Hey everyone, I'm afraid I have some bad news. I got a PM from Thehammer's son over the weekend, and I'll let it speak for itself:

Foxfyr,

This e-mail is from the original Lilpug, my name is Marc (...). My father John (Griff) (...) who played Pepinty, Thehammer, and took over my character Lilpug about three years ago passed away suddenly this past November after a critical and unexpected heart attack.

I just wanted to let you know that he obviously will not be joining you all on any new quests, though both he and I greatly enjoyed our gaming with you and other members of the guild.

I am in the process of working with Blizzard (though pretty unsuccessfully so far) in order to close down and terminate my fathers accounts - they are making the process more difficult than anything else as we don't have all the information on my dad's accounts, and so much has changed since I played several years back.

I believe that's it, thanks for being so great to my dad, you can reach me at (...) if you need to.

Thanks,
msh

Hi Marc,

I had sent the following note back to you via Private Message on the
Victorious Secret site, but as you're not a frequent visitor of the
site, I thought I should send it to your email address as well.

I am so very sorry for your loss. Thehammer was always such a
wonderful and generous member of Victorious Secret and he will be
missed. He has been missed in fact as people have been asking about
him recently.

If there is anything VS or myself can do to help please don't hesitate to ask.

My sympathies,

Foxfyr
Craig

Craig,

Thanks for your e-mail. Unfortunately my new wife and fatherhood have taken me away from the game but I do miss Lilpug and playing with you all, there is a small part of me that keeps wanting to start up again - so we'll see.

Thanks for the kind words about my father, Griff passed very unexpectedly of a heart attack while at our home for Thanksgiving. Fortunately he passed relatively quickly and painlessly and was able to meet his first grandchild, my daughter for several days before his death. It was a really nice time with family and friends and I'm glad he was here when it happened. My mother is coping as well as can be expected, but they were very close and it will take some time, luckily she has a very supportive group of friends and family.

You may share this e-mail, the previous one, or anything else that you would like with the guild.

Thanks again for your kinds words, my father will undoubtedly miss the game too.

Sincerely,
Marc

RIP, Hammer.

RIP :(

Goodbye, Hammer. :(

RIP Hammer.

/salute

I has a sad. :(

:(

I've updated the original post with a little bit more information.

For those of you that didn't know TheHammer, he was a long-time member and was always a very kind and loyal guildie. Not to mention that we loved the name and all the things we could do with it. And who could forget: "TheHammer is my penis."

Lilpug was lots of fun waaaaay back in the day when he and his father first joined us (I recall running BRD with him!) After Lil got married he left the game and his father took over his toons.

RIP Hammer... VS will miss you :(

Thanks for sharing the updated info, Fox. At least he was with family when it happened, and he got to meet his granddaughter.

Sad news indeed. :( R.I.P. Hammer

That is very sad indeed. I'm glad he was with family when it happened and saw his grand-daughter before he passed.

At the risk of seeming maudlin, tell the people you love how much they mean to you. I'm 40 now, so I guess my friends and family are a little bit older than most of you. But all too often of late, someone is taken way too soon. Make the most of every day.

R.I.P. Hammer
/salute

frack....

I too missed thehammer.

Mr. TheHammer was a fine individual, he will be missed.

that is too sad. i'm glad he was with family and able to be with ones he loved. he was a great guy to play with - i think it was his Pepiny character that I grouped with several times. we were the lowbies and you guys helped us through many of the instances to get some awesome gear. i'm very thankful for a great group of people here and glad that he was able to experience that too.

Don't hurt em up there, hammer.

Thanks for the update Fox and for your condolences on behalf of the guild.

Hammer, you will be missed.