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Welcome, Dumbheads, to to the Mega Dumbcast. In

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this series, In this series, we're

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examining every single page of page of

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of God, an of God, an from

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story from the scenario book, Gehenna,

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to determine what is the

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dumbest thing on each page. page.

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Every episode is one page, page,

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every episode is short. is short. The

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Crucible of God was published in

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2003 in 2003 by White Wolf. Today

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we're discussing page page 197 of

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and the drive drive between Denver,

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Colorado. and the and the northern edge

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of Alaska is about 3 ,500 miles. why

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That's why Club, Club, who you will

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recall last episode, set off set off.

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van on a their van I a van. I

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always say van. I always say bus, a tour

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bus, spiritually but it's a van. a

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van. I mean, adventures it and guns and a

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magical pet that we train to

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fight. to fight. after years of role -playing

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to me that says to me that says van.

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Vampire Drama Club got on their tour bus

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and they headed off to the northern coast of

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Alaska where they got the information from

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of Alaska, whom they freed

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from. being mentally subsumed

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by whom they that there's a

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nuclear sub out there about a

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mile off the coast with active

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nuclear weapons, a nuclear sub out there, about a demise the

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go grab those nukes and do

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God knows what with them. weapons, Malcav,

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before good friend Columbo managed to take down go grab

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and now we can seize those nukes and

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do God knows what with them. them. Unfortunately,

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this involves driving a tour bus over

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3 ,500 miles. So don't suppose that

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nine to 11 months into the apocalypse,

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the roads in Alaska are in great

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condition. are in great roads through

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Wyoming Montana. Wyoming or the fucking or

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for that matter. Yukon So that matter. So while tells

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me that this is about a 62

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-hour drive. a I think drive,

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stops for blood. stops for roads,

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navigation issues without

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GPS. GPS, it's gonna take us a

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good two weeks. to get to get to the

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shore. launch our and launch our attack on this new. Sub, then

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however things go with the Sub, and

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you can never tell with a nuclear

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subheist. Whatever happens, we're going to then

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have to come back from Northern Alaska

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to Denver. That's going to be about

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another two weeks, assuming we take roughly

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the same route, roughly the same route

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back, and then that's going to be

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about another two weeks, assuming we take

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roughly the same route back and run

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into the same obstacles. That's not even

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including the time that we need to

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be going about the Sub and everything

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in a couple of days. In the

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meantime, I want to talk about what

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happens while they're gone. It's described on

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this page in a section entitled The

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Reign of Lesombra. I'm not going to

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bore you with a lot of history

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about Lesombra. The antediluvian of the Lesombra

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clan, which is one of the two

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core clans of the Sabbath, was supposed

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to have been killed centuries ago. It's

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one of the reasons that the Lesombra

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are founders of the Sabbath, because supposedly

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they killed their antediluvian. Well, as it

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turns out, there are a few things

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that don't add up about this story.

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Number one is everything. Nobody can agree

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about who killed the Lesomber Antidolubian. There

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are all kinds of factual inconsistencies in

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the account of how this happened, that

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the people involved don't seem to be

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able to even notice that these inconsistencies

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exist, which suggests that some powerful mind

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control was used to rewrite people's memories

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of this whole situation, because now they,

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like, like, even putting it down on

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paper, they can't mentally acknowledge that the

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accounts don't line up. Also, quote, old

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and powerful masters of obtenibration, which is

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the signature discipline of the Lesombra, it's

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like shadow manipulation, old and powerful masters

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of obtenibration claim that their discipline draws

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its power from a realm of utter

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darkness, they call the abyss. No light

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or matter exists in the abyss. But,

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dot, dot, things, italicized, dot, dwell in

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that knighted realm. They wonder if Lesombra

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have souls, and if so, to what

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realm they pass upon they pass upon

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their body's upon their body's destruction. So

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between the Highly inconsistent accounts of

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the of the being killed and the

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fact that the killed some kind of

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connection to another realm have is speculation

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that the to another of the clan ended

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up there that the he did of the

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is now a kind of indeed he being

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is now a not one amorphous shadow being

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but and afraid This amorphous shadow being

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has a amorphous shadow pal is a

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a pal. This pal is a who perfected

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a ritual perfected a ritual out the sun. out

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the she calls up the ancient

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antediluvian shadow creature from the the She

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does her ritual. Then, quote,

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darkness covers covers the entire world.

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longer The sun no longer shines. are

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not seen and stars are not seen in the heavens. The

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inky penetrates the inky shroud. blah, Earth

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grows cold, blah, blah, blah. and trees,

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and birds, rivers and trees, et cetera, et cetera. Everything

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sucks. out the Turns out the sun's

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pretty important after all. all. Quote, humanity as

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best it can. can. Where where the power

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grid remains intact, intact and lights shine

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against the darkness. These regions

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would be larger had kindred

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elders elders not civilization to protect themselves.

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to protect fortunate people huddle around people

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and light candles. fireplaces people who

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remain in cities are hit the hardest. remain Few

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among their hit masters care very much. their As

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each creature dies, care a puff of mist

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rises from it. puff of life and spirit visible

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only in the utter darkness of only in the utter

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the wisp of of stuff rises into the

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ebb of soul stuff rises feeds sky. grows

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stronger. and grows sun is

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completely sun out. Life on earth is being.

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earth is being wiped out by

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the lack of sunlight the profound

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change to the the climate different the death

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of all these different animals. is just being civilization

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is just being battered everywhere, but

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especially in the cities where the

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population is densest. Whenever someone dies, it

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into the sky slightly luminous puff of mist rises

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from it into the sky to be devoured

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by the extra. Sun goes out. Fuel store is weeks, this

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is the big headline. impossible. extra.

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cannot be read. These goes out. a waste of ink.

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But gone. we Illumination are we saving it.

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But what are we cannot be read. are we These giant

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letters are we of ink, but what are we saving it

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for? it for. And then, and this this is a test test of

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how closely you've been listening to this stretch

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of the season so far. far. You'll never guess what

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happens at the end of three weeks. of three

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Just take a wild guess. while to

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satisfying resolution? could occur at

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the end. the end of this existential threat

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to life on lights flash in the lights

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flash in the sky and strange

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words echo like thunder. rises mighty

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wind rises from nowhere as the

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sky slowly brightens, and and turns red.

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Curtains of scarlet drops descend and

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a hurricane of blood of the

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world. the An hour later, later, the ruddy

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clouds break, and the true sky becomes

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visible once more. more. The rain of of

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has ended as suddenly as it began.

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as it began. paragraph break. break.

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The never know why. why. Wow, man.

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Really man, you think, makes you think, doesn't

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it? buy game do we buy game books? Do we hate

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money? the sun went the sun went out for three weeks

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and then it came back. back. That's it.

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The The reason that that I

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have Drama go off on this

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excursion at this point in the the

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because they're headed headed Alaska. northern which

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means they're driving directly into

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polar night. night. Where they're spending these

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few weeks, few the sun wasn't gonna come

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up anyway. going So when they drive back,

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as they start to encounter more human settlements

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and stuff as they drive down out

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of like the far North reaches of Alaska,

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they they're gonna find everybody talking about north reaches

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of the fuck just happened? The sun went out.

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It was a it was talking about like what

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disaster and then there were lights in the

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skies, whatever. going to find Club is going to

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miss this whole fucking thing. And that's really

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to make a point. The you know, feeling spiteful

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toward the book at this point in the

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book, in this point in the season, there

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is nothing to be done about this. from a

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from a player character perspective. There

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is nothing to learn here. There

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is no personal drama. drama. There is

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no dramatic situation, really. I mean, I

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mean, one can easily imagine creating

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one out of. the fact of the

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setting that the has been blotted out, but that

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is left as an exercise to the

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actual storyteller. The text just presents like, here's

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the thing that happens to the world. just

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no satisfying resolution. a thing that is just

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like, here's thing that happens. and then

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it it starts then it stops. And

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there is, once again, no explanation. per

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the text. Like, not not counting.

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my efforts last page to page.

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kind of some kind of player character

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contact with the mysterious death of of which

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was stated in the text of this

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book, the to be of unexplained mystery no one

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ever saw, just going by the ever solves. Just

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gives us the book's account, that Whatever

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that thing was. in New

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York, in New York, Hakim, and Malcav, not to

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Not to mention Ravnos, if if we played through the

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Week of Nightmares in the way envisioned in the

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book. All of the book, all of them, rose and

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no fucking explanation. in

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in the background. But But this is

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maybe the most extreme example, yeah, because yeah,

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because thing creature thing, where like the has become a

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shadow creature in the abyss, it can

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come and like in the abyss, it So there

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can be a thing, there can be

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a story here where if there's a

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there in the can be character group where if there's

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a in the time leading up to this

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big blackout. in the player character them then in the

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time of a fallen this or something

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like that. the Assuming the shadow creature

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doesn't personally approach the group, which it

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won't of no lasombra in it. it.

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The damn son goes goes out for three

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weeks with no explanation, then comes back

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with no explanation, and there there is

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in there. even to to touch

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or hear about. at least at least

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Hakeem had missionaries. At least a

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bunch of a bunch of fucking Bekanties

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to build a flesh bridge to to reach

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us. at least knew at least knew

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Malcab was out there, knew he

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was a threat briefly, he died of

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mysterious causes. At least At if

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we never we never witness it or know

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about it. it. In character, there's

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something in the text about what happened

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with what There is no player contact

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with contact with if you don't have

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a if you the group a no

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explanation no character or out of what

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the fuck happened here. what Is

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it a scenario it a it is

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a series of unexplained events that

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the players can't participate in? in,

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or even really hear about. That seems

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seems like just a story. To be more to be

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more specific, bad a bad story. know, man, I don't

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know, man, what is the dumbest thing in this

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page? page? Probably the fact that one of the plot

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points in this story is that the this story went

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out sun went out. And honestly... The fact that Vampire

10:01

Drama Club doesn't even notice doesn't

10:03

no difference to anything. Because it

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isn't really part of the story,

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it's just a thing that happens. it's

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just a back, but we're not quite

10:12

ready to go back to Vampire

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Drama Club yet. The next page

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is all spoilers. Club So join

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me next time when we once

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again go all spoilers. So join me next time when we

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once again go in search for dot, dot, dot, on MDC, the

10:24

Mega Dumbcast. This has been Mega Dumbcast. New

10:27

episodes drop every day day Sundays,

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when all the week's previous episodes

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drop in one big mega drop in one

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big megasode on the patron's If you'd like

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to access that feed and support

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the show, visit feed .com the show, visit This

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episode's theme song is This

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Yeti song is whose work you

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can find at upbeat .io.

10:46

you can -P -P -B -E -A -T UPP, -O.

10:49

Dumbheads, I I will catch you

10:51

next time. time. you

10:55

next time. Bye.