Individuals with "super powers" or preternatural abilities (but not shapeshifting or magic), examples include: super strength, telepathy, phasing, invisibility, super speed, accuracy, regeneration, control over elements, increased durability or anything that affects the self and/or immediate environments. They still have to abide by the rules of, mass and energy cannot be created from nothing. Still very much pass as human, however their bodies grow to accommodate the specific quirks of their psionic abilities. For example, someone with super strength would have denser bones and muscles. The limits of their powers are based on what what their bodies can physically withstand before they start to suffer physical harm, with or without the aid of augmentations.

Psions are uncommon and attempts to replicate their abilities in a lab have been catastrophically unsuccessful, their abilities can be passed down through the generations with the possibility of a psion exhibiting more than one ability. Believed that psions exhibit "extrasensory" qualities/abilities that already exist in humans on an extreme scale due to a mutation.

In simple terms, a shapeshifter that mimics other species biology and abilities, usually through physical contact or coming in contact with genetic material - this mimicry is attributed to them having these special "stem cells" that allow them to become anything (in theory) and save the "blueprint" of other forms they've taken. This variant is the "natural" progression of evolution for the human race, they ARE human with human DNA (at least until they mimic something else) which makes them hard to tell apart from vanilla humans, or other species they may be mimicking at the time. Mosaics are rare on account of this mutation being hard to detect - it tends to skip generations and go dormant, or if "activated" the mosaic then becomes something else entirely, usually a chimera or a therian.

Most mosaics don't know they are mosaics until they experience some kind of catalyst or stressor on the body, for example puberty, coming into contact with bodily fluids, or a temporary biological enhancements that triggers more changes than were expected.

Regardless of what a mosaic mimics, they will always look like themselves as that species - this is limited to humanoids^[1]. Unlike therians, mosaics can switch between multiple alternate forms, sometimes being able to isolate a specific feature they want to mimic without it being an "all or nothing" change, this mainly depends on the individual and how much control they have over their changes and it is possible for a mosaic to become something else if they are unable to revert to their original form/state. They can create new mass/structures^[2], however that requires more energy and time for the mosaic to recover from.

Shapeshifters that can go between a human form and a fixed non-human form, they are relatively common. They have difficulty passing as human, as they tend to express features of their other form in their human form (depending on the individual). This can range from mild (hair, soft tissue, coloration/texture, sensory) to more extreme like extra appendages that they have in the other form (must also abide by "mass cannot be created or destroyed") and being mistaken as a chimera. Shapeshifting^[2-1] does not come very naturally to most therians and is an uncomfortable and not instantaneous process, best they can do is become more acclimated to it through practice. A therian's shift can also be "off target" where they land on more of a mid form instead of full creature form.

A Therian's alternate form is determined mostly by family genetics (with minor deviations that don't settle until puberty). As they age, their human forms tends to take on more features of their non human form as their bodies try to find the medium. Therians (like chimeras) can trace their ancestry back to a mosaic, however therians seemed to retain some qualities of mosaic "stem cells" to allow them to shape shift back and forth, but are still considered imperfect shifters.

Individuals with fixed physical and/or biological adaptations outside of what is considered the normal human body plan (two arms, two legs, etc). Appearances range from looking relatively human shaped to not human shaped at all, either way they do not pass as human. Chimeras are relatively common and there are identifiable "lineages" that share a common body plan i.e. multi limbed chimera's have a common ancestor even if one has two sets of arms and another has a set of wings.

Most chimera lineages are the result of early biological engineering where non-human genetic material was introduced to produce a specific outcome, but it ended up expressing in other parts of the subject. Chimeras can trace their line back to a mosaic that underwent biological engineering "successfully" (however, it was not known at the time that mosaics were a thing so the scientists thought it was shear dumb luck).

This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Meredith Nolan © 2025