There is a lot that goes into being a leader. It's more than just reports and stoically reminding people about open competitions. You have to engage with your members, find out what they are here for, and use that information to push them further and further into activity. This can be tough when you have a unit like Naga Sadow, that has over a third of its members as elders already. It takes a special mix of cheerleading and understanding to engage with us stodgy old retirees, and still have enough in the tank to encourage newer members as we get them. Darkhawk's infectious energy is key to this. He is all but exploding in discord with excitement at news for any one of our members with his trademarked 'Booooom!'s. Almost universally available in chats or voice chats, he's there as a constant presence to talk about anything and everything, from the fine details of ships and saber forms to 1980's action movies, not the least of which starred Mark Hammill and Harrison Ford.

Darkhawk drags other members in like Batman, finding out what their weaknesses are and leveraging that into relevant activities, be it engaging with old fleet guys like Hades and getting them engaged on clan fleet discussions, or pivoting people who poked their head back in for old games into the new Helldivers like Strask. He helps to drag our old and tired forward with tastes of what they loved in the past, and helps them get aquainted with the new hot systems, like dragging Malisane's love for run-ons into enjoying the new Role Playing system. This helps energize the old guard, who in turn bring their excitement to the new members, as we are seeing with some of these older members asking about taking on new apprentices again for the first time in literal years.

Behind the scenes, DarkHawk is always plotting with me, bouncing ideas off of each other, setting the path forward fictionally for the clan, scheming on clan events and helping tie our clan concept into more of what it is we do in official systems. We have a standing voice call every week to this effect, ever pushing toward a goal of a more engaged membership.

Darkhawk also works closely with leadership of other clans, helping build those diplomatic ties between units so that there is more stuff for our members to do, so that there are more friends for our members to make, breaking down the old indendent city-state rivalries so that they are nothing more than just friendly rivalries. In those relationships, he leans on those folks, figuring out what works well for their units, always with an eye to see how they could be adapted to our clan for our own internal improvement.

It is for all of these reasons that I am more than happy to put my oar in and back the efforts to award DarkHawk with an Amethyst Kukri. Thank you, Darkhawk, for all that you've done to help us all so far, and for all that I know that you'll continue to do.