It’s time to finally release content that has been about a year in the making, and all the other changes that follow in its wake to improve the experience, as well as bring back a store that celebrates iconic Star Wars characters. Below I’ll break down the all the places where changes have occurred, and finish with a thank you to everyone involved.

Celebration Store

In celebration of Star Wars, I am once again happy to announce the return of the limited time Celebration Store. The store this year will feature the same twenty-six items from years past, along with eight new items inspired by characters. These items are sold at a higher quality level and in some cases carry with them unique functionalities. I hope everyone has fun re-visiting items from the past and checking out the new additions.

Check out the store here: Celebration Store Direct Link

Please note: This Celebration Store will be open starting now, to celebrate May the 4th and Star Wars over the weekend, after which it will be closed early next week (sometime around May 7th). If you are interested in any of these items, there is a limited opportunity. As noted before, I’ll note again, it is not promised these same items will appear again in the future, and offerings could be adjusted in the future, although we’ve yet to do that. Anything purchased can be sold later but will be unstocked by the regular stores and not available again.

Creatures

Along with the celebration store above, the timing seemed right to finally bring creatures to the Dark Jedi Brotherhood possessions system. These new types of items are already integrated into the loadouts (more detail below) as well as with the CS system thanks to efforts by the Voice and Combat Master and their teams.

Check out the new store here: Iron Menagerie Direct Link

There are two new Item Types:

• Companion: These types of creatures can be your companion, and will fit into the loadout into only the companion slot, which previously could contain only droids.
• Mount: These types of creatures can also be your companion, but also your transportation on land, fitting into the companion slot or the land vehicle slot which could previously only contain land vehicles.

There are eleven new Item Categories: I won’t elaborate on each but they each exist to help search the store for a creature and do research.

• Amphibian
• Aquatic
• Avian
• Canid
• Cephalopod
• Insect
• Mammal
• Mollusk
• Reptavian
• Reptile
• Space-borne

There are three new Item Aspect Types: Two are familiar from droids (cosmetic and personality) with the addition of physical to help define additional information on something that is alive and has a life cycle and is organic. All of these have a varying number of pre-written options but custom written ones can be requested of the Regent staff to review and approve.

• Creature Cosmetic: The Creature Cosmetic Aspect is a non-functional cosmetic aspect that can be applied to a creature. Allowing a member to describe in more specific detail the unique color, graphics and altered appearance of their specific creature.
• Creature Personality: The Creature Personality Aspect is a non-functional aspect that defines the personality of a specific creature in a specific manner as defined by the details of the aspect with specific benefits and drawbacks noted for each personality.
• Creature Physical: The Creature Physical Aspect is a non-functional aspect that defines the size, life cycle or stage of physical and psychological development, and defining physical characteristics of a specific creature relative to a standard member of the species.

There are two new Item Upgrade Types: These are granted specifically to a creature, and cannot be customized. They relate to how the CS system works with creatures in regards to taming and managing a creature, as well as detail if a creature is venomous or poisonous.

• Tamability Category: Tameability is the capacity of a creature for being tamed. It outlines the level of ease it takes someone to deliberately train the creature against its natural instincts so that it is welcoming towards the presence of humanoids. Tame creatures subordinate themselves to humanoids sufficiently that they do not threaten or injure.
• Toxic Creature: The Toxic Creature Aspect is a functional aspect that defines the nature of a creature's toxicity, including if it's venomous or poisonous, to what degree, and the nature of the poison itself.

Additional comments: Each creature has a basic description for the Dark Jedi Brotherhood site, and link to the source information. In some cases, a features list is noted that includes flight, or toxicity as a reference for anyone looking at the creature. Also, some common creatures are grouped together so that when researching, you can see similar items, much like all other items in the possessions system. For more information on how to interpret how your specific character interacts with and utilizes creatures please see the report by the Voice with more details posted earlier this week.

Loadouts

To accommodate slotting creatures into the CS, as well as address some clarity around ACC implications of a CS, some changes were made. Parts of this are discussed in earlier reports by the Voice (report here) and Combat Master (report here)but to recap quickly here for completeness sake.

• Blue Color: A blue shading color was added to the loadout. Where it was originally all just black and treated the same, now portions of the loadout can be ignored in snapshots for the ACC. Basically, if it’s blue, it won’t go to the ACC. Everything else will.
• Backpack Slots: An additional five (5) slots were added to the loadout to accept additional pieces of equipment. These weren’t added before due to the ACC, but with the ability to distinguish now with colors these were added to help support fictional storytelling using the possessions system without impact to this other area.
• Land Slot: This slot had originally just accepted Land Vehicle items, it will now also accommodate Mount Item Types.
• Comp Slot: Originally called Droid, it now is intended to be slotted with a companion and can accommodate Droid, Companion or Mount Item Types.

The placement was also rearranged to better utilize the adjustment in space. The hope with these changes was to improve what can be taken into a piece of fiction, allow for creatures in a logical manner and avoid issues with the ACC.

Summary of the Voice changes from the report:

• Beast Control is now Creature Control, more details here.
• Beast Riding is now Creature Handling, more details here.
• New feats are now available.

Salary Policy

I’ve mentioned a few times in the past, and it’s constantly in the back of my mind, as we keep adding more and more to the demand side of the system we need to adjust on the supply side. So along with NPCs, and celebration stores, and content expansions and creatures came a need to add more credits. We did add a fourth new society to the system that brought with it credits, but I wanted to do more. So after doing the balancing math and discussing with people who helped me balance originally, I have decided on a path.

Adjust the Salary Policy to double the number of credits gained at each society rank. This means at rank 12 of a society a member would have earned 100,000 credits instead of the original 50,000 credits for attaining all the ranks. That’s a total of 200,000 additional credits available to any member who strives to reach the top of all the societies.

Specifics:

• Rank 1 + 500 credits
• Rank 2 + 750 credits
• Rank 3 + 1000 credits
• Rank 4 + 1250 credits
• Rank 5 + 1750 credits
• Rank 6 + 2250 credits
• Rank 7 + 3000 credits
• Rank 8 + 4000 credits
• Rank 9 + 5500 credits
• Rank 10 + 7500 credits
• Rank 11 + 10000 credits
• Rank 12 + 12500 credits

As you can tell, it really starts to ramp up as you get to higher ranks and provides a really solid means for newer members to try and earn enough credits to buy items they are after. James already pushed this live so everyone should already have their credits present in their accounts.

Check out the updated salary policy here: Salary Policy Direct Link

Thank Yous

I want to thank everyone who helped to get creatures added to the possessions system. I have rewards in the queue to hopefully see approval shortly for Kasula Daegella, Shadow Palpatine Nighthunter, Archenksov, James Lucius Entar, Muz Ashen Keibatsu, Darth Aeternus, Idris Tyvaros Adenn, Marick Tyris, Kojiro Keibatsu, Kadrol Hauen and Reaver Satsi Tameike Arconae who was awarded as part of a larger plan on behalf of the Voice. Without the individual efforts of the team it would have taken a much longer amount of time with a far less effective implementation. So thank you.

Regent Staff Links

• Item Research
• Stores
• Wiki Template

Conclusion

We added new items to celebrate Star Wars, creatures in their own store, changed the CS system and load outs to accommodate and added more credits. I’ll add a full changelog, and more information later on the content expansion, Clan related title holder items and my thoughts on where we’ll go with upgrades next and discuss my staff. For now, I need to wrap up some documentation updates into possessions that have changed and allow the expansion above time to get its legs in the system.

Also, please bear with me as the prototypes are unhidden to show up in item research, though the stores will show up immediately.

In darkness,