The Shiny New Herald

Yay! I haven’t broken anything yet, I think. So many new buttons to press, though. Hello everyone! My name is Alaisy and I’ve been appointed as the new Herald. You might have seen some of the custom robes that I’ve worked on before. If not, expect to be seeing more of them in the future.

One of my main reasons for joining the Brotherhood two years ago was because it gave me a great excuse to work on art while developing my skills along with getting a chance to explore my Main character. I’ve only really learned by self study and discounted online courses since mid-2017, but my affinity for art allowed me to make some serious progress and it has allowed me to better express myself.

Nervous and terrified: that’s probably how I feel about being on the Dark Council. It wasn’t an easy choice to apply. It meant changing plans on commissions, leaving Arcona, the friends I’ve made there and letting go of character plots that I was engaged in. My main goal—which is improving at character art—however, remains unchanged. In the start it will likely involve a fair amount of juggling between taking care of my 4 year old, practicing drawing, and the new role as Herald. As I get better at managing time and understanding the administrative part of my role more, I will hopefully get more time to jump back into those narrative threads with everyone who has been so accepting of my shiny Sith OC.

Expect to see me start off relatively slowly while I adjust to all the changes. First, I will be looking at replenishing the Herald’s Office staff by hiring interested Magistrates. The next step will be to help clear the backlog on custom graphic requests, which consists of mostly custom weapon requests right now.

To that end, I’ve made Rian the new Praetor to the Herald. Please congratulate him on his new role if you haven’t done so already! Rian is an absolute magician when it comes to creating custom weapon skins for the Brotherhood, so I’m ecstatic that he’s staying on the team.

Meanwhile, I’ll be learning how to create some basic weapon skins, hopefully in the same style as Rian’s with the help of his tutorial. I think the experience will be very welcome and maybe it’ll help reduce the strain a bit when times are busy.

Also, if anyone wishes to read my application, feel free to message me on Telegram. There is nothing top-secret in there, but it might give you a template to work with and some transparency on my part.

Policy Updates

Both of these policy adjustments are already active. My predecessor, Selika Roh, has taken care of it and added them to the Wiki, I’m merely announcing that they are there.

Black Core saber

Ultraviolet lightsabers (UV) which were black with a violet glow, were changed into Black core lightsabers that have a dark core with a white glow.

See this page for more information, it’s under ‘Elder Lightsaber’

Dual Identical Lightsaber/Weapon skins at EQ3

There’s two Wiki pages that are affected by this change. The policy change allows you to request a custom dual lightsaber or dual weapon skin at EQ3 so long as both hilts or weapons are identical.

If one weapon/hilt is different from the other the rank requirement will be EQ4 like it always was.

See this page and this one this one

Hiring and the Application Form

The Herald’s Office is looking for new Magistrates that are preferably eager to learn and improve! The main thing we ask is that you are active, respond timely to messages, and work well with the rest of the art team. When things get extra busy, the Herald will be mainly responsible for reducing the pressure, so don’t be afraid, as we won’t swamp you with work to do.

Being a Magistrate can be a great opportunity to get what you need for the next Promotion, Merit, or Sacramental award. But what I think is even more valuable is getting the chance to improve your artwork or graphic editing ability. Working on robes and weapons can give you the focus and direction needed to push your quality further and when time allows it we will be happy to help you. And Warbanner creation and editing can teach you great graphic manipulation skills you can apply in other endeavors.

Magistrate Responsibilities (we are looking for two, maybe three new hires):

Handling of basic warbanner requests. Able to work on many layers using graphical software. 24 to 48 hour turn around for Herald staff related communication via Telegram and email Help answer non-staff member questions about graphic requests and other Herald office related systems and processes. (Optional) Willingness to learn and receive mentoring (when time allows it) for creating weapon or robe graphics.

With time, trust and interest more opportunities can open up, like (tournament) competition judging and organization, or project work.

We’ve made applying easier than ever by giving you a form to fill in. You’re free to keep it as short as you want, the long answers are mostly optional. However, we will always appreciate any input that might improve everyone’s visual experience in the Dark Jedi Brotherhood.

Please click here to go to the application form

To Conclude,

I know, no fancy graphics on the report yet, no fictional update on the Shroud and no new stuff? Outrageous. These reports won’t be made monthly, but they will look better over time, I promise. They will be posted as they are needed, especially for any new policies, while content, staff work, art highlights and other development will get featured as we go.

Speaking of art highlights, these will likely be first introduced in the DB Art Club Telegram channel by using hashtags and/or pinned messages and then summarized in the bigger reports with the artist’s permission.

Priority right now is on getting the work done that is in the Trello queue right now (the Kanban board the Herald staff uses to stay on top of member requests). That also means that we won’t get to any real plot development until the backlog is whittled down. New stuff will come as new Star Wars content is released, and my team and I will try to be on top of that.

Please do let us know if you have any ideas for robe or weapon graphics, because the more people like one thing, the more likely we will be incentivized to create it!

If you have any concerns, or if you need to talk, I am always around on Telegram, or you can contact me by email. Just keep in mind that I live in the Eastern European time zone. You don’t just find easy-to-drain Mandaboos stuck in spiderwebs every day, so I do need my beauty rest.

Your Shininess,

Alaisy Tir’eivra
Herald