That campaign ended with us participating in some great battle. Donald had another Gabter, but this one worshipped the Paladin god so he was goody-goody. I tried to live up to Axalt's teaching by doing things like starting fights or joining the other side if they were losing really badly, trying to keep the warfare going longer. One time I tried to fight Donald but he put me down in a couple of rounds -- he had a better fighter and better magic weapons. I think he had some ninja skills too and the "kill if you crit" ability.

But Donald's great nemesis was one of Shannon's characters. Forget his name but he was a Jambrakazel (that can't be the right name, but it's the god of adventurers and other dungeon crawlers) worshipper. He would just do things that would try any Lawful Good character and it wasn't until the end of the campaign that we found out he actually worshipped the trickster god. I think one time he killed one of our prisoners and Donald almost went at him.

Another time Shannon played a joke on Matt's character. Matt joined in the last year of the campaign so he was quite new. I think he was a human or some other persecuted race. But he found this magic intelligent spear which told him it was a powerful weapon of his god. Matt was overjoyed and he did a lot of things that the spear told him to do (they were trying to somehow revive or reestablish Matt's god) and he got into a few scrapes. Once again, it wasn't until the end of the campaign that we found out that the spear wasn't from Matt's god, but had the spirit of one of the tricker worshippers. Shannon knew and had subtly helped keep up the charade.

Then there's the famous Gnerts, a toxic brew that does something random to the drinker. Eric had a big table of Gnerts effects, one possibility being death. But it could also raise your stats or give you special powers or curse you. Just the kind of roll-the-dice-and-take-your-chances sort of thing that appealed to most of us.

There were Boaliths, which I always pictured as super-intelligent Purple Worms, though more blackish in color. We only met a few, each being a powerful behind-the-scenes manipulator. Doug's character I don't remember. I do remember that Doug knew every rule down cold, even page numbers. His character once tried to save someone who fell off of a boat and was sinking fast (rocky humanoids, remember; most everyone would sink, though not drown, in water). He just stuck out his spear and speared the guy through the head. That got Doug's character into trouble since he was a worshipper of the healing goddess which no on messed with because they healed *everyone*. ("Only the vilest of chaos would attack <a worshipper of the healing goddess>").

Diseases and sickness were transmitted by spirits, so lots of POW vs POW rolls when being attacked by them. Spirits of Retribution would be sent by your god to punish worshippers that made major transgressions against the principles of the god. So I could have gotten one sicked on me if I had say, stopped a war from starting.

Actually I think Dave Sweet had the human. Didn't last long because nobody really liked them, and they were easy to kill because their god was dead. It was a cruel world at times. Pickering had a mage, Woo had a lizard guy, Billy wasn't playing then because of some big argument that made him leave the last campaign in a huff. I heard that even Kimberly played a Gabter in the first Erzo campaign.

We haven't played Erzo in a few years (four, five years?) and there are good memories from the second campaign (the third campaign was merely good, not great). It's just about the campaign that brought everyone together (other than Chris, who I don't think ever played, and Fulton since he joined after the third campaign), so it has this revered place in our lives. And it's Eric's baby so he puts a lot of energy into it, another reason why it's a great experience. I'm looking forward to it; it's like coming home after a long absence.