Over the weekend, medieval combatants in Mordhau set aside their swords for a nobler, more honest battle: the endless war against cancer and the inadequacies of the American healthcare system. For its 9th annual tournament, the Mordhau Fistfighting Championship turned its yearly fisticuffs into a fundraiser to help a fellow player face the massive costs of cancer care.
Cameron Elliott, a 21-year-old Mordhau player, was diagnosed earlier this year with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, an aggressive blood cancer. After just a few months of notoriously expensive treatment, Elliott's family now faces a staggering pile of medical bills. "It's no surprise that the American healthcare system has come up short for me," Elliott said in a video released last week. "And my treatment—which has been long and extremely difficult—has also been extraordinarily costly."
In total, Elliott's treatments have cost over $36,000. The entirety of his family's savings have only covered half of his medical bills, leaving an $18,000 debt. Thankfully, that's a debt that Elliott's fellow players in the Mordhau Fistfighting Championship are willing to bloody their knuckles for.
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A yearly, player-run tournament of 1-on-1 fistfighting duels, the MFC started using its annual contests for fundraising in its fifth year, when it raised over $10,000 dollars for organizer Philip Hall's father, whose service-related disability treatments went uncovered by US Veterans Affairs. The MFC is a small community, Hall said via email, but it's managed to raise thousands of dollars in following fundraisers for causes like the Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Across two days, 64 boxers joined together to brawl in MFC IX, whose 400-something viewers pitched in 36 donations totaling over $2,000 for Elliott's GoFundMe. Those might look like modest numbers, but that's an average donation of around $55—admirable for a player-run affair. Triternion, Mordhau's developer, gave the competition its blessing, providing increasing in-game gold and DLC rewards based on tournament placement.
I'll admit I was surprised to see a display of mutual support from Mordhau's community, considering its history with player toxicity. "What we've shown is that Mordhau's heart is larger than its toxicity," Hall said. "In our small community, the same people who trash talk and troll you in chat could be the same people donating for your cancer treatment tomorrow." Perhaps there's a lesson here for my own cynical little heart. (I'll probably still leave chat off if I'm ever in Mordhau, though.)
Elliott, who's assisted in running MFC's past tournaments, says its continued fundraising is a heartening reminder that help can be found when it's needed. "To see the work that we’ve done come back around for me in a time where I really needed it makes me extremely proud and thankful to be a part of the Mordhau Fistfighting community," Elliott said. "The passion and generosity of the participants and organizers never ceases to amaze me, and it makes me extremely happy to know that there are still kind people doing good things in the world."
