Event History

Alaris Jinn is one of the longest tenured members of the ACC Staff. Over the course of his service the past 18 months as an ACC Judge, Alaris has been an important contributor to team discussions, carrying with him experience that has helped anchor the office in times of need. To date, Alaris has graded a grand total of 29 ACC matches without anything other than thanks. Each of his gradings are thorough, and I have never had a complaint raised to me in his time serving under me. He gives great feedback to members which has helped lead to heightened activity in the ACC. Alaris also graded 6 ACC Fundamentals Exams form the old test, and has helped Qualify 22 members for the ACC through Qualification exams.

To give you an idea of how grading that many translates, each match can often take anywhere from 45 minutes to a few hours depending on the length/closeness of a match. If we take that estimate at it's lowest possibility, that means that Alaris has invested 21.75 hours into grading and giving detailed feedback for members at a minimum. For the finals of the Journeyman Tourney we often spent hours between one or two days making sure we agreed and didn't miss things.

Alaris is helpful in ways that stats do not track, though. Anytime I need something to be Wikified, Alaris has been there. Anytime I wanted something to be formatted properly? Alaris took care of it. While these seem small on their own, when you look at the ACC Documentation today, you will notice a clean and organized presentation. A lot of that comes from Alaris' diligence.

Alaris recently stepped up in a big way to create the Lightsaber and Martial Arts Forms templates. I had asked for volunteers club wide, but Alaris fearlessly dove in and took on the task himself. The result is a clean and well presented visual to break up the walls of text that are important to understanding and participating in the ACC.

Alaris has done all of this without need or want for reward. He shows up for work everyday ready to help, and with a smile and a positive attitude. I do not think I would have made it this long as Combat Master without him as part of the team.

So it did not surprise me when Alaris asked to run a Journeyman Tourney for the newer ACCers in the club. I challenged him to come up with the proposal, and he set to it and had one to me within the week. Together, we worked with the Voice and GM team to set up the first Journeyman Tourney since the ACC was reopened. The Journeyman Tourney ended up gathering 16 sign ups. The tournament lasted over the course of 3 months and yielded a 75% completion rate, which is incredible considering this was a lot of members first times doing a competitive format. . Feedback across the club, and from the Journeyman themselves has been absolutely positive. Alaris was the guiding Force behind this project, and while I handled the hype/administration, he took the charge of getting matches graded in timely manners and making sure he communicated with the competitors to ensure transparency and fair-play.

Running a major DB-wide event is not something to be overlooked. It takes time, deliberation and stalwart execution. Alaris accomplished this. Beyond that, and for your long term commitment and loyalty to the Brotherhood by means of dedicating your time to making improvements to one of the clubs marquee activities, I am pleased to award you the Sapphire Blade.

Thank you for all that you do, Alaris. This is the least I can do for all that you've done, and I hope that it helps drive you towards your next promotion in the Brotherhood.

-W

Combat Master

Legend Wally, 2016-06-25 06:14:50 UTC

I am honoured to be recommending Ernordeth for this Sapphire Blade, he has been a key part of the FIST staff since his last merit medal and continues to show dedication in everything he does for the office. Since I stepped into the shoes of the FIST he has been my right hand man helping me at the drop of the hat to learn and fill the role.

Since his last award Ernordeth has been a beacon of activity not just to my staff but to his clan as well. He constantly participates in competitions, never dropping the ball and giving his best in every competition he entered into. He has participated in 105 competitions in a four month period. For all of the hard work he puts in he has managed to earn 3 Crescent with Diamond Star, 1 Crescent with Ruby Star, 13 Crescent with Amethyst Star, 6 Crescents with Sapphire Star, 4 Crescents with Emerald Star, 1 Crescents with Topaz Star. He is a prime example of what members strive for in the brotherhood, allowing others to use him as an example of what to aim to achieve inside the club.

Tho the competitions and medals are impressive that is not what puts Ernordeth in the spotlight, it's what he gives members. As my Preator he is tasked with running competitions per month, from gaming to general he provides the means to activity that so many of us take for granted. Gorefeast one of the most popular days in gaming is Ernor’s terf to organise and in the last four months he has stepped up and provided members with 51 Competitions as well as Co-Organizing another 5. This has continued to provide a steady level of competitions from the FIST Office and has gotten members of the brotherhood into the gaming side of the club.

With my staff I love watching them continue to enjoy gaming, and always want to drive their passion that they still have. No-one does this like Ernordeth, always in the top quarter of the GMRG and giving it his all every day, since his last elevation he has managed to wrack up 3451 Clusters of Fire, that is a huge amount for anyone, combing this with the 1102 Clusters of Earth and you see why Ernor is always seen in gaming, fighting members or helping them progress in their game. With constant commitment and hard work he continues to earn his Pendants of Blood, getting a total of two for this effort and time he commits to gaming.

With all that he continues to give me his all in his duty as Praetor. Since I joined the FIST staff he has been at my side, never once questioning or disrupting the change over, if anything he has supported it to his fullest. I have had to learn a lot of things, and Ernor has always been the guy I turn to instantly. Ready to give his honest opinion and feedback when asked and helping me massively. He has continued to help the Magistrates with running competitions, always pushing the staff to the best of their ability.

Ernor is always on the lookout for gaming update, keeping the FIST staff up to date on upcoming games, patches or add-ons that are coming out always keeping us ahead of times to prepare for changes to the site in accordance with the new information. On Top of this he is always answering questions from gamers, keeping them informed and updated on anything that comes up, quickly and professionally. I cannot give this guy enough credit as my Praetor for making the transition easy for not only myself but the rest of my staff.

Finally, another role people always seem to forget about is that of the SA, Ernor is always on the lookout for exams coming in. Grading them quickly and efficiently and since his last elevation he has managed to grade 64 exams. Allowing other members to expand their knowledge of gaming inside of the club.

For all of his hard work, devotion and time he has put into being Praetor, I am proud to see him receive this Sapphire Blade. Ernordeth honestly you have made my time as FIST easy and quick to catch up with what has been happening. For this work these words will not even sum up how much I appreciate it. Thank you, congratulations and keep working with me to help the gamers of the brotherhood.

Fist of the Brotherhood

Cethgus Tiberius Entar, 2016-06-08 17:28:30 UTC

For your consistent and dedicated efforts to the Dark Jedi Brotherhood, and more importantly the development of our members, within gaming (in particular TOR). Years of effort, time, and frustration make this award pale in comparison to what you have done.

Thank you.

GM Pravus

Grand Master Declan Roark, 2016-03-04 23:43:40 UTC

17 years in the club. Constant participation, constant communication, constant efforts to help shape our new members and their experiences. Pel is more than deserving of an award on the Day of the Jac. Congrats old man.

Grand Master Declan Roark, 2016-03-04 23:43:36 UTC

Atra is an indispensable member of Naga Sadow and the Brotherhood. Since his last major recognition (being promoted to Seer in September), he has been an awesome Quaestor for House Shar Dakhan. He also put a hand in the ACC and the Voice office, as a judge and Praetor, and has only recently stepped down from Quaestor to focus on those. (I'm guessing 'cause he ran out of hands.) In each of these roles, Atra has done an excellent job.

I'll focus on his role of Quaestor and let supporting recs talk about other things. Since his promotion, Atra has continued to keep up with reports and released one every month. He also was an integral part of clan story discussions and aligned Shar Dakhan with these. He always thought of how his House could fit and how the clan could benefit. Atra has participated in a total of 17 competitions over this time, and he has had a strong presence on the clan's Telegram channel. As a leader, Atra frequently reminded members of ongoing competitions and events, and encouraged them to participate. He set the example by participating himself, including participating in every single December Celebration competition, which he placed 2nd overall in.

Atra also helped run a major event for Naga Sadow during this time. "Ashes Fall" had a total of ten competitions, including a runon that was guided with fiction updates before, during, and after it. This event saw a total of 18 individual participants, who created a total of 99 individual competition entries over 9 competitions (not counting the parent competition). In so doing, he helped provide quite a bit of fun to the members of Naga Sadow.

In general participation, Atra has written over 10,000 words of fiction, he has earned numerous crescents, including two Diamond, two Ruby, and three Amethyst. His awards show that he dabbles in a bit of many different competition types,m as he also has 2 Pendants of Blood, 339 Clusters of Fire, and 31 of Ice. Finally, he's earned three Scrolls of Foundation for Shadow Academy work, in which he has graded 15 courses. He has also passed 20 course and earned four degrees, including the Dark Savant in Writing and Philosophy, the Maven in Philosophy, and the Pundits in Essentials and Vendetta.

Overall, this recommendation and the others show that Atra is a highly active member, as well as a great leader, both in supporting roles for the DJB and in leading a House and helping to guide a clan.

For this I'd like to award Atra this Sapphire Blade in recognition of his efforts.

Congratulations, Atra!

P.S. Bro, will you be my valentine? <3

Consul of Naga Sadow

Epis Locke Sonjie, 2016-02-15 22:40:48 UTC

Raistline Taldrya Majere is one of my oldest friends in the Brotherhood, and perhaps the second most important member of Taldryan’s summit currently. It’s hard to quantify the value of having someone like Raist on your team, he brings so much to the table while being relatively unassuming doing it. In retrospect, I feel like much of Raist’s career in the DB has been like that, and I for one am going to try my damnedest to stop taking him for granted. Howie will, as is tradition, go into greater detail about all of the specifics of Raist’s constant activity in the year since he was last recognized, but I want to talk about just a couple things.

Raist is always there for Taldryan. He’s always around to pick up the slack, and to go that little extra mile. Just recently, when both Howie and myself were completely tapped out in real life and with work, and didn’t have time to get some stuff going, Raist stepped up with his Gods amongst us competition. He organized with his fellow Quaestor Omega a series of 9 competitions, to give the Clan something to do in the month leading up to the new movie. Even the topic choice for those competitions was inspired. His constant presence within our chat channels led him to notice there’d been a lot of talk about comics, and how much our members enjoyed them, so he decided to use that and run a series of competitions based off the expressed interests of our membership. It’s the kind of thing only the best leaders in the DB are capable of… and Raist does it without thinking.

Raist’s abilities and desire to be a leader for the Clan are special. He’s a man who values absolute substance over meaningless style, and it’s a virtue I think we could all benefit from emulating. He’s always willing to do what is necessary and whatever is asked of him, without any complaint. He goes about his business without the fanfare and egos that have become part and parcel of most of the leaders in this club, and quietly works to better his House and his Clan and perhaps most importantly, himself in any way he can. I remember that at one point, Raist was unhappy with the quality of his own reports. He thought he could do better, so he went out and sought the help of Halc in order to be able to write reports he felt he could be proud of. He also is a man who understands that some of the most important work a leader in this club is preparing the future. Since his elevation to Quaestor, Raist has been a constant mentor to his Aedile Bobecc, and his battleteam leader Seyda Norith, and even his colleagues in Dinaari. I’ve personally seen him working hand in hand with every member of Taldryan’s summit to make sure they know that they always have his support and guidance.

But it’s not just those under him that he lends his support to, even while he was a Battleteam Leader Raist has been supporting me in my position as Consul. He’s a trusted advisor who benefits from both being an old school tally as well as being fresh enough to have a hint of new car smell. His insights and opinions have led me to make numerous policy changes and try different projects out in Taldryan, not the least of which was implementing a gaming and fiction related House within the Clan. Perhaps more importantly, Raist was one of the first to point out to me that the experiment had failed. Being able to come up with good ideas is one thing, it takes a rare person to be able to move effortlessly past a failed idea without becoming overly sentimental and attached, and just keep moving forward.

These are just a few examples of all the help Raist has given Howie and I over the last year as first a Battleteam Leader, then Aedile and finally Quaestor in House Ektrosis. Raist has been a true constant, and a very able assistant to us, and he’s done it all while continuing to be personally active and balancing a terribly busy real life schedule. I’m thankful that I have Raist in Taldryan, and I am extremely grateful that I can call on him to help me carry the burden of leadership.

For all of your hard work, and dedication over the past year Raistline, I am pleased to present you your very first Sacramental award: the Sapphire Blade. Congratulations bud.

Keirdagh Taldrya Cantor,

Consul of Clan Taldryan

Keirdagh Taldrya Cantor, 2016-02-04 04:03:20 UTC

Kordath is, in short, brilliant enough to improve any office or accomplish any task in this club, whether or not he thinks it. He's a natural leader even if he'd rather not people follow him, an example of the best a member can be even though he'd deny it, and a preacher of fun and humanism that's ever in need of reminding when things get too competitive or dramatic. Though he's currently doing a stint as our Rollmaster, and was a Battleteam leader before that, his status in those position is hardly his only accomplishment. He's absurdly active, ridiculously inspirational, and undeniably helpful in every aspect of Clan and Brotherhood life. And for all that...it's about time he got a pointy blue stick to prod the Journeymen with.

Braecen will elaborate on Kordath’s Rollmaster time to you all but, in brief, Rollmaster is a unique position in the club to begin with, and in Arcona, our Rollmasters have always had their work cut out for them. We currently have 40 Journeymen or Novitiate rank members, and Kordath is responsible for looking after every single one of them. Used effectively, a Rollmaster like him must keep track of all those little ones' activity, presence, and status, even those that present little more than pixel lines on the site; manage and track their Masters, discussing the students' welfare and the pairings’ health; communicate with each member's Quaestors and Aediles as they work; and chip in on any recommendation or evaluation of any given member in the clan, as though a Rollmaster primarily serves Journeymen, he also serves the Clan as a whole. With so many changes happening at the entry level for our club and the Star Wars universe in general behind all this, and new membership numbers expected to spike, the position has become paramount to member retention now more than ever. Kordath has long gone above and beyond in every single regard of his position, throwing himself at every task, large and small, while balancing the demands of being a extraordinary member for both participation and production. He is, in honesty, considered a "third" Quaestor for Arcona, not only excelling in his Rollmaster duties but also generating activity while to keep up with the Brotherhood's largest active roster. And, as if all that work with the Clan’s Journeymen and Equites alike wasn’t enough, Kordath also trained a student of his own, Lonewolf, to Dark Jedi Knight at the same time.

While others attached to this recommendation can further detail not only the ins and outs of Kordath’s Rollmaster and Battleteam leader tenures further, I will also acknowledge his gratuitous activity as a member and brilliance as a role model. You would be hard pressed to find one better. Since his last recognition a mere two months ago, he has participated in 70 competitions, organized 8 competitions, co-organized 1 competition, submitted 18 PvP matches, 69 PvE activities, written 10 fiction activities totalling a whopping 20,157 words, 5 Run-On posts of 7,498 words, and gained 2 Shadow Academy Degrees. He has also collected 16 Crescents (2 Cr-D, 3 Cr-R, 7 Cr-A, 1 Cr-S, 2 Cr-E, 1 Cr-T), 5 Pendants of Blood, 1894 Clusters of Fire, 45 Clusters of Ice, 79 Clusters of Earth, 1 Scroll of the Master, and 1 Legion of the Scholar. He has also closed in on the pinnacle of 260 career competition submissions and over 100,000 words of fiction written, a beacon of demonstrable activity for his peers. It does not stop there, though. He was instrumental in writing the story for the Clan event ‘Fall of SCEPTER’ and helped create another clan event titled ‘Captain Arcona: Civil War,’ which was just greenlit by the Clan Summit and MAA and has already begun receiving submissions. His contributions to the proposal, fiction, and brainstorming of events was impressive when the scope of the competition as a whole is taken into account.

For not only being an exemplar Rollmaster but also for being an utterly incredible member — as others will detail — it’s our great pleasure to award Kordath his first sacramental blade. There’s not another Ryn I can name or any Arconan would go to hell and back with. He’s more than earned it.

Atyiru Caesura Entar

Consul of Clan Arcona

Golden Envoy Abbey Atty Attiter Ann, 2016-01-18 16:16:05 UTC

Adept Braecen Kaeth has returned to the Dark Jedi Brotherhood with the activity that is consistent with his past performance. Braecen's efforts towards our club are long standing and his recent efforts are even more impressive. Braecen, we are appreciative of your dedication towards our new members and the work you have put in towards the overall improvement of their club experience.

Grand Master Declan Roark, 2015-12-26 04:36:00 UTC

Eighteen months of continuous service in a term lasting between five positions is no small thing. Adjusting to each of these positions of leadership is something this is by tradition a gruelling experience that requires someone to sit down and get to work on introducing their ideas outlined in the applications before being chosen for the position. Maintaining oversight for longer than I can remember in Odan-Urr, I have seen Nathan overcome this obstacle times beyond measure and without breaking a sweat. Rather, he has been able to have his ideas readied before tackling the challenge of settling into a new position with a focus on different members than before. This is an invaluable skill, and one that makes him suited towards whatever position we toss at him whether as a Battle Team Leader, Quaestor, Rollmaster or Proconsul.

Divided from this continuous term, we also seen another three months of leadership from him as the Battle Team Leader of Strike Team Ooroo. Most in our Clan haven’t been around long enough with the oversight to have witnessed all that he done for the team, but those who have are well aware of the task we set for him—to breathe life into a declining Battle Team that was on the verge of closure. Nathan, of course, managed to see the team’s numbers swell to rival that of our other Battle Team, the Knights of Allusis with the activity to call his term a success.

It wasn’t long before Nathan found the time once more to lead our then-House as one of the best Rollmasters to manage an otherwise overwhelming number of recruits. As I have so often stressed, Odan-Urr is one of the few units to have placed a massive workload on the Rollmaster position, until it was re-imagined under Nathan’s guidance in his next term in that same position. We once held the most members in one unit—double that of most Clans and far surpassing Arcona’s roster. Most of these were recruits seeking guidance and without the leadership numbers to manage, the task fell as a burden on the Rollmaster’s shoulders. Nathan bore this well, establishing a working record of not just the recruits, but the entire membership’s achievements that included a full list of awards, time since last merit medal and time since their last promotions in what I still view as the best record-keeping in the Brotherhood. Although it wasn’t in his list of duties, Nathan also hosted two competitions during this time.

More notable was his concurrent term as the Battle Team Leader of the Disciples of Baas, a new Battle Team that was then geared towards our Consulars. Although the model has fallen out of favour in recent times, he introduced this as a conceptual model that worked in alignment with the Guardian-centered Knights of Allusis and the Sentinel-aligned Strike Team Ooroo. Working alongside the Battle Team Leaders of both other subunits, a wiki was drafted for each that outlined their fictional roles and the roster was filled with active members to compete with the Knights of Allusis and Strike Team Ooroo. Eleven events were hosted for the Battle Team for three events that were written in the same manner as our current Clan-wide events, which include a fictional narrative to guide the event. One other competition was hosted as a clan-wide filler to grant members with some opportunities to gain crescents.

Knowing his success and long career working with our recruits and Battle Teams, we wanted to see if Nathan’s drive would hold under the strain of the Aedile position, acting as second to Liam Torun during the Dark Crusades. Though the Vendetta-scale event hadn’t allowed him to run more than two competitions, Nathan focused his energies towards bolstering a dwindling unit that was then burning out from endless phases of the Dark Crusade while suffering from a loss of House events. As our later numbers in the Crusades can attest to, we recovered despite facing the threat of closure at the time as Nathan ushered in a new drive with his Summit to see our participation numbers rise.

As greater evidence to attest to our improvement, our elevation to Clan was a strong one that brought with it a foundation rivalling Arcona’s, even though we lacked the experience of being an older unit. Nathan was one of those that had a hand in the two-week transition where we were able to establish a foothold with our doubled resources in record time. His involvement included having authored a number of documents in a project known as “Transcendance,” which was a roadmap we would follow on attaining Clan status with a working method to see our duties become defined in less than a week. Although we haven’t been notified of the possibilities of adding additional planets to our domain, Nathan still had worked on the redundancies that would have brought with it two wiki pages of existing planets in our solar system and a fictional backstory revolving around what was to be the Kit-Kunis Corporation.

Returning to the oversight of new members in the position of Rollmaster, Nathan was effective in training our Quaestors to take over the former Rollmaster duties in favour of transitioning the Rollmaster into an auxiliary position that worked in tandem with the Consul and Proconsul as a third voice and contributor to events. 42 individual competitions that included his involvement in running our Clan-wide events Tales of New Tython: Lost Civilization, Sentinel Network: Sanctuary and Rise of the Force Ascendant have made this his crowning achievement. Moreover, turned the Rollmaster position into something more than the usual mentorship program, creating far more oversight into individual members than all other clans—that is nothing to scoff at, being that this man has single-handedly tracked over 70 members while the remainder of the Summit focused on content creation. His work ensured that Odan-Urr, as a house and now as a clan, is able to produce awards without someone falling through the ice. Without these records in the form of multi-page excel documents and constant calls for recommendations (to which he already has the relevant information, well in advance of a member being prepared for an award,) we would have fallen short on awarding our members. Throughout his service (in this position and others,) he has provided me with regular internal reports on all the issues he sees, tracking reminders, and suggestions. In addition to this, he created the core guidelines for our refurbished position inside of a multi-page document for future Rollmasters.

More than often, we have asked ourselves—how does Nathan do it? To which, he introduced to us a network of spreadsheets, graphs and google documents that now form the foundations of our Clan—that is, how we have been able to ensure that our members are cared for without falling through the cracks. With one of the largest rosters in the Brotherhood, the importance of having such a net should be obvious in the interest of keeping a large portion of our active membership satisfied. Even though these members are here for fun, retention rates can often be linked to how members are being awarded; it is in our club’s nature to follow a model that awards for participation in activities.

Over 34 competitions Nathan has participated in since his last award for service to his Clan, he has amassed a Crescent with Ruby Star, two Crescents with Amethyst Stars, a Crescent with Emerald Star, three Crescents with Topaz Stars and three Crescents with Quartz Stars. He’s also earned 7 Clusters of Fire and 24 Clusters of Earth for gaming activities, with 9 Clusters of Ice for fictional contributions. For Vendetta-level events, Nathan has gained six Seals of the Crusader and two Seals of Revelation. His crowing award, however, is the Scroll of the Master earned for training Edgar Drachen to Jedi Knight—one of our most active members that has a reputation of being a top gamer for the Brotherhood.

I can’t begin to fathom the number and quality of his recommendations for our members for awards ranging from Dark Crosses to promotions, totalling 69 distinct recommendations. Most would see this as a meaningless task that is expected of all of our leaders and members; however, the extent to which he is involved in collecting records of each member in advance of an award being considered and the fact that his name is on a long list of award recommendations both inside and outside of his expected domain is nothing to scoff at. Other units restrict their recommendations to direct leadership, whereas Nathan has awarded members from all across the club.

Most recent, and sending his efforts over the edge for a Sacramental was his assistance in running our latest (and largest) event as a Clan, being the Rise of the Force Ascendant. He was crucial to developing thirteen events were co-organized between himself and the Summit, having graded 138 submissions and 23,503 words of fiction from 30 unique participants. The event fiction—a collaboration between the organizers—consisted of 6948 words of fiction that he was a massive boon to editing, planning and drafting for final release. This, however, does not include his own efforts in boosting our fiction with his own series “Sins of the Father” consisting of 5606 words of fiction.

His track record speaks for itself, and I could not think of a better way to thank him than giving him the sacramental that he deserves. Congratulations!

A'lora Kituri, 2015-11-16 09:32:32 UTC

Well on his way to two-and-a-half years as Praetor to the Headmaster, Ood continues to play a role in nearly everything that happens in the Shadow Academy. Every single course released during my tenure has been either edited or coded for markdown by Ood. He keeps the behind-the-scenes work of the Shadow Academy organized and helps me track and address the errors -- typographical, substantive, and database-related -- that are brought to our attention by test takers. He also helps me by stepping in to grade exams as needed, whether by filling in for a retired Professor or covering for a staff member on vacation.

Since his promotion to EQ4 last summer, Ood has graded 98 exams, advised on most degree and Shadow Academy Society changes, helped manage the magistrates and other staff, and edited or coded for markdown dozens of new courses and revisions, including:

• Ten new and revised history courses launched last year
  
• Major revisions of the six old CORE courses and Dark Brotherhood Basics
• All five new CORE courses and exams
  
• Major revisions to Philosophy 1 and 2
  
• The brand new Planets and Moons and Regions of the Galaxy astronomy courses
  
• Work on all of the new leadership courses: Rewards, Competitions, Reports, and Management
• Rewrites of Alchemy Studies and IRC Basics
• Countless minor edits to all of these courses and others

Ood continues to play an important role at the Shadow Academy, and I am very happy to be able to recommend this Sapphire Blade.

Lord Dacien Victae, 2015-10-09 13:34:39 UTC