Riku was given the task of auditing the Department of Flight Studies which included Starfighter Studies, Capital Starship Studies, Astronomy Studies, and Freighters/Transports Studies. All in all, this is over 20.000 words of content that he's had to fact-check, spell-check and rewrite. That means going through every statement and every statistic and comparing it to the Wookiepedia (and his own considerable knowledge) to ensure it was still canon. In addition he's gone through each revised course word for word, making sure that the whole course flowed well as it was read. I even made him redo Starfighter Studies when Rogue One and Possessions came out.

Riku didn't stop there though. He's gone through every single exam too, making sure that their subjects and desired answers were still on-par with what he had written in the course notes. One of the goals of the Audit was to remove the dreaded 'answers vary' answer keys, which Riku replaced with concise and clear descriptions of what the intended answer should look like. Combining all these tasks, it takes roughly eight hours per course to finish them completely, including markdown coding. That means he's spent 32 hours pouring over wiki articles, rewriting courses, looking for images, and coding SA articles.

That amount of effort deserves a reward in my opinion, so I am happy to lend my recommendation to award Riku with his first ever Sapphire Blade. Congratulations!

-Marcus Kiriyu
Praetor to the Headmaster

This is overdue. I inherited Riku from the previous administration, who had been going through some real life time constraints. As a result, this man's accomplishments kept getting missed and glossed over. I'll take some of the blame for this, based on my old-school mindset and push toward larger and larger rewards. At the end of the day, it has been 9 months as Aedile that he has served quite admirably.

Riku has been my left hand since I have decided to unretire. He has been in almost constant contact with me, despite a five hour time difference and hectic work schedules. In the rebuilding of Marka Ragnos, he has been instrumental in helping to run the Siege of Heaven competition, between brainstorming, planning, grading and writing the official fictional account of the event, That was a month's worth of meetings, plotting and planning and several thousand words of work on it's own, given it was the first major project of its kind in HMR for some time. Pushing forward, he has helped to brainstorm and plan the currently running 'Sands of Time' event, constantly in discussion with me about particulars and possibilities for the event. In addition, he has worked behind the scenes on numerous updates and tweaks to the existing HMR fictional entities (like Kar Alabrek and the cathedral) and works (such as the Tarthos reborn planning doc), bringing them up to date and modernizing them. In addition, he has helped to proof and direct DarkHawk in his fictional direction as well as proofread and tweak my own fictional releases.

For the raw numbers portion; Riku has 16 competitions that he has helped to organize or grade. You could also look at his great record of participation himself (as I am a huge proponent of 'leading from the front') of having participated in 44 competitions since taking on the role, accumulating a tidy pile of crescents and clusters, including two of the pretty difficult to acquire diamond crescents. this shows a dedication to many of the aspects of the leadership of the House. In addition, he has served on the Shadow Academy staff, but his work there would be better elaborated by the Headmaster.

His work has been critically useful to my plans for the house, for the preparation of our members for greater involvement in the club, including the runup to the coming wars. He is one of the best Aediles that I have worked with, which is saying something, considering how little on-the-job training he had prior due to circumstance. I am more than happy to request that Riku Keibatsu be awarded with a Sapphire Blade for his efforts thus far, and as thanks for being such an integral part of the summit.

Thank you, Op.

~Muz Ashen, the Lion of Tarthos

Riku has spent the last 9 months working two jobs for the Brotherhood, first as Aedile of House Marka Ragnos, where he has learned on the job, most notably from the previous Grand Master. Secondly, Riku has served 6 months as Magistrate to the Headmaster, where he was heavily involved in rewriting courses and the auditing process.

Riku is hard working, dedicated and is always available to his members. He gives his opinion frankly and openly with Clan events, competitions and fictional direction. We can rely upon him to always give us feedback.

I consider Opie a good friend, both within and outside the Brotherhood. He's come far since joining Naga Sadow, even though he doesn't realise it. Riku is one of those members who puts themselves down, instead of realising and admitting just how great a member they are. Sure, he may have spammed the Voice's inbox with his constant CS changes, but I'm sure they'll get over it.

Locke has spoken amply about why Riku deserves this Sapphire Blade and I'm pleased to support it. Riku provides succour to me as a member, he listens, he advises and he helps. His members, his colleagues in the summit and his compatriots in other units via telegram in the Fiction, Art and Gaming channels.

Riku has worked his arse off, and yet he's sadly been missed due to changes in leadership. Despite that, Riku has continued to serve, refusing to slow down, even talking about postponing date nights to get the job done. Sometimes you have to remind him to put real life first.

Dedication, kindness and camaraderie.

Riku has them in spades.

Congratulations on your Sapphire Blade, Riku. You've done me proud, you've done CNS proud and you've done yourself proud. See this Sacramental as a token of our appreciation for your hard work.

Proconsul of Naga Sadow

In my six month term as Quaestor, I was able to choose an Aedile to help serve the House of Marka Ragnos. The one I chose was Riku. Together we tried to provide some entertainment and fun to the house through a competition event called Rest and Relaxation House Marka Ragnos Style. The event lasted a month and took about a week of planning, editing, and submitting. He helped with organizing, gave solid ideas and thoughts, and helped me as a judge in a few of the competitions. If you give him a gameplan, he will take it and run with his own flair of creative ideas added to the mix.

He also worked hard to encourage participation. As part of a boost and revitalizing activity within our house, Riku would send out emails every week to check activity and encourage our members who may not have telegram to participate and enjoy their time in the house. It helped me to find a bit more time working on other projects for the house members and reduced the stress of having to worry about activity all the time. I always had a report that I could use to see what areas we could strengthen and create a better environment for our house. For that, I thank Riku very much.

Overall, I have really enjoyed working with him on competitions, love his encouragement to participate and can't wait to see what he can come up with next as an Aedile to the new Quaestor.

Congrats to you, Riku!

This could not have come to a better person. Raider Keibatsu has significantly helped me throughout his time as my Aedile. He has guided me through my time as a Battle Team Leader with whatever issues that have come up. He also went out of his way and guided and aided me throughout my first comp organization, promoting said comp and finalizing that comp with grading. He has made me more eager to organize competitions on my own and gave me tools to get my Battle Team more involved in participating them. For me, as a BTL I see no reason why great things should not be bestowed upon Raider Keibatsu as his willingness to help towards the HMR and battle teams is without question truly an asset we cannot lose.

Warrior DarkHawk BTL Night Hawks

Koji has been on the Fist staff in the role of Magistrate since June of 2020, working on what is now his third term in the office. It is not an exaggeration to say that his efforts have been herculean during his tenure. He has approved a whopping 642 PvE/O submissions and 189 PvP activities. Additionally, he has run a competition for the Grand Master's Royal Guard series each month he has been on staff. Not only can I always rely on Koji to have his competitions submitted ahead of schedule but he also takes care to consider what member's are playing and what game we have or have not supported in recent monthly competitions. This added level of care is essential to ensuring we give equitable support to all of our platforms.

He has been the most prolific Magistrate I have had on my staff by any measure. Koji has also shown tremendous growth in his leadership skills while on staff. I've had the pleasure of working with him one on one coaching and he has shown a passion for learning. This growth has distinguished him as someone who not only is committed to doing a fantastic job in his role but also to continued development with the eye on future service to the club.

Congratulations Koji, this is much deserved!