Dark Greetings Naga Sadow,

It has been one heck of a month. With the Red Fury competition you have all shown your ability to compete outside the clan, and still make your mark. I'm proud of everyone that took the opportunity to push themselves and experience something new. As always, there were a lot of Sadowans hogging the Run-On. Can't complain there, and I'm glad to see the new faces among them.

Keep this up guys, I can't stress that enough. You control your fun within the Brotherhood, we just provide the opportunities. Reach out and take those chances and make something of it! I look forward to seeing what you create when given the chance, and I know others do as well.

There is no need to make this long, especially with the Consul's report just around the corner. So let's fly through this, shall we?

Master-Student Program

As always I need to plug this. It is the lifeblood of our system. As new members, you can be paired with an experienced member who has been right where you are now, and made it out to the other side. Use their experience, it is freely given, and you just might make a new friend!

Here is the official form for the Master-Student Program to show your interest as a master, or a student.

Click me, for I am important and flashy and stuff... Okay, I'm important for setting up pairings!

Competitions

We just came off of the Red Fury co-op event with Clan Scholae Palatinae. I was pleasantly surprised by the level of participation, especially from our lower ranks. Keep it up guys!

No major competitions for me to list off here, as we are in the lull before more events come our way from the separate Houses. Keep an eye out for that.

You can find the full list right here

Notable Accomplishments

For the month of May, here are some feats you guys managed to pull off! (In no particular order)

Vyrim

• Dark Maven - Lore Gained
• Shadow Academy Society Rank IV: Junior

Bentre Stahoes

• Dark Maven - Philosophy Gained
• Shadow Academy Society Rank IV: Junior

Scarlet

• Dark Maven - Lore Gained
• Shadow Academy Society Rank IV: Junior

Krataa - The Jedi Formerly Known As Darkblade

• Dark Maven - Service Gained

Tasha'Vel Versea

• Shadow Academy Society Rank III: Sophomore
• Dark Maven - Philosophy Gained

Fenn Bo'ded Surik

• Dark Pundit - Essentials Gained
• Shadow Academy Society Rank I: Enrollee

Special Recognition

I'd like to take a moment to bring the spotlight to one of our stand out Journeymen for a moment. Bentre Stahoes, you tenacious little…

This fellow has demonstrated all the qualities we want to see from our Journeymen. He isn't afraid to ask questions, or put in the effort, day in and day out to climb through the ranks. I'm sure this is helped with the friendly competition he has going on with Tasha'Vel (another noteworthy Journeyman in her own right), but that doesn't diminish his accomplishments.

He has fought to excel in not only the Shadow Academy, but actively participating in the competitions of the club and even participating in randomly matched pairings for the ACC. I don't even do that, and I'm a Judge for it!

All in all, keep doing you, Bentre, and you'll go places!

Getting To Know The Clan

Continuing this program, we have another individual to hear from, and this time it isn't just more of me - though that is always awesome and welcome at all opportunities.

Introducing Locke Sonjie - Click for his Wiki

Hey there Boss, looking… well today. A little pale, may want to consider some more iron in your diet… But I digress! Thank you for making it to this little talk, and I hope you're ready cause here comes the questions! Can you tell me quickly what brought you to the Dark Jedi Brotherhood?

Around 2008 or so I was involved in a number of small Star Wars roleplaying communities, but they didn't get very far or get off the ground. Taigikori Aybara told me about the Dark Brotherhood and I registered an account and tried it out. It was a lot different than what I had experienced previously, and I was amazed by the sheer scope of it and the size of the community.

Recruited in from old blood, eh? Since that time, all those years ago you've had the opportunity to act in multiple roles throughout the Clan, acting as Consul for the second time now. Can you tell the clan what sort of perspective this has afforded you?

Well, for one thing, I've realized that leadership in the Brotherhood can be a lot different than being a member. On one hand, being a member is great because you get to participate in all this content created for you and have a lot of fun building your character alongside others and participating in competitions and winning stuff. On the other hand, Summit and especially Consul is a lot different in that you're usually the one creating the content, rather than consuming it. You still get to participate in big events and vendettas, and Brotherhood-wide competitions, but for your Clan, sometimes you have to create something and then you can't participate in it, even if you want to. (Like Red Fury, for example!) However, for me, I've found that it's really fun to make something that people participate in and enjoy, and it's fun being able to direct a whole group's movements and future, if even at the same time it can be daunting at times. So in summary, I've found leadership can be a lot different than being a member, but I've found enjoyment in it for different reasons.

You like people to enjoy your work, even at the sacrifice of enjoying it yourself? Damn, that's something else. Good on ya. How would you describe your character and his experiences to someone else that was hoping to portray them in fiction?

Locke is a soldier, but he's a soldier that served in the Yuuzhan Vong War at a time when survival and victory were more important than formality and conduct, and he was born on a farm. So he's often not very formal, and is pretty casual. He has an ongoing inner conflict between sliding to the dark side of the Force or not, so he sometimes sees a situation as the "ends justify the means", but he's generally a nice guy unless given reason not to be.

Reasons not to be… Like finishing last and all that, no? Moving on! If you had to pick one thing in your DJB career that is your "oh wow, my character is awesome" factor, what would it be?

My character? Awesome? Hmm, I'd say my favorite would be in Chasing Horizons after the Horizons vendetta. We were doing a joint event with CSP, and were at their homeworld with our fleet when the rogue Grandmaster Zoraan's fleet attacked us. Locke was Consul, and gave the order to stand and fight rather than force CSP to fight the invaders on their own. To him, keeping the Brotherhood whole is more important than letting another Clan get destroyed or severely weakened. I felt like this really defined his character, because it's such a monumental and difficult decision that he knew would cause a lot of conflict back home, but was what he thought was the right way to go.

What sort of advice would you give to any newcomers to the Clan?

Try different things. When I was new, all I wanted to do was write. I thought the Shadow Academy was silly, but then I tried it and I found out all the lore and things I could learn about were interesting. I thought I would be horrible at pvp in gaming, but then I started playing and won a few Pendants of Blood for having the best win/loss record for a month, and a couple of gaming competitions. I learned and got better, and for awhile I was pretty decent at Republic Commando and Jedi Academy. So I'd recommend to try gaming, try the SA (if you haven't already done a million courses!), try writing if that's not your thing. I'd also say to talk to people. Get on IRC, or email someone on Summit. There's a lot of very helpful people in our Clan and the Brotherhood, and it's possible to learn a lot if you talk and ask questions. Talk is free.

Very good answers there, Boss, and thank you for giving the time to grant them. Now get outta here before all that "nice" business starts to rub off on me, you might be contagious or something… And turn the lights off when you go, I need a bit more dark in here after all that!

If any of you reading this would like to see a specific member up here, or volunteer yourself, please don't hesitate to reach out and we'll keep this going… Or I'm going to pick someone myself, and I will hunt them down wherever they may hide.

Conclusion

You know what, I'm going to go with the same conclusion from last month, because that should be the standing motto of this report. If you take nothing away from this, at least take the following:

This is a great place to be, and the members are what make it that way. You guys can all be a part of that going forward, if you choose to be. Myself and all the other veteran members of the clan are here to help, most of us at any time, so all you need to do is ask.

Stay classy, gang, and I look forward to speaking with you again!