Summary of various Rod of the 7 Parts modules?

[QuaziquestGM]

I'm reading through the "Age of Worms" adventure path, and it has got me wondering about the earlier adventure series featuring the Ro7P.

Can anyone give me the names of these adventures and a summary of them?

 

[Voadam]

Its called simply the Rod of Seven Parts. It was a 2e boxed set adventure where the PCs gather the seven parts of the rod (gaining one allows you to sense the next piece) dealing with Chaos and law forces. It uses the 1e artefact references to Wind Dukes and Miska the Wolf Spider and expands upon them. I played in a short-lived game where the DM adapted it for her world and 3.5 so I don't know much about other specifics beyond that.

 

[howandwhy99]

One of the original 70's RPGA module series was entitled "Rod of the 7 Parts". You can find out more about it over at the Aceaum. The 2e boxset used these adventures as inspiration as well as the old 1e DMG.

 

[T. Foster]

Here's a fairly detailed summary by Grodog of the "Dwarven Quest for the Rod of Seven Parts" adventure written by Frank Mentzer and run as an RPGA tournament in 1982 (and after -- I played in it at a local con in 1987!).

 

[CanadienneBacon]

Its called simply the Rod of Seven Parts. It was a 2e boxed set adventure where the PCs gather the seven parts of the rod (gaining one allows you to sense the next piece) dealing with Chaos and law forces. It uses the 1e artefact references to Wind Dukes and Miska the Wolf Spider and expands upon them. I played in a short-lived game where the DM adapted it for her world and 3.5 so I don't know much about other specifics beyond that.

Short-lived?! We ran for over a year in a PbP environment!

Seriously, though. Voadam has the bones of it correct. The Rod of Seven Parts is a 2E boxed set mega-adventure that features a magical rod being contested by two factions, the Wind Dukes of Aaqa and The Spider Queen and her minions, one of whom is Miska the Wolf Spider. Said rod has been shattered into seven parts which themselves have been scattered throughout a very typical and/but railroady dungeon crawl. The module features a lot of background content that is planar-dependent but the PCs themselves really don't know too much of what's going on behind the scenes (a definite drawback, IMO), nor do they get much of a chance to planeshift. I was initially very hot to run this adventure and set it in my 3.5 homebrew, having tweaked it down from 14th to 1st character level without too much pain. After reading through the module and seeing it in play for a year in PbP, I was less exhuberant about the adventure's overall success--this, despite having really good players, all of whom had magnificent character concepts.

 

[Sunderstone]

I thought the Rod of Seven Parts boxed set was excellent, though I never got to run it before 3E was released.
On an interesting, nostalgiac note... In an old GenCon (the year the boxed set was released), the AD&D Open Tournament featured "For a few more Parts" or somesuch. A non-spoiler adventure based on the Rod of seven Parts. I played the dwarf paladin named Tronton. My group took 2nd place in the open, according to what we heard whispered we should have taken 1st place as we were the only group that had no character deaths and we found all the pieces.
According to an RPGA buddy (which we will not name), we were bumped to 2nd place because our tournament gm (an excellent RPGA dm named "Ratty"), had words with one of our players beforehand and apparently didnt like him. I pretty much washed my hands of the RPGA and their Con events right after this.

In any case, 2nd place netted us a few cool prizes and we met Garret Wang (of Star Trek Voyager) at the award ceremony thing.

A Gen Con to remember.

 

[grodog]

On an interesting, nostalgiac note... In an old GenCon (the year the boxed set was released), the AD&D Open Tournament featured "For a few more Parts" or somesuch. A non-spoiler adventure based on the Rod of seven Parts. I played the dwarf paladin named Tronton. My group took 2nd place in the open, according to what we heard whispered we should have taken 1st place as we were the only group that had no character deaths and we found all the pieces.

Which GenCon was this, do you know---1995?? I'd like to add details on that to my D&D tourneys page at http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_tourneys.html

In addition to Sunderstone's tourney, and the R7-10 "Dwarven Quest for the Ro7P" tourneys, there are at least two more Ro7P-related adventures out there:

• Erik Mona's Whispering Cairn in the "Age of Worms" Adventure Path in Dungeon Magazine includes a fair bit of information about the Rod and the Wind Dukes of Aqqa (as do a few other portions of the AP).
• Robert Weise wrote the "Finger of the Wind" RPGA Open for 2000 that included some Ro7P elements, too: http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_tourneys_finger_of_the_wind.html

I'm thinking that there's another adventure as well, but can't think of it offhand. In addition to the adventures, Skip Williams' excellent "A History of the Rod of Seven Parts" appears in Dragon 224 (December 1995) as a tie-in to the box set.

 

[Numion]

There was also an adventure for the Book of Erotic Fantasy called "The Rod of 7 Inches".




Or if there wasn't, there should've been

 

[Sunderstone]

Which GenCon was this, do you know---1995?? I'd like to add details on that to my D&D tourneys page at http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_tourneys.html

I dont remember what year exactly, but the Rod of Seven Parts boxed set was being featured and released that summer. I bought mine there. Planescape was also being introduced although I attended 2 years in a row, so i might be mixed up about that.
Garret Wang of Star Trek Voyager was there as well, so if you know someone with long term RPGA ties, they might be able to clarify things for you.
I think the team that won each got a wooden replica of the rod, as well as all three Options Guides for 2nd edition. For 2nd place, I know we received one of the Options guides and some other minor loot.

They gave each of us a copy of the adventure and the character sheet we used, but it was so long ago that I doubt I still have them.

Hope these memories help you nail down the dates. Sorry I couldnt help more. :\