This is very different from the kind of story we usually publish on Minecraft.net. I should warn you that it’s a very sad story, but also an inspiring one. It truly shows what the Minecraft community are capable of at their best.

Bryan, better known in the Minecraft world as Pendar2, was the creator of the Emenbee Minecraft Server. Founded way back in 2011, this hugely popular community server would see over *1500 concurrent players* at its peak, and over a million unique visitors over the subsequent seven years. Those are amazing numbers, the kind you only see if you’re a server moderator of great skill and care.

But late last year, Bryan shut down the server. He’d been suffering from cancer and the server was becoming impossible to maintain. Sadly, Bryan recently passed away. He was “a genius, a compassionate person, and our hero,” his friend Mod_Masta wrote on the Emenbee website (the full statement is well worth reading – it’s a beautiful tribute to his friend).

But this was far from the only tribute made to Bryan. Emenbee players have returned to the server to transform its hub into a memorial for him. Just look at the staggering amount of signs and messages players have left: