The Sword's Edge

Issue 54: 29th June 2021 - Nine Swords for Nine Ages

Welcome to our NINTH anniversary special edition of The Sword's Edge.

Nine Swords is celebrating

NINE years as a cabal

When we were starting out thinking of creating a cabal back in 2011, it did not really cross my mind how long we could be here for. A few of us had come over from Anarchy Online - we had already had guilds that had played together for almost ten years. It wasn't unthinkable that Nine Swords could make it this far.. but now it is here. We have reached nine incredible years, and there is no doubt in my mind that we can go for many more.

The direct outcome of the positive, friendly community we have built within Nine Swords is the cabals success. A combination of zeal, the sense of belonging to something awesome, and knowing that we stood the test of time - from how this makes me feel for myself, and the feedback so many members over the years have given me - this is how Nine Swords can be celebrating this massive milestone of an anniversary.

In this special anniversary edition of our newsletter The Sword's Edge we reflect on highlights from the past nine years, reminisce on some throwbacks to special events that have taken place and celebrate our cabal as it stands now. I hope you will enjoy reading through this issue of our newsletter.

*raises a toast with her drink of preference*

To Nine Swords, and to having a lot more fun together as a cabal.

Happy Anniversary, Swords!

HIP HIP HOORAY

~ Katelin

9S Leadership Team

I know that every member of our cabal that logs in and joins in helps us ensure that Nine Swords remains an active fun cabal. That said, I know how much I rely on our leadership team to uphold the organisation, support and the daily on-goings in the cabal. Our current Leadership team are all active - we all log in almost every day to SWL and our website to check up on what is happening, clean up the bank, answer questions, resolve conflicts and all that on top of making sure we have fun too!

Durendal

Durendal was voted by our founding member team to be the overall leader during pre-launch of TSW and subsequently founded our cabal in TSW on the 29th June 2012.

He is a conflict resolver, disciplinary no-bullshit-taking, leader of reason and logic.

Durendal makes sure that our leadership team have all the tools we need at our disposal within the Nine Swords website, provides guidance for the team and is always ready to give his support and input.

Katelin

Katelin is the leader of our Public Relations division, though that never seems to stop her getting involved in anything and everything going on in the cabal .. well except dungeons, if she can avoid those, she will.

Since Nine Swords conception pre-TSW launch, Katelin has led many events in game within the cabal and TSW/SWL community as well as supporting many of our website based projects. This has included things like Cabal Pride, 9S Knowledge Base and our cabal Newsletter.

If it was not already clear to you all, the top objectives for Katelin since 29th June 2012 are making sure you all are kept up to date with what is going on, why is it happening and getting feedback from you all to make sure that Nine Swords continues to be a fun and active cabal.

Rifla

Rifla has been in Nine Swords since September 28, 2019. He is currently leader of our PVE Division.

Bunny of all trades, Rifla seems to be increasingly your go-to person for all things PvE within the cabal. He is always willing to support our members with build suggestions, sharing his knowledge and so so much time.

Raiding would likely appear to be the main activity that Rifla is involved with, but behind the scenes he does an incredible amount of work ensuring that we uphold a harmonius cabal and is always an open ear to your concerns, feedback and problems.

Phanth

Phanth has been in Nine Swords since October 24th, 2015 and is also a leader in our PvE division.

A driving force behind getting the cabal started with raiding and involved in as much PvE stuff as possible - Phanth has worked tirelessly over the years to make sure we kept increasing our IP, and that as many of the cabal signed up to raid as possible. The goal for Phanth was always to make sure everyone could take part, and no-one was left behind and this definitely carried through in to so much of what Nine Swords continues to do.

During the transition from TSW to SWL, Phanth was also heavily involved in setting up the groundwork for our PvE workshops. The workshops aimed to help people learning the game mechanics for their role in Dungeons.

Yuriksha

Yuriksha is the leader of our Events division and has been in Nine Swords since the 30th May 2014.

Soon after joining Nine Swords, Yuriksha joined our PvE division, then a little down the line a switch was made to our RP division. With the release of Secret World Legends our leadership team felt that Yuri's skills would make a massive positive impact to other events within the cabal. Therefore, the Events division was born, and Yuriksha became it's leader.

Planning and organising social and roleplaying events has been the main focus for Yuriksha over the last few years. The events were not only internal for the cabal but for our wider community as well. You cannot have missed Yuri's events - we have seen Baltane, Cabal Pride, our New Years Museum Receptions, involvement in MNRP/TNRP/SNRP (we were very creative there with the naming *winks* .. and much much more.

Saunabath

Saunabath joined Nine Swords on the 21st September 2013. The reason Sauna gave for joining the cabal - was because of an event we ran called Draug Days, which was an epic beach party in Egypt. The impact of someone saying that they applied to join us because of an event has definitely stuck with me - and potentially with Sauna too seeing that they are one of our longest serving cabal members!

Saunabath has been the leader of our Roleplaying division since 2018, and that was definitely a well deserved promotion after years and years of taking part in the roleplaying sessions being held in the cabal, and encouraging so many others to take part too.

And now for our new leaders!

It was a pleasure during our 9th Anniversary to congratulate the following members of Nine Swords on their promotion into our leadership team:

Xaoti

Xaoti was promoted to leader of our Research division, 26-06-2021

Razorgrin

Razorgrin was promoted to leader of our Recruitment division, 26-06-2021

Willow

Willow was promoted to leader of our Recruitment division, 26-06-2021

Throwback - Launch Week Events TSW

Nine Swords entered The Secret World with a BANG. We had time on our side, and a really incredible group of founding members (note not just our leaders, but really lots of our members) that were organised, dedicated and unrelenting!

There was no way that we were not going to take the opportunity to finally meet each other in game with our pixels and hold events to make sure that we had fun together and importantly got to know each other.

And so the idea for An Overture of Steel was born.

Since 2012, we actually revisited this event idea when we founded the cabal again in Secret World Legends.

Highlight - CABAL PRIDE

It has always been clear to us that no single cabal is going to be a perfect fit for everyone, which is why as a cabal we support our community .. and how the idea for the first Cabal Recruitment Fair was born. The first Cabal Recruitment Fair took place on the 12th July 2014 and we PACKED out the park in New York. So many cabals took, part it was crazy to organise.

With the second year, also came the renaming following a suggestion from Iolanthe (GSP) and so Cabal Pride was born.

We have been lucky over the years to have incredible support from GSP and Happy Tentacle Radio. The community has always come along to support the event even when fewer cabals have signed up. This year we had a break so far from running the event - but I am sure I am not alone in hoping that we see another Cabal Pride scheduled soon!

Throwback - We are TSW

When The Secret World launched, Funcom's TSW community team ran an event to be selected as one of the founding 50 cabals. Any cabal leader could apply for a chance for their cabal to to be selected as a Founding Cabal. There were prizes - but Nine Swords was not selected as a founding 50 cabal. Maybe it seems irrelevant to anyone reading this today nine years on, but the cabal was really sad not to have been chosen. We believed in our concept, we were working hard and we knew we were here for the long haul.

Perhaps however that put the wind in our sails when the community event #WeAreTSW was launched. We were determined to take part, and show the community we were here.

That we took part and gained some recognition is reflected on during some of our yearly anniversary cabal meetings. It is always good for our cabal and our efforts to be recognised positively. A thank you, and a we see you.

If you want to see the plaque, head over to the park in London and interact with the Secret Memorial.

Highlight - Megaversary

MEGAversary has been a massive part of Nine Swords over the last four years, and none more so than this year where we have been involved in the event while carrying the sadness and grief further to the passing of Hollopoint. Hollo was the driving force of MEGAversary. Coordinating members of our community and promoting the event, ensuring that each year we do our best to have fun and give our thanks for the fantastic game we are all enjoying playing.

It is going to take a lot of effort from our community next year to ensure that we do not drop the baton, but I hope that Nine Swords is ready to step up and give our unwaivering support as we have already done until now.

Tradition - New Years Event

As a cabal, we like tradition. It is therefore no surprise that each new year, we look forward to the New Years Reception that Yuriksha hosts. We always take the time to reflect on the year that has passed, and to share our hopes and dreams for the year to come. The event is usually held in our Museums, and often includes the chance for us to explore the achievements of cabal member or to include some light RPing into the event.

It is always a wonderful chance for us to get together after a hectic seasonal period.

Throwback - MNRP!

I am hoping that our love for RPing has been rekindled with the event held over our anniversary this year. It certainly made me think back to our MNRP / TNRP / SARP ... with such a creative and imaginative group of people, how we possibly only managed to come up with RP Event names based on the day of week and time of day it was held is beyond me - that said, we all knew what was meant when the abbreviations were used.

So many stories and adventures were had with lots of members, and most importantly - it encouraged and welcomed those in the cabal who were not already Roleplayers to come along and see if they liked it or not.

Highlight - Stronger Together.

The raiding and PvE accomplishments honestly prove that with good organisation, a lot of energy and dedicated members in attendance we can get far as a cabal. I had a look back over our Noticeboard forum, and Twitter and the earliest mention I could find of us defeating the lurker was in 2014. I have absolutely no idea how many tries it had taken to get to that point with a full team of our members - but what I do know, is that we are still going.

It is incredible that after so many years, we will offer training runs for raids and help people newer to the game to understand mechanics and how to optimise their build for raiding. More so, we want to - noone should ever be left behind if we can help them learn and grow!

In addition to raiding, over the years our PvE division have offered countless trainings and workshops for learning roles, providing suggestions to help craft a build that works well for them with their talismans, weapons and actives/passives.

PvE gives us goals to work towards, countless teamwork opportunities and jointly attained achievements to celebrate together. As a cabal, it is clear that defeating monsters is one of our most enjoyed past times along with going after our achievements. I am looking forward to many more learning opportunities into the future - and we all remain full of hope for new PvE encouters within our Secret World!

Goal for 2021: Nine Swords TIMELINE

As you are all aware, we have a timeline for our cabal. It is beautiful, but only takes us to the cabal being founded in game in 2012. My hope for this year is to fill it with our achievements from the last nine years so we have even more to look back on and be proud of together.

You can view the timeline here: https://www.nine-swords.com/knowledge-base/nine-swords-timeline

If you want to get involved with the project. Please get in touch!

Thank you

So, here we are. Nine Swords reached nine years as a cabal, and is still going strong.

It is the highs, lows and the in-betweens that have all contributed to us getting this far, coupled with so many of you not being willing to give up on what we have got - and investing so much time, energy and love into our cabal to ensure it continues to be active, that we maintain what we have and that we grow even further.

I spoke to some of our members this last week at one of our special anniversary events and asked them to share their hopes for our coming year together as a cabal - they included...

More members!
Higher E-level dungeon training
Masquerade 2021
Getting better at asking each other for help and advice
More activities within the different divisions of the cabal
New event ideas
More friendships in the cabal
Fun, laughter and joy

We have achieved so much already this year, but these all look like we have a good shot at fulfilling them.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to each and every one of you for representing our cabal so positively. For spreading kindness, respect and a lot of fun throughout the cabal and our secret world community.

Thank you to DigitalWraith for taking the time to create this beautiful artwork to accompany my words. You work always brings me joy when I am sat here typing the words.

It was impossible to cram everything from the past nine years into this special edition newsletter, but I hope you have enjoyed reading what I did include!

ps. You cannot see me, but I am smiling right now. *hugs* ~ Katelin

Details: Written by: Elizabeth Katelin Hunt; Category: The Sword's Edge; Last Updated: 28 June 2021; Hits: 11314

The Sword's Edge Issue 54 - 9th Anniversary Special Edition