Cosmic horror, played at the table.
Into the Darkness follows a gaming club through horror role-playing campaigns where clues, mechanics, and nervous jokes share the same table. Episodes move between pulp Cthulhu conspiracies, Magnus Archives unease, Call of Cthulhu mysteries, and grim Warhammer 40k threats.
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Into the Darkness is horror actual play with the seams left in. The show keeps the gaming table audible: recaps, uncertain plans, rules talk, jokes, corrections, and the little pauses before someone decides to open the door anyway. Its Cthulhu material has a pulp engine under it, full of secret organizations, serpent people, coded sermons, hybrid bodies, strange healings, and investigators trying to keep the larger war from spilling into public view. The danger often arrives through practical questions. Who checks the basement? What did the letter mean? Should the group wait, split up, or storm a compound? That matter-of-fact planning makes the horror feel closer. A snake in the cellar, a woman who shed her skin, and a preacher backed by a sheriff all sit beside discussions of communicators, safe houses, and whether anyone has enough information to act. The range is broader than one campaign. Magnus Archives play brings a colder kind of dread, with dark paintings, vanishing gallery space, and figures that seem to move out of the canvas. Call of Cthulhu scenarios shift between historical occult mystery and desert cryptid investigation. Imperium Maledictum adds Warhammer 40k menace, forbidden records, xenos weapons, and talk of creatures that feed on pain. The show works because it is collaborative first. It is not trying to sound like a finished radio play. Characters and players share space, and the game masters let uncertainty stay in the room. Tom Raley regularly frames the sessions as host, while players and game masters carry recaps, scenes, and campaign-specific perspectives. Episodes often begin by locating the system, scenario, writer, and current chapter, then hand the story over to the table. The result is dense, conversational horror for listeners who enjoy watching a group reason through weird evidence under pressure. It can be grim. It can also be dryly funny, especially when everyone knows a plan is probably necessary and probably bad. Into the Darkness is strongest when the players are half-solving, half-surviving, with the next clue already looking like a trap.
Made for: Best for actual-play listeners who like horror investigations, visible tabletop mechanics, and groups that talk through every risky choice. It especially suits fans of Call of Cthulhu, Pulp Cthulhu, Magnus Archives RPG, and Imperium Maledictum.
What sets it apart: The show keeps the messy collaborative process intact instead of smoothing it into scripted drama. Its horror comes from both the fiction and the table's live reasoning as clues, dice, and character choices collide.
A place where my friends and I run and record Horror role playing games.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Into the Darkness turns collaborative investigation, game mechanics, and uneasy improvisation into horror whose outcomes remain genuinely unsettled.
Into the Darkness lets horror form at the table, where a disturbing clue can be followed by a rules check, a nervous joke, or a decision that sends the story sideways.
The lights dim, the painted man moves, and your evening belongs to the investigators.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A warped train ride turns into tense campaign planning as three hybrids and their crew choose their next dangerous move.
The train ride back from Bingham, Oklahoma leaves the crew in a strange pocket of danger, with time slipping out of shape, three members now hybrids, and Iceland waiting just a week away.
A gallery sequence turns a tabletop horror session colder and stranger.
Into the Darkness pairs a viewer-discretion notice with a tabletop setup for Disciple of a Dark Art, keeping the story tied to the Canadian subsidiary of the Magnus Institute.
Inquisitorial records, xenos lore, and rules talk keep the horror tightly wound around the investigation.
Call of the Void centers a mature-audience horror session in Imperium Maledictum, with Tom Raley hosting, Keith Craig running the scenario, and Morgan Llewellyn recapping as Omega Phi-75.
Eggs, skin, and a cellar snake keep the investigation on edge.
Into the Darkness settles into an Oklahoma town where Peggy has laid eggs and Pearl has shed her skin, while the party keeps treating each fresh horror as something to inspect before it turns worse.
A slow-burn occult setup where the conversation and letters keep the dread in motion.
Into the Darkness uses its Call of Cthulhu frame to shape a 1919 Boston mystery around Alexander Imhoff, a Boston showman known for mind-reading.
Desert heat, missing people, and open-table banter keep the dread moving.
The episode opens in the deserts and badlands of New Mexico, where a vehicle cuts across the sand as a self-described crack team of cryptozoologists heads toward San Juan County and missing persons cases gather around them.
Dice, divine mysteries, and the trouble with good intentions.
A spy posing as a maid delivers tamales, triggering a comedic yet dangerous chase where Ambrose nearly dies from soup.
In this episode of a Deadlands RPG horror podcast, the players continue their assault on the herald Jet Black Jack's lair using multiple entry points, with characters like Clank, Jeremiah, Eustace, and Ambrose executing strategic moves including blowing up a watchtower and encountering Oleander Chainsaw.
This episode is the first part of a horror role-playing game podcast where the host and friends play the Call of Cthulhu scenario 'Death is the Final Escape', set in 1919 with a mysterious performer named Alexander Imhoff.
This episode continues a Pulp Cthulhu RPG campaign where players explore Caduceus Headquarters to learn about the Serpent culture and Rose's mission to Georgia.
Tom Raley starts with a mature-audience warning.
This episode continues a horror role-playing game scenario where investigators in Arkham confront an otherworldly threat discovered through the investigation of a missing scientist.
Into the Darkness episode 418 continues The Meat Trade, a World War Cthulhu: London campaign in which the investigators weigh contact with rival ghoul groups.
Episode 40 of Into the Darkness, a Pulp Cthulhu actual-play of "The Two-Headed Serpent," opens with Kent Blue's recap of Jack Bellamy's plan to weaponize gates as a "gate gun" or grenade.
A dying serpent person tells the investigators that the Hand of Abizou was a convenient fiction, while a crystal pyramid pulses deeper beneath Edinburgh.
In Into the Darkness episode 34, the Mothership RPG campaign brings Tabor Schultz’s confession about Stanton Creed into a tense late-night conversation.
Tom Rayleigh's Into the Darkness continues the Imperium Maledictum scenario "Implacable," with Keith Craig as game master and a festival three days away.
Tom Raley opens with a warning that Into the Darkness is for mature audiences and may include adult language, violence, sexual themes, and shocking revelations.
Into the Darkness episode 25 opens with Lloyd Green recounting South America, Bingham, Oklahoma, and a train ride home marked by “chanting and the hissing of snakes.” Dr.
A group of investigators begins a Call of Cthulhu role-playing game scenario set in the New Mexico desert, where cryptozoologists investigate mysterious missing persons cases.
In this episode of a Pulp Cthulhu RPG podcast, the players continue their campaign as investigators for Caduceus, dealing with mysterious radio sermons promoting Yig worship and a town plagued by a suspicious cure.
In this episode of a Pulp Cthulhu RPG podcast, the players continue their campaign in Oklahoma, exploring a town divided over Reverend Cornfield's mysterious healings.
Tom Raley opens with a mature-audience warning and frames Into the Darkness around Imperium Maledictum and Call of the Void.
Into the Darkness returns to the Two-Headed Serpent campaign.
Into the Darkness opens its Call of Cthulhu scenario with a mature-audience warning and a case set in 1919 Boston.
This episode continues a Delta Green RPG horror scenario where investigators develop a cover-up narrative for a deceased Army Major and assess his family for unnatural traces.