"Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the beard with which fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart."

-- An Excerpt from The Bearded Tome: Chapter 25, Verse 6

Greetings Folks, and welcome to the return of Yacks' report. Our beloved Proconsul Howie has been spoiling me lately, making sure the reports get out unhindered and letting me relax a bit, but today we return to some sense of normalcy. And now we forge onward.

Headlines that you need to know

• Masters of our Fate Announcement
• Dinaari Presents: Rush the Elites
• Updates from around the DB
• There are Competitions to be Had!
• Sleep time is over

Be the Master of our Fate

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.

The above is a poem made famous in recent years by an amazing film about a rugby team. It is used as a source of inspiration in that, and it is something that I have used for inspiration in my own life. It also grants me some inspiration in the upcoming series of events that I have nearly completed working on, for you the good people of Taldryan to participate in.

Much of the upcoming competitions and events will be centred around the idea that the members of Taldryan are the Masters of their own Fate, and as such we will be letting the members of Taldryan build the legacy of Taldryan going forward, and hopefully help guide us through the unsure times ahead. In order to pave the way toward this end, I have finished adding the most skeletal of updates to the wiki page for Taldryan's home planet Karufr. This brings the page in line with the direction that we're looking to retcon our history into... not one of conquering massive Dark Jedi fleets that would have been crushed by the New Republic immediately, but one of intrigue and espionage. To a lesser extent the Kr'Tal System page already had some of this information, but Karufr's information has been put together in a skeletal form to help give everyone an idea of the new shared history.

In the coming weeks and days, we'll be seeing events that help grow Taldryan's story moving forward, helping to solidify our ties with our fictional allies the Gray Paladins, as well as expanding out some new enemies and maybe even establishing more allies. Who knows, the future will have to tell us.

Dinaari Presents: Rush the Elites

Recently the Clan Summit made the decision to change House Dinaari into once more a primarily gaming oriented House. Within that purview, Omega took over the reigns and has started off with a bang as Quaestor. One of the primary vehicles Omega and crew have been using to start drumming up some gaming support, both within Taldryan and without have been the Dinaari Presents series of competitions, where they host a gaming competition for everyone to take part in.

The current iteration of the series is currently taking place in the form of a Diablo 3 competition: Rush the Elites. The premise of the competition is simple... kill the demons. Kill the cows. Kill the horribly eye rending pastel horse abominations that replaced the cows. Kill all the bad things, and profit.

If you own D3, fire it up sometime tonight/tomorrow and make sure you fly the Taldryan flag high to support our lads over in Dinaari!

News from the Galaxy

Despite the fact that the summer doldrums have hit the Brotherhood especially hard this year, the club, and the news do continue onward. Here's a small sampling of what is happening out in the big bad DB, and in Star Wars fandom at large...

• Star Wars Commander and Star Wars Galactic Defense continue to be popular throughout the DB.
• Our new Voice has been keeping us up to date with the awarding of Clusters of Ice, as well as providing us with some awesome fiction options.
• The Master at Arms apparently had a stroke and appointed some delusional man who thinks he's a panda to be his Praetor ever since the last one ran off to the DC.
• Ewan McGregor has been talking about his willingness to film some Obiwan related anthology movies, which would be awesome.
• There continues to be a buzz about Star Wars Battlefront that we got to see gameplay footage from at E3. I have to say some of the reactions and user stories have gotten me very excited, and the PC Gameplay got me actively panting...
• San Diego Comic Con is just around the corner, and we're already starting to see some cool information about some of the Star Wars stuff we can expect to see there this year. We do know for sure that Star Wars is going to have a big presence this year so we can look forward to even more cool stuff, and maybe even a new trailer... if whispers are to be believed.
• Despite the fact that I would hate to lose any of you, there are a few positions open throughout the DB that you might ant to consider applying for. Consul Vismorsus is looking for a New Proconsul to fill the shoes vacated by our new Voice. If you're at all interested, get an email to him by Friday night. Also, Clan Plagueis is shopping around for a New Rollmaster. If you're interested in the job, get your applications in by the 30th.

Competition Roundup

Taldryan Hosted Competitions

• Dinaari Presents: Rush the Elites in Diablo 3: Ends June 27
• BTL Beatdown: Ends July 08
• Burning Down the House: Ends June 30
• Speed Sporcle Challenge #15: Ends June 28
• Consular Puzzle Competition #2: Ends July 07
• Return of the Return of the Taldryan Trivia #6: By The Numbers: Ends July 11

DB Wide Competitions

• Keeping it together: Ends July 10
• An Objective History: Ends July 28
• Make Your Own Jedi Species: Ends July 02
• Judecca World (9 sub-competitions): Ends July 04
• Star Conflict PvP: Ends July 05
• Star Wars Commander (Windows): Empire Airshow: Ends July 01
• Star Wars Commander (Apple & Google): Rebel Secrets: Ends July 01
• Star Wars Galactic Defense: Into the Pit: Ends July 01
• It's a Pancake: Ends July 05
• Monthly Mobile Gaming Sokoban: Ends July 25

I hope you enjoyed your naps...

Well, ironically I am writing this epilogue while I am exhausted and nearly falling asleep at my keyboard, but the sentiment is true. Over the last few months Taldryan has started to lapse into the interwar slump, where people kick off their shoes and put their feet up, and start napping the hours away until the next big vendetta pops up. I've been guilty of it myself. But we're going to start ratcheting that backwards starting now. We will be the masters of our fate. We're currently sitting in the most exciting time in over a decade for the Star Wars fandom, and I'll be damned if we as a Clan don't make the best of it.