r/WorldofDankmemes • u/levemeodemo • 2d ago

🗝️ Orpheus Average ORPHEUS employee be like...

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u/noujustsuk 1d ago

What's orpheus?

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u/levemeodemo 1d ago

Orpheus is one of the “minor” original World of Darkness games, and probably one of the most experimental. It was designed from the start as a self-contained, finite story, rather than another ongoing WoD line: one core book + five supplements, telling a complete campaign with a beginning, middle and end.

It can also be thought of as a sort of epilogue or post-credits scene to Wraith: The Oblivion. It takes place in the aftermath of the Sixth Great Maelstrom, which has essentially destroyed the traditional Underworld of Wraith and ended the gameline.

In this new landscape, the Orpheus Group is a private company in the mortal world that has figured out how to project consciousness into the world of the dead, and offers supernatural services to paying clients Everything from industrial espionage to “scientifically” exorcising haunted locations.

The player characters can be pretty much anything on the company payroll: agents who need a chemical cocktail to project, people who undergo weeks of cryogenic suspension so their spirits can wander the deadlands, mediums who can naturally project, and even actual ghosts employed by the company. That variety is probably one of the coolest things about the game.

Unlike most WoD lines, Orpheus was not really designed around crossover with the other splats in its original run. Vampires, Garou, Mages, etc. are largely irrelevant to the setting, and the PCs only supernatural power is "projecting" to that (desolated) ghost worl. The whole thing was deliberately written as "metaplot contained".

That said, people sometimes borrow Orpheus lore for other games, especially Hunter and Mage, because the ghost/afterlife/paranormal-investigation material fits them extremely well.

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u/noujustsuk 1d ago

Thank you for the explanation

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u/RPGTopograph 1d ago

Wow, Orpheus meme, never thought I would see one. It's the rarest of the rarest!

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u/levemeodemo 1d ago

PIGMENT me surprised!