Table of Contents

1. Arcona Fiction Update
2. Event Results
3. Events and News
4. Final Notes

Hey folks! I will preface this fiction with a quick note that it is a monster at just shy of 14,000 words. Yeah, me and Atty might’ve gotten a little carried away. Sorry! That said, TL;DR below the excerpt as always. Thank you for your patience in us getting this out to you!

Arcona Fiction Update

Fear filtered through the air as thick as the tropical island’s humidity. The Force users and Zeltron Consul alike could feel as much on the empathic waves that seemed to ripple as palpably as the hot air. These islanders — the denizens of Tekpantli — had largely fled their villages for secluded places of hiding. Those that had not huddled about in conversational groups, eyeing the invaders warily, bustling children behind the adults for protection. Curiosity though, despite the fear, peeked through the aggressive and defensive facade.

Despite the potent illusions that afflicted the Arconans and their Dajorran Defense Force accompaniment, including their pilots, a remarkable number were able to land safely in the water and, once free of the illusions, relocate to land. Even those that had crashed saw minimal casualties, with more injuries than the handful of deaths, acutely felt among the soldiers who hadn’t so much as fired a shot yet. That they were prevented from fighting once on the sand and soil of Tekpantli caused a level of consternation, even as some of the Shadesworn vaulted into the brush despite their recent harrowing and moist escape from the surf. They had been attacked, and the immediate orders of their Mirialan Proconsul along the beach, to say nothing for the message to them all as the illusions dispersed, were subtly ignored in favor of their original intent: hunting caxqettes and, maybe, a god.

Fortunately, they discovered that the caxats, as the locals called them, were rather docile. Tame even.

Unfortunately, this information came too late to some.

“She killed a kid?!” Qyreia’s voice was a hiss of frustration and anger, muted if only for the sake of the villagers across the wood line, as she motioned to their newly-recruited Chiss.

Ruka was a bit more stoic, but no less upset, the whites of his eyes red from tears. “She says it was an accident. She was fighting one of the caxes, and the kid jumped in front of her.” His expression soured, hating every bit of it. “She tried to save him, but…”

“‘But’ nothing, Ru! We just killed a child when these schuttas weren’t supposed to be fighting anything. Zuza karking managed!”

“Ay, lower you voice, okay? Siv feels bad enough.”

The Zeltron shot words like a repeater, “Well fantastic for her, now imagine how I feel and how the karking family and this whole village is going to feel when we present them with a corpse.”

The Mirialan, devoted father that he was, recoiled. "How do you think I feel?" he hissed back, then clenched his jaw. He was torn between the desire to protect his newest charge in Arcona, and the gut-churning feeling every time he thought about the small body hidden just out of sight. His gaze shifted to Zosi’val’ria who was standing off to the side, hands folded in front of her and staring intently at her feet, likely within just enough earshot to have heard the scathing remarks. Zuza, still the Arconan Rollmaster in all but name, stood close, quietly trying to console the Chiss despite the Shadow Lord’s and Scion’s conversation intermittently catching her attention. Some of the other Arconans and soldiers milling about probably heard as well, given their expressions.

After spending a tense moment staring down the shorter Zeltron, Ruka broke the pregnant silence that followed her word-string with a sigh. “But it's not about our feelings. We have to deal with this. So what do you wanna do?”

Qyreia’s lips pursed thoughtfully, not quite sure herself, when Zuza approached the pair. “Sorry to interrupt, but I talked to Siv. She says she’d like to take full responsibility; whatever punishment the islanders have for her.” Knowing what that might mean, the human’s expression was not a positive one.

“No.”

The swift, firm response caught both Zuza and Ruka off guard, looking at the Consul with some concern, though they weren’t quite sure who to be most concerned for.

“You got an idea?”

Qyreia gave a simple, sober nod and motioned for the DDF medics to collect the stretcher with the small shrouded body. She gave it a long, steady look before motioning them forward toward the village.

Read the whole fiction here!

Missed something? Here’s Part 1 and Part 2 for the full context.

The TL;DR of the Fiction

• The landing on the island was successful, but at a cost. Several DDF soldiers were killed in the approach, and some islanders were also killed or injured in the violent wake of the initially resisted landing. This included a child that was accidentally struck down by newcomer, Siv. Understandably, this left both sides with continued uneasiness over attempts at peaceful relations.
  
• In an attempt to prevent targeted retribution, the Consul presented the body to the locals in a humble display. While it spared the Arconans added violence, it didn’t come without an emotional price on the Shadow Lord. Maustli, the Echani ‘god’ of Tekpantli, arrived just in time to prevent outright hostility, seemingly flash-thawed from cryostasis, evidenced by the patchwork of raw and blistered skin.
  
• Zuza, wounded in the initial fray on the island by Doon, departs for the beach to keep an eye on the Consul while she washes off the disdain of the locals. The Quaestors, Tali and Jael, make attempts at diplomacy as Maustli shows them the key points of the island community, with the Arconans’ tour ending atop a large mound — formerly a volcano, now very extinct. The basin of the former volcano’s mouth housed a small temple and home of the Keeper who, true to her name, was charged with the care of those blessed with Maustli’s Dream or the punishment of his Nightmare: local words for a trance-like state of perpetual illusion.
  
• Zuza and Qyreia return to the group, beginning the true diplomacy, where the latter makes terms with Maustli. In short order, and not without a burst of violence from chief warrior Amatzin, the “prisoners” of the Nightmare are awoken after it was revealed many were simply religious dissidents. With considerations toward the current negative view of the caxqettes, those in the Dream were offered treatment at the Citadel hospital, albeit under extreme secrecy and security to prevent a breach of information that could harm the current alliances. Maustli is ‘condemned’ to mortality, his stasis pod rendered inoperable, and he was convinced to provide information on the other ‘gods’ with threat of being cut off from the Force if he did not comply.
• The dissident sleepers were relocated to a derelict village, amazingly dampened from intrusion by Maustli’s and other Force powers, where a handful of DDF troops remained as security until a permanent outpost could be secured. While the Arconan and military presence was reduced to a skeleton crew for the time being, Ruka finds the Consul struggling to process the emotional strain and moral/ethical dilemma that Tekpantli has put on her shoulders.

Event Results

And so concludes the latest chapter in our ongoing story of Arcona! At 27 unique participants, you guys knocked out a respectable 51% participation rate for the Clan. Metrics aside though, that level of effort got us a positive outcome in the fictional realm (“positive” being a relative term), flavored as we could by what you all put into your fictions. Now for the results!

You’ve all seen it in your e-mails by now, but the top spots were taken by some incumbent names as well as by a newcomer! You guys did some excellent work, and we appreciate what you put into this. Some analytical takeaways from the event as we look back:

• Quality beats quantity (but both is best). The margin of points between 1st and 3rd places was 10 full placement points. While maximum participation certainly gave some people a marked advantage by simple numbers generation, the top placers consistently made quality entries that rocketed them upward in the standings.
  
• The devil’s in the details. We did our best not to disqualify anyone (and we didn’t); however, some entries did not meet critical criteria and either didn’t place as high, or were ineligible for placement because of it. Always remember to check those competition rules for things like accepted file types, and adhering to the prompt (esp. for fiction/gfx).
• There was a bug in the system. While not anyone’s fault, it is worth mention that we actually found a bug in the system: none of the selected Loadouts populated with the submitted fiction entries. James has since fixed this, but we want to thank all of you and your patience in pointing out the discrepancy between what you did and what we as graders were seeing.
  
• The only dumb question is the one not asked. I’m sure there were multiple occasions where folks working on a fiction or graphics entry simply didn’t know something. Understand that we are always willing to field questions for clarity’s sake. Just don’t be surprised if we put an anonymous rendition of the conversation in a more visible Clan chat so that everyone has an equal playing field. If your greater issue concerned the state of the wikis, well we’re always looking for volunteers to update these schuttas!
  

Now with all that said, if you’ve been waiting for this poodoo to get closed out so you can run your own RPs and the like: there, it’s done, go and do your thing!

Events and News

Is it New or NEWS?!

• Sock's and co's May the 4th Be With You event has concluded, give her a shout out for all her hard work!
  
• The Envoy Corps continues to grow! RP is really starting to take off, and we've been so happy to see you guys loving it so much, making new friends across Clans, getting involved in the bounties, using these to tell stories! Shout out to Sagitta for being an #RPquestions machine too and getting the community involved.
• Several things out of the Voice and Combat Master offices this month respectively from Xenny. The big news, the ACC Society now has Trophies and awards to go with them. This is currently only for participating as a combatant, but Judge stuff is being worked on. Super awesome, and following the Envoy Corps' model, now comes with nifty CS bonuses like Character Slot ranks and Knowledge slots down the line. Get it! Additionally, several new Species have been added, including pigglywigglies, some lorgebois, mood ring bunnies, and space Tieflings. By which I mean: Gamorrean, Dowutin, Kushiban, and Kessurian. Xen has also added both Sign Language and space Braille to our Languages page.
• We have shiny new Dossier titles! Honorifics are live! That means you can choose display titles and suffixes for yourself/your character on your Dossier. Praise be to James for coding this and the team for working on it.
• The Story Group has been releasing some interim fiction updates in the months leading up to the War! This series, titled Galactic Happenings, is meant to give a little look at all our Factions, enemy or ally. Check them out in Chapter 1, Chapter 2, and Chapter 3(https://www.darkjedibrotherhood.com/news/reports-galactic-happenings-chapter-3) for the story on the Brotherhood, the Tenixir Revanents, and the Collective respectively. The Sevarian Principate and the Children of Mortis should be coming soon. No idea who any of these are or what is up here? Check out the Factions page on the site for a little reading.
• Arch is cool and uses hot footnotes, but he also does, like, news and stuff. Support the Shadow Academy as it tries to become more accessible and useful to the membership and enjoy some statistics while you're at it with the last report.
• The Regent released a new hyperdrive thingy in his newest report, always give a look for new items and shinies here you can shell out those sweet, sweet credits you've earned from Doing All the Things on.
• The Herald released a new Warbanner template in his last report for usage by the members. Woohoo! Also some resource updates for any aspiring artists out there.
• And of course, it’s not a Clan report if we don’t highlight the latest from our own Houses Galeres and Qel-Droma! Go give them some love, get the latest info on plans and fiction, and the now-ongoing quarterly races for the House-related artifacts!

In-Clan Events

Always subject to change, but always here to give you a better and better idea of what’s coming up. Because knowledge is power! That said, while we aren’t planning on any other major Arcona events this year, we are planning on doing some one-off pieces for gradual plot development and filling in some gaps in our lore. And if you are planning on running something, let us know so we can put it on our planning calendar and give you some love in the report!

• June-July — The Probowl. No extra details about this until they get posted, but this DB-wide including everyone event is coming up. Keep your eyeballs out.
• September-October — Brotherhood: Annual Vendetta. Likely going to be a WAHR, which means we’ll be once again vying for that coveted First Clan title.
• November — Clan mini-event: Events of an Ood Design. This will likely move around as we get more refinement on the annual Vendetta. Depending on when things fall, it could be before or after. Keep an eye out for this interplanartary event!
• December — Nothing. Or at least nothing official. There’s a whole lot of #stuff happening right before, and given the propensity for Life Day/Sithmas competitions and mini-events, we want to give you a well-deserved break.
  
• January/February ‘24 — Clan event: A Thing. Oh yeah, we’re already planning out this far. You had your break for the holidays and lamenting over your new years resolutions that’ve already failed. Time to gear up for more action!

Final Notes

As always, I can be reached by e-mail at [Log in to view e-mail addresses], on Telegram with @QyreiaArronen, or on Discord @Qyreia#9352. You can find Atty at [Log in to view e-mail addresses], or @Atty#3546 on Discord. And if you’re bored, feel free to follow my meant-for-recruiting-but-still-fun in-character Twitter feed @TheRedQek!

Sincerely,