Hello everyone,

Welcome to another Voice Report! In this installment, there is some pretty big news about the in-character descriptions of our organization, as well as some discourse on the different levels of club fiction for you as a member to interact with.

The Brotherhood - The Issue

For years, our club has been dealing with an identity crisis. The Jedi of Odan-Urr were introduced nearly 12 years ago. Non-Force Users have been an option for around 7 years. Even more recently the paths systems were cut out so members could play any alignment anywhere. To call us the Dark Jedi Brotherhood is very much failing to capture what our in-universe situation is. We are a Brotherhood a collection of widely different clans filled with wildly different members, be they Sith, Jedi, or fond of the pew pews.

Because of all of these great additions to our club, there is an issue of how to reconcile the “Dark” and “Jedi” components of our organizations. For years we have jumped through hoops to rationalize Jedi standing side by side with the Sith. For years there have been out-of-character issues of members feeling second-class or ignored due to wanting to play a lighter-direction character.

Our less-than-darkness is further evident by things such as member choices in big events. The Rite of Supremacy saw a majority of the club align with the “light” facing faction options. While we continue to serve a Grand Master who happens to be a powerful Sith, as a whole we cannot really claim the Brotherhood is still a Dark one.

The Brotherhood - Proposal

After a long time thinking about it, I submitted a proposal for discussion with the DC before finally submitting it to Evant and Bubba. With a pretty unanimous “yes this is good”, it has also been shared with the Consuls, and the story group for further discussion.

For sake of transparency, you can view what the “final” version of the proposal was here.

The tl;dr is a separation of our OOC site branding “The Dark Jedi Brotherhood” with our IC functionings.

The Brotherhood - Changes

Now the nitty-gritty details in the proposal don’t necessarily reflect the final result we are going to have but do indicate the general direction and goal we will be having going forward. As our club narrative has advanced I have already tried to minimize references to “dark/sith/evil” connections and keep it “The Brotherhood” and “The Council”. This will continue as we move forward.

The basics are outlined are:

• In character we are dropping the “Dark”. We are “The Brotherhood”, led by the Grand Master and “The Council”. Our emo phase is now over.
  • We are not redoing our history, it is a part of us. This is a “going forward we aren’t referring to ourselves this way” change.
  • Exact reference to the Brotherhood/Council might tweak if we decide to add an adjective in there, especially to maintain ease of acronyming like DB and DC. But generally speaking, the “dark” days are ending.
• The Grand Master is a position that can be filled by anyone who has the backing to lead the club. Every GM transition always has its own hoops to jump through for this, so that won’t be changing. Nothing indicates the GM must be a Sith Lord. Historically yes, they all have been, and yes Evant continues to be one. It will likely remain that way for a while, but that's a personal choice by the person who is elected. Who knows, someday we may have a Jedi or NFU take the throne.
  • The awarded title of Dark Lord of the Sith (and by extension the Sith Lord titles) remains an optional but mainly OOC honorific. No one with a Sith Lord title is ever required to “main” a Sith, or use a “Darth Foo” title. The issue of applying Dark Lord of the Sith to a non-Sith GM will be handled when it actually comes up.
• The Brotherhood remains a feudal organization comprised of many clans. Those clans’ personal identities are all the more important now. The overall goal is survival in a harsh galaxy.
  • The Brotherhood from the top provides supplies and resources, along with the promise that the entire organization steps up to defend itself. The clans are expected to honor this relationship.
  • The continued issue of clan to clan relationships will differ from clan to clan. We aren’t going to step in and say clans MUST play nice all the time. The best explanation I’ve come up with over the years here is the clans are all siblings. Each has their own identity, goals, homes, and agendas. Siblings sometimes fight with each other. Sometimes they fight alongside each other. This isn’t changing but maybe this analogy helps some people frame it in a more healthy way.
• The Shadow Academy remains the Shadow Academy as our secretive and exclusive educational/research wing.

The Brotherhood - Going Forward

Obviously, this isn't simply flip a switch and be done kind of movement. I also know some people will love this, and others will hate it, but I hope the rationale behind it is clear enough for everyone.

We are continuing to discuss some of the finer grain points of this. Wiki pages will need to be updated/moved. Don’t expect a giant fiction drop where Evant monologues about this change, but do expect to continue to see those fictions try to better realize this goal.

Our overall goal is to provide more openings and opportunities for members to play the characters they want to play, and hopefully, in the process, this will remind everyone that we are all part of the same club. No one is lesser for belonging to X Clan, or weaker for playing a Y-type character. #OneBrotherhood.

Club Fiction and You

Now that the Great Jedi War is in the rearview, the topic of macro fiction updates has reared its head again. It is a very common discussion and a subject all of the story group is constantly trying to mitigate. So I would like to discuss a few things about the storylines, member engagement with those, and where at least I am coming from when I approach the macro plotlines.

There is a common complaint that the macro club-wide fiction doesn't “matter” to your character specifically. Or that it doesn't address what your own clan is specifically doing in its own storylines. We are a club of seven very different clans. The war saw 140 members participate.

Our club-wide fictions need to cast a very wide net to hit all clans and all active members. Try as hard as we might, it is impossible for the story group to tailor every fiction update individually. Our goal is to provide a large wide net for a foundation to provide options for you, and your clan to build off of.

This is further intensified by the fact that story group (and I especially) don’t ever want to police and restrict clan plot lines. We want the clans to be free to go off and develop in the ways they desire (aside from breaking major canon stuff). Each clan has its own identity, and every summit has their own stories they wish to tell within their unit. We want to keep that freedom as much as possible. But that also means we can’t direct or steer it in terms of the club-wide stuff either.

In my attempts to find a good analogy for the fictional workings of the club, this is the best I’ve come up with. Our club is still a “gaming” system. We have the CSes, some standard rules for the universe in which we live. Imagine it just like an MMO, a big world, some defined character creation options and after that, you go and choose where you want to interact with the world. Some people only go for the PvP, some love crafting, some love RP, some love cranking out the main quest line. All viable options, no wrong way to play an MMO.

In our MMO, we have major content patches, which serve as the main quest line. Our world is constantly evolving and progressing. You can think of these main quest lines as things like “seasons” in games like Destiny. They are a limited-time run, and when it's over, it's over. On to the next one.

The storyline is something you can choose to interact with. It is events that you can decide to participate in. These are the “main” activity on going when they occur. Our macro plots and vendettas serve this purpose as the “whole” world of our MMO progresses.

But there are also faction storylines. Consider things such as the different Skyrim factions, The Mage’s Guild, The Companions, and The Dark Brotherhood. They all have their own storylines. But the storylines are unique to members of that faction. These are our clan plots. They are tied closely with the identity of the clan and are closer and more personal to you as a member.

Then there are random sidequests. One-off or short series objects where you develop your character based upon a core prompt. You do the ones you find interesting and ignore others. These are our random sets of competitions available at any given moment.

After that, we have the general “Hey I want to RP” mindset. You don’t need to write something attached to a competition to develop your character or their history. You don’t need to take part in our cool developing RP systems. You can just write stories. Fill out character wiki pages. Come up with adventures for your characters.

Your own personal experience here is shaped by how you latch to all of the opportunities. We cannot force you to do things, nor do we wish to. You do the things you enjoy doing. Our goal is to provide as many platforms and opportunities to do so as we can, be it an RP session prompt or a vendetta.

I’m sure this all seems like the ramblings of a madman, but hopefully, this helps at least a few of you when it comes to our many levels of fictional development in this club.

That's all for this time. I hope my explanation of the fictional changes makes sense, but please feel free to comment or message/email me if you have further questions/concerns/ideas about it.

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