Greetings my fellow Odanites and onlookers from the Dark Side,

Lots of exciting developments in the Clan so let’s get started...

The featured art this month is of Mar Sul and Seridan's new character Corvus Corax and was made by Bearcub who by the way has commission slots open. Take my money! This is the most epic thing ever!

News

• Unit Activity Report - As you can see from Mav’s graphic we have some strong numbers in participation and entries per comp but we have some areas we can improve on like our retention rate of random joins (which you will see one idea for addressing this in the Jobs section below).

• Fist Report 3 - Major balance changes, specifically caps on PVO clusters so well worth a read. I also left a 650 word manifesto in the comment section on the fundamental nature of the GRMG :P

• DB Holiday Transition - GM birthdays and split days are out, May the Fourth and Covenant day are in. Mark your calendars!

• Atty got a stabby thing! - Shout out to our esteemed ally the Shadow Lady on her well-deserved pointy thingy. She had to put up with me on summit for a while which almost warrants a sac by itself.

• New TS server - Update your bookmarks in teamspeak and game on!

• Journeyman ACC Tourney! - Be sure to check out these matches of some of our most talented journeymen duking it out. I’m keeping tabs on who I need to defend my title against :P

• Seals of Loyalty - Seals of Loyalty were handed out and special congrats to Edgar, Xantros, A’lora and V’yr for theirs.

• Bossman got promoted! - A’lora is really quite profilic with his DB work; Herald work, Voice work, Clan leadership. I haven’t seen someone more deserving of an EQ4 promotion and it was an honor to add a rec on behalf of the Clan.

• CM Report - Wally reports are essential for anyone who ACCs or does anything with our character sheet system. They are always full of great information and updates on our ever evolving system. Plus he likes swords.

• Voice Report - Evant poked his head up from slaving away at possessions to give us a quick update and a nifty timeline tool developed by Xen.

• Herald Report - Our “pirate queen not a tree” Herald has some great info about the growing art community and a sneek peak at a graphics rubric and the future of graphics in the club.

Jobs Jobs Jobs!

First I would like to announce a somewhat non-traditional job offering. This will be a Battleteam Leader position on paper but in reality will be more akin to a deputy rollmaster position. This will be a battleteam at the Clan level that operates exclusively for Journeymen. This position will be challenging by nature because instead of working with a static roster your goal will be to engage newer members, train them up and when they are ready pass them off to one of the Houses. Your primary duties will be assisting the Rollmaster in various recruitment and retention initiatives as assigned. This will be a project driven position. This is a challenge and very important to the long term health of the Clan but also an opportunity to really rise and achieve some great things.

Application Requirements:

• Must be a current member of Clan Odan-Urr, no rank requirement

• Applications must include a detailed proposal for the name and fictional concept for the battleteam.

• Any club or real life experience you feel is relevant to the position and Odan-Urr’s recruitment and retention efforts.

• Applications should address Clan communication platforms such as email, IRC, Telegram and any unofficial platforms you would use to reach out to new members and how you would leverage those to improve our random join retention rate. Quick turnaround on all communication platforms is a must for this position.

• Applications must be sent to [Log in to view e-mail addresses], [Log in to view e-mail addresses], and [Log in to view e-mail addresses] no later than 2359 UTC on 9 May 2016.

• One final note, because this is in essence a call for proposals, we reserve the right to not create the position if we do not receive proposals of sufficient quality. So put some thought into it.

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Nathan, our Quaestor of House Hoth is stepping down after an impressive tenure on Clan summit continuously since April of 2014. Be sure to thank him for his tremendous service to the Clan. Details on Quaestor applications will go out in a separate announcement to the entire Brotherhood but it doesn’t hurt to start prepping applications. Remember, the focus of your application should be on your plans and how you plan on moving House Hoth forward and not so much on past accomplishments.

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After serving two years as Headmaster, Bubba (aka Dacien) is stepping down. I had the pleasure of working in the Shadow Academy as a Professor for nine months under Bubba and he’s leaving some big shoes to fill. But don’t let that discourage you, if you have the ideas and the drive to make them happen drop an application. Make sure to have some people review the app before you send it. Oh and be sure to leave a comment thanking Bubba for his service.

Details in Sarin’s announcement

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Howie is looking for a panda-in-training to serve as Taldrya’s PCON and get trained to be the next CON. You don’t even have to switch from the light path!

This could be you

Details in Howie’s post

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Our friends in Plagueis are also hiring a Quaestor for House Karness Muur. Details in Teylas’ announcement

The Feud

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out Mav’s post which contains the full results of the event.

I’d first like to congratulate Plagueis on their hard fought victory. Second everyone who participated deserves a pat on the back for a successful event, it was an honor to get to judge and there was strong sportsmanship all around. Our Clans paved the way for future vendettas and feuds, so thank you for your patience as we worked through the kinks. Finally a big congrats to Seridan and Tekk for taking first and second overall in the individual standings.

All that being said I have some general lessons learned for all the competitors:

Only a few though

• Time management - The biggest issue I saw across the board was time management. I have a tendency to procrastinate myself, but it kills you competitively. It’s pretty obvious to a judge when an entry is rushed. Take your time, if it’s a writing event write something don’t wait for the perfect idea to come to you. It’s a lot easier to edit/revise and see what works than try to come up with a 100% solution before you’ve even put pen to the proverbial paper. Also gives you time to get your entry proofed. Time management is especially important for team events. COU lost a ton of points in the group events for people just not finishing, and by lost I mean literally just left points on the table you could have gotten if you submitted any valid entry. I know we didn’t have one this time, but team ROs are especially notorious for time management failures. Start early, do it in little chunks, revise and refine.

• Stand out from the pack - The second biggest issue I saw, and frankly see a lot in the DB, is not taking your audience (the judges in this case) in account when making your entry. Put yourself in the Judge’s shoes, for an event of this size we have to wade through 20-30 fictions per comp, it’s an even larger pool for a GJW. Creativity goes a long way toward separating your entry from the usual “my character is super awesome and saves the day” entries. It may be fun for you to write but it’s usually not fun to read. The same holds true for graphics, multimedia, and even something like a battleplan. Try to put your own spin on things, think outside the box but don’t go full avant garde. Always ask yourself, would someone else who knows nothing about me or my character enjoy reading this?

• Read the rubric - Specifically with fiction, a lot of the pitfalls could have been avoided by reading the rubric carefully. It should be your final checklist before your entry is truly done. Did your plot have a beginning, middle and end? How did you treat NPCs? Were they fleshed out or interchangeable props? Did you paint a vivid picture for the reader when describing the scene or action? Did you adhere to our character sheet system? All these things are covered in the rubric. Pull out the rubric and grade your own entry before you turn it in, that will catch a lot of things

• Read the competition rules and prompt carefully - Finally, read the rules and prompt of the competition very carefully. If you have any questions ask the organizers. There is absolutely nothing wrong with asking questions. Organizers will try to tell you what they are looking for through the rules and prompts. Assume every word is intentional. Just because you did something in the past, like turn in gdoc links for example, doesn’t mean you can in this competition. Pay attention to minimum requirements like word counts, file formats, multimedia time limits and the like. You don’t want to get DQ’d because you didn’t read the rules carefully

Those are my general comments that really anyone in the Brotherhood can use.

Visions of the Future

There is a lot going on, but I’m going to skip this section this month as A’lora’s forthcoming report will cover it all in detail, including our new system. Needless to say that all the discussions we’ve collectively had over the past few months on who we are as a Clan and where we are going fictionally will be addressed. Thank you to all who filled out the identity survey.

In the meantime there’s always the Summit Feedback Form

Competitions

Comps By and For COU members

• X Marks the Spot - This is a great chance to make your mark on Clan lore by telling the story of how we got our new X-wings.

• A Dad Joke to Die For - Turn a heart-wrentching scene into a joke with this meme comp.

• DB: The Gathering II - The more serious version of my previous “make a magic card” comp. This time the card which best reflects the character in question wins.

• Rainbows and Unicorns - Make your character into a pony! Ponies for EVERYBODY!

• The Commandments of Pravus - Telegram conversations spawn the best competitons. Create a list of the “commandments of Pravus”

• Hoth Free Form Fiction - This is a great chance to get CIs for character fiction.

• Bad Company -- The Knights Best Friends - KoA members can shape their next event with this create an NPC / fiction hybrid comp.

• The Brotherhood of Tyria (Guild Wars 2) - Are you playing Guild Wars 2? You should be, it’s totally free to play. Download it and get some entries into this comp. We have about 20 or so DB members playing the game. Join uuuuus!

DB-wide comps

• What’s Up Darth? Fiction and Multimedia - Create some anti-Pravus propaganda based on a classic cartoon.

• Devil Within (D3) - Get your Diablo 3 on and click click click click.

• Contacting Destiny Servers - Sub competitoins for all the Destiny modes, yaaas guardian...kill them baaaack.

• Twelve Weeks a Haiku - Write that person a Haiku, people love Haikus.

• Simply Star Wars - Every flash/mobile/classic Star Wars game you can imagine is covered by this Fist series.

• COU, TAL, TAR Double CF Day! - 7 May

• Gorefest May 2016 13-15 May

AskTurel

Talis - #askturel Chevy or Ford?

My car is a 2010 Mustang :P

Nero - #askTurel Favorite game on the PS4

Destiny...yaaas

Mako - #AskTurel V'yr, A'lora or Mako

Speaking out of character, Vyr - marry, Mako - bang, A'lora - kill :p

Len - #AskTurel magenta, cyan, or yellow?

Magenta

Korroth - #askTurel Are there any future plans to develop our alliance with Arcona?

Absolutely! The razing of New Tython has sent ripples throughout the Brotherhood but Arcona remains our allies...even if they can’t act openly at the moment. Once things settle down a bit for both clans (we just had a feud and are launching a new planet, they are currently in a clan event) you’ll see something Uji and I have been working on, a series of joint comps we call “The Brocon Series”

Sa - #askturel is there anything us members can do to help the leadership?

With the feud behind us project work will come back to the forefront. Both houses and the clan will need help fleshing out our new worlds. We also have two opportunities to join leadership at the moment so APPLY FOR ALL THINGS!

V’yr - #askturel how do you see the feud with Plag impacting the Clan at large (from the information you now have. So participation and general enthusiasm)?

I feel like the feud showed how far we’ve come as a Clan but also what we need to work on to reach our full potential. I’m super proud of the entire Clan, and I firmly believe we’ll apply the lessons learned here and come out swinging in the GJW.

Wally - #askturel If Turel took in a troubled adolescent apprentice (confused with their new Force powers and vulnerable) who looked up to him reverently and had a crush on him, how would he handle it :p.

Awkwardly, he might even try to switch apprentices. Though, a bucket of cold water works for sending a "it's never happening" message. I think I read that in a book somewhere :P

Uji - #askturel - If Turel were forced to betray someone close to him in order to save Vorsa, who would it be and how far would he go to save her?

I feel like I could write an entire fiction on this but he’d storm the gates of Hell and face Pravus one on one if he had to save Vorsa. Problem with the whole betray piece of that question is she would definitely disapprove of any such action and he knows that so he probably wouldn’t but it would be a tough choice.

Atty- #askturel who is your favorite piece of mancandy in Hollywood (aka actor)

That’s a really hard choice...so many. I’d have to with my original mancrush Justin Timberlake though...stop judging me

TL;DR

• APPLY FOR ALL THE JOBS!

• The Feud was a success, I’m proud of all of you but there are some lessons learned we can apply for next time.

• Plenty of comps out there to fill the gap until the next event!

• More to come in the upcoming Consul report

Closing

That’s it for now,

Your humble servant,

Turel Sorenn Proconsul, Clan Odan-Urr