Brandon Sanderson

Nikkolas a small sidenote because you refered to Mistborn Era 2 as a trilogy. It is not, there is going to be a fourth book, just so you´re not dissapointed with the "end" of the trilogy^^

In my opinion the Lord Ruler was a egocentric racist asshole, but that´s it. I believe there were two main motivations for his acts during his ascension, fear for the countinued survival of his world and his racism. He tried to prevent the birth of someone who could kill him, because he knew the true nature of the Well, while he already saw how easily others could be manipulated to assist Ruin. He created the Nobles and the Skaa so that his racism would be a legitimate thing, so that he knew he was superior to others. If left to his own devices he would have been a terrible tyrant, but the constant whispers of Ruin were what made him the Monster he became in the end.

Elendel appears to have the death penalty, so presumably people condemned to die could be used as hemalurgy fodder.

Re this post in the Stormlight thread.

That gave me a thought.

What kind of baseline strength do those natural allomancers get?

I think there's a good chance at the very least its higher than the Misting baseline in Era 2.

I wonder if perhaps the Set's breeding program involved locating some of them?

edited 12th May '18 3:56:23 AM by 32ndfreeze

Why would you think that? Those early Allomancers would be baseline strength, since they don´t have any extra allomantic power in their linage (provided by lerasium). I would need to look up the Wo B, but i believe Allomancy is as diluted as it gets in Era 2 (i´m not sure if it was about frequency or individual power), so early allomancers should be at about the same level as allomancers in Era 2 as far as their potential is concerned, but actual usage of allomancy i would put them far below Era 2. The reason for this is early allomancers didn´t know about the whole "you have to eat metal to get powers" thing and could only use the trace amounts they got while eating.

edited 12th May '18 7:26:16 AM by Samaldin

Yes, Word of God is that by Wax and Wayne, allomancy is both as weak and as rare as it will ever be. As for whether the Set is looking for them for their breeding program, I doubt it. In fact, I doubt anyone can even tell the difference between an allomancer who has their power "naturally" and one who is descended from the original thirteen Mistborn. Bloodlines mix together pretty quickly over the generations, no matter how much you try to avoid it.

I am curious whether the frequency of allomancers is a percentage or an absolute number. Genetically, it makes the most sense for it to be a percentage; one percent (or whatever) of the population has the right genes, so they get the powers. The problem is that they get their power from a specific exterior source, so it's possible that source could eventually run out of power to provide to new allomancers. Is there a hard cap to the number of allomancers that can exist?

I think that for all intents and purposes, Shards' power supply is essentially infinite.

The ending of Hero of Age hinged on allomancy being a hard percentage as a sign of diving hints. Unless Brandon has given word that's changed?

I'm more curious about how Feruchemy managed to get weaker while Allomancy settled on its lowest possible baseline.

I believe Word of Brandon is that the "genes" (for lack of a better word) responsible for Allomancy interfere with the genes responsible for Feruchemy. So when you remove the Final Empire's breeding restrictions, which kept Allomancy genes confined to the noble class, and kept Terris folk from breeding with non-Terris, the magic genes get intermingled throughout the population, thus weakening Feruchemy.

Or Feruchemy just got weaker because it became more diluted. During the Final Empire Terris were literaly bred, without any outside folk getting into their genepool to dilute the Feruchemy genes. After the original trilogy, there was free intermixing of the different people (so more dilution) and, perhaps more importantly, no Feruchemists left (so noone who could "localy" raise the percentage of the feruchemy genes).

One thing a was always annoyed by: why is feruchemy a trait of the terris people? Feruchemy is the mixture magicsystem of Ruin and Preservation and all humans on Scadrial are also of Ruin and Preservation so why does only a certain group get that system? Doesn´t make any sense to me...

It makes sense if you assume that Feruchemy is pure Preservation, Hemulurgy is pure Ruin, and Allomancy is the Ruin-Preservation combo. The only thing keeping it from being so is Brandon's official Word of God. Otherwise, they all thematically fit. I can only assume Brandon originally intended them to be such, but later changed his mind for some reason, without reworking the systems themselves afterwards.

Even then it doesn´t make sense that only a certain group would get feruchemy (except if we assume the terris were created directly by preservation which we know he coulcn´t do alone). The other cosmere systems make sense why only certain people get them only feruchemy is weird in that way

edited 13th May '18 7:16:08 AM by Samaldin

Yes, that's what we were talking about with the frequency dropping. The sixteen percent was part of Preservation's plan, though it's still a little unclear if allomancers were just conveniently sixteen percent of the population at the time or if the mists were actively creating new allomancers up to sixteen percent.

We still don't know, but it's hinted that there's something more behind the Terris. They were extremely insular even before the Final Empire, remember, and they lived in the frozen mountains surrounding the Well of Ascension. Hoid is also a Full Feruchemist, when as far as we know the only way (besides Hemalurgy) is to be born that way, and he's older than the Terris people. Hell, he's older than the planet.

As for Feruchemy becoming diluted so quickly, remember that in addition to breeding outside the Terris, there wasn't a single Full Feruchemist alive at the end of the original trilogy. The Inquisitors had hunted them all down and killed them for their power. There weren't any true Mistborn left, either, until Sazed empowered Spook, which is why the Set was specifically going after nobles descended from him.

Random thought: Empire-Era allomancers were strong because they had admittedly dilute 'God-bits' in them in the form of inherited Lerasium investiture. Does that mean that a present-day Allomancer with the single Divine Breath from a Returned could reach the power of an Empire Allomancer, since they then have added godly Investiture? Because Returned Breath are the only easily-transferable god-bits in the Cosmere I can think of.

Side tangent: would someone with a transferred (not used on them, but transferred to them) have the powers of a Returned without the downside of needing weekly Investiture?

wait, he is? We sure? I know he used Fortune, but that could just be spikes.

edited 13th May '18 9:00:20 AM by SCMof2814

Hoid doesn't use spikes because, aside from the moral implications, they open you up to influence from the Cognitive Realm. The people of Scadrial don't always know better, but Hoid definitely does. And I think there was a Word of Brandon that Hoid is a full Feruchemist, but I'm not sure.

As for using the Divine Breath, keep in mind that it's hard to use one form of Investiture in place of another. Sure Vasher can use Stormlight instead of Breath to survive, but that's just burning it as fuel. Word of Brandon is that he can't just breathe deep and instantly be up to Tenth Heightening.

I´m not sure if Hoid is a Feruchemist, i´m pretty sure there are other ways to acces Fortune beside besides Feruchemy since (oathbringer spoiler) Odium knows about fortune, but admittedly that isn´t the strongest indicator. Even if Hoid is using feruchemical Fortune, he could still access it by medaillion instead of spike (depending if these are completly new or a rediscovery)

I believe a divine breath transfered would grant the fifth heightening without the need to consume Investiture. I´m basing this on the idea (i don´t believe there is a Wo B for this) that Returend are cognitive shadows stapeld back to their bodies by that splinter but need a constant supply to not come "loose", if there is no stapling to consume Investiture it should just stay. (Sidenote: Ashrevan from the Emperors soul is basicly a Returned recreated by Forging, or at least something remarkebly similiar^^)

A Divine Breath shouldn´t increase allomantic strength, or at least i see no reason why it would. Allomancy and the Divine Breath are different kinds of Investiture und we know different kinds of Investiture interfere with each other. If anything the Allomancy should be more difficult to control or weaker and the heightenings lessend, while allomancy is used..

I have to say, the various examples of some magic systems mimicking others (most prominent being Nightblood and Shardblades) jsut makes me giddy.

It might be possible to convert, like either through a discipline or device, but it probably wouldn't be very efficient.

Tor has cover art for Skyward. Blurb:

edited 17th May '18 1:23:46 PM by Discar

Krell sounds like Trell.

I don't think we know if this is Cosmere or not yet. I mean, it doesn't sound like it, but neither did Sixth of the Dusk—and that proved that conventional space travel will eventually be a thing. So.

As far as i now it´s non-cosmere

So did Alcatraz, and then it turned out he had a direct line to the Shard of Breaking.

Wait, what?

Sanderson writing for a multimedia project (including a tv show).

That's a tiny bit of a shame.

I was really looking forward to the prose version.

But on the other hand it'll be really cool if this get's Brandon an "in" into the TV business.

Would presumably be beneficial for any Cosmere Live Action adaptions