@Jens_Rasmussen they won't lose immediately, at the very least, so they can still do some major damage to the god to stave off his total reign. the failure conditions look like this:

- phase 1: the players haven't done enough damage to repel the god at all and he takes over the land, killing all of the leaders and torturing the people. potential for a sequel campaign where they start as characters from a different continent chosen by a deity from a different pantheon to correct this. highly unlikely scenario.

- phase 2: the players do enough damage to the god for him to not be able to do anything for a few decades so he lies dormant and the land has a temporary time of peace, thinking that the players were successful. then monsters start popping up again, new campaign with new characters (if we can).

- phase 3: if the players reach this phase, as long as they aren't completely retarded they should win. it's more thematic than anything else. if they do lose though they have done a significant amount of damage to the god and he won't be able to return for another couple thousand years. next campaign is cyberpunk.

if they win, they continue with the current campaign just kind of tying up loose ends. there is a potential for a sequel campaign going after some dragons in another land to stop a war that's been going on for hundreds of years, though. i just don't know if we'll actually get to that second campaign ever, regardless of the setting.

the player characters are astronomically powerful past level 10 so you have to start throwing some pretty wild stuff at them. unfortunately, that also means that if i have really good luck and they have really bad luck they'll just lose. d&d *is* still a game with dice at the end of the day.

i've also considered another potential ending if they get a TPK where they are able to get another chance at the final boss as long as they sell their soul to asmodeus to participate in the war against the demons in hell. i think i might offer that as a potential way forward if the players aren't satisfied with whatever phase they lose in.

i don't think they'll get TPK'd though. that's not my goal at all lol, maybe 2 or 3 deaths at most. what i want and what the dice want might just be a different story though lol.

@Jens_Rasmussen oh yeah, also, there is a bit of a pressure release valve because they can actually leave the fight if they want, before phase 3 at least. since damaging the god will stave off his reign of terror, if they suffer losses that are too significant they can just peace out and wait until the time is right to go back. that's not an immediate thing though, it will take until the god gets to that power level again, so they will go through the same cycle as last time with ~20 years of building chaos first. it's still not really a desirable outcome because it means more civilians will die.