Savant Talents

The Trust, who coined the term "savants", refers to their unique gifts as "talents." These abilities don't usually appear out of nowhere. They are often outgrowths of distinct tendencies the savant already showed from early childhood. This may have manifested as a heightened skill of some kind in the young child, an odd habit or even a psychological "quirk." For example:

• Theogenes: The dean of the Thaumaophoros Academy is a multi-morph, with the ability to split himself off into multiple versions of himself. From childhood, he always used the plural possessive pronoun ("we") and as he came closer to manifesting his talent, demonstrated a non-trauma-based dissassociative disorder (multiple personalities). It was almost as though this were "building up," a sort of mental anxiety building up under pressure that manifested his talent when it "blew." Like many savants, he spent several weeks leading up to his manifestation in the care of a mental care facility.
• Ms. Shepherd: The security officer for the Academy possesses hyperproprioception, a radically augmented awareness of her own body and its movements. From childhood, this manifested in a dramatically heightened balance. Because proprioception is one of the three traits associated with the establishment of muscle memory, she also demonstrated the ability to learn skills involving body movement immediately, as soon as she was shown the technique. As a result, she is an almost technically perfect dancer and martial artist, among other thing. Some savants, like Ms. Shepherd, simply demonstrate a trait from childhood and it simply continues to build to superhuman levels.
• Coronal: The Caelestios Group astrophysicist, who also sits on the Logios council for the Academy demonstrated a unique understanding of certain aspects of the mechanics of light and heat. In particular, he has always had a nearly innate understanding of wave particle mechanics and the nuances of radiant energy, which only increased as he was exposed to various science classes in his mundane schooling. By the time he was a sophomore in high school, he could already use that understanding to alter the mechanics of light and heat in his environment. Now as an adult, he is capable of generating raw plasma on the order of that generated in the outer layer of stellar masses in space (which he must, of course, be careful not to use inside Earth's atmosphere). Like many savants, Coronal's talent is not just the generation of some effect, but also a superhuman understanding of the mechanics of physics that allow him to do that. Indeed, it is almost as though his power comes from the fact that he understands the workings of physics on such an innate level.

Building Powers

When creating a power for your savant, think holistically. How would such a power effect the individual? It doesn't come into being in a vacuum and there are always warning signs, what the Trust refers to as "tells."

• If the power is long-lasting, relatively low level and permanent, like Ms. Shepherd's simply figure out how it manifested and what the obvious side-effects are of having such a power.
  • Savants with these powers often have an allotment of Skills and Advantages they should logically purchase.
• If the power affects the mind or body of the savant, figure out what sort of effects that might have on the bodily or psychological health of the one in question. This should be something that manifestation of the power alleviates, but never truly goes away. For example, Theogenes suffers from his dissasociative disorder when he reintegrates all of his "otherselves," which is one of the reasons why he always has at least a few of them active at one time. Many savants can't make the problems go away, however; they are manifestations of their talent, the "downside" to such heightened ability.
  • Savants with these problems should have Complications to reflect these ongoing difficulties.
• If the power affects the environment in some capacity, or simply might be the outgrowth of some knowledge or skill, its use isn't always guaranteed. The savant in question has to figure out the right application of that knowledge to any given situation, their heightened minds racing through leaps of understanding to do so. For example, Coronal's plasma generation is tied to his understanding of physics, and he has to constantly flit through mental formulae, applying differentials based on his current situation, in order to use his power. He does so in mere heartbeats, of course, but he must do so.
  • Savants with powers that require hypercognition should purchase their powers with the Check Required flaw (pg. 146 of the Hero's Handbook).