Web Video / Paranormal Order

"The paranormal does not come into our world easily."

— Cellbit, introducing every new season

Paranormal Order (originally titled Ordem Paranormal) is an Actual Play Web Video Series created by Rafael Lange, also known as Cellbit.

The first season, simply titled A Ordem Paranormal ("The Paranormal Order") was created on February 29th, 2020, as an experimental short campaign of the game The Esoterrorists.

With the success of the first season, a second, much bigger one was soon written. Called O Segredo Na Floresta ("The Secret in the Forest"), the second season is commonly seen as one of, if not the most influential RPG campaigns in Brazil's history.

The fourth season, Calamidade ("Calamity"), was the first one to use its own, self-titled system. Currently, Paranormal Order has 6 campaigns, 2 of which are spin-offs.

Along with the third season, a crowdfunding campaign for a video game inspired on the series, called Enigma do Medo ("Riddle of the Fear"), was announced. The campaign surpassed the R$500,000 mark in the first hours and closed with R$4,230,000 (approximately 884,000 US dollars). The game is still in development, with no release date yet announced.

The story is about agents of Ordo Realitas, an organization who secretly investigate the paranormal, trying to stop groups of people who just want to plunge the world into chaos.

Cellbit's channel on Twitch streams the episodes every Saturday and reruns them on subsequent Tuesdays. On YouTube, you can watch the VODs on his second channel and on the official channel of the project.

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Works in the Paranormal Order series:

• A Ordem Paranormal
• O Segredo Na Floresta
• Desconjuracao
• Calamidade
• O Segredo Na Ilha
• Sinais Do Outro Lado
• Quarentena

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Paranormal Order contains examples of:

• Anyone Can Die: As most RPG campaigns, no character is safe from death. The death of NPCs, animals and even player characters dying is commonplace, if the dice or the situation says so, the character will die.
• Audience Participation:
  • In Calamidade Episodes 6 and 8, the Twitch chat chose actions O Anfitrião would do, such as which situation he would put certain characters in, for example.
  • In Sinais Do Outro Lado, there were enigmas that took place outside of the Twitch environment: on Twitter, and players could see the chat at certain times, as the answer to certain situations was in enigmas solutions, and the spectators could tell the answers to the players.
• Benevolent Conspiracy: Ordo Realitas, a secret society of agents who try to save the world from paranormal creatures.
• Bizarro Elements: In-universe, the paranormal, which comes from a dimension called "Outro Lado" or "Other Side", is mostly understood and studied with its 5 elements, Blood, Death, Knowledge, Energy and Fear.
• Creepily Long Arms:
  • An example of this trope is shown with O Viajante, one of the monsters that appear in in Desconjuracao.
  • In Episode 6 of Sinais Do Outro Lado, the Apresentador transforms himself to attack a member of the party, making his arms and torso longer, and giving him a creepy smile.
• Death of a Child: In O Segredo Na Ilha Episode 8, Amora, a 12-year-old, is killed during the final fight of the episode, when Oliver, one of the Players Characters, calls her, trying to get her to leave the place. Her death happens when she tries to do as he said, but she gets caught by the creature the Players Characters were fighting against. This leads to a heartbreaking scene where Amora's biological father carries her body, asking the doctor if there was a way to help her.
• Died on Their Birthday: In Desconjuracao, Erin Parker, on her birthday, dies after blowing herself up with a grenade for the sake of chaos.
• Giant Spider: In O Segredo Na Floresta Episode 3, the player characters face this creature in a forest.
• Grand Theft Me:
  • Within the series, there is a ritual for changing bodies with a person of your choice.
    • In the first season, A Ordem Paranormal, where Agatha Volkomenn changes her conscience with the body of Gabriel Opspor to save herself.
    • One of Desconjuracao's major characters, Kian, an ancient person with an long and ambitious plan is a Body Surfer that changes from body to body every few years, amalgamating the past owners of the bodies' minds and managing to currently possess the body of one of the main characters, though with a way more complicated version of the ritual.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • In the last episode of O Segredo Na Floresta, Thiago Fritz, one of the protagonists, stays behind, being caught by the villain, The God of Death. He waits for all his friends to run away, which from his point of view, takes 51 years. He dies when he explodes a bomb to kill the God of Death, dying in the process.
  • In the last episode of Desconjuracao, Kaiser, one of the protagonists, finds himself in a situation where he must make a decision: be taken away, and therefore manage to escape from Kian, the villain, who would manage to kill a lot of characters if that happened, or use a ritual so that everyone but him could escape, which would lead to his death. He chooses the last option, and is killed, ceasing to exist, but saving most of his friends.
• Kill It with Fire: In O Segredo Na Floresta, there is an artificial and odd type of "sludge", a material that is hostile to the characters' sanity and that some of the monsters are made of, is easily destroyed with fire, even if the monster is considered pretty strong.
• Maskof Power:
  • One of the Relíquias da Calamidade is a Mask of Power, called Máscara do Desespero ("Mask of Despair"). The owner of the mask, also known as the Magistrado/a, has unlimited knowledge of the Other Side and unthinkable powers, doing everything with the objective to protect the balance of reality. Not everything comes without a cost; you need to lose your mind to Knowledge to be able to use the Mask of Despair.
    • The Mask also has its own cult, called Seita das Máscaras, focused on protecting the balance of reality. All of its members have their own masks that grant them powers and have their minds connected through the Knowledge, acting as one. In Episode 17 of Desconjuracao, its revealed that Joui Jouki made a pact with the Masks so they would protect the other members of the party in exchange for him becoming one of them.
• Never Found the Body: Thiago Fritz's father, Arnaldo, used to be an agent of the Order but is said to have died in a airplane accident where is body was never found. It is revealed later that the "airplane" part was made up to cover to the masses, and the people in the Order actually believe that he died in a paranormal fire in a mission.
• Our Zombies Are Different: In a place where the chances of the paranormal manifesting are higher, dead bodies in the area can be transformed into "Blood Zombies", whose strength depends on the strength of the original person, leading to some Blood Zombies to act like Elite Zombies that can massively hurt even experienced agents.
• Previously on…: The Game Master, Cellbit, always starts the episodes with a quick review of where the main characters were in the last episode, what are they currently facing and what led them to where they are in the moment.
• Sanity Slippage: It can happen to anyone, as the system used in the RPG has a Sanity Bar. However, it can be specially said for Alexsander Kothe, Kenan Thomas and Erin Parker, the three main characters that died thanks to that bar hitting zero.
• Spider Swarm: In O Segredo Na Floresta, Episode 3, the player characters are attacked by many small spiders.
• The Reveal:
  • The 6th episode of Desconjuracao is when we are first faced with the figure of the leader of the cult of the antagonists and the Ocultist behind lots of mysterious events with some of the protagonists, Kian, who has an odd appearance of a man that is supposed to be dead.
  • In the last episode of Desconjuracao, however, is it revealed that the last appearance the protagonists saw of Kian was only a body to guard his knowledge and powers, while his mind was kept hidden within Luciano Carvalho until it was ready to be possessed.
• Two Beings, One Body:
  • Luciano Carvalho and Fernando Carvalho are a married couple in Desconjuracao. However, both of their minds need to share the same body, thanks to ritual that they suffered in the past. Their minds are still separate, but they can't fully choose the time that one of them gets to control their body.
  • In that same season, Anthony Scelto and Álvaro Augusto are shown to also possess this trope, but unlike Luciano and Fernando, the ritual was something that they had done it themselves. Their minds seems to have partially fused instead of being still separate.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: In Episodes 9-16 of O Segredo Na Floresta, in the player characters explore a place within a forest where time goes by extremely quick when comparing to the outside, called "Santo Berço". A day in Santo Berço is 3 minutes and 56 seconds on the outside, while an entire day in the outside is one year in Santo Berço.

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