RUNNING OF THE GNOMES
A “SMALL” ONLINE CHARITY EVENT IN WORLD OF WARCRAFT
Running of the Gnomes is October 14th on Scarlet Crusade-US
The Run leaves the starting zone at 4pm Pacific, 7pm Eastern, 11pm GMT
These times are race start time when everyone leaves the starting zone, so show up early and get an invite to one of our many guilds and hang out with the community and meet your fellow Gnomies!
How to participate:
Simply log in on the specified day on Scarlet Crusade in the Gnome Starting Zone, before the run start time and join us for the run. We’ll have the invites, and you just need to bring yourself!
If you do not wish to use a fresh level 1 Gnome, you can simply change your Gnome’s hair to Pink. Please keep the names tasteful for an event that is all ages
Keep in mind this is a run to spark a conversation, honor others, do something fun, raise money. It’s not a race-race. Staying together is a good fun option!
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 Account notes:
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!
If you have not hit max level on a Trial or Vet Account you may have to do the new player scenario added in late BfA, so plan accordingly.
What about Tabards?
Tabards were made BoP in Legion and cannot be traded! You can buy them in Ironforge for less than 1g.
You can mail yourself an Heirloom tabard from your other characters. There are mailboxes in the starting zone.
Hashtag
#GnomeRun2023
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 too!
You cannot pick your guilds. It’s just whichever one we are currently inviting to! We’re sorry please help us by not leaving and joining guilds!
Retail WoW Guilds:
Gnomes Race for a Cure
Gnomes Race Too
Gnome Three Racers
Gnomes Race Four Us All
Gnome Run Strikes Back
Gnome and the Furious Six
All Gnomes go to Seven
The Last Gnome Run
War for the Gnome Run
Gnome with the Pink Run
Gnomes to Eleven
Gnomemare Before Xmas
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.
We will also be throwing out invites using this addon in other ways!
More guilds will be announced on our social media and discord as needed!
Where are you running?
We will be running from The Starting line that appears in the Gnome starting zone on the day of the race to Booty Bay.
We will use the Tram in Ironforge to Stormwind. Please allow times to pause for others to catch up such as at the Tram, and at the Stormwind Gates.
F.A.Q & BACKGROUND INFO
What is this event? I thought it was an 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 (or on Bloodsail Buccaneers for Wrath Classic), and rolls level 1 Gnomes to travel from the Gnome starting zone to Booty Bay to help raise awareness and funds for Charities that make an actual impact on Breast Cancer.
This year, the Running of the Gnomes is once again supporting the Cleveland Clinic’s Tuohy Vaccine!
The yearly migration was so popular with players and the community that Blizzard honored the event with a Micro-Holiday called The Great Gnomeregan Run 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 and also a second run some years in Classic on Bloodsail Buccaneers!
(Currently no plans for a classic run this year)
The community event benefits charities 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, (Plus thousands upon thousands more before that!)
Does my character need to be level 1?
No! But the idea is that the event is created for lvl 1 characters so people can just log in and enjoy without too much set up on their end especially with how many people attend!
It was set up to be a can you make it to the end silly adventure to raise money 12 years ago for some friends. If you wish to level to avoid the creatures along the road, or to help others avoid it, that’s okay too!
After Party?
Yes! On both Retail and Classic we always head to Orgrimmar afterwards to give out kisses, hugs and licks to…whoever is the current head of the capitol! …We’ve licked a whole lot of Horde leaders over the last 13+ years to be honest.
Why Gnomes?
In Wrath of the Lich King Gnomes were one of the only Races with Pink Hair making it easy for everyone to coordinate.
(Back then my guild also said no way to making 40 pink Mageweave shirts back then, lol, and then 150 people came the first year, and thank goodness we didn’t go with shirts, that’s a lotta shirts we would be making years later!!)
They also fit the idea of something “Small” together adding up to something big when together.
Why Breast Cancer, isn’t there a ton of attention for this already? And isn’t this trivializing it?
We all know October is breast cancer awareness month. Everyone’s been affected by cancer of some form, unfortunately.
Using something cute, weird, and unusual makes starting a hard conversation easier sometimes. And the runs have come to provide a space for many of the community where they can yell into the void about loss and wins with cancer.
Plus, we really realize that breast cancer isn’t just a “older woman’s” issue like how it’s been presented in the past.
It truly can affect anyone, at any age. Knowing the signs of all types of cancers is important.
We try to work with charities and projects that don’t always get as much attention as uhh… certain others, unfortunately.
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 about to go in to the doctor and get *any cancer screening, we’ve done a good job.
Especially in a community where oftentimes many of us feel we’re too young for needing this sort of care.
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, talk about the groups we’re supporting! Ask your friends to come with you!
If you have another idea you can contact me, Dravvie.
Merch??
YES!! It will be out soon! We test ran a vendor during Tournament of Ages and we LOVE them! We can’t wait to show you the amazing Merch by Mischi soon!
Trading Post Objective??
Yes! We were graced with two objectives that involve wearing Pink Mageweave shirts and completing the Great Gnomergan Run Quest Objectives! If you want to complete the objectives of the Quests together with many people with us, this is a fabulous way to do it!!
LINKS:
Warcraft Cares on Discord, where you can find information for other charity events as well!
