As the Professor for the Novitiate Hall Darkblade doesn't get to mark too many courses. Nevertheless he has one of the most important roles in the SA: Keeping the novitiate hall up to date and accurate. It is often the first area of the SA that new members come into contact with, and as such is an integral and vital part of the SA.

When the audit came around, Darkblade was initially a little unsure of what to do, after all he didn't need to grade the exams as those were all covered by Dbb0t's auto-grading. After some directions though, he took off like a rocket. Within a week he had his first round of revisions done, and after corrections by the staff he had his drafts done within days. Make no mistake, those are a whopping 18 courses, covering not one broad topic but almost every aspect of the Brotherhood. Through this, Darkblade was one of the first Professors to have his audit work completed.

Congratulations, Darkblade

Darkblade is, no pun intended, like a battle-hardened sword. Rough around the edges, but trustworthy and reliable and exactly who/what I want by my side when the going gets tough. He's a leader I want to follow and as good a mentor as I could have hoped to luck in to when I joined the DJB.

I won't spend much time talking about his productivity because that's been covered by others, but suffice to say that DB keeps himself busy and present and on the grounds of activity alone is certainly deserving of a Grand Cross. He sets an excellent example for all members of CNS and the DJB as a whole. I should note, though, that in my time as AED of Shar Dakhan, DB has been skillful in guiding me into learning the ins and outs of the position. He's been constantly available as a supervisor crucial to helping me flesh out my idea for a story arc-driven multi-comp event (which, I am delighted to say, was greatly successful in no small part due to his efforts).

But, years from now when I think back on my friendship with Darkblade, I will remember his kindness and understanding when I told him that I needed to step down from my position of AED. What does this have anything to do with a medal request, you might ask? Because Darkblade is the type of leader that makes others want to be better; a leader that helps his subordinates understand that even though the plan may change somewhere along the way, there's always an opportunity to get exactly where you want to be, when you want.

Congratulations and well-deserved, Darkblade.

Darkblade has done an excellent job lately as Quaestor, having run the Project S.P.E.C.I.A.L. event with Aul, as well as worked on other projects and continued to be an active member. I would especially like to talk about the wiki-related work Darkblade has done for us. He first categorized all of CNS' NPCs into either former/outdated, or currently active. This required going through over 100 NPC pages and determining whether they were still in use (or could still be in use) or not. This required a lot of reading and was ultimatey much more difficult than just changing the category on a bunch of pages.

Darkblade also updated or wrote over a dozen solid, quality pages himself. He updated the Sons and Daughters of Sadow page. He wrote backgrounds and entire biographies (and wiki-fied them) for somewhere around 20 NPCs for Naga Sadow. Darkblade took the initiative to do this all by himself. He didn't just sort what was usuable, but discussed possibilities with myself and then wrote out details for these characters. This gives our members new resources to use in their writing and helps make the Clan have more background lore and details to make things seem more alive.

Darkblade also oversaw the creation and development of the Battleteam Devil's Shroud HQ wiki page, as well as a new research center location for House Shar Dakhan. These were both projects that got his House's membership involved and allowed them to take ownership of their House and the areas it controls.

If Darkblade had not worked on these pages, our wiki would still be in a massive state of disarray. It is largely thanks to him that countless pages are now functional and complete.

In general, Darkblade has been an excellent Quaestor and I couldn't have hoped for a more hardworking individual to have as a member of my Summit team. I'm extremely proud to add my recommendation for Darkblade's Grand Cross.

If there is anything to be said for Darkblade- that hasn't already been covered in the other recommendations- it would be that the man is driven. Despite his previous difficulties, he keeps pushing forward to improve his House, and working with him, first as an Aedile and now as a Rollmaster, has shown me that he approaches each problem or opportunity that arises with the mindset of "how can we do this better?" or "how can we improve the experience for our members."

When he isn't crafting events with his Aedile, he is reviewing or editing wiki articles to ensure they are up to date, or fleshing out pages in greater detail. Examples of this include the page for Naga Sadow's Covenant star destroyer, updating and creating various NPC pages, updating unit pages like the Night Hawks or Sapphire Squadron, updating the page of our Clan itself and doing a lot of miscellaneous footwork- rather impressive for someone not under the employ of the Wiki Tribune's office.

There have been plenty of discussions on a Clan level that Darkblade hurries to take part in, and his lack of fear in voicing his opinion while at times can seem heavy-handed he nonetheless appreciated for his transparency. His eyes are always set on a horizon sometimes yet unseen. I could gas on for a while on some of his other accomplishments and merits, but I don't want to steal the opportunity from other members to sing his praises, so I will merely join my voice in recommending Darkblade's Grand Cross.

Enjoy the latest shiny, Darkblade!