Postmortem Giallo: Orpheum Lofts (PDF)

EVERYONE IN THE BUILDING HAS SOMETHING TO HIDE

The Orpheum Lofts are home to an assortment of ordinary people with complicated lives, uneasy relationships and dangerous secrets.

Some are victims. Some may be killers. Others have merely made the mistake of living too close to whatever is happening inside the building.

Postmortem Giallo: Orpheum Lofts is a system-neutral horror scenario inspired by Italian giallo cinema, psychological thrillers, supernatural horror, sitcoms and romantic comedies.

Rather than presenting a fixed sequence of scenes, the book provides a location, a cast of interconnected characters and numerous opportunities for conflict. The players’ choices determine which relationships unravel, which secrets emerge and what sort of story develops.

CRIME OR SUPERNATURAL HORROR?

The events surrounding the Orpheum Lofts can be presented as:

• A giallo-style murder mystery.

• A story of obsession, jealousy and human corruption.

• Psychological horror.

• A genuinely supernatural threat.

• An uncertain mixture of mundane crime and the inexplicable.

The Games Master decides whether the strange events have a rational explanation, an otherworldly cause or enough evidence for both possibilities to remain open.

THE RESIDENTS

Player characters may be drawn from the people already living in the building: regular men and women from different backgrounds whose relationships connect them to the developing mystery.

Groups may instead create outsiders, new tenants or investigators and introduce them to the existing cast.

The residents’ relationships, motives and secrets provide material for one-shot play or a longer sequence of connected stories.

INSIDE YOU’LL FIND

• The Orpheum Lofts and their residents.

• A cast of strange and interconnected characters.

• Conflicts, secrets and potential motives.

• Numerous story seeds rather than a predetermined plot.

• Suggestions for mundane and supernatural explanations.

• Material for crime, thriller and horror campaigns.

• System-neutral presentation.

• Statistics for Actual Fucking Monsters.

Independent reviewers have praised the scenario’s originality, its player-driven structure and the amount of material available to develop. It has also been described as a useful introduction to giallo-inspired roleplaying.

PDF EDITION

• Digital PDF download.

• First volume in the original Postmortem Giallo trilogy.

• Written by Miguel Ribeiro.

• Edited by James “Grim” Desborough.

• Published by Postmortem Studios.

• Originally released in February 2021.

This is a scenario and setting context rather than a standalone roleplaying game. It can be adapted to most modern crime or horror systems.

ADULT CONTENT

Contains mature crime and horror themes, violence, sexuality and other material inspired by giallo and exploitation cinema.