Hundreds of MMO players show up to support a father mourning his infant son, who shares a name with an NPC in Old School RuneScape: “We have such an incredible community with the biggest hearts”

Scores of Old School RuneScape adventurers converged on a spontaneous vigil inside a virtual village to honor a fellow player’s departed infant, whose name matches that of a local shopkeeper.

On 9 September, OSRS enthusiast and Redditor Gr3g1n4t0r penned: “A full year has slipped by since my little boy, Zeke, left us. Dropping by to greet him in Al Kharid still brings comfort.”

Gr3g’s child, Ezekiel—Zeke for short—arrived too early following a “turbulent pregnancy” and “clung to life for nearly four months before he slipped away.”

Inside OSRS, Zeke is the arms dealer stationed in the desert hub of Al Kharid. Gr3g—whom I haven’t managed to contact—planned an in-game memorial and posted the hour plus game world (effectively a server) where mourners could assemble.

Hundreds arrived clutching blossoms and sporting sapphire auras overhead (the mark of the Redemption prayer). The plaza soon carpeted itself with petals grown from special seed packets, while chat channels overflowed with compassion. The vigil snowballed; newcomers kept flowing in long after Gr3g had to disconnect.

It has been a year since my son, Zeke, has passed away. It’s nice to visit him and say hi to him in Al Kharid from r/2007scape

“Rest easy, Zeke. It felt good to stand alongside everyone tonight,” Redditor Cold-Priority-2729 observed in another thread.

A note from superfirereddit sums it up: “What a fellowship.”

When the ceremony ended, Gr3g returned with a thank-you message. “Thank you all for celebrating our Zeke,” he wrote.

“Logging in this morning and seeing Zeke greet me with ‘A thousand greetings to you, friend’ tore me apart. Thanks to each of you who saw the invite and stopped by. Watching that crowd pack Zeke’s stall was overwhelming; hearing your own tales meant the world. We’re part of a phenomenal community packed with giant hearts.

“Zeke will always live inside our family, and I look forward to the day we meet again.”

Others who’ve walked the same painful road added their condolences beneath Gr3g’s thread.

“I’m so sorry for your pain; stay strong. We’ll reunite with them one day,” Gr3g replied to a gamer who’d likewise lost a child to “pre-term labor.”

A decade on, Old School RuneScape remains the finest MMO I’ve ever touched—watching 200,000 players pile in reminds me why I fell for it at the start.

Austin has spent 12 years covering games, freelancing for outlets like PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, and Sports Illustrated while wrapping up his journalism degree. He joined GamesRadar+ in 2019. The editors still haven’t twigged that his real mission is a lifelong Destiny column, a hustle he keeps alive with daily news hits and the odd feature between relentless roguelike runs.