Introduction - With the coming of spring comes change and the Great Flowering of Solyiat.

I am sure you are well aware by now, that Darro has stepped down from being Knight Commander of KoA once all the applications for are in Yuki and I will go through the process and select the best candidate for the job. The new Knight Commander will have the summits full support to make sure the transitional period is a smooth and productive one.

In more unfortunate news our Aedile Yuki Suoh spoke to me and due to real life time constraints he will be stepping down as Aedile shortly after we select the Koa’s new BTL and get the House review completed. Please take a look for Turel’s job posting for all the requirements if you wish to apply for this position to be posted soon. I’m sad to see Yuki step down but i completely understand his reasoning and as he put it he “rather leave now before his inactivity causes a mess”>

With the summit now in a little bit of a flux, some things have fallen by the wayside and I am hopeful to get a new BTL installed and up to speed quickly. The major Hoth projects, such as the wiki pages and a future House event, can be finally worked on and completed for release in near future once KoA has their new leader. Expect an announcement on who the next Knight Commander is in the next few days!

If I may switch gears from the unfortunate happenings of running a house, to mention some weird and actually fun things that have been happening in Hoth which then spilled over to the full Clan. The members, equipment and other possessions of the house have been covered with flowers! And these flowers have come from our newest transfer Jasper Arlow! As you can see below, she has made lovely additions to most all of the House member’s avatars and, apparently, she got into my report graphics as well.

This is exactly what I love to see in the House. New members not only being welcomed, but the entire House having fun and just being a general nuisance for the rest of the Clan. These are all good things, for it builds camaraderie and a sense of belonging. I’m proud to be a part of this and will proudly wear my flowers. Thank you, Jasper, for all your time making the members of the House look and smell so much better!

I have included some of Jasper’s flowered pictures for you all to enjoy below.

General News

• Desperate Measures the new coop clan event with Clan Taldryan will start on May 8th! If you wish please sign up for the coop events using this SIGN UP form.

• New Limited Time Offerings are available from the Regent for Star Wars Day!

• Beef becomes Clan’s Taldryan’s Consul. Good luck Beef.

• Drac dropped some great gaming stats in his latest report. He also listed old games in danger of being dropped from the approved list. If you want to save them, you must submit gaming activity for them in the next 2 weeks.

• The new DGM report highlighted some awesome quarterly numbers for COU and the rest of the club. I am proud of all the hard work you have put into making us one of the top clans in the DJB!

• Also, don’t forget to look over our Rollmistress’ report and see what new things she has in store for us.

• Finally, in Turel’s Consul report, he announced a bunch of awesome things like our new PCON Arch and the possibility of a Clan event coming soon. I can’t wait to get us all back into the groove and help the House win it all!

Hoth Flowers written by Jasper Arlow

The young, Human woman stood before the gathered crowd, copper buns wobbling on top of her head as she hopped from one foot to the other. Beside her, a towering KX-series Security Droid stood, covered from head to toe in hand-painted red flowers. The girl smiled brightly as she retrieved a data pad from the droid’s hands and flicked a freckled finger across the screen.

Hushed whisperings rolled across the gathering of people, all eyes fixed on the short, bouncing girl. Few, if any, knew who she was, but her energy suggested she felt as comfortable as if she were with her own family. With a quick breath, she tucked her chewing gum in her cheek and waved at her audience.

“Alrighty! Fer those of ya who don’t know me: I’m Jasper Arlow! And I’m new ‘round these parts. But we can say hellos later.” She brushed a wisp of hair from her cheek, leaving behind a long smudge of grease in its place. “Now, y’all might’ve noticed that there’s been some flowers poppin’ up- and not just the smelly-good kind neither!” Green eyes sparkled with unabated joy as she plucked a paintbrush from behind her ear and waved it in the air for emphasis. “Spring’s a’comin’ folks and I got us a headstart on the decoratin’. I hope ya like my special flowers, cause anything not locked up is gonna get ‘em… or’s already got ‘em!”

The floral-covered droid at her side suddenly reached out his long arm and tapped her on the shoulder, wordlessly reminding her to stay on topic.

“Oh! Right! Thank ya, Rex!” Jasper tucked the datapad under her arm and stood on her tip-toes. “Egg- I mean... Mister Edgar, asked me to letcha know that our dear ol’ Govern’r named a planet-wide holiday fer the annual Spring Festival! It’s gonna last two whole weeks, so git yer green thumbs ready and help us grow, grow, grow, mkay?” She clapped her hands together. “If ya have any questions, you know where ta find me!”

Written by Jasper Arlow (Thank you!)

So, the last few weeks have seen a lot of fun things happening in the clan chats and, since it’s the perfect time of year for it. Jasper took it upon herself to help brighten all of our days and introduced herself by giving us all such wonderful gifts. This and adding such and light hearted and fun little fiction I do hereby name Jasper Arlow as Hoth’s member of the month!

Now, for the really fun part. Jasper once again, with permission, took our avatars and gave them a fun spring like appearance. So here are some of the fun examples she created for us all and I think I speak for the all of the Hoth members when I say: Thank you, Jasper, for taking your time to do this for us all.

The Scimitar of Lord Hoth April results

With everything that’s going on behind the scenes, this will take a little longer than expected for me to announce the results. Expect an email in the next few days.

I will say, that it’s great to see how many people are active as the months go by. There will be big months and there will be quiet months, but remember: it’s a long race so it’s still anyone’s game with 8 months to go.

Member Achievements

Awards:

Arcia Cortel:

• 97 Clusters of Fire
• 281 Clusters of Earth
• 1 Crescent with Sapphire Star

Edgar Drachen:

• 20 Clusters of Fire
• 393 Clusters of Earth
• 2 Clusters of Graphite
• 1 Crescent with Amethyst Star
• 2 Pendants of Blood

*Yuki Suoh:

• 5 Clusters of Earth
• 1 Crescent with Ruby Star
• 1 Crescent with Amethyst Star

Tisto Kingang:

• 56 Clusters of Earth
• 1 Crescent with Emerald Star
• 1 Crescent with Topaz Star

Chris Winchester:

• 7 Clusters of Fire
• 7 Clusters of Earth
• 1 Crescent with Topaz Star

Ka Tarvitz

• 32 Clusters of Fire
• 10 Clusters of Earth

Ashael Blackstar

• 30 Clusters of Earth
• 1 Crescent with Sapphire Star

Jasper Arlow

• 8 Clusters of Graphite
• 1 Crescent with Amethyst Star

Competition Highlights

To see all available competitions, head to the DJB Comp Page - Remember: when in doubt, do more comps!

• Celebration: May the 4th Be With You! - It’s that time of the year again. Time to celebrate all things Star Wars and to do so with a DC level club event! Let’s get out there and show them what Hoth is all about!

• Rollmistress Puzzles! - So our dear Rollmistress is getting in on the puzzle racket too. Well ladies and gentlemen of Hoth, we know what to do here. Go crush some puzzles! First puzzle goes live April 8th!

• Abstract Art Series: Ways of the Force - Art container comp for all of you artists out there. Go get clusters and win it all for the glory of Hoth!

• Hoth - The Scimitar of Lord Hoth House Hoth’s new annual comp. Earn points for almost everything you do in the club and the one with the most points wins the monthly crescents. Then, the member with the most combined points for the full run of the comp wins it all and is named the Scimitar of Lord Hoth! Good Luck!

• Twelve Weeks A Haiku Year 2 - A haiku a week for 3 months. Have at it!

• Voice Dialogue Series - Container comp full of fiction comps from the Voice staff. Earn bonus Clusters of Ice by participating!

• A series of changes - A fiction container comp to focus on your character check it out.

Gaming Comps

• COU - Back to the Gaming Past - Since everyone like to call me old I decided to create a container comp to celebrate some of gaming’s best Atari 2600 games. So for 8 weeks you will get to enjoy some classic games. Have fun!

• COU - HotS Cluster Race - celebrating one of the newest gaming platforms Heroes of the Storm Yuki created this comp. It’s a free to play Moba from Blizzard (makers of Diablo, Starcraft and Overwatch). Download it and come join us for some fun and clusters!

• GMRG Gorefest 2017 - All your Gorefest needs in one handy container! Double Clusters for all GMRG members. If you’re not a member take the GMRG History SA COURSE, now!

• FIST - Gorefest - The next Gorefest is April 20th - 23rd. Seeing as I will be on vacation during this Gorefest, you must avenge me!

• FIST - Quarterly Gaming Challenge Q2 2017 - The next quarter of the Gaming Challenge things is ready for doing!

• FIST - 2nd Annual Mobile Gaming - Another year of Mobile games and Bonus CE’s!

• FIST - 1st Annual Flash Gaming - New Monthly Flash Games too! More bonus CE’s! Swoon!

• FIST - Galaxy of Heroes Quarterly Squad Arena - Players of the mobile game will earn bonus CE’s in these weekly comps!

Ask Edgar

• Len Eode asked: A serious question, do you feel as though your House is moving in the direction you envisioned? If not, are you pleased with how it is moving? If it is, is there anything you would like to improve a bit more on?

Simple answer is: No I’m not. The more in depth answer is: I’m not happy because of how far behind I am in getting things done. Projects have stalled and I would love to be preparing for a full House event, but I just not have had the chance to complete what needs to be done. This in no way reflects on the House membership, since they are doing what they need to do and, in fact, some reasons I’m delayed is because I’m enjoying and helping them further the Hoth Insanity (i.e. Hoth Flowers). They inspire me and keep me on my toes and such I lose sight sometimes. Once I get the new summit set I will be cracking down on my projects so Hoth can have a solid foot on the ground and we all can be proud of our home!

• Turel asked: what would you like to see from the Clan and House content for the rest of 2017?

More Hoth victories, of course, but personally what I like to see is a nice cohesive plan that all aspects of the clan are effectively working toward the same goal. Of course, each unit can take different paths to get there but we should have smaller unit events affect house events which then affect Clan events. We are one unit and one family, so what happens on Daleem affects Solyiat and Kiast as well. As much as I’m Hoth forever, this House will always come to the aid of the rest of the clan in a moments notice. So I hope the summit can all get together and work as one to integrate our stories so this way every member feels that every win and loss we have will affect us all in some way. So I Hope to see so cool events with maybe a final Clan event in November as the culmination of all of our hard work throughout the year.

• Aurora asked: What kind of amazing stuff awaits any journeymen/'pups' thinking of joining Hoth?

A wide open world in which the summit is more eager and wanting to hear your ideas Solyiat was not created by one person. It was created with many voices and ideas and purposely left with many holes to be filled by anyone that had a good idea. It will be the mandate of this house for as long as i am here to always listen to every crazy idea any member comes to me with. I could care less if you been a member for 10 mins or 10,000 years. If you come to me with a idea that is interesting, fun, engaging and something we can find a place for then I’m all ears. Hoth was built differently and I will always uphold the member first mentality. So if you want a place where your creativity and insight will be listened too Solyiat is your place. Of course members of Shan and the clan as a whole are more than welcome to contribute to our world as well. We are for all people assuming you can get passed Zoya that is. :)

• Esca/C’ree/Arcia asked: Where do you see the House going fictionally before the War? How do you see Hoth being utilized during the War, fictionally? Will the focus remain military based or move more towards the exploration side of things?

Ok of course never an easy question but Hoth fictionally I would like to see set up as the fighting force of the Clan. We have spent some time training and building ourselves up we are just about ready to take the fight outside of the Kiast system. I would like to see our main goal to be exploring the stars for other Jedi and forces to join our fight against the Iron Throne. With of course the occasional stomping the GM’s forces wherever we find them. A perfect secondary goal would the be the full defense of the Kiast System. Working hand and hand with the Imperial forces to keep the system safe from invasion and internal threats.

Now as for the war I would expect to see Hoth ships in the thick of any battle the Lotus rebellion is involved in. With Arcia’s return I would expect our fleet to be well prepared and trained to take the fight to the enemy and protect the rest of the Hoth/Clan forces that are on the ground fighting the scourge of the galaxy.

In conclusion -

I’m glad to see a community forming within the House and I’m happy to see you all trying to make Solyiat your home as well. It’s now time to take the next big fictional leaps forward in world creation and finally put solid roots down on our new home. Solyiat is now our home and we shall now make it live!

Thank you!