"Everybody has a 'Star Wars' story, and that generational experience is something that is really important and it's everything in terms of the future of 'Star Wars.' You guys, you energize us. So thank you."

--Kathleen Kennedy, President of Lucasfilm

Today's random report art comes in the form of an early release of Episode VII's Poster. Yay.

Well folks, the day arrived, and I don't know how I could have been happier with it. Star Wars Celebration kicked off today, and let me tell you this... today my mind was blown. Again. I felt everything I hoped I would feel when learning more about the direction of the franchise and seeing more footage. I felt like a kid again, and dammit, it felt good. We're in one of the most exciting times in recent history to be a Star Wars fan, and just as it is important for all of Star Wars, it's important to us in the Brotherhood... so make sure you try to soak all that you can in over the coming months. It's pretty awesome. Anyways, onto the report!

Headlines that you need to know!

• New Trailer for Episode VII, Lots of Celebration Comps!
• Taldryan Competition Poll Results
• Star Wars Battlefront Release Date & Panel Info
• What's happening around the DB
• Rollmaster's Corner
• Competition Roundup

New Trailer for Episode VII, Lots of Celebration Comps!

So, the story that has taken the world by storm today, unsurprisingly, was the release of the new trailer for Episode VII. I'm not ashamed to say that while watching for the first time, in my office, at my desk, surrounded by co-workers I shouted for joy and had tears in my eyes. I'm either that much of a nerd, or the trailer is that good. Personally I believe both to be true. The Force Awakens Panel at Star Wars celebration touched so many amazing notes for me, Kathleen Kennedy and JJ Abrams made me trust in them and their vision for the story I love so much. Seeing the actors like John Boyega talk about how much they loved Star Wars, and even watching them geek out themselves a little bit while telling us their stories made me sure that what we're going to get is something that is amazing. So while I had always been telling myself "don't get too excited"... screw it, I'm in, and I am pumped to the extreme.

That's my rant about the trailer and the panel this morning. We're going to have even more cool news coming around in the coming days, and there's been even more great news floating around the web. Something to note about all of this is of course the DJB Invasion Competition. In case you're unaware, Pravus Valhavoc and Zednich have all made the trek to Anaheim and are going to be proudly flying the DB's colours at Celebration, and they're hosting a series of competitions for us to participate in while they're there. A lot of these competitions are making use of the DB's Social Media accounts, specifically Twitter and Facebook so make sure you're keeping a close eye on those streams!

Star Wars Celebration: DJB Invasion

• Celebration: Caption This: #1
• Celebration: Caption This: #2
• Celebration: Caption This: #3
• Star Wars Celebration: Facebook Trivia #1
• Star Wars Celebration: Facebook Trivia #2
• Star Wars Celebration: Facebook Trivia #3
• Star Wars Celebration: Telegram
• Star Wars Celebration: Cosplay
• Star Wars Celebration: Retweet and Share
• Star Wars Celebration: Open Event
• Star Wars Celebration: Boba Fett?!

Taldryan Competition Poll Results

Last week I opened up a poll and I asked you guys what sort of competitions you'd like to see from the Clan Summit. We had a great amount of responses, and Halc, Howie and I are all looking forward to see how we can start making your requests a reality. But what we also know is that people? People love graphs. So I'm including the breakdown of the different questions for everyone to see, just so you have some sort of idea what competitions we're going to be looking at in the future.

In this, we asked you who you like writing fictions about. It's no secret that I've been trying to push the agenda of writing as a character who isn't yourself. I have been doing this both to help our members grow as a writer by putting themselves in another person's shoes, as well as to for people to approach things from a new and different way. But pretty clearly this is not as popular as writing fiction based on yourselves, so while I'm not committed to dropping my crusade, you'll probably see more of what you want and less of what I want :D

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This is another fairly unsurprising category.. when asked what type of fiction you'd like? You want something with a defined mission, and that isn't the ACC. Message recieved loud and clear.

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As for team fiction results, something I found extremely interesting here is that Coop Fiction and Storymode ACC had such wildly varying results. Everyone seems to like runons in general, but they are much more passionate about small team runons. The Clan summit has had on its agenda some team based activities, because we feel that's an area Tal really needs to work on, so expect to see these events coming soon.

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When it comes to PVP... Basically we're sort of meh in general about PVP, which surprises me a little bit, but at the same time, nobody seems to seriously dislike it, so expect to see PVP continuing on as a staple activity.

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As for PvE... this one I found interesting in the scope of the scale. We trend toward liking a cluster count vs. a mission based PvE event, but not wildly s and we do have some people who seem to very much hate the idea of a cluster grind, so expect to see us try to mix both of these in.

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Finally, for the fun competitions, it looks like the only clear winners are Flash Games, where people generally tend to also enjoy Captions and puzzles. Trivia seems to get some mixed reactions, but the only clear loser is the Meme category, which as near and dear to my hear hurts me, but message recieved!

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So, there you have it guys. We didn't poll graphics interest, which was an oversight by me, but generally graphics fall into a True/False category. If you are passionate about graphics, and really want to see us push more competitions out, or even just want to try your hand at a few things for various Tal projects, drop me and Halc a line. Hopefully after the craziness of this weekend, the summit will get to work on actually hammering out these competitions, Look for what is currently being referred to (admittedly, only by me) as the Undertaking to begin sometime next month!

Star Wars Battlefront Release Date & Panel Info

Back to Celebration, one of the biggest things I'm personally looking forward to tomorrow is the Star Wars Battlefront Panel. We've had a lot of cool stuff coming out about Battlefront so far, which includes a LEAKED RELEASE DATE OF NOVEMBER 17TH, as well as some footage that you can find at the end of the Episode VII Trailer if you look carefully.

I had posted previously that Xbox may be getting first dibs on the platform, but from the leak, it seems clear that the game will be released on Xbox One, PS4 and PC simultaneously. Xbox users may still get a brief head start thanks to the EA Access program they have. Anyways, fingers crossed for what's coming tomorrow!

Headlines from Around the DB

• The Wiki Tribune introduces himself and tells us all the new fun things he's looking at doing, and how the Wikier of the Month will be awarded in the near future.
• The Fist has deluged us with a series of excellent and informative reports about how gaming is going in the DB. Highlights include: Star Conflict PoBs, Changes to TOR Guild Requirements, a discussion about swaying and much more. Make sure you read up on it.
• The Headmaster has implemented a new points system for the hotly debated Dark Sage Tactics and Warfare degrees, there's also some talk about new courses in the future (and present).
• We recently Celebrated the independence of our club and get to congratulate four of our members on their Seals of Loyalty. Congrats go to Kir, Halc, Howie and Omega!
• The Grand Master recently made mention about a possible change to how Orders/Paths work in the DB, and the Dark Summit has only just recently started debating the form this change will take. Expect to see some more information on this subject soon.

Rollmaster’s Corner

Hello Taldryan! Welcome to another addition of the Rollmaster’s Corner!

I’d like to welcome to Novice Cy'Rano to Taldryan, he’s been assigned to House Dinaari! When you get a chance, please say hello!

Second and most importantly, young Artorias was just promoted to Dark Jedi Knight! Congratulations!

Journeymen Activities

Below are the highlights of our journeymen during the past week!

• Novice Cy'Rano: Promoted to Novice, completed Essentials 1: History!
• Jedi Hunter Seyda Norith: Earned a Legion of the Scholar!
• Dark Jedi Knight Artorias: Promoted to Dark Jedi Knight and earned a Crescent with Ruby Star!

Competition round up

Taldryan Hosted Competitions

• Consular Puzzle Competition – Compete against the Dark Council and fellow members of Taldryan!
• Bogan, Moon of Terror – Small scale Taldryan wide competition!
• Operation Blackhand - House Dinaari is running a series of competitions!
• Taldryan Gatekeeper Trials, April 2015 – Best PVP Score wins!
• Speed Sporcle Challenge #11 – Hosted by our very own Zoron! Answer questions on sporcle
• Ice In Summer, Part Deuce – Zoron is running an NHL Playoff competition!

Brotherhood Wide

• GMRG Gorefest: April 2015 – Double Clusters of Fire for GMRG members! Runs the weekend of the 24th to the 26th!
• Diablo 3: Season 3 Greater Rift Ladder (Non-Seasonal Characters) – Highest greater rift completed wins!
• Diablo 3: Season 3 Greater Rift Ladder (Seasonal Characters) – Highest greater rift completed wins!
• Star Wars v Game of Thrones – Write your character as in Game of Thrones!
• Revenge – Write a revenge story!
• Canon Fodder Episode 1 - The Inquisitor – Write a story from the perspective of Star Wars [Rebels’] Inquisitor(https://www.darkjedibrotherhood.com/competitions/8507)
• Star Conflict PVP – Another Landon Star Conflict competition!
• Haiku Fun – Write a Star Wars themed haiku!
• Monthly Mobile Gaming: Jelly Jump – Another mobile competition from the Fist’s Office!
• Star Wars Galactic Defense: War on Geonosis – Another Galactic Defense mobile game!
• Star Wars Commander: Galactic War Tournament 8 – Another Star Wars: Commander competition!
• Smile, say cheese....- Take a funny Star Wars themed photo!
• TOR Pairs: Warzone - Stay on Target! - Team up with another member of the Brotherhood and complete TOR Warzones. Obtain the highest "Objective" scores, both you and your partner's scores will be added for your Team Total.
• The Dark Depths – Fiction event run by members of Plagueis

So, like I mentioned above, we recently celebrated the holiday called "Exodus Day", where we celebrate the severing of ties with our old parent club. This event took place well over a decade ago. We're starting to get to the point where people who weren't even born when this happened are beginning to join our club. I for one love the history of this club. It may help that I was around for more of it, but I feel like being able to celebrate our history is something that makes us special... not many other online Star Wars clubs get to claim two decades of existence. It makes us unique... but I also think it's high time we stopped celebrating what we were, and focus now instead on what we are.

With Disney taking over Star Wars, we have all had a change forced on us. The EU we knew and loved was thrown away, and we're walking into the great unknown. Just as this is a time for new beginnings in the Star Wars universe, I hope in coming years we can see this time now, as when we too, as a club, started over... and that's my yearly rant on this subject done. I hope everyone's enjoying Celebration, and that everyone has a great weekend!