The holonet receiver chirped at him. He ignored it at first, piloting his ship through the murk of the Caldera. The shroud kept almost everyone out, kept Antei safe like a blanket made of dead stars and gravity shadows. It tested his skill to fly through it himself, despite his strength in the Force.

It chirped again. Shikyo blinked at it, letting an invisible hand activate the comm. The sound of Mirado's voice filled the bridge, the Chandrilan lilt behind the Miraluka's voice pronounced. The herald processed the sound quickly, knowing full well that he was distressed for his old accent to come out.

"Still, no sign of Methyas." Mirado spat, and with good reason. The newly re-organized clan needed leadership from it's Consul, and theirs had vanished. "And we've had two more defectors."

Shikyo sneered as he maneouvered around a sizable asteroid, probably part of some long devastated moon or other. "Defectors? Where'd they go? Arcona?"

"They went to join Odan-Urr." Mirado grimaced in distaste before continuing. "How long is your brother going to allow..."

Shikyo cut him off. "There's elements in play that I am sure you haven't seen yet. Like Tsainetomo used to say 'All things will be revealed..."

"...in the fullness of time, yeah. Still, we need... direction."

Shikyo shrugged. "Turn to the Sons."

"Drunks, madmen and egomaniacs, all." Mirado sneered. "They are too busy with their own pain and plans to help the clan raise the banner again."

"And yet, the banner will soon need to be raised, the battle drums sound once again." Shikyo paused for a moment. "And you'll need them, more than ever."

---

The Lion of Tarthos snarled at the information before him. It had been corroborated twice now, and he had wondered how it could have evaded his agents. Deep cover agents in the clans and houses weren't able to suss out the truth of things, yet a Taldrya could. Kaek's work to build a network had benefited that house severely, yet somehow it was not yet enough to survive the winnowing of late years.

He pushed the datapad aside on the desk, standing while pushing the heavy laroon wood chair away. He paced for a moment, then turned toward the back of the office, the heavy drapes in the regal purple of the Krath swept away from the stone behind a pedestal. He stood before it, dark eyes boring into the ornately carved box, eyes tracing the fine lines and crafted corners. There was no hinges, no seams, no latches. Yet he knew what lay inside, dormant.

A tone interrupted his meditation. Blinking, the Grand Master turned and stepped away, finding his way through the hidden door that led to the ancient throne. Ringed by torches, the dull metal shone in the firelight. He circled the seat of power, waiting for the obfuscated door to close behind him before signalling to the Guardsman to allow the visitor entry.

The human came in quietly, hood lowered in deference, green eyes carefully set on the floor before him. Respect, not fear. Muz could taste the difference in the air. It wasn't really a sense on his tongue, but that was the only way to describe it. Kal Vorrac was smart, not frightened.

The Coruscanti dropped to a knee, placing a fist on the ground with his head bowed.

"What is thy bidding, my master?"

---

"The fleet is all but assembled, Master Loira." The armored man didn't even take his helmet off for the holo. It irritated the Jedi, but it was something he could live with. If the fools under the son of Vader refused to help him, he would make do with what he could. Loira shrugged off the sneer, little motes of dust flying from his shoulder.

"I'll have coordinates for you in a month. Have them ready for a protracted engagement, and ready to move on a moment's notice." Loira fired back, turning to see Ollie nodding his head, the door locking behind him.

"Be not concerned with my men's ability to fight, sir. We will be ready for wanything you throw at us." The helmet again. Loira wondered if the general had ever let someone else talk to him instead of himself. Witht he vocoder and the helmet, he'd never know the difference. "We are awaiting the final payment."

Loira nodded slowly, eyes drifting to a durasteel case on the desk. "You'll need to pick it up in person."

"I wouldn't trust it to anyone else, sir." The holocomm closed out.

Loira turned from the projector, resting a hand on the case, feeling the cool metal beneath his fingertips before flipping the catches and letting his eyes rest on the item inside.

"It wasn't easy." Ollie smiled.

"Yet here it is." Loira chuckled. "Was it where we thought it would be?"

"No, that would have been impossible." The white-haired Jedi laughed. "It was on his ship, so it was just really difficult."

Loira arched an eyebrow. "How did you do it?"

Ollie smiled at his plan. "Everyone has Praetors, and the more people you hire, the higher a chance that one of them can be bought."

Loira crossed his arms. "Was his man killed?"

"Who cares? Another Sith dead only would add to the cause."

Loira rubbed his chin. "We wait for the three hours for him to come get this," He gestured at the case, "Then we are on the move again. Find us a spot on Mimban."

"Why so soon?" Ollie questioned. The ruitine had been to change locations every three days. It used to be five, but things kept happening. He wondered if he missed something.

"Because I don't want to die before our plans are fully in motion." Loira closed the case, taking a final look at the durasteel cylinder inside as the lid snapped into place. "And it sounds like it was too easy."

"You think..."

"I think it's a trap."

It's report time.

The biggest news for Star Wars stuff lately has been the The Old Republic MMO preorder. There's a variety of packs to get reserved, from the basic $60 version of the game up to the monster $150 version with statues, a book, and the soundrack cd. I'll probably end up buying the collector's edition, but I need to plunk down some cash on a computer capable of running it first. :/

Our guild set up has over 150 members signed up already for it. There's a lot of DB members (obviously) signed up for it, but also a lot of non-members who will be seeing how we do things in-game. Please keep in mind that you're representing the club when you're dealing with them, so make them feel welcome, and show them how we own.

I know we're all looking forward to the game, but keep an eye out for posts from Fremoc as we get closer, as he'll be setting up raiding schedules and the like, so we can all grind our way to success that much faster. I know that I'll languish at the lower levels without that help, so may as well take advantage like I will be.

With the TOR launch right around the corner (the current wisdom says that it will launch in November or so) we're looking down the barrel of a Great Jedi War. Provided that TOR launches in November or later, we won't have any overlap at all. We're still looking at a late September launch, exact date to be determined.

The war will last a short but brutal four weeks, with various competitions from across the board. As usual, you can expect a few wild-card events, too. As has been mentioned in the past few weeks, we'll be having the talented Anthony Warne do the comic to one of my scripts to tell the story, but we will also have a fictionalization with mroe detail and more backstory filled in for those who want to read it. All the stuff that is important for participating in basic events will be in the easy-to-read comic, though you may want to still read the fictionalization for greater detail and to have an edge in fiction events.

And since I'm teasing, i'll tease a bit further.

Sorry about the redacted stuff, but we're trying to keep as much of the plot under wraps as we can for now.

House Odun-Urr Quaestor applications are still being accepted until the first of August. Only a few days left.

On the subject of Odan-Urr, I wanted to give a shout out to Ji.

There are some who take only what they are given, walk the paths that are already there. And then there are those that seek other routes, take machete and clear their own way. While there has been discussion about a light-side house for as long as I have been on the DC, none worked to make it a reality until Ji. His ideas and plans were solid, but difficult to work in an established unit, something he discovered first hand in Tarentum, and it was only a matter of time before I knew I'd be reading a house proposal from him. I did not expect so bold a move. It takes a deft hand to create a house, and a lot of work to build up a reputation from the ground. He did not have the luxury of building off of what already existed due to his concept. And recruiting a bunch of similarly minded people to aid his cause, Odan-Urr was born. It is his brainchild. Further helping the brotherhood by trying to market this concept to the world beyond the Brotherhood, his actions have served to set in motion plans that will be benefiting the club for years.

Recently, his real life has flared up, and Ji's time was needed elsewhere, he needed to step down from active summit. Halc and I had to look again at what he had made, what we had taken more or less for granted for the last few months. It became glaringly obvious that Ji needed to be promoted for this hard work. And while we both hope that we get him back from the demons of real life soon, we wanted to at least send him off knowing that we do recognize his work and appreciate it.
Thank you, Ji. Come back soon.

Korras and Dash are compiling and processing the huge results of the AWOL check. There's a lot of work there, but it is critical stuff, especially as how it concerns house and clan status. Look for more details from Korras as the results get tabulated.

Just to put it out there again, for those who haven't been reading for the last few years: The invitation to make a proposal to be reclanned is based ona large variety of factors, from actual retention rate and membership levels (gauged by semi-annual AWOL checks like this one) to actual activity rate (gauged by mail list activity, competition activity and wins, wiki work and forum activity). It's a rather holistic view, but key to it all is activity and how you treat and keep your new recruits.

I've said it before, but I would love nothing more than to reclan a house or two every awol, but we have to have it make sense. We can't just give it away and hope it sticks. So, in a nutshell, if you want your house to reclan (or you want your clan to stay a clan) you need to get out there and do stuff.

It's supposed to be fun. Try having some.

A little while ago, you saw that Shikyo and I expanded the Order stuff in the selector, and also that a new reskin for lighties came out. These were things that were getting cleaned off of our desk in preparatio for the long grind that we put in every year as we lead in to Herald Style Hannukah.

If you've joined this year, you may not know what that is. It's basically a multi-day event where Shikyo unleashes all sorts of cool dossier perks into the selector at different ranks. Last year, we had something like 19-20 different robes and an equal amoutn of sabers launched, which was bigger than the year before. It's a big enough project that we start working on it in July, so that should mean something.

Also, yes, there will be more reskins for the lighties.

I received an interesting email the other day as regards praetors. As it turns out, I've had the same Praetor since Raken retired to make House Revan. Xander had served well, even though there have been long stretches of time where I had nothing that i could assign to him. But the fact remained that i have had a Praetor for longer than I had Deputies. And with RL taking up more and more of his time, I felt that maybe it was time to see about replacing him.

Just about the same time as I was thinking that, I got this email from Kal Vorrac. Kal was looking to do more for the Brotherhood, as he knew that he had more to give to this club that we love. He was looking for anything that he could do to help out, help expand the club, or just pitch in and get his hands dirty with existing projects, since his schedule was freeing up as the big stuff he was working on for Plagueis was comign to an end. His application and the timeliness of it struck me.

I've long said that the way to leadership, the way to make a difference isn't through position, but through works. Kal has worked long and hard without seeking glory or promotion, but rather out of a genuine attitude of service and wishing to make things better. To come to that so boldly, without provocation or prompting for applications is exactly what I like to see.

To that end, Kal will serve as my Praetor. Even though this is the first announcement, he has already dove headfirst into a few projects that i have given him, and the work there has been outstanding. He's not just an idea man, but he has the chops and the drive to see things through, and that is why I'm choosing him to follow in the footsteps of people like Raken and Pyralis.

I hope for great things. The DB deserves nothing less.

Speaking of personal initiatives, Vally has gone above and beyond the call of duty and has been pushing the brotherhood by way of Twitter. With almost a thousand recruitment posts for Scholae Palatinae and the Brotherhood, he's been working fulltime on this 'social media expirement' of his, and it's frankly something that's worked before with Facebook drives. This is a bit different, and has had pretty consequential results on getting non-DB members to join our TOR guild at the very least, and I am quite impressed.

I have spoken at length about the difference between producing and consuming being the difference between the lower ranks and the elders of this organization. How the difference in attitude coming from trying to pad your dossier versus trying to grow the Brotherhood makes all the difference in the world to this club. Seeing efforts like Vally's helps me understand that these words, this paradigm has not fallen on deaf ears.

Given that, and the fact that it's been many years, terms as Consul and Quaestor, and countless medals since Vally has been promoted, Halc and I have decided to remind Valkas Tamalar Palpatine that we do appreciate his efforts and promote him to Sith Warlord, increasing his power and taking him one step closer to Dark Side Adept.

I recently found out that a fellow Star Wars club will be closing it's doors very soon. The Imperial Directorate has been one of the clubs that sprang from EH members, much like we did back in the day. Focusing more on the Imperial way rather than embracing the Force in the way that we did, the ID was part of the small internet-star-wars-club community, nevertheless.

Salth Khan's real life has taken a turn for the better and rather than let the club fall into disarray with his attentions turned elsewhere, he has decided to close it down on his own terms and bow out gracefully.

While we weren't always on the best of terms with the ID, it's still unfortunate to see a club decide to close it's doors and displace members. Some of them are members of our own club already, and others may elect to come over here when the ID closes completely. I ask any of the Brotherhood to put aside the petty politics of the past and help make these members feel as much at home as we can, welcoming them to our Brotherhood.

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Ask the GM! Locke Asks: "I haven't heard anything about the 'Grind Path' mentioned in a long time, is that still something that's going on? Will it be implemented at some point? Is there anything you can say about it?" It is still something that is going on, something that is getting worked on pretty heavily. Taigikori and his staff have been working up the courses and quizes for the Grind Path in preparation for Orv to code it all in. Orv has been pretty nusy lately with the trouble we've had witht he CGI errors and such, and that keeps him off of projects like the Grind Path and Possessions, both critical and huge projects on his desk. Since so much is tied up at this point, I can't realistically put a date of implementation on that, but it is something that we will eventually have in play.

TL;DR

*Tor pre-order is out. *GJW should be right before the TOR release. *Ji is promoted. *HOU apps open still. *AWOL Check results soonish. *HSH work under way. *Kal is new P:GM. *Vally's Twitter drive & promotion. *ID is closing.

And that's about all for this time. If you need anything, shoot me an email or a PM on IRC.

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