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.

The adventure up for auction here was written by Ernie during this time. The adventure, titled, The Red Sewers, consists of a single page room key hand written out on legal pad paper and one piece of graph paper showing the plan view of the dungeon. The acorn doesn't fall from the tree - this is classic Gygax. Ernie managed to create more adventure flavor in one page of encounter notes than some authors can do with a 32 page module! The players must navigate a nightmarish maze of a mostly flooded underground sewer. The module include several rarely used aquatic monsters, a water weird (a creature originally created by Ernie) and a new monster know as "creeping red". While it only has a simple key, it makes for a nice interim dungeon, albeit for pretty tough characters.

Once again, a nifty little collectable and fun gaming item!

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