Trench Crusade is a skirmish-scale tabletop miniatures game that will plunge players deep into a horrifying alternate timeline. During the Crusades a heretical band of Templars dared defy the Almighty and, casting aside their sacred vows, unleashed the forces of Hell upon the Earth. Over 800 years later, in the Year of Our Lord 1914, this brutal, merciless war between the forces of Heaven and Hell rages on. This is not just a fight for survival, but a cataclysmic struggle that will decide the very fate of humanity's soul.
The factions so far are (if im not mistaken) EDIT I copied a short overview of the factions from TVTropes
Principality of New Antioch: The armies of the fortress-city of New Antioch, serving as a bulwark of the Faithful nations against Heretic advances.
Trench Pilgrims: Disorganized groups of Christian pilgrims following prophets of the Lord to the front lines, the Pilgrims are a mix of volunteer soldiers and members of holy orders.
The Iron Sultanate: The soldiers of the Sultanate of Rûm, protected from the forces of Hell by the Iron Wall of Dhu al-Qarnayn. They make widespread use of alchemy in both their weapons and the takwin creations of the House of Wisdom.
Heretic Legions: The forces of the nations ruled by Hell on Earth, with conventional initiate soldiers supported by monsters manufactured in Hell's pits.
Cult of the Black Grail: The creations forged from biological matter by Beelzebub's Black Grail plague, and the few mortal cultists who embrace it.
As a small bonus some art for an Assassin of the Iron Sultanate. (The art for Trench crusade absolutely slaps) Artist name is Mike Franchina
To be fair, Allah provided the faithful with a massive wall for their protection. Meanwhile, the Christians are left scrambling to scrape remnants of Jesus for cloning abominations and gathering relics of saints to receive fragmented messages they desperately hope are from God.
Like Trench crusade is cool but its christanity is a perverse blapsphemy. (Which is fun mind you)
The faithful forces arent "good". The forces of hell are a lot worse though (Especially should they win etc). Thats my reading im not super deep into the lore (yet).
Its not even a case in which I would say the church is jetblack evil like the imperium in 40k. Like for example the forces of the church are mostly volunteers (to be fair in a setting with real life miracles you would bet religious zealotry would drive recruitment)
isn't that just creating a setting where fascism is correct and this time it's more unambigious (and all the bad stuff is just "sad but necessary" or the "best option")
I wouldn't view it that way. First of all, there's no fascism in the world of the game and I'm not even sure the ideology of fascism was ever invented in the world of Trench Crusade. A better comparison would be the USA during WWII—certainly not "good," but I'm pretty sure many people, even on Hexbear, would give the USA critical support for their war against the Axis.
As for the faithful, their rigid religious beliefs blind them, leading to needless suffering in the name of a God they fail to truly comprehend. God in this context is more like a primordial eldritch being, not something that communes clearly with its followers or is all that benevolent.
One also needs to keep in mind that a lot of the lore so far is from the perspective of the church so unreliable narrators.
This is frustrating me a LOT because this is the exact same argument people have made about Warhammer for years. Despite decades of bolter porn and in-universe justifications shitted out of the "apolitical" sphincter of Games Workshop, people still claimed that the setting wasn't fascist apologia because...
If isn't fascist! It's not related to Nazi Germany or Mussolini at all
Well they're still bad guys! The point of grimdark is to have no good guys!
It's not that deep! The curtains are blue! You have bad media literacy!!
These are the exact same arguments that are being made here and elsewhere for how this isn't a fascist setting. I absolutely buy that it is not intentionally, and I think I know why: the authors don't know how deeply fucked up in the head fascists are.
Any sane person would see a group of people that sacrifices infinite clones and uses horrific abominations and uses mind-shattering rituals as evil, even if they're against a greater evil. Fascists don't, because that's exactly what their self identity is. They view themselves as glorious heroes doing what "no one else has the courage to do", they think of themselves as the monk cutting off a Jesus-clones flesh and eating it to serve a greater purpose. They take pride in it.
Settings like these are straight up porn for chuds. They LOVE them because, despite no such analogue for Hell's armies or any other incomprehensible evil existing in real life, chuds and fascists () think they exist and they perceive anyone who challenges their bubbles of privilege and stolen wealth, especially incidentally, as members of that hell-horde. They see every black man, gay kid, penniless single mother, all as exactly the same as monstrous hordes that want to destroy Humanities' soul. Satanism is and always has been either a label taken out of opposition to Christian beliefs, or more often, a label applied forcefully to those they want to erase or are scared of.
So to make a setting where, not only is theocratic religion the relatively better choice, but the worse choice are literally Satanists in-universe, is just reinforcing that, it creates a setting that is, yes, stripping the aesthetics of the chud's delusion away to reveal what they actually think, but it's still what they think, and it doesn't work as criticism against them because they advocate for it as genuine unironic reality. I don't blame the people who made the lore. It's really concerning that even I picked up on how this mindset works, I don't think anyone should even be able to comprehend it but somehow entire swathes of the US just believe it's real life.
So ultimately it's not meant to be fascist, but it's way too uncomfortable for me to really be into it.
I read both of your responses and I think you make valid points.
I think I get where you're coming from. Grimdark settings are often problematic, and it's true that many fascists enjoy them. I can understand why people might find that off-putting or not be fans of them for that reason. It's kinda similar to Starship Troopers or Helldivers—both are meant as satire, but reactionaries either don't get the joke or simply don't care.
With that said, I'm pretty sure you could create a grimdark setting with good politics, it's just that, realistically, most people who create these settings fall somewhere on the liberal-to-conservative spectrum. As a result, they almost all end up with the same issues you've mentioned
I have to admit, though I've been a sucker for anything dark, edgy, and grimdark since I was a teenager, and that hasn't changed. As a minority in the imperial core, grimdark settings appeal to me because they depict a struggle without hope in a doomed world. But I think there's beauty in the struggle itself, even when hope is almost nonexistent. The idea of continuing to fight, even when there's little chance of success, resonates with me deeply.
I actually agree completely which is kind of why I get a little angry. I don't really feel like everyone has to be evil for grimdark to function; You can just make the good people very very much not in power. Someone put it perfectly as "A bright light failing to illuminate the unbearable darkness is very grimdark" or something like that. The reason I get annoyed is because as a communist in real life I know things can be an utter trash world and good people still exist, they're just stuck constantly trying to scrape away the massive pile of trash. But then, like you said, there's something inspiring about how people continue to do that even when it seems pointless. Refusing to accept it has to be like this. So when the grimdark setting simply erases any such people like that from existence it's very annoying.
And of course it's still inspiring for like, the evil-but-not-as-evil faithful factions to be also maybe trying to internally struggle to improve but continually failing due to internal reactionary sentiment but people continue to try, but idk why people seem to never think of including that in their grimdark settings. It's like libs get scared about the idea of admitting mostly good people exist in hellworld because it makes them realize they might not be one of those.
But it's fiction, not real life. Of course if it was a real thing happening the faithful and the churches would be the better option. But that's the issue, it presents this world of an endless stream of disgusting horrors only held barely at bay by the monstrous acts committed to maintain purity by what is considered the cultural authority. When you explicitly prevent any other options than fascism and worse fascism from being in your setting, all you do is just make fascist apologia. You're viewing it diegetically, or at least think I am arguing diegetically, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the way the world is presented and how that affects real life.
And the USA was, if not fascist, at least colonialist since its very beginning. And one could argue it's fascist too, especially given the direct inspiration the objectively fascist countries (Nazi Germany, for example) took from it. And arguing about the specifics of what counts as fascism is pointless. Even if no one even knows what fascism is in a setting, it at the bare minimum presents the monarchist, feudalist, theocratic or colonialist societies fascists worship due to twisted nostalgia for oppressing and dominating others.
It presents this world where the only options are bowing to an arbitrary and cruel God because they are an authority and therefore deserving of respect, or turning against them and in the process turning against all good things, a world that fits perfectly within the fascist mind. In fact it is exactly what most fascists perceive reality as.
Or in other words, of course the USA should be given critical support in WWII but deleting the USSR from your account of it too tends to just be Nazi shit.
If you look at the actual subreddit you got people who eat this shit up with exactly that mindset. People talking about how god fulfill's people's "needs" and not their "wants" and how the faithful became evil because of what they're fighting. I just saw someone say unironically on that subreddit, referring to IRL, that God saves women from becoming scarred by Satan by saving them from sex without love.
It's just a generic fascist setting where they make a normal shitty monarchist/imperialist/colonialist/fascist power and than retroactively justify it by making a more monarchist/imperialist/colonialist/fascist power that makes them look good. If you don't believe me now you'll believe me a couple years from now when all the treat hogs are braying "SACRIFICE FOR THE METACHRIST" or some shit. Helldivers is EXPLICITLY meant to paint Super Earth as the only main bad guy, but people still spam slopified "freedom" memes. Do you really think a setting where one nation is portrayed as the best option, and just happens to share core beliefs with the primary form of explicit fascism in the modern day, is going to have people analyze it better? Of course not, any criticism of Christianity in the setting is so pointless in the face of literal Hell that even those who do understand satire will miss it.
Of course if you had better options and they just haven't caught on yet or aren't powerful enough, not due to it being intrinsically impossible, but other conditions, THAN you can have a trash bag world like this without veering into Hitlerite apologia. But either groups like that don't exist in this setting or aren't talked about like. At all
And please dont think I'm picking on this setting specifically. I'm not! This is a core problem with the entire grimdark genre. When your setting is predicated on there being no good options, than people will look at your least bad option as being endorsed, and unless you're able to write a group that's flawed but good but also not some form of Hitlerism (which white men seem fundamentally incapable of), it's going to just be Hitlerism apologia anyways
And before you mention the Islamic nations, apparently they just straight up take children to make soldiers for war so while that isn't nearly as bad as a lot of the other stuff I heard, it's still theocratic nationalism and also a racist depiction of it too because I doubt people would just statically stay fine with that practice for hundred+ years
That actually kind of rocks what the fuck is that game?
Copied from the offical page.
Trench Crusade is a skirmish-scale tabletop miniatures game that will plunge players deep into a horrifying alternate timeline. During the Crusades a heretical band of Templars dared defy the Almighty and, casting aside their sacred vows, unleashed the forces of Hell upon the Earth. Over 800 years later, in the Year of Our Lord 1914, this brutal, merciless war between the forces of Heaven and Hell rages on. This is not just a fight for survival, but a cataclysmic struggle that will decide the very fate of humanity's soul.
The factions so far are (if im not mistaken) EDIT I copied a short overview of the factions from TVTropes
Principality of New Antioch: The armies of the fortress-city of New Antioch, serving as a bulwark of the Faithful nations against Heretic advances.
Trench Pilgrims: Disorganized groups of Christian pilgrims following prophets of the Lord to the front lines, the Pilgrims are a mix of volunteer soldiers and members of holy orders.
The Iron Sultanate: The soldiers of the Sultanate of Rûm, protected from the forces of Hell by the Iron Wall of Dhu al-Qarnayn. They make widespread use of alchemy in both their weapons and the takwin creations of the House of Wisdom.
Heretic Legions: The forces of the nations ruled by Hell on Earth, with conventional initiate soldiers supported by monsters manufactured in Hell's pits.
Cult of the Black Grail: The creations forged from biological matter by Beelzebub's Black Grail plague, and the few mortal cultists who embrace it.
As a small bonus some art for an Assassin of the Iron Sultanate. (The art for Trench crusade absolutely slaps) Artist name is Mike Franchina
At a glance that setting sounds like a potentially less shitty 40k that actually drives off the fascist hogs in advance.
I let the results speak for themselves
so is it just that the faithful forces are good and the heretic forces are bad or is there something else going on in the setting
deleted by creator
To be fair, Allah provided the faithful with a massive wall for their protection. Meanwhile, the Christians are left scrambling to scrape remnants of Jesus for cloning abominations and gathering relics of saints to receive fragmented messages they desperately hope are from God.
Like Trench crusade is cool but its christanity is a perverse blapsphemy. (Which is fun mind you)
counterpoint: They are being juxtaposed with literally Satan, who is being played straight as just literally the incarnation of evil
deleted by creator
When you try to invent a setting with forever war, fascism is inevitably going to be baked in.
deleted by creator
The faithful forces arent "good". The forces of hell are a lot worse though (Especially should they win etc). Thats my reading im not super deep into the lore (yet).
Its not even a case in which I would say the church is jetblack evil like the imperium in 40k. Like for example the forces of the church are mostly volunteers (to be fair in a setting with real life miracles you would bet religious zealotry would drive recruitment)
isn't that just creating a setting where fascism is correct and this time it's more unambigious (and all the bad stuff is just "sad but necessary" or the "best option")
I wouldn't view it that way. First of all, there's no fascism in the world of the game and I'm not even sure the ideology of fascism was ever invented in the world of Trench Crusade. A better comparison would be the USA during WWII—certainly not "good," but I'm pretty sure many people, even on Hexbear, would give the USA critical support for their war against the Axis.
As for the faithful, their rigid religious beliefs blind them, leading to needless suffering in the name of a God they fail to truly comprehend. God in this context is more like a primordial eldritch being, not something that communes clearly with its followers or is all that benevolent.
One also needs to keep in mind that a lot of the lore so far is from the perspective of the church so unreliable narrators.
This is frustrating me a LOT because this is the exact same argument people have made about Warhammer for years. Despite decades of bolter porn and in-universe justifications shitted out of the "apolitical" sphincter of Games Workshop, people still claimed that the setting wasn't fascist apologia because...
These are the exact same arguments that are being made here and elsewhere for how this isn't a fascist setting. I absolutely buy that it is not intentionally, and I think I know why: the authors don't know how deeply fucked up in the head fascists are.
Any sane person would see a group of people that sacrifices infinite clones and uses horrific abominations and uses mind-shattering rituals as evil, even if they're against a greater evil. Fascists don't, because that's exactly what their self identity is. They view themselves as glorious heroes doing what "no one else has the courage to do", they think of themselves as the monk cutting off a Jesus-clones flesh and eating it to serve a greater purpose. They take pride in it.
Settings like these are straight up porn for chuds. They LOVE them because, despite no such analogue for Hell's armies or any other incomprehensible evil existing in real life, chuds and fascists (
) think they exist and they perceive anyone who challenges their bubbles of privilege and stolen wealth, especially incidentally, as members of that hell-horde. They see every black man, gay kid, penniless single mother, all as exactly the same as monstrous hordes that want to destroy Humanities' soul. Satanism is and always has been either a label taken out of opposition to Christian beliefs, or more often, a label applied forcefully to those they want to erase or are scared of.
So to make a setting where, not only is theocratic religion the relatively better choice, but the worse choice are literally Satanists in-universe, is just reinforcing that, it creates a setting that is, yes, stripping the aesthetics of the chud's delusion away to reveal what they actually think, but it's still what they think, and it doesn't work as criticism against them because they advocate for it as genuine unironic reality. I don't blame the people who made the lore. It's really concerning that even I picked up on how this mindset works, I don't think anyone should even be able to comprehend it but somehow entire swathes of the US just believe it's real life.
So ultimately it's not meant to be fascist, but it's way too uncomfortable for me to really be into it.
I read both of your responses and I think you make valid points.
I think I get where you're coming from. Grimdark settings are often problematic, and it's true that many fascists enjoy them. I can understand why people might find that off-putting or not be fans of them for that reason. It's kinda similar to Starship Troopers or Helldivers—both are meant as satire, but reactionaries either don't get the joke or simply don't care.
With that said, I'm pretty sure you could create a grimdark setting with good politics, it's just that, realistically, most people who create these settings fall somewhere on the liberal-to-conservative spectrum. As a result, they almost all end up with the same issues you've mentioned
I have to admit, though I've been a sucker for anything dark, edgy, and grimdark since I was a teenager, and that hasn't changed. As a minority in the imperial core, grimdark settings appeal to me because they depict a struggle without hope in a doomed world. But I think there's beauty in the struggle itself, even when hope is almost nonexistent. The idea of continuing to fight, even when there's little chance of success, resonates with me deeply.
I actually agree completely which is kind of why I get a little angry. I don't really feel like everyone has to be evil for grimdark to function; You can just make the good people very very much not in power. Someone put it perfectly as "A bright light failing to illuminate the unbearable darkness is very grimdark" or something like that. The reason I get annoyed is because as a communist in real life I know things can be an utter trash world and good people still exist, they're just stuck constantly trying to scrape away the massive pile of trash. But then, like you said, there's something inspiring about how people continue to do that even when it seems pointless. Refusing to accept it has to be like this. So when the grimdark setting simply erases any such people like that from existence it's very annoying.
And of course it's still inspiring for like, the evil-but-not-as-evil faithful factions to be also maybe trying to internally struggle to improve but continually failing due to internal reactionary sentiment but people continue to try, but idk why people seem to never think of including that in their grimdark settings. It's like libs get scared about the idea of admitting mostly good people exist in hellworld because it makes them realize they might not be one of those.
But it's fiction, not real life. Of course if it was a real thing happening the faithful and the churches would be the better option. But that's the issue, it presents this world of an endless stream of disgusting horrors only held barely at bay by the monstrous acts committed to maintain purity by what is considered the cultural authority. When you explicitly prevent any other options than fascism and worse fascism from being in your setting, all you do is just make fascist apologia. You're viewing it diegetically, or at least think I am arguing diegetically, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the way the world is presented and how that affects real life.
And the USA was, if not fascist, at least colonialist since its very beginning. And one could argue it's fascist too, especially given the direct inspiration the objectively fascist countries (Nazi Germany, for example) took from it. And arguing about the specifics of what counts as fascism is pointless. Even if no one even knows what fascism is in a setting, it at the bare minimum presents the monarchist, feudalist, theocratic or colonialist societies fascists worship due to twisted nostalgia for oppressing and dominating others.
It presents this world where the only options are bowing to an arbitrary and cruel God because they are an authority and therefore deserving of respect, or turning against them and in the process turning against all good things, a world that fits perfectly within the fascist mind. In fact it is exactly what most fascists perceive reality as.
Or in other words, of course the USA should be given critical support in WWII but deleting the USSR from your account of it too tends to just be Nazi shit.
If you look at the actual subreddit you got people who eat this shit up with exactly that mindset. People talking about how god fulfill's people's "needs" and not their "wants" and how the faithful became evil because of what they're fighting. I just saw someone say unironically on that subreddit, referring to IRL, that God saves women from becoming scarred by Satan by saving them from sex without love.
It's just a generic fascist setting where they make a normal shitty monarchist/imperialist/colonialist/fascist power and than retroactively justify it by making a more monarchist/imperialist/colonialist/fascist power that makes them look good. If you don't believe me now you'll believe me a couple years from now when all the treat hogs are braying "SACRIFICE FOR THE METACHRIST" or some shit. Helldivers is EXPLICITLY meant to paint Super Earth as the only main bad guy, but people still spam slopified "freedom" memes. Do you really think a setting where one nation is portrayed as the best option, and just happens to share core beliefs with the primary form of explicit fascism in the modern day, is going to have people analyze it better? Of course not, any criticism of Christianity in the setting is so pointless in the face of literal Hell that even those who do understand satire will miss it.
Of course if you had better options and they just haven't caught on yet or aren't powerful enough, not due to it being intrinsically impossible, but other conditions, THAN you can have a trash bag world like this without veering into Hitlerite apologia. But either groups like that don't exist in this setting or aren't talked about like. At all
And please dont think I'm picking on this setting specifically. I'm not! This is a core problem with the entire grimdark genre. When your setting is predicated on there being no good options, than people will look at your least bad option as being endorsed, and unless you're able to write a group that's flawed but good but also not some form of Hitlerism (which white men seem fundamentally incapable of), it's going to just be Hitlerism apologia anyways
And before you mention the Islamic nations, apparently they just straight up take children to make soldiers for war so while that isn't nearly as bad as a lot of the other stuff I heard, it's still theocratic nationalism and also a racist depiction of it too because I doubt people would just statically stay fine with that practice for hundred+ years
Iirc one of the non-hell factions farms jesus clones to eat, so it seems legit grimdark where everything is terrible for everyone.