First up, new members: Welcome Xayne Darkwalker to House Marka Ragnos; he's an Acolyte that's aready returned to pass his Sith CORE exam! Welcome aboard, Xayne!

Next up: ORV DREW ME A THING. Look at this thing. Look at its splendour and beauty. Ladies and gentlemen, our wonderful Herald is truly a talented artist. I saw my commission and words literally failed me when I got it. If you want your character done, go through Orv, for he is amazing ($30 USD will net you what I got. Worth it.). I dedicate this space to him for the fact that I want to say thank you, publicly, for the incredible work that has been put in. THANK YOU ORV.

Let's get on with the show!

Current Competitions!

This week's trivia results: First place goes to Syntari and second to Locke. This means that they have both won two Legions of the Scholar out of two for my trivia. Please somebody beat these two Shar Dakhan fools! (Kidding, I love you guys, but seriously, my House needs to beat you.)

There's so many competitions I can't just list them all and give info because it would take ages. I'm going to take a leaf out of Yacks' book and group themy by category (thanks bro):

Gaming: Monthly Mobile Gaming: Hungry Santa, Monthly Mobile Gaming: Racing Santa, Ghost of Christmas Present, Ghost of Christmas Past, Do you feel Lucky?, PvP Domination
Fiction: ACC: Create a Venue, Job Search!
Graphics: Oh Sithmas Tree, But why?
Other: Ugly Sweater Competition Part II, Disorderly Conduct, Your Sithmas list

And, of course, if you want to be the Black Guard to the Consul, check out Consul's Black Guard and get right in on it.

Promotions and Awards!

This week we've seen a lot of Shadow Academy progress, as well as some merit medals handed out, and it's really great. Without further ado:

Teu: 1x Scroll of Foundation, 1x Steel Cross
Ar'rik: 1x Anteian Cross
Jeric Cyrin: Dark Pundit - Essentials, Dark Pundit - Vendetta (Jeric's been rocking the Shadow Academy this week, definitely worth noting. Love the work!)
Vaar Mai: Dark Maven - Writing, Dark Savant - Writing and Philosophy, 2x Legion of the Scholar

Current Events!

TOR Starfighter combat! YEAH! All of you subscribers who want to go fly starfighters, and relive the glory days of oldschool flight sims, this is for you. It'll be out for F2P next month. Our good friend Cethgus, Magistrate to the Fist, left us a screenshot and some information. All reports indicate awesome gameplay, so check it out in Ceth's report. Catch me playing and we'll kick it up!

There are some very nifty new DJB site features out, as mentioned by some reports: the Shadow Academy now gives you the ability to save and continue your exams (YES), as well as the ability to re-take exams and not have to re-do the stuff you already got right. We've had Clusters of Ice updated, and, of course, the big one: the ACC Open Beta is coming! If you love fiction and combat, here's the chance to get back into it.

Sadow News Network!

It's a quiet week on the home front, everyone. Right now we've got competitions running (including Black Guard selections) - and there's plenty for everyone to do. Fiction, graphics, trivia, gaming - what more could you possibly want to do, right? Right. This week is just chill out and have fun week. I can't wait to see some submissions in these comps.

There's something I realised I could do in this. Our House is, basically, the best House there is. (I just angered 90% of the DJB just then, good going, me.) Question is, what can I do to celebrate that? Oh, I know! How about I talk about someone every week and tell the entire DJB what they do, who they are, and how much awesome I think they are? Yes? Sounds great! You all deserve the spotlight, I think. So, without further ado:

You Know Who's Really Great?

When I think of greatness in HMR, the first person I think of is Teu. I really do. She's our Quaestor and despite having to deal with real-life on a constant basis, she is here, working her butt off for us and kicking butt at more or less everything.

Let's look at her dossier ID line: She's Left Hand of Justice (one of the absolute hardest jobs in the DJB given the depth of knowledge one needs, and generally a thankless one), she's Quaestor of our wonderful House and has been doing a better job than I ever did at it. She received the position after I had it and, frankly, she's the better one for the job by miles. I couldn't do anywhere near as well as she has. She's also a Professor, grading the CORE exams in the Shadow Academy. Solari's mentioned almost 100 exams graded, and that's a huge number! Utterly mindblowingly huge, considering there's only four exams she grades - Sith, Krath, Obelisk COREs and DB Basics. Think how important those exams are to this club. You have done an exam graded by Teu, guaranteed. There's no way around it. And she has a Dark Sage of Law! Wow! I might not want one but the work needed to get that? Like, daaaaaaaaamn.

That's not all. Her work behind the scenes on Summit is just incredible. She's always got an idea or some insight into an easy way to make something happen. She's always friendly and personable in the way she acts and is, quite frankly, a great role model for anyone who wants to aspire to greatness in the DJB. That's what Teu is, to me. She's in the middle of everything, giving us her time without any thought of reward or praise, in order to make the club that she loves dearly a better place. Her strength through the tough times just inspires me, and it blows my mind how she does it. And while I can't give Teu an award for how much time and effort she puts in, I can say this: as your Aedile, and as your friend, as a member of this House and as a member of the Brotherhood? Thank you.

That's the first week. Every single one of you is great in your own way, and I intend to celebrate that every single week. When will you be up? Who knows. But you will be here.

In Closing

I'm feeling good. Not burnt out yet, no - Teu and I are really hitting our stride now, working in tandem, bouncing ideas off each other, setting up a 'how we want to do things' and I feel like we're making some awesome progress. This feeling is something I want to share with you guys! It's great! I feel like I'm a part of the DJB with something great to do again and I'd like to know what you guys want to do. Expect an upcoming email on the House mailer that I'd like to get some feedback on from you guys!

That's it from me this week. Stay classy, Marka Ragnos.