Abilities

There are a number of different abilities among Synths. Some are very benign and are innate to certain types of Synths where are some are labeled as 'Talents' and have been engineered to function in a non-natural way.

## Physical Abilities

All Synths have on a basic level, simple enhancements to their senses and biology, such as accelerated healing and growth, but others may have specific changes. There are also some abilities that are unique to certain synths, such as Chiros being able to echolocate and Canids and Pards being able to see in low light.

#### **Physical Enhancements**

* Basic Enhancements:
	+ Strength
	+ Reflexes
	+ Accelerated Healing
	+ Accelerated Growth
	+ Stamina
	+ Endurance
* Claws
* Fanged Teeth / Replaceable Teeth
* Prehensile Tail
* Fur, Feathers, Scales, Hide
* Camouflage Skin
* Adaptive Skin
* Bioluminescence
* Diamond Skin
* Toxin Immunity
* Venom

#### **Extrasensory Abilities**

* Enhanced Senses
* Hyperfocus Sight
* Ultraviolet Vision
* Low Light Vision
* Infrared Sensitivity
* Electrosensitivity
* Echolocation / Sonar
* Magnetoreception
* Vomeronasal Organs

## Talents

Abilities that have strange and unnatural properties, due to being specifically engineered to exist rather than coming from means that mimic the genetics of other creatures.

There are currently four known talents, with Musers being the most common, and Pyrros and Axolomeh being the rarest.

* **Musers**
	+ The talent to communicate via minds and senses, able to talk, see through the eyes of others or distort others perceptions. It utilities some electrosensitivity and bio-electric elements. Mutations of this can result in an hyper bioelectricity allowing synths with it to release powerful electric shocks.
* **Telkens**
	+ The talent to move things with the mind, though it hasn't fully been understood, it has quickly been implemented and utilized where it can with a lot of problems arising from the lack of understanding of how it functions

* **Bioelectricity**
	+ The mutation of muser genetics can result in Bioelectricity, where the synth is capable of releasing powerful electric shocks from electroplaques pitted across their skin. It is somewhat rare to find, and can cause serious problems to the brain and nervous system of the Synth who has this mutation.
* **Pyrros**
	+ A talent only currently seen in Roux and Amelia Samodiva, that allows them to produce a chemical across their skin that can ignite but also does not burn them (through the assistance of a specialised prototype diamond skin).

* **Axolomeh**
	+ A hyperactive talent that stems from regenerative abilities, but to an extreme extent where the person is able to regrow entire bones, muscles, tissues, nervous systems, parts of their brain, and even organs and entire limbs. It is not an instantaneous regeneration, but can take anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks depending on the extent of the damage. Since this talent is so rare, Synths with the Axolomeh talent are aggressively sought after by Atlas, and Atlas has gone as far as to raid and kidnap these synths from Aura and Core the moment the talent is revealed.

#### **Speculative Talents**

**Siren** & **Bellweather**

* It is a speculated hidden talent, believed to be found in Synths that '*naturally*' adopt leadership roles, allowing them to sway and influence people through speaking alone. It is not known how many synths have this talent and it is difficult to tell if it is due to training, charisma, or some subtle muser influence.
* It possibly could be muser based, but it hasn't fully been identified or replicated yet.

**Autotomy Axolomeh**

* A theoretical extension of the Axolomeh talent, where the Synth is capable of detaching limbs such as arms and tails, in a form of self amputation, with the lost limb regrowing weeks later. It is only speculative as there are not enough known Axolomeh to know if it is possible or not, with the talent having not been fully explored.

**Bombardier Toxin, Spitters**

* It is thought that among Reptile based Synths that there is the possibility of spitting or ejecting a noxious and hot chemicals or toxins that can cause burns or melt through materials. There are Reptile synths with venom but it is relatively weak and harmless. At most, it is capable of paralysis or anaphylaxis.

## Phenotype Tagging Abilities

ARCDA uses Phenotype Tagging as a quick method of diagnosing the abilities that a Synth possesses. With Preternaturals, it is fairly simple in recognising what abilities and talents an individual may possess based on their appearance. A similar situation occurs for Canids and Pards, with their tails and colours being markers as to their batch and what additions were made for them. With Pards and Canids, they are less likely to have abilities such as Musing or Telkens and so do not require much colour coding to identify what they can do, as it is done by Base.

In Gregale, it is revealed that ARCDA colour tags some talents and abilities with eye colours in Avios. This is because they are given a much wider scope of roles and jobs, and as they can fly, need a sure fire identify as to what they can do.

> “*Usually, um…Avio-Musers are phenotypically designed to have darker eye colours. Dark browns, reds, occasionally purple in more lethal musers. It’s just a simple colour tag so people know what they’re potentially dealing with since talents like that aren’t directly physical in nature. Yellow and orange is often related to physical enhancements like strength or increased healing capabilities. Bioelectrics ended up being tagged with green after that mutation was discovered.”* - Farid Ceylan, Gregale
>
>

* **Musers** - Dark Colours: Red, Brown, Black, Purple (rare)
* **Bioelectrics** - Green
* **Physical Enhancements** - Orange, Red, Yellow.
* **Edits** or **Mutations** - Blue.

Wilheim notes that, in African based Factions they use Yellow for Telken users, and just Red for Musers. In Oceania, it is the other way around with Yellow for Musers and Red for Telkens. It is also noted that Risio does what ever colour they feel is most aesthetically pleasing.

Dual colours, with heterochromia or sectoral heterochromia is noted as being due to edits being made with an individuals' genetics:

Example:

* Wilny had the Muser ability added in, and so it affected his eye colour: either his whole iris apart from one segment became blue, or the red segment came after.
* Westwind had the Muser ability eddited out, and it left her with one blue eye.

## See Also

* Preternaturals
* Transhumans

## Trivia

* There are no abilities for shapeshifting, talent stealing, teleportation, seeing the future, or controlling the elements, or other semi-fantasy like abilities or talents. T.Hearts has a permanent blanket ban upon 'seeing the future' or other clairvoyance magic.
* Telkens again, was a misspelling of an abbreviated form of Telekinetic.