Session 28: 6/25/2022

After some discussion, the group decides to head north, slightly further away from Kiayaltepetl. They search the hex for a place to make a temporary hideout/base, and in the process, discover a suspiciously round island in a round pond. Teador flies over on griffin-back and Ratel runs across the water. They determine that the island feels slightly holy, but can’t make the Religion roll. As Teador, a high-level paladin, approaches the small crater in the middle, he hears whistling noise. A boulder falls from the sky with a bright flash, shattering in the crater and sending dust and rocks flying. Inside is a golden rod, one foot long, with a large ruby at one end and an amethyst at the other end. In his head, he hears a voice: “The light of the sun does not belong only to Huitzopochitl. Wield this well.”

His response: “Oh great, another voice in my head.”

This is a Rod of the Sun.
Spoiler: Rod of the Sun[/spoiler
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Legendary, requires attunement
This rod has a huge ruby at one end, and an amethyst at the other. The wearer may use it to cast Daylight at will, and Dawn once per day. The rod may also be activated (as though drawing a weapon), causing it to generate a glowing hot blade. This can be wielded as a +3 sword, with options listed below. Half of the damage dealt by the weapon is fire, and half radiant. Greatsword: Base damage 2d10; Longsword, base damage 2d8; scimitar, base damage 2d6.


Troudor the Fighter takes it, and may use it.

There’s then more discussion, and two of the four PCs go to recon Kiayaltepetl, the city of Tlaloc the rain god. Rivkah flies up on her broom at night at high altitude, then flies over the city in the clouds, and descends, using Invisibility from her Instrument of the bards. She rolls several d20s but always rolls high, so nothing happens on her approach. Her massive perception (+12) lets her make out many details in the dark despite not having Darkvision. She spends some time going over the inner city and decides to check out one of the big buildings. It has iron rods sticking up at every corner, joined together by iron bars around the roof, and only a single covered entranceway. She sticks her head in, sees that it’s a library, and in doing so, sets off the trap, taking 22 points of lightning damage and making a brief thunder-and-lightning show, so she leaves.

Meanwhile, Ratel the Monk, with 2 levels in Rogue and Expertise in Stealth, makes his way to the city, learns what’s on the outer ring, then swims across to the inner ring (because walking on a 50’ wide river at night with no cover is bad for hiding) and investigates a few buildings. When Rivkah sets off the trap, he leaves as well.

What they/the party have learned, summarized:
The entire city is surrounded by miles of chinampas, which are a cool permaculture/aquaculture nerd thing that were actually used in Mesoamerica (go look them up). The Aaracokra don’t need bridges, so approaching on foot means moving between a lot of islands across a lot of 10-25’ wide canals.

The city itself is arranged like a bullseye target. At the center is an island with the temple, which is a stepped-pyramid temple with the roof removed, leaving it a bunch of ground-level passages separated by increasingly tall stone walls. There’s a ring of water/river around it, then an inner city containing priest quarters, the library, a lush garden area, and a large stone building surrounded by two wooden fences that nobody got to take a good look at.

Then there’s another ring of water, and you’re in the outer city, which has a large market/artisanal area, two regions of high-end houses/mansions, two areas where there are garrison barracks and air-skiff parking, and a very large warehouse district with lots of small docks. The Aaracokra farmers use small barges to bring their goods here, where they are stored and trans-shipped downriver to the Aaracokra capital in bulk.

They start talking about plans of attack, and decide that they want help. The next session is probably going to involve some Teleportation movement and diplomacy, as they try to recruit the yuan-ti, some giants or goliaths, etc., to join in the attack. Both forces will have to travel >100 miles through the jungle unobserved, so a big question is going to be “how do you make this happen?” It may take a couple of weeks of in-game calendar time to facilitate this.
Teador thinks the yuan-ti need to come out of the shadows and seize an entire city.

It will probably be 4 weeks until the next session.

DM notes: A shorter session due to scheduling, but zero combat! Nobody flubbed stealth rolls, and Rivkah rolled high enough on the random d20 rolls to not have the permanent weather effects over the city cause her to get hit by lightning as an intruder.
They are really starting to look at the “war/logistics” side of this, rather than just “adventurers striking temples.” That’s part of getting a good/successful ending, so I’m glad they are thinking that way. Soon they will forge an alliance, and make a plan for what happens after they defeat Huitzopochitl!

The Rod of the Sun is a pretty cool Lightsaber item. Some of the main enemies do resist fire and sometimes radiant damage, so it's only really great against certain targets. Troudar's Maul of Extreme Pain (2d6+2d8) still does more base damage, although the Rod could be paired with a shield for more AC.