After Dungeons & Dragons Entertainment Corporation was dissolved in 1986, Ernie went back to Lake Geneva but soon followed his father out the door as Lorrain Williams forced him out of the company. Ernie traveled the country for a while but ultimately settled back in Lake Geneva. Those who believe that life comes back in a full circle will not be surprised that Ernie came back to the retail hobby shop business - right back where he started (actually 3 stores down from the original Dungeon Hobby Shop!). The place was the Game Guild, a hobby store owned by Margaret Weis and Don Perrin, two individuals who were no strangers to the fantasy roleplaying hobby. Margaret originally took on a job at TSR as a book editor but was soon writing some of the earliest Dragonlance novels. Don too is an author writing novels for Dragonlance as well.

In 1995 the two of them opened up The Game Guild and Ernie dropped in to help out, regularly running promotional games and tournaments as a celebrity DM and bringing large groups of players in. Then in 1996, Ernie's involvement with helping to run the store increased when Don and Margaret took a trip to Australia.

It was during this time that Ernie created several fantastic Advanced Dungeons & Dragons adventures, even bringing out the old classic Dungeon Hobby Shop Dungeon on a regular basis to draw people into the Game Guild. He even convinced his father to stop in every now and then for a real treat for those in attendance! These sessions produced some spirited games and spectacular tales.

At one point in 1998, Ernie wanted to put on a really big, exciting AD&D event involving a mass battle situation with some underlying roleplaying elements for each faction. The factions included The Followers of the Blinding Light (After the infamous Firesign Theater recording.), a rival evil faction with an assassin played by none other than Gary Gygax, the Followers of Orcus, The Arm of St. Cuthbert, an Honor Guard with a Princess who accidentally get mixed up in the battle and have to make it across the battlefield to safety, an abandoned temple with some monstrous ogre magi, and Obmi (of course!) riding a triceratops with a houda, delivering an artifact of evil The Orb of Orcus to the sacked Temple of St. Cuthbert!

It is discovered that the Orb of Orcus will destroy the Temple of St. Cuthbert and prevent the deity from ever contacting his priesthood on that world again!

The various factions make their way onto and across the battlefield each trying to accomplish their goals or simply to survive!

For auction here are three faction character sheets for used with the AD&D rules: The Arm of St. Cuthbert faction sheet, a character sheet with one of their members: the paladin Poul Ethered, and the faction sheet for the Followers of Orcus with stats for a Vampire High Priest.

Very cool collectable!

Copyright © 1994-2010, [Paul J. Stormberg]. All rights reserved.