---

An Age Undreamed Of - DGM Report

"That is strength, boy! That is power! What is steel compared to the hand that wields it? Look at the strength in your body, the desire in your heart, I gave you this! Such a waste. Contemplate this on the tree of woe. Crucify him!" - Thulsa Doom

Dark Crusade P2C3 Finale

8 November - 22 November

This is it. The final push. The last chance to edge out your competition. The last chance to earn some more hardware. The last chance to increase your Prestige (at least in the club). And the last chance at bragging rights on who kicked ass, who got their ass kicked, and who will forever be enshrined as the Winner of the Dark Crusade.

Good luck and thanks for a hell of a year.

Check here for additional Dark Crusade information, standings, etc.

Recruitment Tribune

Applications Due Midnight 12 October

Social Media and getting our "brand" out there. We're making this a priority in the run-up to the new Star Wars films.

What form will this take?

What we're envisioning right now is obviously a project lead (Tribune - I hate this name. We can do better.) to head up a small team of people who can attack the obligatory social mediums out there with our message and what we offer. But it has to go beyond that. What do we attack them with?

Content.

It's kind of an industry term, but for us, content is basically what we do here everyday. Every time you read a report or peruse a wiki article or Shadow Academy course, you're consuming a form of content. We also have a great backlog of content (Wiki articles, etc.) that can be mined for this method of getting our product in front of people. What we're going to start doing though as well is looking to filter our absolute best offerings and feed those into the various social media outlets.

The Dark Council will provide a good bit of this content in the form of articles, essays, or other items that relate to their particular corner of the club or even Star Wars, Sci-Fi/Fantasy topics in general. This combined with the best of our wiki material, fiction, art, etc., will help feed the social beast a steady diet of high-quality tangibles that will let potential members know what we're all about.

And we won't stop there. We'll also be looking to formalize a process where the Recruitment Tribune team can receive content from anyone in the club, make sure it meets our standards, and then publish it to our various outlets as well. So everyone will at some point be involved. And cool club-internal things can be generated from this as well: Medals for approved articles, exposure for our resident talent in avenues not normally available, and so on.

This is actually all pretty cool and gets me motivated for what's ahead. What do you guys think? Be sure to let us know. And if you're interested in the job, apply.

Additional application details and thoughts from Muzenstein's news post can be found here.

Get You Some

Valhavoc, Fist of the Dark Brotherhood - Promotion to Sith Battlelord

I have had the pleasure of hiring many outstanding and talented members for key positions throughout the club. I have to say Valhavoc has been one of the most impressive and successful Dark Councilors I have ever seen. Val has stepped up to all the pressure and responsibility therein and not just met the challenge, but exceeded it.

In the past there has been a tendency for Dark Councilors to become stagnant in their positions. We sometimes forget that Fist is about more than just gaming. Voice is about more than just writing. So on and so forth. We sometimes forget to push the boundaries of what the last occupant of the position did.

Not so with Val.

Val took up his new position and immediately recognized the potential for improvement, expansion, and innovation. One of his most recognizable achievements immediately upon taking the office were the improvements to the way we award Clusters of Fire. Overnight, Val greatly reduced the turn-around time for awarding these important Gaming achievements and simultaneously increased the fairness by which they are processed.

He has also explored and implemented new games and platforms for Gaming competitions at all levels. Recognizing the importance of mobile connectivity, Val has run a number of mobile-based gaming events to explore the potential of this increasingly critical means of interaction with our membership. These events have been very popular and are sure to become a new standard activity for the club.

As well as ushering in the new, Val has gone back and revisited the old. Immediately upon taking office he was faced with the problem of securing new servers for some of our staple games such as Jedi Academy and Jedi Outcast. He undertook the financial burden of this duty without so much as a word and also personally resolved the many technical glitches that resulted.

He has also begun an ongoing revision of the sometimes nebulous and confusing Rites of Combat. Val continues to work on all this while supporting the colossal Dark Crusade Vendetta with well-received gaming events, scoring, tracking, and a great deal of help outside his Gaming purview. He has made that process far easier and more fun for the rest of us involved and is almost always the first to report his scores.

If Valhavoc was impressive at the House and Clan level, I can personally attest to him being even more impressive at the Dark Council level. I can see plainly now why Val rose so far so quickly. It has been a pleasure to have him on the DC with us and I look forward to what is yet to come from the office of the Fist.

Val, please accept this promotion on behalf of a grateful Brotherhood.

The New Star Wars Films and Their Impact on the DB

We had a nice little discussion about this on the Dark Summit. Out of it came several points, chiefly, the previously arrived at conclusion that this club needs to do more in the realm of social media in order to take advantage of the likely groundswell of fans who will be looking for a Star Wars fix come 2015. So social media is nothing new. In the past, we've attempted a Facebook presence here and there, but we have been woefully negligent of advertising ourselves with the intention of recruiting new members.

So we took in a great deal of advice and suggestions and created the Recruitment Tribune position. Not the best name, I know. But it pretty much sums up what we're after. So if you're media savvy, mature, and dedicated, let us know.

The other main concern was/is/has been the new films invoking something that will affect our canon negatively. Theories on how to deal with this range from scrapping our canon to branching off into an alternate timeline.

Personally, I don't think this is end times. The sky isn't falling. While it's true JJ Abrams retconned Star Trek canon with his films, the Trek Expanded Universe hasn't shattered that I'm aware of. I believe what will help us navigate whatever may come (and we frankly don't know what is coming yet) is that for decades we have been in the business of crafting fiction and our own personal canon around the myriad of obstacles presented by not only official Star Wars Expanded Universe canonical events, but the original films as well. So if anyone is prepared to meet this potential challenge, the Dark Brotherhood is uniquely positioned to do so.

But what we will or won't do specifically to deal with what may or may not happen will need to be decided once we have more information and are closer to the release of the films. Personally I'm against scrapping our canon in any way, shape, or form. I think we have a fantastically detailed tapestry of fiction here and I want to protect it. Adaptation, just like in real life, is key. We'll be fine no matter what is headed our way.

Another key component of this equation has already been addressed: the new website. We are ready to meet the challenges ahead with a brand-new, modern site and all the functionality therein. So this is yet another advantage we possess as we look ahead to 2015.

So I've heard from some/most of your leaders. But what do you think? I'd like to hear from people I didn't hear from during the email discussion. Leave me some comments or send me an email and let me get your take on the new films, what we might expect, and what we could do about it.

Great Jedi War XI

This is a ways off. But I am excited about the story and its potential to shake things up in the Brotherhood. As in past Vendetta stories I've been involved in, things will happen that have never happened before. There will be a couple of surprises. And most importantly, we will be working to include YOU the member (the reason we're all here) as much as possible.

I'd like to take it a step further and have the characters that are featured play an essential role in driving the plot forward. Think Lost. Many characters. Some major, some minor, but all served a purpose that drove events. It's ambitious and it's complicated and it may not materialize as fully as I would like, but it is the plan going forward. As Muz has said, there are drawbacks. People disappear on us and take their characters with them, they change units, they do other unexpected things that have complicated stories we've done in the past.

So we'll be looking for some special people. One from each unit to represent what their corner of the Brotherhood brings to the table and to give the fans at home someone to follow and cheer on.

More details as we go...

House & Clan Armed Forces

We have two items on this front currently:

• Spend the Points you all have been saving
• Possessions

First off, following the Crusade (I don't know exactly when) we will do a final round of purchases, etc., so you all can use the Fleet/Armed Forces Points you've been saving these last several months. We'll get it all done in one shot and bring you guys up-to-date because...

Possessions is going to change (for the most part) how we acquire Armed Forces units. As you know, we are moving to a credits-based system to purchase virtually everything we fictionally own. Not only is this change taking place for individuals, but units as well. And one of the big items affected will be Armed Forces.

But moving forward, purchases will be made with unit funds in credits rather than points. Opportunities to make purchases, upgrades, sales, etc., will still be periodic through each year. We've talked about opening the process up on DB holidays, etc. The reason for this is to limit Summit turnover from sticking everyone with a new ad hoc force every time there's a new Consul or Quaestor.

So not much else will change. Periodic buys. Credits instead of points. I can also see potential for another round of modernization to what we offer for purchase given Pravus' Fleet Modernization project of updating the Armed Forces of the Iron Throne as well as the wealth of new canon we've received over the years.

Vendettas will likely reward credits in the future as prizes. History buffs will note that once upon a time we simply gave ships away for winning Vendettas. The higher you placed, the better the ship you received. There is potential for doing this once in a while too as a special award, but mostly the intent is to give members the ability to get what they want and the easiest way to do that is by awarding credits.

Tabletop Gaming For the DB

Received a proposal for this recently. It runs through your browser and requires no software and can be used with many types of RPG systems.

Interested in this as a possible DB activity? Let me know so I can get an idea if we want to support this.

DGM November Leave of Absence

I will not be around for pretty much the entirety of November. I have a perfect storm of wedding anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, and training courses that have me booked up throughout the month. I will be on email but likely not very responsive until the storm passes and I navigate safely into the relative calm of December.

Also, November marks one year as DGM. No big deal, but I wanted to take the opportunity to bring it up now because I won't be around next month.

I'd like to thank Muz for giving me the job. I get to play Star Wars with you all here and that is pretty cool and humbling. I'd also like to thank my shit-hot, kick ass Dark Council. This is the most impressive group of DC'ers I think we've ever had. Absolutely outstanding bunch and I'm thrilled I get to work with them every day.

I haven't burned anything down yet, so at least there's that.

Thanks, all.

Shadow Hand Resources

Things you might find useful that sometimes get lost in the shuffle of reports.

Dark Crusade Leader Board

Dark Brotherhood Comic Book Archive

Dark Jedi Brotherhood Armed Forces Worksheet (MTOE)

Hit me up if there's something you need. People do this frequently and I'm usually able to help out fairly quickly.

Next Time...

• The ACC is coming back and I know people who are testing the beta right now! OMG!
• Raken blogs - Yeah, it's coming. I'm going to opine more about Sci-Fi/Fantasy in general.
• More reviews - As I read more little gems here and there (comics, novels, etc.) I'll be letting you know what I think and where your disposable income might be well spent.
• Crepes. Really thin pancakes, or something more?

---

"Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." - Proverbs 27:17

See you out there,

R