Hi Azure,

The Honor Council reached a conclusion on how we would be handling the situation with your creation of the Brave_Heart account a few weeks ago with the responsibility being mine to email the details and summary of the conclusion to you. The issue is one I didn't want to flippantly run through to quickly in an email without thought, and I have not had time enough to sit down and write good enough which is the cause of our delays. Our bottom line conclusion is that we would not be removing you as a player from ToH, thus I have not felt an ultra-drastic need to email you very promptly on this either. However, the matter is a large one in the effects of how your second account affects ToH and probably the hommunity as well, and thus this is no menial situation.

We do feel the issue and our conclusion needs a public explanation, with the hope that there is less underground grumbling and sinister discontent fostered (though there may likely be some anyhow with people who seem to have a propensity for grumbling underground :) ). Thus, we will be posting about this on either or all of the following: message board, mainpage of ToH, or other places in the ToH website like personal pages and possible the shame page, though the shame page seems is still in an unsure position of proper placement.

To begin, your situation on the creation of a second account at ToH is a very unique one for which the HC has needed to deal with. We delete people and boot players all the time for creating second accounts at ToH. Sometimes we intentionally leave second accounts accessible for our own humor or purpose, but most of the time we just delete them without mention of it nor confrontation with people about their accounts. It would be lots of unnecessary talk only to boot them after much wasted time. Many of these individuals are very dishonest about their behavior, lying and carrying on at length with contrived arguments as a child often does with parents in the pubescent years. Entertaining these individuals does nothing but further their practice of dishonesty and bring about contempt for their attitude on our parts; sadly.

In past circumstances the HC has been gracious with some players who have been in violation of either the rules or the spirit of the rules around which ToH is focused. Those situations have been dealt with in the form of many different types of discipline ranging from booting, suspensions, rank deductions to warnings and simple emails or nothing at all, depending on the situation and the interactions with the offending player.

In return for this mercy, we have been sorely disappointed with further dishonesty and lack of integrity which turns our stomach and hearts as we wish we would have simply removed the player and posted them in the Hall of Shame. However, there have been a cases in which grace and mercy for one's mistakes was taken with maturity and responsibility and in return produced good upstanding members of the Hommunity as well. Our expectation of what is to come in result of this issue with the Brave_Heart account, is that you will likewise be a responsible and great continuing member of the Hommunity. It is your attitude towards the game & Hommunity and honesty that lead us to respect you and expect a positive future of play from you.

After many lengthy discussions in regards to how this situation might affect ToH on many different levels: in the rankings, in Clans, on the message boards, the overall system, the integrity of the tournament, both the spirit and letter of the rules, and seriously any angle of consideration to be thought of over a course of a couple weeks; we have come to the following conclusions and rulings on this matter.

*Many would say you should be booted creating the Brave_Heart account. For though there is no stated rule that one cannot have two accounts in ToH, it is easily known that false reporting or simple double accounts are not tolerated in ToH. (The obvious reason for this is that it breaks down the ToH ranking system essentially. It could easily be argued that your second account does this in form as well.) Things will continue this run this way in ToH, and additionally any player under a similar situation to yours will not likely be dealt with in the same manner you are being treated in this situation. There is more to a situation then just the legal circumstance of an incident, and your explanations and forthrightness lead us to believe the "right" thing to do is have you as a member of ToH.

*We have players that email to have their account deleted/inactivated once in a while and we honor this when it is requested. Sometimes these players return and ask to be re-activated; sometimes they get their account back and other times it is reset. Yet other instances some players make new accounts and begin to play over. While this is not uaually allowed, there have been occasions when we have allowed a player to take a new account. Again, circumstances and interations with the person dictate the decision making on an individual basis, which is the point of having an evaluative body (Honor Council) in the first place.

*The particularly non-abusive manner in which your second account was created and used to play more games in ToH was given much thought and consideration. We have not had a situation where a player simply played games as a completely separate player on each account. Namely, second accounts that we have always been concerned with have undermined the ToH ranking system in some fashion in a much more serious manner then your account. You created the account to play legitimately with and basically exists as a different person then you AzuredragonTM on the whole in all respects.

*Of course one easy solution for the HC was to simply remove both your accounts and post you as one to be scorned on the annals of the Hall Of Shame. It would be quick and easily takes care of the situation. Not much complaint from a player would arise either beside a few... "that sucks," etc. We could hold you up for ridicule and proclaim you as a person who tried to undermine ToH by creating a second account and leave it at that. Cheaters are dealt with firmly. This does not seem to be the way of handling things honestly and with integrity on our part. For this would demonize you unfairly and maliciously for no good reason on our part. We could never justify these things in our hearts/mind as being actually true, though it is a line of reasoning that can be following with logical conclusion.

*Yes, the concern of ToH players that would feel you should be booted was considered, and initially Lichking took much worry about the amount of possible garbage talk that people could generate with all sorts of conspiracy theories, whining, jealousy for rank and wanting to have you removed for the deeper unspoken or personally acknowledged desire to not want you around as competition, and removal of wood from the eyes of the HC. These types of folks my raise their heads/cry, though after our discussions we feel justice is best served in honoring your integrity and apparent sincerity about the matter of the Brave_Heart account.

*Your idea of stepping aside from the account and instant offer to cease playing it, and your concern for the Clan and players under Brave_Heart's leadership was considered. It was a decent proposal and would have handled the matter without any upheaval. However, we feel it is best to handle the account in more the same manner we have some request to discontinue an account or situations where accounts were combined. We did consider combining your two records of play, and argument for that outcome could still be made, and we would be willing to reconsider the option as well. We are in the position of having to try to exact judgment for the population of ToH and in reality it would be nice to take a poll between allowing you to have the AzuredragonTM account or the Azure/Brave_Heart account combined.

*We considered your responses might simply be "talk" or smart answers in hopes of eluding being booted. We concluded that we believe you were sincere in your explanations (so you definitely deceived us if you were dishonest in your explanations; to your glee or true shame).

*The idea that players would take this situation or our decision as license to create mulitple accounts makes us shudder. We highly considered the ideas that players would erroneously think they could create experimental or separate accounts without being booted for such a thing.

*The real matter that is unjust to ToH players is that their ability to ascertain what a powerful player you actually could be (as Brave_Heart) in taking up a game with you was heavily considered. This is the main point of dishonesty in creating the account to be considered. This condition of you being a Veteran player looking like a noobie was a very short-lived situation as you quickly took rank in playing veteran players as Brave_Heart, and therefore we consider this a fairly minimal aspect of the situation. It is unjust to a degree, for a newbie simply has no chance of beating you and had they known your record as AzuredragonTM they would not like to have played you. Indeed this is true of the Veterans that might have sought to actually take advantage of playing a formidable newcomer "Brave_Heart," for some nice points to their rank too, but in actuality they are on a much more even playing field then they understand. It is unjust from both avenues at that juncture. In our conclusion we still feel the intent was not so malicious here as it was a desire to play more games with competitive players. We feel our decision reflects this as best as possible, though taking up either side of the problem with a more narrow viewpoint can leave us still feeling the sense of inadequacy of proper decision.

In the end the Honor Council each independently then summarily found that you are a person of integrity, your intentions were not malicious to try to gain unfair advantage over other players, you have always been honorable in your games under either name, you love the game and ToH competition, you made a mistake in creating a second account with which to either experiment or play less serious games with or possible just be able to even play on certain days, we all make mistakes, there is a time for understanding and there is a time for strong discipline and it is hoped that we apply correct actions at those times appropriately. We ultimately find that in seriously considering removing you that our own personal integrity would be in jeopardy and we would be unjust in such a conclusion. LichKing first stated to me in an email and I had actually been thinking the EXACT same personally without stating it in prior email, that we would rather take any ridicule that might be ascribed to us and be removed from ToH each personally if we are seen as being incompetent in our decisions then to remove you as a player. With all this being said, we do feel that our concluding decisions will be as just as possible and that many negative factors to our decision will affect you disciplinarily as well.

Our final decision is the following (and hopefully this is simple to be easily understood):

1) AzuredragonTM will continue be a viable player in ToH, and your ranking will not be changed. Every game you have played has been honest and viable in our opinion and there is no valid reason to remove a single point from these games that we know of.

2) Great personal loss to you will be assigned in that we will be deleting the Brave_Heart account record. We know you spent many hours building this name and playing fair an legitimate games, however this penalty is being established because the account is generally deceptive to those with which game were taken up. Hopefully the playing experiences you had is enough from the use of the account.

It is a sad thing that people would actually deny playing you based on your record. It says something very negative about a person who would not want to play you if they consider themselves a player of competitive ability. (We do allow point huggers the right to be true point huggers though. It is too bad if they are unwilling to admit to themselves this is the underlying principle of them not wanting to play, but we all have different levels of maturity to go through. Ego damage is something not easily dealt with at any level of maturity quite possibly, so we hold no grudge against point huggers really - except when the deny us a game and we have high hopes of some nice ranking points:) )

3) The Clan that you ran as Brave_Heart will be allowed to continue if one of the members of the clan would choose to elect one of themselves as leader if they are qualified or fall under the leadership of another ToH member.

4) Past games that you played as Brave_Heart will not be removed or changed. Brave_Heart will forfeit any games under current play, whether clan or individual or specialized tournament.

5) Your Honor rating will be penalized to the ranking of "Average."

6) And obviously from our previous decisions we are not honoring your request be allowed to retire Brave_Heart into history as a soon as you achieve a rank of Emperor with him. However, this still seems a legitimate option, though we have chosen differently because we cannot allow this kind of claim for others in the future because of the abuse that would ensue. The Brave_Heart account will remain on record with the list of games played, but all rankings set to zero as when an account is first made.

AzuredragonTM, we understand that our decisions may not sit right with you or other ToH players in their entirety and varying areas. There is such a wide variety of opinion and this situation is multifaceted in its ramifications, that we conclude this an actual impossibility. However, as the selected and operating body for the HC we have made our decisions with the best use of our minds and understanding of the rules of ToH and the principle's under which ToH desires to bring a playing environment of competition, camaraderie, and good times to the people that like to play HoMM, we have made our decisions and this is the end of this matter in finality.

Our Hommunity is characteristically made up of decent individuals with a higher maturity level then the average population of internet users/gamers of their respective ages. It is this generalized higher ability to reason, consider others, and understand various points of view that we have high hopes that people who hear of this matter will be able to handle it maturely and that it will not cause harm to the hommunity.

We wish you the best of times in your future games, and cannot fathom the possible outcomes of all aspects of this situation that may affect you personally and ToH as a whole. Hopefully we are all better people through it all as we move on in our gaming and lives.

Best regards,

-dEth8 on behalf of the Honor Council

**p.s. Please let me know if you will be informing your Clan or if I should email them of the circumstances of this email.

**Jinxer, please remove remove Brave_Heart from the Clans boards to reflect the removal of AzuredragonTM's account of Brave_Heart as specified in this email. Thanks, and please email if you have any questions about special situations that might arise from this.

**Vesuvius, please remove Brave_Heart from any subtournaments that he is presently envolved in and forfeit any games that were set to be played there in the future.