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A short information blast related to skill training costs in TOR, a reminder about the SW Commander Tournament 2 competition since the game will update soon and scores will disappear, and information on how to unlock Geonosis in Star Wars Galactic...

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A short information blast related to skill training costs in TOR, a reminder about the SW Commander Tournament 2 competition since the game will update soon and scores will disappear, and information on how to unlock Geonosis in Star Wars Galactic Defense.

SWTOR - Skill Training

The worst part of leveling up is paying for all your new skills. When I hit 58 a few days ago I watched as my 400k credits dropped to less than 20k while training. Disappointing. However, Bioware has heard player feedback and starting next Tuesday there will be no skill cost associated with training skills (Class and Advanced Class). Training fees will remain for Crew Skills.

Check out the post by their Community Manager for more details!

SW Commander Tournament 2

The Competition for this is running for a few more days to allow time for you to upload screenshots. The Tournament actually ends in the next few hours. Make sure you get your screenshot and submit while you can!

SW Galactic Defense - Y U NO GEONOSIS?

Several members have emailed asking if I had heard why they were unable to unlock Geonosis after earning 48 stars on Endor. PRT Cruise of House Scholae Palatinae followed up with the SW Galactic Defense support staff and learned that in order to reach Geonosis you'll need to earn all (180) Stars on Endor. Its a good thing this competition is running through the end of the month, it may take a while to get to this new planet.

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Earlier today the Star Wars Commander App began its second Tournament and we will be having a competition for that going live soon! There was a News Popup inside the game which said they were changing how Event Units were bought / awarded. Details...

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Earlier today the Star Wars Commander App began its second Tournament and we will be having a competition for that going live soon! There was a News Popup inside the game which said they were changing how Event Units were bought / awarded. Details and link are included.

The competition for this Tournament will mirror the first, basically get the best Top % score to win. Ties will not be broken in this competition.

In addition, the Star Wars Commander App has a news post in it referencing how unlocks and upgrades for units won during events will be changing. You can view the entire news post here. However, I've put together a short summary for you all...

  • Unit unlocks in events will be much lower in the future.
  • More units will be available to unlock in each event.
  • Event units will only be able to be upgraded to higher levels using Event Points. Upgrade them with Research Station while you still can!!!!

This will all go active in their next client update.

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Obviously one of the bigger "controversial" moments of our 88 second long trailer was that wicked looking new lightsaber. It has rather divided the fan based into groups of "Its friggin awesome!" and "They are killing my...

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Obviously one of the bigger "controversial" moments of our 88 second long trailer was that wicked looking new lightsaber. It has rather divided the fan based into groups of "Its friggin awesome!" and "They are killing my childhood!". But fear not, as Stephen Colbert has come to explain it all. In a segment of his show last night he dissected the debacle in typical Colbert fashion. You can check it out here.

Enjoy!

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Now that the first trailer for The Force Awakens has been viewed by everyone repeatedly, reports now turn to when the next trailer will appear. It looks like it will be another 5 or 6 months until we see a new trailer, and it should be attached to...

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Now that the first trailer for The Force Awakens has been viewed by everyone repeatedly, reports now turn to when the next trailer will appear. It looks like it will be another 5 or 6 months until we see a new trailer, and it should be attached to Avengers: Age of Ultron. The logic makes complete sense, since this is a huge Disney movie, so adding a brand-new Star Wars trailer makes it an even bigger event.

I don't need another reason to go see the Avengers movie, but I am perfectly ok with seeing the trailer up on the big screen. And now, we can begin speculating on what else we may see. Perhaps we shall see the actual character who narrated the first trailer (voiced by Andy Serkis, for those of you not already aware)

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Greetings everyone and welcome to my Cyber Monday report. I am a big fan of Cyber Monday, namely because Mrs. Sarin is busily purchasing me a new desktop because my 2008 Alienware has finally given up the ghost. Beyond that, I'm looking...

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Greetings everyone and welcome to my Cyber Monday report. I am a big fan of Cyber Monday, namely because Mrs. Sarin is busily purchasing me a new desktop because my 2008 Alienware has finally given up the ghost. Beyond that, I'm looking forward to knocking this report out and updating everyone on some of the good work taking place across our club.

This report will include updates on:

  • Recruitment Tribune: Praise + Stats
  • GJW Planning Document + Scoring
  • GJW Fiction + Recap
  • Congratulations
  • Conclusion

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Recruitment Tribune + Stats

On 24 October 2014, we appointed Yacks as Recruitment Tribune. Since this time he has revitalized our social media accounts and brought us in line with what a 2014 era club should be doing. To say that Yacks has made an impact on our club in the Social Media arena would be a massive understatement. He and his merry band of helpers have taken dead accounts and turned them into DJB production machines. Here are a few details, just from our Facebook account.

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This chart shows our weekly overview from Facebook. As you can see, we are up across the board in all stats. This trend has been ongoing for five consecutive weeks.

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This chart shows our post likes since 24 October 2014. First, it is pretty obvious that our "likes" have consistently increased over Yacks' tenure. Second, that peak is 45 likes in a day. Not too shabby.

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Finally, this chart shows our most impressive stat, reach. That peak shows that a DJB post reached 661 unique individuals in one day. Awesome.

Yacks has put forth tangible and impressive work across all of our Social Media accounts and his work on Facebook is just the tip of the iceberg. I encourage everyone to give him a little pat on the back and thank him for helping our club expand its horizons.

GJW Planning Document + Rules

On 7 September 2014, the Grand Master and I submitted a GJW planning document to the Independent Units for review and commentary. Over the past three months the document has grown from a couple of pages to 13 full pages of likes/dislikes/ideas/commentary. I'm happy to say that each Unit has submitted to this document and everyone has had their voice heard (Special Props to Tal for responding first).

The Indy leaders have offered up a series of ideas on competitions: Battleplans, puzzle competitions, unique graphics events for hand drawn and computer, video creation, song creation, run-ons, and a mix of ladder based gaming events utilizing core platforms. While we can't promise that all of these events will make the competition, we can assure everyone that their voice has been heard and we will work very hard to accommodate a wide range of good ideas.

The GJW rules are presently being staffed by Mav with help from Jac and Val. These rules will be presented shortly to the Indy leaders for explanation, tweaking, and final revisions. Once again, the name of the game is letting everyone provide input with their concerns and thoughts. Unfortunately, at the end of the day the rules will make some units happy and some other units less happy. Muz gets paid the big bucks to make the final call, but it will be a call that takes into account the majority of our club.

More to follow soon.

Fiction + Recap

There will be a DJB Fiction update prior to the GJW that quickly recap the last two years of Vendetta and introduce a POV character that will take us through the end of the GJW. The singular POV decision was made after receiving some feedback that indicated highlighted key members was an awesome idea, but it also resulted in a mess of a story. Your feedback has been received and I've shifted fire (I'm flexible, for realz).

This shift and a host of other Sarin related issues have delayed me slightly, but the fiction is finishing up. It will go to my trusty proof readers (Mav, Shadow, Muz) and will then be published for the club at large. As of now, the story will start with a recap, provide fictional purpose to the Dark Crusade/Fading Light, and introduce the cause for the GJW. There are going to be a few little twists and surprises. I'll do my best to keep the writing tidy and precise. Regardless, there will be a TLDR that accompanies the fiction for those of you who hate my writing or just hate reading :p

We are also going to see the promised supplementals, because...well, things get a little interesting with our DC.

Congrats

  1. Congrats to Val, Xen, Yacks, Wally, Omega, and Liam on their "Best Reports Evah" awards.
  2. Congrats to Farrin on the SB!
  3. Meleu on the Grand Cross!
  4. DS on the Grand Cross!
  5. Howie on the Ruby Scepter. In case you did not know, if you look up the award, it is actually a picture of Howie's face. Howie does great work with new recruits and this was truly a well deserved award.

Great work everyone on your ranks and accomplishments!

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A bit of travel, a bit of holidays, a dying computer, and a bit of Dragon Age, GTA V Next Gen, and Assassins Creed Unity has kept me a little under the mIRC radar over the past few weeks. My apologies, but solutions are coming and addictions are fading. Beyond that, I'm hammering out the fiction and blowing deadlines to my proof readers. I'd like to thank Jac/Shad/Mav for their patience and comments. Shad also stealth moved some data on the wiki for me, and that was greatly appreciated.

Look for GJW rules soon and then prepare for the War after the Holiday Season. Muz also highlighted some potential December changes that will be a major impact to our character sheets. Hopefully we include some other character development avenues for our membership.

Lastly, yeah, I watched that teaser 150 bazillion times. I'm good with the saber and optimistic about the storyline. Although...that droid looked a lot like the World Cup football. Thoughts?

As always, I'm available via mIRC (Sarin or Pravus), email (grandmaster.sarin@gmail.com), whatsapp (ask), and g-chat.

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In this gaming update... TOR Expansion tomorrow! A few tips for that and links to developer blogs while you wait to patch. A new Star Wars Galactic Defense Competition, which I'm launching a few days late. Some information on the upcoming...

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In this gaming update... TOR Expansion tomorrow! A few tips for that and links to developer blogs while you wait to patch. A new Star Wars Galactic Defense Competition, which I'm launching a few days late. Some information on the upcoming Destiny Expansion - The Dark Below, which is set to go live on December 9th. So much gaming... so little time...

T'was the night before the TOR Expansion...

And I still had more stuff in TOR I wanted to get done before the expansion. Le sigh. It's a bit late for some of these tips, but maybe some night owl out there will see this and be able to take advantage of some of them. With any expansions launch there's always a frenzy of activity to reach the new level cap, and in cases of our club there's a competition out there as well. A few nicely laid plans can expedite this journey.

  • Complete a set of Daily / Weekly Quests prior to Expansion Launch, but DO NOT TURN IN! Save them for the launch of the Expansion and then profit.
  • Level with a buddy to the new cap! Expansions = higher quality items and harder mobs. It can be difficult to jump into leveling if you haven't been picking up Basic Commendation Gear or running raids. This becomes much easier when you are grouping with your DJBro, since there's two of you to lay the smack down on Revan's forces.
  • If you're a new 55... complete the Oricon Questline and get your 156 "starter" gear. This will help with the new nasty dudes who all seem to want to rip your face off.

On a more informational note, and in continuation of my previous reports, the rest of the Developer Blogs about the classes have been released. Rather than make you search back for other ones, I'm including all links to the Developer Blogs here. Who knows, maybe you'll be bored while we wait for the game to patch tomorrow. Everyone knows all expansion launches run seamlessly too... and there's never any server downtime afterwards.

The final thing for this section is a quick link to the Discipline Calculator on the Dulfy Website. This still isn't a final version, but it can give you a pretty good idea of what we're looking at for our new skill trees and how they work. Good luck to everyone leveling in TOR over the course of this week! I'll see you in game.

Almost forgot. The Republic Guild now has a Stronghold with the necessities to minimize trips to the Fleet. Mailbox, GTN, Cargo Bay, Legacy Cargo Bay, and Guild Cargo Bay. Feel free to use and abuse as necessary! There's two Republic Troopers in there to keep any of you rowdy folks in line.

Star Wars Galactic Defense: Geonosis

About a week about Geonosis became available to play in this game. I lost track of time and got behind in creating the competition for the new planet, but it is now live. Very similar to Tatooine, but with one clarification. Submit for one side only please, no need to max out the stars for both Republic or Empire. Pick your favorite and get after it! CFs will be awarded for every 12 Stars earned on Goenosis.

Now, you can probably guess what will happen when the next planet (Felucia) lauches. Get your Star counts up on Geonosis so you can unlock it now for the next competition! I expect we'll see it come available sometime late in the month.

Destiny Expansion - The Dark Below

On December 9th Bungie will be launching the first digital expansion to the Destiny game. Yeah, that's pretty soon after the game itself just launched. With it will come a new Raid, some new Strikes, and an increased Light Level Cap to 32. The current PoB which is awarded for Light 30 will be changing to Light 32 on December 9th. Submit while you can if you made it to the Light cap! They're also going to be adding a few more NPCs in the Tower, which will be a welcome addition.

Interested in a bit more about the expansion? Check out this video from Bungie.

December Gaming Competitions

December Gorefest

Gorefest will to start on Friday, December 19th. As a reminder, any member of the GMRG can compete and earn bonus CFs for any Gaming activities

Gaming Competition Results

Star Wars Galactic Defense: Tatooine
  • 1st Place - OP Arvalis Raith
  • 2nd Place - Talon Drear
  • 3rd Place - PRT Cruise
  • All three of these folks earned the maximum 180 Stars on Tatooine! Great job!
SWTOR: The Daily Grind
  • 1st Place - GRD Jalen Ramz
  • 2nd Place - GM Kreeayt Havok
  • 3rd Place - PAD Lala
Star Wars Commander: Galactic War - Tournament 1
  • 1st Place - OT Talon Drear (Top 3% of all players in the Tourney!)
  • 2nd Place - DJK Egregious (Top 4% of all players in the Tourney!)
  • 3rd Place - OT Turel Sorenn (Top 11% of all players in the Tourney!)
SWTOR: November 15th Flashpoint Night
  • 1st Place Team - GD Rhiann Baenre, KE Selika Roh, CSE JScumm
  • 2nd Place Team - PAD Lala, JH Misium, JK Shorurra, GRD Jalen Ramz
Monthly Mobile Gaming: Turkey Chase
  • 1st Place - OT Talon Drear
  • 2nd Place - JH Ulfsark
  • 3rd Place - JH Ra'gnar
GMRG Gorefest: November 2014
  • 1st Place - SBM Ernordeth Puer-Irae
  • 2nd Place - JH Ulfsark
  • 3rd Place - DJK Konar Auryus-Sass

Pendants of Blood

  • 09Nov2014 - 15Nov2014: SWL Andrelious J. Mimosa-Inahj of Clan Arcona, PVP Score of 6 (6 Matches Played, 6 Matches Won)
  • 16Nov2014 - 22Nov2014: SBM Ernordeth Puer-Irae of Clan Arcona, PVP Score of 16.13 (30 Matches Played, 22 Matches Won)

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He moved through the old stone halls, the rapid click of his bootfalls a metronome for his search. The duracrete and metallic compounds of the reconstructed Temple had been gone two levels ago, and everything he saw was older than anything he...

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He moved through the old stone halls, the rapid click of his bootfalls a metronome for his search. The duracrete and metallic compounds of the reconstructed Temple had been gone two levels ago, and everything he saw was older than anything he could think of. He wanted to pause, wanted to reach out and touch the carvings, the hieroglyphs. Duty drew him deeper into the depths.

The glowlight cast an eerie pallor across his vision, shadows running from each turn of his head, each doorway. He fought the urge to stare at them, to growl at the movement as it caught his eye, but his mind told his fear to stay calm, that it was just tricks of the light. The man was here, hiding in antique dust and the voices inside his head.

Mirus could almost feel him.

He thought it was a good thing. If he was concealing himself fully, there would be no telling what he would do. He paused and lowered the glowlight, holding his breath for a moment as he reached out with his senses.

Mirus dropped to a knee, knuckles pounding the ancient stone in the old gesture. "What is thy bidding, my master?"

The Lion turned toward him, eyes as dark as the cavern sliding over the praetor. "When do you dream?"

Mirus raised his eyes, confused. He thought for a moment, then decided to get to the point. "Lord, you are needed..."

Vacuum throbbed in his eardrums and Mirus had to grimace, his eyes slamming shut against the underpressure. It felt like those moments between ships launching into space from a capship, the hiccup of containment fields exposing the void to them. Mirus scooped up the glowlight and swept it in front of him, finding nothing but a swirl of dust and the smell of ozone.

He had come down here for a reason, deep beneath the Dark Hall. The man never did anything without reason, he knew that. He sat, and felt along the world. Hidden from the myriad strings, dozens of requests and work to be done, pulling his attention in every direction except what he had wanted. Yet there was a quiet here. There was nothing but his breathing, down in the dark.

Nothing except himself.

And the Force.

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Of course, the biggest news this week is the release of the Teaser for the new Star Wars film. I'll post a link so that you can all watch it a seventeenth time. It is rather interesting to watch the dichotomy of Star Wars fans: those who completely work themselves up in excitement, and those who obsess over so many of the details and love to hate it.

I'm in the first camp. Rather than do a blow by blow of the scenes in the trailer, I'll just say that I am more excited about this film precisely because of the fact that we don't know what they are going to do. This plays into Disney's call to say that the official canon was films only (and clone wars/rebels)... because if it was just scenes of the Thrawn Trilogy or of the (insert your favorite book here), we'd all already know what it was going to be about. Yeah, we'd probably all go and see it a few times anyway, because hey, big screen star wars...but it would lack the excitement of it being something new.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMOVFvcNfvE and yeah, you know you want to watch it. Also, kinda funny are the variants with excess lensflare (star Trek Abrams style) and the lego ones. Heck, even the 'add more cgi, George Lucas' style ones are good.

Hey, that's not a Jangotrooper! Who is that dude flying the X-wing (is that an x-wing?)? Who is the girl, and why is she driving a shipping crate? Who is the stumbly bad guy with the light-claymore?

If it was just scenes of a chiss in uniform standing around with a ysilimari on his shoulder, there would be less questions, less excitement. My two cents, anyway.

In relation to that, I have gotten a few questions about where the DB fits into this all. The difficulty is that the new films are coming right into our timeframe, so with it being about a year away from the first of three new films, we have no way of shoe-horning a few thousand sith into their universe without us knowing a LOT more about it. So the hard and fast answer is that we are going to stay in our corner and operate much as we have been for twenty years until we do know more. Pravus and I have discussed a few awesome ways to get us into the film continuity/timeline, but without us knowing a lot more about what they are going to be doing with the films, we don't want to pull the trigger on that, yet.

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There are a couple big projects that I expect will be seeing release in the next thirty days or so. There will be some pretty major consequences on a couple different aspects of our club, and from what I have seen, people will be pleasantly surprised.

They are, in no particular order: Lightsaber combat guide 2.0, Clan and Order Force Powers, redacted 1, redacted 2, Dark Brotherhood alchemy guide (the fictional stuff, at least, the functional bits will be a possessions 2.0 launch), herald style hanukah, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Add all this in with a new TOR expansion that comes out on the second, and I'm probably going to forget what my bed feels like.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj23dwWHukY

If You haven't already seen it, click here for Super-Power Beatdown's Darth Vader vs Batman. Normally, I hate these things, because they factor out who wins based on popular vote, but this one (and a few others that they have done) got a pretty good treatment. (also notable, they did Wolverine vs Predator, and Batman vs Deadpool...both of which were pretty awesome as well...but do not watch Darth Vader vs Gandalf. Suck City.)

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Ask the GM Time!

Solari asks "Muz... Episode VII Saber for EQ4 and above?"

I will not be commenting on any of the awesome goodies that I or the herald team are working on for this year's herald style hannukah. ;)

Keirdagh asks "Did you participate in Movember, and if so, will you include your start and end photos in your report?"

Actually, I did. I don't have any beginning pictures, but I am rocking a beard so full and monstrous by now that it is somewhere between Hobo and Wizard. My boss says I will have to start selling duck calls soon.

Misium asks "Can I be declared GM but not have the responsibilities?"

Hell no. If you want to be able to god-mode, you have to go trhough the responsibilities and suffer like the rest of us do. :P

Misium follwed up with "If Muz Ashen entered a WWE arena, what would his entrance theme music be?"

At first, I wondered what that was, because I am old, then i googled it. As far as entry music, it would probably be something like Teargas and Plateglass - Plague Burial.

Furios asks "Assuming everything goes as planned, how soon can we expect full integration of the new guides with the possessions?"

I'll pass that along to the codemonkey extraordinaire, Jamez. Short answer: Eventually. That's a lot of code to work out. It's a free game, essentially, without any pay to win, so we're operating ona negative budget and getting something together that is super badass. In the graphics field, we used to joke about how you can have cheap, good, and fast, but only ever two of them. We chose cheap and good, so fast is not happening.

Furios followed up with "Muz, what would it take to get a JA mini level made where we can fight the antagonists of our Vendettas?"

Actually, once upon a time, we did this. The problem is that those sorts of levels are hard to create, and can get mighty buggy, even when done by utter badasses. That and our members have come to expect perfection in all things (see comments about the trailer above) and we end up with a lot of people complaining to people that selfessly put up a lot of time and effort to create something that decided to not subject themselves to that abuse anymore for the sake of such an old game. So there's that.

Rhiann asks " I need a book to read. Suggestions?"

Is this where i shamelessly plug the book I've written? No? Okay, well, there's a few new Star Wars books out, but Rereading the Hobbit before the third and final film comes out in a week or so is a solid.

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TL;DR
• Teaser!
• Busy Month for Releases • TOR Revan expansion comes out tuesday • Batman vs Darth Vader!

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grand master report

Greetings, Jedi! For the past five months and six days, Rhiann Baenre has masterfully helmed the Office of Rollmaster within Odan-Urr. During her tenure we saw many members join the House, both new and from the Rogues. We've seen our...

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Greetings, Jedi!

For the past five months and six days, Rhiann Baenre has masterfully helmed the Office of Rollmaster within Odan-Urr. During her tenure we saw many members join the House, both new and from the Rogues. We've seen our procedures for awarding and promoting members tighten up, our projects advance, our Journeymen Knighted, and our cohesion improved.

Though a voice of dissent toward the Light-sided principles of the Summit, she has ever been productive and progressive, pushing us toward the goals of peace, growth, and stability. She stands as a symbol of what can happen when Light and Darkness strive together, and all that we can achieve.

Even so, all reigns must end, and so we say goodbye to Rhiann on the 15th of December.

As she steps back to enjoy a reprieve from the hustle and bustle of Odanite-Brotherhood relations, the Office of the Rollmaster is open for Applications beginning immediately. I have a few basic requirements:

  • 24 hour email turnaround; 72 in times of duress.
  • Minimum Rank of Padawan
  • Capability of using Whatsapp and Google Drive, and/or desire to learn new tools.
  • Willingness to engage, educate, and befriend Journeymen within Odan-Urr.
  • Active and approved Character Sheet

I will be accepting applications up to Rhiann's departure, and reserve the right to interview, evaluate, and decide upon a suitable candidate before that time. Get your applications in, folks - this is a great chance to work with the HOU Summit!

If anyone has any questions, discuss them and we'll provide answers. And once again, thank you, Rhi! Your work's set the bar high for your successor.

May the Force be with you!
Liam Torun
Quaestor of Odan-Urr

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Of course this pushes down the awesome new trailer...my apologies. After reviewing all of the applicants carefully, I have decided that the next term of Right Hand of Justice will be served by our very own Halc. Congrats Halc, and once again,...

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Of course this pushes down the awesome new trailer...my apologies.

After reviewing all of the applicants carefully, I have decided that the next term of Right Hand of Justice will be served by our very own Halc. Congrats Halc, and once again, thank you Yacks for your tenure.

Taig

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