Wintermoot

Hello everyone! We have been hard at work producing another puzzle for our fellow NS friends, and here is the result! https://soundcloud.com/taulover628/puzzle-5/s-GFL8S I hope you all have a wonderful time working alongside others in your region to crack the puzzle. Best of luck!

Invitation to our Fourth-Annual Summersend Festival! This year's theme, minus 'box'. Hey, we were lucky to find something that said Spooky Summer! Greetings to our partners and friends! It's a busy time of year for many of us, but that's what makes it a great time to take a break from it all and have fun for a little while. Here in Wintreath, we celebrate the waning summer and welcome the approach of autumn with the Summersend Festival, a yearly festival of fun activities and events that always showcases our culture and makes it a wonderful time to visit or tour. Consider yourself formally invited! This year's festival will run from Friday, August 17th to Sunday, August 26th on our forums, with the festival forum opening up on Wednesday, August 15th for event and booth hosts to begin setting up! Here's just a sample of events that have been confirmed for this year's festival: This Year's Theme: Spooky Summer Wintreath Escape Room 2 One Night Ultimate Werewolf Mage Wars 2 Spooky Themed RP Spyfall Murder Mystery Game And More! Each year the Summersend Festival proves to be a bigger success than the previous year, and we hope that this year will be no exception. I hope that you will have a chance to take a break and join us for some fun and games.

Wintreath Foreign Update XVI — June/July 2018 Realms of Wintreath Wintreath - 278 nations New Hyperion - 83 nations Nowhere - 3 nations Government of Wintreath Monarch: Wintermoot Jarl of Culture: Gerrick Thane of Gaming: Gattoartico Thane of Integration: Kane lives Thane of LGBTQ Affairs: Pengu Thane of Roleplay: Vacant Thane of Werewolf: Pengu Jarl of Foreign Affairs: Gattoartico Thane of Dispatches: taulover Jarl of Regional Affairs: Doc Thane of WA Affairs: BraveSirRobin Advisor: Chanku Sorting Out the Storting A Recap of Recent Wintrean Legislative Events by taulover Image credit: Dmitry Valberg on Flickr Greetings, friends! It is I, taulover, Speaker of the Underhusen, here to bring you some quick updates on the state of our legislature! In the June Underhusen elections, the incumbent term chose to lower to the number of seats to four, and five candidates stood for office: [li]Chanku ran on a campaign of experience and legal reform.[/li] [li]Mathyland cited his long-time incumbency and capacity for grammar fixes.[/li] [li]Crushita did not campaign until late in the election, basing it on his experience and Spud religion.[/li] [li]I, taulover, ran with no specific agenda except keeping the Laws page completely up to date.[/li] [li]Doc had some various ideas, including defining citizenship within the Fundamental Laws.[/li] Crushita ultimately lost the election, likely due to the delayed campaigning. In the Speaker vote following the election, there initially appeared to be a possibility of a tie between myself and Chanku. We reached an agreement wherein Chanku would become Speaker pro tempore and be free to implement his legislative goals without any hindrance from myself. Additionally, I appointed Mathyland as Secretary. Chanku's main proposal for the early part of the term was to create an officer system for the Underhusen. Under this new system, the Speaker could create various offices and appoint citizens to it. After some discussion (in which a proposal for giving the Monarch the duty to initially nominate a Speaker candidate was rejected), this amendment to the Underhusen Procedural Rules was passed. Following this event, I created the Office of Information at Chanku's advice, and appointed Mathyland to lead it. This Officer position continued Mathyland's former Secretarial duties and also expanded them to include greater public outreach responsibilities. Other proposals still remain in discussion, including one giving the Speaker the power to fix grammar errors in laws, and another establishing an explicit supremacy clause in the Fundamental Laws. The Culture Review by Gerrick 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 from late April to early June. Thanes (Vice Ministers) of Culture are elected positions that serve to manage and represent different areas of Wintreath. Along with the already established positions of Thanes of Roleplay, Werewolf, LGBT Affairs, and Gaming, in May the Ministry of Integration was dissolved and a new Thane of Integration was added to the Ministry of Culture. Elections for these positions were held at the beginning of June, and the roles are now filled by Pengu as Thane of Werewolf and LGBT Affairs, Gattoartico as Thane of Gaming, and Kane lives as Thane of Integration. There were no candidates for Thane of Roleplay who completed the necessary steps to win the position, but I will be on the lookout for someone to take it over. I look forward to working with this group and seeing what they can bring to their new roles. 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 April 2018 Wintreath's Finest was Gattoartico for his hosting of the successful regional game nights playing Realm of the Mad God and Minecraft. The winner of May 2018 Wintreath's Finest was Wintermoot for all of the work he has done to update and redesign the recruitment system, the forums header, the newsfeed, and other areas of the forums. Other nominees for the two months were Elbbsas for creating and hosting the Wintreath Escape Room, taulover for organizing and getting the Orendi out regularly, and Hydra for designing each Orendi. Avatar Theme of the Month is 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. May's winning theme was Anything That Rhymes with May, beating out other themes such as Minecraft, Han Solo, and Justin Timberlake. June's winning themes were a tie between Alaska and Cats. Crushita adopted an avatar that is unquestionably the most fitting: a picture of Mayor Stubbs, the cat who was the mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska, for twenty years. Spyfall is an easy-to-learn forum game where the lone undercover spy tries to figure out the location of the game while all the other players, who act in their given roles related to the location, try to figure out who the spy is. Spyfall VIII, which was hosted by North, lasted from early March until May. The location of the game was the United Nations with players given the roles of ambassadors from different countries. Hydra, the Spy, ultimately did not successfully announce the location before being correctly voted off as the spy by a majority of the players, which was initiated by Doc, making this only the second time in Wintreath that the Spy lost. There were apparently some miscommunications as to how and when the Spy could make his guess, but everyone including Hydra agreed to have enjoyed the game. The Pandemonium RP Begins! by taulover ft. AJ Image credit: erzon77 on AdeptGamer Advertised as "a roleplay of possibly infinite possibilities, but also structured," Pandemonium is a Discord-based RP set in a dimensional cluster, ruled by gods. Here, AJ'BLarg, the GM, explains the setting: The existence of Pandemonium is built on a simple principle. Planes. The five main planes are the main realms of Bael'Kath, Olv'Thrane, Alissa, Santioc, and Xaelinoc. Pandemonium itself is a centralized dimension inside the capital of Xaelinoc, accessed by a single portal. Each of the six realms is vast, and each the size of an entire plane of existence. There's other planes that exist, and possibly will come into play. Each plane is vastly different. Xaelinoc is the plane of the demons, ruled by the mighty Demonous Clan. Santioc is the plane of the angels, led by the Fallen Angel Cardina. Olv'Thrane is the plane of the elves, led by the mighty Zermophium, who is said to have the power of the world tree of the plane itself. Alissa, led by the Draconic Maelikor, leader of the humans. Bael'Kath, the realm of chaos and horror, led by the monstrous Xernia. Pandemonium, the capital of the collective, led by Kessek Demonous, the God-King. If you dare to try your fate, possibly rise up in the ranks, come to the Multi-Plex of Pandemonium. Or perhaps lie in wait until your plane comes under the scope of the Multi-Plex. The possibilities are infinite in the multiverse. How will you fit in? AJ has much experience GM'ing roleplays online. On comparing RP'ing via forum and Discord, AJ stated his opinion that "Discord is an easier and less intimidating platform." It will undoubtedly be exciting to see the Wintrean RP community evolve as it takes on this new direction of RP'ing and broadens into new platforms. If you're interested in this RP, you can contact AJ#4382 on Discord. Wintreans Share Food That They Made! These are some potato wedges that I made! New potatoes cut into wedges, shredded Parmesan cheese, garlic powder and salt, and some parsley after it came out of the oven. I could have baked them a bit longer to crisp the outside more, but the flavour was fantastic, and went great with ranch dressing as a dip. It won approval in my house, at least. :D This is currently one of my favourite dinners. Bobotie: a mince dish, with copious amounts of fruit, curry powder, and milk-soaked bread. I have to start making it at a bit past one for it to be serveable by six, and the egg layer on top keeps consistently being runny, but I'm getting there! My take at raspberry fool, based on a recipe on Food Network and the ingredients that I happened to have. I actually decided to totally mix in the raspberries and cream to give it a uniform flavour. I'm not usually a big fan of raspberries, but it was good with ladyfingers. :D I also made this with strawberries yesterday, and it's very much my thing. :) Feel free to share your own favorite recipes at the Howling Wind Tavern! An Interview with Gattoartico about the New Modded Minecraft Server by taulover Gattoartico tours Furnace Lane, near the spawn of the modded server. Wintreath has had a thriving Minecraft community for many years, with a vanilla server dating back to 2014. Recently, however, Wintreath has expanded its scope in Minecraft to mods. Joining me today discuss this topic is Gattoartico, our Thane of Gaming, who has launched a modded server based on a custom modpack. Why did you choose to make the Wintreath modded Minecraft server? It partially spawned from a conversation with Trader on the Vanilla server. We were discussing plans for militarization of Castle Terrinian and High Castle, with missiles and sentry armies. As a result I started compiling the mods I already played with and asked for mod suggestions. It kinda became a desire of mine to see Spawn on Wintreath Server being nuked. We don't have that map but the one we do have is a close second! How did you decide what mods made the cut for the server pack? Some of them were mods I loved previously, like AbyssalCraft which adds in elements of Lovecraft to the game. As well as mods that others suggested. The existing server pack is one that I slimmed down to the largest pack that would put the least stress on the kind of crappy laptop the server is on. It's still pretty full but without any truly heavy hitting mods. What have been some of the biggest difficulties of getting the modded server up and running? One of the biggest issues was finding the right hardware and pack size. Occasionally I take the server down for "maintenance," which is just code for the me getting tired of hearing the fan howling. I do intend to upgrade the server hardware in the near future, as trying to run it off of a first gen i3 really isn't helping performance. What is the most interesting thing you've seen on the modded server? Definitely the building styles of the players. Everyone on the server has kinda the same Dwarven mantra going, "Dig deep, and then dig deeper." Outside of my constructs most buildings on the server go down and not up. Which can be seen with the construction of Deepholm, Crushita's dwarven stronghold in the deep. Out of everything it is still the second deepest structure on the server. The only thing that goes deeper is my Mortis Engine. And boy is that sucker deep. But then that may be warranted. After all, nuclear powers are on the rise server side. So digging deep may be a result of the expanding nuclear arsenals. Out of which mine still dominates the server at nearly sixty silos scattered across four dimensions. Do you prefer vanilla or modded Minecraft? I would have to say modded. I like the plethora of new and strange things mods add to the game. Alongside technology and magic I enjoy the variety of dimensions, creatures, and weapons you can find. What are you plans for the future of the server? The first thing on the list is upgrading the hardware. Ideally I want to to have an i5 or i7 as the processor and at the very least 16gbs of ram. Then the pack will go full and y'all will get the true world save. Where the server capital is a massive mountain range with sheer cliff faces. And the days prior to the server world and pack change I plan on dropping a total war scenario on y'all. Nuke each other and fight my dudes. Thanks for reading!

Orendi XV As with before, we have continued to write our Orendi in a newspaper-style format! Check out our full PDF Version, or take a look at the pages in image form below.

After nearly two years since our last puzzle, we are back with yet another! Good luck, and have fun!

Thanks! We have one person that takes the articles and puts them in that format, so I'll let him know his work is being appreciated.

Orendi XIV: Vernal Equinox Issue We have continued to experiment with our new Orendi format, first introduced in our previous issue! Check out our full PDF Version, or if you cannot read it, take a look at the pages in image form below.

The Frozen Realm of Wintreath Invitation to Werewolf XIV: A Werewolf of Ice and Fire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDyz-j4_StA (Editing credits: Hydra) Hello, friends and allies! Wintreath is hosting a very special game of Werewolf, and you are invited! Let me present to you... Double-Elimination Werewolf! You see, when you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. Not always, though, for oftentimes you get to go north to the Wall, instead of being lynched and killed! But don't worry, it's an honor to serve on the Night's Watch. Definitely won't be anything going wrong there... I welcome you all to join our game. To sign up, head on over to this thread! If you're unfamiliar with Werewolf or Mafia, here's a good overview of the general workings of the game. I hope to see you all in the royal court of King's Landing for a fun game of Werewolf! —taulover (Game Host)

Orendi XIII: Special Summersend Edition We are experimenting with a new Orendi format! Check out the pages below, or if you cannot read them, check out our PDF Version.

The festival is now open, and as promised, the direct link to the festival is here! Additionally, we are also posting announcements here to help you keep track of events and deadlines for each day. Hope to see you there!

I look forward to seeing you, then! And thank you for the invitation to post on your RMB. It's very gracious of you.

Invitation to Summersend Festival Venue construction is already ongoing! For the third year, Wintreath is hosting the Summersend Festival, our annual festival to celebrate the end of summer and the approach of cooler weather with fun and games for everyone! The festival will start on Friday, August 18th and run until Sunday, August 27th, and will include forum games, contests, discussions, roleplaying, scheduled gaming sessions, and more! Every year the Summersend Festival gets bigger and better, and I believe that this year will be no exception...if you have a chance, consider coming over for some of the fun and enjoy the festival with us. We'd be honoured to have you as our guest. We'll provide a link to the festival area as soon as it's open, but if you would like to make or update an account beforehand, our forum is located here. Hope to see you there!

Isn't it?! In this case, it's the original for the segment and best.

Orendi XII Wintreath Update 12 - July 2017 (a little late cuz mass effect marathoning takes time) Realms of Wintreath Wintreath - 228 nations New Hyperion - 77 nations Nowhere - 2 nations Government of Wintreath Monarch: Wintermoot Jarl of Culture: Gerrick Thane of Culture: Aragonn Thane of Foreign Affairs: Emoticonius Court Scribe: Justinian Ezkantion-Telcontar Jarl/Thane of Integration: Vacant Wintreath Celebrates 100,000 Posts! The wind and the snow has not kept us idle on the forums! When we first started the Wintreath forums, I imagined many possibilities, including the one where the region never went anywhere. The one where just a few years later we would celebrate 100k posts seemed pretty far out, but with the support of the community over the years, that's where we ended up this month! Actually, we celebrated it twice: first when Aragonn made the 100,000th post counting deleted posts (which was post ID 100,000), and then later in the month when Matilda Love made the 100,000th post not counting deleted posts (which brought the post count on the forum front page to 100,000). Either way, this accomplishment is a testament to the constant activity the forums have enjoyed over the years. [spoiler=Wintreath Top 10 Topics of All Time]Top 10 Topics of All Time GENERAL: Say What's On Your Mind - 7185 posts SPAM: Double Post Game (Past Rounds) - 6829 posts SPAM: World Association - 4309 posts SPAM: Guess who will post next! - 2173 posts ROLEPLAY: From the Ashes: A Galactic Nations RP! (OOC) - 1522 posts CULTURE: Werewolf VI: Until Dawn - The New Chapter - 1497 posts SPAM: Spam Points (Past Rounds) - 1420 posts ROLEPLAY: Frostbite Tavern - 1092 posts SPAM: Count to 2,000 - 1014 posts SPAM: Count to 1,000 - 1004 posts[/spoiler] It's not surprising that many of the top topics are general discussion and spam game topics; however several cutural and roleplay topics have also stood the test of time to earn a place in the top topics list, including the Werewolf VI game topic, the From the Ashes roleplay Out of Character discussion, and the Frostbite Tavern casual roleplay. This accomplishment comes as I've placed an emphasis on making the forums simpler and easier to understand and navigate, particularly on mobile devices. It also comes a month before the region's annual Summersend Festival, which last year alone generated over a thousand posts. Along with the continued support of the Wintreath community, these developments will help the forums remain busy far into the future! The Culture Review This is the second 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, monthly contests, and forum games. 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 June 2017’s Wintreath’s Finest was BraveSirRobin, who was nominated for his efforts to starting up more roleplays in the region. He has taken the helm at revitalizing Wintreath’s most popular character RP, the Star Trek-influenced Wintreath Space Expeditions, by starting up talks for The Next Generation, which already has applications up and running. On top of Space Expeditions, BraveSirRobin has also taken the lead in trying to start up a new nation roleplay that will take place in a post-WW2/Cold War era alternate universe. BraveSirRobin was technically the only nominee, but as Jarl of Culture, I made no other nominations as I thought his win was well-deserved. The Avatar Theme of the Month is the theme that several forum users will adopt into their avatars for the month, whether that means using pictures or memes that have to do with the theme or Photoshopping the theme into their usual avatars. Nominations are typically related to current world affairs, historical dates, holidays, or happenings in Wintreath. The winner of July 2017’s Avatar Theme of the Month was a tie between ‘MURICA and Canada 150 as both the USA and Canada have their national day in July. With the large number of Canadians and Canada-sympathizers in Wintreath, it was no surprise that it ended in a tie, and the rivalry between the two countries ensured that there would be no other nominations to spoil the contest for one side or the other. One proud Canadian-Wintrean, Crushita, even went so far as to turn his national anthem into a case why one should vote for Canada: Oh Canada! The World Does Not Hate Us! Adi-ition-ly, We don't have Donald Trump! Tous les érables poussent là où les França-a-is sont Nous devons les apaiser, nous aider s'il vous plaît Spud keep our land Glorious and free! Oh Canada! We-e vote for thee! Oh Canada We-e vote for thee! The Monarch’s Game Bag is a list of over 150 spare Steam keys that Wintermoot and other citizens have donated to the region over the years. It now serves as a reward for those citizens who perform necessary civil service duties for the region, such as recruiting and writing articles for the Orendi, as well as those who go above and beyond to be elected to win Wintreath’s Finest. This month, games were given out to two such citizens: Justinian Ezkantion chose Dragon Age: Origins for winning Wintreath’s Finest of May 2017 and writing two articles for the Orendi, and Gattoartico chose Purgatory for also writing two articles. We hope more citizens continue to follow their example and help out Wintreath to earn more free games! Interview with Ashton Mercer on his new RP, Empowered Ashton Mercer, one of several former Ainurian refugees who moved to Wintreath last year, has been an active roleplayer ever since he became a Wintrean citizen. Last fall, he created and hosted a superhero RP called Super. Now he has started up a new, rebooted version called Empowered. As Jarl of Culture and a member of the RP Guild, I sat down with Ashton for an interview. Can you give a short introduction of yourself and your interest in roleplaying? So, as most ex-Ainurians might know, I've been around the NS RP scene for a while. About five years, actually. Ever since I re-discovered Nationstates in 2012, I've discovered my enjoyment in crafting stories and characters. I've spent time in Albion, as well as other smaller regions, but my homeland and main haunt was Ainur. I did many RPs here and there, whether centered around a nation or a character, and near the end I was often leading them. About a year ago however, things began to fall apart, and people were looking to find somewhere else in NS to be. A lot of Ainurians left to join Wintreath, and I followed them here. The rest is good history. Can you give a summary of the setting of the Empowered RP? The Empowered RP is set in a universe that is (pretty much kinda) exactly like ours, except that a certain segment of the population have fantastic supernatural powers, like the heroes and villains you would see in the comic books. It's a fairly easy setting to wrap your head around, yet it has the detail and potential for exploration that very complex settings do. It strikes that perfect balance that makes it such a perfect world to enjoy and be a part of. What is your role as Lore Master (the Wintrean title for Game Master) in the RP? The way I see it, when I am directing an RP that I don't have a main character in, I'm basically supposed to be a very lazy shepherd. Point everyone in a direction that I think is fun, and let them work it out from there. Right now, I'm closely guiding the only main storyline so that we can work out the OOC/IC kinks without jumping through pan-dimensional hoops, but I'm hoping that more unique threads and separate stories will spring up once Innocence Lost has run it's course. You've come up with a unique idea to Wintreath where there will be separate threads for each story-line. Where did you get the idea, and how do you see it playing out? To be perfectly honest, the idea for the storyline threads wasn't mine. It was proposed to me by Doc in a private conversation, who himself was inspired by the typical way that comic books are structured: different issues for different stories, but with the capability to keep characters and story arcs intact. We came to the conclusion that an RP structured like this might be able to provide everyone with an ability to have heir own storylines without the clutter and story fatigue that comes with keeping everyone on a single thread, as is standard for most RPs. Also, it made more sense for Empowered in particular, since the setting is so open-ended than, say, Wintreath Space Expeditions, which has a focus on one ship on one mission. I think everyone will like the results. Who are some of the current Empowered characters in the RP? We have a good variety of characters so far: a constantly drunken pyromaniac, a antihero version of Thor with terroristic tendencies, a level-headed circus girl who can materialize mirror-like barriers from thin air, an archaeologist with some ancient aliens technology, and many more. The center of this latest story is a missing kid named Andrew, who has a tragic backstory, intense powers of speed and strength, and some mysterious and potentially deadly connections. If you want to see more or want more details, definitely check the threads out. The character apps and the story are both worth reads. Finally, what direction do you think the story of the current issue, "Innocence Lost", will go? What should we expect? While I know pretty well what I am doing to the story right now, I have no idea at all how Innocence Lost will end up, which makes all of this very exciting. Of course, I have some ideas about the various potential endings and how the NPCs I direct will handle it, but it all really depends on the player characters' actions and how they effect themselves and the rest of the acting parties in this story. A few players have actually thought of an ending that I hadn't considered at all and their characters are already going after it, which is awesome, and I'm looking forward to see what they will do at the climax of this chapter. I definitely will try not to spoil anything and there are still a lot of uncertainties that haven't been played out yet in the story thread. However, I will say this: barring a total disaster, this won't be the last time we see Andrew or the FBI Agent McGrath. Is there anything else you'd like to add? Thank you for your time, and if any of this sounds interesting to you, definitely take a look at us and consider signing up! News in Briefs Honestly, we really are too lazy to find another image. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ An all out brawl occured this month of the RMB where amateur RP enthusiasts of all varieties denounced one nation's decision to claim all of the Middle East. The position of Thane of Information was abolished, replaced with a court scribe whose sole function is to make this newspaper in a timely manner (EDITOR'S NOTE: It's totally the diplomat's fault. Nope, definitely not me playing old BioWare games and crying at what EA has done to it. No siree) AMAs have exploded in popularity on the forums for...some reason. Thanks for reading!