As a Quaestor of a developing unit, one of the biggest challenges I face is in making sure people don't slip through the cracks. Here, we have to be on top of everyone, all the time; there's no safety net, no core of active, experienced leaders watching and helping us out. Sadly, this means we miss someone now and then. Rarely, a member goes from slipping through the cracks to plunging into the abyss; even rarer still is when he just keeps on fighting after this happens, flipping disappointment the bird and getting back in line.
This sounds like the fervor of a fanatic, or of the insane. Fitting, then, that the only Light-Sided Gungan Rollmaster is the one I'm talking about here. I'm talking about Kah Manet, Sentinel Scout for too damned long.
Kah was promoted from Dark Jedi Knight to Sith Warrior on December 29, 2009, under the name Sarak Jemaane, at which point he had convinced the Grand Master himself that he could play a Yuuzhan Vong successfully. He did it well, but that's a topic for later; from there, he served as a member of House Revan with great distinction, acting as Echo Cell Battleteam's first Leader.
There he earned a Grand Cross of the Dark Side for his intense contributions to that House's effort for Rite of Supremacy: Spoils of War. He earned this for being a vocal and active leader, as well as participating in many events. He took home six Seals of Bone and a Cluster of Ice from said Vendetta, but would go on to resign his post due to the unfortunate passing of family members and the onset of college. Of all the reasons that people have resigned their posts, few have been that selfless, a quality that is indicative of Kah even today.
Kah was the leader of Echo Cell from the 3rd of December, 2009, until the 26th of March, 2010. Even factoring out time served as a Knight, that's nearly three months of active and dedicated service.
As of August 18th, 2010, Sarak returned to the Brotherhood and made a new start in House Plagueis. In just nine days he earned a Dark Cross, requested by yours truly, for designing a Yuuzhan Vong splinter faction and its six well-detailed leaders for an event called the House Plagueis Military Reboot. In his leader descriptions, he not only named them and gave a basis for their appearances, but came up with complex personalities, backstories, and motivations for each of the leaders. These felt like actual characters in a novel; I thought of them as actual people, and their fleshed-out nature made the event much more fun. In addition, Sarak co-authored the majority of seven pages of official storylines and Run-On update posts, with me stepping in for only a paragraph or two here and there.
He also created the base known as Si'Tilk as more than just a name on paper, fleshing it out to be an organic, Vongformed structure that House Plagueis would go on to use as an outpost. Because of his work, the planet Sigil 2 saw massive development after the Reboot, while setting the stage for the implementation of the House's then-active Military Merit System. Sarak would go on to climb the ranks in this system, which awarded points based entirely on actual DJB awards gained.
After this event, Sarak would become my Aedile on September 14th, 2010. In addition to creative work such as ghost-writing report fictions and helping me with plot updates, he would garner four Clusters of Fire and one Crescent with Topaz Star. His time was often spent updating assets, writing page after page for the Summit and House to use, and maintaining our member base. In addition, he would earn three Seals of Defiance in the Disorder Vendetta. To top off his run as Aedile, he would be awarded yet another Grand Cross of the Dark Side, both for his Reboot contributions and the help he provided me as Aedile.
He would resign from this tenure as Aedile of Plagueis on March 22, 2011. This would give him over six months of intense, dedicated, and incredibly active leadership.
Sarak would not remain dormant for long, becoming a member of Battleteam Primus Pilus and, from July 17, 2011 to October 6, 2011, he would go on to earn three Crescents with Quartz Stars and one Crescent with Topaz Star, though these were downgraded due to event participation and do not reflect his actual placings. He would also earn thirty-three Clusters of Fire, and would return leadership on October 6, 2011 - once again as my Aedile.
As Aedile, Sarak would take on a decidedly more active role in the baser activity of the House. He would earn another seven Clusters of Fire, as well as four Seals of Decimation for activity in the Tenth Great Jedi War. Where he really shone, however, was in the development of lore and assets for the House.
In this tenure as Aedile, Sarak would go on to create indepth descriptions of an enemy for House Plagueis that, due to changes in the House's direction, would largely go unpublished - the Disciples of the Living Force, or DLF for short. He would create six fully fleshed-out leaders for this Gray Jedi group, each with full character sheets and histories. He would also create four Gray Jedi agents, also fully fleshed-out and bearing character sheets in line with DJB standards of the time, to act beneath them in our upcoming storylines. These Jedi were the tip of the iceberg, though they would ultimately be the portion nobody got to see.
Sarak's work on the DLF project would grow to incorporate our old system rebels, the Jusadih Independence Coalition or JIC, as the ground forces of the Gray Jedi. These would incorporate three detailed groups, called the Masses of Jusadih, the Veiled Hand, and the Shadow Workers. He was also responsible for creating three pirate groups, known as the Rusty Rancors, the Raging Tuskens, and - resurrected recently as a Knights of Allusis enemy - a group called Alpha's Omega.
He aided greatly in the creation of neutral NPC elements in Jusadih as well, helping us to create the Mandalorian faction of Arpat Akaan, as well as the Grardella Hutt Syndicate. For the former, he created two more well-detailed characters, each with two pages of description and stats, called Solus'bal Shuk'la and Scythe Drago. As these characters were meant to be killed off, there was no onus to really develop them - he just did it anyway, because that's how he works. He ignores rewards, dismisses plans and limits, and shoots for the moon every time.
Tallied up, going by old records and pages, Sarak's work in this stretch as Aedile totalled well over thirty-five pages of content. In short, he built us an entire enemy, a system-wide criminal element, and enough characters to literally populate an Independent House. Due to administrative gaps in Plagueis at the time, mistakes made by myself and other leaders, and direction changes that saw the bulk of this work scrapped in favor of Plagueis's current identity, I am ashamed to say he never saw a true reward for it all. This is one of my deepest regrets as a leader; Sarak Shai deserved better, and yet, he did not let the disappointment and neglect shown here discourage him from activity.
Sarak's second tenure as my Aedile ended on February 29th, 2012. Nearly another six months as Aedile, during which he not only lead actively and diligently, but managed to churn out more concrete content than most members do in their entire careers, by far.
From here, Sarak's activity would remain fairly steady, though real life limited him from doing more than interacting and participating in a few events. After undergoing a character change to Tur'el Sokar, a Kel Dor of the Krath Order, he would earn a Dark Cross for ghost-writing a competition for the Summit. He would also win a Crescent with Emerald Star for his participation in the Tunnel Specimens competition, but would transfer to the Rogues on January 3rd, 2013, citing that he did not wish to be a part of a House.
It was on May 14th, 2013, that Tur'el Sokar transferred to House Odan-Urr with the intention of being active, and trying out the Light Side of the Force. He would become an active member of the newly-formed Battleteam Ooroo, and contribute to its growing momentum.
On July 2nd, 2013, Tur'el Sokar became Rollmaster of House Odan-Urr for the first time. In this time, he would reach out to every Journeyman in the House, motivating many to become active and guiding several of them through their promotion tasks. This did not stop him from participating, earning him one Crescent with Sapphire Star, two Crescents with Emerald Star, and a Crescent with Topaz Star. He would continue to be active and dedicated in the role, not in competitions, but in direct engagements with the membership to get them mobile and active. In this aspect, he was one of the driving forces in our push to reinvigorate House Odan-Urr - a push that goes on to this day, and has been majorly successful.
On September 18th, 2013, Tur'el was forced to step down as Rollmaster of Odan-Urr by considerations regarding work in real life, particularly a contract to write novels for a publishing company. Though a brief example of his leadership, this still constitutes nearly another three months as a leader, not to mention a successful one in a struggling unit.
On December 3rd, 2013 - four years after his appointment to Revan's Echo Cell, to the day - Tur'el underwent a character change yet again and renamed himself Kah Manet. As a first for the Brotherhood, he chose to play a Gungan character, and did so in a surprisingly serious and intense characterization; once again, his talent for the unorthodox has shone through. Following this he would join Knights of Allusis Battleteam, earning four Crescents with Topaz Star before earning a Dark Cross for his revival and complete redesign of Alpha's Omega - listed above - as an enemy for the Battleteam and for Odan-Urr. He would act in an unofficial capacity - Executive Officer - to help the Battleteam Leader, V'yr Vorsa, make her team one of the most active in the Dark Jedi Brotherhood.
On January 15th, 2014, Kah Manet once again became my Rollmaster, a position he maintains to this day. Since then, he would go on to earn a Scroll of Foundation, as well as another twenty-five Clusters of Fire. However, the real measure of Kah's touch can be seen in the membership, and how well the House is doing.
The Odan-Urr Summit operates well because we all help out, but we all do our jobs - I plan events and train leaders, my Aedile produces content, my BTLs drive their units forward, and Kah, more than anyone else, oversees our Journeymen. Look at the results - Odan-Urr now has forty-three members. Twenty-four Journeyman promotions have taken place since his appointment, one of them a Padawan and more than one a Defender. This is astounding for HOU - to put it into perspective, we had two Knightings last year. As of February 25, 2014, we are looking good for four new members to double that number, not to mention the five active Protectors nipping at their heels and the slew of Novices and Disciples flooding in and climbing every few days. This kind of retention doesn't happen on a fluke - it's the work of a diligent Rollmaster, and proof of his merits.
We have thirteen Master-Student pairings, all of them arranged by or through Kah, and all of them active and vocal. Our googlegroup has never been this well-maintained; half the time, we don't even get Kallisto updates anymore because there is nothing to update. Kah is always contacting people, chatting on IRC, the Forums, and the Googlegroup, and texting myself and other members who can and have asked him to. He runs competitions all the time, mentors the BTLs frequently, and never loses contact with us for more than 24 hours. He is the exemplar of a good Rollmaster, plain and simple - a guy who has been there and done that. A guy who has done the easy stuff, the gruelling, hard work, and who has been skipped over before without giving up. He's the perfect mentor.
Flowery words aside, since his promotion to Dark Jedi Knight, Kah Manet has served a total of a year and eleven months as an active Leader in multiple Brotherhood units. In Echo Cell, he was active and diligent to the point of rewards and praise; in Plagueis, he changed the House and developed enough content and characters in total to both found and populate an Independent House of his own. In Odan-Urr, he built up a Battleteam before leading to promotion, mastery, and communications totals that the House has never seen before. Don't just look to the Quaestor, or the Aedile; Odan-Urr's Rollmaster has been one of the biggest parts of its recent successes.
What I have provided are actual dates, hard numbers, and concrete examples of work completed. This is without even taking into account the dozens of competitions he's run over the years, or the help he's doled out to others, or the literal novel series worth of emails he's written to leaders he's worked under, friends he's supported, and members he's helped and inspired. That's what defines Kah Manet; the man is dedicated without reward, driven without praise, and devoted without falter. He has taken a really rough hand, and keeps coming back for more.
This is the kind of devotion that builds Houses, writes Vendettas, and elevates Elders; to say he deserves the second Equite rank is an understatement and a half. He has earned it in spades, and then some; may his example motivate us, that we never neglect another member so harshly again.
Congratulations, Kah Manet, on your promotion. We love you, man.
- CCH Liam Torun, Quaestor of House Odan-Urr.
Liam Torun-Urr, 2014-02-25 07:24:02 UTC