Invitation for The Liberty Gala 2021

[The Liberty Gala]

Greetings all!

I am pleased to announce the opening of The Liberty Gala: A Soirée in Celebration of Regional Sovereignty. The Liberty Gala is a social event to celebrate defenders and defending, focused on promoting the principles of regional sovereignty and self-determination. Foundationally, it's also a chance for all nations to come together, socialize, and have fun, recognizing the fundamental connection that positive community has to defending and its values.

As part of the Gala, we will have a variety of game events hosted via Discord, a card collection contest, a series of Defender Games, DefenderVision, a panel of significant individuals in defender history and one on the role of Declarations in the Security Council, an updating of the Defender Family Tree and more! The Liberty Gala will be hosted in the run up to the annual Defender Awards.

The Discord Invite can be found here
The Main Event Schedule can be found here

More event information will become available throughout the event.

We're looking forward to having everyone, meeting new friends, and celebrating the cause of regional sovereignty! Everyone is welcome!

Signed,
The Liberty Gala Organizers

HumanSanity
Grea Kriopia
Benevolent Thomas
Emodea
Wischland
Aschente
Nakarisaune
A Leaf on the Wind
Kingdom of Circle of Magi
The Glorious Hypetrain

And thank you to Aumeltopia for graphics!

[Tinhampton]

The Liberty Gala will be hosted in the run up to the annual Defender Awards.

I take it TLG's going to become an annual thing pretty soon

[Lord Dominator]

The Liberty Gala will be hosted in the run up to the annual Defender Awards.

I take it TLG's going to become an annual thing pretty soon

Two consecutive years of operation is usually a pretty good suggestion that something is intended to be annual, yes.

[HumanSanity]

The Liberty Gala will be hosted in the run up to the annual Defender Awards.

I take it TLG's going to become an annual thing pretty soon

It's certainly more annual than RaiderCon at this point.

[The Liberty Gala]

Our sincerest thanks to everyone for attending this year's iteration of The Liberty Gala. Almost 200 individuals attended this year's The Liberty Gala by participating in the Discord server in over a dozen different game events, a card collection competition, a set of Defender Games, submitting characters for the Character Contest, DefenderVision, and so much more! It was a delight to have such a broad array of regions and individuals participating at this year's event, coming together in commemoration and celebration of the common cause of regional self-determination.

This year's festival had a variety of highlights, and I wanted to give a run through of some of what we did:

• Aschente hosted .io games each day of The Liberty Gala, with the name of the channel being changes to celebrate the winner of each day of games. Congratulations to Sylh Alanor (x3), Purple Hyacinth (x2), and Valentian Elysium on their victories. Asche also hosted several rounds of Gartic Phone and scribbl.io. One night, Grea Kriopia and HumanSanity also hosted impromptu geoguessr.
• We hosted a panel on Defender History organized by Moon and a discussion section regarding our Panel on Declarations hosted by HumanSanity. Additionally, Grea Kriopia has updated the Defender Family Tree after receiving more submissions for this year.
• As part of our Conga Line event, we visited the Discord servers of five different defender regions (10000 Islands, The South Pacific, The Union of Democratic States, The Rejected Realms, and The Order of the Grey Wardens) as well as the RMB of The League and paid a visit to the weekly tradition of Texas Chat at High Noon on Saturday 10/23. Different regions also hosted different events to welcome the Conga Line visitors and show off the diversity of defender experiences and traditions.
• Gala Goers submitted card collections with the goal of representing the greatest diversity of regions and organizations from the defender tradition. After reviewing this, ROM claimed their second consecutive title for card collecting in The Liberty Gala with a collection representing 42 different regions this year. You can view ROM's collection here.
• We hosted RMB polls to identify defender superlatives. For "weirdest place to have updated from", congratulations to Nakarisaune's entry of "Roavin's Grandma's Kitchen" narrowly beating out Drop Your Pants's iconic entry for a toilet in Thailand. For "Best Security Council Resolution of 2021", congratulations to Emodea and Grea Kriopia's Commend Pope Hope, which emerged victorious after substantial debate over the merits of different resolutions from the year.
• The tug of war channel managed to go negative, working off a several hundred point deficit from last year's event.
• The Defender Games coordinated by the excellent Wischland featured two divided teams competing against each other in a series of events including spotting, chasing, and liberation tactics. In the event, Team Literally and Figuratively Godgaming defeated Team Soulenia with particularly strong showings in the liberation and some of the spotting events. Congratulations to Team LaFG!
• Finally, last but not least was DefenderVision. DefenderVision ended up drawing a total of eleven quality entries with voting representatives also visiting the event from eighteen different regions. Congratuations to our winners, particularly the ultimate victor (and crowd favorite!) We Didn't Break the Server by Ikania!

Just like last year, The Liberty Gala will be followed up by The Defender Awards, hosted this year by The Glorious Hypetrain. Be sure to check that out when the nominations threads go live! Additionally, now that submissions have been received, Nakarisaune and Kingdom of Circle of Magi will be creating artwork for some of the characters submitted as part of the Character Contest in the coming weeks. Stay tuned here to get to see the final products!

Thanks to everyone for attending and supporting The Liberty Gala! We look forward to seeing people back next year.

Sincerely,
The Liberty Gala Organizers

[Unibot III]

Not sure if I’m understanding the tree project correctly, but Kogvuron pursued this idea a long time ago and filled in a lot of the details:

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/udl/the ... -s100.html

For instance, Wordy was trained by GRO who was trained by Grub.

Pretty sure I trained Kazmr when I knew him as UG.

[Drop Your Pants]

Pretty sure I trained Kazmr when I knew him as UG.

After seeing your training first hand, I'm amazed he knew what update was

[Budgie Snugglers]

It's been a few weeks, and most have emerged from the Liberty Gala successfully. But something seems to be missing - or someones. More people went in than out, perhaps.

But finally - in the Liberty Gala ballroom, where everything has been packed away for next year, there is movement. The tapestry portraying the defender family tree shakes, and then the whole wall swings out revealing an artist's studio. Nakari and Merlin emerge streaked with paint, along with two characters who have been sitting for weeks to be painted. Now it is time for their portraits to be revealed and handed over to the nations of the sitters, for whatever purpose they choose.

Merlin created a gorggeous portrait of Gorrg Marnsen, of Baumtendo (Sanesauceland): "I chose to draw Marnsen because I found the idea of a gas mask molding into your skin and becoming a living part of you interesting and because I don't usually draw stuff resembling early 20th century military gear."

Full size: https://imgur.com/MqQkoQp.png

"Oh well Oh well.
Here we are in my introduction as a character. Yes! You ears arent joking.
I am introducing myself for you. So listen and show me some respect.
My name is Gorrg Marnsen, general of the third order of my nation so called Ardartus. I am the leader of that FFFFFFFUUUC army.

So first let us speak about my personality and behavior STUUUP!
I would say myself I am a really great and awesome person, always having the correct opinion PRRRIIC...
My personality doesnt has flaw... EY! HEY! GIVE ME THAT BACK YOU ASS! WAIT... N---

Finally, I got the pen back. Sorry about that person reading this.
Gorrgs personality is really easy to describe. He always thinks he is right and has the best decisions. Nice he isnt at all. Only when you do what he says and always agree with him, then he maybe gives you even a handshake. He is really stubborn and when he says something... Oh dear lord... he wont let go of his words.
Overall there isnt much to his personality than ignorance and egoism.
Tho his behavior is really interesting. Due to some problems and mentality he seems like not always the same. His personality is always the same but not his behavior.

As you already noticed, he sometimes has small „outrages“ where he just randomly says stuff and twitches – he mostly uses swears.
He tends to freak out and doesnt has the biggest temper. He can control it for a certain part. But not always. I once saw how his mask just opened like a mouth of a predator and his eyes turning white. Since his accident he isnt the same anymore. Back then in 1945 he where a normal soldier, fighting for his nation. Then it happened. The enemies went to attack with flamethrowers burning all his comrades. He ofcourse decided to charge into one by himself, but that were the wrong choice. The flamesoldier immeaditly turned around and burned him to death... They thought so.
But Gorrg wasnt dead. No! He survived. Even back then his will was strong and full of power and strenght. As he stood up and turned around, the mask were still on. It survived the flames... but he couldnt get it off.
It melted onto his head. Now it is a part of him. A gas mask melted onto his head. Ofcourse over the years we tried several treatments but nothing worked. After trying out the new medicine we got to make the mask grow out and fall off, it failed... or were it a success? That medicine didnt helped with the problem, but it made his lifetime 10 times longer.

We reached 2069 now. And over the years the treatments we tried all made it worse. Since the fail of the Xray laser to burn it off, his body just changed. His mask became a part of him. Sometimes you can hear him scream in agony mid night. It sounds like a man and a Raven both screaming like they are getting crushed.
A horrible sound.
His wife already died with the age of 56 of a heart attack. Gorrg ofcourse werent able to help her mentaly through the time. All that screaming and him being insane made it just worse for the family. The accident happened when his age was 23. He were still really young for war but his father, Elmarius Marnsen, the head chef, didnt cared. He just told him: „Son. As long as you can move, you can fight. Only when you die in war, you did all for your nation!“
Over the time his service as a soldier went to be boring for him. He started charging in without care, murdering thousands of men. His movements were quick and his way of killing were always different. He used what he got. It were like bullets couldnt hit him or didnt had any impact on him atleast.
The more wars he took part in the more popular he got. His name was „The Howling Raven of the trenches“
After his 13th war he became the general of the nations whole army. Tho his father died before he could see how his son grew and became important.
Thats all about him basically. He doesnt have any childs and his mentality reached the start of insanity now.

Now to his look. I dont know why, but he still has his old soldier clothes on from his first war. It is almost if he is still stuck in this war with his mind. He sometimes behaves a bit offroad and looks concerned.
On his bald head he wears an admirals hat and ofcourse the to his face melted gas mask. One of the glasses to look through broke, so you can see his bloody eye looking throuhg. Additional to his long ww2 clothes he wears big black boots and a shoulder pad in red and gold to show his position in the army. Sometimes he wears a cape, but he always steps on it and falls over. So he stopped wearing it. There isnt really much to his look either. His face? I never saw that. I dont even think a face is beneath there left.
What? What do you want to write?

GIVE ME THAT PEN!
I WANT TO WRITE ABOUT MYSELF!
ME ME ME!

Fiiiine. Here ya go.

SO! As ya already heard, I am mentaly not okay and I will ofcourse be the best CHARACTER OF ALLL HAHAAAAAHAAA...

Enough writing you little egoist.
That is all about him. I hope you enjoy him.

Nakari painted Marina Lagunova of Leouschburgh: "Marina Lagunova seemed like a character with a lot of hidden depths, and her personality sounded fun to depict. Also, I thought the idea of an official portrait with vintage vibes would be a really fun challenge!"

Full size: https://imgur.com/oRNJxb1.png

"I submit the first president of Leouschburgh, Marina Lagunova (1901-1976) Chairwoman of the Communist Party of Leouschburgh. A hot-headed and extremely stubborn woman who tried to look calm and collected whenever she appeared in public. She was an older woman, in her 50s (at the time she had an official portrait), and had a fairly thin figure. She would always wear an ornate, white military dress uniform with two rows of golden buttons, and a high-collar. It was adorned with golden epaulettes, aiguillettes, a sash of the Leouschburghian flag, and a myriad of medals (Thirty three ribbon bars, four golden stars [See Yugoslav Order of Brotherhood and Unity golden star for reference]). She also wore white breeches with red bars on the side (See East German general's Stiefelhose for reference). She had a fairly long, bony face, with some wrinkles, a long, thin nose and deep blue eyes, along with thin eyebrows. She had a stereotypical 1950s hairstyle and her hair was fairly long, ending at the start of her neck. It was a hazel colour, but some silver hairs were starting to show. She was egotistical, and viewed most people around her as inferior. Most of the time, she was in her ornate office with many golden details, large windows, and mahogany furniture, along with a large bookshelf, small chairs, and a traditional Leouschburghian carpet."