#Casus belli

[oldschoolfrp]

Elves and dwarves assault a castle of chaos, in a miniature battle scene from Casus Belli 44, April 1988

[thefugitivesaint]

''Casus Belli'', #38, 1987 Source

[readandwriteclub]

Trump Confirms He Could Use Military For Deportations In "National Emergency"

"National Emergency" is Trump's pathway to suspend the U.S. Constitution, remain in office forever, etc... You think I'm kidding? This is the man who was assured that Jan 6th would be successful (it had been road tested for the previous 6 months in Venezuela in 2020); the incompetence of his minions to flub that is an embarrassment to would-be dictators everywhere! Hell, the Myanmar Junta did it with whitewall tires 😂 but back to the topic:

National Emergency *ahem*

The lovely domestic terrorists in my life ❤️ have legitimately floated 👽 --a made-up existential threat from outer space, which has long been favoured because of the pageantry of blaming "abductions" of all political dissent on the non-existent 👽-- as casus belli for a "National Emergency" to seize total control and begin disappearing people. Sounds crazy, right?

..so it's only slightly rewarmed refried beans this time to declare "illegal aliens" casus belli for the, airquotes, "National Emergency"

Except, it isn't actually an emergency; it's just a "pretext"!

And it only has to be just barely plausible enough that the majority of your supporters believe it!

Because it's a pretext to eliminate or otherwise quash all the other people who aren't your supporters!

Once it starts, it will keep the rest of your supporters in line out of fear, so make sure to make it brutal!!!

In this "National Emergency" context, does the talk about "Denaturalization" make sense to you now?

[sonareeies]

Me and my friend tried to 'spruce up' each other's drawings...

Original drawings (mine was a WIP) became:

Whatever this is. 😭 We have very different art styles.

As a bonus, have the updated version of my still WIP art.

[mask131]

I have been looking into a book called "The Great Adventure of the Roleplaying Game", in French La Grande Aventure du Jeu de Rôle. Written by Julien Pirou and published in 2020, so far it is THE reference book for anyone interested in the history of roleplaying games if you live in France. And while two thirds of the book are dedicated, obviously, to the American world of the roleplay-games, where the whole genre was born and bloomed - you've got everything, from the origins of Dungeons and Dragons to the history of Call of Cthulhu, concluding with the big rise of Critical Role - it also has a lot of informations about the French history of roleplaying games. I am not going to copy paste everything down there, but I wanted to share a few key points and funny trivia...

Dungeons & Dragons got translated in French as "Donjons & dragons". Which could fine... if "Dungeons" and "Donjons" didn't mean the most opposite things. Yes they sound identical and are etymological parents, but their meaning is incompatible. A "dungeon" is, if I go by Wiktionnary's definition "a strong underground prison cell, especally in a castle". This is why the idea of a dungeon in the English-speaking culture is this tunnel, cave or grotto you must "crawl" into, why the dungeons are imagined as buried temples and underground mazes and all that... But in French a "donjon" is actually the main tower of a castle, the strongest and highest one - unlike the "dungeon" which was usually where prisoners were sent (in French we call it "cachot"), the "donjon" was usually the place where the lord of the castle dwelled, and the last safe place if someone breached into the building.

There is an entire chapter in this book dedicated to the mass-panic and crazy accusations roleplaying games received. You know, the whole "D&D is the tool of Satan and causes suicides, prostitutions and murders" kind of thing. And you might be surprises to learn France also had its share of the "roleplay panic". While there were hints here and there in the 80s (newspapers on the right of the political spectrum had published articles translating the ideas of the BADD - Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons ) it never really took off. The actual "Satanic panic" began in the 90s in France, with an incident eerily similar to what caused the American "Satanic panic" earlier: the suicide of a young man.

In 1994, Christophe Maltese killed himself with a shot gun. However his parents defended the idea that Christophe hadn't just killed himself: they accused the roleplaying games he regularly partook in, claiming they had caused a "split personality" disorder that ultimately led to his death. The official investigation concluded the roleplay games had nothing to do with his death, but the couple was still invited by the TV show Témoin numéro un to share their story, and the same episode invited a so called "expert of mental manipulations" called Jean-Marie Abgrall. And this psychiatrist claimed that the regular practice of roleplaying game could cause madness - he described the game of a roleplayer who ended up believing he was hunted down by a three-headed dog.

This TV episode was doubled by an episode of the show Zone interdite, also in 1994, which accused roleplaying games with the same arguments the BADD had created: they caused drug use, they were covers for cults, they encouraged murders - ultimately the gamemaster was depicted as a guru that gained complete power over his players. The episode was so badly done that they presented as "Didier Guiserix", the chief redactor of Casus Belli (see a few points below, but know Casus Belli was THE roleplaying magazine of the time)... a random man who had nothing to do with Casus Belli whatsoever.

The third step in this diabolization of the roleplaying game was the "affaire de Carpentras". In 1990, 34 graves were desecrated in the Jewish cemetery of Carpentras, causing a national outcry. At first, antisemitic groups and the far-right were accused of this crime, but since years went by without any criminal being caught, French media started creating new theories... Some completely crazy. And in 1995, due to the testimony of a woman named Jessie Foulon, the idea appeared of it being related to black masses and secret orgies, organized by the children of several notables of the town, for a "roleplaying game". The newspaper L'Express wrote a completely unresearched article describing roleplaying games as "nspired by Satanism, medieval legends, and a ideological mess mixing Celtic crosses and Nazi delirium ; ultimately creating a horror culture that can explode at any moment". Paris Match published an interview with Jessie Foulon during which roleplaying games were explicitely compared and equating with drug use and rapes. But do you want to know how this all ended? It was discovered that Jessie Foulon was actually a frequent "guest" at psychiatric hospitals due to... a severe case of mythomania. The case was ultimately solved in 1996, and turns out it was four Neo-Nazi grown men that did it...

But the fourth and most traumatizing event for roleplaying gamers was however the Bas les masques show of the 11th of october 1995, an episode called "Attention, jeux dangereux!" (Beware, dangerous games). During one hour and the half, the show listed in a big confusion suicide, occultism and madness, linked to roleplaying games, paintball, and the military training of the USA. In fact, if we watch the episode today, we can see that none of the journalists actually knew what a roleplaying game was about or even how it worked - in fact no clear definition is ever given of it. One key moment was when a former roleplayer recalled an event from one of her games, and the animator suddenly realized out loud: "Wait... you mean all of that happened in your heard?". Because clearly no one understood the games were supposed to be mostly imagination cames. And the dear doctor Abgrall was invited, again, to the show, claiming once more that roleplaying game was a certified cause of "mental disease" and that it encouraged "the manipulation of information"...

This might all seem laughable toda, but these four incidents, among other, had a real impact on the roleplaying in France. Parents had a general mistrust of the games and refused it to their kids. Schools and city halls also had worries and doubts that led them to close several game-clubs and gaming circles. Several years will be needed for the panic to die down - the first step of the calm being the creation in 1996 of the Federation Française du Jeu de Rôle (French Federation of Roleplaying Game, FFJDR) followed in 1997 by the publication by Didier Guiserix of the Livre des jeux de rôles, "Book of roleplaying games": the first French book on the subject, that explained the rules of the games, compiled its full history and worked to demystify what it was all about.

I talked before of Casus Belli, which is THE reference in France (or rather was) when it came to roleplaying magazines. The history of this publication is given in the book but I'll try to summarize some key points: it was founded in 1980 by François Marcela-Froideval. Marcela-Froideval was the founder of the Federation Française des Jeux de Simulation Stratégique et Tactique (FFJSST ; French Federation of Strategical and Tactical Simulation Games). Originally Casus Belli was just a black-and-white fanzine (illustrated by Didier Guiserix) acting as the newsletter of the FFJSST. More precisely the first issue described itself as "Filling the gap needed in France when it comes to information about simulation games of strategy and tactics". The same first issue explained the publication would be entirely dedicated to wargames (because before the roleplaying game specalized itself in the fantasy genre, in France it was mostly wargames, and by extension fantasy rpgs were seen as just one variation of wargames).

In the first issue of Casus Belli, six pages were given to a certain François Bienvenu (pseudonym: Finael) to explain and describe D&D. François Bienvenue was actually the first to create a club or circle in France dedicated to roleplaying - as his parents' living room had grown too small for the growing number of players that gathered around him for D&D sessions, so he had to locate a room every week-end at the local Entertainment and Culture House. It was the "Roleplaying Club of Saint-Rémy". However, by the second issue, three quarters of the fanzine were dedicated to D&D, which would become THE main subject and topic of Casus Belli: it published tips for plaing the game, scenarios prepared for adventures, invented monsters, new playable species...

Casus Belli was then greatly helped by the publication house Excelsior, which had hired Marcela-Froideval as a "ludologue" (aka expert in games) for other publication of theirs, such as the famous and still ongoing magazine Science & Vie. Marcela-Froideval even met Gary Gygax thanks to them! Excelsior sent him to the Gen Con of 1981, where he and Gygax became great friends. To the point Gygax officially trusted Marcela-Froideval with the job of founding TSR's French branch. Unfortunately this did not work, due to TSR internal politics... But Marcela-Froideval was still hired by Gygax: he sold Casus Belli to Excelsior, Guiserix becoming the chief-redactor, and then moved to the USA and became a writer for AD&D.

In the fourth issue of Cassus Belli, Marcela-Froideval published a creation of his, one of the first "French RPGs", called Le Château des Sortilèges (The Castle of Spells) - though it was actually more of an hybrid between a roleplaying game a la D&D and a regular, tabletop boardgame.

Due to the success of Casus Belli, numerous other roleplaying magazines and newspapers appeared in the 80s and 90s in France. Runes, Dragon radieux, Chroniques d'outre-monde, Graal, Role mag' ; Backstab, Black Box, Di6dent, Jeu de Rôle Magazine... All knowing unfortunately short lives. Only Casus Belli survived: but at the cost of numerous incarnations and reinventions. You see, when the roleplaying market started declining, Excelsior decided to end the magazine: it stopped in 1999, at its 122nd issue. However, the brand was bought by Arkana Press, who in 2000 started again the magazine: it lasted for 39 more issues before being stopped in 2006. But then it was resurrected in 2010 by two big fans of the magazine, Tristan Blind and Stéphane Gallot. They even created a new society for it: Casus Belli Press. Unfortunately this was kind of a failure, and it only created five more issues between 2010 and 2011. However, a publisher of the city of Lyon, Black Book Editions, bought back the magazine immediately, and started publishing a fourth line of magazines - still going on today, though only sold by correspondance or within gamestores.

A mention that is quite needed to understand the context of it all: D&D was only first officially translated in French in 1982... The first official publication was the "Red Box", a 1981 revision by Tom Moldvay of the Basic Set). Meaning before this year, the French players had to only use a few French pages of text that were inserted in the American versions of the game by Avalon Hill... Or translated everything themselves. Interestingly, right after this publication, there was in 1984 the first official French translation of the Call of Cthulhu (which was a translation of the second edition, the first not being disponible) - and in between, in 1983, the first French RPGs were created, more specifically L'Ultime Epreuve et Légendes. This "boom" in RPGs in France was coupled with a series of informative and positive articles being published around.

But the real proof that the RPGs were included in the French culture was the very first D&D parody in France. Because when France includes something, you can be sure the first sign of acceptance will be a parody or mockery. In 1984, in the 464th issue of the Tintin magazine (one of the big name of of youth newspaper), started a comic strip parodying D&D. Called Donjons & Dragons (yeah, no, they were not very inventive), created by Bosse and Christian Darasse, it was an humoristic BD (bande-dessinée, that's how comics are called in French, like "manga" in Japan) depicting a useless party of exaggerated characters (Fringant the paladin, Hémoglobine the assassin and Castrogne the dwarf) undergoing the worst possible ways a game-session could undergo. This was all 17 years before the next famous French RPG parody-series would be published: Le Donjon de Naheulbeuk. And it was the very first French comic book dedicated to RPGs as a whole... Unfortunately the series was stopped in 1987 due to Darasse getting into fights with the publisher, Le Lombar.

In French, there is a specific term to designate a player archetype that was popularized by Casus Belli. "Le Gros Bill" (Big Bill), shortened as "grosbill". (With adjectives and derivatives sch as "grosbillite" or "grosbillisme"). Le Gros Bill was originally a caricature by François Marcela-Froideval of a specific player that frequented one of his roleplaying clubs (the Ulm street club), and who was famous for cheating during sessions to boost his characters' traits and attributes. The "grosbill" soon became the archetype of all the players who were obsessed with gaining power and strength in-game to the point of ruining the fun and experience of the other players. François Bienvenu, however, had stuff to say about the origin of the "Gros Bill", because he dislikes how the term was popularized: he claims that the real-life "Big Bill" was in fact a nice butcher-apprentice, and that he was notably kind enough to bring pieces of meat every time he came so that people could eat during the game. According to Bienvenu, his bad reputation only came to frictions he had with some players who disliked his way of playing...

[periodically80s]

[erinhime83]

Me: I want to do some design pictures, but I can't really do anything with Angelus Dei because all the designs I have are perfection.

Me: I know, I'll do @anijeltaventry's characters, because God knows they need some shining up. But only the two mains, because those are the only ones we care about.

Me: *draws up some very pretty design pictures, stares at them all day giddy at their prettiness*

Me: *precedes to get sad over the fact that there'll never be more to their story, having gotten invested in their story since it was the longest @anijeltaventry had written*

That's...pretty accurate with how I decided to do this, lol. Like, I have shiny, updated design pictures. Aspera Virtus has shiny new design pictures. Casus Belli has...crappy ten year old design pictures that made me cringe. Sure, she'll never do anything with these, never have a story, but it's the principle of the thing, damn it.

I kept, for the most part, her original designs for them. I have Rydan some nice fancy boots for his every day wear just because I thought it would look nice, and then...well, I'm not entirely sure if I have his hair right? In her design picture, it's all curly and poofy, but when i drew him, I just gave him wavy hair? IDK, I just sort of did this and it doesn't look half bad. ^^;

(Honestly, him smiling is throwing me off, but eh. Couldn't have a love interest design with him sulking, after all.)

I had forgotten how much black he was actually wearing in his normal wear - I thought it was mainly black with some grey, but nope. All black. But it's fine, he looks good. And the doublet in his fancy picture is supposed to be 'black with silver design embroidered', but IMO, just having the hatching on it somehow makes it look more fancy? I like how it turned out, whatever.

I also discovered I had been coloring Anijel's princess dress wrong for ten years, OMG. I had it darker with lighter inserts to the skirt when it was this way the entire time *dead*. At least it's fixed now!

These looks so good, and I'm glad I can at least say they exist in the world now. :D

[stuffedcrocodile]

Jarandell - The Garden of the Magicians

some wonderful #rpgart -Jarandell - The Garden of the Magicians, a micro setting from the early 90s #ttrpg #dnd #rpg #fantasyart

The Chateau

Note: this is a repost. The original article somehow had lost all the pictures that were kind of the point of it all. Which was a pity, because I specifically liked the art in the referenced articles.

I have been working on my own little D&D campaign world for a while, which I want to piece together from various sources, not all of them in English.

There will be B2 Keep on the…

[nurthor]

Réception du jour de mes extensions Conan le JdP

Les astres sont bien alignés ! Alors que ma critique de MB: Ragnarök vient de sortir dans le Casus 49 en pdf, je réceptionne ce jour mes extensions Conan le JdP: Les clous rouges, l’extension versus (pour jouer en escarmouche), Worms of the Earth et la Frazetta Box qui avait l’objet d’un KS de folie de presque 1M€! :O ❤ Et c’est la vraie vie… avec encore des heures d’aventures dans le monde…

[jeintalu]

Venemaa süüdistab Norrat mereseaduse rikkumises

Vahemerel, vist Hispaania läheduses, uppus hiljuti Venemaa üks suuremaid kaubalaevu.

Kaubalaev oli teel Peterburist Vladivostoki.

Tõenäoliselt pidi see laev läbima Suessi kanali ja arvatavasti tegema vahepeatuse Süürias.

Tegemist on Vene sõjaväe kraami vedava kaubalaevaga.

Alul teatas Venemaa laeva uppumisest.

Seejärel teatas Venemaa, et tegemist oli terroriaktiga ja laeva pardal plahvatas kolm pommi.

Lõpuks teatas Venemaa, et läheduses viibis Norra alus, mis rikkus mereseadust ja keeldus päästepaadist pardale võtmast merehädalisi.

***

Samal ajal teatab Eesti, et kaablite ja torude lõhkumine Soome lahe põhjas on "rünnak" ja et Eesti merevägi (mis asi see veel on?) saadab merele oma laeva kaitsmaks merepõhjas olevaid kaableid.

Väidetavalt on kaableid ja torusid järjekordselt lõhkunud Hiina kaubalaeva või tankeri ankur.

Ent siin peitub pisike probleem.

Kui Eesti ja Soome või NATO üldisemalt peaks blokeerima Peterburist või Kaliningradist tulevaid või sinna saabuvaid laevu, siis oleks see Venemaale otsene casus belli - põhjus sõja alustamiseks.

Ei saa välistada võimalust, et Venemaa sadamate blokeerimine on eesmärk, sest sarnasest plaanist räägiti avalikult juba siis, kui Soome astus NATO-sse ja kui mere põhjas kaableid veel ei olnud lõhutud.

[christospiperis]

Οι Τούρκοι ζητούν και τα μαλλιά της κεφαλής μας: Τι απάντησαν στον κ. Γεραπετρίτη; Δεν είναι δυνατό να περιοριστούν οι διαφορές στο Αιγαίο σε ένα μόνο θέμα, τα απαιτούν όλα…

Του ΤΑΣΟΥ ΠΑΠΑΔΟΠΟΥΛΟΥ – Αθήνα…https://hellasjournal.com/ Την εβδομάδα που διέρρευσε ήταν καθαρά τα διαφαινόμενα αδιέξοδα των ελληνοτουρκικών συνομιλιών, πριν από την συνάντηση των υπουργών Εξωτερικών, Γιώργου Γεραπετρίτη και Χακάν Φιντάν που προγραμματίζεται για τον ερχόμενο μήνα στην Αθήνα. Από την πλευρά του ο Έλληνας υπουργός Εξωτερικών σε συνέντευξή του στην Καθημερινή, την Κυριακή 6…

[oldschoolfrp]

Dungeon delving, into a crumbling necropolis haunted by shadows, ghouls, and wights (Pierre-Olivier Vincent, Casus Belli 22, October 1984)

[unita2org]

LIBANO. HEZBOLLAH NEGA LE BUGIE ISRAELIANE

di Ahmad M. Shakakini Majdal Shama è una città del Golan siriano occupato da Israele nel 1967, quando durante la guerra dei 6 giorni, il regime genocida israeliano aveva anche occupato Cisgiordania e Gaza palestinesi, il Sinai egiziano e le fattorie di Shabaa libanesi. La popolazione araba di Majdal Shams è rimasta fedele alla propria identità siriana. Tutti sanno inoltre che i cittadini di…

[thellawtoknow]

Casus Belli

Topic: Understanding Casus Belli: The Justifications for WarThe Peloponnesian WarThe First World WarThe Second World WarThe Falklands WarThe Iraq WarLegal Frameworks and Casus Belli in Modern International LawArticle 51 and Self-DefensePrinciples Governing the Right to Self-DefenseDebates and ChallengesCommon Types of Casus BelliSelf-DefenseHumanitarian InterventionRetaliationTreaty…

[okierazorback]

Word of the Day - Casus belli

Noun: Casus belli an event or action that justifies or allegedly justifies a war or conflict Synonyms:  affront  harassment  insult  cause  challenge  grounds  incentive  inducement  injury  instigation  justification  motivation  offense provoking Usage: “He hadn’t forgotten Ben-Gurion’s pledge at the end of the Suez Crisis that Israel would consider any blockade of its shipping a casus…

[quy-twwo]

Doujinshi [夕暮れ特殊効果] by ヨミガエル (part 1)

Trans + Edit by Luvnalu

can't say I ship MadaSaku but this doujin is just too cute, I have to let the devil take me--