Shapeshifters of the cosmere

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

A little bit of a far of question here but I have been thinking about how to create a legit shifter in the comere.  I guess I need to define what I think of as a "legit" shifter.  I really can't unsee the WoW druid as the king of shifters.  That very first WoW cinematic trailer where the night elf druid jumps off the edge of the cliff and turns into the cat as she lands was a scene I played over and over again in my mind over the years.  The speed of transformation and 

I love kandra and they actually offer more durability and flexibility (in their ability to turn into other humans and replace them) than most shifters in other games / worlds but the kandras time to shift and need for bones/ lack of hair is a bit of a hold up in a fast paced setting.  I am trying to see what you would need to piece together for a fast paced shifter to exist in the cosmere.  The bonus, I believe, is that you would have access to far more options than even my beloved Azeroth druid.  

I think kandra would have to be your starting point.  Being hemalurgic constructs already I imagine some further spikes will be needed to get us to the ultimate shifter point.  

Let's solve the hair problem first... if a kandra were to aquire a divine breath would they be able to grow hair such as we see with the royal locks? Perhaps not.  I won't spend too much time on that but I have to mention it because I remember seeing a WoB that made it sound like spiking a divine breath was easier than normal breaths. 

As for bones... if a kandra were to aquire access to Willshaper or Stoneward powers (through a bond which is unlikely or through access to an honorblade which is probably even less likely but still fun to think about) would they be able utilize stormlight to shape stone bones inside of them to fit different anatomical sizes and shapes?  There is a dark corner of my brain that is set aside for thinking about all the possible cosmere combos in the future and the ability to soulcast and shape a true body into whatever shape and size you could want is a thing that has crossed my mind more than once.  

If you were to be able to grow hair this would open up some cool fuzzy creatures to a kandra.  If the royal locks idea is a bust then maybe ugly bald carapace wearing Rosharan fauna is more suitable for a kandra.  

The last thing we would need is to speed up the transformation time.  Due to hemalurgic options there is the speed bubble.  A bendalloy bubble may not make the transformation instant to the kandra but we saw how incredibly skilled Tensoon had become as he and Wax were running through the tunnels away from the chimeras. The ability to create or mold/shape your own truebody via surges and fabrials just eliminates the need for carrying a massive bag of bones with him.  

I really think the best setting for this would have to be on Roshar just because so many of your options for animals to switch to eliminate the need for actual hair growth plus Roshar has the surges that you would need to eliminate the bones issues.  How it will all work out trying to shape stone while it is under the mistwraith ooze body I am also unsure of.  Holding carapace looking stone like shields from the underside and using the exoskeleton approach may make this whole process easier.  

Thanks for bearing with my early morning brain dump. If there is an easier way from books I haven't read yet please chime in and I will read them next!  

[HSuperLee]

Ah, kandra, one of my biggest Cosmere beefs. Well, time to put on my mad scientist hat here, which means I in no way endorse the strategy I am about to suggest.

Sanderson has waffled on how deep the transformation abilities of kandra go, though he's generally been consistent on the idea that they could replicate human reproductive organs. Relevant WoB spoiler-ed for length:

Spoiler

Quote

Questioner

My friends and I had this debate when we were playing the Mistborn Adventure Game. So when a kandra imitates a human, do they replicate the organs perfectly?

Brandon Sanderson

Usually, yes. But there are kandra that do not, by intention, do that.

Questioner

Does that include the reproductive organs?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

So theoretically if a kandra were to copulate with a human while pretending to be a human, would it create another human?

Brandon Sanderson

It would. And I think I've been consistent on that. So, I have to do things like this because I didn't want a blood test to be able to determine who was a kandra and who wasn't, because that's your go-to way to find a shapeshifter. So I think I had to imitate entirely. But boy, would it imitate the genetic code... *sounds of thought and frustration*

Questioner

That's the question we have.

Brandon Sanderson

You know, I don't know that they would...so they were human...I'm going to go ahead and back pedal and RAFO on that. I haven't decided 100% yet...I know you can't tell with a bloodtest, but if you look at the DNA, would you be able to tell it's a kandra? And I'm kinda thinking you probably would be able to. 

Questioner

So then, following that they wouldn't be able to reproduce.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, they wouldn't be able to reproduce in that case. I'm gonna go--jury's out. And I have to really make a call on this. I'm going to say, "Yes," right now, that they are doing this down to the cellular level, a copy, but I may have to backpedal on that when I get to future Mistborn books, when I really look at it, what it would take, to do that. It's an unofficial yes, with a RAFO attached to it.

FanX 2018 (Sept. 6, 2018)

 

I'm not a biologist, but its always seemed to me that if kandra can create reproductive organs, they should be able to create bones. Let me go through the logic here. Even if kandra can't directly and immediately create stem cells for themselves (though I suspect they probably could) they could always create both male and female reproductive organs within themselves and then fertilize their own eggs, leading to stem cell creation via the same route human do it. From there, they should be able to assimilate those cells and begin to control their differentiation until they begin producing bone. This is assuming that kandra can't just replicate human DNA and then make bones the way we do (you're doing it right now, by the way. Its just a slow process). But either way, if kandra can make bones, it just takes a long time, then the main thing holding back kandra shapeshifting is the time it takes to grow bones (hair, nails, etc.) in which case, they might only need one spiked ability; Progression. We've seen from the Fused that Singers can use progression to accelerate their carapace growth, so perhaps a kandra could use the same ability to accelerate the natural processes of bone growth.

 

The other major limiting factor for kandra is mass. I assume they can shed it quickly if they need to (though it would be gross) but gaining mass requires that they eat enough flesh to replicate a form. This may not be a problem, however, as we know that the Magnified Ones are some of the largest and bulkiest of the Fused, suggesting that progression might also be able to generate muscle mass, aka. flesh. So spiking a kandra with progression might solve that problem as well. But if not, we know of another rosharan ability that allows for the creation of flesh, and that's soulcasting. 

 

Now that we have a kandra with the ability to generate bone and mass, the final thing we need is a power source, as these abilities will likely consume a massive amount of investiture. Since we're using progression and maybe soulcasting, the rosharan lights are the most obvious power source, as they wouldn't require an hacks to power the abilities. While stormlight tends to be the go-to, I actually think lifelight may be the best option here. The best source of lifelight we've seen is Lift, so there's always the potential of spiking her ability to convert food to lifelight, but this kandra is already going to have three or four spikes, so it would be better if we could avoid using more. The other potential source of lifelight we've seen comes from the Listener tradition of using a specific rhythm to accelerate plant growth. If using that rhythm always works to generate small amounts of lifelight, then the kandra could simply build organs that create that rhythm constantly, much like the beating of a heart, and be always creating lifelight for themself.

There are a few other strategies that might work for powering this super-kandra's abilities, but they all involve more spikes and tricks like compounding or perpendicularities into the Spiritual Realm, so I'm going to propose the lifelight rhythm idea for now, as it seems the best way to keep the super-kandra as sane as possible. And as a side-effect of the kandra having progression and lifelight, they'd connect even more to your idea of a druid by being able to rapidly grow plants. Of course all this is highly theoretical and dependent on the idea that a kandra's natural abilities are beyond anything we've actually seen from them.