Superpowers 2.0

My old Superpowers (or Mutations) Weird & Wonderful Table is still one of my most popular posts (as can be seen on the sidebar), and there were a lot of cool ideas there, but it suffers from the problems of many of my older writings (and frankly many of my current ones still 🙃) of being overwritten, overly dry or "clinical", and not enough regard paid to gameability. I'd like to think I've improved on that front, so here's a new set of 50 superpowers (this is actually my third superpowers table if you include Cantrippers).

You may note some redundancy compared to previous lists (not including the superhero funnel posts since this is just an extension of that), but these are much more tightly written, and I tried to only use powers that would be gameable and threw in some that are less high-concept but still tickle my fancy for whatever reason.

These were originally posted on The OSR Pit and also The Cauldron, and most of them previously appeared in my last Superhero Funnel post. As much as I still really like the idea of a Superhero Funnel, I ultimately decided I wasn’t happy with the direction that my Superhero Funnel was going and realized I was going to have to scrap a lot of the work I had done, and so it sort of sapped my motivation for the time being, but I do hope to come back to it or something like it eventually. But for now, here's the list of 50 superpowers I created for it.

1. Bloodhound: Has the proportional strength, speed, and senses of a bloodhound.
2. Gray Goo: Nanomachines convert non-living matter into other things (must understand the creation’s properties), and create virtual reality spaces.
3. Vector: Unstoppable while moving in a straight line, vulnerable while pivoting.
4. Pinball: Superspeed and proportional superstrength, but must account for inertia and other laws of velocity and acceleration.
5. Snake: Floating orbs spontaneously appear around them. As they eat the orbs, they grow longer. Their sharp scales are dangerous even to themself.
6. 2D: Two-dimensional. Can flatten against surfaces, slip through crevices, and fold like origami.
7. Scanner Darkly: Superspy skills and gadgets, appearance and voice scrambling mask, separated brain hemispheres for multitasking, and deep-cover identity dissociation.
8. Mushroom: Grow giant-sized or shrink to the size of a mouse from eating mushrooms.
9. Flash Fry: Project hot grease and resistance to grease fires.
10. Cinnamon: Emanate novas of burning-hot capsaicin.
11. Mint: Emanate novas of ice-cold menthol.
12. Alkahest: Project a universal solvent.
13. Kintsugi: Injuries make them stronger with scars of gold.
14. Librarian: Paper Elementalist.
15. Technomancer: Override software and control devices as an extension of themself.
16. Herbalist: Gain superpowers relating to the properties of held plants.
17. Landfill: Telekinetic control of trash and waste.
18. Schrodinger: While unseen, can be anywhere and nowhere in the vicinity.
19. Laservision: Laser-grid visual overlay for perfect accuracy and precision.
20. Aye-Aye Aye: Long bony finger, like an aye-aye, with advanced supersenses.
21. Memetos: Living idea that can infect the collective unconscious over time, or more rapidly the consciousnesses of individuals in the vicinity.
22. Constructor: Rapidly construct cartoonish but functional devices and structures from minimal resources that break down shortly after use.
23. Cleric: Summon rays of cleansing, healing, but also searing light.
24. Parkour: Superhuman agility, dexterity, flexibility, reflexes, etc., that accelerate so long as they remain in motion, returning to athletic human levels if halted.
25. Icarus: Waxy melting wings, dripping with the heat of Greek Fire. Wings melt and regrow over the course of a turn.
26. POP: Compel any non-living object to spontaneously combust. The force of the explosion and predictability of the detonation time is proportional to the size of an object.
27. Flurry: Throw rapid and near-infinite consecutive strikes.
28. Wavecrash: “Teleportation” via the internet and strike from the other side with the force of a vehicle speeding down the information superhighway.
29. Babylon: Scramble or silence sounds, including language, and emit sonic force beams.
30. Triplets: Coordinate in perfect harmony; far greater than the sum of their parts.
31. Warhead: Fortified with an organic metal shell. Can explode without harming themself, but lose their metal shell for the remainder of the conflict.
32. Kafka: Proportional strengths and abilities of various arthropods, although their greatest power (and weakness) is their utterly horrifying appearance.
33. Combo Ace: Store three pre-programmed athletic or combat feats like video game controller macros, infinite use unless replaced (between conflicts).
34. Chopper: Human attack helicopter cyborg.
35. Wormhole: Create a temporary human-sized portal between two locations in the vicinity.
36. Snapshot: By taking a photo and holding it up to their face in the exact spot it was taken, they may retrieve small objects from the same place and in the same state as in the photo, even if the object is no longer in that place or state.
37. Rainmaker: Project a torrent of (fake) money strong enough to knock over an average human. By shooting into the air, those caught under raining money are overcome with excitement and susceptible to greedy impulses.
38. Rust: Make metal rapidly rust.
39. Roller: Superspeed from biological wheels under their feet.
40. Superposition: They can take up to three brief actions in a row, all occurring simultaneously and able to affect each other, before collapsing into the last action.
41. OP: Can’t affect or be affected by things they can’t see; lack of “object permanence”.
42. Firehose: Rapidly absorb any raw material (e.g. water, dirt) by pressing one hand into it and simultaneously project it as a powerful and steady stream from the other hand.
43. Nono the Non-Euclidean Clown: Wibble-wobble in spacetime-bending strides stretching and collapsing like a human slinky.
44. Redlight: Bathe the vicinity in red light and cancel out any one kind of action (e.g. moving, fighting, talking) for the round, once per conflict.
45. Plasma Platypus: Electrolocation, biofluorescence, venom “plasma” shock, and other superhuman abilities proportional to a platypus.
46. Tetraminos: Summon brick-like tetrominoes that can be rotated as they fall in a 10x20 block grid. Once started, they continue to summon for the duration of the conflict. At 20 rows they are incapacitated for the rest of the conflict, but a filled row disappears and lowers the others.
47. Tough Enough: Always and only as tough as the toughest other person in the vicinity.
48. Broadway: General superhuman abilities and a magic weapon only active while monologuing in song and dance. Infectiously spreads to others (without the benefits).
49. Nitro: Nitrogen-related powers including freezing liquid nitrogen, explosive TNT, superspeed of nitric oxide (NOS), and biological effects of nitrous oxide (laughing gas) which they can use to self-empower or release as gas to affect others.
50. Captain Canine: Uplifted experimental super-dog; a “one dog army”.

Antikythera Nova Pt. 1: Premise and History (REDUX)

This is the first of what will likely be three posts for my science fiction space setting Antikythera Nova, as part of my attempt to post easily digestible "micro-settings".

You'll notice that this is a REDUX- I decided I wasn't happy with the first post, and I don't want to move forward with the other posts until I think I've got this very basic first step to an acceptable point. I got some good advice about how to make this better, so hopefully this version succeeds where the first failed. I'm going to leave the original post as well for posterity, but unless you're really demanding to know more about this setting RIGHT NOW, stick to this ;). Hopefully this is an improvement, but if not, then expect a REDUX 2 in the near future...

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In a galaxy consumed by war and chaos, human and alien alike squabble in the shadows of familiar-looking computational eldritch beings. Nobody understands who they fight or what for, as centuries of misunderstood tensions based on accidents and lies come to a head. For all of their technological achievements and special abilities, mortals and gods alike fight for the high-energy cintammani crystals and for a sense of purpose in a cold and uncaring universe.

Over the course of 500 years, much has changed for humanity. The world powers of the 20th century mostly receded or collapsed; their greed, bloat, and outdated infrastructure were their undoing. In their wake, new powers rose in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, benefiting from infrastructure built from the ground-up with 21st century technology and sensibilities in mind.

After a tumultuous early 21st century, these new nations advanced and thrived, not just technologically and economically, but psychologically and socially as well. It was just a matter of time before humanity took its "second small step". The generation ship, Malik Tous, departed on its 300 year journey to colonize the Antikythera Sector of the Pickman Galaxy, from which it would not return.

It was a difficult journey, to say the least. Over the course of 300 years, the peoples of the ship nationalized, warred, committed genocide, and in some cases even splintered throughout the universe. 200 years and one dark age later, the human peoples of the Antikythera Sector achieved a relative state of peace and stability within the Kaddai Federation of Planets (KFP), and the Hun-Long Confederation (HLC).

These two factions have been separated for so long that they are only capable of communicating in mathematical code and broken dialects of ancient languages. They know little of each others ways of life, nor do they remember why they separated in the first place. Except for the occasional skirmish over a newly discovered, cintammani-rich planet, the sector is blanketed in a perpetual, cold curtain of fear and misunderstanding.

Meanwhile, on Earth, humanity went on to explore another new frontier. Without the trials, tribulations, and limitations of the generation ship, humanity progressed exponentially, evolving into the post techological-singularity being(s) known as the Singularities. They converted Earth, and much of the matter in the solar system, into "gray goo", pure computational (sub-)nano machines. Some of the transhumans, who chose not to merge with the Singularities and who more closely resemble their ancestors, work in symbiosis with the Singularities, acting as harbingers, travelling the universe to find suitable sources of cintammani for the Singularities to convert into or power the computational matrix of gray goo.

The intelligent alien species known as the gabor, after an aggressive encounter with these transhuman harbingers on their cintammani-rich worlds, aggressively retaliated against both the KFP and HLC, confusing them for the transhuman harbingers, although neither human faction were even aware of the existence of the Singularities or any of the events on Earth since the departure of the Malik Tous half a millennium prior.

By the time all parties realized the misunderstanding, there was too much bad blood for the war to stop. The KFP and gabor fight a hot war that nobody wants but nobody wants to stop, even as each decides how to respond to the (ominously silent) Singularities. As best as the KFP can tell, the HLC have factionalized- some embracing the Singularities, others allying with the gabor against the KFP. The gabor themselves seem to have factionalized, or maybe it was never so simple as a single gabor nation and the KFP are only just realizing this now. Nobody really knows what's going on- it's a galaxy in chaos where human and gabor alike squabble in the shadows of eldritch computational gods. Each faction must decide whether they want war or peace; and whether they want individuality or singularit(ies).

Mun Jira REDUX (art by Scrap Princess)

This is a repost of Scrap Princess' amazing interpretation of Mun Jira, now accompanied with words.

5/31/19 Nearly a year later I am quietly attempting to re-do this writeup! It's definitely a WIP, I'll continue to work on it as time and inspiration allow.

6/11/19 Keep making false starts, will do this eventually...