WEBVTT - The Free Orcs of Cascadia, Ft. Margaret Killjoy 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:10.600 It could happen here to welcome the Evans Robert podcast 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:14.720 End of the World at the beginning of news. Yeah, 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:19.560 I think we did it right. Evans, Evans, Robert. Who's 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:25.040 here with us? That would be kill Joy, Margaret and Lictorman, Sophie. 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:28.720 I like this m M keeping Victiman, Comma Sophie, kill 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:34.040 Joy Comma Margaret, Um Margaret Commas as I could also 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:41.599 attorney's general you kill Joy's Margaret. One of my hobbies 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:46.479 is anytime I pluralize something, attorneys generally it Um. Margaret, 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:48.720 How are you? How are you doing on this beautiful 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:53.880 December day. I'm good. I just got my booster shot 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:57.360 and the negative effects haven't kicked in yet. That's good. Um. 0:00:57.400 --> 0:00:59.960 How does it feel to have, like, as your interne 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:02.720 sped up, now that I have a boost? Yeah, I'm 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:07.840 making the same fight that everybody makes, because it's easier 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:10.000 than thinking about the fact that, oh, Macron looks like 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:13.480 it's going to be a real, real nightmare and the 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:16.920 world's never going to go back to you know, it's 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:19.240 not going back to normal. I miss It's it's being 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:21.920 able to walk into a bar and not worry that 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:27.720 I was going to catch a new variant of a plague. Yeah, yeah, 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:33.800 that's a yeah. Yeah, how are you doing with the plague? 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:40.080 I live completely alone and isolated, so yeah, which I 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:41.880 you know, I'm not sure this is how I would 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:43.720 have built my life if I hadn't done it during 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:47.919 a plague. Yeah. I mean, well, I dream about interacting 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:53.120 with humans. Yeah, just like hugging a person that that 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:55.800 you don't know all that well and it not being 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:59.560 like involving both of you risking your life. It's like 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:06.040 a blood packed Yes, we're going, Doug, and if we 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:11.200 wind up in how we'll scream at Satan together. Hu, 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:15.000 you have written another story. I mean you wrote this 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:16.799 a while ago, as you did with the last one. 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:18.720 But we're doing. We decided we one of the things 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:20.480 we wanted to do to close this year out was 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:24.640 a little bit more fiction, because fiction, I think plays 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:32.720 an underappreciated role in uh revolutionary practice, in kind of 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:37.800 every aspect of being someone who envisions the different world. Um. 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:39.960 So we we've always I mean it could happen here 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:42.040 from the beginning, there was always a strong kind of 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:48.280 um uh focus on fiction. Um. And I'm really happy 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:51.959 to be presenting another one of your stories. Today. Thanks. 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:57.360 You want to introduce this piece? Sure. This piece is 0:02:57.360 --> 0:02:59.639 called The Free Yorks of Cascadia. It was first published 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:02.240 in Fantasy and Science Fiction, which is the name of 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:05.320 a magazine. Um and this one was also really important 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:07.239 to me because Fantasy and Science Fiction F and s 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:09.200 F was one of the magazines that my my dad 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:13.440 had a subscription to. Yeah. Yeah, this was a very 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:17.520 um uh and it was a very important piece for 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:23.040 me that it got published there. Yeah, that's awesome. Um well, 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:27.440 let's uh, let's let's let's take a take a hop 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:33.279 in a publicly funded bus and roll down to Storytown. 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:46.880 Speaking of taking one's life in one's hands. The story 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:50.520 is called The Free Orcs of Cascadia. You all know 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:53.120 the first part of the story. The song ended in blood. 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:56.280 It was two years ago in the summer. Rick Green, 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:59.480 the singer of Goblin Forest, crooned in his Osborne esque 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:03.200 voice to fifteen thousand Goblin metal fans. A short man 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:06.440 wearing green body paint and brown leather, stepped out from backstage, 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:09.440 drew a sword and cut the singer down from behind. 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:13.120 The last lyrics Green ever sang were take me back, 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:15.840 take me Back, take me back to the misty Mountains. 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:19.080 The man with the sword, of course, was Golfin Bull, 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:22.560 the rhythm guitarist for Crimpatool the opening act. He and 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:25.120 his bandmates escaped in the ensuing chaos and remain at 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:28.839 large to this day. Neither band has released a song 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:31.719 or played a show since the rest of Goblin Forest 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:34.360 decided to call it quits. Without Green and crimp Atool, 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:38.400 no one knew what happened to Crimpatool. Fans deserted the 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:41.279 genre and droves, and overnight Goblin Metal went from stadium 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:44.040 rock fad to a niche interest of the obscure Canadian 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:47.520 orc cults were originated. It was no longer hip to 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:50.320 be Green. If golf and Bull had been trying to 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:54.280 take the Goblin Metal throne, as it were, he failed spectacularly. 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:58.720 Rumors have flown about motives and locations, but there have 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:01.159 been no arrests and no like statement from the band. 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:05.080 All we've had to work with were rumors until now. 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:10.160 Earlier this month, Orc Folk act Alsith listed golf and 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:12.240 Bull as the harpist in their liner notes of the 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:15.920 single The Gray Fog of a Ruined Forest. All Syreth 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:19.280 was as obscure as Crimpatool was infamous. The band had 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:22.279 never done an interview, not even a photo shoot. Like 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:26.120 everyone else these days in countercultural music, their videos featured 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:31.160 only masked performers. I've been casually obsessed with post civilization 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:33.640 culture ever since the Communicate from the Junkyard Rats of 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:36.520 the Rust Belt, and I've been covering music of pretty 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:39.120 much every secessionist movement and subculture I could sink my 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:42.360 teeth into. Since after I saw those liner notes, I 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:44.640 put out feelers to friends and friends of friends, and 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:46.840 I waited, and last week I was invited to go 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:49.720 to an orc village hidden away in the burned forests 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:53.239 of Cascadia. I was invited to be the first person 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:56.880 to tell Golf and Bull's story hell Fire Harriet Exclusive. 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:00.000 Usually I post full interviews for everyone, but reserve my 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.720 travel diary for the patrons of my blog. This time, though, 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:05.280 I'm foregoing that this story is too important, so I've 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.800 interspersed to the two below. All I knew before I 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:11.800 went with what everyone else knew. Three years ago, a 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:14.240 bunch of metal heads and hippies and burners and nerds 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:17.120 all decided to dress up like orcs and goblins, and 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:19.159 some of them took it too far and decided to 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:22.960 distance themselves from the rest of society. They got really 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:25.520 famous one summer, then that fame died in a single 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:28.279 bloody act, and who knows what kind of weird ship 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:31.640 they're up to. Now, before you get worried, no, I 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:34.920 will never offer a platform to a fascist fascist. Fascism, 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:37.000 as it turns out, is the furthest thing from golf 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:40.080 and Ball's mind. What he's into is a lot weirder 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:43.560 than that. Still, it's sort of lucky that I survived 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:49.320 to write this story. So you killed a guy, Yeah, 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:52.680 I killed a guy. We stared in silence at one 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.120 another for a while. He wore raw hide and fur, 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:57.520 and not much of either. He wasn't painted up, but 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:00.440 his skin was sort of natural olive is Our teeth 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:03.760 were filed down to fangs like any serious works. There 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:05.839 was still something unassuming about him that I have a 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:10.080 hard time describing. You're waiting for me to tell you 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:12.960 about it, aren't you. The interview was not off to 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:16.400 a good start. Are you worried about how your words 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:20.239 will sound in court? I killed Rick Green on stage 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:23.120 with a sword in front of thousands of witnesses. Talking 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:25.200 to the media, isn't going to make anything worse for 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:27.600 me at this point, and I don't respect the authority 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:30.040 of the US government to hold me accountable for my actions. 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:33.120 I will not go to court, So why do you 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:37.160 do it? The old world is dying my world, the 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:39.840 Free Orcs of Cascadia. We're not going to replace the 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:42.280 old world, but we will be part of its replacement. 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:45.400 In order to do that, we have to take ourselves seriously. 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:48.600 An element of that struggle is the struggle to create meaning, 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:51.880 to create a new sacred. I killed Rick Green because 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:55.560 he was defiling something mint to be sacred. How so 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:59.680 we share an aesthetic, but he didn't understand what it 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:03.160 meant to be an orc. You killed him because he 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:06.240 was a poser. I guess you could put it like that. 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:11.080 So the lesson here is, don't be a poser. Don't 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:15.120 be a poser. You heard it here first, kids, don't 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:17.920 be a poser, or golf and Ball will literally murder you. 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:21.600 They picked me up in the parking lot of grocery 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:24.960 outlet in northeast Portland. That's a mundane detail, I suppose, 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:27.440 but perhaps the single most remarkable thing about my trip 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:30.520 was the ever present contrast between mandanity and the bizarre. 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:33.480 I bought a case of coconut water while we waited. 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:37.200 Works might like coconut water. Who doesn't like coconut water. 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:40.440 They showed up in a mid teens Honda Civic sedan, 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:42.640 and I've been hoping for something out of Mad Max. 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:45.640 The two women who got out, one cis one trans, 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:49.120 both white, were dressed in clean gray tank tops and leggings, 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:52.040 like half the women who live in Portland. To be honest, 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:53.760 I only noticed them in the parking lot at all 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:57.080 because the trans woman was cute. Hell Fire this, this 0:08:57.160 --> 0:08:59.760 woman asked. She was tall and severe, with the fierce 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:02.679 but almost trustworthy look of a loan shark, or, as 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:07.160 it turned out, an Orchis enforcer. That's me, I said, Fenrik. 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:09.640 This this woman offered her name, but no handshake, fist 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:13.760 bump or hug. I nodded. Nor Inda, the trans woman said, 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:16.200 Like a lot of trans women these days, she didn't 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:19.280 bother to feminize her voice. Her name sounded familiar, but 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:21.839 I couldn't place it. How is this going to work? 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:24.360 I asked. We're going to drive around back where no 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:26.600 one can see us. Fenric said, We're going to take 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:28.920 your phone, and laptop and any electronics and put them 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:31.079 in a fair day in the car. Then we're going 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:32.800 to put you in the trunk and drive out to 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:35.520 the forest. Will provide you with a recorder and notebook 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:38.040 when we arrive. You'll get your stuff back when we leave. 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:42.040 I nodded, I'd pretty much expected this. Do you need 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:44.319 to use the bathroom? Nor? In asked, have any medical 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:47.280 conditions we should know about? No, and no, I said, 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:53.200 either of you want a coconut water? Goblin forests sang 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:56.400 in English. But Crimpletool's lyrics were all in Tolkien's Black Speech. 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:01.439 Dark speech are lyrics were in Dark Speech. Each Token 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:04.960 referred to the language as black speech. Token meant well, 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:08.280 but he was about the most influential unconsciously racist author 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:11.559 of the twentieth century. All his villains were either Green 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:14.000 or Middle Eastern. When you engage with the work of 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:17.640 historical authors, especially when you make derivative works a century later, 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:21.199 you have to adapt to one's own social context. Calling 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:25.040 the language black speech today is at best wildly misleading. 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:28.520 Its name is a translation. Anyway, It's possible that dark 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:33.120 speech is just as accurate. Besides, Token didn't write the language. 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:36.839 He only wrote like sixteen words or something we wrote 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:39.319 the rest Most of us prefer to translate the name 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:43.360 of it as dark speech, since why our murderers PC 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:46.640 My status as a person who has ended the life 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:50.160 of another person carries no implications about my personal ethics 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:52.960 other than that I clearly believe there are circumstances under 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:57.800 which it's okay to kill someone. Imagine being at the 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:00.960 Renaissance Fair when the apocalypse hits and you're stuck trying 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:04.080 to recreate society, surrounded by swords and minstrels and these 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:06.480 and thous. You know how that sounds like either heaven 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:08.480 or hell, depending on who you are and also who 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:11.920 you're stuck there with. That was my first impression of 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:14.680 the village of Gray Morrow. The fires out west have 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:17.720 burned forest after forest and small town after small town, 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:19.720 and no one tries to deny that pretty much every 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:22.520 bioregion on the planet is going through a transformation right now. 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:25.760 It's in the worst spots, these dead ecologies that the 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:29.440 post civilization movement has found its roots, like wild flowers 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:33.240 growing up between paving stones, or rats hiding in the walls. 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:37.200 I guess, depending on who you ask, Gray Morrow sits 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:39.600 in the scorched graveyard of a Douglas fir forest, half 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:42.480 way up a mountain, occupying the remains of an evacuated town. 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:46.200 Slab foundations are all that remain of the original structures. 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.120 A seasonal creek runs through what was recently a river 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:51.600 bed at the edge of the village, and long abandoned 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:54.960 train tracks skirt the ridge above town. Even armed with 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:57.320 all of that information, you'd still have at least seventy 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:01.520 or eighty possible spots to search. Satellite imagery would help, 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:04.200 of course, I can't imagine that the Big six texts 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:06.480 of the U. S. Government don't know where Gray Morrow is. 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:09.600 The residence of Gray Morrow in general, in golfing Bole 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:12.320 in particular, had an awful lot to lose by letting 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:15.920 me write this report. Nourinda let me out of the trunk, 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:18.439 and she smiled when she saw me. Her bottom teeth 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:21.280 were filed. That should have been unnerving, but I've always 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:23.640 been a sucker for face tattoos or anything that really 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:26.800 shows some one is going for broke. Fenric just stared 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:29.800 at me. Severe. Being severe was pretty much her thing, 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:32.120 as far as I could tell. She took a sip 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:35.920 from her cocoanut water. Three other cars filled a makeshift 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:38.520 parking lot. The village itself was surrounded by a wall 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:41.080 built from black and logs set upright and buried in 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:44.720 the ruins of the road. My escorts had changed clothes, 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:47.599 and rout Fenric looked like a bandit out of Skyrim, 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:50.120 complete with iron puldron on one shoulder and a hand 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:53.160 axe strapped to her belt. I won't lie, it was 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:55.800 a good look. I'm no fashion reporter, but I figure 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:57.480 half the magazines in New York would love to get 0:12:57.520 --> 0:12:59.520 someone out here and take pictures of orcs like her. 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:04.120 Nornda wore a simple, modest dress of undyed wool. Imagine 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:07.480 a Viking kindergarten teacher who also wears a rather large 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:10.080 dagger horizontally on her belt at the small of her back. 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:13.840 My crushing on her intensified. She handed me a spiral 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:16.560 notebook in an old fashioned digital recorder, and we walked 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:21.280 into the village. A lot of people say that you 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:24.920 killed Ritt Green because you are jealous of Goblin Forest's success. 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:27.720 That the Orchish code insisted that if you wanted the throne, 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:31.400 you had to kill the reigning monarch. Golfin Bull stopped 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:34.440 fidgeting and stared directly at me, his dark brown eyes 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:40.760 boring into me. That's bullshit. I'm sorry, it's like three 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:44.480 layers deep of bullshit. He was still staring at me. 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:48.000 I was starting to regret this line of questioning. Okay, 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:50.600 to start, there are pretty much two ways to interpret 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:53.480 the Orchish Code of Honor. It's not written down anywhere, 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:56.880 but there's some strong central themes, like an interdependence between 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:01.120 individual sovereignty and collective identity. We veou you strength, but 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:05.079 the idea is that everyone develops their own strengths, whatever 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:07.440 they may be, for the benefit of all. One should 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:09.280 be as self reliant as one is able to be, 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:12.160 both for one's own sake and again for the community's sake. 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:16.320 I cared deeply about this. That same basic idea, though, 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:20.040 can be interpreted two different ways. So there's a split 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:23.000 in the ARC community. Damn right, there's a split. The 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:26.320 free Orcs are matriarchal and the or Seene are patriarchal. 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:30.160 Golfin Bill produced a cigarette from god knows where, considering 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:32.480 how little he was wearing, and lit it with a 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:35.960 lighter from the same mysterious origin it wasn't tobacco, it 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:40.720 wasn't weed, maybe mugwart. The matriarchal way of interpreting those 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:44.840 tenants is roughly anarchist. It's anti authoritarian, an anti nationalist. 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:47.800 At the very least. We respect the wisdom of elders, 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:51.240 children and women self identifying women. But the hierarchy is 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:54.080 anything but rigid, and the guidelines are anything but laws. 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:57.920 Most importantly, our sense of community or tribe is fluid. 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:02.160 Gray Morrow is a free or village. Go fifteen miles 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:05.760 southeast and you'll find a larger village lonely mountain there 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:09.480 or seen. The patriarchal way of interpreting Orcish tenants is 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:14.120 roughly fascistic. Authority is absolute. Rank within the hierarchy effects 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:17.400 every aspect of one's own life. It's not racialized, but 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:21.040 it's nationalistic. There are very specific considerations of who is 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:23.800 and isn't a part of any given social grouping, and 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:27.440 definitions of strength tend to skew toward boring shit like 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:31.520 physical size and power. So you tell any doubters that 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:34.000 you weren't trying to claim the goblin throne because your 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:37.560 faction of ORCS doesn't work that way. No, Orcish culture 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:40.840 works that way. Even those fascistic ships don't work that way. 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:43.560 Among the or scene. If you kill your superior, people 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:46.000 aren't going to just suddenly start kissing your ass. They 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:48.640 will literally flee you and turn your skin into a 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:52.320 battle flag. You advance and rank by demonstrating your capacity 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:56.000 to lead. This isn't some fucking Hollywood bullshit. Evil is 0:15:56.040 --> 0:15:58.720 a lot more banal than that. I didn't have the 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:01.120 heart or maybe the courage to tell him that. To me, 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:04.440 to pretty much any outsider, Hollywood bullshit is exactly what 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:08.040 the whole place looked like. When you say battle flag, 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:11.080 what do you mean? Who do they do? Battle with us? 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:15.280 The free Orcs? Are you at war for the very 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:19.160 soul of our culture? How did that start? When I 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:23.400 cut down Rick Green, the Mountain King? You killed him 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:25.240 because he was the leader of a rival faction, then, 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:28.120 not because he was a poser. They weren't a rival 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:30.680 faction until I killed him. But sure he was a 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:34.760 poser though all fascists opposers. Did you go on tour 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:39.880 with Goblin Forest specifically to murder him? Yeah? Probably? What 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:42.760 do you mean? Probably? That's a very specific question about 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.880 a very specific intention. I mean, I guess I had 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:49.160 been thinking about killing him for a while. It was premeditated, 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:53.160 and it wasn't you know, No, I don't know, because 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:56.560 I've never killed anyone. So it's like I've known Rick 0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:59.240 Green almost five years. He and I and maybe thirty 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:01.960 other people. We started this whole thing, Goblin Metal of 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:04.600 the Orcs. All of that. Rick Green has always been 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:07.239 a fucking bastard. I figured I'd probably kill him one 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:10.040 day for being kind of a Nazi or whatever. Then 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:12.120 we go on tour together and I tell myself, hey, 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:14.480 if this goes badly, I can always just kill him 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:17.840 on stage. You've got to understand, Orcas culture wasn't even 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:20.560 a year old at that point. We weren't split into 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:22.720 the Free Orcs and the or scene yet. There were 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:25.840 only maybe five villages total. We were just starting to 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:28.320 explore what it meant to be ourselves, what kind of 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:31.160 culture we could build. Then, while we were on tour, 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:35.240 I hear he's got himself crowned the Mountain King. And 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:37.240 this isn't a game. I don't know how to get 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:39.960 that through to you or your readers. This is our life. 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:41.800 It's one thing to put on a silly hat. And 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.320 pretend to tell people what to do in some LARP somewhere. 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:48.679 But Rick Green had gotten himself corornated for real dictator 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:52.160 over actual people. So I killed him. The free Orcs 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:54.520 split off the or scene, closed ranks, and we've been 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:58.640 at war ever since. Am I safe here? He didn't 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:00.879 answer me, at least, he didn't dare me down again. 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:04.399 He just looked off into the distance, maybe towards lonely Mountain. 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:08.600 I've been to LARPs before, where when you show up, 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:10.720 they make you put on garb. That is to say, 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:13.359 they make you wear period appropriate clothes, or whatever weird 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:17.040 interpretation of period appropriate that particular group of larbers had 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:20.000 come up with. As I met the denizens of the village, 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:23.600 they all came out to the parking lot to introduce themselves. 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:26.240 I realized they didn't insist on anything like that because 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:29.440 they weren't LARPing. Pretty much, every one of them was 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:32.359 dressed like either a Viking reenactor or fantasy game villain, 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:36.200 but it wasn't an act. About thirty adults and eight 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:38.960 kids lived there, running the age Gamut from six months 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:42.399 to seventy eight years. They told me their names and pronouns. 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:44.480 About a third told me she a third heat in 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:47.240 the third day. Many of them were white or past 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:50.720 as such, but a significant minority were black. Nourenda told 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:53.520 me later their Orc villages with substantially higher proportions of 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:55.840 people of color. That might be true, but I got 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:58.119 the impression she said it to convince herself or me 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:01.159 that the free Orcs aren't a specif typically white phenomenon. 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:04.640 No One, no one decent, likes looking around their community 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:08.600 or scene and seeing only white faces smiling back. After 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:11.879 everyone introduced themselves, immediately forgot all their names. There are 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:14.840 only so many fantasy names like Lazarre and Demlin that 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:16.600 you can hear before they all just sound the same. 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:20.359 Noriinda and Fenrik flanked me as we walked through a 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:23.119 gate in the wall into the village. It's strange to 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:25.880 say village in America. We don't really have villages here, 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:29.760 But in some ways Graymorrow isn't the United States. And 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:32.680 to be certain, it was a village, maybe ten or 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:35.480 fifteen houses crowded together along either side of a single 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:40.120 potholed street. Two architectural styles reigned. Junkyard shacks built out 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:44.160 of railroad cars in regular cars, and traditional American log cabins, 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:47.480 many of them were adorned with solar panels. At the 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:50.560 end of the street, near the Black Palisade, the beginnings 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:54.200 of a stone tower stood fifteen feet high. I wasn't 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:56.560 sure if I was impressed or not. On one hand, 0:19:56.640 --> 0:19:58.440 the village couldn't have been around longer than three or 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:00.200 four years, and they had already done so much much. 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:04.280 On the other hand, it was filthy. Everyone was filthy. 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:06.399 I'm kind of obsessed with the post civilization movement, so 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:08.080 I wish I could tell you everyone looked well fed 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:11.680 and happy. They didn't. People looked proud, and they didn't 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:14.160 look miserable. But there was an intensity in everyone's eyes 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:18.240 you simply could not mistake for happiness. A trash pile 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:20.159 needed tending near the front gate, and some of the 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:23.560 animal hides stretched for tanning had begun to rot. Everything 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:25.760 looked like it was about to fall apart, both physically 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:29.520 and metaphorically. What now, I asked when we reached the 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:32.280 central square, a stone cobbled chunk of what had been 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:35.600 once an intersection, now decorated with poorly tended gardens and 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:39.439 rustic benches of dubious quality. You're here to interview. Golfing 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:42.760 Ball or you're not, Fenrick asked, I am. Golf Ball 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:46.280 doesn't live here. I waited for her to elaborate. Golfing 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:48.280 Ball lives in the forest with the rest of his band. 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:50.760 He's on his way. You'll meet him a bit outside 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:53.080 of town. I'll take you to him when he gets there. 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:57.000 Someone near the gate shouted, and both of my escorts 0:20:57.000 --> 0:20:59.800 flinched bodily and turned to look. It was just a 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:03.440 kid chasing another kid with a wooden sword. Fendrick and 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:08.920 Narindo were on edge. Something was about to happen. Tell 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:12.000 me about your new band, Ulsare. What does the name mean? 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:15.840 Alsyrith is the dark speech word for the phase of 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:18.200 the moon on the last night before the new moon, 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:21.880 the last sliver of light. Ulsareth is a holy day, 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:25.280 a day of self reflection. Our band's music attempts to 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:29.119 capture that spirit of self reflection. On Alcyreth, we listened 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:32.600 to our naysayer and think about ourselves and our community 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:38.400 your naysayer. Free Orchish villages don't have leaders. We have naysayers. 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:42.520 Two years ago, we tried rotating leadership. It was ineffectual. 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:45.560 We didn't need leaders We stuck with it anyway because 0:21:45.560 --> 0:21:47.560 we felt like we had to, because those were the 0:21:47.640 --> 0:21:50.960 rules we had come up with. Then one person said, basically, 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:53.320 this is bullshit. We don't need someone to tell us 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:55.439 what to do. We need someone to tell us what 0:21:55.520 --> 0:21:57.719 to stop doing. We need someone to tell us what 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:00.920 we're doing wrong. Every new moon, every village picks a 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:04.919 new naysayer. That person spends the month picking apart group structures, 0:22:04.920 --> 0:22:08.840