Not so bad if you go in with your whole gaming group.  It's $3 a set if you order 7 or more sets at once.

The funny thing about crystalcaste pricing is that  26 dice are more than five bucks cheaper than buying
25 dice.  Who in their right mind wouldn't save $5.50 and just order one more die, even if they just toss
it in the trash when it shows up?

Might want to check your numbers.  In quantities of 26 to 99 dice, Crystal Caste charges 85 cents per side.  That means each 18mm die will run $3.40 (assuming two blank sides).  That means each set will cost $13.60.  Now, they'll be awesome and completely personalized to your gaming group, but that's pretty darn expensive, if you ask me.

They'll be a little cheaper if you go with 16mm dice, at 75 per side or $3.00 per die (again, assuming two blank sides).  That's still twelve bucks for four dice.

Now... if we could all bundle up the cash and make a purchase from Chessex in bulk, we could get them for as little as 37 cents per side (which is still a pretty spendy $1.48 per die, mind you), but we'd need to order over 1000 dice (that is, 250 complete sets), and we'd have to agree on the same colors and symbols.

I'm thinking I need a refund if it's not first edition on a pre-order.

I can wait till they show up on e-bay.

You don't have anything to worry about El Diablo.  I think the order number we got (1700, in my case) represented an order from the Evil Hat store, not the specific item.  In other words, when you placed your order, it was the 1922nd order the Evil Hat store processed this fiscal year, not the 1922nd Dresden Files order placed.

I'm looking forward to the books arriving, and don't mind much that they're showing up thousands of miles away and across an ocean (no, I promise, I'm not bitter!) before they reach people within a one- or two-day drive from their point of origin. At least not as long as they make it here before my next game day, and that's well over a week away. As long as they're here before next Saturday (July 3rd), I'm good. And I hope all you U.K. folks getting your books before those of us in the U.S. feel good about yourselves, flashing those shiny new books in our virtual faces while we hold back our tears of frustration, chewing on curses and imprecations as you enjoy the full-color goodness of this year's most awesome RPG product.

Darn you. Darn you all to heck.

*sniffle*

From http://www.freemasonrywatch.org/sufi.html - (typos are theirs)

Unlike Christianity, ceremonial magic has a legitimate place in Islam. According to Islamic law, sihr-al-halal or pemitted magick may be used as a vehicle for religious discovery. This has given Sufis room to preserve magickal practices from the ancient world which were systematically supressed in Europe, which had to wait for the Renaissiance for their re-introduction. Like Qabalah, Sufi ideas played an important part in the European Rennaissance, in particular being hugely influential on the Rosicrucian movement. In terms of esoteric practice, there is also a large overlap between Qabalistic and Sufic magickal practice, hardly surprising when one considers the related languages, geographical proximity, and common religious heritage. Like Qabalists, Sufis have alway sought to maintain their legitimacy within mainstream religion. Like Qabalists, they maintained an intellectual tradition in continuity from the Hellenistic culture of the last few cenuries b.c.e.. There are also some similarities which both refuse to acknowledge. The practice of demonic magic (summoning and binding demons) has a central role in the magick of both traditions. This doesn't sit easily with modern Sufis, who like to stress the more image-friendly "spiritual development" side of their tradition. Nevertheless, demonic magick is probably one of the most ancient threads in the Sufi tapestry, dating back to the ancient Canaanite/Babylonian/Egyptian cultures. Many medieval grimoires (which mark the point at which demonology entered Western Europe) contain lists of demons with names directly traceable to these traditions. When [ref]Aleister Crowley 'restored' the Invocation of the Bornless One, he found good correlations between the nonsense-names contained in the Graeco-Coptic original and Egyptian godforms, correspondances born out by the context of the ritual.

Also,

From the DFRPG website

Last week we announced that the books would start shipping on the 30th of June.  We’ve been looking that date over for the last week, talking with our distributors and our warehouse and so on to make sure everything is in place for that date to happen. And that’s when we realized something.

We’ve got it all together well enough that we can ship earlier than the 30th! (That’s right; for once, we’ve got a date on the schedule that’s moving in the other direction.)

Accordingly we’re moving our ship date to June 23rd. That should put books in folks’ hands a week earlier — for some people. during the same days that Origins is happening, where the books will be making first contact with the fans. And that feels about right.

Thank you, Evil Hat! You're not half as evil as your name suggests!

This is pretty cool.  I'd be interested in seeing a Raven or a Crow.

They Never Taught Us This In School...

There are some things they teach in school, but others you just learn from the school of hard knocks.

• Invoke:  Sometimes you have to fall back on your street cred.  Invoke this aspect for a bonus when your badass reputation might give you a little boost.
• Compel:  Every time you run into something just a little more bizarre about the world of the weird, it freaks you out.

EDIT:  D'oh!  Did it again!  Well, here goes.

Dying is easy, living is hard

• Invoke:  Life has made you hard.  Invoke in order to overcome a plea to your empathy.
• Compel:  Life has taken its toll on you, and sometimes you just want to give up...

Pick one of the following:

• Everybody's A Critic...
• What's Behind Door Number Two?
• Rapier Wit