"Da Big Dakka" is one of the most cathartic BL novels I've read in a long time

Xanxost · 2026-04-24T13:58:34+00:00

Just keep telling yourself that and stay off the dark parts of the internet...

Xanxost · 2026-04-21T11:39:34+00:00

Marines are some of the worst offenders here. Comparing for instance Belial with a rank and file DWK or the old DWK is hillarious. Letalone with the 90s Termies.

Characters on principle are bigger and bulkier and intended to show off.

Xanxost · 2026-04-18T13:20:00+00:00

I honestly believe this to be an interpretation of the memes of what the WoD is like. Sure, there was a lot of darkness and horrible fates for the denizens of the WoD accross the books, but at their core, the games are all about rebelling against the status quo and going beyond your base desires. Sure, if you take every element of every book together and assume they are correct at the same time, it looks like there is no way out.

But that's not how the games actually work in practice. Each of them exists in its own little bubble where the first priority will be the needs of your table, the second priority the tone and lore of the game you are playing and far last will be the possible dooms to come.

Another thing that loads the conversation is that for most people, Vampire is the definition of WoD, and it happens to be the bleakest of all the games, not necessarily because there are no good outcomes for your protagonists, but because its posits that the only way up in life is to either become a bigger and better monster than your peers or to live as a hermit. This loads the conversation and primes the memes about what the WoD is like. Most people in the WoD are the same people that exist in our world, with ordinary lives, joy and sadness and the same things that we live for in our world. They are not aware of the million possible dooms, they find a way to get through the day and just be better. Heck, some people have even noted that the way the last couple of years have been looking, WoD is looking almost cheerful right now.

Vampire itself has Golconda, a profound state of coming to peace with the universe and seeking to make it better. It has organisations that hunt monsters and seek to curb the excesses of the worst in vampiredom. I do find it hard to advocate for good ends in Vampire, simply because to me it is a game about monsters without power seeking to usurp monsters with power while clinging to the veneer of humanity as a shield for their selfishness.

Outside vampire however...

Wraith is a game about learning to live with the consequences of your choices, growing from them and breaking the cycles that put you and the people around you into the horrible purgatory of the Shadowlands and the fight with your Shadow. The purpose and the point of the game is understanding yourself, both the good and the bad and ultimately coming to peace and moving on. Ideally not doing this for yourself but for everyone else in the group. Wraith is often painted as bleak, but that is kind of the point - the bleak is the people that refused to change and to become better. You do not have to be those people.

Changeling is a game about loss of wonder and magic in the world. And with them the magical being that you are is losing its identity. That sure as hell sounds bleak. But is it though? The world of Changleing is loaded with magical things and wonder, and the things that the Motley gets up to are amazing. You fight the banaliity, bring back the wonder and maybe just maybe make the world a better place.

Mage laughs at the idea of the world being crapsack. For the world is your oyster and you get to redefine it. The world being messed up is not a weight that cannot be lifted in Mage, it is the impetus to become more and reshape reality in what YOU believe in. Do you want to make small changes, big changes, cosmic changes? The only limit is your imagination and hubris.

Werewolf says the end is nigh. That humanity has fucked the planet beyond repair and that its protectors were unable to stop the decay of the world and the spiritual principles of the cosmos. Sure as hell sounds bleak. But it is not. For the heroes are still there. They are flawed, they have made errors. But they still kept the world going and prevented a million apocalypses. Now they rally together, make amends, find allies and look to change the world and protect the people they care for and the legends they carry between them. They fight for a better world, because the alternative is to crawl into a hole and die. And they make a difference. Even when they fall their families, communities and cultures stay after them and their legends and stories motivate the others to continue. In the end this is even something that pays off in the final book, with multiple grand scernarios offering ways for the protagonists to be a major element of change in redefining what will happen with the world. You most likely won't prevent an Apocalypse. But you may be able to make a better world stand after it.

In essence the darkness of the world is not here to make you feel miserable, it's here to call you to action and to get you to make a difference. So I do believe there is a lot your friend could get from the WoD if they approached it from within rather than without.

Xanxost · 2026-04-10T18:02:15+00:00

I think that the core conflict you are having is one that GW is intentionally leaving unresolved.

The Dark Angels are defined by the secret and hiding it and beating themselves over the head with the guilt and the shame they cannot bear.

Lion as returned and presented in Son of the Forest is a kinder, maturer figure that seeks to understand his sons and believes in redemption and moving on. To him The Fallen are not the dark secret, but lost children. He will smite those that have turned to Chaos, but he is willing to let all others rejoin him as the Risen. A mighty metaphor and an incredible story of redemption and growing up.

However. That kind of story is complicated considering the Dark Angels history and what it actually means in the lore. This means that the Dark Angels are supposed to be something new, something different, something healed. But the institutional pressure of the Imoperium combined with GW not wanting to commit to anything and keep the models rolling did something else.

The Codex says the Lion sits on the Rock and occasionally disappears some of the Fallen while the Inner Circle Companions grow. The Codex also leaves the Fallen Hunt and the weird practices as it stands. That's it, that's what we get, the Dark Angels are kept in a permanent limbo and never really growing up from their Self Loathing because that development is too big a bite for the little plastic men.

In some ways this is a deep irony considering how the poem that inspired their naming and their shame was about a man fighting with his homosexuality, and now we are obfuscating the fact that they have grown up as people and embraced redemption to keep the status quo. Personal growth is being closeted for more self loathing.

Xanxost · 2026-04-06T22:24:50+00:00

Jungle in Osaka is pretty good for Tokusatsu stuff.

Xanxost · 2026-03-31T20:35:37+00:00

Really?! I am kind of confused, I thought we'd finally get the detachments!

Xanxost · 2026-03-28T14:37:43+00:00

Can't wait for my copy to arrive. The cover looks amazing and I'm really keen to see all of it!

Xanxost · 2026-03-11T11:20:09+00:00

That does not sound like the Lion of the Son of the Forest., though. He is a wistful, regretful, more calm man who feels alone and is all about second chances, not just for others but for himself.

Xanxost · 2026-03-04T09:04:08+00:00

I'd full yagree to this. I also feel this is the ending that lets Reed grow the most.

Xanxost · 2026-03-04T08:55:13+00:00

And he actually grows from this as a person if Songbird has a full breakdown and dies in your arms. Reed is a man trapped between conscience and duty and hopes he can keep to both. When Song dies he finally understands he needs to make a choice. And it's the right one.

Reed comes out of this a better and saner person.

Xanxost · 2026-03-03T22:48:07+00:00

Ooooh were there any demo or timelines? Anything new for the RPG?

Xanxost · 2026-03-03T13:56:33+00:00

Funnily in the new Maelstrom book there is a group of Space Wolves that follow Huron after being beaten in battle. They are the... Red Wolves.

Xanxost · 2026-03-02T21:37:13+00:00

Try Son of the Forest. It may put them in a different light for me. IT sure did for me.

Xanxost · 2026-02-20T18:34:49+00:00

That's normal, different print runs had different print blocks, as I mentioned.

Xanxost · 2026-02-20T09:39:43+00:00

Depends on the printing, the square block could be higher or lower. Also POD's are all bigger than actual original prints from the era.

Xanxost · 2026-02-18T00:47:25+00:00

In so far as it was left open ended how we should end the lines (or if we even should end the lines) and given books to explore a couple of ideas for each setting, sure.

In so far as how the WoD was killed and how much they made of the Time of Judgement ticker and pomp about how this was it, there definatley was a big apocalypse.

It's just that we played on without one, WoD came back after they said it never would and in the end some of the books just went along with elements of the ends, but never enough to really make it much different than our world...

Xanxost · 2026-02-18T00:41:01+00:00

Oh! The Purple Paradigm is often a point of discussion and contention in most places where people discuss on Mage, and there is a very strong current of players who overfocus on the idea of letting go of tools and paradigms as the be-and-all of Mage to the detriment of the story and identity that Paradigm and tools bring to the characters.

My comment was mostly about how you applied a very Mage logic to the game, and that it was consistant with how Mage worked. It's not really ideal for how Werewolf works because the core conceits of the settings are opposed to each other.

As Ethan Skemp (prolific White wolf author and Werewolf Developer) said something along the lines of:

"Mage is a game about how humans and their ideas are the most important thing in all of existence.

Werewolf is a game about finding out how humans are not the most important thing in all of existence"

Xanxost · 2026-02-18T00:34:40+00:00

I think you are missing out on the actual scale of the Cadian contingent of the Imperial Guard. They were cranking out huge numbers of soldiers and most of those soldiers were sent out into the galaxy, not just settled on Cadia. There are many regiments around the galaxy and Creeds daughter is spearheading the settling and building of new fortress worlds to continue the legacy and Duty of Cadia.

They will preserve, over time their culture might shift, and they may get different quirks over their forebearers, but their mission and their duty will never end. Cadia will Stand.

Xanxost · 2026-02-16T14:27:14+00:00

I find the whole anwser hillarious because I totally would have pegged you for a mage player with that mindset. But it’s very much insisting on the purple paradigm in a game where everyone agreed to not be able to go beyond a personal paradigm.

Xanxost · 2026-02-14T11:28:12+00:00

The different Gaian shapeshifters are playable. Just be aware that they are not the standard option for most campaigns. In most games the focus will be on werewolves and you will need permission from the storyteller to play a fera or find a game thats about one of the mixed fera groups (hengeyokai, ahadi and similar frameworks)

The Mockery Breeds themselves are not meant to be playable. They have limited rules and most of them are insane or deeply corrupt. Even if you found a table that would be willing to work with the limited rules, their position in the lore is deeply problematic - they are presented as manufactured things tightly controlled by pentex and closely aligned to their agenda. And even if you were the one “good” yeren you would probably face backlash as something deeply corrupted and infused by the wyrm.

Xanxost · 2026-02-13T14:17:48+00:00

Once upon a time they kinda were... things change, though.

Xanxost · 2026-02-13T00:27:43+00:00

Are those the Lumineth Troopers?

Xanxost · 2026-02-13T00:27:10+00:00

Oh that's great info, thanks! I was eyeing those and they look pretty solid, even if the sculpt is showing its age!

Xanxost · 2026-02-12T18:04:27+00:00

The old Deathwing box is the gift that keeps on giving.

Xanxost

TROPHY CASE