As we all know, Grim Testament is now populated mainly by alts of Asellis and Eyvindar.  For those who do not know, our Auspex is off server bringing the glory that is Chaos to the realm of Akama.  Eyvindar has left GT in search of revenge against Arthas and has allied himself with Legacy of the Sun.  Most of our former core members have left to raid or are no longer active, but we can still take pride in the fact that we have a guild bank with more tabs, better organization, and more expensive mats than most fully functional guilds out there.  

In other news, I have taken down the "favorite raid boss" poll because Icecrown has been out for a while now and the tag line was "aren't we glad they haven't released Arthas' raid yet? " (explaining why he was not an option for favorite raid boss.

Our winners (with a tie) were:

Kael'thas and Trogdor the Burninator. 

Congratulations to you both.  A big round of applause goes to all those guildies attempting to suck up to their fearless leader by voting for Kael, and another big round of applause goes to Trogdor for getting more votes than many raid bosses who actually appeared in game.



Lastly, since he refuses to do it himself, I am announcing the departure of our Sage of Whims, Sehk.  He is taking one of his many breaks from WoW and, should Cataclysm hit before he decides to return, we most likely will not see him again in game.  Let us have a moment of silence for our Sage.  He shall be missed.

                Rotate the tires honey cause spoons are coming back into style like Selma Hayek flossing bulls at a rodeo.  Nab your daughters and punch the juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuice, makes me thirsty, takes like essence of concentrate.  Doesn’t mean we can’t go on with the taco bell shenanigans, cause lemme tell you these bananas in pajamas are coming down the stairs whether we like it or not and it sure as hell isn’t raining parakeets.  We have to unite our breakfast with our taxidermist if we’re gonna don’t stop thinking about PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPAA AAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNTAAAAAAAAAAAALOO OOONS.  Don’t even get me started on those.

                The future is now but the blender is coughing up asparagus like its Sunday morning and it’s TAZERED IN THE FACE.  We could try to stop it but the apocalypse brought fried chicken so I’m inviting him in if you aren’t.  Soon these crepes will let slip the dogs of war and I can get back on the elipticle to finish my astacology training.  You may try to impose a dairy tax on the celery farmers BUT THEY AIN’T GONNA BUY IT.  Tooth and bail yourself out a bucket of diet aqua the low cal water substitute.  Ask not what your casserole can lead you down a garden path.  The man whistling tunes pianos.  And that’s how salsa was invented.

So it's been a while since we had any new news.. and we don't really have anything much going on right now, but I wanted to throw out there a few things which have been flying around as potential new.. guild things.

As most of you know by now, Selly has resigned her position as guild leader and left me in charge. This left us in an awkward spot RP-wise because Eyvindar is not a particularly sociable person who would hold guild meetings or do much in the way of leading. I have therefore transferred leadership to my alt, Liathain, in order to allow myself to actually interact with my underlings ICly.

There has been some talk about changing our guild's goals on a few occasions in the past and at the time I was not particularly receptive to the idea on account of the fact that my main would not be okay with that IC, but I am willing to admit that that was fairly selfish of me and was not in the best interests of the guild as a whole. I am willing to listen to suggestions or ideas on the subject, but Selly and I were considering something perhaps slightly less dark since most of the active members right now are not quite as evil as our former leadership.

Clearly we will still have room for those characters who are darker but we wanted to try to find a way to better accommodate those who aren't bent on the destruction of all life as well.

Hey guys - Selly here. This is my news post from the abyss:

First, I would like to apologize for the sudden long and unexplained absence that I decided to take from WoW. It was becoming an increasing strain on my life, and the break I was forced to take when Monty (Eyvindar) and I were moving apartments was just too tempting. I found it more and more difficult to muster the desire to continue playing and let my time spent on WoW dwindle to nothing. The break was very relaxing and allowed me some much needed time to do other things that didn't involve my computer like spend time keeping our apartment clean (which was something we neglected a bit in our other one) and focus some more on work and getting my finances together.

But really, I'd have to say the biggest issue was that I was getting tired of WoW. It became more mindless and job-like than actually fun and entertaining. I have, however, recovered my desire to play, though I doubt I will be as active as I was initially.

---

Second, Monty has been my semi-sort of replacement in my absence, and I would like to whole-heartedly thank him for his efforts. When I left, I did not establish a clear cut replacement as I thought it would be obvious – being that Monty lives with me and has been my best friend for over ten years now, I assumed he would be the logical choice and I would not need to establish his power. I am doing that now:

In the event that I must take leave again for any reason, Eyvindar, as second in command, will fullfill the leadership position. I will give him access to my account and any and all decisions regarding the guild must be cleared by him. He knows the guild and myself well enough to make informed decisions on the guild, and, as we are living together, can always step into my room and clear something with me. :) In the event that he is being difficult to reach, Sehk can reach both myself and Eyvindar, and Tuna can reach me. Texting is a wonderful thing.

I will be sure to add this bit of info into the guild site and on the forums as well. Thank you for respecting Monty's decisions in my absence; both he and I appreciate it.

---

Third, Monty has alerted me to a vaguely alarming situation with the guild bank (and the enchanting mats in particular). The enchanting mats in the guild bank are supplied through the generous donations of guild members who seek to help out each other as much as themselves. When the guild was first established, donations flowed freely from everyone in the form of greens and blue or epic shards one with rolls at the end of heroics. However, Monty has informed me that these donations have dwindled.

Unfortunately, enchanting requests are still frequent. Ironically, those that donate the most ask for the least (Monty has specifically noted that members like Verliebe, Olwen and Tuna have continued to be generous with donations – and for that, I thank you guys!) and those that donate sparsely ask for the most. While it was always our intent in Grim Testament to take care of our members, it is simply not fair that the generosity of a few should benefit those that only occasionally help.

When the enchanting system was first set up, most of the dust was supplied by myself and Eyvindar. Every green, blue, and purple we got our hands on was disenchanted and added to the guild bank. Enchanting can make a lot of money if you sell the mats; however, Monty and I made what money we could selling old enchanting materials to people who needed them to level up and left the more lucrative mats to the guild.

I gave up leveling my enchanting so that Monty could take on the role of guild enchanter, and we pooled our mats together to get him maxed. At this time, guild donations were far more generous and things worked out very nicely.

When the donations slowed, however, it was put on the shoulders of the generous to carry the weight of enchanting the guild – which is completely unfair. When I quit and left Monty to hold down the enchanting fort, he continued to give up a very viable source of income to support the guild – and that is not fair to him, nor is it fair to those who continued to donate.

Monty is the guild enchanter and has a memory that could rival God's. If you ask for an enchant and he tells you, gently, that you need to donate more, do not take offense. Everything Monty has put into enchanting has been in the effort of fairness, and while we would love to spoil everyone, we are limited in what we have and must show respect to those who have donated the most.

A few greens here and there really go well towards getting you those enchants you want. :) Hell, even buying a few off the auction house to donate to the guild bank is thoughtful – and teaches you the value of these things and how much some people have given.

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Fourth:  I've donated to bring the Shoutbox back.  It's a silly thing, but fun.

---

Thanks for your time; looking forward to seeing you in game. <3

            In a (grim?) testament to her great skills at either word smithery or the sabotaging of opponents, Verliebe has won the RP writing contest uncontested which may or may not be a contradiction in terms.  As such, she will shortly be awarded a sum of 500 gold and a life time supply of floss or something.   Taxidermists, coopers and fletchers, were seen rioting in the street in response to the news.  However on the bright side, in the event someone else posts a contest entry in June they can probably win 500 gold themselves by default at the end of that month.  That about wraps everything up as far as guild news goes.

            In personal news I’ve ordered a new video card and should hopefully be able to start playing WoW again for extended periods of time without crashing.  However, I’ve managed to take advantage of my new found free time and use it to finally put up the photos of the meeting between Muse and myself.

            And how!

            As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a sage of whims.  When you were a sage of whims you didn’t have to take nothing from nobody.  Sometimes the Grammah Nazis would give you lip about double negs as we called ‘em.  But give ‘em a fat lip or two for themselves and they wised up quick enough. 

            In news of the not-a-shameless-movie-reference variety the fabled Grim Testament Story contest has been postponed till 5 days after we get a fourth entry.  This date could be moved up for any reason including but not limited to: boredom, favoritism, spite, my daily horoscope convincing me the world is going to end again, and pogonophobia.  However Verliebe has actually submitted a story and as such has been promoted to high Empress of all that in the Universe that relates to pretzels and other heavily salted wheat based snacks.

            Also, we’ve a new member named Grimola.  I haven’t really gotten to know her yet but based on her name it seems her destiny to be here.

.. -.   ... . -.-. .-. . -   -. . .-- ...  - .... --- ... .  -- . -- -... . .-. ...  --- ..-.  --- ..- .-.  --. ..- .. .-.. -..  .-- .. - ....  .- -.  . -..- -.-. . ... ...  --- ..-.  ..-. .-. . .  - .. -- .  .- .-. .  .-. . --.- ..- .. .-. . -..  - ---  .--. --- ... -  - .... . .. .-.  ..-. .- ...- --- .-. .. - .  ... ..- -... ... .--. . -.-. .. . ...  --- ..-.  -.. ..- -.-. -.-  -... . .-.. --- .--

Late update this week,

But, better late than never

And so now, the news.

 

New blood in the guild

His name is Theophrastus

Name almost too long.

 

Uniform design

Our core beliefs to define

Wait, Haikus don’t rhyme…

 

Contest now open

Submit your entries soon please

Deadline approaches.

 

No day is complete

Without some good brown nosing

And so I shall end.

 

With an ode to Kael

Well… a haiku, not an ode
Still, he is awesome

Short newspost this week peoples. This ironically is the result of my having too much to say. Such a wide range of topics required subcategorizing for easier discussion and I got lazy and decided recapping would be too much work.  So, please select a topic of your interest.

Official Guild Enhancement Brainstorm

Official Discussion of Our Relationship / Guild Backstory

Official Contest (now open)

Official Raid Interest

Official Guild Uniform Disccusion

Also, as bonus happy news, Olwen and Rapzak have both returned!  Though it is my current (and possibily outdated) understanding that Rapzak hasn't actually signed onto WoW and Olwen hasn't actually signed onto the forums.  Not to fear, as between them we've had an entire active member return!