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The Dark Brotherhood Character sheets have been released after a year of content revisions and coding. This project began in the fall of 2007 with the goal of offering our members a unique opportunity to individualize their Dark Brotherhood persona. The finished product now offers enhanced customization of physical attributes, Force Powers, fighting skills, hand to hand combat skills, lightsaber forms, and Order Disciplines. <p>

Several people contributed to this project and have made it one of the largest Dark Brotherhood projects in years. I'd like to take the time to thank the key players who helped make the Character Sheets possible.<p>

1. Jac/Orv/Karel for their outstanding coding work. Jac has handled the burden of lead coder on this project and has had to suffer through a year of me nagging him for constant updates. In the process he has given our website the largest coding enhancement in the history of our club. Additionally, I need to thank Orv and Karel for coming on to the coding team and helping Jac through the tricky coding process and final move of the character sheets from the DEV site to our LIVE site.<p>

2. Muz for his outstanding graphic support. Muz has created hundreds and hundreds of additional graphics for the new character sheets to include force power graphics, sabers, robes, and on and on. Muz has also been working on what will be the follow on project to our character sheets and the scope of this project is just as staggering as the new sheets. <p>

3. Raken for the creation of the Discipline system. What you see on the character sheets right now is a small taste of what the Discipline system will encompass. I asked Raken to come up with a plan for making Orders important and he provided a detailed plan of action on creating disciplines. In the very near term you are going to find out just what being a Sith Assassin or Obbie Centurion provides your character. <p>

4. Kir/Halc/Dalthid/Firefox on content editing. These guys did a lot of work over the past year and a half on editing the Force Powers, Discipline system, and just about everything you see on the Character sheets. The Force powers went through 9 revisions and the Discipline system went through 8 revisions. Kir/Halc/Dalthid/Firefox put forth a lot of effort to make sure our finished product was polished. <p>

5. Dalthid/Raken for their outstanding work on the Force Powers. Dalthid provided the structure that I used for the Force Powers and Raken provided his sharp writing skills. Without the two of them working on this project it would not have been finished.<p>

6. In addition I'd like to thank the Beta Testers for their work in ironing out a lot of the early bugs. <p>

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<p>News</p>

<p>

Grand Master Jac Cotelin: Golden Lightsaber x 2: On behalf of a thankful Dark Council I am honored to award Grand Master Cotelin his second Golden Lightsaber. The Golden Lightsaber is the pinnacle of Dark Brotherhood awards and only 9 members in our history have earned one. Grand Master Cotelin is now the first Dark Brotherhood member to earn two.<p>

This award should not come as a surprise to anyone. Jac has sacrificed his personal time and energy to ensure the Dark Brotherhood's continued success and growth. Over the last two years he has created multiple upgrades to our website, safeguarded it from MYSQL injector attacks, and now released coding that will ensure our continued customization of this complex website. <p>

Personally, I would like to thank Jac for all of his work. Jac has served as my closest confidant and friend during my reign as GM and I am overly joyed to grant him this award. <p>

Karel=Amethyst Kukri: Karel's dedication and support to the SCL staff ensured that the character sheets were released on time. Without Karel's help over the past several months we would have been greatly challenged to finish the Character sheets within the year 2008. His coding support and efforts allowed for the quick solution to multiple problems and it is only fitting that he receive the AK for his efforts.<p>

Raken=Amethyst Kukri: It is a little tricky awarding Raken because he does more behind the scenes work than almost anyone in the history of the Dark Brotherhood. Raken creates content for the Dark Brotherhood in the form of Great Jedi Wars (the current GJW fiction is looking to monstrous) and at the same time found the ability to create the Dark Brotherhood Order Discipline system. Raken created the Discipline system based off of a twenty minute conversation that we had and from there he created a detailed and phenomenal system unlike anything in the history of the Dark Brotherhood. Over the next several days we will see additional tricks of the Discipline system playing out and Raken will once again provide the DB with a new and exciting chapter.<p>

Kir/Halc/Muz=Sapphire Blades: The Dark Brotherhood is fortunate to have members of the Elder class who have given their efforts and time in pursuit of making our club a better place. Over the past year Muz/Kir/Halc have contributed to the Dark Brotherhood Character sheets in numerous ways. Muz provided countless hours worth of work on graphics while Halc and Kir spent hour upon hour editing volumes of information. If anyone has ever read my work, then they know that it takes quite a bit of editing. Thanks for your year of dedication on this project!<p>

Orv=SCL and Krath Archpriest: Orv has been a phenomenal addition to the SCL staff and has torn through bugs and coding over the past several months. His hard work has led to both his appointment as the new SCL and as a promotion to Krath Archpriest. Orv has many challenges ahead of him to fill the roles of GM Cotelin, but if his recent work is any indication the Dark Brotherhood will be in good hands!<p>

Revy=RS: Pontifex RevengeX Palpatine has served as a model member and leader in the Dark Brotherhood for his entire career. Over the past six months he has further established his reputation as one of our best while serving in the role of Tribune: Wiki. Revenge's constant dedication and vigilance has ensured our Wiki as one of the best in Star Wars fandom. During the course of the last six months Rev has personally edited over a 1000 WIKI pages. This number alone is stunning if you do not count in all of Rev's additional contributions to the Wiki. Rev has constantly updated Wiki policy and provided mentorship to our new members as they struggle through the process of using the Wiki. Revenge has elevated the use of his staff and has led them to make several outstanding aesthetic and content changes to our Wiki. His work has improved the wiki beyond anything I could have imagined. Rev, thanks for your dedication and hard work!<p>

Character Sheets: The Character sheets are Dark Brotherhood Character sheets not ACC Character sheets. The new sheets will be used for the ACC but they are available and are meant to be used by every single member of the Dark Brotherhood. We have approved 370 at this time!! <p>

ACC and Character sheets: A lot of questions have come in concerning the Character sheets and a guide for them. This guide will be created over the next couple of weeks (or as soon as possible) and will be available on our website (in text first, then on the website). At this time, please keep your questions coming to Muz/Sarin/Raken/Kir/BF. <p>

Force Pool/Force Defense/Force Reflex: There were several questions on the initial release of the Character Sheets that has led us to rename a few of the attributes. Will is now known as Force Pool, Fortitude is now known as Force Defense, and Reflex is now known as Force Reflex. These new names put more emphasis on the fact that they are force based attributes . <p>

GJW: Whoohooo. The Great Jedi War is tenatively scheduled for the end of January or the first few days of February. We have a draft of all events for the competition and are now putting the final touches on them. Rules and events should be sent to the Consuls prior to Christmas for their comments and input. Keep an eye out on Raken's fictional updates as GJW trivia will be based off of our storyline to include what is happening now. Oh yeah, GJW storyline...its like 100 pages. Cliff notes will be provided :p<p>

<p>Awards</p>

Congratulations: Medals: Jac on the wtfpwn 2 x GLS, Raken and Karel on the AKs, Halc/Muz/Kir on the SBs, RevyX on his RS, and Fae on her SC.

Congratulations: Promotions: Orv is a KAP, Invic is a SBM, Praj is a Prelate, Vorion is a Priest, and Yzarc is a Prelate!!!

Raken Quote of the Week:<p>

@Raken tussocks...the Indian guide Columbus used while exploring America...yeah, he's still here

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<p>Real Life</p>

-> <- <p>

Vacation: I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season. I am on a few days of vacation and then I plan on heading back to work (I am going back on vacation in January when baby #2 shows up).<p>

<p>Final Thoughts</p>

Activity!: I have noticed a lot of the Clans are implementing a policy that requires members to a certain level of activity each month. I wanted to comment on this so everyone is tracking where the GM and DB Policy rest on this.<p>

No one should force activity. A lot of us have library cards but they don't cut us off if we don't check out a book for the month. I wouldn''t be part of a clan, or club, that demanded activity. The Dark Brotherhood has a history of lazy Equites and Elders and it is a part of our charm. We can't force activity in a volunteer organization.<p>

I don't want everyone to get to hung up on the word activity thinking it equates success. If you have ten people forced into competing into your competition you are not successful. The trick is getting ten people to want to participate in your competition. If not, stop with the repetitive competitions and go back to the drawing board. <p>

I believe a lot of these new activity requirements are really my fault. I alluded to the possibility of a Clan being closed if they lost in the upcoming GJW. I appreciate everyone's commitment to motivate their members but you should not do it through threats. A member should be able to enjoy the club through a clan interface without having to do anything more than what they enjoy and answering the odd awol email just to let people know they're alive. Some might simply enjoy chatting with friends on IRC. They may not like writing or gaming. They might not want to do yet another terribly interesting caption contest. The people we put in charge to administrate these sub-units should be motivating their members by getting creative and sparking interest. It's not easy. It's not really hard though either.

<p>Done!

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