Authors
Welcome Back Soken
After being moved during FanFest 2021 by Yoshida’s heartfelt speech over the revelations of Soken’s battle with cancer, FFXIV communities across the globe are leading a second initiative to support Cancer Awareness Month in October with the hope to raise over $15,000 for the Cancer Research Institute.
Communities that have agreed to participate in this initiative have been mentioned below.
To donate directly, check out our Tiltify page for the Cancer Research Institute
About The Charity: Cancer Research Institute
Cancer Research Institute is a registered charity in the United States of America under EIN 13-1837442.
Registered address:
Cancer Research Institute | National Headquarters
29 Broadway, Floor 4, New York, NY 10006, United States of America
Tel: +1 800-992-2623
Established in 1953, the Cancer Research Institute (CRI) is a nonprofit organization dedicated exclusively to harnessing the immune system’s power to conquer all cancers.
They fund the most innovative research by young scientists, invest in clinical studies of promising new treatments, and serve as a bridge between the lab and the clinic.
CRI has invested $445 million to fund more than 3,200 scientists around the world.
With 68 years’ experience funding research on the immune system and cancer, CRI is leading the way and ushering in a new era when patients with all types of cancer can be treated and cured with immunotherapy. Moreover, CRI-funded research is also contributing to efforts to combat and cure autoimmune and infectious diseases, including COVID-19.
You can read more about their achivements and what they are all about on their web pages here.
FFXIV Community Charity Initiative
Here’s what we’ve had planned for this year:
- What AkhMorning Has Planned
- What The FFXIV EU Discord Community Has Planned
- What The Creators’ Guild Has Planned
- What Fey’s Temperance Has Planned
- What Additional Collaborators Have Planned
Click the links above to read more on each individual effort, or, see the image below for a summary:
What AkhMorning Has Planned
Cancer Awareness Bahamut makes a return!
He is available here on the site, as well as an emoji on our Discord server, and you can purchase limited time merchandise of Cancer Awareness Bahamut on FFXIV Europe’s redbubble store. All merchandise profits will go to the charity.
AkhMorning will be donating half of our Patreon and donated earnings from Oct1-Oct31 to the Tiltify fundraiser.
All donors and patrons where possible will be given a pink Cancer Awareness Month 2021 role on Discord as a digital ribbon to wear. This role is cumulative with the previous year’s role.
Raffle
The raffle is live! Be sure to check out the prize list below with many being donated to celebrate Soken’s cancer being in remission.
Check the raffle out here. 1 entry = $5. Multiples of $5 = multiple entries.
The community has pooled together a fantastic prize pool worth over $600 USD featuring numerous digital and physical FFXIV related items:
- 5x Memories of Crystal art books by the Creators’ Guild (worth $40 each)
- 1x Final Fantasy XIV Vinyl LP Box
- 1x Final Fantaxy XIV - Shadowbringers Vinyl LP
- 1x Final Fantaxy XIV - Stormblood Vinyl LP
- 1x Final Fantaxy XIV - Heavensward Vinyl LP
- 1x Final Fantaxy XIV - A Realm Reborn Vinyl LP
- 1x Scions & Sinners Album (Blu Ray)
- 1x Pulse: Final Fantasy XIV Remix Album
- 1x Untempered: Final Fantasy XIV Primal Battle Themes
- 3x Cruise Chaser Mounts (2 Seater)
- 6x Pantomime emotes
- 2x Flower Shower emotes
- 1x Toast emote
- 1x Songbirds Cheer emote set (glow sticks)
- 3x 3 Phials of Fantasia
- 10x Phial of Fantasia
All of the above have been kindly donated by the following:
- AkhMorning and the Creators’ Guild donates 5 Memories of Crystal art books
- AkhMorning donates the Cruise Chaser Mount
- AkhMorning donates the FFXIV Vinyl LP Box, ARR, HW, SB and SHB LPs
- AkhMorning donates the Scion and Sinners, Pulse and Untempered albums
- AkhMorning donates Phials of Fantasias
- Denmo McStronghuge donates 5x Pantomime emotes
- Alf from FFXIVEU donates a Cruise Chaser mount
- Kim Possible from FFXIVEU donates the Cruise Chaser mount, because cancer can gtfo
- Surprise from FFXIVEU Donates the Pantomime, Flower Shower and Toast emotes in memory of his lost mother 1 year ago
- Nene Gakunin from FFXIVEU donates a Flower Shower emote
- Mulan from FFXIVEU donates a Phial of Fantasia
- Shuichi Saito from FFXIVEU donates the glow stick emote bundle
All proceeds from the raffle will go directly to the charity through the Tiltify.
Supporting Doodle Commenced
For each submission to the Creators’ Guild #DoodleCommenced Inktober initiative, AkhMorning will be donating $1 on behalf of our sister community as thanks to all the artists taking part.
What The FFXIV EU Discord Community Has Planned
The FFXIV Europe Discord community is is participating again this year.
Our charity drive’s gorgeous Cancer Awareness Moogle banner by GWENI. Their mascot, Ae, is also returning with a Cancer Awareness ribbon by Elda.
Be sure to check both of these artists out!
They will be donating 50% of their Patreon earnings to the charity for the month of October.
As part of their merchandise initiative, all profits from their redbubble store will go towards the charity, with items featuring Cancer Awareness Ae.
A special, permanent Discord role will be given to donors as a Cancer Awareness 2021 ribbon.
What The Creators’ Guild Has Planned
Our sister community, The Creators’ Guild FFXIV, is one that blossomed in response to Yoshida sharing his heartfelt experiences with Soken’s battle with cancer.
We were all so touched and wanted to do something to show our gratitude to the XIV team for all the memories their art has given us over the many years. Thus the art book project, Memories of Crystal, was born.
Memories of Crystal originally was intended to be a project to bring together creative minds to get together and create a book of art, prose and more to print and send to the FFXIV team at SE HQ in Shinjuku. It has grown to include hundreds of talented individuals to the point that it received over 500 pre-orders. Finally it is being printed and shipped this month.
We’re all so proud of what everyone has achieved, and we want to emphasise that as a non-profit project, all of the proceeds will be going to the Cancer Research Institute as part of this month’s charity drive. While the final value is still being figured out given expenses, we know that the donation will be a significant one.
From the Creators’ Guild Team, thank you for everyone involved who shared their heart and soul in this journey, and to all of you who believed it would be possible.
Doodle Commenced
The Creators’ Guild community has put together a great Inktober challenge with “Doodle Commenced” for all of the wonderful artists in the XIV community.
AkhMorning will be donating $1 per submission to the charity drive.
While the details will be listed further below, do check out the Creators’ Guild Discord for more information!
Rules
Each day of October will have one new prompt. Participants can create something relating to that prompt, using their preferred medium. Art, music, words, crafts - anything. Participants have 48 hours to post their work in the doodle-commenced channel after that day’s prompt has been released. Only one work is allowed per participant per day.
The works will be judged by a jury based on the four following criteria: creativity, technique, theme and personal preference, yielding a maximum of 4 points per day.
Expected time per work is approximately 1 hour per day. You may use more or less time if you wish, but to minimise stress, one hour is our general baseline.
You may choose to participate with a screenshot from Final Fantasy XIV any day instead of creating an original work. Screenshots will be judged by the same criteria as above, but can only yield a maximum of 2 points per day.
You may choose to participate with different mediums however you wish. For example, one may want to participate with a digital artwork one day, a screenshot the next, and a piano cover the third day.
The work with the most ❤️ each day gets one additional point. When October is over, the points are counted, and the winners are announced.
Everyone is welcome to participate, but they need to access the Creators’ Guild Discord to do so. Judges and organizers are not eligible for rewards.
Prompts
- Pray return to the Waking Sands
- Jobs of Endwalker
- Bunny boys in Wonderland
- My first day as a sprout
- Lost in East Shroud
- Light party gone wrong
- Light party gone right
- A party of eight
- Cruella deManderville
- The first calamity
- How to tame your dragon
- A frosty city of stone
- Eye for an eye
- You are without a doubt the worst sky pirate I’ve ever heard of
- Wondrous Tails
- Forward and back
- Lost in the clouds
- A voyage to the East
- Catfish festival
- Kugane parkour
- The four lords
- Liberation
- Under the sea
- Alpha’s adventures
- Travelling between worlds
- Fluffy tail, ruby eyes
- Paint me like one of your french Garleans
- The dark apocalypse
- Visit Eulmore
- My last day as a sprout
- This is Halloween
Prizes
There are 9 prizes in total, where the 1st place will choose their preferred reward first, 2nd place will choose second, and so on. The winners can choose between the following:
- Elgato™️ Wave:3
- Elgato™️ Wave:3
- Elgato™️ Stream Deck
- 🎮 GRIS
- 🎮 Noita
- 🎮 Hollow Knight
- Fantasia
- Fantasia
- Fantasia
Note that Elgato products can not be shipped to the following countries/areas: Russia, Brazil, Turkey, Africa, South America, Middle East, Belarus.
The other items can be sent to anyone anywhere in the world.
What Fey’s Temperance Has Planned
Our partners at Fey’s Temperance are inviting players to help parties in PF and sprouts in new duties to clear content to beat cancer.
$1 will be donated for every clear submitted in their Discord.
Let’s have FFXIV beat cancer together!
What Additional Collaborators Have Planned
- SerenayaCarrin and ItsKasa will be promoting the initiative through streams
- Moonlight will be running an event on October 23rd in name of Cancer Awareness Month
- ZeplaHQ will be promoting the cause among her community
Closing
Firstly - apologies for this update being much later into the month with a week remaning! The initiative began on Oct 1st.
Last year’s drive raised an incredible £4834 GBP (~$6636 USD) for the World Cancer Research Foundation making a significant difference towards research of diet related factors of cancer.
This year it looks like we are well on track of hitting our goal with the art book proceeds. Efforts from Serenaya raised a tremendous $2,550 in a 24h stream and other plans are going well with nearly $5,000 raised thus far. We look forward to seeing the final result for 2021!
Thank you everyone, together we’ll make a good difference.
#WelcomeBackSoken
~Nemekh