Alternate terms for "superhumans"?

[Trebuchet]

I'd like to see if we can come up with some alternate terms for superhumans. I use "paranormals" in my campaign, and I've seen "metahuman" and I think "novas" mentioned as well. But none of these really float my boat except "novas", which I think is sort of campaign specific.

Anyone else have any other terms? Perhaps in foreign languages?

[Ben Seeman]

Dunno if I heard this in a movie, a comic or what but I have heard the term "Homo Superior" used before. I've also heard the term "Evolutians" or "Evolutes" for short.

[Hermit]

Metahumans
Metas
Supers
Paranormals
Paranorms
Mutants
Mutates
P.I.s (Powered Individuals)*S*

[Arthur]

In Wild Cards:

Ace.

[Evil Toki]

in my current campaign I call them elites :) though an alternate world, calls them simply metahumans

[Derek Hiemforth]

How about PEAs? (People of Extraordinary Ability) ;)

[Uncle Shecky]

Originally posted by Ben Seeman
Dunno if I heard this in a movie, a comic or what but I have heard the term "Homo Superior" used before.
That "Homo Superior" thing started in the X-Men comic.

In "Powers" they are called Powers. In "Rising Stars" they're called Specials.

[TheEmerged]

"Nova" is the term used in the Aberrant setting, by White Wolf. I've adopted it, along with some other terminology (especially "eruption" for the process by which a normal person becomes a nova), for my own NeoChampion Universe.

In the Emergence Universe, I used the term "emergeds" for superhumans -- but that tends to drive Word nuts ;)

One other term for superhumans I'm aware of is "delta", used in the Brave New World setting by AEG. That setting also uses the term "alpha" to describe a delta that's even more of a delta :D

[Lord Liaden]

The "Ultraverse" comics line (can't remember the publishing company, but Prime was their flagship character) used the term Ultra.

Of course, the official Champions Universe cites a popular slang term for superbeings, at least the more colorful ones: "capes". ;)

[Agent Escafarc]

Originally posted by Lord Liaden
The "Ultraverse" comics line (can't remember the publishing company, but Prime was their flagship character) used the term Ultra.



That was Malibu Comics bought out by Marvel then killed due to lack of imagination and poor buisness sense.

[Stormraven]

In one of my campaigns, I use Parahumans. Para as a prefix can mean beyond or a modification of, so it seemed to fit.

However, in that same campaign, the media still tends to use Metahuman, even to the creation of the magazine MaxiMeta

[CrosshairCollie]

One of the best ones I've heard is 'augments', as it covers a wide variety of possibilities (Batman's not a 'super', but he's definitely 'augmented' because of the gadgets and training, for instance). Capes or Tights is a good slang term for 'em, IMHO, especially if those who don't like them preface it with 'Rats In'. :)

[Evil Steve]

From Marshall Law there was "Capers" and on a lighter note, Supermegatopia uses "Rats with Capes":)

[CrosshairCollie]

Of course, given Supermegatopia's unique population structure, it wouldn't necessarily be that unusual to actually find a Rat in a Cape. :)

[Crusader108]

In the comics, I've seen several different terms:
Spikes (as in power-level spikes)
Tweaks (low power supers)
Capes
Masks
Roofcrawlers

[mattingly]

However, in that same campaign, the media still tends to use Metahuman, even to the creation of the magazine MaxiMetaAnd if they ever come out with a pocket-sized digest edition, they could call it MiniMaxiMeta.

[mattingly]

they could call it MiniMaxiMetawith wings.

[Brutal]

Originally posted by Ben Seeman
Dunno if I heard this in a movie, a comic or what but I have heard the term "Homo Superior" used before. I've also heard the term "Evolutians" or "Evolutes" for short.

Hahaha...Homo Superior. That is gonna be popular among gay people

badguy: omfg that was a bad punch!
goodguy: here's another one for you *smack*
badguy: *cusses* homo
goodguy: thats homo superior for you!

[The Mad GM]

I've always classed them as either Powered, Trained, Mystic, Gadget or Weird, though the lines blur. In general, I just call 'em PC's (for Powered Crimefighters or Powered Criminals, of course).

Other terms I've used:
Targets
Walking Property Damage
Fights in Tights
Hardcandy (a pejorative term started by one of my players because my villains had so many bright colors to their costumes. A 'rainbow of fruit flavors' was the term, from a then popluar candy ad. I came back with a brick named 'Jawbreaker'.)

Personally I like 'tights' more than 'capes' because it's easier to say with a villainous leer. Plus I have shapely calves.

[kidsavior]

One used in the Authority universe is "Post-Human". I've used "Uber-Human" in the past.

[SleepyDrug]

Also from comics:

Spandex
Alphas, Omegas, Betas - power rating terms

[Enforcer84]

Short lived comic series called the Preternaturals.
or Prets' for short

[Evil Steve]

Originally posted by mattingly
And if they ever come out with a pocket-sized digest edition, they could call it MiniMaxiMeta.

Dude, think Hero. MinMaxiMeta.:)

[Space Cadet]

A couple of years ago, I was prowling around a Morrow Project-
oriented website called The SupplyBunker.net, and, in the
process of checking out adventure scenarios contributed by
various people to this site, came across a term that you just
might get some use out of: Enhanced Human.

Space Cadet :cool:

[EvilGM]

We use Harbinger. It's has its basis in the history we created for our campaign universe. There was a famous speech by a professor of modern history at Yale who called people who had superpowers as "harbingers of humanity's fate". The press liked the term, and it stuck.

Later, when the gene that caused people to have superpowers (as opposed to people with magical abilties) was discovered, the term was then more narrrowly defined to cover those people with the gene, but in practice, anyone who's not proven to be a mage (or user of magical foci) as called Harbingers.

[Big Willy]

Ones I like are:

parahuman - I first saw this used by Alan Moore, way back when he was writing Captain Britain in the early 80s

transhuman - this one from the real world, being a loose philosophical movement concerned with mind-downloading and so on, and therefore a good match for cyberpunk-supers campaigns where powers come from high-tech body modification

enhancile - an even more recent coinage, used by Warren Ellis in an issue of Global Frequency to refer to a cyborg, but applicable I suppose to any altered being

Something I'd like to be able to come up with, though, and what it sounds like Trebuchet is looking for too, is a catch-all term that takes in aliens, robots, ghosts and stuff as well as those who're clearly just humans "with knobs on". Wildstorm comics sometimes talk about SPBs (superpowered beings), which has a nice Fortean/clandestine feel to it, but still relies on the dreaded prefix "super-" to make its point.

[UrielFallen]

Personally, I always liked the term 'Meta' short for 'Metahuman' simply because it's short and somewhat blunt sounding. It could also be used as a slur if a person were inclined to feel a certain way about superhumans.

Another one that I've been using more recently for tragic or strange superbeings would be 'Tainted', especially after playing Aberrant for some time.

[Balok]

In a short lived campaign where characters were all overtly magical, they were called the Arcane.

A campaign idea I've toyed around with would refer to them as Talents, or collectively as the Talented. The term was coined by a journalist who was being facetious: all of the talented are immensely powerful (the weakest based on 500 points or so), relative to normals. Again, no gadgeteers; you either have the Talent, internally, or you do not, and you cannot compete as if you do.

[tmutant]

From Wild Cards :
Ace (for super powered beings)
Joker (for physically altered beings with or without special powers)
Duece (very low-powered, or with powers that are useless for all intents and purposes)

These all result from most people affected by the virus that brought about superhuman abilities drew the 'Black Queen ' i.e. the death card. 90% died, the rest drew Jokers, Aces, or Dueces.

[altamaros]

i think i've seen :

S.P.B. (Super-Powered Beings) in a old Gen-13 issue

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by UrielFallen
Personally, I always liked the term 'Meta' short for 'Metahuman' simply because it's short and somewhat blunt sounding. It could also be used as a slur if a person were inclined to feel a certain way about superhumans.

Metahuman is high on my list so far, and 'meta' sounds like a good term as a slur. What I am looking for is a general term to describe any human with super-powers, including powered-armor guys and people with magical or mental powers.

In my campaign of 12 years "supers" have only been public since June of 2000 (We're currently in mid-2004). So legislation is just finally beginning to be written to deal with this new potential menace, and I expect a few hate groups will also inevitably arise. I don't want to take it anywhere near as far as Marvel did with the X-Men "mutant menace", but let's be realistic: Some people are not going to like the idea that other human beings have these fantastic powers. Some because they fear the unknown, some because of jealousy, and some because they distrust anything they cannot control. Bigotry has many sources.

And some of those people will have the ability to act on those fears. :(

[death tribble]

And like the foes of the X-Men, these people will call the Superpowered population Gene Trash. Or Scum

[Roth]

In some of my superhero worlds I've used Exotics as an over all term for the SPB, as well I've used Induced (for the made superbeing), Aberation or Natural (for the born superbeing) and the term Leagacy of Power (for those who have some type of family history for being "Heroes".

[BarryB]

The term used in my current Champions campaign isn't really transferrable. Since superhuman powers were triggered in people at midnight on New Year's Eve 1999, superhumans are called Millennials.

[Supreme]

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but StormWatch/Authority uses the best word I've heard yet: "Post-Human". I think its key to understand that in any such world, there would probably be two terms. The first is the term used by the scientific community. The second is the term used by the public, which would probably be based upon the term from the scientific community. For example, the scientific community might come up with "exo-species" meaning an organism (not necessarily human) with abilities and/or morphology that exceed the normal limits for that species. Then the media catches on and calls them "exo" for short.

There are other possible permutations of course. One is that, in a world where super-humans have been around for millenia, then there would be a common term (like "nova") which is eventually incorporated by the scientific community when they get around to the taxonomy of supers (like "Homo sapiens novensis"). Of course the scientific community would lump aliens and super-humans and androids and so on into one group. The media would do that and either misuse the term for super-humans to the entire group, or come up with a larger suitcase term for all of them.

[dbsousa]

In my campaign there is a history of superhero nomenclature

1890's Wonders, coined by PT Barnum
World War I, Miracle Men, coined by Ernest Hemingway, also refered to in the "Miracle Men Prohibition" in the Geneva Convention.
1920's-1930's Mystery Men
WWII, Ubermen and Freedom Fighters. Neither the Axis or the Allies violated the Geneva Convention, which prevented them from using superheroes on the front lines.
1950's Science Heroes
1960's Mutants, Supers
1970's Freaks or Capes, Alpha-Americans, Big Brothers/Sisters
1980's Cuppies (Caped Urban Professionals), coined by People Magazine
1990's the number of Supers causes fragmented identifiers, these terms include Legacies (Third Generation Miracle Men), Bricks, Blasters, Speedsters, Icons, Doppels, etc.

Any term is understood to meen superheroes (except Cuppies, that never really took hold.), but might date you...

[Supreme]

Originally posted by dbsousa
In my campaign there is a history of superhero nomenclature

1890's Wonders, coined by PT Barnum
World War I, Miracle Men, coined by Ernest Hemingway, also refered to in the "Miracle Men Prohibition" in the Geneva Convention.
1920's-1930's Mystery Men
WWII, Ubermen and Freedom Fighters. Neither the Axis or the Allies violated the Geneva Convention, which prevented them from using superheroes on the front lines.
1950's Science Heroes
1960's Mutants, Supers
1970's Freaks or Capes, Alpha-Americans, Big Brothers/Sisters
1980's Cuppies (Caped Urban Professionals), coined by People Magazine
1990's the number of Supers causes fragmented identifiers, these terms include Legacies (Third Generation Miracle Men), Bricks, Blasters, Speedsters, Icons, Doppels, etc.

Any term is understood to meen superheroes (except Cuppies, that never really took hold.), but might date you...
This is the best "naming system" I've ever seen! My Compliments Supreme! I'm definitely going to steal some of these. I especially like "Miracles" (a reference to "Marvels" no doubt) and the use of the Geneva convention. "Cuppies" are also great, though there weren't a lot of capes on super-heroes by the 80s, so you might want to think about "Puppies": Powered Urban Professionals.

[Osprey]

I thought "Paranormally Gifted" would be a nice Politically correct name.
But then the incorrect person in me started calling them "PiGs".

[Stormraven]

In one of my campaigns (I have several, either in progress, actually running, or having been run) I call those who have no obvious powers Mysteries, the others being tagged with the more obvious Metahuman.

[pinecone]

In my campains "old folks" still use "Ubers" the use dating back to WW 2 with the Nazi propaganda machine publishing information on some of the first supers...hipsters use meta and most folks use "para" (also dating back to WW 2) and goverments use a greek letter code that covers basic power level and some times type of power...Apokolipse is a Gamma level threat....just some flava...

[Syberdwarf2]

Originally posted by Ben Seeman
Dunno if I heard this in a movie, a comic or what but I have heard the term "Homo Superior" used before. I've also heard the term "Evolutians" or "Evolutes" for short.

The term "Homo Superior" was a favorite of Magneto, IIRC...

[Vondy]

I use metahumans in my game, but the phrases paranormal and transcendent often crop up. Actually, in my games history paranormal was the standard jargon until the early 90's, when metahuman supplanted it as the PC reference. Its just a campaign history thing. People without powers who can compete with people who have powers are generally called supernormals.

I'm a fan of psychotics, however. Anyone who runs around in colorful spandex with a cape and mask calling himself by some silly moniker like captain Supreme or whatnot has had a serious break with reality. :D

Derogatory terms that have come up are:

Capes
Pajama Boys (love bullet)
The Underoos Brigade
Crackerjacks

Then again my players were paramilitary government intelligence agents with superpowers for 13 years, so we're just settling back into some of the campier genre schticks with my new street level game.

The in joke was that they all dressed in MIB suits, matching sun-glasses, and fed ear pieces, and viewed costumed crusaders as cracker-jacks who posed a threat to national security.

There were some interesting subplots as characters struggled with where the line was between them and their unsanctioned counterparts.

[johnvalentine]

in CoH I've been called a Cape, a Mask, Hero, etc.
Metahumans is popular. Meta for short.
Supers was used in the Incredibles.
In my game world there are subsections of 'supers'. Quantums for quantum's folley heroes. (all created by same event).
Mutants
Muties
Cape and Cowls.

[kahuna's bro]

here's one i came up with for costumed heroe "halloween boys"

[Lucius]

I've always liked the term Costumed Adventurer, but of course that leaves out superpowered beings who don't wear costumes.

Lucius Alexander

I call this a palindromedary

[dmjalund]

Godsends (from Heroes)

[megaplayboy]

How about "Benders"(as in, they're constantly bending the laws of physics to their will)?

[Utech]

Nails. (The nail that sticks up is hammered down.)
Players. (Him? Oh yeah. He's in the game. A minor leaguer right now, but...)
Ladder Jumpers / Lads. (Standard issue double-helix not good enough for you, eh?)
Exceptions / Cepts. (I always dreamed of being exceptional. With my grandfather's ring of power . . . I am.)

[megaplayboy]

"Tolkeins"--metas who resemble anything out of a fantasy novel

[kahuna's bro]

nice one megaplayboy

[The Arc]

In the Uberworld Universe, super-powered beings are known as Ubers, because super-powered beings started appearing in numbers during WWII.

[Tasha]

What is with all of the thread necromancy lately!

Ok on with the OP's question

Capes
Supes
Paragons


Wild Cards has both Aces and Jokers. Aces being powerful, pretty/handsome, supers. Jokers being those bearing physical mutations and usually having minor powers (or their physical mutation being their "power")

[HawksmoorSD]

In my game the first 3 being on the planet to show any super powers were actually aliens that were caught on film fighting during one of the worlds fairs. Over the years the 3 of them individually got tagged with Starshine, Powerhouse, and The Iron Beast. Collectively they became known as the Alphas. The fallout from their battle caused the first wave of supers that were called Betas. Gammas had just showed up when they found and killed the 4th Alpha and opened up a whole new set of powers to manifest.

[Doctor Agenda]

Malibu had 'ultras', which I'm currently using in a campaign. I'm also using 'jinks', people with a 'jink' in their genetic code, the over-simplified 'gene X' idea, but not powerful enough to be considered ultras or have a downside that outweighs their power, like 'hideous freak who can bend forks with his mind'. Also a pun on their misfortune, all the prejudice at a fraction of the power. I'm going to have a 'Jinkstown' in Reno, but I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it in detail.

[Terminal]

They were always 'freaks' or 'superweirdos' in my game. But I think that was more a reflection on the characters' personalities than the fact they had powers.

[Folded]

Positive/Official/PC names:

Darwins - applies primarily to mutants or similar
Manhattans - experiment gone wrong/right types
Awakened - psi/magic based supers, stolen from Shadowrun, but still one of my favorite terms
Specials - from the PC term, mostly applied to those whose physical abnormalities make life 'difficult'
Savants - from the psychological term, indicating one of abnormally high mental abilities, but could be applied to supers as a whole
Wunderkind - adapted from the german for wonder-child


Negative/Insulting terms:

Mutes, and variations thereon (Muties, Mutts, etc...)
Clowns - for those who wear the costumes
Vigs - from vigilante
Schachs - from guess where
Stumps,Twigs,Shrubbery - from the concept of the evolutionary tree (and Monty P)
Igors, Stunts
Sports - an evolutionary throwback, term primarily used by 'pacifists', referring to the tendency of supers to solve problems with violence

[kahuna's bro]

i have no clue to where sachs come fro i like the sports one

[dmjalund]

someone uses "Wonders" - I can't remember who

[monster]

in my little corner of the hero universe they called "The Touched".

[Folded]

in my little corner of the hero universe they called "The Touched".

"Now can you show me on the doll where the bad GM Touched you?"

[megaplayboy]

47s--referring to the (possibly erroneous) belief that mutants have a 47th chromosome
DeeBees--stolen from R**ts, any being from another dimension
Extees--aliens
Fremont--any child with exceptionally strong meta-abilities, particularly related to reality alteration, matter manipulation, etc.
Cleanup Hitter/Anchorman or Anchorwoman--the most powerful member of a team, when they get fully involved it's usually in order to "close the show"

[Greywind]

"Now can you show me on the doll where the bad GM Touched you?"
*Sticks finger up nose, pointing to the brain*

[Ockham's Spoon]

How about "Benders"(as in, they're constantly bending the laws of physics to their will)?

"Bender" to me is what an alcoholic does on a regular basis, so I can't say that would fly in my campaign.

A term I have used is Transcendents, which was primarily for psi-types in my campaign, but could be applied to anyone with extraordinary abilities.

Other ones I have come across are Beyonders, DEMAs (from deus ex machina), and Redlines (both because they peg power-meters into the red and because they are often violent and bloody)

[MisterVimes]

I have used the following in Campaigns (I apologize for duplications of previous posts):

BoM : From a campaign where human meta-evolution was the result of the "Book of Man" project.
Meta : Short for Meta-Human. Meta means "beyond" and was popularized by DC Comics
Nexts: In a campaign where the supers were the next step of human evolution
Sigma: For a number of reasons: Sigma is the strongest type of nuclear bond in chemistry, it is used to represent the Sum total of a group.
Ultra: Clearly an extension of "Super" and was used by Malibu Comics in their Ultraverse

Sigma was always my favorite. It was (as far as I know) original to me, gave me a great symbol (The Greek Letter in question) to represent supers as a whole, and was a fine logo for the government group that monitored Sigma activity.

[Greywind]

"Bender" to me is what an alcoholic does on a regular basis, so I can't say that would fly in my campaign.Bender to me is a robot.

[kahuna's bro]

Bender to me is a robot.

then you could use the phrase to describe ANDROIDS

[Ockham's Spoon]

Bender to me is a robot.

Well sure, but why do you suppose Groening named him that? The very concept of a robot on a drunken binge makes the character amusing from the get go.

In all fairness to Megaplayboy, were it not for the slang usage, "bender" would be a great term.

[Greywind]

I've never watched Futurama