A dark ritual on a gorge [30x40] (free version)

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Dark powers have gathered here to hold a nightly ritual. Our heroes are of course very motivated to stop this. (Summary at the end of the post)

Possible encounter:

In a nearby village, our heroes are approached by the mayor. He instructs them to stop a dark ritual that takes place on every full moon at a nearby cliff. Again and again people disappear before these days and never reappear. Our heroes should prevent this on this full moon. But the mayor warns them that he had already sent a group of adventurers on the last full moon, they apparently tried their hand at an open fight and were slaughtered by the cultists. A clandestine, surprising and merciless attack is, in his opinion, the best way to win.

Now our heroes set out for these cliffs at night. The best thing to do is to sneak from cover to cover. On the cliff they can see that the ritual has already begun. Armed figures in dark cloaks stand there and spread blood on the shining seal. When our heroes attack, the cultists only appear briefly surprised and they reveal themselves to be well-armed and trained warriors. An hard battle begins with injured and dead on both sides. During the chaotic and brutal fight in the dark, the two groups will eventually realize something...

The twist: During this punching and stabbing, at some point both groups realize that the other side is not a hostile group of cultists. They are both a group of heroes. One was commissioned by the mayor to attack a cultist ritual here. The other is lurking here for a high-ranking group of cultists who are expected to arrive here soon. To deceive them they pretended to be lower members of these cultists and pretended to prepare a ritual to surprise the arriving cultists and easily kill them. This is also a quest by the mayor.

At the moment when the two groups realize this, torchlight can be seen at the entrance to the gorge. The mayor and many armed peasants have arrived to complete their ritual.

The two groups that have just been fighting each other now have a desperate joint battle ahead of them. They don't just face bloodthirsty farmers. The blood that they previously shed each other not only weakened them but also called the demonic entity, which will soon interfere in the fight on the farmer's side...

Summary: A village lures our heroes into a trap. Wrong information leads them to fight another group of heroes at the place of the ritual. Both believe they fight cultists only to find out that this was the villagers' trap to shed as much blood as possible in this place.