TLDR;My 1 and a half year D&D campaign just ended today with only 4 out of 12 people surviving the encounter including me.
Recently in the campaign a player's character from a previous campaign in the same world had become a lich and destroyed an underwater magic hub city by turning off the magic that kept the water out to fuel his undead army. The way that this world is set up is that there are two campaigns happening simultaneously by my dm in the morning and his friend who will dm the other campaign in the afternoon. Because of this they can both play in each other's game but also in the same world.
Due to special circumstances, that being a lich destroying a magical hub city, we fused both campaigns to take him down. We even had people who had left the campaign earlier due to work schedules and school come back just for this. It was two 12 hour sessions with 12 people with 14 lvs working together to take the lich down. The 1st session was us conserving spells and items while trying to destroy a shield that prevented people from getting in even by teleportation magic while trying to fight undead that, with a lair action, could come back even if they were technically downed due to a portal to the Shadowfell that would revive them if the dm rolled a 6 on a d6. We got out of that hairy situation pretty well off with just about all our resources.
Then we came upon the lich on top of a 3 story 120ft building that housed the portal and the portal generator. There were zombies already there along with a few heavy hitting living armor. We made the bad call and didn't have me, the only spell caster that could consistently cast dispel magic, fly to the generator because we thought we had to say a 5 round ritual to close the portal but was informed as 2 of our smart people that no you could only close it with dispel magic.
I eventually got up there to cast dispel magic and have my artifact that ate magic eat at the portal but not without a cost. It took me 3 rounds and 2 people had fallen already and it broke my dm's heart but because of a bad dice roll his character was the first to go with a power word kill. We were all devastated and due to another special circumstance his soul got turned into essentially a philosopher's stone by a cursed item that one of our players had that collects the souls of people who die within 30 ft of him. So everyone who died today can't be revived because they all died within 30 ft of him so that character is traumatized as one of the few people that escaped.
Eventually the lich dies and the portal is almost shut down but we still had some enemies that could put us all down in 1 round with only the 3 spellcasters, a Ranger Rogue, a Ranger Druid and one Warlock Barbarian who was our only heavy hitter left. My campaign's party was down to only me(a full bard), a ranger druid, a full wizard who can only use spells that she draws once per round and 5 at the start of combat, our self-preserving Ranger Druid and our captain the Warlock Barbarian.
It was looking real bad because we knew that the lich wasn't dead as we hadn't found his phylactery and he still had his goons who could still down all of us in a round. My captain looked at me straight in the eye and told me to take the rest of the survivors and run. I wanted to refuse but I knew he was looking out for me as I was the baby of the group and always tried to make everything better. He told me I could have the our magic flying ship and that I was captain now and to not let our wizard bully me. I knew he was going down fighting to give the rest of us a chance at running away.
Shit I'm crying again but I listened to my captain and told him that I hoped I would see him and that he would try his damnest to get back his captain's seat. I had to leave my Artifact as I couldn't grab it as a free action and was dimension doored to the Ranger on the 1st level about to be over run. Our wizard used his action to dispel the portal and the portal is shut down and bonus action misty stepped away. We tried to teleport but it was counterspelled by a wizard under greater invisibility so we couldn't counterspell the counterspell but the wizard used their reaction so I had polymorphed into a giant eagle and picked up the Ranger and the sorcerer from the other party and booked it.
What my bard didn't see was that my captain ended up getting banished to his home plane and with no one to hit the wizard to have them drop concentration he couldn't come back. What my did end up seeing was that now that the round had started up again my wizard had also polymorphed into a giant eagle and picked up our Ranger Druid who was at the top of the building and had to fly 40ft up pick him up and fly 40ft away. In doing so she couldn't dash as she used her action to pick him up. The enemy wizard had a bone to pick with our wizard's family and dispelled her polymorph and they both fell to their deaths because I had gone too far to fly back and I knew that if I flew back I would risk the chance of being dispelled and also falling to my death.
I escaped and as far as I knew it my entire party was dead but me. I saved 2 from the other campaign and technically my captain was alive but in another plane with no way to get back to this one. I'm devastated, both the dms are devastated, everyone is devastated. We all knew that this was a possibility but we were still optimistic and thought that most of us would make it.
Our dms told us that because we were the only ones who could have even come close to defeating the lich in failing the top half of that entire continent will become over run with the undead within the next few decades and the southern half doing their best to push back against it and only just managing. We are trying to decide whether or not we will start another campaign in this world but fast forward a few decades or start a world anew that the dms have been talking about.
Mostly the last 4 survivors just want to rp what our characters would be doing in the aftermath. It all really heartbreaking cause my character is a gnome bard whose flaw is that she can't let go of the past and disguises herself as a boy due to her backstory but I dont have to keep it a secret now that its over and no one but the dms will ever know unless I get drunk in our farewell to the campaign funeral and blurt that out. Anyways my bard has the Magnificent Mansion and both dms decided as a homebrew thing because of how high-level the spell is if i cast it in the same spot for a year and a day it would be permanent. I was already known for turning some of the spirit servants into people she knew so now the whole party will forever become part of her Magnificent Mansion. As she will cast it on her flying ship alongside Private Sanctum so that her ship will be invisible through magical means.
I asked my dm if at some point through the years if my bard would get her final magical secrets at level 18. He nodded so I said that my character Nikkos would definitely cast Sending to all her dead comrades hoping that someone will answer her from the dead. Her captain would be able to answer and she would try her damnest to learn plane shift to get him back at lv 18. Otherwise she would follow the other 2 survivors and help their goals as well as do her best to finish her own goals.
