Invade. Defend. Resist.

Agents invade New Orleans from near and far once a year to defend our fine city from the Shaper ingression. This year, as we prepare to host our third annual XM Primary Anomaly event on November 12th, we wanted to honor both agents who have defended New Orleans on multiple occasions and those who are bringing their whole community as one big invasion. The Defender and Invader rewards were created to achieve this goal.

Defenders are those agents attending November 12th that have come to the aid of Blue Voodoo at previous anomalies and during anomaly-related activities like connected cells and global shards/artifacts. These agents are the first to answer the call when Blue Voodoo puts up the Baron beacon, and we could not appreciate them more.

Invaders are those agents that are traveling to New Orleans for this year’s anomaly and arriving with or bringing their communities in force. The best anomaly experience is when you bring your whole town with you – and having done it for other cities, we know that isn’t an easy feat to organize.

To honor both of these important types of agents in our anomaly battle, Blue Voodoo decided to create swag gifts that feature our uniqueness and play upon our local Voodoo and Creole origins. Both of the designs feature Louisiana Creole French and a snake.

Louisiana Creole French is different from most French dialects. It is a mixture of Colonial French and a variety of African languages that occurred in the 18th century; essentially Creole French is a French dialect strongly influenced by African and Native American languages. Although not quite the same, Louisiana Creole is very similar to Haitian Creole.

The snake is a very important symbol in Voodoo, representing a creator and protector. The Defender and Invader logos feature the snake in different positions, but both have a frog skull on the tail.

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The Defender design consists of a snake defensively coiled around a skeleton key protection charm with a “defend” glyph on its head and in Louisiana Creole French reads, “Defansé nan Nouvèl-Òléan,” or “Defender of New Orleans.” Our defender logo also graces the back of our Via Noir coin. Multi-year defenders were eligible to purchase special finishes of our Via Noir coin and will also each receive a free patch and sticker with the defender logo.

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The Invader design is quite a different snake – it is poised and ready to strike, wound around an “attack” glyph and in Louisiana Creole French reads, “Okipan nan Nouvèl-Òléan,” or “Invader of New Orleans.” The Invader design will not be featured on any swag sold for this event – it will be given only to the top 12 Invader communities in the form of a patch and sticker for each agent.

We hope that these initiatives are a step toward showing how much Blue Voodoo appreciates agents that attend our events and come to our aid in times of need. We are working tirelessly to make Via Noir New Orleans the best possible anomaly experience for all visiting Resistance agents. It’s not too late to register to join us on the ground November 12th. Defend NOLA. Invade NOLA. #MakeNOLABlue!

-Blue Voodoo

Via Noir Swag Shop Now Open!

New Orleans is steeped in traditions that may seem strange to the outside onlooker. She has been kissed by much history and many cultures, all of which have left identifying marks (and sometimes scars) on her face. The local Resistance have embraced those roots that are permeated by Voodoo, hence the team name “Blue Voodoo”.

Niantic has again chosen New Orleans to be a Q4 Ingress anomaly primary site. Because of this, Blue Voodoo team members have quickly snapped into action preparing to make this event not only victorious for the Resistance, but memorable and fun by putting their own unique twist on things.

This year’s logo, designed by agent NarumiFox, features a jazz funeral for a frog. Jazz funerals are a tradition uniquely New Orleans. They start with the mourners slowly making their way to the burial place with a brass band playing a slow and somber song. Once the burial is finished, the procession leaves with dance and celebration – the band picks up and the jazz music starts. Traditionally, the procession is led by the “main line” comprised of the brass band, family and friends of the deceased and funeral directors who are then followed by the group of people marching behind them or, the “second line”. Blue Voodoo’s particular  jazz funeral is led by their mascot, Baron Samedi. In voodoo, the Baron is the loa of the dead. He is known for his affinity for tobacco, rum and degenerate behavior. So, it is only fitting to have him lead the Resistance’s jazz funeral and second line for the rival Enlightened team’s frog.

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“Music here is as much a part of death as it is of life.” – Sidney Bechet, 1897-1959, New Orleans Jazzman

The Baron will be accompanied by a sidekick, Tootie Laveau. Tootie Laveau is a mischievous bird that has recently taken to nesting with her mighty hordes of tootie birds in Slack. Do keep an eye out for Tootie Laveau here and there. Outside of slack, her brethren can be found taking up residence in various New Orleans trees, making a ruckus and breeding indiscriminately.

Tootie Laveau is based off of the party parrot while real-life tootie birds are green quaker parrots and have graced New Orleans since their accidental introduction via the pet trade.

Our Swag Shop is open for purchases as of today and features a special bundle for each of our honored mascots. 

Order yours today and check out the rest of the Swag Shop for more amazing products and deals – including throwbacks from Darsana and Abaddon and our Resistance Navy coin!

This year’s Ingress anomaly is entitled “Via Noir” and takes place November 12, 2016. New Orleans is also hosting it’s second Ingress Mission Day on November 13, 2016.

Please join the local Blue Voodoo agents on the ground to make this a successful resistance win. Register here now