Just wondering if enough people are here for posts and discussion about what people are creating for their table top games. If you are and want to share a snippet about what you’re working on, that would be great!
I’m working on and off on writing new content for Opus Anima (only available in German) which has an amazing steampunk horror setting and a very simple but flexible D2 pool system but sadly got abandoned by the publisher after only the core rulebook and a softcover book with an alternate subsetting.
The world that Opus Anima is set in used to be an outer space colony, so aside from humans, we get several other sentient species such as the Brunad (spider centaurs), Abara (genetically engineered humanoids with four insect-like arms on their backs), Sanherib (somewhere between frogs and flightless birds) and Tel’Pathar (hybrids between humans and an unknown humanoid alien race that can read other peoples’ feelings). A few centuries ago, the planet almost got destroyed and now people live on huge shards that float around what’s left of the planet’s core. In the post-war charos and because of the dense cloud of dust and debris (called the aether) around those shards, all outside contact was lost and most technology regressed to about the late 19th/early 20th century. The setting draws a lot from Victorian England and the German Empire. Technology is mostly driven by steam, scientists constantly (re)discover the secrets of the world, aethership captains explore and colonize the world beyond their home shard and engineers have built a huge steel scaffold that connects several shards to form a thriving empire. What used to be lower layers of the planet’s crust is now just the underside of a shard and can be mined for fibrite, a metal that seems to be able to react to emotions and occasionally change its form on its own. A broken tool made out of fibrite might mend itself if its owner has always treated it with respect. Fibrite has become an important resource for all sorts of technology from cameras to steampowered robots that have reached almost human-like sentience and are currently protesting in the streets to be accepted as first class citizens.
But the planet’s destruction has also caused some less obvious changes. In some areas, the laws of physics are just ever so slightly off. Mirrors show images with subtle differences from reality, shadows fall in the wrong direction and solid rocks gently float downwards when dropped. In other places, it’s more extreme: trees start growing human organs and words disappear from books after someone reads them. There are even rumors about people being able to conciously manipulate these phenomena to become invisible, heal mortal wounds, shapeshift into other faces or absorb the knowledge of a whole library within seconds. Scientists are currently investigating this so-called “distortion” and theories range from a side effect of the use of fibrite to some property of the aether dust to outright supernatural causes.
The main setting lets you play as a “soulless” who got most of their soul stolen by an ancient cult. Most people die from this procedure but the soulless got saved by a godlike entity who filled the void where the soul once was with a tiny bit of their supernatural essence. While this costs them most of what made them human, they slowly learn to use this essence to unlock supernatural powers that aid them in the search for their lost souls.
I’m mainly writing campaign modules for the spinoff setting Opus Anima Investigation which lets you play as members of the “Investigation Group for Bizarromancy and Occult matters” of the local police force. Imagine something between X Files, Fringe, Warehouse 13 and SCP. Their job is to uncover, investigate and contain instances of distortion that could pose a danger to the general public. So far I’ve written six modules, some inspired by SCP entries, some entirely my own.
Edit: I’m in contact with one of the original authors and there’s a chance that if OA ever gets a second edition or an English translation, some of my works might get included.
Currently I’ve been reading Witchburner as a side plot line in my current Pathfinder world. I’m using the Midgard setting as a base. Right now I’m trying to write a vampire world takeover that involves them trying to kill Baba Yaga while the PCs attempt to find out this plan and stop it. I’m also working on implementing mechs into it because I’ve been bitten by the Xenogears bug.
**CONTENT WARNING FOR CYBERPUNK Sexual Abuse, Drugs and Murder **
Additionally I’m writing a Cyberpunk Red homebrew campaign that discusses topics such as parasocial relationships, the dangers and downsides of becoming too involved in them, and porn addiction. The players have stumbled upon a terrible human trafficking ring, funded by SovOil’s CEO after killing his daughter due to her mind being taken over by a relic which contained an anticorporate revolutionary hell bent on freeing Neo-Soveit Russia. It’s really dark but I felt like CBP was the world to tell this in
A really cheap way to do mechs might be to steal the Synthesist Summoner as a gestalt class. Otherwise, Lancer is sort of the go to for mechs which shouldn’t be too hard to just bolt on the mech parts.
I’m not familiar with Witchburner, what’s that about?
Lancer is, the problem with Lancer I’ve been having is trying to get humanoid and organic enemies. So while I think of a way to do it I’m running Pathfinder.
Witchburner is an OSR module that’s about the players being Inquisitors sent to burn a witch in a remote location. SPOILERS ahead.
|| There is no witch|| And the players have to prove that there is either a witch amongst them (frame an NPC) or run away (if they can, it’s dangerous in those woods. It’s a social deduction adventure and less centered on any kind of complex combat and more on the relations they have with the NPCs
I prefer Oldhammer to modern 40k tonally, so have created shall we think of it as a fork from the 40k universe. The conceit is a sector that has been cut off from the outside galaxy by constant almost nearly impenetrable warp storms for the last several thousand years.
Within this bubble my personal Space Marine and Imperial Guard forces exist, as do Ork forces run by a friend. They have history and fluff. I make fluff for the planets and major figures in this sector, creating a personal canon with 40k’s canon being a foundation that I feel comfortable being loose with.
So far most actual gaming has been done with the OnePageRules systems, though I am trying to drum up interest in playing 2e or 3e games for novelty.
The lore around 40k is interesting but I’m not a huge fan of grimdark. My settings and stories are on the noble side (though they can be rather dark, and I’ve inflicted sanity damage on players before.) What would you say is the difference between modern and oldhammer that draws you to the older tone?
Oh I like the dark. The darkness is very important for 40k.
A massive difference between old and current 40k is the amount of mystery and vagueness that existed in Oldhammer. The Primarchs were dead and gone. Everything about the Emperor was a question mark. There were only the smallest snippets of fluff about the Horus Heresy.
It created a particular tone about a universe where the glory of the past was long ago and never coming back. The current universe was sinking stagnation and fighting an eternal fight after humanity had already gotten to the “bad ending”.
Modern 40k has had the Horus Heresy novels, which replace the classy vagueness and mystery with detailed play by plays. Perhaps characters inside the universe don’t know about the details, but we as the audience do, and that changes the entire tone. Rather than Primarchs, the Emperor, and the Heresy having tantalizing rare clues scattered in the lore, you have thousands of detailed pages to explain them all.
Now with Guilliman back, the stagnation is gone and the door to flooding the setting back with Primarchs is open. Every single Little Timmy is screaming that they want their favorite primarch to show up. The setting has this distinctly power rangers and plot moving forward kind of vibe, which is completely opposite to the stagnation of eternal war.
I’m more a fan of what is usually described as middlehammer with 4th Edition where I got my start and maybe some 5th Edition. It used to be just fluff and background in a setting for your dudes. But nerds today need to have ‘lore’ for everything and it needs to explain all the things in excruciating detail.
Things used to be so much better with the old stuff.
