"We've been to the cave. We've been to the cave. We've been to the cave."
— Lurdete, in her diary
O Segredo Na Floresta ("The Secret in the Forest") is the second season of the series Paranormal Order, a continuation of A Ordem Paranormal. It is a tabletop RPG campaign based on an adapted version of the Call of Cthulhu system. The game is Dungeon Mastered by the streamer Cellbit and features Calango as César Oliveira Cohen, LJoga as Cristopher Cohen, Gabi Catuzzo as Elizabeth Webber, LubaTV as Joui Jouki, Rakin as Thiago Fritz, and later, Guaxinim as Arthur Cervero.
The series was live-streamed on Website/Twitch and ran from April 11th to July 25th, 2020, consisting of 16 episodes, each lasting an average of 3 to 4 hours. These episodes can also be found on his secondary YouTube channel.
On August 1st, 2020, a special, bonus stream was held where the players gathered to discuss the season's events, their characters, clarify viewers' doubts, and reveal some of the secrets that had not been uncovered during the series.
Unmarked spoilers ahead. You Have Been Warned.
O Segredo Na Floresta contains examples of:
- All Bikers are Hells Angels: The conflict between biker gangs is a big part of the plot. The Assombrados gang, in particular, is portrayed as a bunch of robbers and murderers. The Gaudérios Abutres, on other hand, are good guys and side with the player characters, but are still portrayed as scary outlaws for the most part.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: The inhabitants of Santo Berço, who are all grey-skinned.
- …And That Little Girl Was Me: In the 15th episode, the team finds Kenan, a prisoner in Santo Berço. The entire episode is framed like a flashback telling the story of the Kelvin Team, being the only scripted segment in the campaign. In the end, Kenan reveals that he's the last standing member of the Kelvin Team, with the other two dying and becoming the Blacksmith of the town, respectively.
- Arc Symbol: The "spiral symbol", as described by the GM, appears first in the third episode and then everywhere since. Turns out it was the symbol of the Santo Berço town. Its spiral nature evokes the symbol for the Death element.
- Became Their Own Antithesis: Dr. Virgulino, who quit his job in the Sanatorium for disapproving of Verruckt's unethical methods. He would later try to cure the mental issues of his wife and daughter using similar methods.
- Bedlam House: Being run by an Austrian mad doctor in the 19th century, the Sanatorium was famous for torturing its patients. When the player characters visit it, it's filled with monsters and aberrations.
- Big Door: The door in the Santo Berço Mines, which has turned into a local legend. The player characters open it with a black keycard, revealing a hidden facility built by the scientists who founded the town.
- Blank White Void: When Thiago is trapped, unconscious, inside the Aracnasita, he feels like he's in a blank void, where he can only see Cristopher. When he draws the Santo Berço symbol on his back, he starts to see only the other player characters, with the rest being described as this.
- Call-Back: Starting a trend very common in the series, the last few episodes show us various call-backs to the first campaign. These mostly take the form of background characters from the first season being revealed as having been involved in some way with the "Santo Berço Project".
- Crapsaccharine World: The town of Santo Berço, where everyone is happy and nothing bad ever happens. We later discover the place is only that great because it's being influenced and controlled by a paranormal parasite, which consumes life energy to make everything surrounding it perfect.
- Crazy Homeless People: The Velho Louco (literally, "Crazy Old Man") is one. Later, his insane behavior is explained by the fact that he was one of the founders of Santo Berço, where he lost his mind and repented to study the paranormal.
- Demihuman: The inhabitants of Santo Berço, called Luzídios, are all grey-skinned, having pointy ears and all-black eyes.
- Filler: In the bonus episode, Cellbit comments that the 10th episode is this. According to him, "Even if the episode was very important in terms of character development, nothing in this episode helps to advance the main plot".
- For Science!: The scientists responsible for the "Santo Berço Project" created an entire town around a parasite fed by life energy, only to study the paranormal. In later campaigns, we discover that the project's objective changed later on.
- Genius Loci: Being controlled by a huge parasite, the town of Santo Berço acts as if it's alive many times. The most obvious example is when fire is lit in the town: the day turns into night instantly, and a variety of monsters show up to haunt and kill the population.
- Giant Spider: In Episode 3, the players fight the Aracnasita, a huge spider that had been hiding in the forest.
- Glowing Gem: The crystals of Santo Berço. The green one heals, the red one is hot, the blue one is cold and the black one turns anyone into a grey-skinned Luzídio instantly.
- Grey-and-Grey Morality: According to the GM, Cellbit, his intent was to present the decision to destroy Santo Berço as a difficult one, citing that "no matter the choice, hundreds would suffer and die". That's not what the players understood in the actual playthrough, though.
- Hell Hotel: The Hotel of Santo Berço, where the player characters arewarned right off the bat about its 'haunted' status. In the first night they sleep there, they are attacked by a "Guilt Parasite", which makes them fight illusions of their deceased friends and family.
- Heroic Sacrifice:
- In the third episode, Cristopher dies jumping on the Aracnasita's back to save Thiago. He ends up saving everyone and dies hugging the one he wanted to save.
- Thiago himself, in the last episodes. After offering to draw the symbol of Santo Berço on his back to guide the party in the labyrinth, he is trapped by the God of Death, who makes everything seem and feel as if it's happening in slow motion. This results in Thiago waiting 51 years (in the other characters' eyes, a few seconds) to blow himself up, along with the final boss, to save his friends.
- Hidden Elf Village: The town of Santo Berço, hidden deep inside a forest near a small Brazilian town. The only ones who know the city are the ones who go live there, never returning after.
- His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Everyone in Santo Berço is called only by their jobs. Examples are the Blacksmith, the Miner, the Gatekeeper and the Blacksmith's Assistant.
- I Never: Proposed by Elizabeth in Episode 8. Results in everyone falling over from drinking.
- Impossibly Delicious Food:
- The Cacetinho do Letício, a simple sandwich served in a small snack bar, jokingly described by the player characters as "the best thing they ever ate".
- All the foods and drinks in Santo Berço, which are non-jokingly described by the GM as "the best thing someone could ever eat/drink."
- Mad Doctor: Dr. Verruckt and his assistant, Virgulino, who ran terrible experiments involving turning people (including Virgulino's wife and daughter) epileptic, to "cure" them later with shock therapy. The latter originayed an urban legend in the town of Carpazinha.
- The Maze: The "infinite labyrinth" in the center of Santo Berço, where no one can ever find the center unless they draw the symbol of the city somewhere on their body.
- Out-of-Genre Experience: When the player characters go to Santo Berço, the RPG shifts from an urban fantasy setting to a high fantasy one, with medieval weapons and everything. The characters go back to using guns in the last few episodes and only return to the modern urban world only in the very last one.
- Parent-Child Team: Downplayed. César and Cristopher are son and father, and both are a part of the Equipe E. The team also has other people in it, though.
- Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Brúlio kills himself in Episode 6, after being hypnotized by the Carniçal.
- Pummeling the Corpse: After discovering that Rodolfo killed Gregório, Brúlio starts to curse and shoot at the rival biker's corpse.
- Put Down Your Gun and Step Away: In Episode 5, Rodolfo takes Gregório hostage, while telling the player characters to put the guns down and not react. Infamously, Elizabeth doesn't obey, tasing one enemy. As a result, Gregório's brains are blown out.
- Send in the Search Team: The team's primary objective in the campaign (at least at first) is to find, and, if possible, rescue the Kelvin Team, who have been missing for a month by the time the campaign starts.
- Sequence Breaking: As revealed in the bonus episode, the investigation of the Blacksmith's Assistant's death would be a big plot point, but the players' decision to go to the Gatekeeper tower in the very next morning of the murder made them accidentally figure out the solution to the case very easily.
- The Sixth Ranger: Arthur Cervero, who started as an excuse for a special guest participation in the third episode, but became a fixed, central character for the rest of the campaign and for next ones.
- Town with a Dark Secret:
- Carpazinha, a small and seemingly normal town, is actually a big hideout for Cultists.
- The town of Santo Berço doubles this trope: It's the big secret in Carpazinha, but initially looks like a weird but happy town. In reality, the town is pretty much a big parasite, brainwashing all its inhabitants into wanting to stay there forever.
- The Unsolved Mystery: A big mystery of the campaign is what actually happened to Lurdete and Aninha when they went to the Santo Berço cave. It was never explained in the series.
- We Used to Be Friends: Brúlio and Rodolfo. Both used to be friends, and ran the Gaudérios Abutres gang together. Brúlio would later kick out Rodolfo for killing and mugging people, which would eventually result in the latter creating his own gang and starting a huge conflict between the bikers.
- Wham Episode: Episode 3, where Cris dies in a heroic sacrifice. This episode and the subsequent one, dedicated to Cristopher's funeral, are commonly credited as the one who made the players and the audience take the story more seriously.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: In the last episodes, the characters find out about something called mananciais (in English, "wellsprings"), the sons and daughters of the Blacksmith who are locked in white rooms to serve as a font of "potential energy" for the town. The players then engage in a huge argument on whether they are still human, even having lost their minds and body to the town-controlling parasite. In the end, they decide not to kill the "wellsprings", which ends up making some of the players earn sanity points.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: In Santo Berço, time passes much faster than outside it. While the Kelvin Team have been missing for one month in "normal" time, inside the town, they've been there for decades. The player characters spend a few days inside, just to discover that around 30 minutes have passed outside.
