Alterhumans

There are humans with incredible powers known as Alterhumans, or merely Alters. Alters possess a new organ called an Alter Organ, which is located somewhere within the body and is the source of their powers. This organ produces Alter Cells, and the measure of this, AC count, is taken as a rough estimate of an Alter's potential power. Most Alters do not start out particularly strong, but as the Alter Organ is a muscle itself, it can be trained through repeated power use, and this, combined with the Alter getting better at utilizing their power, allows the Alter to grow stronger to the upper limit estimated by their AC count.

Conversely, there are also some kids called Starter Children. These people are powerful from the start, being almost at the top of their power ceiling immediately, in exchange for having less room for growth. An example of a starter child is Seth Solar.

Alters are either born with their powers, or receive them before they turn 10. The former kind account for 90% of the human population, and the latter for an additional 7%. Normal humans who do not have Alter organs, and are thus powerless, account for the unlucky 3% of the human population and are called "duds". By virtue of being utterly powerless in a world of superhumans, duds are heavily disdained and discriminated against, as shown most plainly by what happened to Adam, Elaine and Aldrich. There have been many cases where Alter parents have cast their child out into the wastelands upon realizing that they are a dud.

The energy that fuels Alter powers is called "Ether", and there is no way to use this energy aside from using it with alter powers. It has been said by Fler'Gan that Ether is similar in function to Mana, though is still a different energy. Similarly, whilst the residents of Elden World are essentially blank slates who can choose their path and forge their mana toward it, Alters are stuck with specific abilities from birth. Fler'Gan likened this to a mage being born with the ability to only use a couple of specific spells, and never anything else.

These Alters are managed by a global government organization called Alter Agency, or AA, and tend to be characterized as either Heroes or Villains. The former are those who align themselves with AA and fight variants, and the latter are those who use their powers to commit crimes. Heroes often organize themselves into Hero Teams, while Villains tend to work with criminal organizations like the Dark Six.

## Categories

There are lots of different kinds of Alter powers, which are sorted into categories. It was a common misconception that Alter powers were categorized under what type of power they were. To be more precise, they were categorized according to the shape and location of their organ first, then the nature of their power second. Techno powers fell under the main category known as Psionics which

* **Augmenter** heroes specialize in close combat with abilities relating to the augmentation of their physical prowess.

* **Mutant** heroes have abilities that allow them to change into different forms, often animalistic or otherwise non-human.

* **Blaster**

* **Flux** powers manipulate space and time and are extremely rare.

* **Psionic** powers relate to the mind.
	+ **Techno** alters can interface deeply with technology.