Superpowers / 超能力
Some people are born with convenient plot devices superpowers. There are some different types of superpowers. One person can only have up to one power, and you might be either strong or weak in it. Read about them!
Common powers / 普通
Superstrength
Exactly what it says on the tin. Superstrength means you're born stronger than other people.
Of course strength is something that can be trained up, and a lack of exercise can make you weak and lame like me, but strongpeople would have more things to them than a normal person who's just strong, as explained later.
Timekeeping
- Possessors: Elegance, Paperweight
- People with timekeeping are called timekeepers
Never be late again! Be able to tell the time down to the second (if you're strong enough). Also be able to tell how much time passed between to certain events.
Hyperawareness
Be able to see, hear, and smell things that other people can't. For weaker people, they might only get enhanced senses, but for stronger people, they might literally be able to see stuff going on on the other side of town, or hear a pin dropped in a noisy room. It's also possible for someone to be extremely strong in one or two senses but lacking in the others.
Invisibility
Get invisible. Like, that's it. Exactly how much you can get invisible depends on your power strength. Like, weaker people might only get their immediate bodies invisible while their clothes are left hanging in the air; stronger people might be able to get a lot more things near them invisible. But no matter what, they have to be invisible themselves -- you can't hide something else but not yourself. Strong invisibles may even make themselves and everything they've hidden pass-through.
Mind Reading
Look into other people's deepest privacy. Listen in. What are they thinking about? See what they see in their mind's eye. Unless they have aphantasia or something. Hear what they hear in their mind's ear. Including what song is stuck in their head right now.
That is, if your power is strong enough. Weak mind reading powers are extremely limited. For example, Cosmo can only tell whether people are lying -- though she's quite good at that.
Power relations / 能力间的关系
Powers do not exist solely on their own. They affect, and are affected by, each other.
The picture above shows which power can affect which. The outer loop indicates boosting, and the inner star indicates blocking. Which means:
- Boosting: Timekeeping ==> mind-reading ==> hyperawareness ==> superstrength ==> invisibility ==> timekeeping.
- Blocking: Superstrength ==> timekeeping ==> hyperawareness ==> invisibility ==> mind-reading ==> superstrength.
Boosting will make the person being boosted stronger, and blocking will make the person being blocked weaker. The person doing the boosting and blocking does not get affected.
It happens automatically when two people with different superpowers come in contact with each other. The effects depend on how close they are -- peaking when they directly touch each other -- and the respective strength of their powers. People cannot consiously feel anything when it happens, but if you're experienced you can tell from signs anyways.
Special powers / 特殊
These powers are extremely rare, and don't have the boosting and blocking effects that the other five have.
Immortality
- Possessors: Tundra
- People with immortality are called immortals
Get mutilated beyond recognition and still recover with an able body! Literally never die! Except...
For each immortal there is one thing that can kill them. And you won't know what it is.
Immortality can be detected through DNA tests. This is the rarest superpower, followed by magic.
Magic
Now, this is the best one of all. Powerful, mystical, and artificially rare (at least in Bauhinia).
Magicians can do nearly anything they put their minds to. Most of it involve telekinesis, moving and levitating things without touching them; teleportation, moving things -- or people -- to other places instantly; and all sorts of little gimmicks like changing the words written on a book to prank your friends. The only things magicians can't do is bring dead things back to life, and magically manipulate other people's minds. (They can chop up their brains if they're strong enough though. And able to evade all the cops and live as a wanted fugitive the rest of their lives.)
Magicians can choose to take their magic out of their body and into a vessel. Then they can only use their magic if they're physically in contact with the vessel. The magic is still theirs, and still only they can use it. But while all other spells function the same, they cannot take the magic back out again unless the vessel is completely broken -- for example, snapped in half. Slight chipping doesn't count.
Arch-people
For each superpower, be it common or special, there will be at most one person alive at the time who will bear the title of Arch-whatever-they-are.
Arch-people are obviously the most powerful at whatever their superpower is, but here's the catch: you can't be born into it. You have to have conciously did something about your superpower that no one else had ever done.
For example, Qibli crowned herself as the Arch-Magician (not officially, since at that time, the Bauhinian government had already completely illegalized anything related to magic) after discovering how to not only put fragments of her magic in vessels (previously it was only possible to put the entire thing in), but also let other people, non-magicians use it, something that has always been considered impossible.
Related files
This sounds dumb throw better words at me please.