I know Howie likes numbers, so let's start there. It's been almost nine years since Zxyl/Nihlus/Noobis/whatever his name is this month was promoted to EQ2. In that time, he's held a wide variety of leadership positions at both Clan and Dark Summit level. He served on the VOICE staff for fifteen months, including six as Praetor. He spent eight months on the Wiki Staff, three of which were as Wiki Tribune. More recently, he's joined the Regent Staff, ehere I'm told he's been making waves. Atra's graciously agreed to speak to that, so I'll leave the details to him.

On the Clan level, Zxyl held the position of Ektrosis QUA for the first half of 2019, and recently returned to the Clan Summit as Ektrosis' AED. While that might seem like a short stint in House leadership for someone of Zxyl's tenure in the DB, it's because he prefers to contribute behind the scenes, rather than be the public face (and more recently because he became a dad). A number of Zxyl's many Clusters of Ice came from updating Taldryan's Wiki presence, to the tune of eight thousand words. He's taken it upon himself to spearhead the latest Wiki revamp as well, as well as helping to coordinate the Clan Summit's projects in a broader sense. He's been a sounding board for me since my return to the DB back in August, always ready to offer suggestions on how to tweak activities to make the DB more fun for our members. The 54 competitions he's run since he was last promoted seem meagre compared to all that, but he did those, too.

Beyond his actual "leadership" activities, Zxyl leads by example. He's participated in 120 competitions since his last promotion, averaging one a month over that entire near-decade. Most recently, he's been a vocal promoter of my Unsteady Ground series, in addition to participating in them himself. In the Shadow Academy, he's completed a whopping 69 courses and 16 degrees. Last but not least, Zxyl is a constant and welcome presence on Telegram, hanging out and chatting with people in both the Taldryan clan chat and the DB-wide chats.

Going back to numbers, it's time to tally up recognition. Since his last promotion, Zxyl has earned three Grand Crosses, two Anteian Crosses, a Dark Cross, three Gold Novae, a Silver Nova, a Bronze Nova, and a total of 29 Crescents of various levels. It's worth noting that Zxyl's last recognition was in January of 2019, right at the beginning of his Clan Summit service and prior to any of his Regent work, out of a desire to "save it up for EQ3". With the amount Zxyl has contributed to the DB over not only the past year, but the past almost-decade, I hope we can finally make good on that intent.

Master Seraine "Erinyes" Taldrya Ténama, 2020-02-01 22:20:15 UTC

Nihlus, or Zxyl as he is currently known, has been a whirlwind of activity within the Regent staff since joining. He hit the ground running and never looked back (or braced for impact, for that matter). We had an in-flight content update in progress and Nihlus was instrumental in its completion. In the Solo Resistance and More update, he audited and validated 57 item prototypes within the system. Beyond this, he also acted as quality assurance by auditing the content release before we ended the maintenance window and opened the stores once more in order to ensure everything was added to the system as we expected. From there, he continued driving content by assisting the Regent staff in identifying new items from Fallen Order and Rise of Skywalker for future inclusion.

As my Praetor, Nihlus continues unabated as we work through our new projects. He has proven himself the type to jump into a task no matter how boring it might appear. He was the first to volunteer to complete a full audit of our "Back" items in the system to explore the potential for a change in how we handle the weight of such items. We did not move forward with this project, but the initial data collection he provided was what allowed us to make an informed decision on the matter. Nihlus' work ethic doesn't stop within the confines of his own self. He is a constant voice of discussion, challenging decisions and driving dialogue to arrive at the best conclusions for our staff. He is involved in almost every aspect discussion and often offers up his own ideas for how to better the system and the Regent staff in general.

I am glad to see all these qualities. It's made my job easier in many respects and the staff is better off for it. His constant presence, as steady as it has been since coming under my oversight, is a welcome one and I am please to offer my recommendation for Nihlus' promotion.

Darth Renatus, 2020-01-29 23:34:35 UTC

A lot has already been said about Nihlus/Zxyl for the matter of this promotion. But despite all the numbers, his work as part of the Taldryan Summit and his incredible job first as Magistrate and now Praetor to the Regent, Nihlus has been an incredible influence for me whether it was for my duties as Consul of Taldryan or as member of the Herald Staff. Whenever I feel like I need a second set of eyes, I know he is the one to come to. No matter how busy he might be, he finds the time to look over it and offer critics when needed. This goes even above and beyond when he voluntarily joined me in late 2018 to write a piece of official Clan fiction for which he wrote the majority of the text that led Taldryan into the final stages of the Caelus Chronicles Clan Event and for which Nihlus has only been credited after his last recognition early in 2019.

If I was to name a member that is excelling at being part of Taldryan, Nihlus is among the first and finest, I could do so. When it comes to the Equite ranks, we are more and more not only considering hard numbers but also soft skills that are much harder to put into numbers when looking for members who fit these requirements. I feel Nihlus has proven that he does have both and thus is ready for the promotion to the rank of Equite 3.

Rian Taldrya, 2020-02-01 01:38:01 UTC