A Deer institution is something that has occurred twice at Deer.

A Deer tradition is something that has occurred once at Deer.

A Deer story is something that may have occurred at Deer.

And now for the story of Deer and the Foundation . After a series of recent events, the Overseer Council of the Foundation was violently overthrown and replaced by a new version of the Overseer Council, who will doubtlessly fail to be any less fascist tyrants than the last set. In honor of the termination of the old Council, I'll be looking at the history of Deer's interactions with them, and by extension, the rest of the Foundation.

TROUBLE BEGINS: THE 60'S

The first few years were quiet. From 1948 to 1966, Deer lived a peaceful and quiet existence without the undue attention of the Foundation in any form. But then they noticed us , and developed a sinister plot in mind. They planned to disrupt the very fabric of this institution and proselytize us into being the next generation of fascist scientists and human rights violators .

To that end, O5-4 (the head of their PR Department) was invited to campus as a guest speaker, in the same vein as other occult world figures, like Madam al Fine , Allison Chao , or Tim Wilson . This would have been a pretty normal event, with O5-4 giving a generic speech, answering questions, and handing out pamphlets afterward, if not for the fact that O5-4 has been personally involved in a plethora of international war crimes.

When Deeries looked into O5-4 and the Foundation's track record, it didn't take them long before they realized the kind of person we were dealing with here. Immediately student groups started to protest the idea of him coming to campus and giving a speech about … something . There was a sit-in in Knorr about the issue and a couple of big protests.

Seeing how many people were mad about this, the administration was quick to rescind O5-4's invitation to campus, citing that the general opinion of the student body was that he was unwelcome. The Foundation accepted graciously, and O5-4 gave a speech at ICSUT, who was quick to jump on the opportunity when they heard Deer skipped out.

WE BRING DOWN THE LAW: THE 70'S

Tensions between the O5 Council and Deer reached a peak in 1978 when a judicial board case was brought against all Overseers in absentia by Deeries. Deeries alleged that all members of the Overseer Council were responsible for continued violence against the nature of reality, repeated genocide and xenocide, the abuse of basic and fundamental human rights, unlawful imprisonment, tyranny, violation of international law regarding the usage of amnestics, and oppressing the occult community repeatedly for decades.

Surprisingly, the case succeeded. Why the Judicial Board decided to accept the case made against the Overseers is unknown , but the case was accepted and the Overseers found guilty. Their actions were, of course, the subject of repeated sanctions and condemned by the Global Occult Coalition of the United Nations, and generally considered to be international war crimes.

The Council was ordered to formally apologize for their actions, were to be excluded from campus, and were banned from using the scrounge . Unfortunately, the sting of justice that the Deer College Judicial Board carries is not exceptional, and the Overseers did not seem to be greatly adversely affected or even a little upset at the verdict. Which really is a letdown, given we spent so much time to convict them and try them and everything.

However, Deer did receive a letter from the Foundation Department of Public Relations, likely written by a low-level functionary but signed as O5-4, reproduced below:

To Deer College, The Foundation does not recognize the legal or moral authority represented by the "Deer College Judicial Board", and therefore holds the verdict made by said organization to not be binding or valid in any capacity. Moreover, the Foundation finds that the circumstances of the trial (being held in absentia without legal representation for the defendants) means that any verdict delivered cannot be held to be impartial and unbiased, further nullifying all conclusions made. As such, the Foundation has made the decision to summarily reject the all said deliberations and conclusions, and shall not be making reparations as dictated by the aforementioned "authority". Should the plaintiffs wish to pursue further judicial action against us, please contact the Foundation's Legal Office, submitting the attached ten forms, completed in triplicate, to the proper offices. Postage will not be paid for or reimbursed. Thank you for your compliance. O5-4

Office of Public Relations

Honestly, the fact that they replied to us at all was more than we were expecting. Despite the Overseer Council's dismissal of all charges that were brought against them, we decided to enact the one punishment that we could: the exclusion of them from campus. Photos of all thirteen Overseers were searched for, determined to not be something we could get ahold of, replaced with stick figures labeled with O5-1 through 13, and hung up in the Community Safety office.

THEY STEAL OUR MONEY: THE 80'S

The following story only tangentially relates to Deer and the Overseers, but there's a slight connection. Towards the end of the year in 1983, the Foundation sent a letter to the Mayor of Three Portlands demanding that the city stop giving the limited amount of funds to the magical colleges in the realm: ICSUT, Deer and Three Portlands Community College.

Normally, we would have been outraged, but this happened in May and everyone was very, very tired and finals were coming up, so there wasn't much student outcry. We were all going home for the year, and couldn't be bothered to deal with it ourselves. It could be dealt with at the start of the year next year, anyway: these things take time, right?

Well, ICSUT did all the heavy lifting here. They called up the Global Occult Coalition, reminded them they were a member of the Council of 108 and got their big guard dog to send a strongly worded letter to the Foundation to fuck off. The Coalition argued back and forth with the Foundation for a couple months during the summer of '83, backing up the Mayor and its autonomy.

By the time students came back in the fall, the situation had already resolved itself. The city funding was secure, and the Foundation had backed off. We didn't even do anything!

THE STING OF JUSTICE: THE 90'S

In 1998, another major scandal occurred when a small group of students was discovered to be attempting to perform an anart piece featuring the O5s. To get a full degree of accuracy, they began to investigate and even attempt scrying on the Council. The Foundation picked up on their interest in the Council (but not their overall intent) early on in the process and quickly became aware that something major involving the Overseers was going down, and needed immediate attention.

Given the sensitive nature of the matter, not just any normal Foundation employee would be able to infiltrate the campus. In fact, O5-11 themselves was deployed to take the form of a Deerie, infiltrate the social circles of the students attempting to perform the working, and stop them by any means necessary. Given the occult abilities of the Overseer, they would be able to disguise themself perfectly and stop the believed assassination with ease.

This would have gone perfectly, if not for the fact that the exclusion of the Overseers from their 1978 J-Board case was never lifted, and O5-11 was still forbidden from setting foot on our grounds. As such, when they attempted to walk to Deer one morning, magic alarms instantly kicked into effect and it became clear that an Overseer was present.

Community Safety arrived soon after to take the Overseer into custody as they attempted to figure out who this mysterious and previously unknown figure was. After all, they matched none of the pictures on their wall of excluded individuals. It was several hours later that O5-11 confessed to their true identity, and Community Safety realized they had detained an individual of considerable more importance than anticipated.

O5-11 was released back to the Foundation shortly thereafter, as ordered by the President Svensdottir, but much to the chagrin of all students. The students who had been planning the artwork finished the piece, which lasted for a few years before being destroyed in a particularly brutal Rabbit Fight in the Arts Building. However, in the terms of O5-11's release, they were asked to write the apology demanded of them years prior.

That apology is reproduced below:

I, O5-11, would formally like to apologize for repeated acts of violence and oppression against the anomalous community and races, in a variety of forms, for the purposes of world preservation and safeguarding civilian life. I extend this apology from and on behalf of the Office of the Overseer, acting in a representative authority for all such parties.

Something tells me they didn't really mean it.

YAWN: THE 00's

Surprisingly, absolutely nothing happened between Deer College and the Overseers between 2000 and 2010. They left us alone and we didn't do anything so radical as to get major attention. I scoured every possible resource here and found literally nothing. Not even a single passing mention of the Foundation in any of our three papers.

AN OLD GRUDGE: THE 10'S

The final major incident involving the O5 Council and Deer came in 2011, when it came to light that On the nature of anomalous things, an 1890 treatise on the occult was written by O5-1 . On the nature of anomalous things had been a prominent text in Hum 111 (History of the Occult), and generally regarded as an awful shitty text that nobody really liked reading.

Having the only mandatory class feature a horrific abuser of human and non-human rights caused an immediate uproar. Multiple student groups (such as the Fae Student Union) called for the removal of the treatise from the syllabus, on the grounds that the author's ideology was actively genocidal (and they should know). Contrarian assholes went full death of the author, saying that the treatise didn't actually call for anything of the sort, ignoring that it was merely a direct predecessor of such ideas.

A series of student protests and sit-ins in the office of President Lund were successful in getting the syllabus revised, and On the nature of anomalous things was removed from the syllabus and replaced with The Philosophy of a Fellow Scholar, written by a nameless victim of the Fae genocide, discussing in depth their thoughts on the occult, the Foundation and the current state of the Fae people. The author even came to speak at the college on the text, and gave a guest lecture in Hum 111.

THE WAY IT ENDS: NOW

But this all brings us to the most important news of all: Overseer Ball will be thrown tonight, 10pm-2am in the SU! A way to celebrate the death of the O5 Council and an excuse to get wasted ! We've been planning this since the first Overseer died, and it will get thrown into action immediately for tonight! Music will be whatever and there's no real theme.

See you there!