House Drakonan Report January 9, 2011 Dark Greetings Everyone, I’ve come back from a holiday leave and I’ve set a few things in motion that should make the House run more smoothly in the coming year. First off there have been some personnel changes in key positions, but more on those in the News and Appointments sections. Also, I’ve been talking with Hades and the next phase of our main EH storyline should be beginning early this week. So, those of you itching for a run on will have one soon. I believe Xantros has also mentioned a humorous run on he intends to start as well. Also, if you crave even more of that sort of activity then mercilessly fill your Battleteam leader;s mailbox with requests for a Battleteam run on. Just because we are pushing forward with the main plot doesn’t mean that you as Battleteams can’t do run ons as well. I’ve also cobbled together a website for the House which might be where you are reading this report unless you read them at the main EH site. Take a look around the site when you get a chance and give me some feedback. I know its graphically bare at the moment, but that’s because I’m fairly inept in that department and no one has designed us a banner yet. (Hint, hint) I’ll be continuing to upgrade the site, but for now I’ve archived some of the House fiction and my reports and I’ll be archiving the GM reports there as well. Currently they are only readable as webpages, but in the future I’ll begin compiling them as PDF and .docs and compressing them to make them available for download. We also have a gallery for any images House members may create that need to be displayed in the future and an Announcements section that functions much like the main EH announcements, however you can subscribe to these as an RSS feed and also leave questions and comments on the announcements. To be clear I won’t be reposting EH announbcements, this site will be for House Drakonan and Dark Brotherhood relevant announcements, so check back often. News Training has been centralized across the entire EH. This means that any class available can be taken by you and added to your ID line. Also, many courses formerly hosted at the DIR and HF academies have been relocated and are now available to everyone. There is a lso a new course, Unit Leadership, written and proffed by your Quaestor. So far, only one House member has taken it but he did extremely well. Look for more classes to be released in coming weeks as well. The Dark Brotherhood Monthly Topic will be making a return next month. After talking with Hades he’s given me permission to reactivate it and administrate it and pass on the results to him for awarding purposes. That means that next month you can start earning those really nice shinies we’ve been missing out on. Appointments Tuba has been appointed the Battleteam Leader of Stinray squadron as stryker has left us for the rogues once again. I’m saddened to see Stryker leave but I’m very excited about Tuba taking this slot. Everyone stop by his new office and congratulate him. Drinks are on him in the officer’s lounge this evening. Xantros has taken over the DIE project and he tells me we can anticipate beta testing approximately late February, early March. As of right now he doesn’t require any help, but if he asks for it, I’d appreciate it if you all gave him any assistance he needs. Awards None this month as December was a very quiet month with most of the membership away for the holidays. I expect there will be many in my coming reports. Promotions I was promoted from Krath Archpriest to Krath Epis during my leave. It’s always nice to come back from a vacation to nicer robes and more powers.  Competitions An Image of Darkness Start Date:January 9, 2011 End Date: February 11,2011 Groups involved: House Drakonan Awards: Crescent-Sapphire Star (Cr-1S) for 1st, Crescent-Emerald Star (Cr-1E) for 2nd. Description:Time to make pretty pictures! We need a banner for the House. I\'d like to use it for the House Drakonan Website. Design to your heart\'s content but I\'d definitely like to see something appropriate to Dark Side Jedi as a whole or something that includes an image reflecting each Order. (i.e. a banner that features a TIE fighter might be great for Stingray, but not the entire House.) In addition to the medal I\'ll make sure to credit you on the website when it goes up so everyone can recognize your work. Submit all entries to ascottcampbell7@aol.com. Debriefing Start Date: January 9, 2011 End Date: February 11,2011 Groups involved: House Drakonan Awards: Crescent-Sapphire Star (Cr-1S) for 1st, Crescent-Emerald Star (Cr-1E) for 2nd. Description: In our wonderful Shadow Academy we have a course available on Writing Debriefs. If you haven\'t taken a look at it I urge you to do so. The idea of this competition is to bring back the practice of writing debriefs about the combat our members engage in. The rules are simple. Fly a mission (any DB platform) or fight a duel in one of our FPS games (since MP is problematic for the older games I will accept entries that used \'bots\' in an MP arena) and then write a debrief about what happened. I won\'t repeat the course notes here, but specificity and good description are the keys to a good debrief. Let me know what your goal(s) were. What strategy you went in with, The way you carried it out, etc. (i.e. I was to destroy a Rebel corvette and decided my best method of attack would be to approach from the rear and employ a loadout of advanced concussion missiles. As I closed with my target a flight of X-Wings moved in from 8 o\'clock high, etc.) When you submit please include the mission you flew or arena you dueled in, what platform you played on, and the mission/arena name. The winning entries will eventually find a home in the fiction archive. Send all submissions to ascottcampbell7@aol.com. The Uses of Power Start Date: January 9, 2011 End Date: February 11,2011 Groups involved: House Drakonan Awards: Crescent-Sapphire Star (Cr-1S) for 1st, Crescent-Emerald Star (Cr-1E) for 2nd. Description:This is a fiction based competition open to the entire House. I hope that this can become an ongoing competition if there is enough interest to merit it. The basic idea is that I will select a power from the list in the Dark Side Compendium and you write a story or essay about one of three things: 1) How your character first learned the power. 2)A unique story where you put the power to an interesting or unconventional use during a past mission. 3) A story from the early years of the Old Republic where a Sith or Jedi \"discovers\" this power and how they did so. The entry should show that you have a familiarity with the power\'s DSC description and limitations. At first I will be choosing more commonly accessible powers, available to lower ranks. If at some point in the future I choose a higher level power that may not be available to you at your rank, you can write a story where you observed its use by another dark jedi or even an enemy. Be creative and have fun. The object here is to explore the possibilities available with the Force as our ally. I\'ll give you fair warning, stick to the DSC and its descriptions and do NOT tell me what \"Starkiller\" can do. I enjoyed the first entries quite a bit and I’m really looking forward to reading the entries in the next round. This time I’ve chosen Farseeing as the power for you to weave a story or essay about. I\'ll be saving the winning entries to add to the EH fiction archive when it is operational and (if possible) add to the House website when it is completed. In the meantime there are medals to be won. I\'ll accept entries of 1 page at minimum to a 6 page maximum. Submit all entries to ascottcampbell7@aol.com. Activities Currently little has happened, however we have a run on about to begin and possibly a second. I’ve also asked the Battleteam leaders to each come up with a competition or activity that I’ll hopefully be adding in my next report. Keep in mind that there is always irc to chat on as well. If you’re really desperate and have Steam you are more than welcome to message me or simply join me in a game of Killing Floor, Left For Dead, or Republic Comado. (Gasp! A Star Wars game!). Otherwise chat, and keep an eye out for the run on launching sometime in the next three days. Final Thoughts I have a few final thoughts for this report, but I’ll try to be brief. I’m happy that we finally have our own website where we can post news and announcements and archive our fiction for the whole House to enjoy. I think it’s always a good thing when everyone can enjoy the fruits of one another’s labors in the club. I’m happy with the direction some of our Battleteams though I’d truly like to see some more interaction and activity from Sentinel. No, I’m not scolding you Obelisks, I’m telling you we miss having you around to liven things up by bashing things about.  I’d also like to see some more activity from veteran DB members who seem to have fallen away. I know that things can get to be a grind and that RL always takes precedence, but we’d love to have you back, even if its only hanging about on irc and chatting. Lastly, I’m feeling very positive and anxiously awaiting being able to announce and start a few competitions I have in the planning stage in the next few weeks. I have an idea for a large scale flying competition for the House and as I mentioned previously, I’ll be resurrecting the Monthly Topic for everyone. Currently I have resurrected a few older competitions that were active in December to give people time to participate now that the holidays are over. There is a lot to do and be done, and if you know of something you’d like to do that isn’t currently being done, get in touch with me and we’ll see about making it happen. My door is always open and I like to think I’m a fair minded person who will help with anything reasonable, so let me hear from you. This House is only as great as what each of us working together can make it. Darkness Defend, QUA/KE Tomaas Montte/Drakonan House (GC)(SoP)(DC-K)(Cr-D-Ax2)(LSS){SA:CORE-G:AT1-G:LST-H:INTEL-S:ESET-S:ISET-K:GMR}