Local Lord

This article or section is about a topic that is particularly prone to Skub (that is, really loud and/or stupid arguments). Edit at your own risk, and read with a grain of salt, as skubby subjects have a bad habit of causing stupid, even in neutrals trying to summarize the situation.

"I am the bone of my fief, Locality is my body and nobility is my blood, I have recruited over a thousand men-at-arms, unknown to peasantry, nor known to the bourgeoisie, I have withstood pain to recruit many soldiers, yet those hands will never hold anything, So as I pray, Unlimited Harness Works!"

– Anonymous Local Lord

A common local lord, strangely seen here without his many many Men-at-Arms in full harness.

Local Lord posting, also known as Realismfagging, is a forced meme on /tg/ from the late 2010s/early 2020s inspired by (or perhaps parodying) /tg/'s memetic obsession with grimdark and Low Fantasy.

Nowadays, however, it's mostly used in the form of template threads to farm rage from clueless newfags at the dismay of fa/tg/uys.

Most of the time, local lordposting is bait, revolving around how adventurers would and should be antagonized by petty nobles and their military forces, as well as peasants, bandits, crusaders, the papacy, and other various strawman figures, on the alleged assumption that D&D is set during historically accurate European Middle Age.
Sometimes, it is posted as a "suggestion" to other /tg/ users, claiming to present the "correct" way to run games.

Tropes of realismfag/local lord posting

• Adventurers being either bumbling fools, murderous outlaws, or delirious madmen to be killed on sight by the local lord, peasants, or other authorities.
• Absurd levels of medieval stasis, often to the point where common medieval everyday knowledge is presented as outright blasphemous, incomprehensible, and alien.
  • Mandatory illiteracy everywhere outside of the clergy, each hamlet often speaking a wholly different language.
    • No safe and fast travel or sailing, with trips between neighboring villages taking months.
• Magic being either outright absent, or presented as an extremely rare, dull and realistic one-of-a-kind event, on the assumption that this would enhance the game experience.
  • If magic is present, it is usually in the form of anti-magic effects at the expense of adventurers.
    • A further step up being endemic witch-hunting and summary execution by burning at the stake, often for trivial nonsense reasons (including but not limited at: crop rotation, potatoes, literacy, basic medicine, being a foreigner).
• Absence of vivid colors, with everything being dull and covered in various layers of dirt, mud, blood, and more mud.
• Feudalism, ruthless oppression and tyranny presented as the ideal form of government that is being actively threatened by everyone not submitting to it.
  • Sometimes, this diverges into IRL politics shitflings.
• War, famine, pillaging and rebellion-crushing as the constant and normal state of life.
• Ridiculous Xenophobia, ranging the whole spectrum from cautious distrust towards demonic humanoids, to aversion towards demihumans, to rabid racism, to instantaneous lynch mobs at the sight of anyone unfamiliar.
  • Again, this often degenerates into flamewars between the usual moronic idiots and idiotic morons over real-life implications.
• 100% taxes, plus 10% taxes to the catholic church.
• Rape of women, be it either by means of jus primae noctis, war rape, rape by monster, or lawful punishment for female adventurers.
  • Sometimes upgraded to parodistically over the top, barely veiled, or even genuine woman-hating.
    • ...Which leads to the usual shitflings.
• Vast standing armies of veteran men-at-arms with decades of experience, along with infallible scouts, assassins and spy networks at the service of lowly barons, thousands strong!, employed exclusively to hunt down adventurers and pillage peasants.
• "Grim, gritty, historically accurate, medieval European, white male human fighters-only, realistic low fantasy, like Game of Thrones!"
• "Such Arrogance!"

Reactions and opposition

While originally ironic, local lord threads have long since lost their humor and devolved into tedious repetition and flamewar bait.
Such Arrogance! threads occasionally reach bump limit, thanks to various combinations of bumpfaggotry, newfags getting fooled, genuine discussions in an attempt to salvage the thread, and incompetence of the upper departments.

Often, at least a few posts will call out the thread's dubious authenticity and low quality, and one or more anti-realismfag copypastas may be posted.

This kills the local lord.

"The local lord is beaten to death by a fuzzy wuzzy ktty cat. How could he be so arrogant as to think that his unwarranted self-importance and his constant whining about heroes could protect him from the wrath of an angry cat?

On a daily basis, cats are known to disembowel commoners on a single hit. The local lord, having had no combat training in his entire life, is no different from a commoner when it comes to durability and life expectance.

The local lord mishandled the cat, and for that he paid the price. The cat leaped at his stomach and cut his innards out. As the local lord sputters in blood and tries desperately to keep his organs inside, the last thing he sees in midst of his dying breath is the cat staring at him.

Yet another local lord, believing himself untouchable, dies as a result of his incompetence and ineptitude.

Such arrogance."

– Anonymous

">le local lord and le epic mans-at-arms executes le adventurers for entering le feif!!!1! xDxD

>le peasants lynch le tieflings and le niggers on le sight, fucking epic!!oneone!1 lololol

>le woman who are not le whores get le burned at le stake for being witches!!! lolol wizards BTFO

>le gritty epic racist white human male homophonic fighter historically accurate medieval realism, just like in le GOT, lol!!! xDXD

Can we rangeban this subhuman spammer already?"

– Anonymous

This kills the local lord too.

"Psssh... I thought you self-proclaimed "warriors" honored the Gaijin variant of bushido and were men of honor, but to threaten m'ladies? Unforgivable...

>I draw my katana

Leave now, this is my final warning!

>I rapidly deflect your countless of polearm strikes with my swift and precise katana blows

So you have chosen...death!

>My battle theme starts playing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wfsBqJ4vdo&;

>I dash forward, bisecting countless men-at-arms after men-at-arms at the speed of light while the poor fools try to surround me. I jump upwards and spin around my axis rapidly

NINPO: THOUSAND STEEL SAKURA PETALS!

>I remain suspended in the air and slash around wildly, sending out shockwaves of energy that eviscerate most of the remaining men-at-arms. The rest flee in fear and panic except for one. I land on my feet in front of him

Hmm! At least one of you has the guts to stand and fight like a man. I guess you're their leader. Well then... local lord-dono, let us settle this like men of honor!

>He lunges at me with his crude, brutish European sword, I dodge every thrust

Heh, that uncivilized weapon of yours is telegraphing your every move! There is no grace to your moves, no flow...

>I spin around and strike the blade of his sword with my katana, the inferior blade shatters directly after impact

Surprised, lord-dono? This is no ordinary blade, it is the katana: the sharpest and most durable blade known to man!

>The local lord stumbles back, I slowly walk towards him in a slow and menacing manner with my katana lifted above my head

Unlike us Gaijin, the great Samurai of the East have honor. They know that each m'lady is a queen, a gentle sakura that is not to be touched

>I decapitate him with a single blow as faster than the mortal eye can see, wave my sword around once to shake all the blood off my weapon and then sheathe my katana

You're a disgusting human being, I won't even tip my fedora at you

>I walk away silently unopposed"

– Anonymous

">realistic historical setting

>traveling between neighboring towns takes 3 to 12 months

>peasants are actually all bastard rape children of the lolcal ruler

>99% child mortality

>women who survive childbirth get burned at the stake for being witches

>peasants diet is 250kcal a week and made entirely of moldy mud stew

>different households speak different mutually unintelligible languages

>floating wood and swimming hadn't been invented yet and any body of water deeper than a few centimeters isn't crossable

>main currency is dysentery, bubonic plague and lynching niggers

>social relations are build around filth, rape and shit

>23 hours backbreaking slavework in the fields 366 days a year (367 days during leap years)

>main holidays are the weekly 30 years war and daily famines

this is what realismfags actually believe"

– Anonymous

See Also

• "Freakshit", a contentious term often used to describe everything from outlandish Mary Sue OCs, to non-core-races, to anything that is not a White Male Human Fighter™