I’ve devoured all the material for the setting so far, and love it. Looking forward to the upcoming setting expansion book!
I have noticed a recurring concern from both reading and running the game. With only a couple of exceptions so far, the adventures all lean very heavily into painting the thralls as completely evil and irredeemable throw-away villains. The GM’s Guide paints a completely different picture of their culture, which I had hoped we’d see more glimpses of in the books and adventures to come. But then that culture is completely ignored in the adventures, which just keep trotting out the “really bad” ones as the only examples of their entire culture.
For a game with such a strong focus on hope, cultural diversity, and tidings for a better tomorrow, it is kind of jarring to have this whole game faction take on an entirely two-dimensional portrayal. From the starter set to the GM Guide Adventure, to two of the three separate adventure booklets, they are only used in the story with big red “you can kill these guys without guilt!” arrows pointing at them. The GM has to actively work against and ignore large parts of the text if they want to give this faction a chance of being seen as anything more than just expendable mooks.
I do hope we get to see more spotlights put on the Conduit culture in future books, perhaps even some more sympathetic NPCs from that greater faction, or even some player options for Conduit-origin characters.