Do Kandra have it better off than Metalborn?

[Trusk'our he/him]

I've occasionally seen posts asking about whether or not people would choose to be an Allomancer or a Feruchemist, or what other kind of magic user they'd like to be, but I haven't yet seen one for Kandra.

But it seems like they have a lot going for them; they don't age (or hardly do, at least), they don't get sick, they can give themselves a perfect body- or pretty much any body (including non human ones) that they want so long as it conforms to physics, they can do neat things like turn off their pain receptors or graft flesh onto someone else to heal them, And to top it off they get a magical boon from their Blessings.

So who wouldn't want to be a Kandra instead of a Mistborn, Feruchemist, or maybe even a Fullborn? Explanations of opinions welcomed.

[S. Stormy she/her]

6 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

So who wouldn't want to be a Kandra instead of a Mistborn, Feruchemist, or maybe even a Fullborn? Explanations of opinions welcomed.

Well, in my opinion, immortality would... kind of suck, honestly. I mean, if all your friends are also immortal, then maybe? But otherwise... I don't know.

Not a very interesting contribution, I'm aware. Sorry.

edit: oh wow, 900th post! Yaaaaay.

Edited March 17, 2023 by Shallan Stormblessed

[Trusk'our he/him]

Just now, Shallan Stormblessed said:

Well, in my opinion, immortality would... kind of suck, honestly. I mean, if all your friends are also immortal, then maybe? But otherwise... I don't know.

Not a very interesting contribution, I'm aware. Sorry.

No no, your idea has merit. It's definitely something worth considering, and isn't something everyone thinks about when they see a fictional character who is immortal.

And actually, I agree with you in that immortality would not be all it's cracked up to be in most cases. If I were a high-Heightened Awakener, for example, I'd love to be youthful for one hundred years maybe, but without my loved ones sticking with me, things would go south quickly.

Kandra do happen to have loved ones who stick around though, which is great.

So personally, I think a Kandra's immortality is still nice.

[alder24]

Immortality is overrated. But this time you are born into a near immortal species, and all your friends and "family" are also immortal, so it's not that bad. It's kind of great for Kandra. They can be whomever they want, travel around the world, and always have a place in the Homeland, no matter how many years have passed. The only 2 dawnsides are the mass-suicide thing, and contracts, but other than that it's quite nice life. In era 2 they are in even better position.

So this is a hard choice, Kandra or Feruchemist. But here is a thing, as Kandra I can gain Feruchemical powers via spikes, if Kandra figures it out one day, so I just have to be patient, experiment and one day I can become Kandra-Feruchemist. And Harmony would send me to explore Cosmere so I think this time I would choose to be a Kandra.

[HSuperLee]

Immortality is underrated. That said, I rather like being human. As cool as Kandra are, I'm not sure I'd be willing to give up being human for their abilities. I tend towards full feruchemist. I just enjoy their power set more. A-tin and A-steel make mistborn tempting, but feruchemy has so many utility effects that I'd be using all the time that its hard to pass on.

[Cinnamon]

Kandra are AWESOME. I think the only downside to being a Kandra would be the immortality but, I think if my entire species was immortal I wouldn’t view it as negatively. I did have a hard time of it voting on the poll, trying to choose between full Feruchemist and Kandra because I love Feruchemy so much. I listed the pros and cons … and well Kandra won by a landslide. 

 

Edited March 17, 2023 by Cinnamon
My spelling … leaves something to be desired

[Mistchemist16]

There are a few perks for kandras. They are immortal, can heal wounds (though less for poison/disease), muscle boosts, shape shifting (including to exotic bone arrangements) and don’t need to refuel by getting new metals. All of which can be done by any Kandra. I do believe that the Blessing of Potency only grants the strength boost from pewter, not balance and stuff. But maybe I’m biased because koloss. It does matter because pewter is among the best metals. But if you’re in the Cosmere, you can also be mind controlled by Ruin/Harmony and possibly Mistborn post Catacendre if you don’t have the Blessing of Stability

I’ve flip flopped a bit on whether Feruchemist storing utterly sucks, especially in daily life. It was closer than I thought. All of the mental metals are good candidates plus F-Iron doesn’t really have drawbacks for storing. I also like F-Duralumin and F-Chromium. But I don’t really like any of the hybrid metals in Feruchemy. Even F-Gold may be less useful in daily life because you have to be sick and your average wounds/diseases could be fixed easier with A-Pewter. Meanwhile, A-Gold makes a good curiosity if nothing else. It may even be good for self reflection, like Miles does.

Ultimately, I went for Mistborn, especially on Scadrial. True, Feruchemists do get plenty of more useful abilities and can put them on higher burn. But they also need to spend hours of feeling sucky and if they misjudge when to use their powers, they don’t get those back for a while. Mistborn have more freedom to spam their powers without really thinking about it. Not free, but far less cost. And A-Pewter is just so good for everything. But it was a difficult choice. I fully respect choosing Feruchemy, since you really can do better than a Mistborn if you have time and are willing to store. 

Edited March 18, 2023 by Mistchemist16

[Treamayne]

9 hours ago, Mistchemist16 said:

I do believe that the Blessing of Potency only grants the strength boost from pewter, not balance and stuff.

The Kandra Blessing of Potency has nothing to do with Pewter (Allomancy or Feruchemy). WoB:

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

The things that are building kandra have ripped off different pieces of souls. Rather than stealing someone else's Allomancy, most of those were just created with regular people. The same way that a koloss...

Also, the Potency spikes are Iron. When defined in-book, they mention Allomantic Pewter, because it was the closest comparison - not because the Blessing has ny connection to Pewter's use in Allomancy or Ferchemy.

[Trusk'our he/him]

21 hours ago, Treamayne said:

The Kandra Blessing of Potency has nothing to do with Pewter (Allomancy or Feruchemy). WoB:

Also, the Potency spikes are Iron. When defined in-book, they mention Allomantic Pewter, because it was the closest comparison - not because the Blessing has ny connection to Pewter's use in Allomancy or Ferchemy.

I think that @Mistchemist16 meant that the effects of the Blessing of Potency, except only the strength.

Although I think that the Blessing of Potency may actually provide more than just strength; we've seen in WoA that Sazed comments on his Koloss capturers being "inhumanly quick" and in HoA Sazed mentions that some fifth generation Kandra also have "inhuman speed", likely because they have the Blessing of Potency. 

Also, Tensoon mentions that he is able to have more endurance with the Blessing of Potency (he also mentions that it isn't as much as Allomantic pewter). Though I suppose it could just have been a side effect of enhanced strength.

[Mistchemist16]

52 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

I think that @Mistchemist16 meant that the effects of the Blessing of Potency, except only the strength.

Although I think that the Blessing of Potency may actually provide more than just strength; we've seen in WoA that Sazed comments on his Koloss capturers being "inhumanly quick" and in HoA Sazed mentions that some fifth generation Kandra also have "inhuman speed", likely because they have the Blessing of Potency. 

Also, Tensoon mentions that he is able to have more endurance with the Blessing of Potency (he also mentions that it isn't as much as Allomantic pewter). Though I suppose it could just have been a side effect of enhanced strength.

You are correct. And to be honest, I had mostly been on the side that Blessing of Potency was just strength similar to pewter. I just wanted to cover my bases in case I misrembered part of that comparison

Also, love these examples! I think I have part of a theory for why the Blessing of Potency might affect speed and endurance. Basically, Hemalurgic iron would still function kinda like A-Pewter. You plug the body into a source of extra energy it can use to do more stuff. And the reason that the endurance isn’t equal to even regular pewter burning is because of Hemalurgic decay. In other words, the Blessing of Potency is what a person would get if they had pewter granted by Hemalurgy, like Spook did. 1.75 times average human strength instead of 2.
 

The other thing is that if there is some trickle in strength granting, it might only be to things boosted by muscles being better, like leg movement. So H-Iron doesn’t give you balance, poison resistance, healing, or temperature resistance. Though I’m not sure if that explains TenSoon having more endurance…

[Through The Living Grub He/Him]

I chose feruchemist because it would be easier to have permanent use of you power because you don't have to constantly buy metals to supply your reserves, but that is just my two boxings.

On 3/19/2023 at 7:16 PM, Mistchemist16 said:

So H-Iron doesn’t give you balance, poison resistance, healing, or temperature resistance. Though I’m not sure if that explains TenSoon having more endurance…

Also, H-iron is LIKE pewter, meaning it gives strength and I think endurance, but I think the first few things listed here are more like F-gold or whatever stores heat.

[Mistchemist16]

1 hour ago, Xiahida said:

Also, H-iron is LIKE pewter, meaning it gives strength and I think endurance, but I think the first few things listed here are more like F-gold or whatever stores heat.

F-Brass. F-Brass stores heat to make you cold and gives you heat when tapped. 

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

Kandra basically exist with a blessing specific to what they are created for while having F gold and compounded atium built into their kits. They have centuries to gain experience and learn neat tricks like making their body harder or stronger.  Kandra get to become whatever they want, pretty well whenever they want, and they can conceal super rad weapons and true bodies. 

It is really hard for me to not choose kandra, however I have been on a bit of a koloss blooded kick lately and asthetically I really like the underappreciated blue giants. 

Between the 3 choices here... Kandra has to take the win.  Knowing that medallions are becoming more popular and other systems are going to be introduced soon.... 

TLM spoilers: 

Spoiler

Kandra with a bendalloy medallion and a hope and prayer for roseite aetherbound is top of my list.

 Plus the kandra will probably be able to live long enough to enjoy the mashups of magic systems in the future. Breaths are really sticky and I imagine a kandra could be pretty convincing and come by a couple heightening's at least. 

Edit: 

I totally forgot to mention the benefits of piecing together enhanced senses even without blessing of awareness through a collection of animal bits.  To walk around appearing totally human while rocking the sense of smell of a dog... awesome!  

As for my love of kolossblooded... I guess kandra answers that too as I could always just consume a Kolossblooded or shape my form to appear as one around a larger truebody. 

Edited March 24, 2023 by Tamriel Wolfsbaine

[Trusk'our he/him]

On 3/23/2023 at 8:13 PM, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Plus the kandra will probably be able to live long enough to enjoy the mashups of magic systems in the future. Breaths are really sticky and I imagine a kandra could be pretty convincing and come by a couple heightening's at least. 

Ooooo.

I often overlook the benefits of the Heightenings for Kandra since they already are basically ageless, but maybe they could custom build bodies to Awaken.

Plus, the bodies might retain whatever skills the Kandra had, which makes them even better!