My group is due to wander into the room where the Nimbus Bow is kept tonight (going slighlty off track to deal with Khala and cronies without finishing off Ulioth and crew), and I've just noticed that Tonatiuh appears again here.
The group encounters a Couatl called Tonatiuh in the Rakasta weapons cache back in Tides of Dread, but then he again appears in City of Broken Idols, as a god... eh?
Is this just coincidence on the naming? Is Tonatiuh actually a god?
I've looked at the Living Greyhawk deities pdf on the Wizards site, and Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca are both there, but no Tonatiuh...
Any ideas why this is? Did people swap him out for another Olman god? Huhueteotl (fire), Hurakon (water) or Tlazoteotl (earth) maybe?
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Blimey - well spotted! I think it was a mixup, I know my players never noticed - or assumed the couatl was an emissary of Tonatiuh in some way. You could maybe go with Huitzilopochtli, since he's also got the Sun in his portfolio.
I had the activation of each statue summon a Shining Child (each with different themed powers) to add a bit of spice. If you want the stats I can post them :-)
If you want the stats I can post them :-)
Oooo, please!
Currently my group haven't got the coin (or map or whatever it was, not got it to hand) to give them the solution, as they've not given Jakara time to travel to Farshore yet and provide it.
Because of this, I just know that they will sit and try EVERY combination possible. 16x16x16 = 4096... and my group is that curious that they will sit (all day if required) and do every single one.
I don't want that, so I'm adding in a button or lever or something for each attempt. If they have the wrong combination, the gods will be angered (by simple looters) and will spring a trap. Something thunder (sonic) and lightning based, very loud, and possibly with summoning of monsters with it.
May throw a couple of dead skinwalkers in there too with electricity burns and bleeding ears, just as a warning.
Perhaps my reaction is a bit late, but I used Mictlantecuhtli as the third god. If you use C1 (Hidden shrine of Tamoachan) you will find that there is a maquette there of Mictlan, which is his city of the dead.
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Lets see - these three began as standard Shining Children, advanced 2 more HD to 18HD.
The Sun Child was an 18HD Shining Child with Quicken SLA (Greater Teleport).
Moon Child
(description as shining child, except "Surrounded by a nimbus of silver shot through with pitch darkness…")
Quicken Spell-like Ability (greater dispel magic) instead of Greater Teleport. This was great!
Replace Blinding Light with
Unholy darkness (Ex) The moon child can radiate a 60-foot-radius aura of unholy darkness as a free action. This creates a condition of illumination equal to deeper darkness but also blocking darkvision. Creatures entering or within the affected area must succeed on a DC 25 Fortitude save or gain 1d3 negative levels. A creature that successfully saves cannot gain negative levels again from the same moon child’s aura for 24 hours.
Furthermore, creatures of good alignment take 2d6 points of damage per round in the darkness, and creatures neither good nor evil take 1d6 points of damage. No save is possible against this effect, though protection from negative energy is effective.
Creatures killed by this effect rise as wights one round later, under the command of the moon child.
Replace Burning Touch with Unholy Touch (Su)
Unholy Touch (Su) A moon child’s touch leaves the target’s vision fraught with shadows and darkness. For the next 5 rounds after a successful touch attack the creature touched treats all other creatures as if they had concealment, suffering a 20% miss chance on all attack rolls. This effect can be ended by casting a light spell of 3rd level or higher on the target, or by entering an area of natural daylight.
Replace Radiant Armor with Night Armor
Night Armour (Su) The darkness that surrounds a moon child grants a deflection bonus to its AC equal to its Charisma bonus. The bonus is negated as long as the moon child is in the area of effect of a spell with the light descriptor that is at least 3rd level.
Replace Searing Ray with Death Ray
Death Ray (Su) A moon child’s primary attack is a ray of freezing ebon. This attack has a range of 120 feet and bypasses all damage reduction. The ray deals half damage to undead creatures and dazes them for 1d6 rounds. This attack is a death effect.
Spell-likes become:
Spell-like Abilities CL18, concentration +19
At will—greater teleport (self plus 50 lbs. of objects only), deeper darkness, moonstruck (DC 23)
3/day—greater dispel magic (d20+7), shadow evocation (DC 22), summon monster V (summons 1d3 shadows), spell turning, power word, blind, wall of force
1/day—greater shadow evocation (DC 25), screen (DC 25), symbol of death (DC 25)
Moonstruck is great, though I never got a chance to use it :-)
Star Child ((description as shining child, except "Surrounded by a nimbus of greyish purple shot through with streaks of pitch darkness and shimmering greens and purples…")
The Star Child was themed to the emptiness between stars, think spooky and Dark Tapestry - with uber-silence!
Like the Sun Child, this bad boy had Quicken Greater Teleport. Should have made it Quicken Greater Dispel :-)
Replace Blinding Light with Deafening Emptiness
Deafening Emptiness (Ex) The star child can radiate a 60-foot-radius aura of silence as a free action. The silence is icy cold and sears the eardrums. Creatures within the affected area must succeed on a DC 25 Fortitude save or be permanently deafened. A creature that successfully saves cannot be affected again by the same Starchild’s aura for 24 hours.
Replace Burning Touch with Trembling Strike (Su)
Trembling strike (Su) The touch of a star child sets the target vibrating in tune to the cosmic strings. For the next 5 rounds after a successful touch attack by a star child, the target takes 2d6 points of sonic damage and is nauseated. The trembling can be “extinguished” by casting silence on the target, but not by entering an area of magical silence.
Keep Radiant Armor
Replace Searing Ray with Quivering Ray
Quivering Ray (Su) A star child’s primary attack is a jarring ray that distorts the targets’ tissues. This attack has a range of 120 feet and bypasses all damage reduction. The ray travels through zones of magical silence normally, and deals double damage to oozes.
Spell-likes become:
Spell-like Abilities CL12, concentration +19
At will—greater teleport (self plus 50 lbs. of objects only), silence (DC 21), deafness (DC20)
3/day—greater dispel magic, spell turning, disintegrate (DC24, 24d6), wall of force, forcecage (DC24), otiluke’s resilient sphere(DC22)
1/day—holy star (DC 25), plane shift (DC 24), symbol of stunning (DC 24), cone of cold (DC22, 15d6)
Not sure what I did about all that sonic damage in a silence. It's magic, I guess. Or special mental silence. Handwavy stuff I'm afraid!
Hope you can use that :-)
Oh boy, can I...!
Did you have all three turn up together?
@ Carborundum: those are some great ideas/stat blocks! Thank you for posting them.
Consider them yoinked (or whatever the term is), as I love the Shining Child. (One of them gave my players' characters some trouble recently - although I did mis-read one spell-like ability so it was a bit more nasty than it really should have been.)
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Glad you like them. Looking back I'd tweak all sorts of things - make quickened dispelling a supernatural ability, for starters!
The deafening silence wreaked havoc, and the quivering touch was fun too. Add that to dropping a forcecage on the main fighter and having a patrol arrive soon after - brown trousers all round :-)
I would love to hear how it goes!
My group reached area 13 in the Taboo Temple last night.
I'd made some changes, firstly that the stone disk from Noltus was incomplete, and was missing the last 4 symbols on the outside ring, the rest was never found. This was due to my players would instantly work out the combination if it was complete.
Also I made it that the players had to move the stones and 'lock in' a combination by pressing a button in the centre of the stones. Getting it wrong would seal off the room (wall of force), have thunder (sonic damage) and lightning (electricity damage) go off in the room and then summon a Sun, Moon or Star child (roughly as Carborundum laid out, but without the advancement to 18HD)
After some thought, the party rogue got bored and just pressed the button. This summoned a Moon Child. The group dealt with that with dismissal after the rogue took a bit of a beating
Following that, they decided to use resist energy for general protection, and try some trial and error. On the next try, they got the star stone in the correct place (possibly by dumb luck, still not sure) so I took it that the stone disappeared during the summoning (Sun Child this time, dismissed again). This would give the party some clue that they've got something right, as if that didn't happen they would more than likely give up. Also, it allows them to determine the missing symbols on the stone disc (they first thought that there would be 12 of each symbol)
That's where we left it (it was near the end of the session). Really enjoyed playing the Sun and Moon Childs, although very briefly (neither made a save against any dismissal)... will let you know what happens next :)
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Oooooh, sounds like fun! Shame they had two dismissals handy :-)
I assume they had them readied, curse those clever players! Hopefully the next one will be a star child - no dismissal in the silence zone muhahahaha!
thanks for the update, I hope you get a chance to play with some nice powers and spells. Mmmmm, forcecage...
Both our Life Oracle and the Dragon Disciple Sorcerer have learned Dismissal due to the fact that they realised that they're about to run into extraplanar creatures. They've also got wind of a couple of Hezrous, so that's where it come from. Means that between then, they can rock up about 12 casts a day. Ouchie.
To be fair, once the Moon Child threw out it's darkenss, the Oracle couldn't target it. Unfortunately, the Dragon Disciple could (thanks to an item granting blindsense) so it got sent packing.
The Sun Child manage to blind everyone apart from the Oracle and Dragon Disciple (luck damn it!) so it got sent home soon after.
Means the players are enjoying it however, I get to have some fun (albeit briefly) and then they get the awesome feeling for dealing with it quickly... I've got enough longer fights for them lined up later (Khala will be fun!)
My group got their hands on the Nimbus Bow in the end last night, they actually ended up using trial and error to find the correct combination.
Took them about 6 attempts in the end, they had to deal with one moon child and about 5 sun childs, and in the end with things like resist energy and other buff / healing spells, the 'children' didn't cause too much issue after a while.
All in all though, pretty good fun :)