by Shannon W. Hennessy ( Editorials)
I wanted to take a few minutes and talk to you, the readers for a little bit. It's not something I normally get to do outside of the forums, and in there I try my best to stay on topic and do not a whole lot more other than answer the questions that are asked and respond to the comments at hand. This is a little bit different. In a way, its very much "off-topic," but at the same time its very much relevant.
If you've been paying attention for the past few months, you've seen a whole lot of changes at Ex Libris Nocturnis on a personnel level. In many ways, its been a changing of the guard. In some ways, its been a step ahead to a "back to basics" approach to what we do here at ELN. I guess that is really what needs to be addressed first; what do we do here at ELN? When Chris (Shadowmancer) and I first began talking about forming a World of Darkness e-zine, we had no idea what we were getting into or what we could create. Essentially, we've both grown up on the games and the specialized mythology offered by White Wolf Games Studios and we've been with the company enjoying their products since roughly about day one of Vampire: The Masquerade 1st Edition. Somewhere around ten years or so. What started out as a neat, expressionist hobby of Chris, Kat and myself turned into something wonderful in a very short period of time. It stopped being a hobby and became a part of our lives. It grew from a simplistic fan site into our homage to White Wolf and our gift to those out there in the cyberverse who share our passion for the games we play and a zeal for sharing ideas.
We've come a long way since our cheesy, first incarnation. Chris has changed the programming of the site at least a dozen times since we started, Kat's artwork on the covers is more and more impressive every month without fail, and I'd like to think that my writing and editing skills have been, in a sense, honed. We all, essentially, cut our teeth on ELN and have gotten a taste of what it is to do something important for something that is important to us. More importantly, something that is important to you, the readers.
Recently, we've lost several staff members for various reasons. Some have left us on good and friendly terms, and some have not. Some have simply had to make a choice between their "real life" and the work they contribute to the magazine, while others simply became burned out on the demands that ELN puts on one's time and life. I'm here to tell you, those demands can be migraine making at times. While we never enjoy watching someone we've grown close to and invited into our home walk out the door taking their coat and hat with them for the last time, sometimes– as we've certainly learned over the past week or so –its something that happens very much for the best.
So here we are now, essentially a skeleton crew. ELN seems to be alive now, as if some sort of Chimera who can, essentially, run herself and remain self-sustaining with a minimal amount of attention. There's a sense of calm after the storm here in the "offices" of ELN, and in many ways Chris and I are ready for positive change in the wake of what we consider a lot of negativity over the past few months here behind the curtain.
"Negativity!" you say. "I haven't seen or heard of any negativity! The hell you say!"
That's right. And that's the way we like to keep it. See, ELN stopped being about Chris, Kat, myself or any other staff member a long, long time ago. I can't put an exact date on the transition, but somewhere along the way it became a labor of love whose primary mission was to be here for you, the readership. You are why we do this, and you are why we continue to do this even in the midst of a tempest, even in the crucible of change, even in the worst of times, and especially in the best of times.
Since we began the current incarnation of ELN almost two years ago, close to half a dozen contributors and staff members have received contracts for freelance work from White Wolf. Games like Hunter: The Reckoning, Werewolf: The Apocalypse and Vampire: The Masquerade have and will continue to boast the names of writers who have been involved in some manner or another with ELN. We are consistently listed under RPG.net's Top 25 Horror Sites, never falling below number five month after month. We have received countless awards such as the Alexis Award from Ventrue.com– awards from our peers –for being one of the best there is at what we do. Our counter, God bless its little heart, flips out every month at the last week of the month due to overload. We take over 100,000 hits a month on a month-to-month basis. Our discussion forums have been heralded as some of the most intelligent and interesting sites for World of Darkness discussion bar none by peers, readers and even White Wolf staff. And who's responsible for all this?
That's simple; you are.
You raise the bar. You set the standard. You have expectations that you want met on a bi-monthly basis and we comply and maintain the quality of material issue to issue. We get the best, original fan fiction and fan generated resources there are on the World Wide Web from you. If Chris, Kat and I are the heart of Ex Libris Nocturnis, you are the blood that pulses through its veins and keeps it vibrant and alive. Quite simply, if it weren't for you, we wouldn't be here.
Things are changing at ELN. Some of the changes are uncomfortable, some of them are frustrating, and some of them are downright infuriating. Every one of the changes being made here, however, is for the betterment of Ex Libris Nocturnis and the product that we offer you on a bi-monthly basis.
We're not in any way celebrities. We're gamer geeks, just like you. Not a day goes when I'm hanging out with Chris or he with me that either Kat or Anne don't roll their eyes at us when we start talking about something that sparks an idea in our heads in regards to the World of Darkness. We're people. Being people, we're prone to the same trappings and mistakes that all people are prone too. We get tired, we get angry, we get depressed, and we get worried. That's part of being a person. We're not running some booster club for moral consciousness, nor have we formed some inner-circle clique of caul-wearing freaks who believe that we're in some way better than any one of you. We're just people. We're people who do this and take care of this for other people just like us in an effort to form some sort of community between us all. We might come off sounding short in a forum response or we might review a book that we hate and you love. Our ideas will clash from time to time where our interpretations of our shared passion are concerned, but honestly' isn't that a little more interesting than agreeing with one another all the time? I sure as heck think so.
My point to all of this is that there are a lot of positive changes going down right now for ELN. The look, the feel, and the getting back to where we started attitude that Chris and I share right now. You may hear a bit of cursing or gnashing of teeth coming from hither and yon in regards to these changes. You may hear rumors of war in regards to those who resent us for what we've built and what we've done for their own petty reasons. We, on the other hand, are going to do our best to ignore all that and all of them and we hope you will too.We hope that you'll focus on helping us keep ELN moving ever upward in the 21st Century. We want your ideas, we want your submissions, we want your critiques, we need your input. We can offer you some of the most profound exposure to fans of the World of Darkness Storyteller Systems on the net coupled with a cool place for you to hang out with like-minded people. In the end, that's what it has always been about, and that's all it ever should be.
Bear with us through these changes.Be there for us during these changes. Be a part of these changes. It's all for you.
In the coming months, you're going to see a complete change to the interface of ELN that has been a long time coming. You're going to meet new people who want to share their ideas with you and you're going to get to see a few absent friends return home, where they belong, to pick up where they left off. We're going to give you the timeliest book reviews of White Wolf products that we can possibly offer and you're going to, hopefully, keep coming back for the resources, articles and fiction issue after issue.
That's about all I have to say. This is one of those times where I actually wonder whether I've said enough or rambled on for too long. Hopefully, you'll understand what I'm trying to say, and if not, to sum it all up in three words; we appreciate you.
Thanks for listening. Be seeing you.
Shannon W. Hennessy
Editor in Chief, Ex Libris Nocturnis
Spiraldancer99@hotmail.com
