"Tomes"? (Products, not in-game items)

[Mouseferatu]

Toward the later days of 2nd edition, TSR released several boxed sets under the "Tomes" imprint. I know two of them were Return to the Tomb of Horrors and The Rod of Seven Parts. Were there others? What were they?

 

[exile]

Those are the only two that I recall for sure from the "Tomes" line. I'm even more certain that they were the only two packaged in the distinctive tan/brown boxes. That said "Axe of the Dwarvish Lords" might have also been part of that line (though it was packaged differently).
Chad

 

[Whisper72]

Yes. According to the TSR Archive (http://home.flash.net/~brenfrow/index.htm) website, there were three 'Tomes'. Item 1145: Rod of Seven Parts, item 1162: Return to the Tomb of Horrors and item 11347: Axe of the Dwarvish Lords.

The first two were released in Boxed Set format, the Axe as a softcover and had another look/feel (i.e. it was in the black cover that went along with most latter 2nd edition products).

If you have any questions on them, I have all three products.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Well, I've got the two that I mentioned. Didn't know about Axe.

Is it worth trying to acquire?

 

[Whisper72]

Well, there are several up on ebay at the moment. Don't know what they sell for in auctions, but seeing the 'buy now' prices, must be able to get one at around $15.00

Whether this makes it worth it for you....

Some info on it: designed by Skip Williams, creative directors Keith Strohm and Ed Stark.

As an adventure, it is kinda railroady in the style of the latter 2nd Ed adventures, where the story had to continue. On the other hand, the adventure has a few cool sites mapped out, most action takes place in some massive dwarven stronghold/city called Radruundar. It comes with a nice color map in the back (be sure to make sure it's there if you buy one on-line!), It also has some small notes on how to position the adventure (more like a mini-campaign) in either Oerth, Faerun or the Birthright world.

 

[JustKim]

I converted and ran Axe not long ago. I'm not sure what railroading Whisper is referring to, the main adventure is a great big dungeon crawl. There is a riddle that could be construed as the "right" way to proceed through the dungeon, but it's really just the fastest/easiest way. Radruundar is a huge interconnected dungeon.

Actually, I think the riddle's greatest failure is that it does not reveal to the DM what the passages mean. Reading the adventure from cover to cover does not necessarily make the passages clear either, it requires that the DM plot a course from point A to B to C and figure out which passages then key to which areas. I went ahead and used the riddle, but I suspect the adventure may have been better without it. As my players pointed out right away, why would they follow a riddle to the hiding place of the Axe if all the ruckus was about the Axe being already unearthed?

One neat thing about Axe is that it's a book where you can see the mechanics that became 3E in the works. In order to make goblins challenging opponents for a high-level party, Skip Williams introduced some things like squad attacks, grapples and repeating crossbows. The maps of the Radruundar dungeon complex was also featured in WotC's Map a Week early on, in December 2000. Because it was a softcover and mainly a dungeon crawl, it wasn't as popular as the more immersive Tomes boxed sets, and often gets overlooked.