Superpowers

Superpowers are extremely rare, unique abilities that are outside of, but may or may not be unrelated to common energies such as Mana or Ki. They may manifest in an individual at birth, at a time of great physical, emotional, and/or mental stress or some other defining moment, or - most likely - not at all.

Superpowers are so rare that chances are the common man may never meet someone with one. As such, there is little to know common knowledge, recognition or understanding around superpowers. However, this does not necessarily mean that superpowers are extremely powerful. Their utility, assuming there is some in the particular ability, lies in their uniqueness and that they cannot be predicted or blocked with conventional means.

For instance, imagine a hypothetical individual with a superpower which, to the observer, engulfs them in flame. The logical response from an opponent may be to douse them in water. The superpower may actually be such that it is fuelled by contact with water, and as such the action has a result which is opposite to expected. Or the flames may not be physical, or simply a representation of the user's anger, and so on and so forth. Or, then again, water could be the ability's critical weakness, and the user will immediately perish on exposure to water during its activation.

They always have some sort of cost or caveat to their use. This may entail the consumption of stamina, Mana, Ki, other energies or some combination thereof, or something less direct such as the loss of lifespan, sacrifice of eyesight, or that they themselves are also affected by their ability - using the above example, for instance, they could be burnt by their own flames.