Klint Finley

@klintron

Just some guy from the internet. Tweets about open source, tabletop RPGs, comic books, and other stuff. He/Him.

Portland, OR
klintfinley.com
Joined April 2007
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  1. Pinned Tweet
    12 Jul 2021

    I've been writing for GitHub's ReadME Project for a few months now, but today is my first day as an official GitHub employee.

    4 replies 3 retweets 29 likes
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  2. Mar 20

    3 days ago: Reddit thread on Barker/Serpent's Walk Yesterday: Official statement from Tekumel Foundation:

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  3. Mar 20

    November 2021: Barker's authorship of Serpent's Walk discussed on Something Awful. Late 2021/Early 2022: Serpent's Walk and Barker's involvement in a neo-nazi/holocaust denial journal discussed on a Tekumel Discord, Foundation president confirms.

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  4. Mar 20

    2020: Jeff Berry confirms on his private forum that Barker wrote Serpent's Walk, says it was a "prank" that backfired on Barker.

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  5. Mar 20

    2019: The novel comes up in a Twitter thread (some of the tweets have been deleted). The concerns are largely dismissed but the president of the Tekumel Foundation is tagged into the conversation.

    Replying to @axoln
    What the hell? Where did u get this from? How could Prof Barker be a white nationalist, he was an Islamic professor of Urdu!
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  6. Mar 20

    ... with "potentially inflammatory political viewpoints" that "it was impressed upon me that it was best to preserve the fac¸ade of anonymity." [Who did the impressing she does not say] Also in 2018: Barker identified as author of Serpent's Walk on Stormfront.

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  7. Mar 20

    Here's the timeline I've been able to work out: 2012: Jeff Berry discovers the Serpent's Walk manuscript, contract etc. and hands it over to the Tekumel Foundation. 2018: Amina Inloes publishes paper on Barker's work, includes footnote on a pseudonymous novel...

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  8. Mar 19

    ... though that might have been less because of Totten's fringe beliefs and more because it set them down a particular path in gaming that led to the creation of modern RPGs.

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  9. Mar 19

    I don't know if Arneson's interest in Totten has anything to do with his getting involved in The Way, but they had some similar beliefs and his crew was aware of it. David Wesely described discovering Strategos as a bit like uncovering a Lovecraftian tome.

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  10. Mar 19

    Arneson and others in the Twin Cities gaming scene in the 60s and 70s were fond of a wargame called Strategos by Charles Totten. Totten also happened to be an advocate of British Israelism.

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  11. Mar 19

    It might be worth mentioning that Arneson was at one point a missionary for The Way International, a group sometimes referred to as a cult and accused of antisemitism I don't know how long he was involved. His funeral was at what Lutheran church.

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  12. Mar 19

    For some additional context: Barker was friends with D&D co-creator Dave Arneson. His game Empire of the Petal Throne, published by TSR in 1975, was one of the first RPGs published after D&D and was possibly the very first RPG setting book ever published.

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  13. Mar 19

    This post digs into the text and its relation to Barker's career:

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  14. Mar 19

    The novel seems to be fairly well known in neo-nazi circles. Someone on Reddit quoted a 2018 academic paper on Barker that says of Serpant's Walk: "[t]his novel has actually been discussed more extensively in academic literature than his Tekumel novels."

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  15. Mar 19

    And by "neo-nazi novel" I don't just mean "novel with politics I disagree with." Those who have read it describe it as full-on Hitler-worshipping Nazi propaganda. The book is on for anyone who wants to verify.

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  16. Mar 19

    But the Foundation apparently knew at least as far back as 2012 when Jeff Berry brought it to their attention but have kept it quiet. Berry posted about it on a private forum in 2020, but it's only in the past week that people have brought more attention to this.

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  17. Mar 19

    Apparently, this has been something of an open secret for years. I found a Stormfront thread that identified Barker as the author of Serpent's Walk back in 2018. The Tékumel Foundation only acknowledged this today.

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  18. Mar 19

    Reeling from the revelation that Tekumel creator M.A.R. Barker was a neo-nazi who wrote a novel published by the publisher of the Turner Diaries.

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  19. Mar 18

    Also relevant to understanding what’s happening

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  20. Mar 18

    This isn’t quite as bad as it sounds at first glance considering that Germany and other EU countries are still buying energy from Russia. But it’s worth paying attention to what India does.

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  21. Mar 17

    A little bit on the philosophy of The ReadME Project

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