When I think about what I would be if I was a character in Dragonlance, I would like to think that I was a Knight of Solamnia, virtuous and true with a sense of honor. I would like to think that maybe I’ve got the heart of a kender with childlike wonder. Or maybe I would be a strong and honorable minotaur.

The truth, though, is that I would probably be a tinker gnome, obsessed in building the Nexus and, in true tinker gnome fashion, making it more complicated that it has to be. In short, the Nexus is my Life Quest.

Recent Progress

A short while back, we had a fund drive to help us move to a new host. I’ve been fairly busy in the last few months with my youngest son graduating high school and earning his Eagle Scout rank. So it wasn’t until recently that I found myself with the time to work on the site the way I wanted.

The old host had become problematic and wasn’t offering the technical support I was looking for. I was faced with having to move the site from an old outdated server of theirs to a new server. I opted instead to move the Nexus to a different hosting service with a good reputation.

I am happy to report that the Dragonlance Nexus (including the Adlatum, Taladas, and podcast sub-sites) have all been moved over to the new hosting. I can say that their platform is much better as is their customer service. I can also say that the site now has an SSL certificate, meaning it is secure.

Thank you to everyone who contributed.

Plans for Moving The Rest of the Old Site

While we have made great strides in moving content over from the old site, there is still much to be done, most notably with products and gaming rules.

We decided that in order to save time, we weren’t going to be moving everything over. In fact, we wanted to raise the bar a bit. No longer will the Dragonlance Nexus be a repository for everyone to post their Dragonlance content, good or bad.

There’s going to be some criteria:

• The Dragonlance Nexus will showcase the best of Dragonlance and its fans. Yes, we want your art and game rules, but we want it to be of a certain quality.
• Content moved over from the old site will need to meet those quality standards.
• Content will serve to enhance the Dragonlance experience. For example, we will not take everyone’s alternate Wizard of High Sorcery or Knight of Solamnia classes. That’s already covered in the sourcebooks. We are interested in seeing original content or conversions to more modern game systems.
• We may not have open submissions year-round. Instead, we may have open submission periods, possibly being focused in one area or another. We’re still working out the details on this one.

All in all, I think it’s going well.

Special Thanks

I wanted to give a few shout-outs to some folks who have been helping me with this project.

First and foremost is my oldest son, Travis Whiteman. He was instrumental in the move and helped me to work out a few bugs I had along the way. Travis is super-smart and I couldn’t be any more proud of him.

I also wanted to say thank you to the Whitestone Council for all their support. Most notably, I wanted to thank Ed Mekeel and Charles Martinell for their insight and support.

I should also thank my friends Gary Phillips and Keith Williams for their help in user testing.

Finally, I wanted to thank all of you for your continued support. This site wouldn’t be where it is without your help.

All For Now

It’s been a long road, but the Nexus remains alive and kicking 18 years after its inception. I’m very proud of where we’ve been and where we’re heading to.

So with that, I bid you goodnight.

Long Live the Lance!

-Trampas “Dragonhelm” Whiteman