Introduction

The dog days of summer are upon us! Those of us in the USA have celebrated the independence of our nation by blowing up a small part of it. Those north of the Border something something Canada Day. So, we're all in for an uneventful summer with nothing between us and Labor Day, right? WRONG! Here in Plagueis we're smack dab in the middle of our Plagueis War Game event, while Great Jedi War XII looms on the horizon.

Table of Contents

• War Game
• Great Jedi War XII
• Clan Lore
• Brotherhood News
• Dreadful Questions

This month's art feature is a great action piece done by Royce Southerland (FooRay) as part of his recent "15 for $15" special.

War Game

The Plagueis War Game is in full swing at this very moment. This competition offers you all a great opportunity to warm up for the Great Jedi War and polish your skills before the biggest competition to hit the Brotherhood in over two years.

The first week of competitions will end at 11:59 pm GMT on Sunday, so there are still a few days to get your entries in for this week:

• Pieces Falling in Place
• Battleships
• Enemy Code Cypher
• Cluster Race
• The Aliso Address

Week two, and it's five additional events, begins at 12 am GMT on Monday, and will run for the same week long duration that week one did. This event offers some quick, fun competitions for everyone. The biggest thing you can take from this event, really, is getting back into the competitive feud/vendetta mode. The Great Jedi War is going to, as likely as not, offer the same scenario of multiple events running concurrently each week. Just operating in that paradigm again can be something that one has to work up to, so the War Game competitions should give everyone a way to get acclimatized again.

Great Jedi War XII

While the main events of the Great Jedi War are still just under a month away, the War itself has already started in the form of Winds of Change ACC event. I've seen some great initial participation from Plagueis out of the gate, which gives me plenty of the warm fuzzies. However, I'd also warn everyone about the time requirements of the event given the number of early time outs I've seen. Make sure to keep on top of the deadlines for matches, and don't hesitate to use the extension that is available to you for each match. Heck, my work schedule made getting my last post up by the deadline a bit touch and go, so I requested an extension myself. I only ended up using a couple of hours of it, but it was nice to have.

I would, however, encourage everyone to complete at least one match. Win, lose, or draw, that's participation in a Great Jedi War event. For the uninitiated, participation in a vendetta event grants a seal, one for each event you enter. In addition, vendetta events are more important than other competitions when it comes time for the summit and I to get you all the recognitions you work so hard for. Making sure you take advantage of every opportunity to participate is key when the Great Jedi War rolls around, because you never know when the next time is going to be. Those of us that were around for the Eleventh Great Jedi War never thought that it was going to be more than 30 months until the next vendetta opportunity came again, but that's how things ended up shaking out. In the words of John Keating:

Seize this day, for you never know when it will come again.

Clan Lore

It was highlighted in Abadeer's PCON report a bit ago, but I want to give another shout out to the Aliso City article crafted by Ronovi Tavisaen and Laren Uscot. It is the first entry in their revamp of Plagueis's lore reflecting our clan's setting, and it was very well done. I've got a list of other articles that will be getting the same treatment following GJW XII:

• The Pinnacle
• Tonus Anchorage
• The Circle
• Valneikian pire
• Korada Monastery
• Supply Station Omega

For the eagle eyed amongst you, it probably hasn't escaped your notice that The Anchorage is now Tonus Anchorage. I decided to make the change from the definitive article to a name that reflects a more specific location for one very simple reason: Plagueis has a lot of "The" things. The Pinnacle. The Circle. The Anchorage. It was either make the change, or I felt like the entire clan was going to fall victim to creeping The-ism. And then we'd have to change our clan name to "The Plagueis". And nobody wants that.

All of the locations listed above are existing locations with existing articles, unlike Aliso City. However, most of those articles seem more like design concepts than fully fleshed out locations. What are the facilities located in the Pinnacle? What do the various structures of Korada Monastery hold? How are the levels of Supply Station Omega divided? The idea behind the next phase of the lore project is to properly flesh out the locations that we have beyond simply being "old prison", "older monastery", and "landed spaceship".

Brotherhood News

Position Applications

• House Marka Ragnos Aedile - Applications due July 9th.

General News

• FIST Supplemental 9.1 - The one where Drac says gaming clusters can't be earned alone.
• Herald Update - The one with a new Warbanner form.
• Voice Update #11 - The one where Wally gets new slaves.
• Great Jedi War XII Update - The one where Mav makes an infodump.
• Headmaster Report #13 - The one where Farrin mistakenly believes that 13 isn't unlucky.
• [Master at Arms Report #6(https://www.darkjedibrotherhood.com/news/reports-master-at-arms-report-6) - The one with Howie running away.
• Combat Master Report #9 - The one with everything you wanted to know about GJW ACC stuff.
• Fist Gaming Network #6 - The one with all that sweet, sweet E3 news.
• Great Jedi War XII ACC Phase I - The one where everyone starts fighting.
• Seneschal Report July 2017 - The one where James stomps on bugs.
• Shadow Academy Supplemental #1 - The one where Kelly gets a new job.
• Fist Report #10 - The one with Magistrates, Messages, and Pazaak. Oh my!

Dreadful Questions

• Laren asks: "Many members search for artists online to do character art, but don't know what to do when they find an artist they like. What materials would you recommend the member gathers for the artist, and what recommendations do you have for members during the consultation process with the artist?"

The biggest thing I can recommend here is reference images. Text descriptions just don't do the trick, as your interpretation and their interpretation will vary considerably. That doesn't mean you have to find your entire character + outfit whole cloth. Find different images of a face, hair style, coat, pants, bits of lightsabers, any little bit of your character. Then, put all those images together in a folder or on a reference sheet (depending on how many you have). As an example, here's a link to the package of reference images I sent to Ka Rolding for the artwork featured in Abadeer's latest report. I supplied my standard reference sheet along with a number of images that had bits and pieces of the outfit and environment I wanted the character to be in. I got a draft back, requested some changes, and then the finished product was exactly what I wanted. A picture can say a thousand words, and nowhere is that more true than in the commission process. The more visual imagery you can provide your artist, the more the final product will resemble what you see in your head.

• Arden asks: "How much ACC have you done?"

In the current ACC competition, I have completed a match against Lexic from CSP. Even I, with a new job I'm coming to terms with on top of everything else in my life, had time to get that one match completed. Remember, it's only a max of 1,500 words you have to write, and you can do as little as 500 and get your participation!

• Tra'an asks: "What event are you looking forward to most in the upcoming GJW? Which one least, and why?"

Whatever this fleet battle event that Drac is working on has me intrigued. As a full on Star Wars ship nerd, I'm very much looking forward to what this has in store for us. As far as the one I'm looking forward to the least? Maybe the Run On? As much as I love the process and the finished product, there's no doubt that it is the most effort intensive event there is. It's worth it, but whew is it a meat grinder.

• Laren asks: "We write our characters within the wider Plagueis and DJB story, though some struggle to find a place. Do you have any recommendations or starting points for members looking to 'find a place' for their characters within the wider story?"

Not to go off on an answer that is tangential to the question, but I think the best way to find a place for a character isn't to try to find that place "in the wider story". I remember having the same issues as a writer when I was getting started in a new clan or with a new character. Then, I shifted my mindset after having come up against barriers to that process time and time again: It wasn't about inserting myself into the larger story, it was about figuring out what story I wanted to tell about my character and letting that flow into the larger story. The thing I love about the Star Wars model of writing is that we can each be the protagonist of our own little story. Unlike in a Star Trek setting, where we'd all have to be part of the ensemble crew at any one time, each of us writes our own character's story and use other member's characters (and NPC's of course) as supporting players, as they use us in the same way. Once you find out what that character driven story is you're looking to tell, it becomes easier to flow into the events around you. Having a firm grip on who your character is and what direction you want to take them allows you to flow into those larger events in a much easier, and more natural way. So, the short version is really this: Let your character's story inform how they fit into the grander scheme, don't try to throw your character into the larger story first and try to build character second.

• Tra'an asks: "Any advice on how our journeymen should tackle the GJW?"

The answer to this question is aimed not just at our journeymen (and novitiates), but at many of those Equites who haven't experienced the craziness of a Great Jedi War before. As I spoke to above, the best thing you can do for yourself is participate as much as you can. Winning events helps, of course, and it helps our clan get points, but it's not worth sacrificing your across the board participation. Plagueis has always been about trying to DO ALL THE THINGS, and, while depending on how many events there are this go round that could be hard, managing your time to make the attempt (or do as many as you can) should be the name of the game. Each week (or round, if they're longer than a week), you should sit down and look at all the competitions and rank them by the ease and speed of completion. Knock out as many fast, easy competitions as you can during the first part of the week, then sit down and focus on doing the harder, longer stuff a day or two in. And, as things wind down at the end of the week, make sure you're making a good trade off between effort into a single entry vs getting as many entries as you can submitted. Chances are that last minute fiction a person is throwing together isn't going to place against everyone in the Brotherhood no matter how much extra work is put into it, but the time you spend going well above the word count at the expense of three other events you could submit isn't the wisest investment. In essence, time management is absolutely king when the Great Jedi War throws the Brotherhood into chaos.

• Laren asks:"How's that whole Consul thing going so far?"

When I sat down to write this report and realized it was my sixth, and therefore I was starting my sixth month as Consul, I almost did a bit of a double take. There are times when it still feels like I just sat down in the Consul chair, and everything seems so new. On the other hand, I realize I spent more than a small amount of time as PCON, but that can only prepare you so much. Suffice it to say, I am very grateful to have had these months before our upcoming Great Jedi War to get my feet under me. I always think back to Tra'an basically having to take over the leadership of Plagueis during a Vendetta because the leader of the unit up and vanished (after Tra'an had the second in command job for what, a month?) and thank my lucky stars that I had all this prep time beforehand!

In Closing

There is one thing that everyone should be keeping in mind these days: Even though it may not feel like it, with the ACC event already started the Great Jedi War is here. It's a bit of a slow burn to get started, but we shouldn't let ourselves get boiled alive like the frog in the slowly heating water when the bulk of the War drops on us on August 1st. I know what you all can do when you put your collective minds to a thing.

Pound for pound, we've been one of the most active units in the Brotherhood for quite some time. We're going to do the best we can to punch above our weight class once again, but I will be proud to serve you all no matter what the outcome because I know that everyone here is going to be participating their hearts out. And that's all a Consul can ask from those he serves. Just remember, make me do even more work when it comes time to write my post-war recommendations than you all collectively did during the war. That's my favorite kind of work to do.

Adapt, Ascend, Avail