zaviire

Thank you! It was pretty hectic, but everyone seems to have had a blast! :') I won't go copy-pasting everything I said in this post afterwards but everything there holds true! Seeing so many people come out and support the event either with kind words, donations, or themselves offering to volunteer and help run the event is honestly really inspiring and we appreciate all of it! I'm still working on getting some screencaps spruced up for posting (lighting was pretty low inside during and after Ibi's show... partly because I forgot to turn the lights back on...eheh...) from Sunday's event, but when that's done I'll post them here and on the Ebonguard tumblr! The flyer/poster for the May 20 opening will also be slightly delayed because of a thing I'm going to try and get rolling for it: a job/rumor board for RP hooks and the like.

TONIGHT! Featuring Ibi Shigo! We hope to see you there! Remember: criminal mischief is more than welcome. :> This venue is neutral ground so as long as no one comes to blows, no one will be asked to take it outside!

I’ve never attended the Invitational or any solo magic tourney, so I’m not sure how qualified I am to offer my two cents on the matter, though I guess it’s useful to chime in with the reasons why I don’t attend! (I do occasionally go to Spellguard with a friend, though, and that’s great fun but set up a little differently since it’s 2v2, and I haven’t gone in a while because schedules.) I never attended the Runestone when it was around because of the allowance of illegal/forbidden magic. I’m all for lore-bending and creative ways of using magic, but a lot of what I see done is for aesthetic purposes. Frankly, I think it’s really fun to see how different people write the way their characters use magic, from using fire magic to melt sand into glass to just using magic to manipulate a physical object and give yourself a bit more range with a weapon that would otherwise be considered melee. (Both things that RP partners of mine have done; it’s really neat.) I’ve even seen the use of magicked/enchanted arrows. But I don’t really jive with people who openly show off how big and bad their BLM/void mage/etc character is, while also making no attempt IC to conceal the fact that that is what the character is doing. That said, I do think that if effort is shown on the part of the player and the practice of forbidden magic isn’t being like, openly advertised, then it becomes a question of aesthetic rather than mechanics. If you, OOC, know a character is a Black Mage, and they happen to use flashy magic that looks cool but can be handwaved, IC, by extensive practice in an art that’s not illegal, then does it still qualify as using forbidden magic if there’s an alternative explaination readily offered IC? Or would getting onto that character/player constitute metagaming? (I believe that it would.) It’s one thing to use magic in creative ways or in such a way that you get to stretch your descriptive/writing muscles. You can only write a fireball being flung at someone so many times before you want to spice it up a little bit more, just like you can only write a character swinging a sword at someone else so many times before you want to spice it up a little. It’s another thing, though, to straight-up summon a familiar from the Void in the middle of a magic tourney. Things that defy alternate IC explaination are where I, personally, draw the line. It doesn’t have to be a short one, in fact I think stronger explainations have to be longer, though not so intricate as to implicate that a person is making it up; this is pretty much how I approach real situations too though. There’s a happy medium that needs to be reached. If your explaination is basically a one-liner and a shrug I’m gonna squint at you, but if it feels like you’re spinning me a tale then I’m also going to squint at you. No one who isn’t IC/OOC curious/skeptical doesn’t necessarily have to hear it or know. If people are willing to just shrug and move on with their lives (and implicitly just assume that whatever magic is being done is SUPPOSED to be legal/allowed as per tourney rules and/or law) then no explaination is really necessary. THAT said, though, once an event gets to a certain size then it gets harder to run and to moderate. At that point it becomes a question of what you and your other event-runners want to do with it. Would you rather have a high turn-out where some participants might take some... Liberties, to the potential dismay of others IC or OOC (and potentially the vision you had in mind for the event in the first place), or would you be ok running a smaller event where it’s easier to maintain/enforce your standards/desired style of RP on participants and are more likely to be playing with people who feel the same way about writing magic and the lore behind it as you do? I’d personally pick the latter, but I think that’s a question that every event organizer in general just needs to answer for themselves.

One week! Well, one week from yesterday! We’re looking at potentially being a bit shorthanded when it comes to staff this time around due to pre-existing obligations on the part of some of our volunteer staff, so if this event interests you and you want to help make sure it goes smoothly (or if you just want to try your hand at something a little new), then consider being a part of our team! There’s no need to join anything except a Discord server (and even then, not for voice chat). You can find more information about volunteering for The Cloak & Dagger here: Our April 8 opening will also, as said, feature our first scheduled performance! (Future events may include an “open mic” schtick of sorts.) We hope to see you there!

I advertise sometimes, but not usually throughout the duration of events. I'll toss a PF up when The Cloak & Dagger opens for example, but I won't toss it back into PF if I exceed that hour. Though looking at the results of the second question I question now whether it's really worth it! I personally do check PF for notifications of events and I think it's a useful tool for attracting people who, say, might not have seen the RPC ads or Tumblr ads for it (because they either don't use one or the other, or they simply don't run in the same circles that the flyer gets passed around in). Related: I thought going into it that checking PF for event notices and stuff was the way to go, but it turns out I'm in the minority there! Which is kind of funny, and maybe indicative of shifting attitudes since Balmung was locked; pre-Stormblood there were definitely a lot more PF ads for public events, and I remember when I first made Leon on Balmung back in July 2016 that there were a lot of public events being advertised in PF on a nightly basis that unfortunately don't seem to be in existence anymore. But now it's just FC/LS recruitment. (It's kind of funny, all things considered you'd think that the reverse would be true?) (... That said, I can check PF as much as I want, but I almost never actually go to public RP events regardless of where I catch wind of them. .-. I don't like going to stuff alone, but I also don't like bugging my RP partners to be my wingmen, especially last-minute if I were to only just see an event in PF that I didn't know existed before...)

Recently, I made a fresh Google Calendar for Ebonguard to keep track of events, located here! And to go along with that, I did a few things. Obviously, the days that The Cloak & Dagger will be open are on the calendar (they are scheduled out until August). I also have some OOC things planned on the Saturdays preceding The Cloak & Dagger's open nights: April 7 will be maps, for example, and on May 19 I'm going to stream a movie for whoever wants to come along and watch! In addition, however, I picked out some days to run events relating to Ebonguard's story! The last time we had a scenario event planned was all the way back last year, and it was just a heist. But now that I've stretched my storytelling/DM legs with my FC's scenario (and the current arc is also drawing to a close; the next arc is already somewhat planned and won't be as intense), I've shifted my focus to Ebonguard. It's something I've been meaning to do for a while, but I wanted to get The Cloak & Dagger up and running first so that Ebonguard would have a sort of "headquarters" to operate out of. (Dingy back-alleys or dusty refugee camps totally cramp Crow's style.) The first Scenario event is on Sunday, April 22! It's entitled "The Wolf on the Sapphire Avenue Exchange." Whether the movie that this title references is relevant or not is yet to be decided, and even if it is... No spoilers! It's going to be the beginning of a con-style plotline a la Leverage, though I plan on it evolving into criminal intrigue. While I have some NPCs lined up and my NPC-writing capabilities are generally pretty strong (especially if I manage to grab a co-DM for later events!), players who want to get in on the action of supporting an opposing faction to Ebonguard are more than welcome to do so, and I think it would be really interesting. That said, the primary drive of the plot will likely be handled by me and, if I'm lucky, another DM who can help out from time to time. Hopefully attending members enjoy themselves and come out for future events! Writing stories is something that I enjoy doing, and I always envisioned Ebonguard as a more story-driven IC linkshell, hence why I wrote lore for it. As an aside: a little-known and littler-utilized fact about Ebonguard is that it's been my personal policy from the beginning to encourage people to use Ebonguard as a vehicle to further their character/group plots or even as a way to experiment with their own style of telling stories, either organically or from a pre-planned standpoint. So if any member of the LS wants to run something of their own or use the LS as a vehicle to advance their personal plots: they're 100% free to do so! Hell, if I'm asked, then I'd probably even lend a hand assuming I'm not bogged down in something else. The more you know! Until next time! The Great and Illustrious Crow

Our next opening is going to be on Sunday, April 8 and we're looking at being a little short on staff, so if anyone is interested in volunteering, now is a great time to do so! We're looking at doing some more cool things with the venue as time goes on, and it would be great if we had more staff (or even people who want to volunteer their characters to either offer or snoop around with regards to criminal elements -- be they information brokers or bounty hunters y'know!) around to help with that! For example, over the summer it would also be cool if we could get some more hands for themed openings for seasonal events in addition to our monthly openings. For example, it would be interesting to do an event for the Moonfire Faire and The Rising in their respective months; insofar as scheduling goes, however, I don't want to stretch our team too thin and so would want to build up a second stash of staff! (These themed openings would probably not be on Sunday, but on either a Friday or a Saturday instead either during or immediately after the seasonal event in question... So that I can nab any event furnishings and decorate!) Check out the event's thread for more information about the venue itself!

JOIN US FOR ANOTHER NIGHT OF GOOD DRINKS, GOOD FOOD, AND GOOD BUSINESS. Designed as a ‘neutral ground’ of sorts for less-than-scrupulous folks in search of a place to do their under-the-table dealings or just keep an ear to the ground while enjoying a drink and a bite to eat, The Cloak & Dagger will be opening its doors to the general public on Sunday, April 8 at 8PM EDT. Located at: The Goblet, Ward 11, Plot 55—Balmung. (Last call will be at 10:30 PM EDT.) The Cloak & Dagger welcomes performers to its stage! Please contact @ebonguardls for more information. The Cloak & Dagger is an RP venue affiliated with the Ebonguard criminal network LS, owned IC and OOC by “Crow” (Leonnaux Altoix). If you’re interested in helping run a monthly public RP event (be it as waitstaff, security, etc) at The Cloak & Dagger then please contact me via the Ebonguard tumblr. No lasting commitment or membership of the LS is required on the part of volunteer staff! For more information, please see this page under the ‘volunteer’ tab. The Cloak & Dagger is pleased to announce that its April 8th opening will see us welcome our first performers to our stage! We hope to see you there!

TONIGHT! We hope to see you there!

Many thanks to everyone who’s spread the word about The Cloak & Dagger! We’re always accepting volunteers, but we’ve managed to get a good number of interested people together for our opening on March 11, including some security personnel and entertainers! The venue is staffed entirely by volunteers from within and without the LS itself, so we literally couldn’t do it without you! We're always open to having more staff on hand just in case someone can't make it. This includes not only waitstaff, barkeeps, security, and what-have-you who are responsible for making sure the event goes smoothly, but criminal elements who want to use The Cloak & Dagger as a means to do business be it in the way of peddling illicit services or wares or selling rumors or secrets. We're looking into implementing a menu option as a sort of "signal" for patrons to signal both to other patrons and the staff that they are #All Down for criminal RP, so please look forward to it! (We're probably going to test it out this coming Sunday!) We hope to see everyone come on down on March 11 for a night of good drinks, good food, and good business! For more information on the event itself, it's probably better to check out the actual event's RPC thread, here:

With the clubs' "Last Active" date and their ordering in the new "Recent Club Activity" box, I've noticed that only making club topics seems to count? Which is really inconvenient. The members of the groups I manage don't use the RPC forums (we keep in contact via Discord and our main 'website'/public presence is Tumblr), so I have topics disabled in the clubs I own because they simply would never be used. Insofar as overarching group updates go, I prefer the "Blog" tab and format since it's similar to Tumblr, which I'm used to using and like more. Adding events to group calendars also don't seem to count as "activity." Going forward are there any plans to make it so that adding events to a calendar, uploading images to a club album, or making posts in the club's blog updates the "Last Active" date and bumps it up on the "Recent Club Activity" list accordingly? Also, are there any plans to make "custom" tabs for clubs a thing, kind of like the tabs on the old FC and LS hall where you could just type whatever you wanted? It would be great if I could make a rules/lore/contact information tab since the description shown on the "main" tab is pretty short and doesn't seem to support rich text/html?

The Cloak & Dagger is a RP venue located at The Goblet Ward 11 Plot 55 (Balmung). Although intended to be used as a sanctuary for people to conduct their dealings in-person (as is usually necessary with the transfer of goods or the providing of payment for services), such operations necessarily require a front… And, well, there’s no problem in making some coin off of a front. What Are We Looking For? From an IC standpoint, The Cloak & Dagger is hiring hosts/greeters, waitstaff, bartenders, and security personnel. From an OOC standpoint, we’re looking for people who would be interested and willing in helping to run a MONTHLY (ish) public event geared toward criminal-type characters and other shady sorts. This doesn’t exclude characters of more neutral/lawful persuasions from offering or accepting work, though, since flyers regarding this ‘job listing’ would likely be posted all around Ul’dah. While not specifically a staff position, The Cloak & Dagger also welcomes performers to its stage. Criminal sorts are also obviously more than welcome at the venue; while these sorts wouldn’t be paid by the establishment owner IC, these “honored guests” would be welcome and allowed special use of the upstairs lounge in the making and negotiation of business deals and be given some food and drinks on the house as a show of good faith. Q & A “Do I have to join Ebonguard?” Nope! The allure of Ebonguard is and always has been the idea that you don’t have to leave any groups that you’re currently a member of in order to join (since Ebonguard is strictly a linkshell). Running with that theme, you don’t have to be a member of the Ebonguard linkshell in order to work with The Cloak & Dagger. In fact, because it is not a requirement, if your character is not the sort join a network like Ebonguard, we ask that you not formally apply to join the LS. All Cloak & Dagger volunteers are required to at least join our Discord server though, because that’s how the event itself is organized! (Also because we like to meme in downtime sometimes.) “Are there any requirements as to the kind of character you want for The Cloak & Dagger?” The short answer is not really but the long answer is kind of. There are no real requirements as far as race, character concept, or moral alignment. We do, however, prefer shadier sorts who can offer darker dealings to interested patrons. All that we ask is that your character is lore-compliant, and preferably isn’t too involved with the Void. (It’s not a deal-breaker but we’d probably need to talk about it because of how sticky those sorts of things tend to get.) “What’s in it for me?” OOC: Potential connections, RP plot hooks, something a little different to do for one night out of the month, and my eternal love and adoration. IC: Potential friends, potential clients, juicy information to spread, some spare coin and good drinks on the house. Who Do I Contact? Interested parties should send an esk to the @ebonguardls tumblr directly, my character blog @krahenlied on Tumblr or PM me on the RPC forums! All Cloak & Dagger volunteers will be added to the Ebonguard Discord in order to make it easy to keep in contact and keep each other posted about going-ons, ideas for the venue's open nights, and event dates. More information on The Cloak & Dagger (including house rules, the menu, and IC and OOC venue information) can be found on the venue’s page.

JOIN US FOR ANOTHER NIGHT OF GOOD DRINKS, GOOD FOOD, AND—IF YOU SO DESIRE—GOOD BUSINESS. Designed as a ‘neutral ground’ of sorts for less-than-scrupulous folks in search of a place to do their under-the-table dealings or just keep an ear to the ground while enjoying a drink and a bite to eat, The Cloak & Dagger will be opening its doors to the general public on Sunday, March 11 at 8PM EST. Located at: The Goblet, Ward 11, Plot 55—Balmung. (Last call will be at 10:30 PM EST.) We hope to see you there! The Cloak & Dagger welcomes performers to its stage! Please contact @ebonguardls for more information. The Cloak & Dagger is an RP venue affiliated with the Ebonguard criminal network LS, owned IC and OOC by “Crow” (Leonnaux Altoix). If you’re interested in helping run a monthly public RP event (be it as waitstaff, security, etc) at The Cloak & Dagger then please contact me via the Ebonguard tumblr. No lasting commitment or membership of the LS is required on the part of volunteer staff! For more information, please see this page under the ‘volunteer’ tab.

Last night, February 25, The Cloak & Dagger opened its doors to the public for the first time. It was an event that was a long while in the making, beginning with me getting a house pre-Stormblood (for a price that was practically theft, natch). I kind of had an idea of what I wanted it to be from the outset: from where I was standing, it felt like there were a lot of kind of "trashy" sorts of establishments, the kind that are holes in the wall. So I wanted to take a different approach. A few weeks after I came to Balmung (almost a year and a half ago now!), there was an open event that, while I was too overwhelmed to participate in even with the small group I attended with, I came to love the concept of: the Sinner's Sanctuary. Unfortunately, I wasn't an experienced roleplayer and the venue was small, operating out of a private chamber. The text scroll overwhelmed me and I quickly backed out of the event, going off to level my character instead. Still, the vibe was great, and it stuck with me. After apartments were released, I even obtained permission from the owner to use the new Sinner's Sanctuary location for some Ebonguard meetups! While it doesn't seem like the venue's tumblr is up anymore, I still have the event flyers from that time along with a screencap from the meetup itself! (Came for the crime, stayed for the Duskwights.) I've always been attracted to classier joints, because I play a character who fancies himself to be a man of class. Leonnaux, who spends most of his time on the Ebonguard network playing up the image of his actually-nonexistent-employer, Crow (they're the same person, though he does his best to obscure this fact), dresses nice. He tends to stay away from rougher elements, as he's an information broker, not a fighter. In fact, prior to relatively recently, he looked down on mercenaries, and he still looks down on people who will jump to bloodshed as a first solution rather than the last one. This holds true even as he's ascended the ranks through his Free Company, the Artifice of Reason, which is a research institute... Though having people of loose morals and tight lips has always been a bit of a trend at the (IC) higher rungs of the organization. Within the first year of Ebonguard's run, we were lucky enough to have one of our members (then-officer, though all of our officers are, in a similar manner to The Cloak & Dagger Staff, volunteers; when real life starts kicking in, I'm not about to hold it against anyone for stepping down into a role that they are more comfortable with), Itara designate their FC room as a space for Ebonguard use. Although a little bit spookier than the Sinner's Sanctuary, it still gave off the kind of vibe I liked: it was classy, it was exclusive. There were zones sectioned off so that groups looking to do business could have a bit of privacy to their negotiations. Unfortunately, the Lucky #7 didn't last much longer past its grand opening, either; Itara's only one person and running a full-on venue on a regular basis is more than I think one person could begin to handle. That said, it was decorated nicely, and the overall 'feel' of the Lucky #7 was one that I attempted, unsuccessfully, to emulate in the first iteration of the Cloak & Dagger's basement. (This cooler-colored, barless basement is what the Cloak & Dagger could have been, but two redecorations later and I found something that I liked a more. After some trial and error with personal RP and figuring out that having people's backs in the wall is a really bad idea for camera angles, the current iteration, pictured below, was born. Even so... I might revisit this particular concept. This was designed before they added blank partitions, so matching the wall was a huge pain in the ass and it was really cramping my style, hence why I changed it.) (Unfortunately, blank partitions have an ugly border and can't be backed into the corner at an angle to hide it, so white partitions kind of continue to cramp my style.) Fast forward to November, and I'm gathering up volunteers for a soft-opening, which surprisingly goes pretty quickly. Lots of people were interested, though only a few people stuck around. I schedule it for January, and it goes well enough with only a few staff members on hand. And then, a few weeks later... The grand opening. Last night! I'll be completely honest, I was not expecting nearly as many people as showed up. if I'd known we'd get such a large group, I would have recruited a few more volunteer staff beforehand (or tried to, at least). Still, it was fun! It was fun to learn how these things are done, and I didn't freak out nearly as much as I thought I would. It was interesting forcing myself in the sort of position where I had to do a little bit of walk-up, although I left that mainly to the rest of the staff and have Leonnaux just help out where needed with taking orders and the like. At one point, every table except the ones at the veeery front had at least one person at them! It was wild! But again, a good learning experience, and now that we have a proof of concept, The Cloak & Dagger's staff and I are looking at ways to incorporate more of a criminal element into the events themselves. While I thought, at first, about doing the "order this drink for Crime RP," I know that another group used that gimmick in the past and, while I enjoyed it, I didn't want to 'rip-off' that group. (I have since been notified that this is actually a relatively common trope, so in the future we will look at including this venue feature.) Meanwhile, the idea of a password was also appealing since it would open up the crime RP to people outside of the Ebonguard, where the usual schtick at past meet-ups was to show off the black linkpearl for a free drink. Unfortunately, the idea of a password is also a bit... Unwieldy, all things considered; the only character who would then be in a position to take said password would be my character, and although I consider myself an experienced DM at this point, I also still just one person, and also would like to not hog all the criminal RP action. In the future, I'd also like to see some performers, although I'm not exactly sure about how one goes about attracting those in general, let alone the sorts of performers who would be likely to play on the stage of The Cloak & Dagger rather than, say, a pub or dive bar, for example. That, though, is a bridge to cross later; performances are a tertiary interest at best, since the main focus of the venue is and always will be on the criminal aspect! Unless people just really, really want to get drunk, in which case I'll gladly provide the recipe for the cocktail that a menu item is based on: the Gold Court! In real life, it's actually a pretty specific cocktail from a pretty specific restaurant. It's called The Great Gatsby, and it's actually delicious. The Lillet Blanc is a little bit expensive, but I don't hate it even on its own and I mean, I doubt that kind of thing expires? The other menu parallels I think are obvious: the Cloak & Dagger is a Black Russian with vanilla vodka, the martini is a martini (I actually considered making it specifically the Vesper Martini, you know, the one from James Bond? But then I decided against it. I don't remember why. The Bond reference remained in the menu description though and earned an amusing reaction from Itara.) A Dark n Stormy is a Dark n Stormy and was included on the menu mostly for want of a better item to include. I've never had most of these cocktails, but I tried to spread their flavor profiles out dramatically, and technically the bar can make any cocktail your imagination can think up as long as you communicate with the barkeeps as to what it is. Food items were variously adapted from the CUL recipe list and just made up on the spot by making lore inferences; i.e. since fried popotoes are mentioned in the Battered Fish item description and Salt Cod Puffs are basically deep-fried, I decided that chicken tenders were probably alright to include. The next opening of The Cloak & Dagger will be on March 11 at the same time: 8PM EST! We're looking for more volunteers for staff, mostly people who are willing to act as hosts/greeters and security (both to confiscate weapons AT THE DOOR THIS TIME! I'M A FOOL! and to make sure no fights break out... Rowdiness might be entertaining, but bar fights aren't in the spirit of the venue IC or OOC.) We hope to see you there!

This is TONIGHT! Come on down for some drinks, and bring your best criminal shenanigans. Or just your appetite. Please be sure to check the webpage for house rules, the menu, and some general venue information: here EDIT: MANY THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO SHOWED UP TO THE GRAND OPENING! Infinite thanks to the volunteer staff who made this possible: Cidoren Clakow, Lydix Arvina, Itara Irispyre, K’zhai Zurah, and Sun’ra Zhwan!

Join us for a night of good drinks, good food, and—if you so desire—good business. Designed as a ‘neutral ground’ of sorts for less-than-scrupulous folks in search of a place to do their under-the-table dealings or just keep an ear to the ground while enjoying a drink and a bite to eat, The Cloak & Dagger will be opening its doors to the general public for the first time on Sunday, February 25 at 8PM EST. ⸸ Venue Information, House Rules, & Menu ⸸ Tumblr Post Located at: The Goblet, Ward 11, Plot 55—Balmung. (Last call will be at 11 PM EST.) We hope to see you there! Please note that Ebonguard and associated ventures are not associated and does not condone real-life criminal activities. Activities engaged in or discussed by members of Ebonguard or associated ventures are strictly fictional and for entertainment purposes only. The Cloak & Dagger welcomes performers to its stage! Please contact @ebonguardls for more information. The Cloak & Dagger is an RP venue affiliated with the Ebonguard criminal network LS, owned IC and OOC by “Crow” (Leonnaux Altoix). If you’re interested in helping run a monthly public RP event (be it as waitstaff, security, etc) at The Cloak & Dagger then please contact me via the Ebonguard tumblr. No lasting commitment or membership of the LS is required on the part of volunteer staff! For more information, please see this page under the ‘volunteer’ tab.

Ebonguard reopened its recruitment doors at the beginning of this year, but that's not all! [align=center][/align] On January 7, we had a soft open of the Cloak & Dagger last night for members of Ebonguard (and friends of members of Ebonguard)! It was great fun: the Cloak & Dagger got a few new employees and the waters have officially been tested with regards to getting a feel for how to run this sort of event. (Which I’ve never done before!) (View post on tumblr.) And that's not all... We've planned the grand opening for Februaru 25! Here's the flyer and the Tumblr post. I'll post a thread about it in the Events forum as the time draws closer. [align=center][/align] The Cloak & Dagger welcomes performers to its stage. Please contact me for more information. The Cloak & Dagger is an RP venue affiliated with the Ebonguard criminal network LS, owned IC and OOC by “Crow” (Leonnaux Altoix). If you’re interested in helping run a monthly public RP event (be it as waitstaff, security, etc) at The Cloak & Dagger then please contact me vie PM. You do not have to join Ebonguard or even play a criminal/shady character to help run or to attend this event. No lasting commitment is required and said monthly RP event will be scheduled on a case-by-case basis according to the volunteer staff’s schedules.

Shamelessly copy-pasted from the post I made on our Tumblr here. Because someone has to.

A few updates. Narantu Dazkar has stepped down as an officer. Shiori Eikitaika has been retired as a character. We got tired of paying for Shivtr when none of us are really forum people, so our new FC website is our Tumblr. http://artificeofreason.tumblr.com

As long as it needs to last. I both run and participate in a few story arcs for my FC (and have had a few personal arcs that weren't run by a DM and were driven primarily just by character dynamics) and ultimately the perfect 'length' of an arc depends on the arc, in my opinion. A simple story without a lot of twists or turns could easily be wrapped up in a month or two if everyone could dedicate themselves to having an event per week for it (which is kind of unrealistic for the groups I run with and would involve overworking the DMs to the point of it not being fun anymore; we usually do one major event per arc per month). A more complicated story with more factors involved could take a year, and that's fine too as long as everyone involved is enjoying the story. For example, an arc involving finding someone's lost pet probably wouldn't take as long to resolve as an arc involving infiltrating and destroying a band of spies feeding the Imperials information about the Immortal Flames. (In this regard, story arc length is also as long as people let or make it be; things will take longer if the cast of characters involved simply doesn't have the necessary skills to tackle a problem as it arises versus characters who have been there and done that and kind of know how to fangle a solution out from past experiences.) Speaking personally, the FC story arc that I'm running has gone on for a little over three months with varying event frequency, being kicked off by a previous event chain that only lasted about a month and a half because I was trying to run an event every two weeks and it was making me crazy (since I was also trying to run an event for my LS every two weeks at that point; they were both heist-style arcs). So altogether, four and a half months, though I'm not planning on running anything major this month because of holidays and finals. And we're only about halfway done; assuming no interruptions and a willing cast of characters, I think it won't properly wrap up until around the beginning of May at this pace. There's another arc being run by another officer that's just gotten started and is on hold for similar reasons (holidays and finals) that I don't anticipate running for as long as the arc I'm in charge of has and probably will, but that's mostly because we're like three events in and unless there's some huge twist or more to do after the current arc is resolved, I'm not sure that stretching it out would be possible or wise. By contrast -- and this is probably en example of what not to do -- I was involved in a character arc toward the beginning of my character that probably should have ended a few weeks after it started on the basis of my character's trust in this other character was completely and totally thrown out the window. He hated them and there was nothing that was really gonna be done about that. It didn't end up actually ending until the other character "died" (as far as he knew -- the door is open for them to have survived but irregardless Leonnaux is done with this character no matter what so the arc functionally ends there) several months later, after continual bouts of harassment and trying to make up for what she did (which is One Of Those Things, you know, that You Can't Fix Or Make-Up For Ever. Yeah, it was that thing.) So an arc that should have been done in a few weeks lasted several months instead.

[align=center][/align] I'm like two weeks late to the draw here but both of our plot events have progressed a bit in November! Though going into December we're looking at a bit of a lull because all of the officers are students and/or have to deal with family stuff for the holiday season. Read about The Kidnappings here! Check out event logs for the Scenario event, The Warpath Forward here! In the midst of the lull we are also looking at updating our graphics/blurb/etc to encapsulate more accurately how we tend to veer IC and update IC leadership a bit (OOC leadership remaining unchanged), but very little is set in stone yet. Please look forward to it! (Also I get to decorate the FC house for Christmas this year I'm so PUMPED.)

Ebonguard is temporarily closed for recruitment in order to give officers time to get through the applications we have as well as to focus on academics, work, and other things generally associated with the end of the semester and the holiday season! It should re-open by January 2 at the absolute latest (but I will update if it re-opens earlier)! [align=center] [/align] Also, the Cloak & Dagger has a webpage on our Tumblr now, located here: http://ebonguardls.tumblr.com/cloakanddagger It has a bit of IC information about the establishment itself, its 'house rules,' a menu, and -- when our volunteer staff get some time on their hands -- will include a short list of characters working there and some RP hooks for interested parties as well! If you are interested in working for the Cloak & Dagger, please contact me directly at Perc#5086 on Discord, @ebonguardls on Tumblr, or Zaviire on the RPC. Regardless of our current recruitment status, we’re happy to accept any volunteers who want to help get this little event up and running! This is because, as detailed in my previous post, characters do not have to be members of Ebonguard in order to work at the Cloak & Dagger. Send me a message via any of the aforementioned channels and we can work something out! Nothing is set in stone yet because people are obviously busy due to the holiday season, but I'm hoping to have both a soft-opening for members of Ebonguard (and outsiders they invite along) and the grand opening to the public sometime in January.