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Alternate terms for "superhumans"?


Trebuchet

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. :(

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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".

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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.

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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...

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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.

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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...

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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.

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  • 7 years later...

Re: Alternate terms for "superhumans"?

 

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.

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Re: Alternate terms for "superhumans"?

 

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.)

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