Wumpery04/14/2019
TL;DR: I am disbanding our clan and Discord for personal reasons. Read on if you want my reasons and my thought process. I'm not changing my mind. I will be kicking everyone from the in-game clan tonight and shutting down the Discord on April 22.
I first started this clan in May-ish of 2014 with two friends of mine: Sir Peter T and Elite Decay. Our clan was called Flames of Salvation back then.

I'm very proud of what we've accomplished. And I'm very grateful for all the people who have joined and guested over time. It has been literally THOUSANDS of people who have been part of our community in some way.
Why I'm closing the clan

There is a book I read called The War of Art. In the book, the author describes a concept he calls “Resistance.” Resistance is the internal force every person has that prevents them from improving their lives: exercising, eating healthier, writing music, starting a business, getting a new job, learning a new skill, volunteering for a charity, etc.... Resistance manifests itself in our lives in several ways: procrastination, self-sabotage, seeking external “support” and “motivation,” vices and addictions, fear...

But one of the biggest ways Resistance manifests itself is through something called a “shadow calling” (as opposed to a “true calling”).

A “shadow calling” is a call, a cause, a Big Hairy Audacious Goal that distracts a person from pursuing his “true calling.” A shadow calling sucks up all your time, energy, attention, effort, and interest to do something that you may like but isn't actually productive or meaningful or helpful to humanity.

For nearly these five years, my shadow calling was RuneScape. This clan, to be more specific.

I have put in close to 9,000 hours of game time, and at least a few hundred more in other time spent on managing the clan, writing rules and forum threads, talking on Discord with people, planning stuff... So at this point, I have probably sunk nearly 10,000 hours of my life into RS.
And with our clan, I think I did a damn good job. Our clan hit #1 on RuneClan on several different occasions. For several months, we maintained the #3 or #4 spot uninterrupted. We have been on the first page of RuneClan since 2015. We have hundreds of members. At several points we had too many people who wanted to join and we had no room and couldn't kick any inactive players because we had no inactive members to remove. We became the biggest, most active teaching PvM clan. We grew the clan Discord server to nearly 2300 people, more than any other RS3 clan Discord afaik. Collectively, we have taught HUNDREDS of people how to do a BUNCH of different bosses and roles at bosses.  Collectively we have earned TENS OF THOUSANDS of training points.

I think we had a good run.

But alas, RuneScape has been my shadow calling. And over the last few months, I have done my best to get my shit together IRL so I'm more productive. I'm happier. And I have finally pulled myself up to the point that pursing my true calling is actually enjoyable.

I am ready for a new chapter of my life.

I also recommend anyone who is playing RS (or any other game) as an “escape” mechanism or as a manifestation of Resistance to check out these two books that have been very meaningful and impactful for me. Buy the print book on Amazon or get the Kindle version. Or visit your local library and check it out free. They probably have them.

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
The Confidence Gap by Russ Harris
Atomic Habits by James Clear
Wumpery, why are you shutting it all down? Why not pass control to someone else?

I've been around for five years on RS. I've been the clan leader for almost that entire time.

I have seen clans come and go.

A very common thing for clan leaders who step down is to pass control to someone else. (I did this myself at one point.)

But it almost never works out.

Instead, what happens is the clan experiences a slow, painful decline over weeks or  months. And each day a player logs in, they are reminded that “cc used to be more active than it is now :(” They remember what it was like with the prior leader. The new leader feels immense pressure to maintain or build what the prior leader had, even though the new leader didn't specifically set out to become a clan leader. It generally isn't a fit for the new leader.

While I absolutely have the highest respect for our clan leadership team who have all volunteered their time and effort to make our time more enjoyable... With all due respect, someone who “inherits” a clan seems to not take it as seriously as someone who starts a clan and builds it from the ground up. Passing a clan along can work. But I have seen that is very rare, and mostly clans just fizzle. I've seen it probably with a dozen clans at this point.

I rather go down while on top (or near the top). I'm making a clean cut so no one has to agonize over the likely slow decline, and no one has to push a boulder up a hill trying to maintain or expand on what we have already done.
There are plenty of other great clans out there. Best of luck on your search peeps.

Thank you everyone for a great five years.
TL;DR: I am disbanding our clan and Discord for personal reasons. Read above if you want my reasons and my thought process. I'm not changing my mind. I will be kicking everyone from the in-game clan tonight and shutting down the Discord on April 22.