Eric is going to start another Erzo campaign next month. I guess this will be the fourth campaign. It brings back a lot of memories. Back when I walked into my first Berkeley Campus Adventurers' Club (BCAC) meeting, Eric and Shannon and a bunch of other people were there. I didn't know anyone. Come to think of it, Erzo wasn't my first campaign, John Tomasetti's Spelljammer campaign was my first. But a lot of the guys were there too and after a semester I was invited to join the Erzo campaign.

At that time Erzo had already been running for a year, Eric's RuneQuest-system based fantasy world being quite popular with the guys. They were already into their second set of characters when I joined and although I was familiar with RuneQuest that didn't prepare me for Erzo. Humans are almost extinct, rocky humanoids called Vikuls taking their place. No ducks, giant warrior-rabbits called Gabters taking the anthropomorphic niche. There was a race that was very much like the mysterious lizard guys and other RuneQuest races had their equivalents in Erzo.

The universe progressed through fifteen ages and we were in the Age of War, I think. Mostly just a group of guys wandering around doing various good and not-so-good things. When I was in the group we'd meet up with people from the previous campaign who were for the most part hero-level characters. There were the usual shared stories that I didn't know about ("remember the time we set up a merchant route and traded slaves for drugs?") and the stories that I did have a part in ("ever heard of Flameburst?").

Being new to the world and liking rabbits, I chose my first character to be a Gabter. Every else pushed me into worshipping Axalt, the war-for-war's-sake god ("all the other Gabters worship Axalt, except for Kube"). Not a remarkable character, a simple warrior with not great stats. I figured he'd last a few weeks, long enough for me to become more familiar with Erzo and that way I could make a wizard next time. (Back then I liked to play spellcasters, but my philosophy was "play a warrior first" if I didn't know the system, because warriors are universally easier to make and play than spellcasters. Now I just stick with warriors because I don't have the patience to learn new magic systems).

But fate was against me. That Gabter (who I named Xopdnas by randomly rolling for each letter -- roughly 10% for each vowel and 2% for each letter -- and stopping when it made some sort of sensical sounding word) lasted throughout the whole of the second campaign. He was an awful fighter, but had a good amount of hit points (Gabter are big) so could take a couple of hits. He kept dying and being brought back or not really killed each time. One time he died and then was thrown into some sort of cauldron, which revived him and also cast Corruption on him. It went well and he became huge, though rather weak. He also got his POW up to 26 or so, making it really easy to bounce most spells that have to overcome you.

Another time we were in Axalt's domain and someone whispered to me "drink the red wine for strength and the yellow wine for size." I tried to get everyone to drink yellow wine but they wouldn't so I drank it and got bigger. I think he got up to SIZ 34 or so. That scene was also when I fought the great bull which destroys stats. Didn't beat him but didn't lose too many stats. Then there was the time when I was given a boon and everyone convinced me to wish for "a powerful weapon of Axalt, and I want it NOW!" I got some sort of magic sword for that. Later on I got a really good sword that allowed me to cast Sword of Axalt once a season (hit with the sword and overcome the target's POW to destroy his soul, nasty thing because you have no hope of resurrection or an afterlife). Never did use that spell because we never got into a fight where I thought I had to use it.