Wintreath

[Wintermoot]

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.

[Bran Astor]

I love this format! Thanks for sharing, Wintermoot.

[Saint Mark]

Wow! What a beautiful Dispatch! You certainly put a lot of work into it. Thank you for sharing this with us.

[Wintermoot]

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)

[Saint Mark]

Thanks for the invitation!

[Wintermoot]

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.

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[Saint Mark]

Thank you for your interesting update. I really enjoy the new format!

[Wintermoot]

4 minutes ago, Saint Mark said:

Thank you for your interesting update. I really enjoy the new format!

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.

[Wintermoot]

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

[Saint Mark]

Fascinating! Thanks!

[Wintermoot]

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.
 

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[Ark]

This was a wonderful read. Thank you! 

[Wintermoot]

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Wintreans Share Food That They Made!

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Potato Wedges, by Wintermoot

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

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Bobotie, by Elbbsas

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!

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Raspberry Fool, by Wintermoot

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!

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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.

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Thanks for reading!

[Saint Mark]

Thank you for sharing your lovely dispatch.

[Wintermoot]

Quote

Hello everyone!

Now that a month and a half has passed since we've posted this puzzle, I'd like to revisit it. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has managed to fully solve the puzzle, and few have reached the final steps. As such, I'll present a partial solution for the parts that seem to have left people stumped, while leaving it up to you guys to solve the rest.
 

Spoiler

As many people quickly realized, the initial image was written in Aurebesh, the fictional script of the Star Wars universe. It reads, in Spanish, "Vaya a nuestra Discord y reaccione," which translates to "Go to our Discord and react."

Of course, this was not merely a plug for our Discord. Quite a few people showed up on our Discord server, trying to find the next step. Many of them attempted to trigger the bots, such as our custom-written Zaphyr, to respond with something. However, the solution lay elsewhere.

Discord has reactions, in the form of emojis. Servers can add custom emojis, which is what we did. I made this 32x32 image to fit within the Discord emoji constraints, handwriting the letters in a small pixel-based font of my own design. As far as I am aware, The Peninsular#7987 is the only person to have found this emoji as the solution, and they have my congratulations.

Looking at the contents of the emoji (which can be downloaded and zoomed-into through various ways), the letters themselves are text encoded in MIME base64. Decoded, we get this URL:

wintreath.com/index.php?part=2048

Which leads us to a game of 2048!

But the tiles look rather odd...

The last step of the puzzle is left as an exercise to the reader.

It was also fun seeing people send us various responses and counter-puzzles! For instance, we received this message from Baikerbanur/athdot of New Hyperion, which was rather fun to work through:
/ t s r i f / o i . b u h t i g . t o d h t a / / : s p t t h

Best of luck in cracking the final segment! I'll be back with the full solution and another puzzle soon.

—taulover, Thane of Embassy Dispatches

 

[Wintermoot]

Invitation to our Fourth-Annual Summersend Festival!

This year's theme, minus 'box'. Hey, we were lucky to find something that said Spooky Summer!

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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.

[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!

[The Church of Satan]

Hey guys! I've been appointed as Wintreath's new ambassador to The West Pacific. With that in mind, here's our most recent update just released yesterday.

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Orendi XVIII: Holiday Special
Our magazine-style Orendi is back for another issue! Check out our full PDF Version, or take a look at the pages in image form below.

Orendi XVIII, Page 1 - Cover

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Orendi XVIII, Page 2 - Culture Review

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Orendi XVIII, Page 3 - Citizen's Corner

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Ornedi XVIII, Page 4 - Roleplay Revival

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Orendi XVIII, Page 5 - Roleplay Interviews

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Orendi VXIII, Page 6 - Sorting Out The Storting

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Orendi XVIII, Page 7 - News In Briefs

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Orendi XVIII, Page 8 - Monarch's Holiday Message

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[Darkesia]

Cool format!  My Tl;dr nature thanks Wintreath's accommodation!

[Saint Mark]

Thank you for your excellent update!

Happy New Year to our good friends in Wintreath!

[The Church of Satan]

And we you. We do like to try new things.

[The Church of Satan]

Orendi XIX: Vernal Equinox Edition
Our magazine-style Orendi has just published its latest issue! Check out our full PDF Version, or take a look at the pages in image form below.

[Saint Mark]

What a lovely newsletter!

Thank you for sharing this with us!

[The Church of Satan]

It's definitely nice to look at.

We're only too happy to share.  

[The Church of Satan]

Hello hello to all of our friends and region-mates out there! It's time once more for a rousing game of Werewolf! For the 18th installment, the theme was put to a vote by Wintreath's citizens.  The votes were close, but Choose Your Own Werewolf IV was the winner!  That means that you'll choose how the game goes based on how you answer a set of questions...this time asked by a simple English gentlecat who just wants to make you tea and biscuits.  So stop by Wintreath for some tea, and take part in a friendly game of Werewolf!  The signup thread can be found here, and signups will conclude on June 10th at 8PM Pacific Standard time...so there's plenty of time to sign up.  I hope to see you there!