Dwarven Horns

On a fateful morning, a young dwarf appeared in the hamlet of Whiterage blowing a horn, waking almost everyone in the town who was not already stirring. Shortly after, she fell into into unconsciousness from significant wounds on her body. The local healer in the town along with two newer arrivals to the town; Mauve and Eadan. While folks of Whiterage have grown quite familiar with Eadan, who is very open and honest. Some are more cautious of Sunn, wishing to know more about him and why he seems to want very little to do with them or anyone else. Even among those cautious souls, it is known that he befriended a lost young girl and has been steadily paying for her stay at the Inn, which has left many with a warm though that his past should remain the past. Commonly it is said that had he evil intent, the girl would have been left to die in the woods or even worse fates would have befallen her.

The young dwarves name is Gwynnyl and tells that she and her people were attacked in their fortress and formed them to flee – by demons. It is clear that trouble is spreading throughout the land and without intervention it may even envelop the small peaceful homes of Whiterage. It is said that the Grand Mistress of the Souls Templar will be coming to Whiterage to speak to this Gwynnyl in an attempt to get answers from her.

Public Service Serial Killer

Several murders throughout Los Angeles County have raised eyebrows as a pattern emerges of a vigilante taking care of low-level gang bangers. Slugs retrieved from the crime scenes all clearly link this to the same perpetrator through analysis of the bullets, which are unusually heavy and show trace evidence of motor oil and a number of other odd contaminants.

Police are theorizing that the perpetrator may have been caught doing some other crime and incarcerated, or perhaps left the area as several weeks have gone by without a new killing attributed to the killer. It is clear that the killer has a high amount of professional skill with the act of killing and evidence to date suggests a potential military background. This would certainly not be the first time Los Angeles had found military-trained killers in their midsts but the first time in a considerable time that such a killer was attacking these kinds of targets.

Many in the communities effected are praising the vigilante for doing what the police could not – keeping them safe.

Surprise Battle on Soteria

A dangerous storm was reported on Soteria yesterday, Solas Tempus forces moved in to investigate and got engaged on the ground by a race of being which seem to be a mix of machines and strange genetic abominations. These creatures appeared to be able to teleport at will and had stunning abilities to adapt to tactics. They successfully pinned down the recently-formed Solas Tempus Marines who were on sight as well as TACCOM forces on the ground. More troubling was the tole they took on vessels who attempted to help. The Dwend ship, Irvyn, moved in to assist but was crippled when a virus took over the main computer of the USS Protector. The Protector’s computer was compromised by a virus when gateways opened up on the ship slicing through its shields entirely. The ship opened fire on the Irvyn doing significant damage to it.

Weakness in Starship Design Revealed

The Protector was lost when it suffered significant damage from the boarding parties, her Captain, Megan Shepard, ordered a self destruct when the ship seemed unrecoverable. She and the survivors are being treated on Nimbus Station. Not long after the Protector was destroyed, taking the invaders on board with it, the STV Galatine and STV Zealot Star responded to the attack and enters orbit over the storm, suffering minor damage from arcs of plasma and electricity emitted from the storm, they too were immediately boarded on both bridge and engineering levels. While Fleet Admiral Thomas and Admiral D’Amico responded entirely differently to the attack, both failed to repel the intruders.

On the Galatine, they were forced to abandoned the bridge and engineering, eventually ejecting their warp core to avoid a full breech as well as jettisoning the bridge module to destroy it. On the Zealot Star D’Amico ordered the engineering deck to irradiate the area once the crew was evacuated, in hopes it would disable to slow down the assaulting forces – it did not. They too eventually had to do the same as the Galatine. Both vessels were effectively disabled within a short amount of time.

Tides are Turned – But how?

Reports from the ground are sketchy, and most detailed reports from eye witnesses with more details are classified by the organization. From what is pieced together by non-classified reports, forces from Nimbus responded when the STMC and other forces were in trouble, but fighters lacked the ability to withstand the plasma and lightening within the storm and were unable to engage. Ground forces did reinforce the STMC, however. The mix of forces on the ground were turned away, though the method is unclear.

A wide variety of reports tell of a single marine responsible for turning back the enemy forces though other reports say that some kind of a ghost-warrior or other supernatural figure stopped the onslaught and rallied remaining forces at his back. The wide array of reports definitely points to something having occurred but what might have occurred is anyones guess. It is known that Fleet Admiral Thomas did join the battle at some point after the Galatine was disabled, suffering 3rd degree burns and nerve damage from the assault, the method of this is unclear as well since it does not match any of the other injuries sustained. One supposed eye-witness report of the incident spoke on condition of anonymity and told of how a knight with flaming red hair appeared and a large bladed weapon. This figure supposedly moved at super-human speed and was able to soak up significant damage from incoming fire before it attacked the controlling entity and destroyed it, ending the battle. No other reports can confirm this account of events and it seems entirely too far fetched to be true.

The Aftermath

After the battle, STS and TACCOM forces moved in with engineers and medical teams to secure the area and recover the dead and wounded. Casualty counts have not been released but it is believed they were significant. The Dwend vessel is grounded while repairs are conducted and the Avali have been called in to assist in studying a series of strange artifacts that were left behind, in particular a gate that may hold the key to discovering how the aliens were able to so easily move onto the planet and on the ships in orbit. Some reports do say the storm moved to the Nabu Summit and was followed by a lone man, but those reports are inconsistent and their authenticity is in question.

As it stands, Solas Tempus have released a statement that they are studying the telemetry of the battle as well as the artifacts left behind and they are confident that a defense will be found soon against the aliens should they choose to return. All reports of some kind of lone warrior or knight have been flatly (and at times comically) denied by Solas Tempus and the Concord. Captain Shepard has been issued orders to take command of a new vessel which has under refit at the Ronin Shipyards right now to meet Solas Tempus specifications while the Galatine and the Zealot Star are under repairs.

Meanwhile, Fleet Admiral Thomas remains unconscious following the attack and is being treated at Nimbus as well, though he is expected to make a full recovery once his body regains enough strength to wake up. At that time, Solas Tempus has assured us that he will give an accurate account of events.

June’s Top Contributors

First of all, I would like to start off by thanking our staff members Liz, ks, and t0l for participating in the recent storyline done by Bucket, if even tangentially. I will be posting more about that in an in-character post from the news service.

In addition to the scores posted about previously, since our top spots are entirely staff members right now, we will be adding a new spot for each (forum and wiki) for the top non-staff contributor each, which will be worth 1000 points each.

For Running Plot

Buck Approves#3038 is awarded 1000 guild points to his score for running his plot involving the Vex on Soteria un Blazing Umbra. Thank you Buck, we appreciate it.

For the Wiki

As previously discussed, this is based on the Contribution Scores extension for MediaWiki over the last 30 days.

  1. Cyclops
  2. Red
  3. Darktrooper501

The user Ks0908 is a close 4th place.

The user Spartan889 is the top non-staff contributor to the wiki.

Those users produced a combined score based on number of revisions and new content added to the wiki. We thank them for expanding our collective universe and helping to create a more robust setting.

For the Forum

These are awarded based on replies to threads over the last 30 days and does not take into account new threads started.

  1. Titan Shadow
  2. Red the Heretic
  3. TheChubbyGamer

With a close 4th place of Spartan_889, who is also the recipient of the new non-Staff award for participation and contribution, being the top non-staff contributor on the forum by number of replies.

Thank you all for keeping things going on the forum.

Bonuses and New Leaderboard

  • Titan Shadow#1701 gets 2000 points (1000 for Wiki and 1000 for Forum 1st Place)
  • Red the 15th#2304 gets 1500 points (750 for Wiki and 750 for Forum 2nd Place)
  • Imperatoris Lacerta#8924 gets 1000 points (500 for Wiki and 500 for Forum 3rd Place)
  • Chaos Sorcerer Spartan889#7660 2000 points (1000 for Wiki and 1000 for Wiki Top non-staff Contributor)

New Leaderboard Direct from Tatsumaki

User Score
Imperatoris Lacerta 252032
Titan Shadow 233498
Red the 15th 192832
t0l 155285
ks 153304
The Chubby Gamer, Sloth Boi 144860
Dr. Winterdawn 99202
Thatotakugalaxy 88248
JumpingScript 83913
Buck Approves 79577

Some Notes about Contribution and Participation

While our overall forum participation has gone up as well as wiki contributions, it is still mostly staff doing the role playing. We do like this! However, we’d also like our non-staff members to participate more. Thus, I would like to encourage all Staff members to reach outside of the bubble of other Staff members to new players or even players that have not participated in a a while to see if they’d like to participate in role plays.

We have some superb role players here and everyone has something to contribute to the game. This is why we recently put out our participation survey. This survey is here to help us (me) determine how to better run the server. We’ve got some great responses so far, but there is a lot of talk in the comments about plot and people not feeling like they have anything to contribute or not sure what to do if they do participate.

This is entirely normal! Putting ones self in a position to participate in a plot without the defined structure of a dice-based or video-game-based system is difficult, there are a lot of options. Thus, I would like it if any player unsure what to do would ask, just simply ask for help. I realize that the group has gotten a bit… Well, a bit less-than-supportive as we’ve gotten a core group of role players but we’re working on changing that. I invite anyone who has been here a while but hasn’t played in a while to pop back in and if you’re not sure what you can do or contribute, just ask. If any issues crop up, don’t hesitate to bring them up!

The strength of our community relies on the simple idea that everyone can contribute something and have fun doing so. Not everyone has to get along perfectly, not everyone has to have the same political or religious views, not everyone even has to agree on what morning is. The goal here is to have fun writing stories where the world can turn out better than the one we live in. I personally think that is key to staying sane in the times we live in, where so much is up in the air.

Again, thank you all for your continued contributions and support.