#119: The Death of a God | A Mythic Epic Level 20 One-Shot for Fifth Edition

The God of Endings is dying tonight, and he has hired your legends to see it done right.

The Death of a God is a level 20 one-shot for fifth edition: a complete, zero-prep mythic epic for three to five players in one four to five hour session. It runs on the 2024 rules, and it is written so a Game Master who has never run a level 20 table can open it and play.

For three thousand years Vessalon has closed every ending in the world: deaths and harvests, last pages and last looks, the ends of wars and the ends of fevers. Now his own ending has come, and endings are load-bearing. The dead linger past their time. Wounds refuse to close. A lich-king's phylactery cracks and will not finish breaking. On the night of the Vigil of Endings, the bell of a one-room temple rings once for no reason, and its door opens onto a long grey road.

Your players are legends with humble roots. Kings know their names, but the god did not choose them for the dragons they slew. He chose them for small deeds done before anyone knew them: a sickhouse door held for nine days, a dead man's letters delivered, a vigil sung alone in the rain, a stranger given the full rites at dawn.

Four acts carry the party through the Halls of Conclusion, a heaven run like a clerk's office the size of a cathedral. They hear the petitions of a dying realm, end a war that cannot end or recover a stolen book of last words, cross a sea of unwept tears, and descend a candle stair to the tomb of the mortal the god used to be. All the while the Last Tolling counts down. Every hesitation rings the bell, every honest grief buys a little time, and the count decides how the final trial will go.

Waiting at the end is a pale claimant with a legal right to the god's last power and a case that is hard to argue with. The climax is the Crucible of the Court, a trial fought as a battle: every testimony your heroes win strips his power, and every testimony they lose lets him strike. Then the table chooses one of three endings for the Last Ember. Quench it, kindle a new god, or carry it yourselves.

Level 20 heroes can teleport, cast wish, and come back from the dead, and this book plans for all of it. Every fight comes with a round-one plan, every creature with tactics, and the Rules of the Halls tell you exactly what high-level magic can and cannot do in a dying heaven. If your table goes somewhere unexpected, a What If guide catches it.

What's Inside:

• A complete 112-page adventure: four acts and fourteen scenes, ready to run tonight with zero prep.
• The Last Tolling, a bell-count clock with vigil rites and act ceilings that sets how hard the final trial will be.
• Nine original creatures with full stat blocks up to CR 27, each with a round-one tactics plan.
• Four ready-made level 20 heroes, plus a Deed Worksheet for bringing your own characters.
• Rules of the Halls for wish, teleportation, divination and resurrection, so high-level magic deepens the story instead of breaking it.
• Seven maps, an area reference map plus six battle maps, and original pen-and-ink interior art throughout.
• Six opening hooks, eight What If contingencies, and five campaign seeds.
• Free full-color VTT and battle map versions for owners, with details inside the book.

Perfect For:

Game Masters who want to run level 20 without a twenty-session campaign behind it

Groups of 3 to 5 players, built for 4, in one 4 to 5 hour session

A campaign finale, a convention slot, or one unforgettable night

Tables that love mercy, grief, and endings that mean something

Everything you need is in these pages. Answer the summons, carry the Ember, and give a god a good ending.