The Sapphire Blade is awarded to a member who has shown consistent and long-term service to their Unit or Brotherhood position. Such services however cannot be seen until taken on a whole, each individual part seen as one. The Sapphire Blade can also be rewarded for extraordinary amounts of activity in a large-scale competition such as the Great Jedi War, where the very best are rewarded for their efforts.

Howlader’s performance in the Dark Crusades marks him as one of the most talented and dedicated members in the Dark Brotherhood. When it comes to participation, not a single member in the entire Dark Brotherhood participated in more events than he did, a few did as many, but not one did more… because Howlader participated in every. single. event. During the span of the Crusades, 243 members of the Brotherhood participated in at least one event. Howlader participated in 31. Not only that, but his total medal tally marked him as one of the truly elite members in skill measurements as well, finding himself in the 96th percentile of Nova earned, and was only matched or tied by 10 members in the Dark Brotherhood.

Beyond his own personal efforts on behalf of Taldryan, including a once again perfect performance in the final round, Howlader was the engine room of Taldryan. His omnipresence on IRC allowed Howlader to be the single most influential person in Taldryan at driving activity.

Since the Crusades have concluded, Howlader has been instrumental to me by completing a significant number of assignments, helping to collate and combine data sets from around the DB, and being an otherwise invaluable resource to his summit. For all these reasons and more, I heartily endorse Dark Jedi Master Howlader for receipt of a Sapphire Blade.

Dark Jedi Master Keirdagh Taldrya Cantor, Aedile and Loyal Son of Taldryan.

Through the few months I have worked with the Panda, he has truly taught Kord and I a lot. As many have said, Howie doesn't beat around the bush. Some might find this harsh, but for the few people who have worked along side him, we know it the way of the Panda. Howie has been around this club longer than some members have been alive. I haven't witnessed many members as dedicated to this club, it's values, and further growth as Howie shows on a daily basis. It takes a passionate member to stay around and do all that Howie continues to do for the advancement of our online world. I know I don't have to say it, but keep doing great things for this club as we do appreciate your guidance and efforts.

For 10 straight months, with only a few leaves from his duty, Howie consistently dedicated himself to his position as Special Magistrate to the Master at Arms. To say he was in charge of yelling, is both true, and also a bit of an oversimplification of the services he provided to the team. He brought years of experience and a well reasoned albeit noisy point of view to a countless number of debates and discussions, and while I'll be the first to admit a recommendation always reads better with something quantifiable, in this case I think it was actually too many debates and discussions to be counted. He in many cases took the opposing view against the entire team, quite often things wouldn't go his way, but he was passionate about his stance and we all continued to grow as a team as we digested all the reasons we were wrong time and time again. All this showed a great dedication to his position.

Everything above is great to show all the stuff that Howie did, which is a lot of it, but it was his influence and impact on the entire Master at Arms team, including myself and now second set of Magistrates, that makes me feel nothing short of a sacramental award would do to award him for his service. As the two of us would go back and forth in emails, he really elevated my own personal knowledge of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood way of rewards and systems in general. Congratulations on your Sapphire Blade Howie, and look forward to more yelling. Beer is on me!

Howie has been a great source of information these past few months, as well as reinforcement. He’s never been one to mince words, what you need to know he tells you in plain and unconfusing terms. Riding herd on both Landon and myself, he’s been there to answer questions and to prod us into doing whatever is on the table at the time despite our own feelings of caution and indecision, assuring us of what we’re doing. He’s done a great job helping Aabs teach us the job, and has been a huge value to the MAA office as a whole.