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.