Alexander the Great’s Chief Eunuch has gone to meet his master

(That’s a Red Dwarf reference, which I suspect he’d get)

Yesterday, I was faced with a terrible post on Twitter.

Okay, I’ve received his brother’s blessing to share this with Twitter at large. With deepest regrets, I’m sorry to tell you that the inimitable @_Rades passed away suddenly this weekend. To know him was to love him. He was the most creative, hilarious and kind person.

— Stacey (@_vidyala) August 30, 2021

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For those that didn’t know him, Rades was a pillar of the online WoW community. His humor, love of lore, and love of the genre itself was legendary. He blogged at Orcish Army Knife for years (and it’s probably supremely ironic that his blog right now is getting more hits than it has in a decade). He invented the neon beer sign causeway in Wildstar. He invented Fabulor, the flaming hawtest Blood Elf evar. He engaged his followers on Twitter as NPCs in his ongoing D&D campaign.  He coauthored From Draenor with Love (sadly, hacked) with Vidyala (quoted above).  He authored a column on WoW Insider for a while. He created custom Weak Aura macros to play Disco Inferno when Fabulor had Hot Streak active. The list of things he did, really, stretches out as long as WoW has been around. Hell, I even featured him and his guild in a Filk (near the end).

The hole he left in our lives cannot be described with small words. But I’ll try to related something that comes near the point.

Back in the early 80s, just before I left my home on my Great Adventure (I’ll let you know how it ends when I get there), my father passed away from a heart attack. At his burial, I looked up and realized that the line of people waiting to get into the cemetery stretched all the way out to the highway, a good quarter to half mile of road. It was at that point that I finally realized the impact my father had on his community.  To me, he was just “dad’.  But to our small community, it was Rodney, or “Bogey”, a good friend, steadfast ally, city councilman and church deacon, hard worker for our town’s annual July 4th celebration, tireless campaigner for our democrat politicians, and occasional Santa Clause at our church’s Christmas dinner.  He touched so many lives, and people responded with love and sympathy for my family, all  in his memory.  Hell, a sitting US Senator, who he was a great proponent for, even stopped by to pay respects.

Mike “Rades” Eng has made a similar impact on the WoW community at large.  We don’t know it, possibly, until he’s gone, but he did.

Rest in peace, Rades. May your flame burn as flamboyantly in the next world as it did in this one.

(PS: yes, I stole that image right from his website. Steal from the best, friends.)