September 2020 Updates

tarcanusfrostbourne:

Just a quick update here from the studios!

I cannot believe that summer is over already. I hope that all of you are staying safe out there.

I managed to avoid COVID during my one work trip this year (all of my in-person work stuff got smashed into one six-week trip this summer so that the rest of the year we can all work remotely and limit our exposures to the public and potentially crowded spaces). I have never seen airports as empty as they were in August. Hopefully, that means most people are staying home and avoiding travel as much as humanly possible.

Anyways, now that my one work trip for the year is completed, we have once again resumed planning for the future in terms of new online content, podcasts, videos, collaborations, ect. A couple things are changing from our original blueprint, but for the most part, we are on course for a successful online launch or relaunch of our projects.

Old (and New) Podcasts

Solo Political Commentary

I will be launching my own personal political commentary podcast in the coming months. The name of the show is still yet to be determined but more information will be available shortly.

LFRP Podcast

Dravvie and I will be resuming production of the LFRP Podcast in the coming months. We will most likely be changing our release schedule to one episode every two weeks and paring down the episode length from previous iterations of the show. This will allow us to create content about World of Warcraft and other role play activities without canvassing too many issues in each episode.

Group Political Commentary

Andrew (Kravoc, Thunk the Peon), @videosphere12 and myself will also be producing a weekly podcast delivering political satire and commentary about the state of the world today.

The Ream Machine

J.D. Nielsen ( @victim-16121 ) and I will be hosting a comedic and satirical podcast about anything and everything that is on our minds, including the people, places and things that we feel need to be reamed appropriately in the universe.

Twitch Streaming and YouTube

I have decided to branch out from just World of Warcraft and will be playing other role play games on stream including FiveM (GTA V Online), Red Redemption role play servers, FFXIV and other group games like Among Us, ect.

I will also be streaming more building games such as No Man’s Sky, Minecraft, ect.

Warcraft Role Play

Due to the number of activities mentioned above, I have also decided that the best thing for my characters, role play, creative writing and content creation is to move Tarcanus over the Moon Guard and join First Light guild until they expand and establish themselves on Wyrmrest Accord as well in Shadowlands. This will allow me to focus on role play and content creation while still enjoying being in a great community.

I’m sure that most of you reading this are familiar with First Light, but for those of you who may not have heard of them, they are one of the few role play guilds who have ever successfully raided top tier content on both Horde and Alliance side of the game while also providing PvP and role play stories and opportunities for all of their guild members. I’ve known Larrendias and Dree for many years now and they are awesome people. They even have real-life meetups and events and are a staple at Blizzcon every year as well.

Catching Up

While Dravvie has been in-game and keeping up to date with everything coming up in Shadowlands, I have a TON of catching up to do in terms of lore, leveling, IC, OOC, addon information, ect. before December. Thus, it is going to be a busy few months.

Thanks to all of you who have stuck around waiting for LFRP and the YouTube stuff to return! We love you all!

Returning with a Passion (OOC)

tarcanus:

Greetings my dear friends,

Alas, my new computer has been delayed yet again. This shortage of computer parts has really gotten out of hand. Hopefully, within two weeks, all shall be set up and ready to go. When it is, I will return to role play, gaming, Wyrmrest Accord, guild leadership, YouTube, podcasting and Twitch.tv streaming.

Much more important than my own personal news, however, are the current issues that plague the real world that we live in (even as they intersect our virtual spaces as well).

Police violence, sexual harassment and assault within the World of Warcraft community and gaming community leaders using their power and influence to prey on people for things ranging from compromising photographs to sexual favors and beyond are three issues which have really struck a cord with me recently. While many of these situations occurred in larger, more public spaces (such as high-level raiding guilds, major streaming events and Warcraft podcasts with millions of listeners), it is important to recognize that these things also occur everywhere on a daily basis, including in our small role play communities here on Tumblr, in-game, and now on new platforms such as Discord.

As unfortunate as it is, there are people among us who have used their power and influence as police officers to alter stories, meta game, garner favor with other role players and attempt to stalk people in real life. Many guild leaders have attempted to (or succeeded in) using their characters as sexual vehicles for their own personal pleasure or fantasy. Both men and women in our community have done this. Some have even attempted to solicit real life relationships from these interactions with people who are three or even four decades younger than they were at the time of the interaction.

As community members, guild leaders, content creators and creative writers, sometimes we must remind ourselves that it is all of our duties to continuously reinforce and define the line between right and wrong.

Yes, I realize that our role play community does not have the same level of clout or recognition or “fame” as sponsored raiding or PvP players/organizations, but it is still important to do what is right no matter how large or important we may seem to the rest of the world or corporate sponsors or even Blizzard themselves.

In the five years since I last posted any type of content, the world has changed. Now more than ever we need people to stand up and fight for what is right. I will not stay silent and allow people to behave in this manner, whether I witness it firsthand or hear about it from other people.

No more sitting on the sidelines.

So Long But Not Goodbye

Dear friends and family,

Over the past few years, as I have thought about what I would like to produce for new content both on YouTube and on various podcasts, I have always tried to think of things that would inspire, educate and entertain viewers and listeners.

However, as I have seen what has become of the world around me, I can no longer sit back with blinders on and pretend that I could in good faith go back to producing something like the LFRP Podcast and ignore the pain and suffering occurring on a daily basis.

To be clear, the most recent events surrounding George Floyd are only just one example of what is wrong with the world today. There have been pervasive problems with economic, social, racial, gender and numerous other injustices everywhere for a long time.

For me to sit back and play games and put on a happy face for the camera or microphone would be disingenuous and, quite frankly, cowardly. That’s not how I feel. That’s not what I believe is right. That’s not what am passionate about anymore.

Therefore, any plans to bring back the LFRP Podcast have been cancelled. I will be creating new podcasts promoting Populist Left Progressive ideas from the perspective of people of color and gaming podcasts that educate, support and uplift gamers of color.

I realize that this is a significant and sharp departure from what all of you are accustomed to seeing, hearing and reading from me. I may lose followers and friends now and in the future. However, what type of person would I be if I ignored what is right to try to popular?

More importantly, what type of followers and friends would they be if they only followed me because they want certain types of “easy, non-controversial, comfortable happy” content. These ARE uncomfortable topics and they SHOULD make you uncomfortable.

With that said, thank you to everyone here who has been brave enough to post their thoughts and feelings about the world, politics, race, gender, gender identity, sexuality, and more over the past few years. It has inspired and emboldened me to do the same. <3 Tarc

Running of the Gnomes Year 10, Oct 12th!!

dravvie:

dravvie:

The “Small” run will be held once again on October 12th, on Scarlet Crusade US at 7pm EST (That’s 4pm PST, 11pm GMT, 8am KST respectively.)

7pm is race start time, so show up early, get a guild invite to one of our many guilds, hang out with community for a good cause, and meet your fellow Gnomies! Be sure to bring your S.E.L.F.I.E camera!

Running of the Gnomes will benefit The Pink Fund, a group committed to providing financial support to help meet basic needs, decrease stress levels and allow breast cancer patients in active treatment focus on healing while improving survivorship outcomes. 

This includes vital things like housing, utilities, transportation and even help with insurance. You can find more information on their site or their annual report.

Here is the donation link for The Pink Fund! Our starting goal is $5,000 but we hope to at least double it! 

What is this? Is it just the in game micro-holiday?

The Running of the Gnomes is an event where the whole of the Warcraft community gathers on one singular server, Scarlet Crusade, and travels from the Gnome starting zone to Booty Bay to help raise awareness and funds for Breast Cancer.

The yearly migration was so popular with players and the community that Blizzard honored the event with a Micro-Holiday called the Great Gnomeregan Race that occurs yearly on the same date worldwide. The micro holiday provides players with a race course and NPCs to cheer them on.

While the Micro-Holiday occurs everywhere, the community and gathering of players is still held on only on Scarlet Crusade-US.

The community event benefits a charity we love, and gathers together people worldwide. At the start of the event in 2017, there were over 7,000 players online and $16,600+ raised, and $7,000+ in 2018! (Plus a whole lot raised before that!)

How to participate:

Simply log in on the specified day on Scarlet Crusade, before the run start time and join us for the run. We’ll have the invites, and you just need to bring yourself!

Because the Gnome Run is very popular, I suggest showing up not 10 minutes before the run if you can help it, or joining our discord for days that we are pre-inviting people to guilds to snag an invite early.

There will be absolutely no Cross Realm invites for this.You must be on Scarlet Crusade or it’s connected realm Feathermoon. I’m unable to facilitate people who are off realm. Simply roll a new character on the specified server and join in the fun that way!

If you do not play World of Warcraft, or play in the EU/Asia regions, you can download and use a US trial account. If your account is currently not active, you can also do the same! Trial accounts cannot join guilds, but you can run along with us, and we do have some ways to count you all. You can also join our discord still!

Discord?

https://discord.gg/wfV2j2g

Is there a Hashtag again?

#GnomeRun2k19

A note about Racing Guilds:

We ask that even while it’s hectic, or there’s multiple guilds, we ask that you only join the guilds we’ve confirmed for a variety of reasons:

We use the guilds to give out directions during the run, we don’t want people to have unexpectedly negative experiences in a random guild, or be scammed with a false donation link, we do use them to have some idea of how many people are at the event.

So far we can confirm:

1.Gnomes Race for a Cure

2 Gnomes Race Too

3. Gnome Three Racers

4. Gnomes Race Four Us All

5. Gnome Run Strikes Back

6. Gnome and the Furious Six

7. All Gnomes go to Seven

8. The Last Gnome Run

9. War for the Gnome Run

10. Gnome with the Pink Run

11. Gnomes to Eleven

More guilds will be announced on our social media and discord.

Whispering those of us spamming chat with instructions to do so the exact word INVITE will auto trigger our addon (thanks to Ellypse for making it!) to get you a guild invite unless you have a trial account.

Why Gnomes?

Gnomes are one of the few races with pink hair, making it easy for everyone to coordinate. They also fit the idea of something “Small” together adding up to something big when together.

What about Tabards?

Tabards were made BoP in Legion. You can buy them in Ironforge for less than 1g or you can mail yourself an Heirloom tabard from your other characters.

After Party?

Yes! We always head to Orgrimmar afterwards to give out kisses and licks to current the head of the capitol!  (Who the heck is in charge currently??)

…We’ve licked a lot of Horde leaders over the last 10 years to be honest.

Why Breast Cancer, isn’t there a ton of attention for this already?

October is breast cancer awareness month. We understand we’re sugar coating something devastating for people with cute gnomes to open up a conversation, but for a good reason. Everyone’s been affected by cancer of some form. Plus, we really realize that breast cancer isn’t just a woman’s issue. It affects our moms, our sisters, but also our dads, our brothers, our friends, guildies, coworkers, and many other people in our lives. It’s affected people that we really love in our community.

We feel even if the pink hair and cute outfits or all these Gnomes remind just one single person to check themselves to get a mammogram or encourage that family member who hears to go in to the doctor who’s been putting it off we’ve done our job for the year.

Plus it’s really hard to miss thousands of Gnomes doing anything, let alone thousands of Gnomes with the same colored hair stampeding through half a continent. Even out of game it gets people talking for a day or two.

I want to help with the run!

Tell your friends! Reshare our information on various social media platforms, turn your guild’s tabards pink and tell people why. Force your friends to come with you.

Feel free to send a donation of the materials for a Pink Mageweave shirt to help clothe a brand new Gnome in need to Meiousei on Scarlet Crusade.

If you have another idea you can tweet at me @Dravvie, or leave me a message here. I’m open to ideas, as long as it doesn’t lead to complete chaos!

FAQs

This has been updated w/ the donation link! Please reblog!  🙏

Running of the Gnomes, year 9, Oct 13th!

dravvie:

The “Small” run will be held once again on October 13th, on Scarlet Crusade US at 7pm EST (That’s 4pm PST, 11pm GMT, 8am KST respectively.)

7pm is race start time, so show up early, get a guild invite to one of our many guilds, hang out with community for a good cause, and meet your fellow Gnomies! Be sure to bring your S.E.L.F.I.E camera!

Running of the Gnomes will benefit The Cleveland Clinic’s Tuohy Vaccine, a vaccine that can prevent Triple-Negative Breast Cancer, which is often hereditary and the most deadly form of breast cancer. The drug is currently only in stage 1 of clinical trials. Dr. Tuohy is working on other breast cancers, as well as a vaccine for ovarian cancer. The event is meant both to spread love to those suffering from or affected by Breast Cancer, and to remind everyone, regardless of gender, to take preventative breast health seriously.

Where can I donate?

http://ccf.convio.net/goto/GnomeRun2k18

What is this? Is it just the in game micro-holiday?

Running of the Gnomes is an event where the whole of the Warcraft community gathers on one singular server, Scarlet Crusade, and travels from the Gnome starting zone to Booty Bay to help raise awareness and funds for Breast Cancer.

The yearly migration was so popular with players and the community that Blizzard honored the event with a Micro-Holiday called the Great Gnomeregan Race that occurs yearly on the same date worldwide. The micro holiday provides players with a race course, and NPCs to cheer them on.

While the Micro-Holiday occurs everywhere, the community and gathering of players is still held on only on Scarlet Crusade-US.

The community event benefits a charity we love, and gathers together people worldwide. At the start of the event in 2017, there were over 7,000 players online and $16,600+ raised.

How to participate:

Simply log in on the specificid day on Scarlet Crusade, before the run start time and join us for the run, we’ll have the invites, and you just need to bring yourself!
Because the Gnome Run is very popular, I suggest showing up not 10 minutes before the run if you can help it, or joining our discord for days that we are pre-inviting people to guilds to snag an invite early.

There will be absolutely no Cross Realm invites for this.You must be on Scarlet Crusade or it’s connected realm Feathermoon. I’m unable to facilitate people who are off realm. Simply roll a new character on the specified server and join in the fun that way!

If you do not play World of Warcraft, or play in the EU/Asia regions, you can download and use a US trial account. If your account is currently not active, you can also do the same! Trial accounts cannot join guilds, but you can run along with us, and we do have some ways to count you all. You can also join our discord still!

Discord?

https://discord.gg/kK8vKJu

Is there a Hashtag again?

#GnomeRun2k18

A note about Racing Guilds:

We ask that even while it’s hectic, or there’s multiple guilds, we ask that you only join the guilds we’ve confirmed for a variety of reasons:

We use the guilds to give out directions during the run, we don’t want people to have unexpectedly negative experiences in a random guild, or be scammed with a false donation link, we do use them to have some idea of how many people are at the event.

So far we can confirm:

1.Gnomes Race for a Cure

2 Gnomes Race Too

3. Gnome Three Racers

4. Gnomes Race Four Us All

5. Gnome Run Strikes Back

6. Gnome and the Furious Six

7. All Gnomes go to Seven

8. The Last Gnome Run

9. War for the Gnome Run

10. Gnome with the Pink Run

11. Gnomes to Eleven

More guilds will be announced on our social media and discords.

Whispering those of us spamming chat with instructions to do so the exact word INVITE will auto trigger our addon (thanks to Ellypse for making it!) to get you a guild invite unless you have a trial account.

Why Gnomes?

Gnomes are one of the few races with pink hair, making it easy for everyone to coordinate. They also fit the idea of something “Small” together adding up to something big when together.

What about Tabards?

Tabards were made BoP in Legion. You can buy them in Ironforge for less than 1g or you can mail yourself an Heirloom tabard from your other characters.

After Party?

Yes! We always head to Orgrimmar afterwards to give out kisses and licks to current the head of the capitol! 

…We’ve licked a lot of Horde leaders over the last 9 years to be honest.

Why Breast Cancer, isn’t there a ton of attention for this already?

October is breast cancer awareness month. We understand we’re sugar coating something devastating for people with cute gnomes to open up a conversation, but for a good reason. Everyone’s been affected by cancer of some form. Plus, we really realize that breast cancer isn’t just a woman’s issue. It affects our moms, our sisters, but also our dads, our brothers, our friends, guildies, coworkers, and many other people in our lives. It’s affected people that we really love in our community.

We feel even if the pink hair and cute outfits or all these Gnomes remind just one single person to check themselves to get a mammogram or encourage that family member who hears to go in to the doctor who’s been putting it off we’ve done our job for the year.

Plus it’s really hard to miss thousands of Gnomes doing anything, let alone thousands of Gnomes with the same colored hair stampeding through half a continent. Even out of game it gets people talking for a day or two.

I want to help with the run!

Tell your friends! Reshare our information on various social media platforms, turn your guild’s tabards pink and tell people why. Force your friends to come with you.

Feel free to send a donation of the materials for a Pink Mageweave shirt to help clothe a brand new Gnome in need to Meiousei on Scarlet Crusade.

If you have another idea you can tweet at me @Dravvie, or leave me a message here. I’m open to ideas, as long as it doesn’t lead to complete chaos!

FAQ’s 

Thank You and Updates

tarcanusfrostbourne:

Soooooo I’ve done that thing that I do and not log in here for months and months on end… although this time I have an excuse! Or, multiple excuses.

But yeah, just wanted to post something quick while I had a free moment to wish you all well and to tell you that I’m not ignoring your messages or tags or anything(s)!

When I have more time, I’ll dive into the details but the last fours months of my life is a strange tale involving car crashes, cancer, huge needles going into odd places, tiny radioactive capsules, cross-country moves, one night in Vegas, and a genetic test from 2183.

Yes. It’s like that.

Take care! <3

Taking a Break!

As many of you who follow Tarcanus on Twitter know, life has been an interesting and bumpy (literally) road over the past few months. Although things are looking better than ever outside of the virtual world (we are all knocking on wood inside the studio), the level of activity, energy and commitment to real world concerns on the part of our hosts has never been higher. 2017 looks to be a great year, but one that will require balancing our hosts time and stamina as well.

Therefore, the LFRP Podcast will be going on a temporary break until the middle of April.

We will be back once Tarcanus has completed his new certifications and additional degree (provided he doesn’t get hit by a flying moose or a truck filled with pastries in the meantime).

Of course, if anything else comes up for Dravvie and Tarc, we will let you know as well.

Thank you all for the love and support over the years and we appreciate you all more than you know!

Also, Patreon folks will get their holiday boxes once Tarc has a chance to get back to his house in New Jersey. We have not forgotten about you!

Have a great winter and start to 2017 and of course, be safe wherever you may be in the world!