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"

Hundreds of Old School RuneScape players attended an impromptu gathering in an in-game town to pay tribute to one player's late son, who shares a name with an NPC.

On September 9, OSRS player and Reddit user Gr3g1n4t0r wrote: "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."

Gr3g's son, Ezekiel, or Zeke for short, was born prematurely after a "rough pregnancy" and "held on for almost 4 months until he sadly passed away."

In OSRS, Zeke is a weapon salesman in the desert town Al Kharid. Gr3g, who I've been unable to reach for comment, wanted to pay tribute to his son with a gathering in the town. He shared a time and game world (basically a server) for the tribute, inviting others to come if they were interested.

Several hundred players showed up, flowers in their hands and blue hearts over their heads (which show when you activate the prayer Redemption). The entire area was quickly covered with flowers that can be planted with special seeds, and the in-game chat was filled with messages of love and support. The event became self-sustaining, with players continuing to show up even after Gr3g had to log off.

"RIP Zeke, was nice to be able to pay my respects with everyone else tonight," Reddit user Cold-Priority-2729 wrote in a separate post.

A post from superfirereddit adds: "What a community."

After the event, Gr3g made a follow-up post. "Thank you guys for honoring our Zeke," he wrote.

"After logging in this morning and seeing the message from Zeke 'A thousand greetings to you, friend' just cut me up. Thank you to everyone who saw the post and paid their respect. It was so overwhelming seeing so many people at Zeke's shop. It was so nice to hear your stories as well. We have such an incredible community with the biggest hearts.

"Zeke will forever be in our family's heart and I can't wait to see him again."

Users who've gone through similar losses also shared their stories and commiserations in the replies to Gr3g's post.

"I'm sorry for your loss, hang in there. We'll see them again," Gr3g said to one player who'd also lost a son to "pre term labor."

10 years later, Old School RuneScape is still the best MMO I've ever played – and seeing over 200,000 people jumping on reminds me why I fell in love with it in the first place.