Ernordeth became a member of the Fist Staff shortly after I took this office in 2013. During that time he has contributed across a wide range of projects, adding value to the gaming experience our club provides to its members. As I was reviewing his dossier recently I came to the realization that I had not written an award for him since his last promotion, and it is definitely time to remedy that.

Ernordeth has served as my Praetor for the past nine months, and a Magistrate for two prior to that. A month ago I extended his responsibilities to include reviewing the Gaming Shadow Academy Exams. During this time he has executed his duties far above my expectations. Review and approval of Gaming Submission requests for Clusters is a large part of the Fist Staff's job, while this activity takes small amounts of time for each individual review the work when viewed in its entirety can definitely add up over an extended period of time. As of 11Oct2015 Ernordeth has reviewed 3,154 Gaming Requests since November. That accounts for 59% of all gaming activities submitted during that time frame. The timeliness of this review is important, to me and to our members, Ernor's efforts ensure that rewards are distributed as soon as possible to the club's gamers. He has proven similarly efficient in his role as my Docent to the Gaming SA Courses, completing a review of 24 courses since taking on that responsibility last month.

Over the past year Ernor has also made several posts to the DJB News Page to provide club gamers with clarification to Fist Staff policies, as well as information on finding other members to game with, and general gaming knowledge. Ernordeth has organized seven different gaming competitions, five of which had greater than ten participants from the club. These include General Gaming: Tie Fighter) (2 participants), Mobile Gaming: Turkey Chase (16 participants), Mobile Gaming: Slingin Sants (19 participants), General Gaming: Jedi Academy (9 participants), Mobile Gaming: Beer Pong (16 participants), Mobile Gaming: ZigZag (34 participants), and Mobile Gaming: Jelly Jump (33 participants). Beyond these seven Ernor has been a Co-Organizer for an additional 11 Competitions, including several Gorefest Events which required manual computation of Clusters of Fire to be doubled prior to website improvements which made these activities automated.

Everything prior to this point in my recommendation is the daily grind of the Fist Staff. Activities which are required to keep the club moving, they aren't "sexy" and can often be construed as someone "just doing their job". I'd like to move on to the projects that Ernordeth has participated in now, activities which go beyond the requirements of the normal day to day activity, and often involve lengthy debate about how they will be approached.

The first project that Ernordeth tackled was the creation of Cluster Tables for Destiny in November 2014. This followed a trial period where we determined if there was sufficient interest in the game for it to become supported by the Club. The initial version of this table included not only the Strikes and Raids you see now, but also individual Story Missions. I required that each of these items have multiple runs to determine accurate times and that this documentation all be provided before signing off on the final project. To say the task that Ernor took on was easy or small would be a massive understatement. Ernor began work while the trial period was still in progress, to ensure that if the game was accepted his project would be ready to present to members of the club as soon as possible. Only a month after he completed it Destiny's Expansion (The Dark Below) was released. This brought about a repeat performance of the initial project, only a shortened timeline. Once again Ernordeth did not disappoint.

The new year brought about more change for the platform in the form of a complete redesign of what Clusters were awarded for as well as a Daily Cap limit. This was a significant conversation within the Fist Staff, with several different views on the problem at hand to consider. Ernordeth's contributions to that conversation as well as assistance with implementation of the solution were critical to the current system in place today. Since this time Ernordeth has repeated his review of Destiny's Cluster Tables for the second Expansion: House of Wolves (in June), and the Year 2 Taken King expansion (in September).

As the year progressed and we approached the Star Wars Celebration in April the Grand Master put out a call for a blast of information about our club on the News Page. The Fist Staff's contribution to this effort consisted of a summary of the gaming platforms that our club utilizes along with screenshots from many of them depicting groups of our members gaming together under the DJB Clan/Guild name. During this Ernordeth coordinated several of the screenshots and also provided writeups for some of the games which were used in the final project, as well as proofreading the News Post for me before the "go-live".

This past May the Fist Staff began a project which involved the creation of a new gaming award, the Cluster of Earth, for player versus environment activities. A significant part of this project which Ernordeth took on was a manual review of Clusters of Fire which were awarded over a ~2 year time period to determine if they would remain classified as a Cluster of Fire or be transitioned to a Cluster of Earth. Again, due to Ernordeth's contributions this portion of the project was completed ahead of target (by one month) and, more importantly, accurately. Following implementation we recieved zero notifications of an award that a member felt was incorrectly classified. As I think about it now that alone is probably worth a Sacramental award.

The final portion of the Cluster of Earth project involved determining how the two awards would be weighted against each other. As with previous discussions, this was held with many senior members and Ernordeth's input to the conversation was valuable in determining the end result of the project.

The final contribution I'd like to mention from Ernordeth was his immediate buy in the club leadership's trial of the Telegram App, which has become a very popular means of communication amongst members. Ernordeth saw an opportunity to expand this from just use as the DB General Chat Channel by creating a DB Gamer's Lounge for the Club. Discussion within the channel has provided our club's gamers a unique opportunity to more effectively find others to group with using only their smart phones.

Ernordeth, thank you for all of the contributions and hard work you have put into improving the gaming portion of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood Club over the past eleven months. Having you as my Praetor as been an amazing help and your willingness to present alternative options, even though I fight them sometimes, has made our club a better place. Congratulations on this, likely overdue, Amethyst Kukri!

-Valhavoc, Fist of the Brotherhood

Valhavoc Ad Vizsla, 2015-10-12 01:21:01 UTC

Battlelord Selika Roh di Plagia is one of this club's greatest competitors, advisers, and leaders.

Competitor: In the past year Selika has participated in 72 competitions, participated in 341 gaming events, earned 21 Nova/Crescents, and achieved 5728 Clusters of Earth (that CE total would place him #3 in our club's history). Those efforts have resulted in not only Selika's achievement, but also contributed toward Clan/House Plagueis' victories in DJB wide events. First and Second Hero Titles for Vendetta level events...in the same year....are nearly unheard of.

Adviser: Selika has served as a behind the scenes adviser on GM level projects for the past year. This includes the creation of new Wiki Articles for historic DB personalities, the updating of GM projects and sneaky fiction retcon, canon fleet work, and work on the new Dark Brotherhood system tied to our upcoming Meta Game. This work has all been accomplished with no expectation of reward.

Leader: Selika has served as QUA (six months), Wiki Tribune (3 months), Magistrate to the Herald (2 months), and now PCON. He is an invaluable asset to other leaders, to our members, and to the DB as a whole.

Thanks for your great work and consistent dedication to the club.

Grand Master Declan Roark, 2015-09-09 21:03:45 UTC

Warlord Montresor's performance over the past year is summarized in one simple sentence. He has been imperative to the Justicar and the Grand Master and shaped our decisions on policy matters that have impacted the entire Dark Jedi Brotherhood. Monty's ability to see a flaw within our club, identify a solution for that flaw, and create a new DJB system is without equal on our current staff.

In a short amount of time serving as the Left Hand of Justice; Monty defended multiple members (and succeeded more often than not), identified flaws in our judicial system (removing disruptive member policy and covenant flaws), provided feedback and direct input to the Covenant 2015 update, wrote summaries and guides for the CoJ process (LHoJ guide and Probation Guide), and conducted an independent review of nearly all COJ matters. In a short amount of time Monty went from the Do Work Son/O-H-I-O guy to the most trusted adviser to the JST.

Outside of his JST duties, Montresor serves as the Praetor to the Grand Master where he currently sits on the small team for every single major project in the Dark Brotherhood (not a couple, every single one). Monty takes his RL systems engineering degree and applies it to Dark Jedi Brotherhood projects and statistics and helps inform nearly every GM decision. Today, we will see his latest project reflecting promotions. This project will have a direct and immediate impact on our entire club. These are the things Monty does....and no one knows about them except for the small group of people he works for.

In terms of quite, selfless, and dedicated...Warlord Montresor is in select company in the history of the DJB.

On Behalf of the Justicar, Deputy Grand Master, and Grand Master

Grand Master Declan Roark, 2015-09-09 21:04:15 UTC

I once had a fury panda tell me that we don't award medals for someone doing their job. Especially medals for Jac. I've never been one to listen to advice from Pandas.

The Justicar is the most important position in the Dark Brotherhood. He is the moral voice and compass that is tasked with providing oversight to the Grand Master and our entire club. Jac is that compass.

I asked Jac to return from retirement and revitalize and modernize the office of the Justicar. Jac took on that challenge by clearing one of the largest case loads in our club's history, rewriting unfair and inaccurate policies (disruptive members), and updating our entire Dark Covenant (which I have in my possession for review). Jac selected two senior advisers (Halc and Monty) and tasked them with conducting a complete and independent review of what works right and what works wrong with the JST. This review has resulted in the creation of new manuals, new policies, and new documents that will not only help guide Jac's future decisions, but also guide our future JSTs.

Jac does his job. He does it better than nearly all of us. For this, I am happy to award him his second AK.

Grand Master Declan Roark, 2015-09-09 21:04:01 UTC

Wally managed the CS 2.0 project from the start to finish, as the member responsible for seeing it completed. As the head of the team, everything crossed his desk; every skill, Force power, Feat, Aspect and Discipline was reviewed and approved by him. From a team that was as large as 14 members at its peak, he divided up this work, assigning tasks, and keeping people on track to deliver on schedule. He allowed discussions and debates to proceed as members tackled their assigned tasks, assigning specific members to proposing resolutions, and making decisions himself as necessary to keep things moving. I personally got involved at the culmination of the project when I took over as Voice, where shortly following everything was itemized for GM approval, fixed as necessary, and then executed over a weekend to the site.

It’s hard to really quantify the amount of time spent managing people, so I won’t, but instead focus on the decisions that were made and the end product. It all resulted in a standardized language and comprehensive approach to the entire CS system as launch. It expanded on and improved everything.

During the process of the CS 2.0 updates, which expanded into Species and Venues, Wally did quite a bit of the work himself, creating all 3 of the new Disciplines (Arcanist, Defender and Techweaver), rewriting the existing Disciplines and descriptions of the existing 5 to standardize and improve them, including the recent work to write the Disciplines for 2 of the new NFO Loyalist/Mercenaries, wrote several new pre-written Aspects including 2 Templates that allow for minor customization that are pre-approved, reworked the mechanics for Skill descriptions so each level made sense, reworked the Force power descriptions so each level made sense, including writing and editing a majority of the descriptions himself, wrote over 40 new Feats to be added to the system, designed the template and plan for the new Species 2.0 information and framework for use by the team to standardize how Species are portrayed in the DJB, revised all the Venues in the ACC to improve their use for matches in a more generic way. With every individual word he contributed, he read and evaluated every word written by every member of the team for the entire project.

When the time came, and the words were written, ink still drying, Wally went to the site as one of few with access to do so and got to work himself. While the team wikified, he added Venues, new and edited Feats, new Disciplines and corresponding Feats, and Skills. He made sure the membership had ways to give feedback, and got answers, and continue a dialogue after launch. Including ways to submit bugs or issues they found. He continued these discussions and explanations to various concerned members in depth, implementing minor changes and adjustments as necessary, and has setup ways to continue that dialogue far after the team closes.

While managing the CS 2.0 project, Wally has dutifully kept up with his Combat Master duties over the past 6 months. A major portion of this has been Character Sheet approval, where he has approved about a quarter of all character sheets, and helping members of all ranks and Clans with their custom Aspects and creating the character they want in the DJB system. He has trained up 7 new Judges in the ACC, including myself, and kept the membership appraise of ACC ongoings.

I can’t really further quantify Wally’s contributions, but I feel I already have so I’ll toss in here and say that in absence of a Praetor to the Voice, Wally already basically fills that role on my staff in discussion on all matters. Looking entirely at the amount of activity he put forth, the scope of the project that was undertaken and impact to the DJB, I recommend Wally for this Amethyst Kikuri.

Lord Evio Nezsa, 2015-09-07 19:15:35 UTC

A’lora Kituri has been a valuable member of the Herald’s office since September 2014. I have observed his progress and his continued contributions to the graphics department of the Brotherhood. His contributions include six lightsabers (one for Herald Style Hanukkah 2014); three robes (two for Herald Style Hanukkah 2014, one for later use); significant contributions to both designing new warbanner updates and helping me create Actions for them. He has developed and created unit patterns for warbanners that can be used instead of Medallions; he has created a Backup Dropbox folder for the Staff to use - a very useful feature as we have everything that we require in one place; creating headers and general graphics (specifically stat charts) for Clan Odan-Urr events, Tales of New Tython and Sentinel network, as well as the Tides of Freedom Arcona/Odan-Urr feud.

He has been working with me on a project where the two of us are attempting to train our drawing and coloring skills to achieve an acceptable level of quality for potential future Dark Brotherhood comics. This project is in no way official. We had taken it upon ourselves to train ourselves and improve, and it was all A’lora’s idea. This project still ongoing and we are constantly improving our quality.

He was (and still is to an extent) a constant positive reinforcement force on the Herald staff. His advice and criticism on all matters relating to graphics is always strict, to the point and aimed to keep you improving. He has helped the whole Herald staff with his advice and critiques, including Socorra, Mirus, Rhiann and myself. In short A’lora Kituri is one of the pillars of graphics development in the Brotherhood.

His contributions do not end there. As Consul of Clan Odan-Urr he has given a stellar performance. He has organized the Clan from it’s creation, appointed appropriate leadership to the Houses and organized the Houses into coherent units with Nathan’s and my help. A’lora has been an organizer of more than 25 competitions for Odan-Urr (some jointly with Arcona) since taking over as Consul, as well as several others for the DB as a whole while on Herald staff (naimly One Year comps that gave members Custom items from the Herald staff). With Atyiru, he was the driving force for the co-op event “Tides of Change” between Clan Odan-Urr and Clan Arcona, writing a very large chunk of the fiction for the event himself and co-organizing the competitions.

On a more personal note, A’lora is the type of leader who is fun to be around. He gives his subordinates free reign on their House or Battleteam storylines (which in turn gives them the ability to more easily engage their members), which he then implements into the Clan storyline to make everything flow smoothly and be even more engaging. He is strict, he is an authority and when he gives an order the Clan follows, but he is also a friend to many of us and a helpful voice in any idea or discussion. His goal has always been to advance Clan Odan-Urr to it’s full potential and I believe he may achieve that goal. A’lora is easy to work and cooperate with and he works under one rule - if you’re working for the members and not yourself, you’re doing a good job. We have worked together on Tides of Change, Sentinel Network and Tales of New Tython events and never once had an issue with organization or communication, despite our timezone difference.

Without A’lora’s valuable friendship and assistance I would not be where I am today. He is one of the best we have and I have learned a lot from him. I thank you, my friend, for all that you have done and are yet to do. You deserve this award. Keep the Clan safe.

• V'yr Vorsa, Herald of the Brotherhood

Boss Morgan Sorenn, 2015-07-25 23:38:20 UTC

’Twas a sad but long expected and awaited day when Evant stepped down as my Praetor to take a full position on the Dark Council. He remains everything I could have wanted out of my right hand co-leader: quick on processing requests; eager to reach out to members and leaders if something was fishy, easy to be contacted with questions, a firm but understanding leader.

Since his well earned promotion, he continued to grow. He continued to spearhead keeping up with competitions not being judged fast enough. He continued to diligently work on the never ending project that is an MAA manual. He continued to locate and help narrow down our recommendations of the month, an ongoing process that also brings with it regular in depth conversations about our standards and what we expect out of recommendations (conversations both internally and with leaders of the club). He continued to regularly work with me to update MAA policies, collapse redundant Wiki pages or out right delete them. He also graded the MAA: Competitions Shadow Academy course throughout the stretch. This eight month stretch also, of course, incorporates the deluge of promotion and medal requests that come with the Great Jedi War. While no where near the beast that Crusade medals were, I also consider the competence of my staff to be a huge factor in how smoothly post-vendetta recognition went this year.

Much MAA work is a constant stream of little things, but with Evant’s stable assistance that stream never flooded us. He accomplished all of this while both serving as a CSP AED and then PCON and gradually indoctrinating his daughter in the ways of Star Wars. Evant has been an absolutely invaluable member of my staff. He has shaped what I expect out of a Praetor (hint, hint panda!). Everything that has come out of the MAA office over the past year has involved in some small or large extent Evant’s wisdom, hard work, dedication, and incredibly long, detailed, statistically analyzed emails. Thank you for this work, Evant. You are in a well earned place now ~ Aabsdu Dupar, Master at Arms

Zanet Xox, 2015-07-07 17:56:54 UTC

Four Years is a long time. It's a bachelor's degree. It's the length of a job for some people. It's a presidential term. The last four years, Xen'Mordin has put his nose to the grindstone, working on the Empire of Scholae Palatinae, working to get things moving again, to bring them to new glory and higher plateaus than ever before. The recent Great Jedi War shows that. Xen led from the trenches, driving the House to a third place win, edging out established clans and proving that they are indeed a force to be reckoned with. He's been driving at all of the points to get Scholae Palatinae clanned, by slowly growing the house, by building activity, by showing his members how things work in the club. It's a long path, but the only one that builds lasting results, the kind that doesn't vanish when you step away. In a way, it's a big project, wrenching on the House. As such, I would like to recognize Xen'Mordin with an Amethyst Kukri. Thanks, Xen. Your work is appreciated. ~Muz Ashen, the Lion of Tarthos

Lord Muz Ashen Keibatsu, 2015-02-22 02:57:32 UTC

Pravus is one of those people who legitimately has everything. It makes it difficult to award him for his work. In the five months since he took up the mantle of DGM again, he's been a constant help, a voice of reason, and a second set of eyes on everything that's been going through on the Dark Council. On top of that, he wrote the GJW story (Much of it from a hotel in Germany, too) and has been absolutely critical to the grading process. Everyone reading this knows how good he is, so I'm not going to waste all of our time with finding platitudes to spout off. Matt, you kick ass. Have something no one else has: a Third Amethyst Kukri, for being a hitter at the time I needed you most, the Great Jedi War. Thanks again for all of your time and effort. ~Muz Ashen, the Lion of Tarthos

Lord Muz Ashen Keibatsu, 2015-02-22 02:55:38 UTC