Author: VD

Zaharan Darklord

Thanks very much to all of you who supported the ACKS kickstarter. Here is one of the rewards. From the designer: “It’s a powerful class that oozes flavor and will likely see a lot of use in play.” Here is an excerpt from how the Darklord class is translated into game terms. I am told the artwork will be suitably awesome and will post it when it is ready.
Zaharan Darklord

And those who perceived his shadow spreading over the world called him the Dark Lord and named him the Enemy; and he gathered under his government all the evil things that remained on earth or beneath it, and the Orcs were at his command and multiplied like flies.” 
– Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age, The Silmarillion (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Prime Requisite: INT, CHA
Requirements: INT 9, WIS 9, CHA 9
Hit Dice: 1d4
Maximum Level: 11
From time to time, a Zaharan arises whose cruelty, ruthlessness, and lust for power are remarkable even for one of their dark race. Such a being is called a darklord, and he brings doom and woe to all who cross him. If left unchecked by Lawful heroes, a rising darklord will inevitably unite the vile minions of Chaos and usher in an era of war, ruin, and darkness.
Though they prefer to allow minions to fight for them, darklords are nevertheless formidable combatants. At first level, darklords hit an unarmored foe (AC 0) with an attack throw of 10+. Thereafter they advance in attack and saving throws by two points every four levels of experience (i.e., the same as clerics). Darklords can fight with battle axes, crossbows, great axes, maces, morning stars, and swords, often decorating their weapons with vile runes, bloody spikes, serrated edges, and other sinister decorations. Darklords can wear any armor up to and including plate (and can cast spells while so armored), and can fight with a weapon in each hand or with a two-handed weapon, but cannot use shields.
Like the Zaharan sorcerer, the darklord possesses the ability to learn and cast eldritch spells. The number and levels of spells the darklord can use in a single day are listed on the Darklord Spell Progression table. A darklord’s spell selection is limited to the spells in his repertoire. A darklord’s repertoire can include a number of spells up to the number and level of spells listed for his level, increased by his Intelligence bonus. All darklords can use any magic items usable by mages or clerics. More information on casting eldritch spells, and individual spell descriptions, can be found in the Magic chapter (p. XX).
However, the paramount power of the darklord is his ability to dominate beastmen. By calling upon his implacable will and magical strength, the darklord can command the vile minions of Chaos to do his bidding. The darklord must be visible to the beastmen and be able to speak a language they understand in order to dominate them. The potency of this ability is determined by level.
On the Dominate Beastmen table, there will be a dash, an “A”, an “X”, or a number corresponding to the Hit Dice of the beastman and the level of the darklord. A dash means that the darklord has not attained a high enough level to dominate beastmen of that HD. A number indicates that the player must roll that number or higher on 1d20 in order to dominate the beastmen. If the beastmen are already friendly to the darklord, he gains a +2 bonus to the throw. If the throw succeeds, the darklord dominates 2d6 total Hit Dice of beastmen for 1 turn per level of experience. An “A” (“automatic”) means that the darklord automatically dominates 2d6 total Hit Dice of beastmen for 1 turn per level. An “X” (“extended”) means that the darklord automatically dominates 2d6 total Hit Dice of beastmen for 1 day per level. At least one beastman will always be dominated, as appropriate, on a successful domination throw. If beastmen of mixed HD are present when the darklord attempts to dominate them, the weakest beastmen will be dominated first. When the darklord’s domination ends, the beastmen will flee from his presence for 10 rounds, following the best and fastest means available to them. If they cannot flee, they cower in terror, taking no actions and suffering a -2 penalty to AC.
EXAMPLE: Theophanous, a 5th level darklord, confronts a gang of five orcs (1 HD) accompanied by an orc champion (1+1 HD) from the Blood Eye tribe, accompanied by an ogre (4+1 HD). On his initiative, he attempts to dominate the beastmen. He automatically can dominate 1 HD orcs, but he needs to throw 4+ to dominate the orc champion and 13+ to dominate the ogre. He throws 1d20 and the result is 14. Therefore he has (potentially) dominated all the beastmen. Had he rolled, e.g., an 13 he would only have dominated the orcs and orc champion, and had he rolled a 3 or less he’d only have dominated the orcs. He now rolls 2d6 to determine the number of Hit Dice he has dominated and rolls a 7. Since the weakest beastmen must be dominated first, he dominates the five orcs and the orc champion (6.25 HD total) but not the ogre. Had he rolled an 11, he could have dominated the 4+1 HD ogre as well (10.5 HD total). In any case, the beastmen will remain under his domination for 1 turn per level, or 5 turns.
All Zaharan darklords possess certain inhuman benefits and drawbacks from their demoniac bloodline. First, Zaharan darklords are inexorable in the face of horrors that terrify normal men. They are immune to all natural and magical fear effects. Second, darklords benefit from the ancient pacts of service and obedience by which the lords of Zahar ensorcelled the dark powers of the world. Some creatures still remember these pacts and will aid Zaharans when commanded. All Zaharan darklords gain a +2 bonus to reaction rolls when encountering intelligent chaotic monsters. Intelligent chaotic monsters suffer a -2 penalty to saving throws against any charm spells cast by a Zaharan darklord.
Third, due to their background and training, all Zaharan darklords speak four dark tongues. In the Auran Empire campaign setting, these languages are Ancient Zaharan, Goblin, Orc, and Kemeshi. The Judge should substitute appropriate languages of his own devising for other campaigns.

Three and three

If conservatives, Republicans, and the Alt-Right want to survive the conflict with Antifa and the violent forces of globalism, then all of them would do very well to read this book: 4th Generation Warfare Handbook. I would strongly advise getting the paperback, both for future reference and the ability to share it with others.
This is not a practical guide. But it establishes core principles that need to be understood, from which specific practices and policies can be developed.
The Three Classic Levels of War
The three classic levels of war – strategic, operational, and tactical – still exist in Fourth Generation war. But all three are affected, and to some extent changed, by the Fourth Generation. One important change is that, while in the first three generations strategy was the province of generals, the Fourth Generation has given us the “strategic corporal.” These days, the actions of a single enlisted man can have strategic consequences, especially if they happen to take place when cameras are rolling.
What succeeds on the tactical level can easily be counter-productive at the operational and strategic levels. For example, by using their overwhelming firepower at the tactical level, state forces may in some cases intimidate the local population into fearing them and leaving them alone. But fear and hate are closely related, and if the local population ends up hating the state forces, that works toward their strategic defeat.
Fourth Generation war poses an especially difficult problem to operational art: put simply, it is difficult to operationalize. Often, Fourth Generation opponents have strategic centers of gravity that are intangible. These may involve proving their manhood to their comrades and local women, obeying the commandments of their religion, or demonstrating their tribe’s bravery to other tribes. Because operational art is the art of focusing tactical actions on enemy strategic centers of gravity, operational art becomes difficult or even impossible.

Three New Levels of War
While the three classic levels of war carry over into the Fourth Generation, they are joined there by three new levels which may ultimately be more important. Colonel Boyd identified these three new levels as the physical, the mental, and the moral levels. Furthermore, he argued that the physical level – killing people and breaking things – is the least powerful, the moral level is the most powerful, and the mental level lies between the other two. Colonel Boyd argued that this is especially true in guerrilla warfare, which is more closely related to Fourth Generation war than is formal warfare between state militaries. The history of guerrilla warfare, from the Spanish guerrilla war against Napoleon through Israel’s experience in southern Lebanon, supports Colonel Boyd’s observation.
This leads to the central dilemma of Fourth Generation war: what works for you on the physical (and sometimes mental) level often works against you at the moral level. It is therefore very easy to win all the tactical engagements in a Fourth Generation conflict yet still lose the war. To the degree you win at the physical level by utilizing firepower that causes casualties and property damage to the local population, every physical victory may move you closer to moral defeat, and the moral level is decisive.
Some examples from the American experience in Iraq help illustrate the contradiction between the physical and moral levels:

  • The U. S. Army conducted many raids on civilian homes in areas it occupied. In these raids, the troops physically dominated the civilians. Mentally, they terrified them. But at the moral level, breaking into private homes in the middle of the night, terrifying women and children, and sometimes treating detainees in ways that publicly humiliated them (like stepping on their heads) worked powerfully against the Americans. An enraged population responded by providing the Iraqi resistance with more support at each level of war, physical, mental, and moral.
  • At Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison, MPs and interrogators dominated prisoners physically and mentally – as too many photographs attest. But when that domination was publicly exposed, the United States suffered an enormous defeat at the moral level. Some American commanders recognized this when they referred to the soldiers responsible for the abuse as, “the jerks who lost us the war.”
  • In Iraq and elsewhere, American troops (other than Special Forces) quickly establish base camps that mirror American conditions: air conditioning, good medical care, plenty of food and pure water. The local people are not allowed into the bases except in service roles. Physically, the American superiority over the lives the locals lead is overwhelming. Mentally, it projects the power and success of American society. But morally, the constant message of “we are better than you” works against the Americans. Traditional cultures tend to put high values on pride and honor, and when foreigners seem to sneer at local ways, the locals may respond by defending their honor in a traditional manner – by fighting. After many, if not most, American military interventions, Fourth Generation war has tended to intensify and spread rather than contract.

The practice of a successful Fourth Generation entity, al-Qaeda, offers an interesting contrast. Osama bin Laden, who came from a wealthy family, lived for years in an Afghan cave. In part, this was for security. But bin Laden’s choice also reflected a keen understanding of the power of the moral level of war. By sharing the hardships and dangers of his followers, Osama bin Laden drew a sharp contrast at the moral level with the leaders of local states, and also with senior officers in most state armies.
The contradiction between the physical and moral levels of war in Fourth Generation conflicts is similar to the tension between the tactical and strategic levels, but the two are not identical. The physical, mental, and moral levels all play at each of the three classic levels – tactical, operational, and strategic. Any disharmony among levels creates openings which Fourth Generation opponents will be quick to exploit.

Mailvox: the Pope of the Alt-Right

WS complained about my detached and contemplative approach.

Maybe Vox figures he’s the Pope Benedict of the Alt-Right: the one who leads a contemplative life and assures us of his thoughts and prayers as we’re getting the snot beaten out of us.

I found it mildly amusing that she thought I was thinking about them at all. There is a reason why I didn’t know who Jason Kessler was until yesterday. It was because I paid absolutely no attention to the rally in Charlottesville, despite apparently having been invited to speak there, until it made the news.
Neither Clausewitz nor van Creveld ever commanded in the field. Karl Marx was considerably more influential as an author than as a labor organizer. And it seems unlikely that Alexander the Great’s astonishing military success was entirely unrelated to the fact that he happened to have the greatest thinker in Man’s history as his personal tutor.
In light of the surprising discovery that the front man for the so-called “Unite the Right” rally was a left-wing Obama voter, I’ve been giving some thought to the assertions of some of the petty self-proclaimed national socialists that they are too of the right. In this vein, I thought it would be profitable to consult Leon Trotsky on the matter. His thoughts, expressed in the dramatically titled, but perceptive essay “The Fascist Danger Looms in Germany” are thought-provoking, if less useful than one might have assumed.

In order that the social crisis may bring about the proletarian revolution, it is necessary that, besides other conditions, a decisive shift of the petty bourgeois classes occurs in the direction of the proletariat. This gives the proletariat a chance to put itself at the head of the nation as its leader.
The last election revealed — and this is where its principle symptomatic significance lies — a shift in the opposite direction. Under the blow of the crisis, the petty bourgeoisie swung, not in the direction of the proletarian revolution, but in the direction of the most extreme imperialist reaction, pulling behind it considerable sections of the proletariat.
The gigantic growth of National Socialism is an expression of two factors: a deep social crisis, throwing the petty bourgeois masses off balance, and the lack of a revolutionary party that would be regarded by the masses of the people as an acknowledged revolutionary leader. If the communist Party is the party of revolutionary hope, then fascism, as a mass movement, is the party of counter-revolutionary despair. When revolutionary hope embraces the whole proletarian mass, it inevitably pulls behind it on the road of revolution considerable and growing sections of the petty bourgeoisie. Precisely in this sphere the election revealed the opposite picture: counter-revolutionary despair embraced the petty bourgeois mass with such a force that it drew behind it many sections of the proletariat….
Fascism in Germany has become a real danger, as an acute expression of the helpless position of the bourgeois regime, the conservative role of the social democracy in this regime, and the accumulated powerlessness of the Communist Party to abolish it. Whoever denies this is either blind or a braggart….
The danger acquires particular acuteness in connection with the question of the tempo of development, which does not depend upon us alone. The malarial character of the political curve revealed by the election speaks for the fact that the tempo of development of the national crisis may turn out to be very speedy. In other words, the course of events in the very near future may resurrect in Germany, on a new historical plane, the old tragic contradiction between the maturity of a revolutionary situation, on the one hand, and the weakness and strategical impotence of the revolutionary party, on the other.

Now, there is without question a social crisis across the West. A severe social crisis of historic proportions, arguably more serious than the one of the previous century. But in every case, the big bourgeoisie is allied with government bureaucracies and the ur-communists in revolutionary hope while both the petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat are increasingly inclined towards counter-revolutionary despair. Moreover, the class metric is largely irrelevant, because the dividing lines are far more clearly identified on identity grounds than on class grounds.
In other words, from the Trotskyite perspective, we’re in new territory here, and more sophisticated philosophical tools are required for useful analysis and prediction. But it is already clear that neither simple identity metrics nor conventional ideological metrics will alone suffice.

Neocons 2.0

When I said it’s not punching right to criticize the Alt-Reichtards, I had no idea how correct I was:

Only a year ago, white supremacist and ‘Unite the Right’ leader, Jason Kessler, was said to be a supporter of former President Obama and the Occupy movement. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Kessler revealed his political transformation around November 2016, the same month then-candidate Donald Trump won the presidential election. In November, 2016, Kessler displayed a rightward shift according to SPLC during an attack on Charlottesville vice mayor Wes Bellamy who posted racist and vulgar tweets in 2011 and 2012.

Didn’t we already go through this once before? How did that turn out for the Right?
Now, I’m all in favor of people seeing the light and all, but perhaps accepting these enthusiastic newcomers in positions of leadership is not the wisest course of action. Especially when they have shown that they are manifestly unprepared for it. I’m not saying there is no place for them on the Right, merely that one should think twice, or perhaps three times, before placing any confidence in them.
Criticizing these guys isn’t punching right. There are birds in my yard that have been right-wing longer than them. They are not even to the right of the average cuckservative. This may explain why, when I had Richard Spencer on Brainstorm, we were all surprised to discover that he was to nearly everyone’s left.
Identity politics are in the process of replacing ideology politics, but that means that ideology is no longer the sole metric, not that it is entirely irrelevant.

Stupidity is no substitute for strategy

This Darkstream should amuse the Men of the West, who were arguing all along that the Alt-Reich were simply incapable of possessing any utility for defending America or the West. I thought they were extremists, but as it happens, they are nothing more than attention-seekers interested in “bantz” and “triggering the faggits” and “edgy” symbolism rather than actually seeking to win the cultural war.
It’s not “counter-signaling” or “punching right” to reject counterproductive morons who stubbornly refuse to learn anything from one failure after another. I stand by every single one of the 16 Points of the Alt-Right. But I have no more time or patience to spare for strategically-deficient cosplayers. Even Andrew Anglin appears to recognize this now.
“Publicly aligning ourselves to an old and extinct political movement is not forward thinking, and it isn’t fresh… NS was a Hitler personality cult, when it comes right down to it.”

The Reichtards are Fake Right. Their claim to be the One True Alt-Right is totally laughable, as they are pro-EU, pro-single payer health insurance socialists. Punching them is punching Left.
Hence today’s Meme of the Day.

Economic war

The culture war in the USA goes economic:

A white nationalist was fired from his job after Twitter users began naming and shaming alt-right supporters involved in yesterday’s deadly Charlottesville rally. The rally – which was described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as ‘the largest hate-gathering of its kind in decades in the United States’ – attracted thousands from neo-Nazi groups, the Ku Klux Klan and other far-right organizations.
It also culminated in a horrifying alleged attack on a group of antifascist counter-protesters as alleged white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr allegedly drove into a crowd, killing one person and injuring 19 more.
As the reverberations of that deadly assault continued to be felt on Sunday, Twitter user Yes, You’re Racist began naming and shaming those who were photographed waving torches and allying themselves with violent far-right extremists.

Tit-for-tat is now in order. Do you have an employee who supports Black Lives Matter on Twitter? Fire them. Do you have any employees who are SJWs? Fire them. Anyone who puts rainbows on Facebook? Fire them.
If James Damore and Cole White can be fired for their beliefs, so can everyone else. Once a tactic has been legitimized by the Left, don’t hesitate to use it. The Left has made it very clear that peaceful coexistence is no longer possible, so stop trying to coexist with them.
This development isn’t something to fear. Why are they doing this now? Because they are terrified of the gathering momentum and they are desperate to somehow stop it.
Meanwhile, (((Ben Shapiro))) is still lying about the Alt-Right. It is correct to say that it includes white nationalists, but it is blatantly false to claim that it is entirely white nationalists, or that it is a white supremacist philosophy.
The fact that our enemies feel the need to lie about us and misrepresent our views is one of the strongest indicators that our views are convincing and catching on with more and more former conservatives and libertarians and liberals alike.
Meanwhile, GoDaddy signs up for Google’s economic war on everyone to the right of SJW.

We informed The Daily Stormer that they have 24 hours to move the domain to another provider, as they have violated our terms of service.

Build your own platforms. This is an imperative.

SJWs are the Tolkienian devil

They create nothing. Like Melkor, all they can do is corrupt, pervert, and destroy. SF/F Grandmaster John C. Wright waxes wroth in response to the SJW version of The Shadow:

Dynamite Comics just put out a new version of The Shadow. The Shadow is and has been my most deeply beloved character of my imaginative life.
They turned him into an SJW who lectures villains on their white privilege.
I am not making this up.
While in the middle of gunning down two Virginia Tech style mass murderers, The SJW Shadow tells them that they were born atop a pedistal of privilege, and their loss of power when the minorities lives improve erodes their “empire”, which is what drives them to their crimes.
Except that the shooter at Virginia Tech was Korean. Columbine guys were white, but were leftwing atheists, not angry white men. The Left yearns so badly to blame white men for mass murders, that they usually report the shooter is a Tea Party member. And it usually turns out to be a jihadist, or a Bernie supporter. But in a comic, the Leftist can reverse the polarity of reality, and have the most proto-Objectivist hardcore vigilante in comicbookdom turn into a morally ambiguous Antifas lefteroon.
The comic also pauses to have the viewpoint character, a Hispanic woman, say that there are no heroes in life, merely violent men. Heroes are merely gangsters in white hats.
Interesting message to put in a story about the most iconic vigilante of all time, the human version of an archangel of merciless wrath-of-heavenly vengeance.
And a thinly disguised version of President Trump appears on the telly in the background, as evidence of the sickness of the world for daring to regard good as better than evil.

I can guarantee this is not happening with Alt-Hero. We will create. We will make anew. There will be heroes and there will be villains.
Coming soon.

Ben Shapiro’s Twitterfesto

The Littlest Chickenhawk’s take on the Alt-Right. He’s concerned about the media lumping him in with us. To be fair, he’s right. He’s not one of us.

The so-called alt-right is an evil movement having nothing to do with – and actively opposing – Constitutional conservatism. (1)
They’ve done an excellent job, with the media’s ignorant help, of portraying themselves as large and powerful (2)
And broadening their definition to include anyone who is anti-establishment or just likes memes. That’s not what they are. (3)
The alt-right has a very definite philosophy, articulated by people like Spencer, Taylor, and Vox Day (4)
And excused and popularized by people like Milo YIannopoulos. They were successful online in convincing key figures that they were (5)
An important constituency. Immoral politicians and advisors then made the conscious decision not to carve them off. (6)
Yes, that includes Trump and Bannon. (7)
Three elements assure their continued growth: pandering politicians and media figures catering to or ignoring them; (8)
Left-wingers labeling all right-wingers alt-right and therefore leading innocent people to believe that alt-right Judy means right; (9)
And left-wing violent groups like Antifa that drive fools into the belief that anyone who fights Antifa is necessarily an ally. (10)
We’re watching a tiny microcosm replay of brownshirts vs. reds in Weimar Germany. They’re even carrying the same flags. (11)
And leadership in media and especially the White House must actively and thunderously condemn the evil we’re watching metastasize. (END)

That’s all more or less true, up until point 8. We’re not dependent upon politicians and media figures catering to and ignoring us. That doesn’t even make sense. The best thing that ever happened to the Alt-Right was being actively denounced by Hillary Clinton.
And our continued growth is assured, not due to points 8, 9, and 10, but because Ben, and the cuckservatives, and the constitutional conservatives will not lift a finger to defend white Americans, or the European nations, from the globalist demographic assault of the last 52 years. To the contrary, they support that ongoing assault, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

It’s too late, liberals

White liberals are beginning to realize that Diversity doesn’t care about their ideology, but fully intends to devour them too:

I’m a white man, so you should listen to absolutely nothing I say, at least on matters of social justice. I have no standing. No way to relate. My color and gender nullify me, and it gets worse: I grew up in the suburbs. Dad made six figures. We had a backyard pool. From the 10th through 12th grades, I attended private school. So the only proper way for me to check my privilege is to realize that it blinds me to others’ struggles and should gag me during discussions about the right responses to them.
But wait. I’m gay. And I mean gay from a different, darker day. In that pool and at that school, I sometimes quaked inside, fearful of what my future held. Back then — the 1970s — gay stereotypes went unchallenged, gay jokes drew hearty laughter and exponentially more Americans were closeted than out. We conducted our lives in whispers. Then AIDS spread, and we wore scarlet letters as we marched into the public square to plead with President Ronald Reagan for help. Our rallying cry, “silence = death,” defined marginalization as well as any words could.
So where does that leave me? Who does that make me? Oppressor or oppressed? Villain or victim? And does my legitimacy hinge on the answer?
To listen to some of the guardians of purity on the left, yes….
At the beginning of this column I shared the sorts of personal details that register most strongly with those Americans who tuck each of us into some hierarchy of blessedness and affliction. So you know some important things about me, but not the most important ones: how I responded to the random challenges on my path, who I met along the way, what I learned from them, the degree of curiosity I mustered and the values that I honed as a result.
Those construct my character, and shape my voice, to be embraced or dismissed on its own merits. My gayness no more redeems me than my whiteness disqualifies me. And neither, I hope, defines me.

They rode the tiger. They used the tiger to attack their ideological enemies. Now the tiger is devouring them, and they still don’t have the discernment to identify the enemy or the courage to fight it.