Boss fight

Introduction

After last session's filler, the party - now with all members - went ahead to face the head of the evil cult.

Antechamber

The party entered a large, cavernous hall. On the large sacrificial altar on the far end (hidden beneath a character sheet), the corpses of several villagers. Blood flowed everywhere, landing in a gutter.

The adventurers were attacked by a mixed band of berserkers, shadow priests, vampire spawn and a shadowy figure. The clay golem, escaped from the last encounter, was also there.

Boss fight

After a tough fight, the adventurers descended into the gutter on rough iron chains, and landed in a puddle of blood. They were greeted by a gruesome sight.

Besides the undead moving in to attack them, a half-zombified woman - obviously a spellcaster - sat muttering at the altar, praying to Orcus, Demon Prince of the Undead. The magical circle in front of the portal glowed ominously. A dark shape was testing the limits of the portal - from the other side.

DM's note. This encounter was originally designed to be tough, but not very memorable. I changed that, by lowering the overall stats of the boss, but introducing a custom element. Upon landing, the adventurers each experienced hallucinations. Each of them was thrown back into a great moment of distress.

The rogue found himself accosted by city guard while exiting a brothel. He tried to bluff his way out of a fine, but the guards - in reality, the skeletons - assaulted him, with little chance of fighting back.

The wizard awoke in the dimensional prison, demons bearing down on her. She tried disbelieving it - gnomish traits to the rescue!

The druid was watching poachers in her native forest, and decided to attack - unwillingly striking the shaman.

The shaman was in his native village the night it was attacked by shadow. He saw his friends and family rise up as undead and claw at him - bearing the brunt of the druid's attack.

The paladin was tortured in a dungeon. He broke down and cried.

I took full advantage of the hapless state of the adventurers. When the hallucinations faded - slowly, due to bad rolling - the party was at last free to strike back. They were held back some by the thing in the portal, trying to catch and pull them in, but in the end, they managed to strike down the caster.

Enraged by the failure of his pawn, Orcus reached out from the portal to grab the woman, dragging her to an eternity of torture.

Collapse

The portal's magic exploded, causing an earthquake. The ruins began collapsing. Obviously, instead of running for safety, the adventurers decided to look around, looting scrolls and books from the altar. When they finally decided to make a run for it, it was already too late. They ran the gauntlet of falling debris well enough, but couldn't avoid the death of two of them.

Resolution

The adventurers returned to Winterhaven, bearing their dead friends. They spent most of their remaining money on resurrecting them. At the very least they were greeted as heroes, and Lord Padraig kept them well for a couple of days.

We didn't go further that day. After a pause and some research, we decided to expand the party with new players and start a new adventure with the rules for DnD 5th Edition. We established that the original party disbanded, each going their separate way. Of course, any abandoned character becomes the DM's intellectual property...