Hello everyone,

Today I’m announcing two minor adjustments as part of my ongoing efforts to improve progress in the art society and to make art competitions more worthwhile. I consider these changes stopgap solutions; quick fixes that can be put in place quickly and effectively before we turn to a larger society/progress overhaul.

Thanks to James for his valuable help getting these up promptly.

Double Clusters

The first change is the addition of a new policy that enables certain Graphics competitions to reward double clusters. This is fairly self-explanatory. The purpose of this new feature is to offer additional value to high-profile competitions such as those in vendettas or large-scale clan events. This will also apply to all future Herald-run Graphics competitions. This means that depending on the level of the competition, members will now have an opportunity to earn 24-48 society points for participation as opposed to the standard 12-24.

The following section has been added to the Herald Competition Approval Guidelines

Double Clusters Certain graphics competitions are eligible for double clusters. These are Herald-run competitions, vendettas, and large-scale clan competitions. The latter includes house feuds as well as inter-clan or clan-wide events that are not recognized as official vendettas but incorporate a variety of different competition types (such as writing, gaming, puzzles, trivia, etc.) The Herald’s office reserves the right to make exceptions to this rule under certain conditions. This feature is available to the Herald, their staff, Council members, and Consuls. The competition organizer must simply check “Award Double Clusters of Graphite” to enable this. The additional clusters will automatically be rewarded to participants once the competition has been judged.

Competition Difficulty Values

The second change is that we’ve increased the value of difficulty multipliers for graphics competitions. This is applied retroactively to the launch of the art society and the introduction of the Graphics competition archetype. This should explain why some of you received a bump in society points. Previously, Beginner difficulty offered a negative value with a multiplier of 0.75x. This has now been bumped to a multiplier of 1x to serve as the baseline for graphics competitions. Intermediate and Advanced difficulties have been bumped up to 1.25x and 1.5x respectively. This is a minor change but it simply did not sit well with me that “Beginner” competitions were presented negatively. This change makes winning in competitions that much more valuable and encourages effort with a maximum increase of 31 points when coupled with Double Clusters in a vendetta scenario. The Herald Competition Approval Guidelines have been updated to reflect these new values.

Important Links

• Herald Resources
• Competitions
• Art Rubric 2.0
• Herald Wiki
• Herald Policies
• [Log in to view e-mail addresses]

Thank you for reading this supplemental report. If you have any art-related questions, feedback, or concerns, feel free to message me on Discord or send me an [Log in to view e-mail addresses].