Number of superhumans in your worlds

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Voltron64
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Re: Number of superhumans in your worlds

Post by Voltron64 »

From Earth-27, this I think is a good benchmark.

https://earth27.fandom.com/wiki/Metahuman
There are an estimated 912 million metahumans on Earth, 99.5% of which are considered "nuisance-level" (such as kids who can bend spoons with their mind, athletes with a minor advantageous adaptation to their skeletal structure, or a neighbor with an unusual eye color). Many of these sorts never even known that they are metahumans or live most of their lives without ever activating their dormant metagene. The other 0.5% (4.5 million) are what ARGUS and the DEO deem as "potentials," or persons with considerable possible power activation.
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Re: Number of superhumans in your worlds

Post by Harnos »

Voltron64 wrote: Sat Dec 26, 2020 1:30 am From Earth-27, this I think is a good benchmark.

https://earth27.fandom.com/wiki/Metahuman
There are an estimated 912 million metahumans on Earth, 99.5% of which are considered "nuisance-level" (such as kids who can bend spoons with their mind, athletes with a minor advantageous adaptation to their skeletal structure, or a neighbor with an unusual eye color). Many of these sorts never even known that they are metahumans or live most of their lives without ever activating their dormant metagene. The other 0.5% (4.5 million) are what ARGUS and the DEO deem as "potentials," or persons with considerable possible power activation.
Nearly a one billion? Well, that is far beyond anything I've seen so far.
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Re: Number of superhumans in your worlds

Post by Voltron64 »

Harnos wrote: Sun Dec 27, 2020 8:33 am
Voltron64 wrote: Sat Dec 26, 2020 1:30 am From Earth-27, this I think is a good benchmark.

https://earth27.fandom.com/wiki/Metahuman
There are an estimated 912 million metahumans on Earth, 99.5% of which are considered "nuisance-level" (such as kids who can bend spoons with their mind, athletes with a minor advantageous adaptation to their skeletal structure, or a neighbor with an unusual eye color). Many of these sorts never even known that they are metahumans or live most of their lives without ever activating their dormant metagene. The other 0.5% (4.5 million) are what ARGUS and the DEO deem as "potentials," or persons with considerable possible power activation.
Nearly a one billion? Well, that is far beyond anything I've seen so far.
Maybe not a billion for my setting, but the percentage rate of superhuman types certainly.
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Re: Number of superhumans in your worlds

Post by MacynSnow »

In the(coming to a Video screen near you) PALLADIUM STUDIOS universe, it's an INCREADABLY low number, like 7 in a Billion will have any abilities at all. I'm going off the concept of Watchmen level powers here(minus Dr.Manhattan, as i personally felt he was too much of an early Mary Stu. Prove me wrong, i triple-dog dare you...) so more like PL 9 maybe 10.
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Re: Number of superhumans in your worlds

Post by RainOnTheSun »

Does anyone but Dr. Manhattan actually have any powers at all in Watchmen?
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Re: Number of superhumans in your worlds

Post by MacynSnow »

RainOnTheSun wrote: Thu Jan 07, 2021 12:47 am Does anyone but Dr. Manhattan actually have any powers at all in Watchmen?
Not a one, not even Ozymandias(though he comes REALLY close to it)! All of them have either the Equipment Advantage(Roarchack, Nit-Owl 2, Mothman) or were heavily Trained(Silk Spectre 2, Nit-Owl 1, Comedian, Captain Metropolis, technically Ozymandias). Everybody that died in the beginning(save Silk Spectre 1 & Hooded Justice) had no abilities whatsoever, placing them in maybe PL 5 AT MOST.
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Re: Number of superhumans in your worlds

Post by RainOnTheSun »

So what are Watchmen level powers, then? I don't think I get it.
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Re: Number of superhumans in your worlds

Post by MacynSnow »

RainOnTheSun wrote: Thu Jan 07, 2021 1:36 am So what are Watchmen level powers, then? I don't think I get it.
All of them(save Manhattan) were generally PL 9(Silk Spectre 1, Nite Owl 1, Early Comedian, Captain Metropolis, Hooded Justice, Mothman) to PL 10(Rorschach, Nit-Owl 2, Silk Spectre 2, Ozymandias, Elder Comedian). None of them had any actual powers and were either Skill Monkey's(Rorschach, Silk Spectre 1 & 2, Nit-Owl 1, The Comedian, Ozymandias) or pure Gadgeteer(Nit-Owl 2). Manhattan was the only on to hit his caps, honestly.
You can tell all this by looking at their Charlton/DC comics analogues(in this case Blue Beetle, The Question, Nightshade, Peacemaker, Captain Atom, Thunderbolt) over at Jab's write-up's.
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Setting examples and ratios

Post by Harnos »

I will raise the thread back from dead, because i have few things to add. First i will show the numbers i gathered from various settings.

  • Aberrant has 1 nova per 1 million, which makes them lucky people who has a free ticket to fame and money.
  • Paragons setting and Champions universe has 1 per 1 million ratio too. Though not all superhumans in those settings are as lucky as novas of Aberrant. It is also stated that only less than ten percent of them are bulletproof.
  • GURPS International Super Teams have 1 metahuman born with powers per 100.000 baseline humans. In addition, 1 in every 10.000 people have potential to develop powers under certain conditions. This numbers seem good considering there are many teams of them.
  • Extreme Earth setting has 500 metahumans per 1 million people, so there are few million of them but only around 1500 of them have potent powers.
  • As stated in Wild Talents book, Godlike setting offers 1 talent per 10.000 people, makes them more common and down to earth.
  • In Reckoners universe of Brandon Sanderson, it is stated in first book that there are few thousand epics in post-apocalyptic version of Chicago, only few dozens of them are invulnerable to conventional harm. It is hard to deduce a ratio from post-apocalyptic setting because population of Newcago wouldn't be equal to modern Chicago. I assume there are 500.000 people in Newcago and 2.500 epics of which 50 of them are invulnerable, which would give us 1/200 ratio of epics and 1/10.000 ratio of high epics.
  • Marvel mutants seem to be in millions but i don't know an exact ratio. It might be around 1 mutant per 1000 people or even more.
Gurps Supers book give some guidelines to number of supers. If you want to have team of supers in every big city 1 per 200.000 people is suggested. If you want a superteam for every big town 1/10.000 ratio is offered.

As Ares stated, this ratio is dependent of their power levels and function in the setting. I can see two main camps along that lines.

First is an everyday people with mostly useless or low-level powers scenario. Stories in which poor mutants hunted down by government or far-right voters would fit that bill. X-Men is the trope maker on this, TV shows like Heroes, Gifted, Alphas are also good examples. I would say 1/10.000 would be a good base for that goal. We would get few hundred metahumans in big cities and roughly 800.000 mutants in the world. This ratio could be increased of course but i personally would not go above 1/1000.

Second scenario is that most metahumans have powers strong enough to enable them to be superheroes or dangerous mercenaries, elite government agents etc. 1 or 2 superhuman per 1 million population could be enough for that. That would give 300-600 supers in USA, 80-160 in Germany, 1400-2800 in China and 8.000-16.000 in the world. In Aberrant where each superhuman can become a celebrity or in Paragons which some supers offer themselves as gods this makes sense. 1 in 250.000 or 200.000 would be better if those powers are hereditary and there are metahuman families in each big city.

I'm not sure about 1/100.000 ratio. It could be good for a world where most superhumans have useful but not exactly superhero level powers, like in the movie Push or Heroes series. Also it might be proper for a game in which powerful supers are more common and integrated into society as soldiers, policemen, entertainers etc or if you want few superhero or supervillain teams in every big city.

I excluded badass normal or power armor types from this projections and mainly thought about mutant-like origins. Also i used base populations of big cities but they would more likely attract few times more superhumans than other settlements.
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Re: Number of superhumans in your worlds

Post by Davies »

In the present day of the World In The Aftermath, it is estimated that the total superpower population at the start of 2022 is on the order of 800,000, worldwide. Of these, slightly more than half possess (a) extremely minor and/or disadvantageous powers, (b) potentially useful abilities that are rendered useless due to their circumstances (water breathing in a desert, electrical power generation in an Amish community) or (c) potentially useful abilities but a lack of training in their use.

Of the remainder, there are estimated to be approximately
  • 300,000 PL6
  • 75,000 PL7
  • 15,000 PL8
  • 8,000 PL9
  • 650 PL10
  • 125 PL11
  • 24 PL12 (down from 25 prior to the Konan invasion)
  • 3 PL 13 (down from 5 prior to the Konan invasion)
These numbers include neither the populations of the Sprawl or Tanelorn, nor any undocumented aliens residing on the planet.
Last edited by Davies on Tue Aug 01, 2023 7:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Number of superhumans in your worlds

Post by CTPhipps »

In the Supervillainy Saga verse, there's believed to be just under a million Supers in the world.

It's a big discovery their numbers are many times that much.
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Re: Number of superhumans in your worlds

Post by Harnos »

CTPhipps wrote: Tue Aug 01, 2023 7:46 am In the Supervillainy Saga verse, there's believed to be just under a million Supers in the world.

It's a big discovery their numbers are many times that much.
Do most of of them low-level powers? How many of them do have Spiderman or Colossus level powers or more?
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Re: Number of superhumans in your worlds

Post by Ares »

I'm not sure what the exact breakdown of superhumans / superheroes is in my setting, but it is a place where there aren't any 'lame' superpowers. Basically anyone with superpowers can potentially function as a superhero, whether that's someone who can lift a ton or two up to someone who can literally move mountains. Also, somewhere between 1/3rd and 1/2 of the full on superheroes of my setting don't have 'powers' in the traditional sense, but are skilled normals, gadget users, chi-martial artists, spellcasters, power armor types, so on and so forth.

Superhumans are also spread out more evenly among the world, though their numbers are greatest in first world countries due to high population counts, access to technology and circumstances that allow for origins, etc. I'm not sure what the precise superhuman population is, but I imagine the superhero population (emphasis on hero) of of a place like the United States would be somewhere between 150 and 300, though they tend to be more spread out across the country, congregating in teams to defend certain cities but not being centralized the way Marvel New York is. Most major cities tend to have at least one official superhero team, and those that don't usually have at least one or a couple of superheroic protectors.

Though it's worth pointing out that my setting isn't really a 'superhero universe', but 'a universe that has superheroes in them'. Basically, superheroes are a part of the setting but don't dominate the narrative in the sense that they're the only ones that matter. It'd be more akin to a place where there are James Bond / Mission Impossible / G.I.Joe / SHIELD style soldier and spy stuff going on alongside Street Fighter / Dragon Tiger Gate / TMNT martial arts shenanigans, while also having Dresden Files supernatural things happening in the shadows, along with the usual law enforcement cops and robbers. And that's not going into the larger sci-fi setting or the fantasy world.

Superhero stuff is important, but it's a flavor of the setting rather than the overwhelming ingredient. Basically, if an alien invasion showed up in this world, not only would the Justice League be flying up to stop it, but Dr. Benton Quest would be working on some big space laser to disable their weapons, G.I.Joe would be fighting on the land and see and air, the aliens would suddenly find magic being used against them by Earth's magical community, and then some girl with amazing legs is going to be kung fu kicking their space ship into debris.
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Re: Number of superhumans in your worlds

Post by Harnos »

Davies wrote: Tue Aug 01, 2023 6:11 am In the present day of the World In The Aftermath, it is estimated that the total superpower population at the start of 2022 is on the order of 800,000, worldwide. Of these, slightly more than half possess (a) extremely minor and/or disadvantageous powers, (b) potentially useful abilities that are rendered useless due to their circumstances (water breathing in a desert, electrical power generation in an Amish community) or (c) potentially useful abilities but a lack of training in their use.

Of the remainder, there are estimated to be approximately
  • 300,000 PL6
  • 75,000 PL7
  • 15,000 PL8
  • 8,000 PL9
  • 650 PL10
  • 125 PL11
  • 24 PL12 (down from 25 prior to the Konan invasion)
  • 3 PL 13 (down from 5 prior to the Konan invasion)
These numbers include neither the populations of the Sprawl or Tanelorn, nor any undocumented aliens residing on the planet.
Thanks for the detailed answer Davies. I loved that you gave populations for individual power levels. Those numbers make sense since most of your characters fall in 8-9 range, at least the ones i read. I didn't notice your less magical world don't have a pl 14 human though. One metahuman per 10k population seems reasonable when most of them have low level powers. By the way, Amish dude who can generate electricity gave me laughs. :D
Ares wrote: Tue Aug 01, 2023 11:19 pm I'm not sure what the exact breakdown of superhumans / superheroes is in my setting, but it is a place where there aren't any 'lame' superpowers. Basically anyone with superpowers can potentially function as a superhero, whether that's someone who can lift a ton or two up to someone who can literally move mountains. Also, somewhere between 1/3rd and 1/2 of the full on superheroes of my setting don't have 'powers' in the traditional sense, but are skilled normals, gadget users, chi-martial artists, spellcasters, power armor types, so on and so forth.
I admired your decision on lame superpowers, i really dislike the super but not super concept. It is ok when these "deuces" are rare but i don't want them to number in millions.

Ares wrote: Tue Aug 01, 2023 11:19 pm Superhumans are also spread out more evenly among the world, though their numbers are greatest in first world countries due to high population counts, access to technology and circumstances that allow for origins, etc. I'm not sure what the precise superhuman population is, but I imagine the superhero population (emphasis on hero) of of a place like the United States would be somewhere between 150 and 300, though they tend to be more spread out across the country, congregating in teams to defend certain cities but not being centralized the way Marvel New York is. Most major cities tend to have at least one official superhero team, and those that don't usually have at least one or a couple of superheroic protectors.
I also agree with metahuman phenomena being global. But unless you want China or India to be dominant force in politics and other areas, an explanation for why western countries are still more powerful and rich is nice to have. 150 superhuman for USA seems quite low, lower than other settings i have seen so i assume you want them to be rare. Also they are not the only extraordinary beings in your world.

Ares wrote: Tue Aug 01, 2023 11:19 pm Though it's worth pointing out that my setting isn't really a 'superhero universe', but 'a universe that has superheroes in them'. Basically, superheroes are a part of the setting but don't dominate the narrative in the sense that they're the only ones that matter. It'd be more akin to a place where there are James Bond / Mission Impossible / G.I.Joe / SHIELD style soldier and spy stuff going on alongside Street Fighter / Dragon Tiger Gate / TMNT martial arts shenanigans, while also having Dresden Files supernatural things happening in the shadows, along with the usual law enforcement cops and robbers. And that's not going into the larger sci-fi setting or the fantasy world.

Superhero stuff is important, but it's a flavor of the setting rather than the overwhelming ingredient. Basically, if an alien invasion showed up in this world, not only would the Justice League be flying up to stop it, but Dr. Benton Quest would be working on some big space laser to disable their weapons, G.I.Joe would be fighting on the land and see and air, the aliens would suddenly find magic being used against them by Earth's magical community, and then some girl with amazing legs is going to be kung fu kicking their space ship into debris.
I get that your point. Fortunately super spies, magic, gothic monsters and supernatural martial art techniques have their places in superhero genre. Thanks for the long answer.
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Re: Number of superhumans in your worlds

Post by Davies »

Harnos wrote: Thu Aug 03, 2023 6:39 pm
Thanks for the detailed answer Davies. I loved that you gave populations for individual power levels. Those numbers make sense since most of your characters fall in 8-9 range, at least the ones i read. I didn't notice your less magical world don't have a pl 14 human though.
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