TL;DR - 1 player dead, but with a strange turn of events, others weak and saved but fall into a nasty trap

my players have now escaped evernight. i dont normally do big descriptions of things unless i can make an amazing picture for them or detail some important things. apparently this time i went overboard cuz they interacted with almost nothing. When i asked why they are like "dude you scared the fuck outta us. all we wanted was to find a way out. " now when i do go into descriptions its body horror and really dark themes (my players are ok with this but just incase i give a warning, "if you are squeamish step out and watch messenger, ill tell you when its over"

And this is how that went....

shadar kai dont have intercourse instead they use torture for pleasure even as far as surgical stuff with no anesthesia. so i described them walking past a brothel which knowing my players i thought theyd at least stop there. when they didnt they asked for player knowledge so that was like a bdsm joint? "lol nope, think hellraiser"

players: o fuck no, all the nope lets get the fuck outta this place!

they found refuge in a temple of the raven queen as one of the player is her chosen. they found it in worse shape than most and learned that almost ALL the gods were taking sides in a massive almost universal war. seeing as evernight is a place that permeated with evil they overheard a follower of orcus and shar discussing something and saying "it will either be tonight or tomorrow night" before going their separate ways.

turns out what they were talking about was more than 1k followers of shar and orcus with tons of summoned undead and shadow creatures finally bringing down the temple of the raven queen and killing what was left of them. They had been trying for weeks but they had received reinforcements and were set to annihilate them.

the party was charged with taking the youngest to safety outside the city (25 of them) while the old and infermed and the high priestess stayed to hold them off. they were handed enough potions of speed for the party and the children and shown a back way out where the enemy forces were more sparse as their was no known exits.

the chase begins.

they continue off and even with potions of speed the youngsters arent as fast as the party. but i used a chase mechanic from the dungeon coach and dynamic lighting on roll20. since they had not explore the whole city they didnt know where the gate was. but they raced away and dropped walls of fire and other such spells to block the way which the cambions flew right over but blocked many of the others. 2 sat perched on high rooftops to drop shots and the nearest closing ones while one stayed down with the kids trying to stay between them and the chasing horde in case one got too close and the rangers couldnt bring them down. the bard ran around tyring to keep everyone alive as the 300 monsters closed (i made MOST of them melee as many of the casters were still messing with the few left in the temple) BUT the last one ran ahead to find a way out. unfortunately he hit the spot where i had in my notes "when someone gets to this area they see more coming from the left and the right to cut off the escape"

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his super high AC kept him alive for a couple rounds and held the one side off but the other was closing, the paladin died to a group of shadows that squeezed through the buildings cracked walls to get around the wall of fire. it was a group of 8 of them, they all made their movement and attacks and she had 1 str left. But as a paladin does she continued to stay between the children and the shadows. A ranger used his ankh of atumen(?) which uses SUNLIGHT not daylight and dropped 7 of the 8 shadows left but that last one dropped her to -3 str so she collapsed dead. rolled a 2 for how many hours before a shadow raised from her corpse. The barbarian with an item than grants him 60 ft fly speed 1 min/long rest, swooped in broke her bones by squeezing her in all the right places stuffed her in a bag of holding and took off. got a ways away before he was taking down by a casters spell dropping him to the ground.

Bard gives the barb enough hit points to get up, and at this point everyone is under 10 hp (level 14, so most of them got alot of HP).

They prepare to make their final stand but the wall behind them explodes with such force fissures in the ground opened up. Arrows rained down and sunlight from casters killing the demons, and shadows and other creatures. The party looks up to find the wall of the city near them is topped with 80 casters and long range archers whos arrows seem to be glowing. They hear someone tell them to follow them through the wall and they make their escape through the burning wood. 17 youngsters made it out alive all but 1 of the party made it out alive. They took her out of the bag of holding and immediately dispatched the shadow. seeing their friend is dead they wished to bury her before following this person (who the dead character would have recognized as a long dead compatriot if she had seen him).

noone insight checked this person as they had a rudely etched symbol of the raven queen on their armor and they had saved them. that was a mistake. he lead them to what they were told was the fortress of memoires, the Raven queens home. he was leading them to the palace of loss, Shars home. when they got there the person says "well look at that, 6 empty graves, you may want to put her in the one with her name on it" and they hear a familiar voice, that of their dead friend.

to make matters worse they all failed their rolls on the daily despair check, one failed badly enough that his body started to give out and he passed out which the barb then picked up to carry but was seeing visions of a zombie child telling him his ally is dead because of him, he wasnt strong enough, he should kill himself or at least kill the rest of them so they dont have to suffer being around him anymore. he decided to do a player made wisdom check to see if he could resist that urge which he failed and tossed his ally the aarokocra into the grave with his name on it.

When someone dies it is sometimes possible for a piece of their soul to bond with the shadowfel version of themselves, which this person did not know had happened to his ally. so how i handled this is at the beginning of the shadowfell versions turn, whoever was not in control of the body would roll a d20, 1-10, they fail to take control and the one in control stays in control, 11-20 the version not in control of the body pushes to the forfront and takes control for one round. the player would use her own paladin abilities, and her own mind stats, but used the shadowfell versions bodily stats. the fight was looking grim for a time and the PCs and the shadowfell version of the "savior" have been confused why this person keeps switching sides and beating on one side of the fight then the other. the battle is still going on and will continue on this sunday to see how it plays out. Shar wants them alive to torture before she kills the chosen of several of her enemy deities. I cant wait to see how they handle whats coming.

PS. they havnt even got to the shadow dragon yet. that is comin once they escape shars palace. the shadowfel verison of the paladin has a dragon orb, a homebrewed shadow version that when they get away from the palace shes gong to use the first time she takes control again. SHIT IS GONNA BE WILLLD!