Dystopia, Totalitarianism, and O5R

God damn, we're living in some fucked-up times!

Sure, there's the pandemic; lockdown house-arrest with accompanied domestic abuse, boredom, depression, and suicide; racial tensions with riots, looting, arson, shootings, vandalism; the proposed de-funding of police... take your pick.

But right now, I want to focus on social justice warriors taking aim at our beloved hobby.  From orcs and drow to disclaimers disavowing legacy products such as Oriental Adventures. Can anyone guess where they'll strike next?

Ironically, a contingent of SJWs are boycotting WotC and D&D because the company isn't woke enough, not far-left enough for the screeching radicals on twitter.

Well, finally some of the old guard are taking notice and putting their foot down.  For instance, This post from the Greyhawk Grognard.  The top illustration of Daenerys Targaryen is apt.  We're in a cultural war and the opposing side won't accept anything less than total submission.

The far-left fascists won't stop there, either.  Eventually, they'll take everything old school away.  If they had their way, the OSR would be nothing but a reminder of the horrible, oppressive, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, colonial, alt-right, no good past that must be annihilated in order to bring a new age of peace and prosperity.

Never mind the Socialist & Communist horrors of mass death, imprisonment, poverty, starvation, and loss of freedom.  After all, you can't make utopia for the very few who truly deserve it without breaking millions of eggs along the way, right?  That's by design, only we're the eggs.

Here is an interesting article from The Hill.  From a Democrat perspective, Judd Gregg will tell you these new progressives want power.  Their ends justify any means - that means darkness, evil, corruption, oppression, and terror for those unfortunate enough to be under their iron fist.  Think I'm exaggerating?  There's a lot of things the "trained Marxists" never told you... but that's a blog post for another day.

What to do about the SJWs coming for our Isle of Dread?  Well, speak up for one thing.  If the silent majority made their voices heard, we'd be out of this mess, instead of sinking deeper into the quicksand of resistance-is-futile totalitarianism.

Cancel culture is real.  This is the open-letter by celebrities.  I've suffered from its affects in both greater and lesser quantities, everything from censoring crybabies telling me they'll never buy my books to being from certain social media platforms.  Nevertheless, I'm thriving.  As Ben Shapiro recently said, the dirty little secret is they can only cancel you if you allow yourself to be cancelled.

I don't care which side the of the political aisle you're on or who you vote for in November.  That's your business.  But I love this hobby/industry/community and don't want to see it destroyed.

As much as I love being a lone wolf, it may be time to organize.  Is some kind of organization to push back against the takeover of our gaming culture warranted?  If so, I see it as 5th wave OSR.  Years ago, I and a few others started using O5R to mean a combination of OSR and 5th edition, but it never really caught on as I'd hoped.  So it goes...

After due consideration, I think it's time to remodel O5R to mean the 5th wave of the OSR - forces openly and actively opposed to disclaimers, sensitivity readers, consent checklists, tradition shaming, attacking the fandom (remember when they called us straight white male terrorists?), shoehorning racist stereotypes into fantasy humanoids, banning or outright burning their own books, and so forth.

The O5R is dead... long live the O5R!

Venger As'Nas Satanis

High Priest of Kort'thalis Publishing

p.s. Only 74 luxurious hardcover Cha'alt books remaining.  Ordering details here!

p.p.s. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a petition.