Dinaari: The Sword of Taldryan

When Taldryan reclanned, the summit all pooled together to try to help latch onto an identity for our two Houses. What we came up with was the definition of the fictional missions of the two houses. Ektrosis would be our shield against domestic threats, and Dinaari would be our sword, always on the front lines leading our attacks. The problem with this design was that it was entirely fictional, and at the end of the day, fictional realities always were left behind in favour of practical ones. Our Houses ran the same competitions, always at the Clan level, and our missions and purposes became blurred.

Part of the reason we didn't choose to implement a more drastic philosophy for our Houses was simply down to the way things were. Due to the realities of the Brotherhood at the time, new recruits were assigned to our Houses, and not to the Clan. As active new recruits have become an increasingly rare commodity, we didn't want to risk rocking the boat too early by bouncing new members around. We wanted to just do everything we could to keep people in the Clan, and give them the best chance they could have to succeed. But we haven't continued to adjust.

We've all heard the phrase "evolve or die." When the long overdue changes came about that normalized recruit assignments, and returned everyone in the Brotherhood back to a Clan.. we didn't evolve. I implemented a sort of hacked out assignment system based loosely off College Basketball's possession arrow concept, and we carried on. We didn't reevaluate the system as a whole, and for that I am sorry. I failed as a leader by not looking deeper.

Hopefully, I am going to make up for that today. We're going to evolve.

Beginning today, the Sword and Shield of Taldryan will once again have a purpose. They will once again tangibly represent something. They're going to become something that our Houses can be proud of, and hopefully they will help us regain a sense of self that has been lacking ever since we reclanned.

House Dinaari will henceforth be rebranded as our Gaming House. Dinaari has traditionally been our strongest house in terms of gaming, and even despite our efforts to prevent it since we reclanned, it still maintains a bit of that presence. Well, we're not going to fight it anymore. We're going to embrace it. Upon joining, new members will be identified by their interests: gamers will be assigned to Dinaari, and those wishing to focus on fiction or other pursuits will be assigned to Ektrosis.

Within House Dinaari we are going to make efforts to build an actual gaming house. The idea is that everything generated in House is going to be focusing on gaming competitions, gaming groups, and even more gaming everything. We want Dinaari to be the centre of everything gaming related in Taldryan, and hopefully one day: the Brotherhood.

This is not to say the members and leadership in either House will be expected to do only these things. We don't want to discourage activity in any form… the Houses are henceforth going to define the focus, and the member will choose what activity he or she wants.

This comes at an opportune time, as it is a time of transition in Dinaari. As you all know, Rax recently stepped down as Quaestor, so I will therefore be taking applications for the position of Quaestor in House Dinaari starting today. I am offering anyone who is willing to join us on this journey a chance to help us build a house solely devoted to gaming. To resurrecting gaming from the depths it has fallen to, and getting us active. PvE, PvP.. Whether you're from Taldryan or not.. I just don't care. I just want to see us gaming again.

If you are interested in helping lead and guide this vision, send your applications to myself and Howlader. We'll be accepting them until May 24th, though we reserve the right to appoint a suitable candidate at an earlier time.