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Camarilla (Vampire: the Masquerade 5th Edition)

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Vampire: The Masquerade is the original and ultimate roleplaying game of personal and political horror. You are a vampire, struggling for survival, supremacy, and your own fading humanity—afraid of what you are capable of, and fearful of the inhuman conspiracies that surround you.

As a vampire you suffer the pangs of the Hunger, the relentless and terrible thirst for human
blood. If you refuse to deal with it, it will overcome your mind and drive you to terrible acts to
slake it. You walk this razor's edge every night.

Dark designs, bitter enemies, and strange allies await you in this World of Darkness. The global blood opera of the Camarilla story continues. As the eldest vampires begin to vanish, the Ivory Tower starts to crack under the weight of its own decay. Once it was the mightiest faction of vampires in the world, a stronghold of immortality.

Now it retreats into a maze of neo-feudal conspiracies to protect itself against the deadly threat of the Second Inquisition, struggling to enforce the Masquerade in the face of modern technology. Featuring insights and perspectives on unlife in the Camarilla from Mark Rein-Hagen and Matthew Dawkins.

Mature Warning: contains graphic and written content of a mature nature, including violence, sexual themes, and strong language. Reader discretion is advised.

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Discussions (10)
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Brian S April 03, 2022 9:16 pm UTC
why is this not pod?
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Román M November 15, 2018 12:43 pm UTC
I have this book because I preordered to Modiphius, is a good sourcebook, if you enjoy V5 it expands some concepts. It's more old-fashioned (In the WW way) than the Anarch Book.
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Simon B November 14, 2018 11:15 am UTC
I don't have an issue with real world history being used in the World of Darkness. I feel that the book Charnel Houses of Europe: The Shoah was simultaneously one of the most fascinating and disturbing books White Wolf put out long ago. But largely the horror built up on existing events and (being Wraith) concerned itself largely with the aftermath of an atrocity that humans were responsible for. No doubt Vampire, Mages etc. could have had hand in the atrocity, but it's never implied that humanity walked that dark path because it was swayed by the supernatural.

I don't like something that relies on current atrocities. To say these wounds are still raw is an understatement - these are wounds still being inflicted. Friends and families of players might actually be directly affected by these events. That's terrifying enough. But to say that it's all cover for supernatural entities is...well... it's a bold move. And it doesn't really add any horror to the setting to me. It detracts from it, it undercuts...See more
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Rory H November 14, 2018 10:25 pm UTC
The contemporary aspect to setting Vampire in 'modern nights' is to make the stories you tell culturally relevant. It's why it's setting is described as a 'dark reflection' in the first place - it's framwork is based on the conceit that the supernatural exists, and this is the lens in which real world events are looked at.

People's sensibilities always differ - which is why the game advises 'Mature readers only' - but drawing the line on contemporary events seems contradictory to what the game is set up to do. The writers aren't causing these events, they are reflecting on them. I do wonder how many people were actually aware or unaware of the situation in Chechnya and the LGBT oppression before this controversy came about?

If people feel aggrieved or emoted by the situation in Chechnya then they could consider joining Amnesty International or some other organisation and try and fight against it. They could also tell stories where they vicariously engage against these inhuman forces...See more
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Simon B November 15, 2018 12:16 pm UTC
It feels a little disingenuous to suggest they are reflecting on them if they are simultaneously suggesting it is a cover for something supernatural.

You're right in that it has brought something to light that I wasn't aware of but, yes, I'm much more likely to do something through charitable means than role-play a scenario where I'm fighting the villains of this atrocity. Like I say, it's just a bit too raw for my taste, the wound still open.
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Aubrey E November 15, 2018 2:21 pm UTC
Agreed with the use of modern situations. If for no other reason that it limits the game, which in a few years will feel outdated. I never feel this way with the first two iterations of the WoD. Very poor idea.
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Rory H November 15, 2018 8:38 pm UTC
As stated, the supernatural elements are just a medium for reflecting on real world issues - there is no contradiction here, and it's not being disingenuous.

Take Guillermo del Toro' Pan's Labrynth, for example. In that movie they juxtapose the Spanish Civil War, where millions of people died, with a dark fairy tale. It's a brutal and uncompromising portayal of oppression, violence and torture - where the central protaganist is simultaneously exploring a fairy tale. Now, I didn't know much about the Spanish Civil War before it was highlighted in the movie, and it's unlikely I would have studied it without seeing it. The choice of medium, and use of fictional overlay gives more gumption towards spreading awareness.

Now some might argue that this is the past, rather than contemprary, but it's still within living memory - the anger actually comes out in the movie. Vampire, and other games like Kult deliberately set out to be contemporary and exploring the darker aspects of human culture...See more
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Simon B November 16, 2018 1:13 am UTC
Pan's Labyrinth is an interesting comparison because, if anything, there's a strong divide between the real world and the fantastic one, and the violence stems purely from the human side. If it were a World of Darkness game, we'd be watching a Sidhe Childling trying to escape mundane reality by lose herself in the Dreaming. She's actively turning away from the horrors of real world atrocity. If, perhaps, the faerie were responsible for the tortures inflicted during the Spanish Civil War, it might be a better comparison.

To me though it really is that distance of years that gives it a bit more leeway. The Spanish Civil War, at least, is something that we can look back at and explore at length from various perspectives because it's past, it's a retrospective, people who have stories to tell about it have had time to relate many of the horrors and are no longer telling them with fear for their lives. Whilst events in Chechnya we're only really hearing from people who are there, right now, experiencing...See more
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Brian C November 14, 2018 4:33 am UTC
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_controversies
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george C November 13, 2018 2:54 am UTC
This book is alright. Like the Art.
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November 11, 2018 3:52 am UTC
You do not need to be a purchaser of this book to have opinions on this book. There is no doubt that WoD is a dark genre with adult themes. This book takes that further, specifically with the Chechnya paragraphs. In it, not only does the Camarilla seem to endorse the issue - they created it. Manipulating a government to round up and execute a group of people, as a covert blood program. Also coming from a game line to include explicit rules on how to rape another character.

These are darker themes, even from a Sabbat angle, and are gross violations of the path of humanity and what the Camarilla princeliness espouses itself to stand on. Purchasing this book and other relevant V5 material is as a consumer - endorsing and supporting this work and saying that it is okay. Classic World of darkness had very dark themes, and some books were written in such poor educated points of view to be stereotypical racist and without any actual knowledge or research. This however is a game line being...See more
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Rory H November 11, 2018 4:16 am UTC
Being both anonymous and tacitly admitting to not purchasing this book does stretch credibility in valid opinion on the matter, however. The book does not endorse anything that you are saying, it is merely having an in character dialogue, using real world events within a fictional world framework. And World of Darkness games, along with other works of fiction, have always done that.

You are essentially making a group attack - by claiming that people who purchase this product as endorsing….what exactly? Murdering people? I'm sorry this is just a disgraceful thing to say.
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Barbara R November 11, 2018 2:09 pm UTC
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Sorry, but saying I am a bad person for purchasing this book because I don't feel that they crossed a line that YOU see is just opinion fascism. I am happy to support them because I LIKE their work for various reasons you can find below.

You can say it's not your cup of tea, that you don't like where they went, but flatout dictating what other people have to do is just that - dictating.
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Markus W November 11, 2018 4:17 pm UTC
White Wolf is using real world suffering that is going as we write this as cheap way to shock the audience. Their poorly executed first-person unreliable narrator as sole view point is doing nothing to distance themselves from the way they portray the killing of a minority group as a "distraction". And in the 21st century, the standards of writing and expression have changed vastly from the 20th century. Together with the awareness-raising of the internet, you simply cannot do the same sloppy writing you did in the past. Interestingly enough, Onyx Path manages to put out lots of horror games while treating the genre respectfully and without offending minorities. All we have here is clumsy writing that White Wolf has already admitted to on Twitter and fB. They have previously promised to clean up their act, but here again they didn't even though the promised to do so with this product specifically.
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Barbara R November 11, 2018 5:02 pm UTC
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Markus, what you are actually saying in the context of your text when you write "And in the 21st century, the standards of writing and expression have changed vastly from the 20th century" is: Artistic expression in the 21st century should be censored based on my interpretation of the piece of art. I have a vastly different interpretation of what they are trying to express by including this real world scenario into the book. I don't think they they did this as a "cheap way to shock the audience", I think they did this to say something about the human condition. We are only two people and already the interpretation is not clear (as with all pieces of art), so the idea alone that censoring is a valid option here is beyond insane to me.

The fact that they apologized doesn't make my point less valid. It shows that awareness-raising can lead to censorship in both art and opinion.
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Markus W November 11, 2018 5:37 pm UTC
What I am actually saying is *not* that artistic expression should be censored. Please don't put words in my mouth that didn't say. First, it is debatable that this tasteless writing can be considered as art at all. Second, art is always an expression of the time it is written in. Lovecraft, Howard, and other authors of the 20th century wouldn't be able to write exactly what they did in the 20th century. Even children books get "updated" in their expressions all the time to make them acceptable to a modern day audience. Expressions change, the boundaries of acceptable expression changes. That 's a fact of life. WW today cannot write in the same insensitive way they did back in the 1990ies, because sensibilities of the public did change. WW should acknowledge that things that in the last century would have been marginally be acceptable are not acceptable ways of expressing yourself today. Times change. If a company continues to be tone deaf and obviously refuses to learn from previous outrages, they will...See more
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Barbara R November 11, 2018 5:48 pm UTC
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What you are expressing is your idea of what art is and should do. Art is one of the most debatable terms in the human language and to just assume that your idea SHOULD be valid for everybody is scaring me. I am a person of the 21st century just like you and to my mind, what they are doing is art and mature horror. It doesn't violate my sensibilities and even if it did I would never go as far as just call for censoring but just express that this is not my cup of tea. (When you say "not acceptable ways of expressing yourself" you are implying censoring, because would else should this wording mean otherwise.)
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Markus W November 11, 2018 6:47 pm UTC
Censorship means banishing or removing content that has been written. I am talking about not writing it in such an inept way in first place. It's callous, it's tasteless, and it's not something I expect in a role-playing *game* - even one that bills itself as being for a mature audience. I am not going to buy anymore books that this iteration of WW is putting out. It's simply not my cup of tea.
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Rory H November 11, 2018 7:02 pm UTC
And you are not the sole arbiter of what is or is not 'inept' and what should or should not be written. That is an attempt at censorship. You are free to buy or not buy what you want, just as I am.
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Rory H November 11, 2018 7:04 pm UTC
The writers at White Wolf and Onyx Path are by and large the same group of people.
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Chelsea R November 13, 2018 7:47 am UTC
White wolf has a long history of inclusiveness, so these shallow and vapid attempts to sick the safe space, hyper sensitive court of public opinion on the publisher is dumbfounding to me. The world of Darkness uses our own reality as its game world, it is a darker reflection and thus, world events are taken into account, showing the powers that move the chess pieces. Princely virtues of humanity? This is the real problem, most gamers need to stick to dungeons and dragons...vampire is to nuanced for most role players. The ivory tower are not the good guys, there are no good guys. Sect warfare erupts due to a difference of opinion on how to face the final nights (one doesnt even believe in such). A camarilla vampire is not blade or Alucard, some dark hero who cares about your communities sexual analog. Maybe you should go back to leveling up the Gnome Illusionist.
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Drew U August 22, 2019 6:27 am UTC
Calling for the prohibition of included topics is, in fact censorship. Your argument hinges on the predication that art that is shocking and in your view tasteless is not art at all and should be silenced. You have yet to categorically prove definitions of art, what differentiates it from tasteless art, and are unable to substantiate that this move was made for cheap shock value. If a tragedy affecting people prohibits it from being displayed in art, you cull a huge portion of literary classics and other mediums, unless instituting an arbitrary time cut off that cannot be supported with categorical logic.
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Paul B November 10, 2018 10:51 pm UTC
For those people who don't see the difference between New White Wolf's use of the Chechnya crisis and what Old White Wolf did in the 90s, one of the big difference is that Old White Wolf had a policy of not attributing any nasty historical event that happened after WW2 to supernatural influence. In other words, any of the nastiness that humanity had done to itself within living memory was entirely our own doing and was not simply explained away as a plot by some supernatural meanies.

Also, while Old White Wolf made many mistakes in their time, many that were quite bad too, they improved over time and tried to fix their mistakes. New White Wolf has already made a fair few questionable choices since they first announced V5 and while they've been taken to task on those choices and have apologized several times, they keep doing the same crap again and again. This not only makes their apologies feel rather empty, it also shows a continued lack of willingness to actually improve. And THAT is a big frikin...See more
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Barbara R November 11, 2018 3:06 am UTC
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I feel like it's a rather weak argument to say that it was okay for "old" White Wolf to include the Nazi regime in their books (e.g. in "Berlin By Night", published in 1993, Heinrich Himmler is depicted as a ghoul of Gustav Breidenstein (page 17)), because it is supposedly not "living memory" (to my mind though it still is very much alive and somewhere between your idea of "living memory" and mine one of the problems start), but it's not okay for "new" White Wolf to include Chechnya as the ultimate evil for both humans and vampires.

VtM is and always has been full of murderers, abusers and monsters because it is basically an RP system that circles around the abysses of humanity. And in this fictional scenario, the players try to cope with these abysses. This is a way of dealing with real world problems. That is, to my mind, one of the reasons people like to play VtM. And in "Camarilla" the murderers and abusers don't remain nameless, but...See more
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Rory H November 11, 2018 4:24 am UTC
In the 'Old World of Darkness', they referenced Alan Turing. This being the famous mathematician who was persecuted by UK 'Decency' laws, and ended up committing suicide after a prison sentence after he had been chemically castrated. In the game, he was depicted as a Virtual Adept mage who was assassinated by a New World Order agent. Is this not mixing up real world horrific events with fiction?

World of Darkness: Gypsies, Montreal by Night and lots of others had questionable content. HōL, produced as part of the Black Dog label, had a braggadocious "Claimer" that joked about paedophilia and included playable characters that also referenced it. All produced by "Old" White Wolf.

Back then, the main difference was no internet.
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Paul B November 11, 2018 4:52 am UTC
Barbara R, you already listed some of the problematic books from Old White Wolf in your post so I didn't bother to list them again since my post came after yours. Unfortunately the format on this site puts newer posts above older ones so my response to other posts didn't come off as a response as much as I wanted it to.

Now more to the point, regarding your and Rory's responses, I am in no way denying that Old White Wolf published some major crap on a number of occasions. The difference, as I already plainly stated in my initial post, is that when they were called on their crap, they improved their later work. That's not to say that they didn't then go on to make other mistakes, on which they were also called, but they at least made the effort to avoid making the exact same dumb mistakes over and over. Something which New White Wolf seems either unable or unwilling to do, since all their questionable choices so far have had a very similar trend of blindness towards social issues. THAT is the difference,...See more
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Rory H November 11, 2018 10:41 am UTC
"Old White Wolf" (your term, not mine) never changed anything in their publications due to being 'called out' on anything. You can still buy most of them here, totally unaltered, from when they were originally published. When people were critical in reviews or magazines back in the day, there was never any demand for any recall or boycotting - because people just didn't act this way. You are just making up a rose tinted myth here - all that has happened is the rise of the internet has given a bigger platform to vocal people on the extremes. Also, if you want to take offense at material like this, then please don't forget to read Kult or Delta Green, or a multitude of other horror games out there that freely mix real world events and dark fantasy too.

Moreover, you are also creating a false division in the community between "Old White Wolf" and a "New White Wolf". Mark Rein Hagen was the original creator of the World of Darkness, and contributed significantly to this...See more
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Barbara R November 11, 2018 2:02 pm UTC
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Paul, the point I am making here is that you just readily assume that the "questionable decisions" White Wold makes NOW are crap that the decisions are "mistakes", you take your sense of sensibility and assume that everybody SHOULD see it like you do.

But what I tried to do in my argument is making a counterargument that this specific decision about Cheyna (I still have no idea what other decisions you are talking about because you didn't spell them out) is NEITHER "crap" NOR a "mistake", but an artistic choice I can understand and explain. I have a different opinion than you!

Furthermore, since to my mind, Vampire was always about human atrocities, I feel it's hypocritical to now complain. To me, there is no difference between "old" and "new" White Wolf because Vampire was always about, as I said, human abysses.
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Paul B January 13, 2020 12:11 am UTC
Enjoy it mike P, the version you just bought has already been edited about a year ago to remove the questionable content.

So let me translate that for you:
We won.

Have a lovely day.
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Barbara R November 10, 2018 7:58 pm UTC
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I don't understand the issue people are having. Since the beginning, Vampire always picked up horrible things that happen or happened in the real world because it takes place in a world that is very close to our real world. And it always depicted those horrible things as something horrible and essentially evil because in the World of Darkness evil creatures like vampires (and humans!) CAUSE the horrible things.

For example in the VtM book “A World of Darkness”, which was published in 1992 (!), the Nazi regime gets mentioned briefly on page 46: “Although a misjudgment on the part of the Ventrue concerning the threat posed by the Nazis led to a reduction in the power of Germany, [...]”. I am from Germany, I'm sensible when it comes to this topic and ofc when I first read it I thought that this wording isn’t sensible at all. But then I thought about it and I realized that I appreciate the system because it acknowledges the cruel things that happen in our world.

The text from the...See more
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Kenneth J November 10, 2018 3:48 am UTC
I recommend buying this title. I received mine because I preordered the slipcase edition from Modiphius.
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Van W November 09, 2018 3:13 pm UTC
I'd recommend avoiding this title. It has an odious section depicting the real life persecution of gay people in Chechnya as a smokescreen for vampire shenanigans. To say it's in poor taste is to put it lightly.
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Rory H November 10, 2018 12:26 am UTC
<sigh>

Real world inspirations for a fictional 'World of Darkness' is not new. As a 'dark reflection' of the real world, it is actually the point. No, this does not mean they are endorsing any paricular view by reflecting on difficult or emotive issues, or themes in a fictional context. Adults can work this out for themselves, of course.

Also, for the sake of clarity, I recieved my PDF from a Modiphius pre-order. Did you actually purchase this product?
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Willard N November 10, 2018 3:48 am UTC
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old White Wolf was careful in dealing with recent or "current" tragedies, the current team of writers have, at best, missed the point of that old mindset and are making a bit of an XXX of the company
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Rory H November 10, 2018 9:14 am UTC
Nonsense. The only thing of note here is that a very tiny minority of individuals can't deal with the notion of mature themes in games. Go and read the original Montreal By Night if you want to see how the 'mindset' of old White Wolf was. I have a much higher regard for the current team's understanding of the 'old White Wolf' than an anonymous non purchaser on this site, with questionable motivations and invalid criticism.
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Alex G November 11, 2018 6:52 pm UTC
You're the one who's incorrect. People who are objecting to the Chechnya chapter are the same people who didn't so much as miss a step when they bought titles from previous editions of VtM. We are happy to have vampires as monsters, and to play vampires as the doomed protagonists of a grand operatic tragedy.
We're objecting to the mindset that thinks it would be a crowd-pleaser to exploit a real, ongoing evil - the real massacre of LGBTQ people in Chechnya - for entertainment.
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Nicholas L November 12, 2018 6:19 pm UTC
Then you object to any and all real world depictions for entertainment? Ah, man. All those people who enjoy WW2 movies, games, RPGs ...etc. must really ruffle your feathers. Those 9/11 movies, tv shows that used it and books used for entertainment ... Or those who watch Crime shows that "rip stories straight from the News". OMG all the exploited real world events for entertainment. (Sarcasm )

On a serious note, Yes Chechnya is a real place with real evil. If I was there I'd be tortured and killed. Do I object to WOD using it the way they did, no. Adding a touch of fantasy to horrible real world events makes to easier for people while learning of the event. Put real world events in entertainment... It'll open more eyes, and it'll be recorded in areas were more people will find it, other then the news.
I'm fine if White Wolf opens up a Black Dog sections of books for "hard to handle" subjects. But, the use of use real world events is OK. I would be angry if they censored...See more
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Chelsea R November 13, 2018 7:58 am UTC
Exploiting it? This is mindboggling. This isnt a game that has some magical dimension as its setting. There are no elves to ethnically cleanse, no orcs to paint as the inhuman token bad guys. It uses our world as its backdrop. Did white wolf make more money from mentioning the horror in Chechnya? Did it somehow advance the books public image? From the start the world of darkness has done this. The sabbat claimed they orchestrated the 911 attacks (a lie), hurricans and tsunamis in bangladesh, antediluvian clashes, spanish inquisition was an attempt to ferrat out the undead, I can go on. What really bothers me is the face that none of you blink an eye at the numerous other atrocities, because they are lesser due to most of them not involving sexuality? Thats tantamount to decrying the bloodshed while you are the hangman.
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Chelsea R November 13, 2018 8:02 am UTC
I apologize Rory, I now see why you are so exasperated. This is the release of the year, maybe decade and this foolishness is an attempt to tank it. If attributing horrendous actions to make believe creatures offends you, I hope the perpetrators of the actual atrocities offends you enough to actually do something. Its pathetic that art could offend you so totally.
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Chris B August 22, 2019 11:12 am UTC
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This was removed from the PDF and the print edition
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Shane O November 27, 2019 4:21 am UTC
Good thing for me I have the original PDF that does have Chechnya in it.
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Chris C November 15, 2020 10:23 pm UTC
What in the f.uck are you on about
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Product Information
Platinum seller
Pages
201
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MUH051575-PDF
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This title was added to our catalog on November 07, 2018.