Sea vessels in the Final Empire?

[Hieron]

Hey All - I've recently gotten a group together for the Mistborn Adventure Game and am prepping for our first actual play session (post-character creation, etc.). 

I'm wondering if anyone knows from stuff Brandon might have said at some point or something - is there travel by ocean during the era of the original trilogy? I'm fairly certain only canal boats are ever actually mentioned in the books, and I can see why the Lord Ruler would not have wanted travel outside his dominion possible. But, it would make a lot of sense for there to be trade routes and such that traveled along the western side of the Empire, and maybe to/from the Southern Isles?

Thanks for any lore! I'm pretty big on canon and don't want to diverge too far from it when possible. 

[Hieron]

Sigh - nevermind, I tried some other searches through the game's manual and discovered some relevant information in the description of the Southern Isles. It describes sea merchants and skaa pirates, among other things. Sorry for the pointless question; I'd have deleted the thread if I could figure out how!

[The One Who Connects]

22 hours ago, Hieron said:

is there travel by ocean during the era of the original trilogy?

The short answer would be very little. Due to Era 1 Scadrial being too close to the sun, a majority of the planet is known as "The Burnlands."

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[Rashek] moved Scadrial closer to the sun, setting in place measures to protect humanity, such as the ash. This new, much hotter orbit, raised temperatures,^[4] creating the burnlands and scorching most of Scadrial clean of life.^[5] The very borders of the burnlands were somewhat inhabitable, growing less and less habitable further from the empire, eventually resulting in temperatures so hot that survival was impossible.^[6] The burnlands separated the people of the southern continent and the Final Empire, as it would take a small miracle to survive a crossing.

On account of being near the north pole, the entirety of the Final Empire is surrounded by burnlands. So if it isn't on the map of the Empire, it wasn't traversable.

[Kingsdaughter613]

Not the North Pole; the Magnetic North Pole.

[The One Who Connects]

1 hour ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Not the North Pole; the Magnetic North Pole.

I did say "near." It's close enough, since the actual North Pole appears to be around the Terris Mountains. (At least, that's how I interpreted this)

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I changed things so that when the Lord Ruler held the power in the Well, he decoupled the geographic north pole and the magnetic north pole.

In our world, the magnetic north pole is located about eleven degrees of latitude south of the geographic north pole. On Scadrial, the two poles were originally in the same location. The Lord Ruler wanted to keep access to the Well under his control, so he decided to build his capital city right above it. However, he realized that on a planet with a tilted axis, a city at the north pole would have seasonal daylight variation so extreme that at the height of summer the sun would never set and during the dead of winter the sun would never rise. He could remove the axis’s tilt, but that would just make the sun perpetually skirt the horizon all year round.

What Rashek decided to do (and he had to make split-second decisions in the brief time he held the power) was to shift the crust of the whole planet so that the Well was at a latitude that would have more standard seasonal variation, and to re-create the Terris mountains in the new North (to maintain the rumors that the Well was located there).

Either way, my point was that since the Burnlands completely separated the North and South, they would be a more equatorial-style desert rather than a small(in comparison) place like the Sahara. When you are way up North, no matter what way you go, you start going towards that equatorial desert eventually. I'll admit I worded it a little poorly, but i thought i got the general gist across.

[Kingsdaughter613]

Elendel basin is about where Luthadel was, I believe. Brandon had the magnetic pole moved much further south. The magnetic poles do not need to be near the geographic poles.

Right now ours is moving toward Europe. And it’s actually the ‘South’ magnetic pole technically! Scadrial’s poles are based on the perpendicularities. There is no reason why the pole should have been close to the geographic north.

[The One Who Connects]

33 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

There is no reason why the pole should have been close to the geographic north.

In the annotation I quoted, Brandon said that the geographical and magnetic poles on Scadrial were originally coupled.

So when Rashek moved the magnetic pole(The Well and Luthadel) south from where it used to be, the geographical pole(remaining where it was) would be north of Luthadel. Brandon then mentioned that Rashek created the Terris Mountains north of Luthadel, so I equated the two. That's probably me connecting dots that aren't necessarily there, but I thought it made sense.

37 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Right now ours is moving toward Europe. And it’s actually the ‘South’ magnetic pole technically!

I knew the N/S had swapped, but I wasn't aware it was physically drifting. That's cool.

[Kingsdaughter613]

Oh, it didn’t swap. Our compasses point North because technically the North magnetic pole has a Southern polarity. If the poles switched our compasses would point South!

Elendel is actually near the pits of Hathsin. It’s far too warm to be that far north. Also, that far north there isn’t a normal seasonal variation.

Thanks for the WoB though!