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I would like to announce that a community page I have been working on in support for the Pathfinder Society is up!
Pathfinder Society Grand Lodge
The Pathfinder Society Grand Lodge was developed in the hopes to promote and grow the Pathfinder Society.
The Pathfinder Society Grand Lodge is a location for Pathfinder Society members to:
- Find Information about The Pathfinder Society and Paizo's Campaign world it is based in
- Find Pathfinder Society DMs
- Find Pathfinder Society Players
- Find conventions running Pathfinder Society Scenarios
- Find resources for Players & DMs running Pathfinder Society Scenarios
- Advice for Society members on DMing and Playing
Currently I am the only one working on this page but the Paizo Fans out there can make it better! So support from you guys will make this page work.
Things you guys can do are submit articles to me for posting, anything on character creation or DMing a Society scenario or anything else in the support of the Pathfinder Society.
Send me files to upload for others use, like character sheets, home made scenario maps, other files Society members could use, just remember all files must follow Paizo's community use policy.
Also I would gladly take any donations from any of you artist out there, I would love to get a better background art then the plain brown art I have now.
A few things about the site.
Register only on the Home page, the login you use on the Home page is the same one you use in the Forums.
You need to re-login once you enter the forums *I am trying to fix this*
There will be some changes still coming, to include changing the Sites Colors.
If you see any problems with the page or have any suggestions to make the page better please either email me at dragnmoon[at]psgrandlodge[dot]com or just post them on the sites forums.
Hope to see you all on the new site!
Edit: I would like to thank the Pathfinder Wiki, Much of the info I got through that site!
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Hi Dragnmoon,
Good effort, nice looking site.
First impresssions:
"Pathfinder Society Grand Lodge" is already the name of a section of Paizo's messageboards. You should probably come up with something original, to avoid confusion "you couldn't find it? but I posted on Pathfinder Society Grand Lodge?", to give your site it's own identity, and to avoid stepping on Paizo's toes.
Have you visited Nic Logue's Sinister Adventures website? Looks to be the same site template. Nothing wrong with that, assuming it was a site template you're using and didn't just rip his design. Site templates are great for getting a site up and running quickly (particularly for non-developers or non-designers) and allow you to focus on providing great content or build a thriving community, but it does mean that your site might look the same as someone else's (this is particularly true for forum sites). I appreciate your site is in it's early days, but as time allows, working on giving your site it's own identity might be a nice touch.
Personal taste, but I'm not a fan of overly dark-looking sites. I find them gloomy and difficult to read. I know, it's a bit of a fantasy/sci-fi/gamer-nerd tradition of having a site that looks like the Matrix, but I think there are more uplifting designs out there.
Most of your images require anti-aliasing for a black background (eg, removing the white speckled edges around each image). You'll either need to Photoshop these, or place them on a white background (refer above paragraph).
Convention Schedule, Society Locator, Convention Locator - are these pulling data from the Paizo site, eg Google Maps data? If so, this is a nice way to display that information. I wouldn't want to see multiple sites spring up all offering "find a Pathfinder game near you" features, if this means GMs having to register their gameday/convention details multiple times across multiple sites - unless it was a local hub for supporting games in your local store/city. Paizo should be the central place for registering gamedays/conventions. However, if this is just a view of the information already registered at Paizo (with a link to the Paizo site for registering new gamedays/convnetions on their site), this isn't so bad, as it widens the opportunity for players to stumble across gamedays/conventions.
I think it's important to provide new content, and not fall into the trap of posting recycled content from other sites/locations. Linking to sites (as you have done with Paizo, Pathfinder Wiki etc) is good. Let them do what they do best, and point people to these resources. But identify your niche, and then build your reputation for providing that content or service.
I hope this hasn't come across as site-bashing, I think fan/community sites are great, and you've obviously put a lot of work and care into it. I hope you'll read my comments as constructive, and look forward to seeing your site grow into the future.
Cheers :-)
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Just had a look at the Forum.
Nice break-down of subjects.
I guess I only have similar feedback regarding the Forum, to find your niche, and not try to duplicate what Paizo already provide within their Forums.
Sometimes it's good to have an alternative place to post than the "official" company website, somewhere you can air your views without censorship or flames (though I think Paizo boards are pretty open and friendly) or just a different community demographic or culture. Eg, some people prefer EnWorld to WotC to Paizo to elsewhere. And who knows, your site might become the Pathfinder version of EnWorld? But otherwise, I'd suggest finding your niche, and have your Forums cover that.
A good example would be when MaxMinis sprung up to support the D&D minis community, providing something (arguably) different than that which was available at WotC's own Forums. But it was the focus on minis that made MaxMinis it's own thriving community.
An example of Forums going wrong, was the community split that happened when Hordlings opened their own Minis forum. Well, Hordlings did quite well, I guess visitors voted with their feet, but then you have two sites to keep across, and people re-posting things on both sites, it gets a bit messy.
Anyway, just some suggestions, and good luck :-)
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Hi Dragnmoon,
Good effort, nice looking site.
First impresssions:
"Pathfinder Society Grand Lodge" is already the name of a section of Paizo's messageboards. You should probably come up with something original, to avoid confusion "you couldn't find it? but I posted on Pathfinder Society Grand Lodge?", to give your site it's own identity, and to avoid stepping on Paizo's toes.
I think when I originally named the site a few months back that forum was called something else. I noticed the the other day what it was called now, by then it was to late.
Have you visited Nic Logue's Sinister Adventures website? Looks to be the same site template. Nothing wrong with that, assuming it was a site template you're using and didn't just rip his design. Site templates are great for getting a site up and running quickly (particularly for non-developers or non-designers) and allow you to focus on providing great content or build a thriving community, but it does mean that your site might look the same as someone else's (this is particularly true for forum sites). I appreciate your site is in it's early days, but as time allows, working on giving your site it's own identity might be a nice touch.
Yup it is a template I am using, I have a few other I am working on from the template club I joined.
Personal taste, but I'm not a fan of overly dark-looking sites. I find them gloomy and difficult to read. I know, it's a bit of a fantasy/sci-fi/gamer-nerd tradition of having a site that looks like the Matrix, but I think there are more uplifting designs out there.
Shrugs... Personal taste.. I like dark.
Most of your images require anti-aliasing for a black background (eg, removing the white speckled edges around each image). You'll either need to Photoshop these, or place them on a white background (refer above paragraph).
That is interesting, So I have photoshop... now how do I do that?
Convention Schedule, Society Locator, Convention Locator - are these pulling data from the Paizo site, eg Google Maps data? If so, this is a nice way to display that information. I wouldn't want to see multiple sites spring up all offering "find a Pathfinder game near you" features, if this means GMs having to register their gameday/convention details multiple times across multiple sites - unless it was a local hub for supporting games in your local store/city. Paizo should be the central place for registering gamedays/conventions. However, if this is just a view of the information already registered at Paizo (with a link to the Paizo site for registering new gamedays/convnetions on their site), this isn't so bad, as it widens the opportunity for players to stumble across gamedays/conventions.
Convention Schedule, right now I am getting from the Paizo Sight, the Idea was to have them all in an easy located spot instead of digging through Paizo,s forums or blog.
Society Locator is a map a fellow Paizo fan set up, that Paizo players put there info in, I am just linking to it, that one requires the Pathfinder Society members to add their info.
Convention Locator, I made that and will up date it has I get info on Conventions.
I think it's important to provide new content, and not fall into the trap of posting recycled content from other sites/locations. Linking to sites (as you have done with Paizo, Pathfinder Wiki etc) is good. Let them do what they do best, and point people to these resources. But identify your niche, and then build your reputation for providing that content or service.
I hope this hasn't come across as site-bashing, I think fan/community sites are great, and you've obviously put a lot of work and care into it. I hope you'll read my comments as constructive, and look forward to seeing your site grow into the future.
Cheers :-)
I love the Wiki, and much what I added to my site came from the wiki, including stuff I added to the wiki as I was working on my page, but the wiki can be a pain to find stuff if you don't know exactly what you are looking for. The idea was to have all that info easy to find at your finger tips, it is mostly aimed at those who don't know the info, so they can find it easily.
I don't have all the time in the world, but as I come up with new articles to add, i will add them. I am excepting submissions. from others if they wish to add anything. looking for advise articles.
Thanks for the input!
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Just had a look at the Forum.
Nice break-down of subjects.
I guess I only have similar feedback regarding the Forum, to find your niche, and not try to duplicate what Paizo already provide within their Forums.
Sometimes it's good to have an alternative place to post than the "official" company website, somewhere you can air your views without censorship or flames (though I think Paizo boards are pretty open and friendly) or just a different community demographic or culture. Eg, some people prefer EnWorld to WotC to Paizo to elsewhere. And who knows, your site might become the Pathfinder version of EnWorld? But otherwise, I'd suggest finding your niche, and have your Forums cover that.
A good example would be when MaxMinis sprung up to support the D&D minis community, providing something (arguably) different than that which was available at WotC's own Forums. But it was the focus on minis that made MaxMinis it's own thriving community.
An example of Forums going wrong, was the community split that happened when Hordlings opened their own Minis forum. Well, Hordlings did quite well, I guess visitors voted with their feet, but then you have two sites to keep across, and people re-posting things on both sites, it gets a bit messy.
Anyway, just some suggestions, and good luck :-)
I will be keeping a close eye on the forums, to see what they are used for and to adjust them as needed.
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Just a note, the main thing that led me to develop this site was 2 things
seeing the many people posting in these forums looking for more information on the Pathfinder world and the organization. Many people wanted more info before they spent their money on Paizo's products. Though there are resources to find that info out much of it is spread out and some of it is hard to find, and like I said, though I love the wiki, unless you know what you are looking for it can be a pain to find stuff there. The info on the Page is targeted just for those games with info dealing directly with what you need to start off in the organization. My hope that through this info, it will convince those to join the organization and as a side effect buy the products from Paizo!
The other thing was the many people complaining about DMs not reporting the games from conventions, I am hoping through this site to gather the contacts for the game organizers at the conventions to track down those DMs to remind them politely to report those games, if not that trying to find other ways to get these game reported. If we at least track down the info we can at least try report that info ourselves to Paizo.
I am hoping that this site will promote the organization and give everything one would need to know about the organization so they can start off.
I have lots of other ideas for this site that as I find the time or get submissions I will add to the site. Another idea I had was adding a section of stories from the Pathfinder Chronicles, chronicling the adventures and missions of a PC in the Pathfinder Society, also a section of photos from conventions of games being run.
As I add more to this site It will grow and expand *duh well that was 3 words that mean the same* , if anyone wants to add to it, just contact me and we can talk about it.
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I checked it. The appearance is good, albeit the site seems to be very slow.
Indeed the images need antialiasing. I don't know how to do that, but someone might. Additionally I would like to see the text be justified and made a bit more compact. For example the character creation page shows much of these small editorial problems. I might even suggest using columns, unless it's a big trouble.
...damn the site is slow.
And indeed there's something wrong with the forum software being unable to recognize the user. Numerous logins needed, and yet it fails to access it. Pressing the "Board index" button just reveals a site saying "This board has no forums".
Waiting for more, then.
And it doesn't keep the chosen color styling which can be chosen on the forum page. That's a shame.
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Ok... I should have fixed the Login issue! It was a cookie problem.
On the style selection I will have to look into that, but I see once you leave the forums it goes back to the default.. I think I can fix that.
On the speed of the page, I thought that was just me, I have been having Internet problems lately with everything I go to being slow, but I will contact my Host to find out what is going on.
Edit: Ok submitted a trouble ticket with my Host
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I checked it. The appearance is good, albeit the site seems to be very slow.
Indeed the images need antialiasing. I don't know how to do that, but someone might. Additionally I would like to see the text be justified and made a bit more compact. For example the character creation page shows much of these small editorial problems. I might even suggest using columns, unless it's a big trouble.
...damn the site is slow.
Couple of things, The site going slow seems to be different per individual, where are you located? seems like most of the complaints are coming from Europe side *I am in germany*. I did a trace rt and there seems to be alot of lag in route. Majority of people I have talked to so far, say the page loads fine.
If someone passes on to me the Magic on how to antialias my Images, I will do it.
On the articles being justified, there is some easy code I can put into the articles so they will square off. even though it is easy, I will have to do it for every article, will take a bit of time, I will work on it during the week.
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If someone passes on to me the Magic on how to antialias my Images, I will do it.
Hi Dragnmoon,
Sorry, been busy with work and life, otherwise I would have posted a step-by-step earlier.
- Open the image in Photoshop, make sure you have the Layers panel open.
- The image is likely sitting in the background layer, so duplicate the image to a new foreground layer by right-clicking the layer and duplicate layer ... (give the layer a name other than Background if you like) and then hide the image from the background layer by clicking the eye icon. The original image is safe in the hidden background layer, if you mess up you can always duplicate it to a new foreground layer.
- With your image layer selected, click on the white background around your subject with the magic wand selection tool.
- Click Ctrl-I to inverse the selection.
- Click Add Layer Mask - this is the small icon at the bottom of the layers panel that looks like a white circle in a grey square. You should see the background surrounding your subject disappear, revealing the (transparent) background behind it.
- If the subject of your image suddenly turned black, don't fear, you probably missed the Ctrl-I inverse step above, and can do so now, your blackend image should re-appear, and the background should disappear as described above.
- The purpose of a Layer Mask is so that you can selectively hide/reveal portions of your image, allowing portions of lower layers (eg, transparent background in our case) to show through. The Layer Mask is a safe layer, leaving your original image layer undisturbed, so you can paint black within the Layer Mask to hide your image (reveal the backgound) or paint white within the Layer Mask to show your image (hiding the background). You can go back and forth, painting white over black, black over white, retouching as many times as you need, without destroying your image. Shades of grey reveal areas with semi-transparency.
- You'll probably find there are left-over bits of background that the magic wand left behind (because they weren't 100% white). You could adjust the Tolerance, Anti-alias, Contiguous controls (top-left, under the menu options), to select more background portions when you use the magic wand, or you could go over these areas with a solid pencil or brush, though be careful not to erase portions of the image subject.
- Once you've cleared the majority of the background, you should select a fine brush (difference between a pencil and a brush is that a pencil has solid edge, wheras a brush has semi-transparent edges).
- Make sure to click on the Layer Mask thumbnail that appears beside the thumbnail of your image in the layers panel.
- Note: until you get used to it, you may often forget which layer (real image, or layer mask) you have selected, and may accidentally paint over the wrong one; however, after a few mistakes, you'll quickly learn to check that you have the correct layer or mask selected before painting.
- You'll find that carefully tracing around the edge of your subject with a fine brush in black erases some of the white edging left behind on your image, so that it's edges fade to transparent, instead of white. If you slip, just press X to switch between black/white paint, and go over it again to reveal a portion you accidentally erased.
- You're almost there ... To see what your image might look like on a black background, you could create a layer below your image, and fill it with black (don't fill your image layer with black, as this defeats the purpose of the separation we've just achieved). If you see any white speckles against the black background, touch them up using a brush in the Layer Mask as already described.
- Turn off your black background if you need to save your image as a transparent gif or png, otherwise, you may leave it black.
- Save for web (Ctrl-Shif-Alt) select image format (JPG, GIF, PNG etc), and quality (I usually save images at 80%), and Matte is the colour that semi-transparent portions of your image should fade to. For example, if you want to place your image on a black background, select a black matte, if you want to place your image on a blue background, select a blue matte.
- There, you're done!
Incidentally, Photoshop Layers and Layer Masks are really powerful features, and enable all the trickery of switching people's heads around in photos that you often see. I hope these Photoshop tricks inspire you to explore more!
Cheers :-)
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Couple of things, The site going slow seems to be different per individual, where are you located? seems like most of the complaints are coming from Europe side *I am in germany*. I did a trace rt and there seems to be alot of lag in route. Majority of people I have talked to so far, say the page loads fine.I checked it. The appearance is good, albeit the site seems to be very slow.
Indeed the images need antialiasing. I don't know how to do that, but someone might. Additionally I would like to see the text be justified and made a bit more compact. For example the character creation page shows much of these small editorial problems. I might even suggest using columns, unless it's a big trouble.
...damn the site is slow.
Aye, inside Europe, in Finland to be precise.
Also now once I log onto the forums, it refuses to show me any forums. Just says that "This board has no forums." Intriguingly if I don't log in, I can view the forums.
Also now once I log onto the forums, it refuses to show me any forums. Just says that "This board has no forums." Intriguingly if I don't log in, I can view the forums.
Likewise, except that when I log in, I get a permission denied. Looks like your permissions are screwed up.
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Likewise, except that when I log in, I get a permission denied. Looks like your permissions are screwed up.
Also now once I log onto the forums, it refuses to show me any forums. Just says that "This board has no forums." Intriguingly if I don't log in, I can view the forums.
I will take a look at it when I get home from work.. Most likely it is a rights issue. I will check you group. Won't be getting home for another 7-8 hours..:-(. If you have that issue, everyone should, because everyone is in the same group.
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I will take a look at it when I get home from work.. Most likely it is a rights issue. I will check you group. Won't be getting home for another 7-8 hours..:-(. If you have that issue, everyone should, because everyone is in the same group.Likewise, except that when I log in, I get a permission denied. Looks like your permissions are screwed up.
Also now once I log onto the forums, it refuses to show me any forums. Just says that "This board has no forums." Intriguingly if I don't log in, I can view the forums.
Ooops I forgot to add one group to the forums...can we guess which one?.. ;). Should work now, If not clear your cach,e close your browser then try again. If still not, I seem to be having issues with My Firefox browser, just started last night, Might just be me. If you are still having issues and you are using firefox, try IE... If you are still having problems, Tell me.
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Just a few thoughts from someone non-website-professional:
1) Why is there a bar of empty space below the top-line headers? Just to provide room for the dropdown boxes? This seems like a waste of space.
2) I understand that it is more common to put information in a column down the left of the page, than down the right of the page.
3) The website is going veeeeeeeeeeery slow for me, as well.
4) Your references should be provided in order of utility for Pathfinder Society play. Your #1 reference, right at the top, should always be the current version of the Pathfinder Society Guide to Organized Play. Be sure to keep this updated and current (perhaps with links to outdated versions clearly labelled "archive"). In fact, you might consider this "ranking of importance" throughout your site: for example, on the Golarion page, is it really more important to provide a map of the solar system before the map of the world? More people will probably find the map of the world much more useful.
5) While an "RSS" type feed on the front page is handy, it doesn't make sense to link this to the Paizo Blog, which only rarely has Pathfinder Society-specific entries. You do one thing here: provide aggregated Pathfinder Society info. Don't clutter this up with other things, even other Paizo things.
6) I also don't like the dark look, but that's a taste thing.
7) I was told that "creating a new account is currently not possible."
Thanks for putting this together! Websites like this have real "one stop shopping" value.
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Just a few thoughts from someone non-website-professional:
1) Why is there a bar of empty space below the top-line headers? Just to provide room for the dropdown boxes? This seems like a waste of space.
I have plans for that space, just don't know what yet.
2) I understand that it is more common to put information in a column down the left of the page, than down the right of the page.
originally I had all the art all on one side and the article on the other, but the grated my senses so I changed it to what it is now, with the art changing side. I over did it with the character creation article and I plan to fix that one. If the majority don't like that I will put it back the orignal way.
3) The website is going veeeeeeeeeeery slow for me, as well.
where are you located? What browser are you using?. So far all complaints about speed are coming from people from Europe, including myself. People from other locations are saying the page is loading fine. When I did a trace rt there was a bunch of lag in route.
4) Your references should be provided in order of utility for Pathfinder Society play. Your #1 reference, right at the top, should always be the current version of the Pathfinder Society Guide to Organized Play. Be sure to keep this updated and current (perhaps with links to outdated versions clearly labelled "archive"). In fact, you might consider this "ranking of importance" throughout your site: for example, on the Golarion page, is it really more important to provide a map of the solar system before the map of the world? More people will probably find the map of the world much more useful.
The refrences I put down in order of how much I used them. The order of the art is in realtionship of what is in the article, in your example the solar system art came first because that is what the article was talking about there. I want the art placement to make sense to what the reader was reading.
5) an "RSS" type feed on the front page is handy, it doesn't make sense to link this to the Paizo Blog, which only rarely has Pathfinder Society-specific entries. You do one thing here: provide aggregated Pathfinder Society info. Don't clutter this up with other things, even other Paizo things.
I mostly did that to advertise Paizo.
6) I also don't like the dark look, but that's a taste thing.
I will be playing around with other templates, to see which works best.
7) I was told that "creating a new account is currently not possible."
Thanks for putting this together! Websites like this have real "one stop shopping" value.
Where did you try to register?, you can't register on the Forum page, only the home page. I did not change anything on registering on the home page so you should be able to. I am currently working on getting rid of that link on the forum page so people don't make that mistake.
And Thanks! that is one of the reasons I made this site.
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Before I headed to work, I verified that you can still make an account on the Home Page.
7) I was told that "creating a new account is currently not possible."
Yes, I was trying on the forum page. I didn't try logging in on the home page; a forum login should probably direct there.
As far as the page loading slowly, I'm on Internet Explorer in Chicago, at work. We have several firewalls and the like, so the problem may be on my end, but your page seems to load much slower than others.
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Additionally I would like to see the text be justified and made a bit more compact. For example the character creation page shows much of these small editorial problems. I might even suggest using columns, unless it's a big trouble.
I did a test on the Character Creation page, tell me what you think.
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I did a test on the Character Creation page, tell me what you think.Additionally I would like to see the text be justified and made a bit more compact. For example the character creation page shows much of these small editorial problems. I might even suggest using columns, unless it's a big trouble.
Much better, but my artistic eye would still remove some line breaks.
Will there be a character database?
Good news, I was able to increase the speed of the page significantly!!
I removed something that was causing the problem.
*Note to self, do not link to RSS feeds on home page.*
Don't beat yourself up Dragnmoon. I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time. ;-)
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Don't beat yourself up Dragnmoon. I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time. ;-)Good news, I was able to increase the speed of the page significantly!!
I removed something that was causing the problem.
*Note to self, do not link to RSS feeds on home page.*
I am just glad I figured it out. This is my first web site I have ever made, so I am sure I will continue to make some mistakes ;-).
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Due to a Family Emergency I will not be around for 2 weeks.
Once I get back I will Continue to add more to the page!
One thing I am looking to add in the future is a Pathfinder Society Character Database, where you can list your characters in the Society.
Feel free to continue to use the page, and post in the pages forums.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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For the character database, might I suggest you take a look at the database from the Nyrond LG site? It's a very well made and comprehensive database; you should really get in touch with whoever made it.
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Due to a Family Emergency I will not be around for 2 weeks.
Once I get back I will Continue to add more to the page!
One thing I am looking to add in the future is a Pathfinder Society Character Database, where you can list your characters in the Society.
Feel free to continue to use the page, and post in the pages forums.
I am back!
I should continue to add to the site again shortly!