A part of Western African mythology is the story of
Anansi, who spilled wisdom over the world. I was thinking
about the idea of maybe some people got more wisdom,
and the basic outcome was this:

A world where everyone has one trait that
is especially heightened; intuition, bravery, kindness,
etc. These traits usually show early on in life, and
correspond with the personality of their holder.
A brave person may be more reckless. An empathetic
person a pushover. Once again, etc.

For your strongest trait, you will also have a
weakness, which is relatively random. For example,
there could be an intelligent person who can't read,
and will never know how to read, as hard as they
try, or a masterful musician who is deaf.

There's a whole system put in place to maximize
the use of everyone's traits. Intuition, lawyer.
Strength, miner. No one wants power traits, because
they usually mean a life of hard, dangerous labor.
Though you can chose to follow a different career path.
Employers make it mandatory for your trait to
be known. Certain traits, ones deemed useless,
such as having good eyesight or being able to
read a book in under a minute, comprehensively,
will affect your career negatively and earn
you an undesirable ones.

Then there are bad traits; things like excessive
rudeness or uncontrollable strength. A lack
of empathy or a murderous demeanor. These powers
can get you jailed from the moment it seems
you might posses them..

As usual, that's yours to mess around with. I was
thinking that Phil would be something like a
compulsive liar who chooses to write
rather than speak, because that way he
is able to tell the truth. And Dan could have a
lack of emotion (kept out of jail for his father's
power, maybe), and Phil is the only one
who can trigger any feelings.

Another idea might be that Dan has night vision,
but is blind in the daylight. He's stealthy naturally,
but everyone assumes that's his power. He
is a criminal mastermind. Phil is a detective
with the power of intuition, but is afraid of the dark
Some opposing powers like that.