It's been a busy month

I have a lot to cover in this report, starting with a few Professor and Docents appointments that happened a couple of weeks ago but I never announced separately :p First up, I received a lot of excellent applications for Professor of CORE Studies. In fact, the choice was so difficult to make that I ended up selecting two new PROFs and a new DOC rather than the single PROF I had intended to hire. Marcus Kiriyu is the new CORE PROF and has been working overtime (with a lot of help from Bentre Stahoes and the rest of my CORE Team -- Farrin, Turel, Ood, Darkblade) to get the brand new Non-Force User (or NFU?) Order Core courses completed by today. More on that later.

Second, I selected Seraphol to be the first Professor of the Department of Legends. He has some interesting ideas for his department that we'll be looking to implement in the next couple of months.

Finally, Lexiconus, who used to be a Wookiee and is now a fish-man, has taken over as docent for the Planets and Moons and Regions of the Galaxy courses. He's done a great job grading and revising the courses as needed already.

CORE stuff!

• Phase 1 - 8/21
  
  • Shift old COREs to Department of Legends - 100% complete
    
• Phase 2 - 8/31
  
  • DB Basics Updates - 100% complete
    
  • Sith CORE - 100% complete
    
  • Gray CORE - 100% complete
    
  • Jedi CORE - 100% complete
    
• Phase 3 - Today!
  • Merc CORE - 100% complete
    
  • Loyalist CORE - 100% complete
    

I'm very happy to say that the SA has met its goal of completing the transition to the new COREs by October 1. Later today, the Mercenary and Loyalist Order COREs will be published; the notes are written, the exams ready. We're just waiting on some final touches and a fancy graphical rank table (courtesy of Ood) for each course, similar to those found in the three Force User COREs.

Now, when I say these courses are "100% complete," what I mean is "These courses are publishable." They will never be finished. In particular, I intend to see the Gray, Mercenary, and Loyalist courses updated regularly as we develop the roles of those new Orders in the DJB. Sith and Jedi will see revisions, too, but to lesser degree (barring any major, unforeseen changes to the Orders in the future). I've been very impressed by Marcus' work so far and I have a great deal of confidence that he will ably guide his Department through the early evolution of the new Path/Order system.

New Courses -- Voice Stuff

Aside from the new Order COREs, September was Voice Month in the SA. As Wally noted in his new report, the ACC Qualification exam has been completely rewritten, and ACC Fundamentals has been put out to pasture (humanely ejected from an airlock). Joining the revamped ACC Qual course is the brand new ACC Combat Studies, which tests your ability to read an ACC Battle and walks you through the use of a Character Sheet from an ACC perspective. We will shortly begin planning for another brand-new-Character Sheet-related-Voice-ified-fun-fest-of-a-course, but with a focus on using Character Sheets outside the ACC. Look for an update on that in my next report. Or in Evant's. Or in Wally's. :p

Also, of course, the Fiction Society is a now thing that you should do all of (I'm paraphrasing). It's not necessary for joining the society, but there is a nifty new Inquisitorius History course that explains the fictional background of this shady, be-tatted group and shows you in very tall charts how to advance (there's an error in one of charts currently, Ood's working to fix it).

Degree changes!

Degrees! Everyone loves 'em. Coinciding with the launch of the Fiction Society, the follow changes have been made to the Dark Sage - Tactics degree:

• Replaced:
  
  • Earn 150 CIs
    
  • Complete 25 ACC matches
• With:
  
  • Reach Fiction Society Rank 10 (in line with the Dark Sage - Warfare requirement for GMRG Rank 10)
• Changed:
  
  • 25 Tactics points per ACC win beyond first 25 wins to --> 15 Tactics points per ACC win (all wins included)
    

Also, completing all of the old COREs currently living in the Department of Legends will now earn you the Dark Maven - Legends degree -- everyone who had previously earned the Dark Maven - Philosophy degree had it converted to the new Legends degree.

I have created a new Dark Maven - Philosophy degree that currently requires the Sith, Jedi, and Gray Order COREs (in a few days, this will be changed to require ANY three new COREs), plus Philosophy 1 and 2.

Finally, for now, the Dark Savant - Writing and Philosophy only requires the Writing and (new) Philosophy Mavens plus the Test of Wisdom. In the next few days, this degree will also require completing all five new CORE courses.

Top Exam Takers!

Since my last report, the top five exam takers at the SA are:

Name	# of Exams
Acolyte Aexod Burgoo	37
Proselyte Mactire Chemel	24
Neophyte Maru	24
Neophyte Allistaire Von Drake	21
Neophyte Violet Cuscuta	20

Great work, everyone!

Conclusion

As always, I'd like to close this report by asking for your help. The SA is a massive wall of text that covers ever-shifting topics and is prone to typos and run-on sentences. If you spot substantive or grammatical problems, please let me, Ood, and the course PROF know so that we can fix them ASAP. As we work through the Departments during the audit, we're also going to be asking for help reading and editing -- if you have any particular expertise, let us know when we announce the next Department being audited. There are shiny things available. :P

Bubba

Adept Dacien Victae di Plagia
Headmaster of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood