Orpheus
| Orpheus | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Role-playing game published by White Wolf |
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| Rule System | Storyteller System | |
| First Publication | 2003 | |
| Essential Books | Orpheus: Don't Look Back | |
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Orpheus is a roleplaying game published by White Wolf that consists of six books: Don't Look Back, Crusade of Ashes, Shades of Gray, Shadow Games, Orphan Grinders, and End Game. Only the first book is needed to play, but the rest flesh out both the system and overall plot. The fluff expansion works well enough, but the crunch split among six books is a worse headache than Scion if you have them in dead-tree format and not as computer files.
Dying is Part of the Job
Several ways to send living people to interact with the dead have been discovered. The oldest and easiest method is, obviously, to just die (while really attached to something from your life) though this is the unappealing and better reserved as a "fall back" plan if your other method fails. So that leaves two popular methods: the difficult to master ancient soul projection technique and new cryogenics technology inspired by frogs & tested on dogs that allows revivification (unlike the older stab every cell to death with ice crystals tech).
The Startups
- The Orpheus Group is interested in money and afterlife research, in that order. The company starts very generic and meant to be fleshed out during a campaign by the Players.
- Terrel & Squib Pharmaceuticals have plenty of funding and little respect for safety, they're more interested in capitalizing on a new niche market before their competitors.
- NextWorld, Inc. is a Russian corporation working off of GRU research from the Cold War, they're mostly interested in the espionage & military applications for ghostly field agents.
The Follow-ups
- Future Life
- Lazarus Redux
- Osiris Inc.
- other smaller firms
Other Organizations
- Governments departments (DEA, FBI, NSA, etc.)
- The Black Steel Centipede Triad
- Blasphemers (former Hells' Angels)
- Brooks House
- Death Merchants
- Exorcist Mobile, LLC
- The Midnight Star
- The Missionary Works of the Holy Ghost
- Pigment Cults
Characters
Shades
Characters are separated by their key abilities like Arcanoi/Guilds from WtO adapted into a generic template.
- Banshees
- Haunters
- Marrow
- Phantasm
- Poltergeist
- Skinrider
- Wisps
Projectors
People who aren't dead.
Projector Types
- Skimmers: soul projectors, fastest in & out of their bodies, can't sit still indefinitely.
- Sleepers: cryogenically frozen, the cooldown and warmup take a long time so they're under for while.
Ghosts
Dead people who haven't reached the Underworld, they mostly just hang around their fetters. If they can get over themselves, they can work for one of the new startups.
Ghost Types
- Animals: normal dead animals.
- Hues: created from overdosing on the drug Pigment.
- Orphan-Grinders: rescued spectres.
- Spirits: normal dead humans.
Spectres
They're not just the Shadow consumed Wraiths fought in WtO. An mysterious force has taken over their hive-mind and twisted them into new specialized forms. Not all of them succumbed, the Malfeans are royally pissed off yet still hanging on and there are some pretty powerful Spectres in their own right. They're able to push back against the greater hive-mind and resist its call, sometimes while in control of a few subservient Spectres of the old castes.
New Spectre Breeds
- Carpet Crawlers: giant amoeba ghosts?
- Chitters: spectre-hive guards
- Chupacabras: warped animal ghosts.
- Clappers
- Collectors: bat-winged squids? wtf?
- Fetches: hunt down ghosts for other Spectres.
- Friendly Angels: they herd, comfort, & lead Lost Boys.
- Hawgs: spectre-hive drones, haul raw materials.
- Lawgiver: what happens if an Orphan-Grinder is recaptured.
- Leeches: wormy web-users.
- Outflyers: giant sea urchins?
- Reapers: heavy hitters, classic "cloak & scythe" appearance.
- Ribbon-Cutters: essentially a ball of blades.
- Shepherds: lead groups of Fetches, "cloak & crook" look.
- Spectre Hounds
- Spreaders: spectre-hive builders, have spread beyond the Underworld.
- Syrenes: PC hunter/seekers.
- Swarm Globes
See Also
- Wraith: The Oblivion (semi-prequel)
- World of Darkness
- Spookshow (a 1997 RPG centered on ghosts-as-spies)
Links
- World of Darkness website
- World of Darkness wiki
- Unmoderated WoD Chat
- Mister Gone's Character Sheets