The Sword's Edge

Issue 28: 9th June 2018 - In Ferro Veritas

This months issue of our newsletter is full of things you can get involved with, Swords! There is so much being planned at the moment, being given input and attention - that we are going to need some sharpened Sword-power .. opposed to just man power alone, to get through this with the most epic levels of fun possible!

As you know, this month Nine Swords will be celebrating it's anniversary - but we also have the SWL 1 year anniversary coming up too!! On top of that, we are actively looking for members who may be interested in being promoted into our divisions to help take on some of the projects we have going on.

I hope you enjoy this months newsletter. ~ Katelin

Nine Swords Anniversary Celebrations!

On the 29th June 2018, Nine Swords will reach its 6th year since founding in 2012. To celebrate this, we have been collecting event ideas in our forums. We have had lots of really great ideas, many of them forum based to ensure that everyone in the cabal has the chance to participate irrelevant of the times that they are usually available.

The week in the calendar where the events will take place has been marked. As we get closer to the event, the events will be posted in the calendar as well as posted in our events forum, stated in our MotD, and most likely also shouted about on Twitter and via announcement scripts to make sure none of you miss out on the competitions and events going on!

We hope as many of our active members as possible participate in the events that are planned. Thank you again to everyone that has taken the time to contribute to our planning ideas.

SWL in the Real World

This issue’s highlight is the real-world lore behind the rare gadget-dropping bosses we encounter (or hope to encounter!) in dungeons.

We should feel proud to beat down the Progeny of Dagon, from the Polaris, because we’re beating down the son of a god. Mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as the god of the Philistines, Dagon was an ancient Mesopotamian deity who may have been associated with fish or agriculture (or both), depending on which sources you believe on the etymology of his name; some say it comes from dag (Hebrew for ‘fish’) and others from dagan (Hebrew for ‘grain’). He was often depicted as a merman, in line with a tradition of fish-god iconography in Assyrian and Phoenician art — which would appear to support the former theory, if not for some scholarly assertions that this depiction is the result of appropriation by the seafaring Phoenicians. Damned Purples. Always their fault.

Next, we have Ushi-san the Ox from Hell Raised. An ironic name considering oxen are famed for stubbornness, and we likewise stubbornly cling to the hope that he might drop a red gadget… Anyway, ‘ushi’ is also the Japanese word for ox or cow, and there are two threads we can follow on this. For one, cows are regarded as protectors against illness and symbols of good harvest in Japan; so venerated were they, in fact, that the country was under beef Prohibition for some 1,200 years. But on the flip side, Japanese folklore speaks of ushi-oni — water-dwelling yokai (demons) with the heads of oxen. These Oriental minotaurs, supposedly found along the coasts of western Japan, are known for their carnivorous savagery and willingness to work with other yokai on the hunt; it is more than likely that Funcom was thinking of these when they named everybody’s favorite Hell Raised mob.

Moving on to the Corrupted Ts’emekwes, from the Darkness War. Ts'emekwes is the name the Lummi Indians of the northwestern United States give to the legendary Bigfoot, or Sasquatch — itself common in the folklore of the Native American tribes. This is likely a simple loan-name on Funcom’s part, seeing as how Solomon Island is all the way across the country in the northeast.

There isn’t anything to say about The Defiled from the Ankh, so we will now cover the last of the rare bosses: the Jinn of the Misbah from Hell Eternal. ‘Misbah’ is an Arabic name which means ‘lamp’, which in turn is an immediate giveaway. It is a little chilling to imagine that this might be the same Genie of the Lamp from the old folk tale of Aladdin, in the Book of One Thousand and One Nights… let alone imagine Robin Williams’ wisecracks in place of his growls as you make him grant your wish for a good gadget.

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

Things going on in our cabal...

There is always so much going on - though occasionally, it is easy to miss the things going on that do not revolve around us bashing things and getting our hands on more loot! So, I decided to write about them here and maybe gain some interest from Swords who are looking to take on a new task.

Bestiary updates

There have been some structural changes to our Bestiary this last month. Chosen-Wan has been investing a lot of time looking at how we can use the Bestiary in activities we have already going on in game. This led to the Parent beast structure being adapted, and a new section being added to support our monster hunting achievements. The Bestiary is a massive undertaking, and lends itself to members who have a lot of time they don't know what to do with, or who have the chance to sit and access our website to add information throughout their day. If you are interested in contributing to our Bestiary resource, please get in-touch with Chosen-Wan to discuss how you could work together, or with Katelin and Durendal.

Event planning

On top of the Nine Swords Anniversary events that we have been brainstorming together - HolloPoint and Raztec have been working very hard at coordinating events within the community to mark this years SWL 1st Anniversary. Lots of ideas shared for both of these events are things we could re-visit or develop for the future within Nine Swords - I am excited to see what other ideas are developed as the planning continues! If anyone is interested in getting involved in either of the Anniversary events, or planning events in general - Yuriksha is the leader of our Events division and I am sure he would love to hear from you.

Recruitment

Recruitment continues to be steady - but we are always ALWAYS on the look out for new recruiters to join our Hook Swords division! If you like the idea of chatting with our new applicants and ensuring we continue to have an active cabal, then please talk with Shadowcat-x and successfully complete Recruiter training!!

Website Updates

Durendal and I are continually working on our website - updates are applied, tweaks and features are added. We have had one major set back this last half year as we realised how dependant we had been in TSW with the Chronicle updates for our cabal activity checks. This is the main reason why you still see members in the cabal that have not even logged in this year. If we cannot find a reasonable way forwards with this that we can program / build into our website - then we may resign to the fact that we have to change how we deal with activity in the cabal. If anyone has any ideas for the site and would like to talk with us about implementing - just like we did with Tazetta for the Timeline projects - we would be happy to discuss them with you!

Overall, Swords - if you want to help our cabal be the best it can be then we would encourage you to join a Nine Swords division. Having more of our members plan events and support the cabal will ensure we maintain an active community. If you are interested in joining one of our divisions, please contact the current leader of that division. If it is a division without a leader, please contact Katelin or Durendal.

SWL 1 Year Anniversary

SWL was launched on the 28th June, 2017 - and in true community fashion ... there is no way we will let this just pass by quietly. A planning team is already established and communicating together to work on marking this first year in an absolutely MEGA and unforgettable way.  We are sure that Funcom will have something up its sleeves, therefore the planning that the community is doing is to provide even more ass kicking goodness at a time where lots of people will already be logging in and celebrating this first year being reached!

Nine Swords of course will not be passing up the chance to get involved as well. SWL is nothing without its fantastic community - so we will be helping to ensure that this first anniversary is epic.

More information will follow in the coming weeks as the planning team secure other cabals and groups to organise, schedule and promote this event.  Keep your eyes open! This will surely be a megaversary for SWL! 

Hello, Hello!

Do you say hello in cabal chat when you log into the game? It is something that many of our members do as one of the first things they do after clicking away the pop-up windows. I know most times I log in and click away the windows and type “Hi Swords!” into our cabal chat.

Why do I do it? Because the little things count. It is not really a complex idea to comprehend either. Saying hello makes a difference – you are not just saying that you are there, but you are acknowledging that our other cabal members are there. You don’t need to sit down and have a long deep and meaningful chat after saying hi … just make the effort to say hello!

If you do want to chat though, saying hello may mean you do start up a short conversation with a cabal member that you didn’t already chat with yet. It may mean you are invited to join a team because by saying hello, people saw you were there – surely that tiny effort to say hello means that you could end up positively impacting our community.

Each time you say hello when you log in, those interactions contribute to Nine Swords becoming an even more friendly community to be a part of.  Each time you greet someone back that logs in, you make them feel welcome – why not show everyone that they are valued and deserving of your time to say hello?

What's in a name?

This month, Shjakilil sent us an explanation for why he has the name he does! 

In 1990 I got my first experience with online games. The Game was called "Active Worlds" and in that Game you had several worlds and I made some friends on a world called "Barsoom". Barsoom was a Role Playing World. There I was using my real name until one of my friends told me I should make up a Fantasy Name. Don't use your real name online.

I thought about it for a long time. One of my favorite People was "Jacques Cousteau" so I decided to use his first name "Jacques" and I changed the Spelling to Shjak. Then I made my Last Name "Monde" which is French for "World". So from then on I was Shjak Monde. or "Jacques's World".

I have kept that name for years. All my online friends will recognize it. Also the Art World has come to know it. I do digital art work. I always thought it was kind of funny, that I am not even French but have a French name. The IlIl (iLiL) at the end of my name was just to make it different from all the other games I have played. 

So now in Secret World Legends I am ShjakIlIl.