"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. One can never know what greatness lies beyond the stain of our last failure. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more beard."

The Bearded Tome: Chapter 16, Verse 53

Headlines that you Need to Know

• Rolling AWOL Checks are In Effect
• A Fading Light at the End of the Tunnel
• Yacks talks about how Taldryan is doing
• Howie talks about the Journeymen!
• There's a New MAA in Town, and he needs more SA!
• Competition Roundup
• Gathering Darkness Preview

Just wanted to repeat my little apology for the illness that had me down and out all last weekend. Between summer hurtling to a close, trying to pack up my apartment for my move to a new place in September, pretending to have a social life, and a few other things that ain't yer consern, I've been swamped. Bright side is, I'm basically healthy again, so I have no more excuses. Stuff's going to be getting back to normal, and right quick. Anyways, onto the report.

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All the AWOL News

So, in recentish news, just before the former MAA went off into the sunset, the automated AWOL Checker got fired up. What this means now is that instead of having a friendly member of the summit contacting you every couple weeks to login to the site (yeah, we'll probably keep doing it), the site is now going to be watching you like Big Brother and it'll be keeping track of things for you. For the most part this won't mean much, since you all kick ass, but just make sure you keep up the great work of staying logged in.

Just go do a competition or two, that'll make sure you stay logged in ;)

Fading Light & Beyond

In a recent report, the DGM outlined what he hopes will be the next few months of the DB's future, which involves Fading Light wrapping up, a Great Jedi War which will be fought on the surface of Korriban, and finally an end to the nearly 2 year odyssey that the Dark Crusades have been.

I know the ACC Tournament has been kind of dragging along after all this time, but I'd like to congratulate all of Taldryan's members who have progressed through to the Elite 8 Round: Aidan Kincaid, Halcyon Rokir, and some jerk named Cantor. The breakdown of the tournament at this point lies with 3 Taldryanites, 3 Plagueians, and 2 Arconans. We're getting down to squeaky bum time, and the getting is good.

As for what comes after the ACC Round, the DGM has said ideally we can look at the next round of competitions to start close on the heels of the ACC Tournament. We can expect more traditional fare in the final round with graphics, gaming, and regular fiction all coming back into play. Tal's working itself into position to be in a dominant position going into the final round of Fading Light, but make no mistake, we'll need to finish strong if we want to regain our claim of First Clan of the Brotherhood.

Following that up, there will be a bit of a rest, and then planned somewhere around the end of October or beginning of November, we're looking at GJWXI starting... where we'll hopefully be defending our recently earned First Clan title :P

Anyways, dig deep guys... we finally have an end in sight. Lets finish it out like champions.

State of Taldryan

So, as Pravus mentioned in his latest report, the Brotherhood tends to go into a state of half hibernation during the summer months. The reasons for this are pretty obviously, but ultimately it's when we're at our lowest that I think we should take a step back, and try to evaluate ourselves... and generally, I think we're doing pretty good.

Much of the work that I set out to do when I stepped into the role of Aedile in House Taldryan is coming along nicely. We're seeing the emergence of new leaders in Taldryan, and we're seeing a general uptick in activity. But we still have much work to do.

Despite the fact that the Crusades and Fading Light has now been running nearly non-stop for over a year and a half now, Taldryan seems to be slipping back into it's old identity of "active for vendettas, asleep the rest of the time." If we're going to reclaim our place atop the DB's echelons folks, we need to work harder on being active all the time, not just when it counts.

That being said, I'm extremely proud to be one of the guys who is leading you, and I am even more proud of the strides we've been taking together in the last year. Keep on kicking ass, guys.

Rollmaster's Corner

Hello all! I have returned from the mountains, and have recovered from my one day of stomach bug. First of all, I’d like to welcome Gorn daa'murk to Taldryan. He’s already joined us on IRC, and has been promoted up to Acolyte (Congratulations!). So if you see him, please say hello!

Second of all, I apologize for my relative absentedness in the past week, my parents, sister, and brother-in-law have been visiting, and then we went to the mountains. Next week will have a similar weekend-absent Howie, as I have some friends visiting. The weekend after also has friends visiting. In my absence, I strongly suggest you all bug Halc with your questions.

Journeymen Activities

Below are the highlights of our journeymen this week!

Acolyte Gorn daa'murk

• Promoted to Novice and then Acoylte!
• Gorn completed the following Shadow Academy courses/earned the following degrees: Gaming 103: Submitting Gaming Activity, Gaming 101: Setting up & Finding Matches. Comms 1: Discourse, DJBWiki: An Introduction, Cryptography 101, Gaming 201: Pazaak, Dark Pundit: Vendetta, Dark Pundit: Essentials, Brotherhood Basics!

The Master At Arms Wants YOU!

Good ole Lord Kitchener. Anyways, the new Master at Arms (a dastardly di plagia who is going down in the next round of the ACC) has offered up some tantalizing, if unsure hints about SOMETHING AWESOME. No, we're not sure what the awesome is, but what we are sure about is how we earn the awesome.

It's simple, really: Just go over to the Shadow Academy and take the Leaderhip Rewards SA Course. The unit with the highest passing ratio gets the awesome. So, go do your bit for Tal, and earn us that awesome. :D

Competition round up

Taldryan Competitions

• Gathering Darkness — A Taldryan Event - Gathering Darkness Main Competition
• Gathering Darkness 04 — Cannons to the Left – The ACC component of Taldryan’s Gathering Darkness!
• Gathering Darkness 05 — Cannons to the Right – The gaming component of Taldryan’s Gathering Darkness!
• [Ektrosis] Puzzle #2 - Aedile Dru of Ekky enthralls us with yet another puzzle to peruse!
• 2014/15 DB English Premier League Fantasy – An English futbol fantasy competition, hosted by Proconsul Keirdagh Taldrya Cantor

Brotherhood Wide

• The tie that binds – Hosted by the Voice of the Brotherhood – this competition is about writing your character’s relationship to another.
• Monthly Mobile Gaming: Akinator – Another mobile gaming competition by the Fist of the Brotherhood!
• White Lies – Hosted by Jades of CNS, a fiction competition based upon a lie your character must tell to another.
• Assassins - Hosted by the Voice of the Brotherhood – this competition features you assassinating a fellow clan member.
• Pazaak Tournament – A pazaak tournament hosted by Taranae Rhode!
• Darth Ansel – Hosted by Zednich Wolfram, this is a funny photo/graphics (or Lego!) competition.
• Monthly Mobile Gaming: StackO – Another mobile competition hosted by the Fist of the Brotherhood!
• Monthly Mobile Gaming: StackO BONUS COMPETITION – A bonus competition to the StackO competition above!
• Blood and Glory, Round 1 – Round one of an ongoing fiction competition!
• DJB Fantasy Football League – An NFL fantasy football competition!
• [Odan-Urr] Tales of the Jedi – A year long HOU fiction competition

Gathering Darkness: A glimpse behind the Veil

• Gathering Darkness — A Taldryan Event
• Gathering Darkness Plot
• Cole Drayson Wiki

Cole kept his feet marching stolidly forward as he was escorted by the Dark Jedi of Taldryan. Every instinct he had was screaming out in agony, trying to throw him into a flight for his life. At this point though, there was no turning back. Disarmed and surrounded by these Dark Jedi who had hidden from the galaxy for years, Cole knew he had no hope, even if escape was his option. Instead, he had to bargain with these people. He would make his deal with the devil, and even if it cost him his life. He would save his people from the One Sith.

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That's just a short interlude. Between Halc and myself we've been writing up the next plot update and competition descriptions. Barring another bout with sickness again, we're (seriously) aiming to have the next round launch Friday or Saturday. Stay tuned.

Take it easy folks, and as always, if you have immediate need of me, just toss me an email. If I don't respond relatively quickly, send me another one. That's what email is for :D