I have been holding off on this report as pieces of the larger puzzle have all been falling into place around me. Now that the dust seems to be settling in, I will attempt to cover a lot of ground in a short time span.

So as the great scholars — Fall Out Boy — once said: “This is the road to ruin, and we’re starting at the end.”

DB Macro Plot Update

Please see the latest macro plot update here, and see the news post with recap here.

In summary, we cover the fictional changing of roles on the DC, as well as introducing the leaders of the Severian Principate. The next chapter update will close out the [Brotherhood Rising] arc, and lead us into the storyline for Great Jedi War XIII.

GJWXIII

The Thirteenth (god that’s so much easier to type than “twelfth”...I still hate that word) Great Jedi War has been announced and will be — as best we know — starting July 20th, 2019.

Please see the latest Grand Master’s Newspost for more information.

Fiction Competitions

From the Voice, you will see similar fiction competitions to the recent RoS: Meridian.

Your entry has the chance to shape the direction of the Vendetta storyline. Your task is to choose 1 of 3 separate objectives to write about for your entry. The objective that garners the most entries will be used to steer the Vendetta storyline into a related course of events.

Similar to the RoS, each Phase will feature a single, Multi-Objective fiction with 3 prompt options. Members will “vote” on the direction of the story by submitting to the respective prompt they like most. The prompt with the most votes will determine the events of the next Chapter of the fiction. Example:

If you want Raptors to show up and save the day, you would submit to Prompt 1: Raptor Dance, where you are tasked with doing a ritualistic summoning to bring forth the raptors. If everyone else agrees and submits to Prompt 1, then the next chapter update will be about raptors showing up to impact the story.

For the GJW, Fiction will be graded by myself and Bubba, just like the RoS.

War ACC / Combat Writing Bin

Due to timing and overall logistics, instead of a formal ACC Bracket we will be taking a page from the last GJW and doing what we will simply call Combat Writing prompts. These prompts will be Scenario Hall inspired and the grading will focus more heavily on Realism, and a preference for action in Story.

These will be graded by Atra and myself, two former CMs. What could possibly go wrong?

Read the Plotline

I will also be working with the Headmaster to run another reading-comprehension based, multiple-choice SA exam. These “exams” are very accessible and simple require you to have read the fiction updates from both the last arc and the GJW storyline.

Updates

Clan Storylines

Please make sure you check out the latest Pulse Feed Aggregator to see what each of the seven clans, including the new Clan Vizsla, have been up to. These short vignettes recap the respective storylines into a one-page, easy to digest read. Thank you Atra for putting that together!

DC Change Over

• Evant is the new Deputy Grand Master. — RIP vant and thnx fr the mmrs, Vyr.
• Atra is the new Regent replacing him — Yay Finally! OG Brocons evolve into: Brocouncilors!
• Alaris is the new Fist. Thank you Drac — But I still hate you for leaving me </3.

ACC Championship

The ACC Championship has found it’s winner! Congratulations to Lucine Vasano on her victory. If you have not yet read it, I highly suggest you read the match.

Lucine originally turned heads as a Journeyman when she hit the ground swinging in the previous Great Jedi War preliminary rounds. I had a feeling we’d see her showing up in the next tournament, and I wasn’t mistaken. Lucine triumphed match after match with a character that most would agree is not “spec’d” for the ACC. However, thanks to her creative storytelling, accuracy to her opponents character sheets and their Aspects, and some very solid writing technique, it’s easy to see how she made it to the final match. Anyone that thinks that you need to be a saber-junkie to be an ACC Champion should look back at Lucine’s matches and reconsider.

Finishing second, Atra Ventus demonstrated why he will probably be looked back on as one of the club’s greatest Combat Masters. As someone who dedicated years towards helping craft the system and sandbox in which we get to play — at the expense of getting to play in it himself — Atra’s talents as a writer far transcend his knowledge of the system. If you want to see an example of how to write clear, easy to read, but vivid combat sequences, pay attention to how Atra paints with words. Congratulations to Atra for making the final match such a hard call for both myself and Arch.

Third place goes to Andrelious (Mark), after fellow finalist TuQ’uan had to bow out of the competition due to real life health complications. Congratulations to Mark on his 3rd place achievement, and congrats to TuQ on representing Clan Plageuis in the finals of the ACC!

The Combat Master will post his own report going into more detail, but I figured I’d drop my own thoughts in as well.

Character Sheet Approvals

My team and I have gone through and cleared up some of the language in the CS Approvals. While I’d love to go through and kind of tackle them from scratch, I don’t think that’s a project I’ll have time for. In truth, a lot of the guidelines were written prior to us having certain auto-magic things in place thanks to James’s coding. There have also been changes made to force integration with Possessions that still seem to give people pause.

That said. The guidelines are clear. My staff is very communicative.

Finally, I want to remind everyone of a very core element of CS approvals:

Anytime you update a text field on a Character Sheet, it requires Voice Staff approval. You are free to move Skills, Powers, and Feats around without re-submitting. That said, previous Character Sheet approvals do not guarantee automatic approval when triggering staff-required approvals.

This means that if you see a Character Sheet that still lists clothing in the Physical Description, it’s most likely a sheet is still valid and active, but hasn’t triggered a review from Voice Staff. We do not retroactively go back and audit every existing Character Sheet in the system. We simply catch things as they come in fresh.

This ensures that every Character Sheet submitted for review is being appraised based on the current guidelines, and not older guidelines. This makes sure that everyone is held to the same standards.

If you have a question, please reach out to the Voice Staff at: [Log in to view e-mail addresses]

Dark Council Faction Update

The Dark Council faction page has been renamed to “Dark Brotherhood”.

I’ve added some extra text descriptions and hyper links to help flush out what the DC, Societies, and Clan’s all mean fictionally for our organization.

The Severian Principate

Thank you again to everyone that created entries for the Severian Principate worldbuilding competitions.. Congratulations to the top 3 placements:

1. Essik Lyccane
2. Ciara Tearnan Rothwell Tarentae
3. Alaris Jinn

Beyond the container competition, the real meat of this activity was the worldbuilding element. I’m happy to say that all the entries we received for the various competitions have been and will continue to be worked into the Severian Principate Faction and Wikipedia page.

Mauro has already added the Cadres created for The Cadre. You can see them here on the Wiki.

With Mauro’s help, we’ve also coded in all 11 NPCs that were submitted for the competition. I’m very proud of the Character Sheet thought and development that went into these NPCs, and I’m excited to be using them in the upcoming GJW plot.

Here is an organization chart I created of the NPCs:

And here is the full roster on the Severian Principate Faction Page.

The Triumvirate

Similar to the three pillars of leadership for the Collective, the Severian Principate has a Triumvirate of leaders.

• The Triumvir of Steel — Kamlin Xarel (created by Tarvitz) — oversees Industry
• The Triumvir of Oaths — Vairya Muktiba (created by Ciara) — oversees Social Administration
• The Triumvir of Words — Adlez Freewoman (created by Atty) — oversees Galactic Diplomacy

The latest fiction introduces each of the characters, narratively, as well as three others that will be acting as emissaries to the Dark Brotherhood.

Projects

All of my projects are currently on hold in order to focus on the Great Jedi War. I am currently putting all of my free time and energy into:

1. Building the Severian Principate Faction and Wikipedia page with both member-generated content and added worldbuilding for the purpose of the Great Jedi Wars competitions and storyline.
2. Outlining the GJW Storyline and plot tree to prepare for a modular storyline in the GJW based on member-driven plot points.
3. Closing out the current Fictional Story Arc while preparing the Great Jedi War prologue fiction.

That said, I am working with both the Regent and CM to help support their projects as needed as well.

Endgame

I will use this space to announce that at the close of GJWXIII, I will be stepping down as Voice. It times out nicely, I think, at around the 3 year mark. I am a big believer in finishing what you’ve both started and promised to do. Because of that, I told Mav that I would help make this Great Jedi War happen and afterwards work on transitioning out. I’ll talk more about this when the time gets closer, but figured I’d let everyone know, transparently, what my intentions were.

Apparently I made two Fall Out Boy references in this report. Neat. Anyway, that is all for now. My inbox is still the best way to reach me: [Log in to view e-mail addresses] but feel free to hit me up on Telegram as well.

Thank you,