Skip to content
Worlds

Horror RPG with an AI game master

A gas station at the edge of the desert, a warship that still thinks the war is on, a graveyard that won't stop talking. Pitch the dread; the game master supplies the dark.

How horror plays in Orpheus

Horror runs on what you don't know yet, and a game master who controls the world controls what you see. The game master paces the scene: the noise in the next corridor, the radio that cuts out, the clerk who won't look you in the eye. You decide what your character does about it.

You also decide how far it goes. Play creeping cosmic dread, survival with real stakes, or spooky comedy where the dead mostly want to complain. Tell the game master the themes you want and the ones to keep out before you start, and it keeps your premise at the intensity you wrote it. Stories can go to dark places. A few things are never allowed, and the Content & Safety Policy lists them.

The rules keep it honest. Holding your nerve or slipping past something in the dark can call for a roll, and a fight uses initiative, real rolls and death saves, so a bad fight can end badly. Running is a strategy.

The people you meet are part of the fear. They want things, keep secrets, and lie when it suits them, so the stranger who offers you a ride is a question, not a rescue.

Light and quiet are resources. A lantern, a radio, a door that locks: scenes mark things you can look at, use or take, and in horror the right object at the wrong moment matters more than a weapon.

How a scene opens

An example first beat from “The sky turns green”, written the way the game master writes. In the game, nothing is scripted: this is just how a scene like it might start.

A lone gas station lit up at night beside an empty highway

The last car left an hour ago. You've mopped the floor twice, and the radio has played the same song for forty minutes, which it can't, because the station doesn't loop.

Then the sky turns green. Not dawn green. Pool-light green, horizon to horizon, and under it the desert is suddenly full of shapes standing very still.

The door chime rings. A man in a sheriff's jacket walks in, soaking wet, in a place where it hasn't rained in months. “Pump four,” he says. “Fill it up. And don't look outside.”

Your choices

  • Ask him what's out there
  • Look outside
  • Ring up pump four and say nothing

Or type what you do in your own words.

Pitches to start from

  • A lone gas station lit up at night beside an empty highway

    The sky turns green

    “The last gas station before the desert, on the night the sky turns green.”

    Cosmic horrorYou play: The night clerk

  • A frozen corridor inside a derelict starship, cables strewn across the floor

    The war isn't over

    “Salvagers board a dead warship that still thinks the war is on.”

    Space horrorYou play: The salvage captain

  • A glowing alien jungle of giant mushrooms under two moons

    Something filming back

    “A nature documentary crew on a jungle moon, and something out there is filming them back.”

    Sci-fi survivalYou play: The camera operator

  • A misty graveyard under a full moon, bare trees over the headstones

    The dead have notes

    “A gravedigger who can hear the dead, and every one of them has a complaint.”

    Spooky comedyYou play: The gravedigger

Make it yours

Choose your kind of scared. Slow and quiet or loud and bloody, alone or with a companion you're not sure you can trust. Set how hard the game should play, list what stays out, and start from a pitch below or a sentence of your own.

More worlds: Fantasy · Sci-fi · Mystery · Comedy · Cozy · Adventure · Fan fiction. New to this? Read what an AI game master does.

Start a horror campaign

Pitch the place you'd least like to be after dark, and the game master sets the first scene. Free to start, no card needed.

Play free

Plays in your browser, on a computer or a phone