Greetings fellow Dakhani! This report will contain information about the Project: S.P.E.C.I.A.L event which starts when the site ticks over tonight! Further points will be what I’ve been up to and some future ideas for the House the HSD Summit has been bouncing around.

Lion’s Tooth
Seng Karash
Shortly after the Karashi Void outbreak
34 ABY

With Darkblade nowhere to be found during the outbreak of the Karashi Void, Aul Celsus couldn’t help but wonder if this was some test from his Master. A test to see if he was truly fit to be the Aedile of House Shar Dakhan. Time and again, the Anzat had tossed the human scientist outside of his comfort zone, yet each and every occasion had taught Aul valuable lessons needed to succeed in the Brotherhood. Whilst the teaching methods were definitely unorthodox, in the end they produced clear results.

This wasn’t the first time Darkblade went missing during a crisis either. During Operation: Homeland the Anzat had been kept sedated as a Clawdite impersonated him. Luckily for him though, his Aedile had attempted to assassinate him and unintentionally killed the impersonator.

With his Master and Quaestor out of the equation, Aul let the depth of their current situation sink in. Taking several minutes to mull over the available options, he understood what he had to do. In order to lead, you needed the respect and trust of those you were leading. As a leader you had to bring out the best of others and help to overcome their weaknesses. No self respecting person would follow an inexperienced leader if they thought themselves superior. Right now he was the leader of House Shar Dakhan until Darkblade returned. Hesitation made way for determination. The will to succeed and become a pillar that Shar Dakhan stood upon brought a fierce light to the Mystic’s eyes.

Fishing for his comlink from under one of his belt pouches, the scientist hailed the person he would need at his side in order to create the image that the leaders of Shar Dakhan were capable of doing their jobs.

“Lilith, I need you to meet me at the Empiricalum. We need to find a way to combat the virus and come up with a plan to help our members break their invisible walls and unleash their true power,” he said with no hesitation.

“Copy that Sir. ETA will be in about four hours. Myrmidon is quite far from the Empiricalum. I needed to make sure things were ok here before I planned on heading to Seng Karash to see if I could help there,” the soft yet stern voice of Lilith greeted Auls ears.

At least she has a similar background and interests, the Aedile thought to himself as he remembered that the Battleteam Leader was a healer. Always useful to have someone around as well practiced in medicine as he was.

“Alright, I’ll be waiting for you in the labs,” the Mystic said before he turned off the comlink and began to make his way out of Lion’s Tooth.

Everything around him sounded eerily silent, as most of the guards had been reassigned to the city in order to help keep the peace as the Virus did it’s work there. A chill ran down the Aedile’s spine as the thrill of what was going to happen next got the better of him. Grinning slightly, Aul Celsus felt as if he could take on the entire galaxy.

Read the rest of the fiction here!

Project: S.P.E.C.I.A.L

The final Clan event for CNS of the year 2016 is upon is! Originally planned to be a House only event, Aul made the most excellent of observations and asked “why not make it Clan wide?” Why not, I thought. Agreeing with this wise Aedile we quickly approached the Clan Summit asking for their thoughts as we explained the plot. They agreed to the idea and here we are, Project Special is now a Clan wide event!

Every member in CNS can participate during this event! HSD, HMR and all Summit members are encouraged to join in and show off your SPECIAL skills!

The original idea of Aul was just a few simple tests to see what the CNS members strengths and weaknesses are, being mainly Flash game competitions. Now, I’ve listened and more importantly, remembered, to know that Flash games aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. So being a bit of a Fallout fan, I decided to follow the route of determining a member's Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck. Now we had seven competitions we could come up with, each tying in as close to their aspect as much as possible. Still having some flash games (3 in total) we are also offering a better variety of competitions to hopefully supplement everyone! The Flash games also offer a lower point value compared to the higher effort competitions.

One thing to mention is that Intelligence: Wiki Trivia will follow a 5,4,3 point rule instead of the 3,2,1 that was originally planned. This one is actually pretty tough as you get further down the list of questions so make sure you have time when you start the timer!

As a result of the limited interest, apparently due to the “other” Run-On being run by Ophelia and Darkhawk, in the last fiction and Run-On competitions of the Leadership for Kel Rasha event, we have decided to skip the fiction for this competition, allowing you more time to focus on the Transmogrification Run-On being hosted by Locke and Sang.

The end result for the setting up of overall competition has been very fun experience, some cool ideas were put to the table and I really hope you will enjoy the month long event as much as we enjoyed planning this for you! So go out there and show us what makes you… SPECIAL!

Parent competition here! Click me!

HSD Wiki Page Competition!

Lilith is hosting her first ever wiki page competition for the VSDII Covenant. The Covenant is missing one final thing, and that's the page for the Searing Blade Squadron! Check it out below and be sure to sign up and enter a submission if you think you’d like a chance at being a part of the final phase of completing the HSD flagships wiki page! We look forward to your creative input!

Build Me A Squadron.....Make It A Wiki

Busy Busy Bee

The last few months I’ve spent increasingly on cleaning up and adding NPC’s to HSD and more recently to CNS. Take a look here for the NPC’s Naga Sadow currently has! We have a vast assortment ranging from medics and non fighting characters to kick butt rambo ones!

The reason I am fixing them up is because I want to start getting you to write them in fictions. We will also be using them for events which I’m sure you have realized throughout the past 10 months since I stepped up as QUA. I love using NPC’s to help create an atmosphere that some PC’s just can’t capture. Plus, in the end they are disposable whereas members are (rightfully so) less inclined to sacrifice their characters.

This does mean that when/if an NPC is sacrificed it has little to no real impact, which is something I hope to change when the members get involved in their development. There is also the argument that if you can create an NPC for some spots, they should be instead held by members.

Whilst this does have some merit, it is impossible to make every member have their dream job with the direction the Clan is going. CNS is still supposed to be a secret organization which uses Dlarit/Orian Assembly as its guise. Having lightsaber wielding leaders in public places destroys that illusion pretty quickly.

In the future I hope to start by adding fictions or hosting a multitude of fictional competitions revolving around these NPC’s and creating the opportunity for you to interact with them, much like you do during RO’s. It is through this way that I want to help you to create ties with these characters and allow for far more diversity in fictional development of your own character.

It’s also important to note that although you may be a FU or NFU, going around killing NPC’s is going to make your life tough. Did you murder the Covenants Captain for unjust reasons? Prepare to slaughter the entire crew as you battle your way out of a situation where the crew wants to avenge their beloved fallen leader. Did you dispatch the Mayor of Seng Karash for your own move to powah? Prepare to face down an angry mob of civilians who will work towards making you look over your shoulder constantly.

So long story short: Be on the lookout for Run-Ons or fiction competitions revolving around one or more of these NPC’s! Coming to you in 2017!

One Final Thought

Finally, the Summit has begun to look at what we can offer you in 2017! The starting debate of allowing one of our very own members to work with the Summit on an event or competition style of his or her own image!

We realize that we are not able to always give all the members everything they want. There will always be disgruntled members no matter how much you plan, talk or discuss. Thus we felt it might be a very interesting idea to allow you, the members and lifeblood of this House, to come with ideas for events you would like to see happen in HSD!

It would start with a simple competition, asking you to write down the plans and ideas you have for a competition. The more detailed it is the higher the chance we could actually make it work! The overall “best plan” will be selected, and the HSD Summit will work with this member to help promote and launch the event. This is still in the very beginning phases though, and the way we select events or members may change once we fully commit to the idea.

When and where this will happen is uncertain, but it is an idea which we do plan to want to experiment with. It will not only give the member a better insight as to how much work and planning goes into the event, but hopefully create a better bond between the member and Summit, once both parties realize how much effort and work goes into this, changing the thoughts and opinions of one member at a time.

Having disgruntled members (you know who you are) before the start of any event is definitely not something the Summit looks forward to and quite frankly shows that perhaps the members do not totally realize what goes on behind the scenes to organize and launch an event that spans multiple weeks, with a storyline requiring updates, managing teams etc. The thought process behind each competition and why something should or shouldn’t be included is one of the hardest things to discuss and ultimately agree upon as an organizer. Having low overall participation is even worse for the organizers. We don’t just pull this from our proverbial behind overnight and launch it within the week.

Through this way we hope to gain a mutual respect for the work put into these events by all the Summit members who work extremely hard for you to create the House and Clan you are currently in! Please don't hesitate to comment your thoughts and ideas on this or anything else discussed in this report!

TL;DR

• Project Special launches tonight!
• Lilith has her first House wide comp out tonight!
• NPC fixes and future competition plans!
• 2017 will be the year for the members!

I wish you all a very great month and hope you enjoy the competitions!

Respectfully,