• JOIN IN on Summersend Festival Planning!

• Vote in the Wintreath Mid-Year Awards!

• CITIZENS: VOTE on "The Stigya Commendation Act"

• SUBSCRIBE to The Frosty Bugle by contacting Wintermoot (Receive a notification when new editions are posted)
  

The Summersend Festival is on! This year's festival will run from August 26th to September 4th, with a Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Roleplay Theme that was nominated by Marzipan (New montith). If you'd like to run a booth or event for the festival, check out the planning topic that Michi (Penguin Dictators) has put out. We'll detail all the fun and games you can expect in one of the upcoming editions.

But in the meantime, I wanted to talk about what Summersends past.

The Creation of Summersend
Summersend first came into being in 2015, after I experienced the Summer Festival on Neverwinter. That festival included events such as splash attack, flower gathering, and a corn and chicken harvest. By the time I'd experienced all these events I knew I wanted to bring a summer themed festival to Wintreath, as we hadn't had a festival for awhile and we were in the middle of the NationStates summer lull. To allow for planning and try to tie it into our winter theme, we decided to have it in late August as a festival to celebrate the end of summer and the coming of winter.

Summersend by the Years

• 2015: Our first festival was a humble success that was dominated by casual events, including a water ballon game I created that was inspired by the Neverwinter splash attack game. We also had a tavern for casual roleplay, mad libs, and Michi's silly hat booth, which has since become a mainstay of the festival.

• 2016: For our second year, we continued with more casual events, but also mixed in games such as Clue, Nomic, and multiple mini-Werewolf games, reflecting the growth of our forum gaming scene. With the combination of the two, this festival outdid the first in both topics and posts.

• 2017: This was our first themed festival: Beach Cove. For the first time we experimented with game nights, featuring Civiliation V, Town of Salem, and attempts at Poker and Diplomacy that didn't work out. We also had a Summersend Arena game, a new forum game to Wintreath at the time, and an awards show that recognized the winners of each game and event.

• 2018: This year's event was themed Spooky Summer, which was nominated by Michi and selected by the Cabinet. For the first time, a new forum game premiered during Summersend: Spam Wars, a spam-based game of conquest with its own basic map. The game was so popular it raked up over 3,400 posts and temporarily knocked the Wintreath website offline. We also premiered other high-post events like Skyscraper, and Elbbsas wrote an escape room game just for Summersend, which was also popular.

• 2019: For the first time we opened the selection of the theme to Citizens, who voted Food and Fun Survival Guide as nominated by Emoticonius. We also brought another new forum game to Wintreath: Mage Wars. This game was like an online version of Battleship, where players guessed coordinates in hopes of finding another player's tower and destroying it. That year we also played Avalon, 40 Questions, and Clickwar, which was an updated version of Spam Wars where players could click the tile instead of posting it.

• 2020: This is the last year we ran Summersend, as we experienced a huge drain in activity for most of 2021 (a period now known as the Entropy Era) and couldn't pull a festival off. That year's theme was "Summersend Regional Park", which was nominated by Gerrick, and included an "Into the Woods" Werewolf game, an exploration Choose Your Own Adventure, Cards Against Humanity card creation contest, and more.

And Now
After a year off and with the Wintreath community surging once again, I'm excited that we're putting together another Summersend Festival! We're early in the planning, but there's a great vibe and a lot of excitement about what we can do this year. And I know it's going to show by being one of the best festivals we've had yet! Stay tuned for more about what you can do at this year's Summersend, and until then stay frosty.

-Winter

• Cards Against Humanity - August 8th, 9PM (Discord #zaphyr Channel)
  

Jarl of Culture Michi (Penguin Dictators) has put up the planning topic for this year's Summersend Festival, as mentioned in the article above! If you'd like to run a booth or an event, or you have a fun idea in the D&D Fantasy RP theme, please let us know at the link!

"Lynch" Banned for Hosts in Werewolf Games
Thane of Werewolf Arenado (North Gralend) announced a rule banning the use of the word "lynch" for Werewolf hosts under the Werewolf Code of Conduct. This was in response to a proposal by Neon where she noted the negative connotation of the word and the fact that other Werewolf/Mafia communities are phasing out the use of the word. Players are still allowed to use the word, but are strongly discouraged to.

Wintreath Mid-Year Awards Continue
The humongus Mid-Year Awards put together by Michi is still open for votes! Vote for Wintreans in categories as silly as "Most likely to be voted out as scum day 1 in Werewolf" and as prestigious as the Finest of the Mid-Year and Spirit of Wintreath awards, which are for people who went above and beyond and for people who encompass our values as a community, respectively. There's 17 other categories, so if you like voting, here's your chance! Voting ends on August 6th.

Werewolf Host Bidding System Proposed
Arenado also proposed a system where prospective Werewolf game hosts would bid for upcoming game slots, with the host/game being selected by the Thane of Werewolf and perhaps a committee. They believed that this system would allow a variety of hosts and game types in a fair manner, while critics argued that it would be bureaucratic, burdensome, and disadvantage hosts that tended to rewrite their game mechanics. Arenado has since proposed a hybrid sytem, and discussions are ongoing.

Guide for Werewolf Hosting System Published!
In what's been a very busy week for them, Arenado also posted a guide showing Werewolf game hosts how to use our Werewolf system, from starting a game and adding players to advancing phases to ending the game, this is a helpful guide that's a must-read for anyone wanting to host their own game in Wintreath! It may also be of interest to players in the Werewolf scene to know how this system works on the host end.

Government

• [VOTE] The Stigya Commendation Act
  

Rollspelskra - Roleplay

• Wintreath Regional Sports Performance Network Article Submission

• Wintreath World Cup II

• Wintreath Wintreath Formula 1 League

• Colony Life (Official August RP)

• The Missile War - Not Alternate Timeline

• The Second Svipish Civil War
  

Everything Else

• Word Chain

• Wintreath High School Senior Superlatives

• Reference Chain

• August 2022 Playlist - Welcome to the Tavern!

• Ask Icebergia Anything

• Do You Know Anyone Who Does Art Commissions?

• Autocorrect Game
  

Winbassadors: Wintreath’s Face to Other Communities
Ambassadors (named Winbassadors on the Discord because ambassador was already taken) represent Wintreath to other communities. This involves joining their forums and Discord, keeping track of what’s going on there, posting our dispatches and information, and contributing to our foreign dispatch, the Auora Borealis. If you’re a Citizen and would like to join the Winbassador program, contact Wintermoot on Discord!

The Dungeon Masters: Wintreath's Gaming Leaders
Dungeon Masters help organize and run gaming nights: everything from Discord games like Cards Against Humanity to video games like Jackbox and Among Us. This is a great way to help contribute to Wintreath’s community that doesn’t involve NationStates, for those Citizens who have moved on from the NS side. If you’re interested in becoming a Dungeon Master, check the linked dispatch!

Rollspelskra: Wintreath's Roleplaying Guild
Rollspelskra is where the best roleplaying in Wintreath happens, with a focus on well-organized and moderated RPs that follow good etiquette. Join by showing you know the RP fallacies and how to avoid them, then once in propose and vote on monthly official RPs or create and join other RPs created by members. Check the link to explore Rollspelskra and join in on the fun!