"This is your first official case."
— Mr. Veríssimo, to the player characters
A Ordem Paranormal (in English, The Paranormal Order) is the first campaign/season of the Actual Play Web Video Series Paranormal Order.
The campaign started on February 29th, 2020, as an experimental short campaign of the game The Esoterrorists. The success of this first season would later result into the franchise we know today.
In 2023, the story of this season was made into a Graphic Novel, titled Ordem Paranormal — Iniciação.
A Ordem Paranormal contains examples of:
- 11th-Hour Superpower: For the last battle, Sr. Veríssimo gives some weapons to the player characters: a rifle for Elizabeth, a shotgun for Daniel, and a sword for Thiago. Compared to the knives and pistols they had before, the new weapons were very overpowered.
- Blank Book: The occultist book found in Agatha's apartment is used as a key for the bookcase passage, so it doesn't have any content.
- Cassandra Truth: While the fireman Wesleynardo claims that he saw a ghost, the authorities say it's not true, even though they are scared of investigating the case.
- Classified Information: The documents registering the school's reform are "top-secret" as a way to hide the existence of the bunker in the school.
- Downer Ending: The player characters defeat the Degolada, but Daniel and Alex die, and Thiago becomes deaf in one ear. The campaign ends with Elizabeth depressed in her bed, crying for not being able to save the lives she wanted to.
- Driven to Suicide: Alexsander, after seeing Daniel die during the final battle, shoots his own head.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Being the first campaign of the series, things were much simpler: there wasn't a tabletop, an original soundtrack, an outro, and the stakes were much lower. This makes this installment feel somewhat different from the subsequent ones.
- Evil Principal: Álvaro Augusto, the new principal of the school, who kidnapped and performed rituals with the students.
- Evil Teacher: Matias and Olavo, hired along with Alexsander to kidnap, torture, and perform rituals using the bodies of the students. Unlike Alex, they accept and participate.
- Fake-Out Twist: Early in the story, the characters learn about Gabriel, a boy who was investigating the disappearance of some girls in the school, leading the players to believe he was a good guy. Later, they discover a video recording that shows he killed Agatha, a girl he bullied in school, inside the bunker, which turns him into suspect No. 1. In the end, though, they finally meet Gabriel, torturing him to get info. Only in the final battle, the main cast realizes he left loads of clues that he was actually Agatha, who forced a bodyswap before the murder, making Gabriel the victim, not the murderer.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: When the main characters finally meet Gabriel, the players choose... a weird way to interrogate him. They tie him up and shoot his feet, trying to get more information. This is lampshaded by Gabriel himself, who doesn't reveal much more stuff.
- Kill It with Fire: The school fire was an attempt to do so with the monster inside it, the Degolada. Turns out, the monster is only killed by fire, but with a twist: the one burning it must say the true name of the monster while doing so.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Alexander doesn't remember anything about his short period working in the school. The characters soon discover he was brainwashed after refusing to participate in rituals made by the principal.
- Mal Mariée: Victoria Opspor flirts with Thiago, alleging that her husband "doesn't give her enough attention" and that she "misses a more manly and younger man."
- Naïve Newcomer: The three protagonists are all newbies in the Order and are all on their first mission. It is somewhat downplayed, though, because they had some training before and know a little about the paranormal.
- Parental Obliviousness: The parents of the kids involved seem pretty unaware of their child's behavior. The biggest example is Victoria Opspor, who seems to not care about her son's investigation or the fact he was "sleeping at his friend's house" on the night the school burned down.
- Punishment Box: While he is under suspicion by the others, Alexsander is obligated to sleep in the cage of Elizabeth's deceased dog.
- Red Herring Mole: Alexsander. His involvement with the case is clear from the beginning, and his weird attitude makes the other characters, especially Daniel, suspicious of him. Turns out his only involvement was refusing to participate in the rituals, and he acted weird because he didn't trust the heroes enough.
- Secret Room: The school bunker, where the principal tortured the students and turned them into weird paranormal creatures.
- Swiss-Cheese Security: The "confidential" documents registering the reform of the bunker in the school are protected by a single, not-very-smart guard and a security system that the heroes easily pass by.
- The Sixth Ranger: In a different way, Alexsander Kothe. He enters the team right in the first episode, but with the first case already in progress. He starts as a witness and a suspect but later (somewhat forcibly) joins the team for having useful info about the school. As a non-order agent, he's weaker and gets scared easier than the other protagonists.
- Weapons Kitchen Sink: Veríssimo gives a weapon to each player character right before the final battle: a rifle for Elizabeth, a shotgun for Daniel, and... a sword for Thiago. Justified in-universe, as the paranormal creatures are weak against cutting damage.
- Year Outside, Hour Inside: Downplayed. Policeman Gonzalez briefly mentions that the main characters were in the school's library for two hours, while the heroes only felt like a few minutes had passed.
