The Sword's Edge

Issue 27: 9th May 2018 - In Ferro Veritas

As you all figured out by now, I have a pretty positive bias regarding Nine Swords. I really enjoy being online with our members, irrelevant of whether we are bashing bosses, learning tactics for something - or just sitting back and chatting about something random. April this year however has to have been one of my this goes down into the Nine Swords history books occasions - because it was AWESOME!! The main reason for me that it was awesome was because of Cabal Pride. I am so very proud of what our community achieves when it comes together - yes it took a ****-load of hard work, stress and planning from our side - but that those of you showed up that could come along to represent us did, that the event went ahead and we didn't just stand there on our own.. but we had at least 100 members of the SWL community there with us in our chat channel and listening to Drina on Happy Tentacle Radio. It was special - and as I have already said, "thank you" alone feels like it understates just really how thankful I am that Cabal Pride was such a success. 

April and the start of May have not only been about those few hours of Cabal Pride - I think we all need a nap after this epic week of regional boss slaughtering, then we can work on building the reserves back up in cabal bank for the next no limits event.  We have seen continued high activity levels from our Recruitment division this month, PvE have also been massively busy as well as our Event division. I am hopeful that a certain promotion (hopefully!!) into our PvP division is going to bolster efforts going on there and repeat the fun we had with our organised Shambala event at the end of March. 

I hope you enjoy this issue of The Sword's Edge  ~ Katelin

Cabal Pride 5!

On Saturday 28th April, 2018 - the fifth Cabal Pride event took place for 3hours at Axel's in Agartha.

Further to running four very successful cabal recruitment events in The Secret World - it was pretty nerve wrecking to see if we could also successfully bring the event to Secret World Legends. Although many members of the community have remained, and seem to be in it for the long haul ... lots of things have changed. We should not have been worried though - and we should be incredibly happy we followed our gut instinct to run the event again because Cabal Pride in Secret World Legends was not short on awesome!

For anyone reading this that has no idea what Cabal Pride is, it is a cabal recruitment event for any cabal to participate in, or for the members of the SWL Community to come along to. The ultimate goal being to hopefully find new recruits for the cabals that attend, as well as offering a fantastic social event.

During the event, each signed up the cabal had the chance to stand up and tell us all about their cabal. Each cabal that attended has a short mashed together video I created which you can view by clicking over there to the left of this text (or above and below depending on the device you are viewing this on.) Unfortunately I didn't take one for Nine Swords as I was participating in that presentation, and to the point of issuing this Newsletter did not receive the video taken of us.

Cabals in attendance this year were:

Knightsbridge Consulting

The Apiary

League of Monster Slayers

Sweetlings

The Winged

Nine Swords

Omne Datum Optimum

Cerberus

Legio Fulminata

During the event we were excited to see up to 100 people joining the cabalpride ingame chat, 50 participating in the trivia contest that was run and also high numbers tuning into Drina on Happy Tentacle Radio.

The trivia contest that was run was a lore based trivia contest - with a beat everyone else and answer the questions first based scoring. Yuriksha was responsible for putting the questions together, and Shadowcat-x was our Trivia Game Master during the event. Congratulations again to the 3 winners of the trivia competition. Vomher, Cognizance and Lady-Pyre. Each won some great prize packs that were supplied by Funcom.

If you missed the event, or if you want to have a look through screenshots / videos taken during the event there are a few ways you can. 

Many thanks go out to each and every one of the community who posted to the #cabalpride5 hash-tag on Twitter. Lots of really fantastic screenshots and comments: #cabalpride5 via Twitter.

Little did I know.. everything was being recorded via Twitch by Caerfinon: Cabal Pride 5 via Twitch

Or that on top of all the brilliant screenshots she took, Hikari also managed to put together this publication for the event: Cabal Pride 5 Magazine by Hikari

We were already asked at the event when the next Cabal Pride will be planned for. With the amount of planning and preparation that we put into the event - we don't know. Running more than one Cabal Pride each year may feel like too much of a good thing - so we would be more so interested in running a second event with a different theme, but with a similar goal of getting so much of the community into the same place at the same time. In all honesty, as has been said many times before, all that matters is that as a community we come together. That we continue to grow together, be respectful to each other and expand on the positive natured way of being so many people exude.

I often say as a cabal that we are what we are because of our members ... well the same is echoed in our community. We are TSW - and SWL. Whether Nine Swords is hosting another Cabal Pride, or if any of the numerous other events that happen within our community are being run - support them! Go along, even if it is something new for you. By supporting others, you encourage those who want to plan and do things - to do the planning and doing even more! 

Just be wary if anyone tries to talk you into making a human picture of Jacks Head. Organised chaos still springs to mind! ~ Katelin

SWL in the Real World

This issue’s highlight is more on the Mayan invaders of Solomon Island, as seen in the Darkness War dungeon.

The previous issue covered several words and concepts from the ancient Mesoamerican civilization that Funcom drew on when designing the dungeon’s denizens: Batab, Nacom, Balam and Chilan. These referenced positions in Mayan society — and in one case, the religious beliefs of that people. We will touch on a couple more of the latter.

Xibalba, as seen in the Xibalban Bloodhounds throughout the dungeon and the Mayan Battle Mage’s signature ‘Road to Xibalba’ grenade-spam, was the word for the Mayan underworld. It was not unlike the Viking concept of Valhalla; where the Norse combatants of the Darkness War believed in violent death as the gateway to an eternity of glorious battle, the Mayans believed that such an end was the only way to avoid dread Xibalba. And dread is the word, for Xibalba was believed to be filled with hellish terrain, bloodthirsty demons and terrible Indiana Jonesish trials the dead had to face; the very name translates as ‘Place of Fear’.

Sadly, we have no sources that reference Filth dogs and exploding warriors in the mythological Xibalba. But some of the art the Mayans left us speaks well enough of their vision of this horrific afterlife, depicting souls rotting away in torment — and, in one noteworthy case, funereal art of a great Mayan king falling into the serpentine jaws of the underworld. Hardly a place to visit without another four of Gaia’s Chosen at our back… as we might remind any Agents we send on Guatemala missions, seeing as how the Mayans considered the Candelaria Caves there, near Cobán, to be an entrance to Xibalba.

Another reference to Mayan beliefs seen in the dungeon is the over-long name of its final boss: Wayeb-Xul, Hound of the Nameless Days.

The Mayan calendar system, the Haab, divided the year in eighteen months of twenty days each, followed by five ‘unlucky days’ known as the Wayeb — the Nameless Days. Like ill-omened periods in some other belief systems (for instance, the Seventh Month/Hungry Ghost Festival observed in Chinese cultures), Wayeb was the time when the gates of the underworld opened, allowing evil spirits to walk the earth; it was a time when Mayans practiced customs and rituals aimed at warding off misfortune and evil, such as staying home or not washing their hair. Finally, Xul is the name of one of the months of the Haab, the sixth month… and fittingly, its symbol is that of a dog.

Cordelia “Cordite” Harper
Twitter: @lilcordite
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Secret World Timeline Updates

With the release of New Dawn last month - we have now begun to add in the relevant new lore and data into the Secret World Timeline. There are still a few gaps in the data and we are currently looking for a Sword or two who would like to pick up this project and continue with it. If you are interested in doing this and joining our Pen team with their research, please get in touch with Katelin or Durendal.

What's in a name?

This month, Ceres tells us about why he has the name he does - and it's a tasty reason!

Ceres was the first cocktail I made and accidentally got in the nightclubs drink list (4cl absinth, 4cl curacao extended with ginger ale) and then it was named after old Planetside 2 server. The name was just too cute ~ and I wanted to use it again. Hence, Ceres had to be my name choice in Secret World Legends!

Preparation for our Anniversary Celebrations

Nine Swords was founded on the 29th June, 2012 - which makes this year our 6th one together as a cabal! I have opened up a thread in our TASK forum so you can join with me to help brainstorm ideas and share how you would like contribute to this years celebrations. 

As always, our Anniversary collides with the TSW / SWL anniversary - so please take this into consideration when you are coming up with ideas!! What has often proven very successful are mini events over a week period. This means that more of our members can participate because we can schedule things at different times over a week, with different people being responsible for leading each mini event. 

Really looking forward to discussing ideas with you!