Greetings everyone and welcome to my #48th report as Grand Master of the Dark Brotherhood. This report will highlight a lot of major updates over the past sixty days and cover the Dark Council's plans moving forward into spring and this summer.

• Competitions: Rogue One Results
• Administration: Star Chamber Selection, Position Changes, and Open Positions
• Administration: Systems Design and Updates
• Ask the GM: Ask and you shall Receive
• Final Thoughts: Unit Reports and Episode VIII

Rogue One: Competition Results

Our Rogue One Celebration Competition concluded earlier this week and Augur Atra Ventus (Arcona) was crowned the overall champion. Reaver Kasula Daegella (Odan Urr) finished second and Warlord Andrelious J. Mimosa-Inahj (Taldryan) finished third. The top three have earned new accessories for their dossier: That is no moon. These accessories are also a part of our possessions system and Evant has already uploaded them into the system. You can see them here: Systems Synergy.

You can see all of the results and the complete leader board at: Leaderboard. Congratulations to all of the winners and in particular to the winner of the Battle Plan, Knight Ka Tarvitz (Odan Urr)! Great work!

Lastly, Wally and I co-graded the run on and have opened up the grading sheets for everyone to see. We are doing this in the spirit of transparency and also giving the participants feedback on what to work on in the future. The top two teams did an outstanding job in the run on and it was a nearly a coin toss on the winner. Wally has also published his fiction grading as well. You can check them both out:

• Fiction Grading — Feedback/Scorecards

• Run-On Grading — Feedback/Scorecards

Administration: Star Chamber Selection, Position Changes, and Open Positions

The Star Chamber, Dark Council, and Clan Plagueis have all had position additions and changes over the past week.

1. The Star Chamber: Section 3.02 of the Covenant provides the process of selection for temporary members of the Star Chamber. These members must be of elder rank, held membership in the Dark Brotherhood for over eight years, and must have served for two years on the Dark Council or one year as a DGM or JST. The selection of these new members was carried out over the past month and I am proud to announce Eminent Val Cole (selected by Grand Master Cotelin), and Darth Aeternus (selected by Grand Master Ashen) as our first new Star Chamber members. You can read all about the Star Chamber in the updated Covenant: Star Chamber Details.

2. The Master at Arms: Dark Prophet Howlader assumed the position of Holy Medal Protector earlier this week following Aabs long and successful tenure as Chief Antagonist to all bad Medal Recommendations. Mav and I decided to forego the typical application process for the Master at Arms position due to Howie's detailed understanding of the office and his tremendous work as Praetor. We "often" select the Praetor and Proconsuls to replace their Dark Councilors because they gain a tremendous amount of insight into the requirements they will be asked to fulfill. While we do not always make this decision, it was an easy decision to move Howie into the MAA slot. Please take the time to congratulate him on his new position!

3. Clan Plagueis Consul: Please Congratulate Selika Roh di Plagia on his elevation to the position of Consul. Slags has done an outstanding job as Proconsul since September of 2015 and has earned the right to move into the Consul role. Please take the time congratulate Slags on taking my old Chair :p

Administration: Systems Design, Updates, and New House

The Dark Jedi Brotherhood continues to evolve and change as we strive to find new and better content for our members. The release of Possessions has come and gone and Evant and his team of clerks are busy adding new content to our stores. The feedback for possessions has been tremendous and we look forward to continuing to work on it over the coming year. We are also looking forward to bringing new content to our club now that the bulk of possessions is complete and we can focus on other projects. Please take the time to read about current content and the upcoming projects the DC will be working on.

1. Possessions Credits: Evant has talked me into providing a one time gift to all of our Clans due to the tremendous support we have received relating to the Possessions system. Therefore, I am granting each clan an additional 10 million credits. There is no restriction on how you spend these credits (Suggestion: Golden Pravus Statues). Enjoy.

2. Possessions Rogue One Content Update: Darth Logistics released a Rogue One update that included 68 new items with over 5,000 words of description coming from a combination of Legends, Rogue One, Rebels, The Clone Wars and Battlefront. You can see Evant's full breakdown here: Rogue One Update.

3. Graphics Society: The Herald has proposed a new Graphics Society to provide our artistically capable members with a new outlet of creativity and activity. I had previously approved the Society, but we wanted to take a look at the Cluster of Graphite and determine what type of system would be best for a new Society. Vyr has worked extensively with Evant and the two of them have made progress on crunching the numbers. We are tentatively planning to release this new society this summer following the completion of the Great Jedi War. Vyr will keep everyone up to date on the Society's progress and we will more than likely be working with the members to ensure we are adding something valuable to the club.

4. New House: I have approved Clan Tarentum's official proposal to open a new house. Frosty and BF submitted their proposal earlier this month and Mav and I are agree that Tarentum can handle the extra house. This is a big step for Tarentum after coming extremely close to closing in the spring of 2015. I can't say enough about the leadership teams and members of the Clan over the past couple years. The new House's leadership team, name, and design are pending final approval, but more news will come shortly. Congrats guys!

5. Traditions: The inclusion of traditions in the Dark Brotherhood was a way for us to allow our members to honor their glory days as a Krath and Obelisk. Unfortunately we have not done a very good job at updating traditions and providing new content for members to work with in further fleshing out their characters. Please take a look at the following list and provide content (if you are interested) on these report's comment thread. Vyr through these out to the DC and I have already approved "Iron Legion" and "Iron Navy" as two new Traditions.

• Mandalorian Traditions
  1) Death Watch
  2) Supercommandos
  3) Mandalorian Protectors
  4) Nite Owls

• Criminal traditions
  1) Black Sun
  2) Hutt Cartel
  3) Pyke Cartel
  4) Bounty Hunter's Guild
  5) Zygerrian Slavers

• DB traditions
  1) Inquisitorius
  2) Lotus Resistance
  3) Iron Legion
  4) Iron Navy

Ask the GM

I am not sure I have ever done an "Ask the GM" in a report before, but here is to trying new things. Thanks to everyone who took the time to throw some questions my way on Telegram.

1. Justinios Drake Asks: What is the one feature you would add or update if you could wave a magic wand? Answer(s) A New Tie Fighter Game, a DJB Trading Card Game (If someone designs DJB Gwent...), and a DJB RPG Game!

2. Evelynn Wyrm Asks: Will we be having a GJW this year? Answer Yes. The Dark Council is about to receive my initial guidance on this spring/early summer's GJW. We are really going to look at the competitions and scoring and try to design something that is new and fresh. We have been running fiction, graphics, battle plans, and run on competitions for years. While these events are the standard of major events, it might be time to try something a little different. We will be pushing updates to everyone over the coming months and should have some more solid details soon.

3. Aiden Lee Asks: Are the Clan story lines adding up the way you thought leading up to the GJW. Answer Yes. Darth Pravus is not a likable fellow and the Clans have responded to his tyrannical ways just about how we expected. I'm not a huge fan of story arcs that are predictable and we could see some changes leading up to the GJW. Afterall, we did have a GJW where everyone was going to fight the Yuuzhan Vong on Antei only to find Omancor Crask and his Force Adherents. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a twist on the upcoming plot (Pravus is a Jedi, for realz).

4. Kat Asks: In years from now, when the horrible and ungrateful children of the Brotherhood have taken over and everything the Old Ones love lays in dusty ruin, what is the one thing you want them to remember you by? And why? Answer That I was never afraid of change, that I love our club, and that I wanted the DJB to be a place where everyone could come to have a good time.

Conclusion

Mav has just released his latest Unit Evaluations to the Clan Consuls and Proconsuls. Mav has been doing this since he became the DGM and it is our way of tracking a units progress in certain key areas. We take a look at new joins, new Knightings, participation in competitions, unique participation, and the number of awards each unit brings in. This lets us engage the Consuls on the metrics we find valuable as well as hear their thoughts on why certain numbers may be down. Overall, it gives us a snapshot on the health of the club and keeps me from freaking out that we did not have more random joins associated with Rogue One (we had plenty).

We also take a look at some other automated tracking that the website does for us (Unit Leadership Evaluations) that keep us informed of who is writing reports and when was the last time we awarded them for doing a good job. All in all these tools help us manage and track the DJB and our members. I loathe to remember the days when I used an XLS to track the activity of an entire Clan (It was the ISD II Grey Wolf in actuality, but that was a long time ago) and used email to keep track of everything (an Average DJB email week is a 1000 emails).

The good thing about these tools and some of the metrics that Mav and I use is that it allows us to make decisions that are not based in opinion or emotion, but often fact. We can quickly review participation stats and talk to our leaders when they start to slip in certain areas. Obviously there are other aspects to our club and the numbers do not tell the only story. Arcona fosters a sense of community in their members that is not something we can capture outside of knowing how the members of that Clan feel about each other, but whatever it is that Atty and her team do, it works. That undefinable metric or feeling is not something we are going to capture, but it is something that is very important.

The reason I am highlighting the metrics we use and the "gut instinct" we go with in some decision making is because there was a great comment this week about how decisions are made in the DJB. I've talked about this in the past and the examples above pretty much define the way business is done. We look at the numbers, but we also try to talk to the people to determine if the numbers are hiding an aspect that might change my decision on firing/hiring a new leader. More importantly, decisions are almost never made alone. I never decide to fire/hire/change a system/delete an order/fail to award based on my opinion alone. The DJB is just to big of a place for me to have subject matter expertise in all areas and that is why we have function Dark Councilors who are empowered to help me make my mind. Likewise, this also keep us honest in the event there is a personal bias between myself and members of our club. I shouldn't be awarding Bobecc because he is my nephew and on the other side of the coin I shouldn't be denying a member a chance at a medal because I think they are an idiot. Yes, I know there are members out there who believe the leadership of this club want to keep them down, but I can assure everyone that we do not have a blackball list and we certainly do not sit around envisioning ways to keep member X from ever reaching the glorious heights of sitting on the Iron Throne. This has always been a club of 2nd and 44th chances and there isn't a member of the DJB who can't earn a role here by the virtue of their actions (the covenant spells it out in greater detail).

Anyways, bit of rant there at the end, but I did want to capture the way we do business and make decisions.

WAIT! One last thing. The Last Jedi, eh? Not a bad Title for Episode 8 and not a bad Sith Red color scheme for the Logo. I'm stoked to finally see Luke Skywalker revealed as the villain he has been all along! It will be glorious!