Table of Contents

1. Arcona Fiction Update
2. Coop Event Results
3. Events and News
4. Ask Tomat and Cuc
5. Final Notes

Arcona Fiction Update

Glitter. Glitter everywhere.

It coated the bark and branches, the leaves and laurels of the Tree that the allies’ fete had occupied. The forcefield safety-net that bordered the party space was in a constant shimmering state, not only from the plastic pieces that lingered on the energy barrier, but also from that which choked its inner workings, to say nothing for the odd violence visited on it over the course of the festivities from Force powers and physical assaults alike. The Wookiees were still trying to round up the porgs that had been given repulsor-packs and glitter guns. The glitter invasion was bad enough; they didn’t need a genuinely invasive species. Archian, the Shistavanen Aedile of House Qel-Droma who was at least partly responsible for proliferating their shenanigans, was on strict orders to assist with the collection of the animals and their armament. Very strict, given a Wookiee was designated as supervisor over the labor.

Atyiru was simply beaming for the effects of her chaos. Fortunately, she was distracted from any gloating over her success by the presence of small children, particularly the newest addition to the Tyris family that appeared later in the evening. Wyndel was somehow shocked into silence — a rare enough occurrence — at the prospect of fatherhood. That he was still replete in his ‘maternity suit’, while also trying to resemble a holo-drama doctor from the fast-paced excitements of the birth, made for an interesting image while he cradled his and Socorra’s newborn.

Off in calmer corners, Stres’tron’garmis was busy nestling up against his Twi’lek date, the Arconan general and the Qel-Droman Quaestor enjoying the quietude of a balcony that overlooked the forest beyond. The Miralukan former-Consul had spent quite a bit of energy on making sure their night was perfect, and it had somehow worked out, despite her best efforts.

Over toward the bar, the Odanites were recovering with some liquid painkiller. Essik, easily identified by his bowler hat if not for the Gand’s otherwise unique appearance among the many humans and near-humans, sat calmly among the throng, absorbing the scene in his usual people-watching manner.

It was then a little surprising when a Sephi-looking bearded man sat down tiredly in a chair across the small table from him.

Read the whole fiction here!

The TL;DR of the Event and the Fiction

• Using the planet of Kashyyyk as venue, Clans Arcona and Odan-Urr met to rekindle the old alliance under the umbrella of — probably for the first time ever — a social event that wasn’t rife with assassinations, kidnappings, or other assorted mayhem.
  
• Then the porgs came out and mayhem happened. (Dang it Atty).
• The fiction starts off with our various heroes recovering and cleaning up after the most prolific occurrences of chaos. Tali and Strong enjoy some quiet alone time; Essik and Jael bond over the newfound quiet; Zuza and Diy do some light flirting over glitter; and Archian is in the proverbial dog house (not because he’s a Shistavanen; that would be speciesist/racist) for unleashing and protecting the the progbingers of chaos.
  
• The Clans’ Consuls and Proconsuls (plus one Rollmaster) convened in the admin building to finalize the paperwork. Most are formalities on building economic ties. The two big pieces brought forth were: 1) the creation of the Zeltron Cookie Company (patent pending), and 2) open but muted invitations for providing military aid.

Coop Event Results

So first, we want to say thank you to everyone for participating! I’ve honestly wanted to get Odan-Urr and Arcona back together again for a while now, so this seemed like a great starting point. And as the fiction and tl;dr suggested, we totally plan on doing this again, with more at stake than just glitter in hard-to-reach places. Special thanks to Revak, Aura, and Atty for all getting together when it was crunch time to really make this happen and put it together.

Next, let’s talk placements! A drumroll please…!

In first place! The young buck that we fear to have a knife, it’s Zuza!

In second! He’s a fuzzy animal lover with an apparent desire for chaos: Archian!

In third! She thinks she’s Zelosian but has a psychometry addiction: Diy!

In fourth! The Sephi that’s not a lefty (I tried to rhyme, I’m sorry)! Jael!

For fifth! He’s a crime noir bug-man with the aesthetic of Watson and the veterancy of Akbar! Essik!

In sixth! When he’s not the broody former-Voice, he’s the man who plays a doctor on TV! Marick!

And in seventh! He’s big, he’s blue, but he won’t dabah-dee you! Strong!

For a competition that happened over the holidays, you all brought in a respectable twenty-five unique participants for the whole event, which may or may not count the handful of folks from other Clans that wanted a piece of the ARCCOU pie. On a rough estimate, this seems a promising start for later events that don’t take place when folks are busy with family and with a more recent baseline to work off of (fictionally speaking).

So what can you probably expect in the future? For Arconans, COU is in a tough spot with an intelligence breach and may call on us to help them track down the culprit and bring them to justice. For Odanites, we in Arcona are elbow-deep in counteroffensives against the Children of Mortis afar, and ancient Force users — once revered as gods on Selen — and their constantly mutating creatures (caxquettes) that continue to awaken from stasis on our home planet. And of course, we’re looking at a possible revival of the Forbidden Fruits Zeltron Cookie Company to satisfy your hunger and our alliance’s economy. No, we didn’t do this event just to have a throwback. It just worked out that way.

So again. Thank you all for coming out and participating. Now, back to our more Arcona-focused report.

Events and News

Experience Points. XP. It’s a thing and it came with a vengeance. For those of you who were paying attention, there were a lot of awards given out from what I like to call “XP backlog” — medal XP that was mathematically accumulated over time and only come to life with the institution of the new widget. That’s not to say that these awards have been cheapened, as some have felt and even voiced. The awards and promotions came on the wings of lengthy careers in the Brotherhood, and this was the site’s way of going full Will Smith and saying…

Now while there are reports about this XP thing, we wanted to give a simplified breakdown of the two kinds of XP.

• Rank XP: This is the XP you get from #DoingTheThings and being awarded for it. It comes from activity — from competitions participated, to Clusters, to SA courses — and from awards that include Crescents, Merits, and Sacramentals. This contributes to your overall rank progress all the way up to EQ4 (and maybe beyond; just not yet).
  
• Medal XP: The bottom line is that this is a separate pool of XP that is site-tracked from your activity and, at regular automatic intervals, generates an award recommendation based on the amount of accrued medal XP. We can still apply non-attributed work like projects, wiki edits, and the like for a bump-up in medal type, but this has become a process designed to take some of the ambiguity of awards away and ensure people get their shinies. That does mean that if you want the higher-tier stuff, you’ll need to really hammer out some activity during the evaluated period.

So all of that said, to the many folks that got shiny and stabby things: you all deserved them, and we thank you all for your service and generally just being you. Keep doing great things, Arcona!

And now, a brief NEWS overview

• Given the theme of this report, it seems appropriate to highlight Odan-Urr’s report that touches on the event as well. Head on over and give our re-found friends some love.
  
• Qel-Droma’s report covers their latest fiction update and some other standard fare. The holder of the Blind Key also shifts to Archian! Congrats!
  
• Galeres’ February recognition goes to Socorra hopping into the Aedile spot, while Kaled throws his hat into the leadership pool as BTL of the Dajorran Marshals! Jael also talks at length about all. the. awards.
• Going into rapid-fire mode on these reports: the Regent’s latest covers the latest releases and RP; the Justicar is running applications until February 26; you have the latest from the Headmaster team on combat writing; and many more. Go check out the news page for all the… well, news!

In-Clan Events

We’re getting more and more sorted on our event calendar, with more coming into view with the appointment of new leaders (hi Kaled!), and the transition of Zuza from her role as Arcona’s Rollmaster to the BTL of Battleteam Rollmaster Selen Training Corps.

• 01 - 28 Feb — Arcona Presents: Valentines Day 2023. While not a Clan “event” so to speak, this annual occurrence started by our own Kordath/Strong years ago continues to be a club-wide favorite; and not just because the acronym (VD) is funny.
  
• 06-26 Feb — Ol’val Rearmed. House Qel-Droma is running its own mini-thang right now comprised of some light puzzles and browser games. Enjoy the fun!
• Mid-March — Clan event: The Hunt. Final name pending. Swinging us back around to the Selenian gods plot, the caxquettes and Alla’su’s ilk have been repeatedly beaten back. Now it’s time for Arcona to strike them.
  
• May — Brotherhood: May the Fourth. The powers that be in the club are looking at a nice mini-event during May to celebrate Q’s favorite lisp to complain about.
  
• October? — Ood’s Adventure. Our old resident Neti, Ood, has been hard at work in the shadows for the last year and some change on a secret project recently revealed to us. We won’t ruin the surprise, but you can be sure that the unveiling will be quite the double-take be the denizens of Dajorra.
• Late Fall / Early Winter — Annual Vendetta. Is it a Rite of Supremacy? Is it a Great Jedi War? No one knows for sure. But you better bet: it’s gonna be big!

Wiki Work? Wiki Work.

We like to throw this out periodically, but we are looking for minions volunteers to work on the mire of Arcona-based wiki articles. It’s simultaneously one of the least sought jobs, but outdated wikis are also one of the most complained about aspects of the club as a whole. And especially with the rollout of XP, we’re looking much harder at attributional numbers so that volunteers can get the proper shinies for their work.

If this is something you’re genuinely interested in, please shoot an e-mail (yes, I said e-mail) to me and Atty. See the Final Notes section below for the addresses. Whether you have specific articles you want to work on, or want to be pointed in a given direction, let us know!

Ask Tomat and Cuc

Lee asks, #askthesalad

What should I eat for dinner?

• Q: Füd.
  

Any IC Valentines Day plans?

• Q: At least according to my incomplete fiction entries for AVD ‘23, Qyreia’s parents came to Selen to watch the new babber (Ileta) while the couple went off to Atolli and get some beach time. I’ll leave the rest to your collective imaginations.
  
• Atty: Atty (waddling) and Marick will probably be giving out Valentine's with Kirra to everyone, because she'd love to do that. No glitter allowed either, you're all welcome from Marry. Satsi and Uji aren't likely to go near Monster Island, thank you frak off. Ruka, Cora, and the kids likely hang out early and then parents get shooed at the door for date night while the teens chill or babysit if Q and K want their own night to themselves. Annnnd Jax intends to spend the time with Kobign at the resort. Spoilers, we'll see if it happens.

What is your favorite candy treat?

• Q: Dark chocolate.
• Atty: I used to have Kitkats as my favorite but probably Nerds Rope/the little clusters they come in now, nowadays.

Chocolate, flowers, or both?

• Q: Por que no los dos, as the kids say.
  
• Atty: Choccy noms. Flowers are pretty and sweet but keep them in the house for more than an hour and my allergies get bitchy.

What are Q and Ruka’s love languages?

• Q: Physical touch and words of affirmation are Q’s tops, followed by acts of service. It’s one of the reasons that, while Keira is perhaps a seemingly incompatible match for the Zeltron, their relationship oddly works very well.
• Atty: acts of service and caretaking, primarily. He shows care by paying attention, remembering and doting, doing everything he can for said loved ones. Sometimes comes across as overbearing.

Kord asks, #askthesalad apparently, thank you Lee for translating that :P

Any crazy Tameike shenanigans for VD?

• Atty: pretty sure crazy for them would be having a quiet, nice night together and/or making Valentines with Sammy and Nothing Bad Happens

Is Ruka getting half of his soon to be ex wife's stuff?

• Atty: why would he want a used spice pipe? :P love ya Archibirb

How many medals did you get to write this week?

• 

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,