Greetings Tarenti,

As you have hopefully heard, the next Vendetta begins tomorrow! For those of you who know what that means, I hope you're getting your word processors and joysticks ready for a few weeks of intense activity. We raised the bar in the RoS by not coming in dead last like we did in GJW9... let's see if we can shoot for top 3 this time around.

If you have never participated in a Vendetta before, the concept is pretty simple: it's a really big, really important competition in which all the DB's Houses compete directly against one another. Don't be shy about participating! We need everybody to pitch in if we're going to have a shot at winning it. Do the best you can, and don't procrastinate: get somebody to help proofread your writing and really make it shine. Oberst, Beef, Ronovi, Sev, Dralin, I and many others are excellent writers and would be glad to help you out... but you have to ask! You also should give us enough time to actually read it, edit it, and leave enough time for you to make the changes it before it's due. If you need help coming up with ideas, just hop on IRC or fire off an email and ask.

If you've been keeping track at http://scion.divineright.org/atr/ you will know that we've been having a fairly interesting month, statistically speaking. Here are a few highlights and a little analysis for your perusal:

First off, we gained one member this month and lost five, compared to last month when we held steady. That's not a good trend for us to start, but I'm not certain it will continue: four of the five who left us this month were close friends and also all transferred in as a group together. Since their whole original group has already gone, I doubt others will follow them.

Another unrelated item does concern me though: Ji is campaigning to start up a new House, and seems to be winning strong support for it. Since he and many of his friends come from Tarentum, it wouldn't surprise me if a disproportionate number of Tarenti join him if his House eventually opens. While I bear no ill-will for our former Proconsul, I hope that we are able to maintain a strong enough core of active members if he is successful.

Tarentum's gaming has dropped off substantially this month with the loss of Robin Hawk, Serynh and Melfeckt: last month we earned 131 Clusters of Fire/Ice, while this month there were only 13.

However, competition participation outside of gaming was stable, though the participants changed. I was able to award six crescents this month, and seven last month. Congratulations to our top 3 participants: Ronovi Tavisaen Tarentae, Nichos Rhade, and Ryllo Shaden! Keep up the great work! Here's hoping for a bunch of novae in next month's report!

Shadow Academy participation stayed relatively steady with five courses this month, as opposed to seven last month.

There were six reports filed so far this month (not including this one). Thanks Ronovi, Beef, Dralin and Sev!

Finally, how does all this relate to our goal of becoming the first House to regain Clan status? How is that going?

On one hand, our activity level is low given how large our roster is. Last month we had 16 unique participants, while this month we had 15. However, since our roster dropped by four this month, the percentage is 31% instead of 28%. So looking at the bright side, our activity is actually up by 3%. If we can maintain that trend in coming months while picking up a few additional people, we'll be in great shape by next summer. I know it's a tall order, but if everybody does their share we can definitely pull it off.

http://scion.divineright.org/atr/ http://www.darkjedibrotherhood.com/dbjedi/competitions.php?me=1 http://www.darkjedibrotherhood.com/wiki/index.php?title=Promotion_Requirements

In Darkness,

SBM Scion "Firebird" Altera (Sith)/AED/Tarentum [ACC: OPR] GC-PoDP / SC / AC / Cr-3S-8E / CI-GC / SoF / LS / SoL-TC / S:-6U-4B

{SA: DML - DSLC} Captain, ISD II Magnus Kaerner