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Orendi XIV has just come out, but there is no time for a break! For if we want monthly dispatches, we must begin work now!

Scheduled release date: April 30

(As with last time, if we can't get it out in time, I at least want the articles by then. Was great how rapidly that one was turned out, but we must move quickly if we want the same to happen again.)

Also, a reminder that every article you write in the Orendi is worth 1/2 a Silver Reward from the Monarch's Game Bag!

Potential article ideas:
Underhusen election and legislation
Yarn Fest victory, interview with two-time champion Elbbsas
Papal Conclave of Dan Quayle (if Crushita ever gets around to closing it)
Culture Review - Spyfall, April Fools event gamification, Werewolf (?)
Something from the Posh Penguin (or Wintreath Gazette)
Cinciri's Firebird Squadron Star Wars RP (if that gets off the ground)

@Gerrick just want to know, will you be doing the Culture Review again?

Sorting Out the Storting
The 27th Underhusen is Elected!
by taulover

As March drew to a close, the campaign season began! With no seating legislation being passed, the number of seats in the Underhusen defaulted to five. Six candidates stood for election:

• Dawsinian, incumbent Speaker pro tempore, pointed to his experience as Speaker in the formative terms of the Storting. He also served as acting Speaker for part of the previous term, having returned last fall from a lengthy departure from the region.
• Pengu published a campaign pamphlet in PDF form, including roleplay and real-life biographies detailing his extensive time in both NS and Wintreath.
• Mathyland referenced his experience serving as Skrifa for the past six terms, including his Grammar Check of Wintrean laws, and stated his goals of continuing and revisiting past ideas from earlier Underhusen terms.
• Barnes, having recently returned to the region, cited his service as Speaker in some of the most active Underhusen terms in Wintrean history.
• Chanku, incumbent Speaker, stood for election, but appears to have taken a leave of absence from the region soon thereafter without any campaigning. As a consequence, he received only a single vote.
• Crushita, another incumbent Skrifa, did not put up a campaign, but was elected with many votes regardless.

As Monarch Wintermoot noted upon closing the vote, this election saw a record high of thirteen abstain votes being cast, likely due to the low number of candidates and the lack of campaign posts for a few of the candidates.

Following the election, three Skrifa stood for Speaker: Dawsinian, Pengu, and Mathyland. Dawsinian was ultimately elected Speaker with 4 votes, while Pengu came in second with 1 vote. Speaker Dawsinian then appointed Pengu to be his Speaker pro tempore and Mathyland to be his Secretary.

Shortly thereafter, the Underhusen began continuing an unresolved issue from the previous term: the granting of a citizenship exemption to AJ'BLarg, a noted member of the community who is currently undergoing Basic Training in the United States Navy, and as such cannot actively meet citizenship nation or posting requirements. Earlier attempts at establishing a protocol for granting such an exemption were rejected by the Overhusen for being too vague in their wording in some places. The newly modified The Citizenship Requirements Exception Amendment Act, drafted by Pengu, now requires that a citizen who is granted an exemption be unable to access the Internet long enough to maintain citizenship requirements, and places time limits on how long an exemption can be given, among other things.

@Gerrick just want to know, will you be doing the Culture Review again?

I will indeed.

Topics:
Avatar Theme of the Month
Wintreath's Finest
Regional Game Night (unless @Gattoartico or anyone else wants to write about it)
Card Contest (unless @Wintermoot or anyone else wants to write about it)
Escape Room (unless @Elbbsas or anyone else wants to write about it)

Don't think I'll bring up Spyfall or Cinciri's RP until the former ends and the latter starts.

Regional Game Night (unless @Gattoartico or anyone else wants to write about it)

I most certainly will my good Sir! I want to try and gun the Game Night into a more involved affair, including members of our region and those who want to come visit and play.

I plan to at least include:
a summary of each night we play this month
A link to the Youtube Channel (once I upload a video or two)
A link to the thread (if allowed)
and an invite to join later games

I'll whip up an article over the next few weeks yo.

[P.S. If any of you know someone who'd be willing to create some channel art that would be great. All I've done so far is set the region flag as the Profile Pic. I just need a banner and then I'd like artsy drawings of members I can use as little tidbits in thumbnails to denote who's playing in that particular video. Wishful thinking tho.]

Sorry for the late post.

The Culture Review
by Gerrick
(Link to the image if you're doing that)

This is the fifth installment of the Culture Review, written by me, Wintreath’s Jarl of Culture. I’ll be talking briefly about some events going on in the cultural areas of the forums, such as Ministry news, forum games, and contests that took place during the month of April.

Wintreath’s Finest is the name for Wintreath’s citizen of the month. Nominations are for those who stood out as contributing or showing dedication to the region or having been extra active, caused activity, or been a good influence on others. The winner of March 2018 Wintreath’s Finest was Hydra for his impressive work at redesigning the Orendi and making it look as great as it does. Though Hydra was the only nominee, it’s likely because people thought he was the citizen most deserving.

Avatar Theme of the Month is, unsurprisingly, the theme (or themes) nominated and voted on by citizens who then incorporate the winning theme(s) into their avatars for the month. Themes are often related to current events, though they may also include themes nominated at the random whims of citizens. April 2018’s winning themes were Marvel Cinematic Universe and Jesters, the former nominated for the upcoming release of Infinity War and the latter for April Fools’ Day. With these themes in mind, several citizens sported new avatars, including taulover with Hawkeye, Hydra with Red Skull, Kane lives with the Wasp, and me with IASIP’s Frank Reynolds as Spiderman. Other nominations for avatar themes were Fantasy Characters and China.

Wintreath Escape Room is a new text-based adventure created by Elbbsas based on real-world escape rooms where participants solve puzzles located within a locked room to escape. Beginning in mid-March and lasting until early April, a total of eight people took part in the game, though some (particularly Evelynx) were better at solving the puzzles than others. The escape room was located in a remote, abandoned ski cabin, and its puzzles included figuring out the passcode for a safe, what the ski boot-sized colored ovals on the floor did, and how a riddle about knocking could be used to open the final door. Through trial and error, we solved the puzzles, and along the way we also realized that wearing all seven of the room's shirts at once did nothing except make us a little warmer (and resistant to piercing damage), we could not shoot fireballs, and we looked DAMN fine. But although we were finally able to escape the room, we never truly understood why there were five plastic potatoes in the safe.

Wintreath Card Contest was a game created and organized by Wintermoot during this year’s April Fools’ event. In the game, each Wintrean citizen’s nation card was given a point value depending on the rarity of the card and what position that citizen held in the Wintrean government, with rarer cards and higher positions worth more. Players then tried to collect as many cards as possible. There were also quests added throughout the week that offered bonus points for completing, including “The Gift of Charity” for selling someone their own nation’s card for as cheap as possible, “Spamming the Deck” for collecting cards of citizens who play spam games, and “The Rarer Than Green Cards of Wintreath” for collecting rare, ultra-rare, and epic cards of Wintrean nations. At the end of the event, out of the 16 players, the clear winner was declared to be taulover.

@Gattoartico the deadline is coming up (though to be honest we'll probably be a bit late), do you think you'll be able to get something done soon with your article idea?

@Gattoartico the deadline is coming up (though to be honest we'll probably be a bit late), do you think you'll be able to get something done soon with your article idea?

I’ll be finishing the first draft tonight and revise during the weekend. You should get it by Monday.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Updated Underhusen article.

@Gerrick would you mind adding a Spyfall segment? If not that's fine, then we have more material for the next issue.

Oof. This article is taking longer than expected. Tonight should see the mostly revised draft hit the thread.

Yeah, if I can get the time, I'll write something up. But if Gatto gets his article up before I do, then don't wait for me -- we'd just put it on the next one.

Unfortunately, I won't really have time to put this together in a PDF/PNG until around the middle of May. Sorry about that.

Yeah, if I can get the time, I'll write something up. But if Gatto gets his article up before I do, then don't wait for me -- we'd just put it on the next one.

I'm looking to interview Elbbsas, so that may take some time.

An Interview with Elbbsas, Two-Time Yarn Fest Champion
by taulover

In September of last year, Wintreath received an invitation to attend Yarn Fest, a writing contest held by the region Lands End. Three Wintreans participated, with Emoticonius placing seventh, Gattoartico placing fifth, and Elbbsas winning first place. Then, in March, Elbbsas returned to take the championship once more in Yarn Fest II! I caught up with Elbbsas to learn more about her experience with Yarn Fest and writing in general.

What are your thoughts on winning Yarn Fest two times in a row?
Initially? Ecstatic, shocked, and various other words with positive and startled connotations. Both times, it felt like a seagull swooped up my stomach when I saw the scores had come out, and both times I was pleasantly surprised. But after the initial surprise and pride... I do feel a mix of regret that I seem to be hogging the title of Greatest Yarn-Spinner thus far, and pressure that I have to keep this streak up.

The first Yarn Fest was open to any short story submissions, while Yarn Fest II had a winter-themed prompt. Which style of competition did you prefer?
I’m quite fond of both options. Free for alls let people experiment and really play with their writing (not to mention write to their strengths), while prompts can poke people into posting prose! On the other hand, open oceans can be intimidating while a cup of water isn’t as welcoming to take a dip in. Personally, I prefer prompts. It’s interesting to see how everyone interprets them and how all the stories end up in different places.

I believe you’ve said before that you’re currently studying English at university. How did you become interested in writing, and what are your aspirations in this area?
You are correct! I am majoring in English, finishing up my third year in November. I’ve always been interested in telling stories. Most kids are. At least, the ones I’ve interacted with are. I suppose I just graduated from being a pudgy five-year-old delightedly yelling the adventures of “Doctor Arachnid, who wants to doctor the animal kingdom, but because she’s a spider this is very difficult,” to writing them down. Writing was more a hobby throughout intermediate and college (that’ll be 11 to 17 years old) than anything else, and then it hit me in a science class that hey, I really like writing, maybe I should pursue that. Admittedly it is difficult to kick off a legitimate career in writing, but it’ll be something to do on top of whatever job I fall into. That’s… pretty much been my aspirations for the past three years. “Learn to write, get a job that’ll actually feed you, write stuff.”

What would you like to see in future rounds of Yarn Fest?
MORE PEOPLE. All of the people! Two thirds of the fun is reading the submissions everyone else puts in. Even if it’s just a paragraph or a dialogue or a thousand words painting a picture, they’ve been a blast to read so far. I’d also like to see more Wintreans participate. I know there are some great writers here and I’d like to see what they come up with.

You can read Elbbsas' first Yarn Fest story here, and the rest of the stories here. As for Yarn Fest II, the stories can be found here.

News in Briefs
by taulover

• Evelynx shall be representing Wintreath at the Mafia Championship Season 5, held by Mafia Universe. We are certain she will do both the Wintrean and NS communities proud. Wish her luck!
• The RMB roleplay is rebooted, with a new 18th-century tech theme and more gamified elements.
• A territorial dispute over land claims occurs between ROBIN Corp and Corp TRADER on the Minecraft server.