The Red Crown statue before purgatory
The Purgatory Portal while fully charged
The Purgatory Portal recharging after use
Purgatory is a challenge feature unlocked after clearing the main game and the post-game Darkwood section for the first time after speaking to ???. It acts as a way to obtain more God Tears for ???. The fountain outside of your Cult's Headquarters will be destroyed and replaced with a portal to Purgatory.
Purgatory can be accessed once per in-game day. Time will be frozen while in Purgatory unlike Crusade (unless time is disabled in the Accessibility setting), and you cannot start another run upon clearing the challenge until the next day unless you spend a Sin. You cannot take Demons into this mode, but buffs from eating or the Empowered Shrine of Disciples will be taken. They will be consumed through a Purgatory run however.
No resources or artifacts are gained in Purgatory runs. Enemies drop no loot and chests instead award small amounts of God Tear Fragments. Once you collect enough fragments, you can make a full tear, but this amount increases over time, to a max of 300.
NPCs such as Clauneck, Chemach and Kudaai, can be encountered both in their own encounter or in random rooms. Ratoo and Forneus can also be encountered normally. Resource rooms, Monch, Helob and Berith will not appear at all. No followers can be found in Purgatory.
Purgatory consists of two main modes: Dungeon Gauntlet and Boss Rush. The reward for finishing a run is one complete God Tear. If the player loses the run, they will miss the God Tear reward, but keep their fragments, which may complete a Tear if sufficient. If insufficient, they are not lost, and carried over for future runs.
You have to clear Purgatory at least once with the default Fleece of the Lamb before being able to select other fleeces. Each time you complete a run in a given Fleece, the next time you attempt it the difficulty will increase, up to a limit.
Dungeon Gauntlet[]
The Dungeon Gauntlet consists of you revisiting a series of encounters with regular enemies. The first encounter in each run is predetermined but afterwards the player might be given a choice, much like in a regular crusade. Unlike regular crusades however encounters are randomized over all 4 biomes, which can be distinguished by their color on the adventure map.
On each given Fleece, Dungeon Gauntlet starts as a straight path to the end with a few rooms to complete. As more runs are won with each Fleece, the Gauntlet will expand in branching paths that allow the player to pick and will start to include NPC encounters. The total length of the Gauntlet will become significantly longer as well.
The final challenge in each run will be a boss fight, which starts with the regular biome bosses but scales over time to include Witnesses and then Bishops, with The One Who Waits at the highest tier.
Boss Rush[]
Purgatory Dungeon Gauntlet screen
Purgatory Boss Rush screen
The Boss Rush consists of a run fighting against bosses back to back. All of the bosses encountered are their original variant prior to ???'s changing on dungeon to its bishop-less variant. The type of boss fought is random on each encounter, albeit their biome origin can distinguished by their color on the adventure map.
On each given Fleece, Boss Rush starts as a straight path to the end with a few boss battles to complete. As more runs are won with each Fleece, the Rush will expand in branching paths that allow the player to pick different bosses and it will start to include NPC encounters. The total length of the Rush will become significantly longer as well.
After each battle, the player will be presented with a weapon, a curse or a relic to pick, one of the three, before the chest appears. Due to the fact that the player is immediately thrown into each boss fight, Tarot Cards are not offered, but Clauneck may be encountered in his own room in the adventure map. The Fleece of the Fates or Fleece of a Cursed Crusade offer their cards normally as soon as the run begins.
After the first challenge per fleece, the second challenge will always feature at least one Bishop battle. Over time the path will start to branch, but all Bishops rooms are at chokepoints meaning that they must be fought. The Final challenge will feature several biome bosses, every single bishop and a fight with The One Who Waits as the finale.
Achievements[]
The only achievement relevant to Purgatory is Slayer of Souls, which is awarded for completing a row in Purgatory. Purgatory could also be used for getting the hit-less boss achievements, as their purged forms don't count.