In many campaign settings for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game the Rod of Seven Parts, formerly known as the Rod of Law, is a powerful artifact.
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The Rod of Seven Parts, when whole, is a 5-foot-long pole. The command words for each piece are "Ruat," "Coelum," "Fiat," "Justitia," "Ecce," "Lex," and "Rex," which collectively make up a Latin phrase that translates into "Though heaven fall, let justice be done. Behold! Law is king."
The Rod of Seven Parts artifact first appeared in the 1976 TSR (Gygax & Blume) publication Eldritch Wizardry. It was a the centerpiece of a story concerning a long-ago "great war" between characters known as Wind Dukes of Aaqa and the character Queen of Chaos. At the time the artifact was in one piece, and was known as "The Rod of Law".
In the story, the Rod of Law was used in the Battle of Pesh to imprison the Queen's greatest general, a character known as Miska the Wolf-Spider, Prince of Demons. The rod was broken into seven fragments during this conflict, and the seven individual pieces were scattered across the world.
The Eldritch Wizardry guidelines described each piece as having its own unique powers. In a gaming scenario, the more parts of the rod a user possessed, the more powerful each one of the seven parts became[1].
The Rod of Seven Parts first appeared in the Original D&D supplement, Eldritch Wizardry.[2] It was one of the first artifacts detailed for the Dungeons & Dragons game.[3][4] This artifact has been updated many times,[5][6] has received an eponymous boxed set[7] based around it including an adventure, and has even been the object of quests as in the adventure path, Age of Worms. In the Age of Worms Adventure Path, the seventh part of the Rod lies in the tomb of the Wind Duke general Icosiol.[8] The sixth part lies on another plane. The Rod of Seven Parts is one of the few artifacts to be given a detailed history and guide for any campaign world.[9]
The Rod of Seven Parts was also a featured item in a fantasy novel by Douglas Niles, titled The Rod of Seven Parts [10]. The story deals with the return of the Rod and the forces of Chaos trying to keep it apart. The book by veteran writer Niles received mostly positive reviews from Amazon.com[11]. This makes the Rod the only major Dungeons & Dragons magical artifact to be featured in its own stand alone product and a novel.