Introduction

Evening space cowboys. It’s time for another Herald report!

Table of Contents

• Fiction Update
• The Herald Tournament Shroud War
• February 2017 release
• Complaints
• Ask the Herald

Fiction update

Previous chapters: Fiction Archive

Preceded by: Rogue One Celebration Run On: Discourse

Shroud Nebula

Godless Matron - Chute town

2 days ago - 2 weeks after the Paragon Colony incident

The clamor of Chute Town was almost deafening what with the hoard of the city-ship’s inhabitants rushing through the streets at breakneck pace. Everyone wanted to see the newest spectacle presented to them by the deranged and the psychotic. Even through her well-padded cowl, the Stryga cultist and undercover Inquisitorius agent, Yoi Rosa, could hear the overwhelming uproar. She wore her Strygae red and purple outfit without worry of attack. In fact, most people who saw her or her conveniently-chosen family seemed to avoid her completely. No one wanted to mess with the religious lunatics, and that was precisely why she chose them as her cover. They had an ethereal and utterly dominating influence of the rabble.

She skulked and hugged the shadows under one of the many ruined slums as she approached the crowd lingering in one of the many square-like clearings in the makeshift town. They seemed to cheer, wave their arms, blow their horns, sing, dance, and drink at the sight that didn’t really seem to surprise the woman at all: a human of short, stubby stature — her handler and now former boss, Grand Inquisitor Bama Hodrren — being pulled by his arms and neck and strung on one of the many scaffolds overlooking the street. He wore the gray uniform of the Iron Navy, as he usually did, preferring to keep his identity in plain sight for anyone stupid enough to challenge him. Well, he had certainly found several dozen of those. His uniform was torn up, insignia and honorabilia ripped off and likely already fenced away.

Read more…

The Herald Tournament Shroud War

Welcome to the first ever Herald Graphics Tournament!

The tournament was conceived as a 1v1 battle of the arts where contestants would be pitted against their fellow artists in an art-off, showcasing their skills with the pencil, color, or tablet.

What’s the premise?

A war has started in the Shroud nebula and across Brotherhood space. A silent and hidden war that governments and armies seem to ignore, but it exists and is raging. The Black Sun has seen fit to attack the Shroud Syndicate on their own turf and the many mercenaries, bounty hunters, and criminals of the Brotherhood must band together and fight off this grave threat.

Read more about the start of the war in the latest Herald fiction update.

How to participate?

Go to this link and subscribe. That will tell us as the organizers that you wish to participate. Subscriptions will be open until the start of the Tournament and not later. This is your chance to participate.

How will it work?

The Tournament will be split into rounds depending on the number of participants who wish to participate and every round’s prompt will be fueled by a new fiction update for every round, which will be sent out along with results every weekend before the next round starts.

More info?

You can find it in this link. All the information is there. Once the tournament starts, all participants will be e-mailed the information and a news post will be added by the Praetor.

We would like to welcome all the Brotherhood’s artists to join, pit their skills against each other and enjoy the competition.

Go and subscribe

February 2017 release

First release of this year. Hope you guys enjoy the new skins.

Weapons:

Item 1: Glie-44 blaster pistol - Available for JM4+

Made by: C’ree

Item 2: X-8 Night Sniper pistol - Available for JM4+

Made by: Rian Taldrya

Robes

Item 3: Hunter robes - Available to all EQ3+

Item 4: Egyptian robes - Available to all EQ1+

Accessories

Item 5: Magna-gloves - Available for JM4+

Made by: Zehsaa Hysh

Brotherhood Graphics Survey

Everyone loves surveys! Not really, but this one is necessary.

We've created a survey that you can fill in and, hopefully, influence what way future graphics in the Club move forward. We're looking for honest opinions, so type in anything you can think of that you consider important.

• Click here for the survey

Warbanners, Custom Robes, Custom Weapons and Requests

Let’s start with:

Custom Weapons

By Rian:

• Mauro Wynter
• Blade (In collaboration with Nero)

By Vyr:

• Eetherbiail

By Zehsaa:

• Riku Keibatsu
• Xan (Shikyo original)

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Custom Robes

By Vyr:

• Dracaryis
• Farrin

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Warbanners

By Rian:

• Kasula Daegella
• Azha Mos
• Yuki Suoh
• Jurdan Krennel
• Rulvak Qurroc
• Reiden Karr
• Marick Tyris
• Lexiconus Qor
• Xan Phraz-Etar
• Tirano

By C’ree:

• Kylex
• Rhylance
• Bale Andros
• Alara Deathbane
• Blade Ta'var
• Mauro Wynter

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Graphics Requests

By Rian:

• Edgar Drachen (QUA)
• Edgar Drachen (P:FIST)

By Vyr:

• Xen’Mordin

There’s a Form for that

• Warbanner Request

• Complaints

• Herald FAQ

DB Art Community Telegram Group

If you’re interested in joining the TG group and sharing your art, be sure to click the image below:

Complaints

A couple of complaints have piled up and I would like to address those. Some are older as I haven’t addressed them in previous reports.

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Complaint: My questions were answered in channel and did not make the report. Other questions that were just as silly were answered in the report! I am offended! The HRLD is UNFAIR!

Solution offered: Setup critera to gauge sillyness of questions, appoint a review council, and develop strict protocols for determining the correct way to handle not-silly enough and too-silly questions, as well as the appropriately silly ones.... (Laugh a little, please?!)

We do not laugh in the Herald’s office. We take things seriously. From now on only serious questions will be included. (We laughed :P)

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Complaint: I bought a T-44 Landspeeder in the Possessions beta. Due to my character having young children, he needs a model with at least four seats to realistically transport them around. I was not impressed to discover that this speeder was changed, without my consent, to an RGC-18 model which only has two seats. I was bitterly disappointed to hear that the reason for this was simply that a 'graphic didn't exist for it'

Solution offered: Restore the T-44. The HRLD office shouldn't be able to dictate what my character can own; it should not require a graphic for every single possession. Just a generic 'speeder' picture is fine for 99% of the DB.

As Herald my duty is to keep the Club’s graphics in pristine shape, that means keeping all items updated with current graphics and making sure every item has graphics. Whatever your personal opinion on this matter, this is something I take very seriously.

Right now the criteria for an item to exist in Possessions, apart from the Regent’s rigorous rules and regulations, is that it must have an image depicting the item. Any item that does not is not passed until they do otherwise we would have a half-finished product that has no visual representation. To me as Herald that is not acceptable.

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Complaint: Issue is (about Custom Weapons), what is the point of a custom anything without making requests? From the sketch to the "finished" product I sent via email there were 5 change requests. Two of them sent wouldn't of happened if the reference pictures where followed. One of those I had before sent a picture marking for them where to put things that were not followed.
In the end didn't like being told I was making to many changes and the last one I put in was it. IT'S A CUSTOM SABER. Even with the artist not totally following reference pictures, five is not bad. I've heard there was complaints if not getting unique requests for customs. Then I finally get to do it and in the end get slapped on the hand for customizing it. I understand ppl maybe busy. I get that. It may take awhile to get it done, that's understandable. I was not rushing anything, just simply saying what was missing from my custom saber.

Solution offered: Make sure the artist gets the reference pictures in original request. (I emailed them to the artist and seemed as if they didn't see them before) I tried to describe in words what I wanted as well in original request. Do not send things like this to ppl about a custom saber/weapon. I'd more understand if I had crazy requests and or kept totally changing things. "while we always strive to give you guys what you want, this should really be the last addition to this request because we have other projects to work on." Maybe need to review what was originally sent in, how the artist interrupted it. If the requests are out of hand, then can see where it would be needed. Designing my custom was fun in the beginning. Then it wasn't, didn't feel "custom". It was take it and get outta here.

The issue here is twofold: 1) the request had a text description and two links to google pages where we could find references. From that the Magistrate created the initial graphic as requested. We expect changes to the graphic, but still try to do it right the first time. This is why we request visual references more than descriptions. While the description in this case was valid, it was by far vague for what the requester expected.

2) While we respect all members’ rights to a custom weapon as they want it and we always do what they wish even through several changes, we usually limit those to 2-3 depending on weapon complexity. The reason for this is previous abuse of our time and effort when members disliked their custom weapons after receiving what they requested. This is not so much to limit the requesting member as much as it is to protect the artist creating the weapon. I think, too often, people forget that we also have other projects and work to accomplish. A compromise like this is fair and this is, really, the first complaint we have gotten about this thus far.

That said I take it to heart and find myself responsible that the member in question felt like they did. I apologize if there seemed to be foul intent, but I assure you there was not. I do hope that next time you will supply us with more information and we will do a better job. :)

Ask the Herald

Seraphol asked: #AsktheHerald If someone wanted to submit a design for Robes to be used DJB wide. What would be the process they would have to go through? If this has been asked before ignore it and refer me to the wiki. :P

One would have to send a mail to [Log in to view e-mail addresses] and hope we liked the design and it fit our themes :P

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Len asked: #AskTheHerald a semi related question to Seraphol's: How do you guys decide what gets put out first from the new movies?

It's part what the community wants (We have a survey to help out. Read up.), part current Star Wars series/movies and part what we generally feel is missing among the robes.

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Mawgath asks: #AsktheHerald what's the best way to earn custom robes? Or how much $$$ can I send you for some?

Become DC, become Elder, become noticed by the GM, DGM or Herald and earn a pair despite rank or position, wait for the second coming, discover nirvana, converse with god, discover the theory of everything. That's a short list. :P Oh and there would be the one time a year when i start a comp event which gives away one pair to the winner. Usually May the 4th

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Nero asks: #asktheherald When are the old robes getting an art update? :D

Likely never. We try to focus on creating new, original robes rather than taking someone's design and upgrading it.

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Tarvitz asks: #AskTheHerald May I ask where you personally draw the line in terms of what Jedi Masters or Sith Lords are capable of in terms of Force powers?

Huh not really a Herald-ish question, but personally I keep it quite grounded and try and make use of their powers when they're appropriate, unlike in D&D where I just spam 9th level Wizard spells until everything dies :P

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Vodo asks: #AsktheHerald will you team up with me against Jac?

Depends. What's the discipline? If it's buffalo hunting, I'm out :P

Commission artists and Artist Feature

This report, and several of the ones to come, I would like to feature Brotherhood artists.

This time it's: Zasati Tryezsh. Check out the devArt page, like, share, enjoy, talk to her about it. Our artists are awesome and they need support. Next time I’ll feature someone else.

Closing word

That’s it for now, folks. This is your friendly neighborhood Herald, signing out.

See you, space cowboys!

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