legion I think is a really great characterization of them that I hope remains the main branch of the faction going forward, also I'd love to just read more about that main character, his best friend psyker, and please more about the schola progenium girl they've turned into a space marine. She had a friend in her short story that wasn't mentioned in harrowmaster. Agreed on all counts. I really hope we get to see more of newly minted inquisitor Evelyn Darke, who went from freelancing for arch heretics in Rites of Passage, to freelancing for the inquisition
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Nov 1, 2023 17:22
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https://twitter.com/alexkrokus/status/1719745147561243070?s=20
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Nov 1, 2023 17:54
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Had to walk directly into the back office because I teared up from the last Krole chapter in Saturnine.
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Nov 1, 2023 18:18
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Dapper_Swindler posted:if it makes you feel better Rath writes most of the history stuff for extra history and they usually have a pretty good lense of stuff and don't like lie or sugar coat poo poo so he at least understands poo poo. I'm fully convinced that Rath, Crowley or Brooks could absolutely do it, I'm just not confident that any of them will. Not even because they don't want to, but because writing a novel is a serious amount of work, you can't just sit down and hammer one out in an afternoon unless you're Guy Haley. And outside of being independently wealthy or doing it as a side hobby, if you're putting that kind of effort in you gotta make some sales, and that means appealing to the reader base. I can only imagine that the reader base for nuanced, progressive, morally complex Warhammer 40K novels is extremely small.
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Nov 1, 2023 18:41
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Black Griffon posted:Had to walk directly into the back office because I teared up from the last Krole chapter in Saturnine. it’s so, so good e: I actually have to go further and say that I think Krole’s last chapter in Saturnine is the most moving piece of BL writing in existence. It is a genuine triumph and the best part of an already-great book. DAD LOST MY IPOD fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Nov 1, 2023 |
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Nov 1, 2023 20:31
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Kylaer posted:I'm fully convinced that Rath, Crowley or Brooks could absolutely do it, I'm just not confident that any of them will. Not even because they don't want to, but because writing a novel is a serious amount of work, you can't just sit down and hammer one out in an afternoon unless you're Guy Haley. And outside of being independently wealthy or doing it as a side hobby, if you're putting that kind of effort in you gotta make some sales, and that means appealing to the reader base. I can only imagine that the reader base for nuanced, progressive, morally complex Warhammer 40K novels is extremely small. i mean i get your point, but i am not really sure how you do it. the setting is extreamly obvious that the society is a reactionary hellscape and progress died longer then many religions existed now adays, i mean id read disco elysium the 40k book but the conceit of the universe is its grim darkness and hosed and only small h hope exists, I am probably reading into your point unfairly, but i feel like you are looking for some rational lefty character to be able able to point out that "wow poo poo really sucks". like warhammer isnt Bioshock infinite where its trying gurgle out "both sides bad" with one side being obviously way less lovely, its more "everyone sucks really bad outside the tau and thats depends on the area maybe".
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Nov 1, 2023 20:40
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Dapper_Swindler posted:i mean i get your point, but i am not really sure how you do it. the setting is extreamly obvious that the society is a reactionary hellscape and progress died longer then many religions existed now adays, i mean id read disco elysium the 40k book but the conceit of the universe is its grim darkness and hosed and only small h hope exists, I am probably reading into your point unfairly, but i feel like you are looking for some rational lefty character to be able able to point out that "wow poo poo really sucks". like warhammer isnt Bioshock infinite where its trying gurgle out "both sides bad" with one side being obviously way less lovely, its more "everyone sucks really bad outside the tau and thats depends on the area maybe". That's where the current main faction of the alpha legion is at. It's a rebel army with a space fleet and titan legions focused on overthrowing the imperium, or at least putting it out of its misery if nothing can ever replace it, without claiming allegiance to the gods of chaos, only using them as tools when it would beneficial to the cause. Led by a charismatic and somewhat reasonable warlord. Of course it could fall apart at any time and still fail anyways, but it's pretty easy to read them as protagonists I think. Also I guess the nature of the setting as a wargame means they cant ever actually succeed and therefore the consequences of that success cant be explored, I just mean in general if you want a rebel faction that works against the imperium that also isnt unhinged and turbo evil, it exists. Sharkopath fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Nov 1, 2023 |
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Nov 1, 2023 20:46
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Sharkopath posted:That's where the current main faction of the alpha legion is at. It's a rebel army with a space fleet and titan legions focused on overthrowing the imperium, or at least putting it out of its misery if nothing can ever replace it, without claiming allegiance to the gods of chaos, only using them as tools when it would beneficial to the cause. Led by a charismatic and somewhat reasonable warlord. yeah i might have to try that book. i like the idea of the alpha legion as being the last sane legion in chaos and one of the few in general.
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Nov 1, 2023 20:53
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Has there ever been a breath of a hint of what Omegon is up to these days?
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Nov 1, 2023 21:09
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The last time I think its been mentioned he was just assumed dead also.
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Nov 1, 2023 21:23
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Dammit I am so far behind the rest of you. I will be in a nursing home before I get to the siege of Terra.
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Nov 1, 2023 21:30
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Dick Trauma posted:Dammit I am so far behind the rest of you. I will be in a nursing home before I get to the siege of Terra. Time no longer exists, don't worry, we'll all be here waiting when you catch up.
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Nov 1, 2023 22:00
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Dick Trauma posted:Dammit I am so far behind the rest of you. I will be in a nursing home before I get to the siege of Terra. Look, after you read like, Betrayer, you can just skip to the siege. Here's what you missed: Kurze got spaced by Sanguinius, Leman Russ attempted to assassinate Horus and failed, Horus woke up from the attempt and called Lorgar a bitch, Lorgar saw that Horus would gently caress up and bailed. There now you know the broad points.
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Nov 1, 2023 22:37
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DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:it’s so, so good Yeah. And then you've got Emma Gregory on top of all that (like we talked about), making it perfect.
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Nov 1, 2023 23:06
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I literally started the Heresy with The Solar War, realized this would all go a lot more smoothly if I had any idea who the hell anyone was, and went back to the beginning.
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Nov 1, 2023 23:28
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Dick Trauma posted:Dammit I am so far behind the rest of you. I will be in a nursing home before I get to the siege of Terra. Kylaer posted:Time no longer exists, don't worry, we'll all be here waiting when you catch up. Dick Trauma, What transpires in your room at the nursing home, I cannot say. What horrors you have endured, I cannot imagine. All I know for certain is this: I am mere hours away from your city limits, and in a few minutes will be in the highways around your city. With me I will bring the might of an entire 2 liter Pepsi, and I am not alone; word has reached me from Reddit and Slashdot, at the vanguard of the Internet. Our memes are enough to cleanse the web and tear the world from Tiktok's grip. Hold on to hope, brother. That is all I ask. Can you give me that? Can you stand your ground for the last, ultimate hours? Those elusive twins, LOL and ROFL are coming. This Internet fight ends the moment I reach your facility. Hold, in the name of Depends and the forums we have built together. I will be with you in The Boo Barn soon.
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Nov 2, 2023 05:36
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Kylaer posted:I can only imagine that the reader base for nuanced, progressive, morally complex Warhammer 40K novels is extremely small. It's more likely that their editors will say no I feel. We already know that they have the final say in what books they write and more.
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Nov 2, 2023 16:01
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Really enjoyed Fall of Cadia. Gripping, breezy, and lots of fun. I thought Rath added suspense, tension, and characters with their own arcs to what could have been a stale retelling of campaign book lore. Wonder if we will see novelizations based on Fracture of Biel-Tan and Rise of the Primarch. Also curious about the future of the setting - with End and the Death concluding, we could see the conclusion of several lore heavy series like Black Legion, Bequin trilogy and the Dawn of Fire series. Makes me think they might be getting their house in order before pushing things forward. Anyone know what time preorders go live on Black Library? I tried to stay up for Fall of Cadia last weekend but couldn't make it. Must happen sometime in the middle of the night/in the morning. Very very eager to start End and the Death vol. 2.
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Nov 2, 2023 16:13
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I do not maintain a goddamn spreadsheet of Warhammer books just to SKIP to the end! P.S. I really do have a Warhammer book spreadsheet. 
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Nov 2, 2023 16:23
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Look, the trad games forum has that one dude who compiled a spreadsheet of every character in the world of darkness rpg and how many times/when they were mentioned across every published book. The bar has been set.
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Nov 2, 2023 16:27
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Decline posted:Anyone know what time preorders go live on Black Library? I tried to stay up for Fall of Cadia last weekend but couldn't make it. Must happen sometime in the middle of the night/in the morning. Very very eager to start End and the Death vol. 2. What timezone are you trucking?
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Nov 2, 2023 16:40
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Central time zone.
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Nov 2, 2023 17:19
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Decline posted:Central time zone. The center of what? Or, well, you not even specifying means it has to be the US*, in which case the books drop 10AM PST. * 
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Nov 2, 2023 17:32
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Black Griffon posted:The center of what? Or, well, you not even specifying means it has to be the US*, in which case the books drop 10AM PST. central, as in center of the universe, so yes the US
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Nov 2, 2023 17:42
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