Introduction

Buckle up, boys and girls! It's been a bumpy ride of late, and it isn't over yet.

As you're no doubt aware (if you aren't, go read your email, it's been three days!), Celahir has decided to step down from the position of Quaestor. Despite immense time constraints, he put significant effort into helping make House Qel-Droma a better place for all of our members. Just as importantly, he had the wisdom to realize when it was time to step down - that's a level of self-awareness that few leaders in the Brotherhood manage and I think he would deserve recognition for that if nothing else. Irfan: for everything you've done and for sincerely putting the needs of the House first, you have everyone's gratitude. Thank you for all you've done, and for all that you'll no doubt continue to do. <3

That leaves HQD in need of a new Quaestor. Our Proconsul Uji has asked me to step into Celahir's rather sizable shoes, which means you're still stuck with me for the foreseeable future (as both QUA and AED apparently...). Cue Groans What does that mean for the day-to-day operation of the House? Quite a bit, to be honest. Every leader has a different style. I'm a software engineer, and I lead a team of other engineers, so as you might imagine I'm a pretty big believer in organization. It's my hope that I can bring this anal-retentive attention to detail to bear on how House Qel-Droma manages duties and projects and make both the Summit and the House as a whole better for it.

Some of you know me well. Others know me by name alone. I'm sure a lot of our newer members might wonder who their Quaestor is and what sort of experience he has. To that end...

I live and work in Houston, Texas where I'm employed as a Senior Software Engineer. I manage a team of five (soon to be six) members making software for automobile dealerships. When I'm not working, I enjoy speculative fiction, writing, gaming and long cruises around Dajorra Prime.

I've been a member of the Brotherhood for more than half of my thirty years. I've served as Battleteam Leader twice, Aedile of Ektrosis, Marka Ragnos and Qel-Droma (twice), Quaestor of Ektrosis and Qel-Droma, Magistrate to the Oracle and Seneschal, and Combat Master. For all that, House Qel-Droma is my passion and love. It's our home. It's my home.

And it's my honor to serve it again as Quaestor.

So, where do we go from here?

I'm going to start out by making a few pledges to every one of you.

1. My door (or Inbox, or Telegram Window) will always be open to each of you, without exception. While work or family might, on occasion, prevent me from responding immediately, I will respond to everything and give each and every one of you as much undivided attention as you need to flourish in Arcona. You are my first priority in the Brotherhood.
2. Things will be done in a timely fashion. The most obvious example is reports. Of late, they have often been slapdash and tardy when they were completed at all. Going forwards, you can expect a House report on the third weekend of every month.
3. We as a Summit will operate in as transparent a manner as possible. Projects will be tracked publicly and open to review and critique by our members. My goal is to make the actual tracker available publicly, but for now you can see the status of the various public initiatives we're currently working on in the Current Projects section blow. Additionally, we'll be completing quarterly reviews of the House and of how well we, as a Summit, have achieved our goals in making HQD a better place for our membership. These will be public as well. You should never have to wonder what your leaders are doing to serve you.
   

The last time I led House Qel-Droma was just following Great Jedi War X. We were arguably the strongest House in the Brotherhood, and my goal is to turn that memory once more into a reality. Make no mistake: there are a number of challenges in front of us. But I'm not worried. I have two of the most competent Battleteam Leaders in the entire Brotherhood. More importantly, we have the most talented, lovely and determined membership that Arcona has seen in a good while. Together we can and will make House Qel-Droma the envy of the Brotherhood!

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. News
   
3. Competitions
   
4. Awards
   
5. Promotions
6. Current Projects
7. TL;DR
8. Aedile Alley
9. Crescent Leaderboard
10. Closing Words

News

Brotherhood

• FIST Report #5
• Journeyman ACC Tourney - Conclusion
• Headmaster Report #2

Clan

• Rollmaster Round Up
• Galeres Fiction Update
• Consul Report

House

• Shadow Gate Report

Competitions

House

• Open Battleteam Fiction (Shadow Gate)
• Open Battleteam Fiction (Styx)

Clan

• Summer Sun Selen-bration
  • Summer has arrived, the sun is out and shining, and we have a slew of fun and light activities to “Selen-brate” the Sun ascending to its zenith! So go forth, click on the link above, and have fun! Each competition will have its own Crescents, and points will be tallied up to determine the winners of the overall competition, with a super secret fancy title to be awarded to the 1st place winner! There's still a week left in this momentous Selen-bration, so go out there and win it!
    
• Bladeborn of Arcona
• World of Why Me (Expansion 1)

Brotherhood

• The Heart Of It All
• Iconic C.S. - Palpatine
• Monthly Gaming: Overwatch

Additional competitions can be found in the Competition Center.

Awards

Adem Bol'era

• Dark Cross

Aexod Burgoo

• Diamond Crescent (x2)
• Emerald Crescent
• Topaz Crescent

Alaris Jinn

• Sapphire Blade

Celahir Erinos

• Pendant of Blood
• Diamond Crescent
• Amethyst Crescent (x3)
• Sapphire Crescent (x2)
• Emerald Crescent (x2)

Celevon Edraven Erinos

• Emerald Crescent

Damon Tye

• Sapphire Crescent
• Emerald Crescent

Inarya Tiberius Entar

• Dark Cross

K'tana

• Sapphire Crescent

Kordath Bleu d'Tana

• Steel Cross
• Sapphire Crescent (x3)
• Emerald Crescent

Livana Agrona

• Amethyst Crescent

Marick

• Anteian Cross
• Diamond Crescent
• Ruby Crescent (x3)

Rins'zler Sang-Kalinor

• Anteian Cross
• Ruby Crescent

Strategos Thanatos Entar

• Anteian Cross
• Diamond Crescent (x5)
• Ruby Crescent

Terran Koul

• Steel Cross
• Emerald Crescent

Timeros Caesus Entar

• Emerald Crescent

Zujenia

• Dark Cross
• Amethyst Crescent
• Sapphire Crescent (x2)
• Emerald Crescent
• Topaz Crescent

Promotions

• Adem Bol'era to Mystic!
• Anastasia Marie to Cadet
• Arruna Novar to Hunter
• Cossner Edge to Recruit
• Zujenia to Hunter

A huge congratulations to everyone who got promoted this past month! They were well earned.

Current Projects

• Sins of the Past - Episode II (~50%)
  • Though not House Qel-Droma specific, Episode II of Sins of the Past is currently the largest initiative on my plate. There's a lot of events to plan, fictions to write, etc. When I'm not working or moving, I'm working on Sins. We had some feedback after the first Episode - though not as much as we would have liked. Hopefully we can take that feedback and make Episode II even more fun for all of you.
• HQD Wiki Revamp
  • We're currently in the second phase of revisions. Obviously apocryphal articles have been archived and the most critical articles have been assigned out to volunteers for revision. Those articles are currently being reviewed to identify the needed changes. We also have a number of members who have volunteered to help wikify all the changes once they are written. Despite this, if any of you wish to volunteer to help, your assistance would be more than welcome (and heartily rewarded). No progress percentage on this, since it is an ongoing project without any real "completion" goal. However, we likely have at least three more phases of article revisions before Qel-Droma's wiki presence can be considered up-to-date.
• HQD Timeline Revision (~70%)
  • I've been working on this as time allows, though other things have taken priority the last few weeks. I estimate this is 70% complete. Expect to see this finished sometime in July.
• House Report Card Template (~5%)
  • As previously mentioned, we'll be releasing a quarterly update on the House's progress. I'm currently writing up a template for this and determining the critical metrics we should be tracking. This will be an ongoing project, likely right up until the first Report Card is released. ~5% complete.
• Port Ol'val Fronts & Gangs (~5%)
  • Our lovely Shadow Gate BTL is spearheading an effort to expand and refine the various fronts and gangs in Port Ol'val. This is still in the brainstorming phase, at the moment.
• Shadow Gate Training Regimen (~5%)
  • Currently being pursued by Kat and Tim, the aim is to document the training regimen of the Gatekeepers in order to lend Shadow Gate an air of realism. Similar to the Fronts & Gangs initiative, this is still in the brainstorming phase.
• Inactive Member Check-in (~10%)
  • While our goal is to be in constant contact with all of our members, that isn't always feasible, particularly when real life calls members away unexpectedly. As such, we have to periodically reach out to these members we haven't heard from in some time and try and lure them back through whatever means necessary, including threats and extort--cookies. I mean cookies. Obviously.
• Story Arc Proposals
  • All three units will be working up story arc proposals, incorporating where possible the events that are currently happening with the Clan and the Brotherhood at large. This is a new initiative - previously, story arcs have been rather more freeform. While this can lead to terrifically unexpected developments, it can also be confusing when events in one Battleteam contradict those in another or, worse yet, in the House or Clan fictions. We're going to try and address this going forwards by planning these events out in advance and better coordinating our efforts. You can expect to see the fruits of this after the next Episode of Sins of the Past, currently scheduled for mid-July.
• Arcona Gaming Round-Up (~5%)
  • This is a new duty that Aexod, our lovely Styx Battleteam Leader, has volunteered to helm. Similar to the current Fiction Round-Up that Zakath sends out, this will be a periodic Gaming Round-Up for all you Destiny, Diablo and Overwatch lovers.

Well, that's it for the moment as far as projects. If you have any you would personally like to see (or lead), feel free to shoot me an email and we can discuss them. I can't stress enough that our goal is to make your time in the Brotherhood more enjoyable. If you have suggestions for how we can do that, all the better. Don't be shy.

TL;DR

• QUAED In the House
• Terran is an obsessive freak
• Do ALL The Projects!
• Shinies Galore
• Two Weeks until Sins of the Past: Episode II

Aedile Alley

For the moment, I'm going to hold off on hiring an Aedile. This is a topic we'll be revisiting in a couple months, but for now I want the Summit's primary focus to be on getting our various projects on track and developing a better workflow. Once that has been accomplished, we will be opening up applications for Aedile.

Crescent Leaderboard

Below you will find the numbers used to determine the scoring and the leaderboard itself.

• Diamond: 7
  
• Ruby: 6
  
• Amethyst: 5
  
• Sapphire: 4
  
• Emerald: 3
  
• Topaz: 2
  
• Quartz: 1
  

Member	Points
Strategos	41
Celahir	36
Marick	25
Aexod	19
Zujenia	18
Kordath	15
Damon	7
Rins'zler	6
Livana	5
K'tana	4
Celevon	3
Terran	3
Timeros	3

That's a huge number of points. I'm talking Crescent out the wazoo!

I couldn't be prouder of you guys.

Closing Words

That's about it for now, space cowboys. Shadow Gate is still going strong. Styx has a capable new leader at the helm in Aexod, and I know he'll do right by our little band of fixers. The next episode of Sins of the Past is coming up, and I know you'll all kick some serious ass in it. We have rocky times ahead. But then, we've had rocky times behind us.

The storm's still a' raging. But we'll pass through it soon enough.

Until then, we'll keep flying.

Augur Terran Koul
Quaestor, House Qel-Droma