Tarentum Quaestor Report

Greetings Tarenti!

October has begun, and here that means it has started to rain pretty much constantly and get dark around 6 PM. That's great, because there are far fewer excuses to go do things outside now! Speaking of outside, a few folks have asked to see my wedding photos, so here are links to our two photo albums. Enjoy!

Professional Photos

Friends and Family Photos

State of the House

Now that that's out of the way, I'd like to discuss the current state of House Tarentum with you all a little. I'll begin by saying that these are somewhat precarious times for Tar, but we still have a fighting chance. We saw a great surge of activity and enthusiasm that Ernordeth dubbed "Tarentum Momentum" back when he and I became Quaestor and Aedile just a few short months ago. It's normal for a change in leadership to generate some excitement and this was no exception. Now that has subsided, the roster has changed a bit, and we've hit a little bit of a rough patch.

Not to worry: everything is proceeding as I have foreseen. The rough patch will pass and we'll get back on track. We just need everyone (that means you!) to hop in and do a competition now and then. There are tons of them to choose from. When November comes and it's Crusade time again, we need everybody to show up and bring it. We only have 28 people on the roster, so each individual in the House counts for nearly 4% of the possible overall participation!

Nearly all of you have heard this a thousand times already, but it bears repeating: competitions are the main activity of the Dark Brotherhood. It's what we do here. Presumably, Star Wars themed writing and/or gaming was the reason you decided to join up in the first place. I know it can be hard to justify spending the time when there are so many other things to do in real life, but when else in life do you get to be a bad ass Dark Jedi?

It's not all bad news, though. Participation in gaming is actually doing really well. Frosty, Lockthesith, Bloodfyre, Oberst and a number of others are tearing it up in TOR pretty much constantly. It's a great way to earn CoFs, boost your rank in the GMRG, and more importantly to have some fun with your friends from Tarentum. These guys are experts and glad to lend a hand to anybody who is interested in getting into the game.

For the more standard competitions I've been trying to push the boundaries a little and keep them fresh. Please let me know how I'm doing! If you liked some of them, hated some of them, or have ideas for other ones go ahead and shoot me an email or ping me on IRC. The feedback makes my job a ton easier.

Aedile

As I'm sure you are all aware, Ernordeth was accepted as the new Quaestor of House Qel-Droma over with our allies in Clan Arcona. He did an outstanding job as Aedile here and I already miss him, but I am accepting applications for the position up to October 15th. I already have a couple of good entries, and hopefully a few more will filter in before the deadline. The best applications will be discussed with Muz, Raken, Dranik, and a few others before a selection is made.

The person who becomes Aedile will have a good understanding of Tarentum's current situation (ie. read the section above) and have some ideas for ways to continue to improve it. They will be someone who is motivated, organized, and an excellent communicator. Rank and prior experience are not particularly important to me. I can teach you how to do the work of being Aedile, but I need you to already have the right personality and attitude for the job. Being Aedile of an Independent House is a high profile job and comes with a high potential for reward if you're good at it.

Competitions

When I look at the competition listing and click the "Relevance" checkbox, I see 14 competitions.

Competition Listing

Here are a few selections that may pique your interest:

• I Am So Proud - A tough crypto competition (no correct entries yet!)
• Free Howie - A Flash game with a panda
• Very Funny - Short humorous poetry
• Complexity - Short fiction
• Flick it good - Android/iOS game
• Furious Fowl - Star Wars Angry Birds
• Zombie Highway - Driving game with zombies and guns
• Mass Effect 3 - Play ME3 with friends for CFs

Awards, Promotions, Shadow Academy and Other Notable Stuff

Since Ernordeth's last Aedile report, the following stuff has happened:

• Oberst, Jason Hunter and Frosty all placed in "Spreading Death".
• Karel became a Dark Pundit in both Essentials and Vendetta.
• Lockthesith won 14 CFs.
• Lev won 5 CFs.
• Bloodfyre won 11 CFs and a PoB.
• Frosty won 23 clusters and 1 PoB.
• Seren won 1st place in Furious Fowl II.
• Lockthesith, Bloodfyre and Dox all placed in "Champion of Tau - September".
• Korras (aka. Darth Aeternus) came back to Tarentum!
• Seren Dipity transferred to HOU.
• Ernordeth transferred to HQD.

In Closing

Thanks everyone for their efforts in gaming and TOR. If you need a clue for "I Am So Proud", here are two for the price of one:

1. It's kind of like ROT13 but with a few other fun things thrown in there.
2. The title of the competition is significant.

-- SBM Scion "Firebird" Altera (Sith)/QUA/Tarentum [ACC: III] GC-PoDP / SC / AC-ToDS / DC-SP / BN-BL / Cr:3S-10E-1T-1Q / CI-PC / DSS / SoF / LS-BL / SoL-BE / S:6U-4B-3De-2Dec-3Aff {SA: MVL - SVLC} PIN: 9335