Hello everyone,

Today I am happy to announce a new update to the Graphics Society. These changes are the results of months of consideration as I weighed various options to streamline and improve progression in our society. It has often been said that the Graphics Society is too slow or difficult to rank up. It was important for me to find a fair and balanced solution. The changes below are a big step towards making participation in our Society a more lucrative and enticing endeavor.

Before we dive into the nitty-gritty of the update, I do wish to thank James, Alaisy, and Idris for their valuable help and wise counsel.

Difficulty Settings

This first change paves the way for the rest of the update.

As of this release, the Difficulty settings, which are unique to Graphics competitions, have been renamed to Easy, Regular, and Advanced to reflect the level of effort and time investment expected from participants as opposed to skill level. This is meant to encourage members to participate and progress in the Graphics Society without worrying about their perceived skill level so long as they’re willing to meet minimum effort requirements.

Difficulty Has A New Role

Previously, Difficulty settings affected the number of society points the top three placements received through a modifier. While this will continue to be the case, moving forward, Difficulty level will also dictate the number of Clusters of Graphite awarded to all participants in a competition. The target unit, the previous determining factor, will no longer affect this amount. This means participants no longer suffer cluster deficits by participating in a House competition instead of a club-wide one. Hopefully, this will encourage Clans and Houses to run more competitions for themselves instead of always facing off against the brunt of the club’s artists for maximum society gains.

The Herald Competition Approval Guidelines have been updated with detailed information as to the type of prompts and effort levels suitable for each Difficulty. As always, the Herald’s staff is available to assist you in picking the most suitable one for your competition.

Cluster Rewards and Progression

With the new Difficulty settings comes an increase in the amount of Clusters of Graphite rewarded by each competition. This change aims to make participation in the Graphics Society more lucrative for members while also improving progression within the Society.

As mentioned in the above section, the number of Clusters awarded by a competition is determined by the new Difficulty settings. Easy, Regular and Advanced difficulties will now reward 4, 6, and 8 Clusters respectively, a net increase over the Clusters previously awarded for Clan (2), DB-wide (3) or Vendetta (4) competitions. This becomes all the more worthwhile when you take into account Double Cluster events introduced earlier this year.

Now, such an increase in Clusters inevitably translates to an influx in Society points. In this case, this influx alone would serve to overcorrect the speed of progression in the Society, making it too fast. Far too fast. To balance this out and hit that sweet spot, I have elected to increase the point requirement per rank by 16%. While this may seem like a lot, the numbers are promising. It is worth noting that due to the complexity of the code, there will be no retroactive adjustments for current members but, fear not, I was assured that the Society system is designed in such a way that no members will lose a rank due to this.

With this new approach, the amount of time it takes for members who consistently win graphics competitions remains roughly the same, but the time it takes for non-placing participants is nearly halved. Previously, it would take a maximum of 215 competitions for non-placing participants to go from Rank I to Rank XII. That’s about 2 competitions per week over a span of two years. With the new numbers, it will instead take non-placing participants a maximum of 125 Easy competitions to reach Rank XII. That’s 1.2 competitions per week over two years, and that number goes down if you do Regular or Advanced Difficulty competitions.

Please note that these changes are not retroactive but they will apply to all active and future competitions.

The goal for this change is to make the Graphics Society accessible to ALL members of the Brotherhood, not just the most fervent artists within our ranks. It also aims to make graphics competitions a viable way to earn solid XP so why not try it out? You may discover hidden talents.

Freelancer Rewards

Traditionally, we have rewarded 3 Clusters of Graphite to non-staff (freelancing) members who create graphics or art for fellow members, provided these images are used on the DB website. This has now been upped to 5 clusters. Some types of images that would normally be completed by Herald staff as an official service, such as custom robes and custom weapons, are considered to be worth more in XP value. When a non-staff artist makes such an image for a fellow member, they will be awarded the aforementioned 5 Clusters and a note will be added to their dossier denoting any additional XP they are owed for services rendered. This XP value is established by the Herald on a case-by-case basis based on factors such as the type of image, usage, quality, perceived effort, etc. Their leaders will then have the opportunity to apply these sums as non-site XP when rewarding the artist.

For the artist to be rewarded, the art must be submitted for review and approved by the Herald. To engage this process, the recipient member (not the artist) should use the new Freelancer Submission Form, filling out the required information and providing a link to the page on the DB website where the image is displayed.

Information concerning this has been added to the Cluster of Graphite wiki page.

Concerning Staff And Clusters

I have been asked a few times why my staff members are not rewarded with Clusters for their official work. While this may change in the future, I currently employ a different strategy to reward them, which I consider more lucrative. The record should speak for itself as most of my staff have already received sacramental rewards in my first six months as Herald. With this update, we are also retroactively upping society point gains per 90-days period for staff members by a significant amount to ensure constant progression in the Society.

Survey For Society Lore Feedback

With the release of Update 1.01, I am turning my attention to society lore. Before I make any decisions about the path forward, I want to know how the community feels about it.

As such, I have devised the Shroud Syndicate Lore Feedback survey.

I would sincerely appreciate it if you fine folks would indulge me and take a few moments to give your honest opinion concerning the Shroud Syndicate Society’s current lore. Your feedback is important to me. Your answers will help me parse the community’s general interests and shape the future of our Society.

A Reminder Concerning AI

As announced in my most recent report, I have decided to disallow AI-generated submissions from Cluster-granting Graphics competitions. With this new update, we’ve added disclaimers in strategic locations to remind members about this new rule. As a result, competition runners no longer need to include a rule concerning AI in their prompt.

I also want to take this opportunity to remind you all that it is always a good practice to keep and safeguard a layered version of your creations, particularly those you submit to graphics competitions. It is the most iron-clad defense in the advent that one is suspected of plagiarism or employing an AI graphics generator. This has been a good rule of thumb for as long as graphics competitions have existed and it has become all the more important with the rise of artificial intelligence.

Thank you for being mindful of this important step.

Changelog 1.01

You will find a record of all changes introduced with Society Update 1.01 here.

Important Links

• Herald Resources
• Competitions
• Art Rubric 2.0
• Herald Wiki
• Herald Policies
• [Log in to view e-mail addresses]
• Shroud Syndicate Lore Feedback Survey
• Freelancer Submission Form

Thank you for reading this supplemental report. If you have any art-related questions, feedback, or concerns, feel free to message me on Discord or send me an [Log in to view e-mail addresses].