Why were the Steel Inquisitors so strong?

[alder24]

2 minutes ago, Mistchemist16 said:

In this scenario, the Inquistors know they are stealing F-Atium. They don’t know what that power actually does, but they intend to steal it specifically.

That's what I'm arguing. They need to fully know what they are stealing, not just that it's F-Atium, but also that it allows them to store youth, to have a proper and precise intent, otherwise they would very likely not succeed in stealing it. Intent plays a huge role, ans stealing something that you don't know what it does might mess it up a bit. With Atium spike that might be too much.

7 minutes ago, Mistchemist16 said:

However, you do have a good point about bind points. Ruin would have to approve of that spiking, even if the Inquistors somehow knew the right bind points. But making F-Atium spikes uses up both Atium AND a Keeper. If Ruin thought F-Atium was genuinely useless, it’s a strange choice at best.

That's also why I think that during Inquisitors’ attack on Terris and Keepers, Ruin was so heavily influencing them by emotional Allomancy (which he could do from the prison), that they basically were controlled by him, without being directly controlled by him. He could then provide proper intent and precision needed for spiking F-Atium resolving that problem. This would mean that it was Ruin that gave Inquisitors F-Atium. Keep in mind, Marsh was puppeteered by Ruin during the entire WoA and likely before, he wasn't a person that would just walk around killing people and poisoning wells in Luthadel, and yet he was doing that. He was already controlled by Ruin at that point. This negates your entire argument. Ruin was very involved when Inquisitors were spiking Keepers.

6 minutes ago, Mistchemist16 said:

But that leaves a conundrum. We know for a fact that Inquistors got F-Atium at some point but we don’t have a good reason why. TLR wouldn’t place them for fear of Compounding. After that, Ruin is the one deciding what to give Inquisitors. But if Ruin allowed the spike, what did he hope to gain?

Reverse compounding is my best guess. There isn't any other option, as WoB said, there are reasons Brandon didn't talk about yet, and extending their lifespan is a known reason so in my mind that's not an option here.

12 minutes ago, Mistchemist16 said:

Let me see if I can predict your model. If you wanted to reverse Compound Atium, you’d charge it with Investuture in the form of youth. Once you had the Atium mind, you would need to hack it so that the Atium mind is coded to give future sight and not youth. That would give you the Investiture of youth to fuel the atium

It's not my model, we know reverse compounding is possible per WoB and that's all we got. How this works I don't know, your description looks ok. What would it get them? How much more powerful would they get? Would seeing further into the future be beneficial? Or was it a way to use A-Atium without having any Atium? Could they learn it? I don't know the answer to any of those questions, not without knowing what reverse compounding does. Having access to A-Atium without having any piece of metal Atium is a very big deal alone, don't you think?

[cometaryorbit]

On 4/8/2023 at 4:41 PM, Trusk'our said:

Inquisitors also had some physical transformation going on with them- they were noticeably taller than most people. I think that combined with natural strength training would allow them not only to have greater physical strength than most (Kelsier in TFE commented on this during his final fight) but that the extra weight would have made their Ironpulls and Steelpushes have more force.

I think this is key. Inquisitors aren't just humans with extra Allomantic powers spiked in, they're Hemalurgic constructs - effectively a new species.

I think at least the unexpected physical strength is because they're not exactly physically human anymore. Maybe not just the size increase (which isn't that dramatic) but their muscles might also change. Pewter strength isn't *so* high that differences in physical size and musculature stop mattering.

 

On 4/12/2023 at 5:02 PM, Mistchemist16 said:

However, I don’t believe any Misting Inquistors have 9 spikes. Such Inquistors would have no Atium, which would be insanely risky and dangerous. Sure, they might work for a time if they are dealing with Mistings. But if they encounter a Mistborn, they die immediately to one sided Atium.

If an Inquistor is caught without Atium, two major problems arise. First, that’s one more legendary Inquistor dead, blunting their reputation of immortality. Two, someone might eventually question why they had no atium. It may not be immediately, since Mistborn will kill the moment Atium burns. But if that Inquistors stops easily sweeping Misting teams or the Mistborn thinks, they may start asking unpleasant questions. It’s just such an unnecessary risk to take and finished the power of the Inquistors significantly. So I don’t buy that the Lord Ruler used any Inquistors without Atium. Which means Misting Inquistors must have 10 spikes minimum.

I agree with the general concept that Inquisitors need Atium (IIRC we know that not all Inquisitors had atium spikes, but that could be because the natural Mistborn Inqusitors - or Inquisitors made from Atium Mistings, which the Ministry did have - didn't need them) but not the conclusion. There's two ways a Misting Inquisitor could still have 9 spikes and have atium:

1) Not all Inquistors had f-Gold, so 8 basic metal + Atium

2) if that Inquisitor was an Atium Misting first, they could have 9 spikes including f-Gold.

Doubling atium isn't worth it, so I don't think any Inqusitor made from a Mistborn or Atium Misting would have an A-Atium spike.

On 4/13/2023 at 11:31 AM, Trusk'our said:

Ahhhh. Yes, that Inquisitor would have to have been a Mistborn naturally, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to use A-Atium, and we see that he clearly can.

Also, I've wondered just how powerful a Mistborn who was created via one of the Lerasium beads found at the Well of Ascension would be. Good catch on the comparative power between the Inquisitor and Elend by the way  Another feat of power we saw with Elend was in HoA when he matched the strength of a twelve-foot Koloss by flaring pewter, and a regular-strength Pewterarm only has roughly doubled strength and perhaps tripled strength when flaring.

And since a Koloss essentially has two Blessings of Potency on top of having biceps thicker than a human's entire freaking torso, Elend's Allomantic strength must be huge.

While I do think Inquisitors would generally kind of need to have Atium, we actually don't see the Vetitan one use it. Vin burns electrum just in case, creating a cloud of shadows, but the Inquisitor turns out not to have any atium.

Re strength... yeah, Lerasium is way up there. A newly made koloss should have strength of 5 humans (and probably they didn't pick unusually weak people) minus hemalurgic decay... say x4.5 or x4.75. A 12' koloss should be at least x10, even if the extra Hemalurgic strength doesn't scale with size.

Normal flared pewter is strength of 3 people roughly... so Elend is definitely beyond triple normal Allomantic strength even by the most conservative reading.

His Soothing is also notably super strong.

I think he just never got a chance to pierce copperclouds. Inquisitors probably weren't bothering with copper in HoA - everyone already knows they're Allomancers and Ruin was controlling them completely.

 

Edited April 16, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[therunner he/him]

25 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Re strength... yeah, Lerasium is way up there. A newly made koloss should have strength of 5 humans (and probably they didn't pick unusually weak people) minus hemalurgic decay... say x4.5 or x4.75. A 12' koloss should be at least x10, even if the extra Hemalurgic strength doesn't scale with size.

Normal flared pewter is strength of 3 people roughly... so Elend is definitely beyond triple normal Allomantic strength even by the most conservative reading.

I think Koloss are ~4-4.5x as strong as regular people, even when 12 feet tall.
I see it like that the spikes give them the strength potential immediately, and they start 'growing' into that power, which is why they grow beyond human size.
Notably their skin does not grow, and other organs have issues too, so perhaps it is primarily muscles and skeleton that grows, which would be related to strength.

12 feet tall human would be about 4x as strong as 6 feet tall human (since cross section of muscles would 4x), discounting for the extra bulk.

[Mistchemist16]

40 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

I agree with the general concept that Inquisitors need Atium (IIRC we know that not all Inquisitors had atium spikes, but that could be because the natural Mistborn Inqusitors - or Inquisitors made from Atium Mistings, which the Ministry did have - didn't need them) but not the conclusion. There's two ways a Misting Inquisitor could still have 9 spikes and have atium:

1) Not all Inquistors had f-Gold, so 8 basic metal + Atium

2) if that Inquisitor was an Atium Misting first, they could have 9 spikes including f-Gold.

Doubling atium isn't worth it, so I don't think any Inqusitor made from a Mistborn or Atium Misting would have an A-Atium spike.

1). You misunderstand my count. Inquistors have spikes for the 8 basic metals + a linchpin spike. The fifth steel spike that the Vetitan Inquistor had was most likely the linchpin spike, which certainly can’t provide Atium. I guess you could argue that other Inquistors had Atium linchpin spikes, but I doubt it. Remeber, killing one requires specifically targeting a linchpin spike. If it were Atium, someone would’ve noticed that.

2) Inquistors were generally made from Seekers or Mistborn, so they could have enhanced bronze. If a Seer were to become an Inquistor, they would either need a fifth bronze spike or go without it. Not impossible, since the epigraphs state that Seekers were the preferred candidates, as opposed to the only ones. Plus, spiking a Seer with extra bronze may work better, since you don’t need to spend Atium making an A-Atium spike. But it does appear most Inquistors had enhanced bronze.
 

Quote

In most cases, however, Inquisitors were created from Mistings. It appears that Seekers, like Marsh, were the favored recruits. For, when a Mistborn wasn't available, an Inquisitor with enhanced bronze abilities was a powerful tool for searching out skaa Mistings.

 

Edited April 16, 2023 by Mistchemist16

[Trusk'our he/him]

2 hours ago, therunner said:

I think Koloss are ~4-4.5x as strong as regular people, even when 12 feet tall.
I see it like that the spikes give them the strength potential immediately, and they start 'growing' into that power, which is why they grow beyond human size.
Notably their skin does not grow, and other organs have issues too, so perhaps it is primarily muscles and skeleton that grows, which would be related to strength.

12 feet tall human would be about 4x as strong as 6 feet tall human (since cross section of muscles would 4x), discounting for the extra bulk.

I think that Koloss strength increases as they grow in size due to larger muscles.

Each iron spike provides a magical boost to strength, just like the Kandra's Blessing of Potency. Any extra muscle mass they gain as they grow just adds on to it more.

With that in mind, a newly made Koloss built with freshly charged spikes is probably going to be 4-4.5 times as strong as a regular human of the same build, though most Koloss likely have recycled spikes, making them somewhat weaker than that.

I don't have a good way to determine the strength of older Koloss, unfortunately. If they're bigger than an adult silverback gorilla though, they'd easily be 10 times stronger than a human before you even count any magical enhancement.

[therunner he/him]

3 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

I think that Koloss strength increases as they grow in size due to larger muscles.

Each iron spike provides a magical boost to strength, just like the Kandra's Blessing of Potency. Any extra muscle mass they gain as they grow just adds on to it more.

I mean, the spikes don't steal anything 'magical' just the physical attribute of human strength.
Their souls are basically human + bolted on 4x strength (as we see in CR in Secret History, when they revert to human after dying), no reason for magic boost.

Quote

With that in mind, a newly made Koloss built with freshly charged spikes is probably going to be 4-4.5 times as strong as a regular human of the same build, though most Koloss likely have recycled spikes, making them somewhat weaker than that.

Elend fought a small Koloss (albeit in ambush) before becoming Mistborn, so I doubt that Koloss are 4-4.5x as strong the second they get made.

[Trusk'our he/him]

18 minutes ago, therunner said:

I mean, the spikes don't steal anything 'magical' just the physical attribute of human strength.
Their souls are basically human + bolted on 4x strength (as we see in CR in Secret History, when they revert to human after dying), no reason for magic boost.

I don't think that's the case, as we've seen that Hemalrugic iron in Mistrwraiths grants a magical boost to strength, but I suppose we'll simply have to agree to disagree.

19 minutes ago, therunner said:

Elend fought a small Koloss (albeit in ambush) before becoming Mistborn, so I doubt that Koloss are 4-4.5x as strong the second they get made.

True, but he won through surprise, speed, and honestly a lot of luck, which doesn't necessarily rule out a fresh Koloss being that strong.

[cometaryorbit]

11 hours ago, therunner said:

12 feet tall human would be about 4x as strong as 6 feet tall human (since cross section of muscles would 4x), discounting for the extra bulk.

But that bulk matters. A lot. It's not just fat, their anatomy is not quite human. A koloss is way heavier built / more robust than a human of the same height, so anatomically would be far stronger. They're not a direct scaling up of humans.

Also, larger koloss are definitely stronger than smaller ones, that's how their whole size based hierarchy works.

11 hours ago, Mistchemist16 said:

1). You misunderstand my count. Inquistors have spikes for the 8 basic metals + a linchpin spike. The fifth steel spike that the Vetitan Inquistor had was most likely the linchpin spike, which certainly can’t provide Atium. I guess you could argue that other Inquistors had Atium linchpin spikes, but I doubt it. Remeber, killing one requires specifically targeting a linchpin spike. If it were Atium, someone would’ve noticed that.

2) Inquistors were generally made from Seekers or Mistborn, so they could have enhanced bronze.

1) from the Hemalurgy chart, the linchpin is steel. It's one of the Physical Allomancy power spikes, not an extra spike.

2) generally, yes, but not 100%. Inquisitors aren't standardized. There might also have been Seeker or Rioter Inquisitors used for controlling koloss (otherwise they'd either need to be former Mistborn or have an a-duralumin spike).

 

5 hours ago, therunner said:

I mean, the spikes don't steal anything 'magical' just the physical attribute of human strength.
Their souls are basically human + bolted on 4x strength (as we see in CR in Secret History, when they revert to human after dying), no reason for magic boost.

Elend fought a small Koloss (albeit in ambush) before becoming Mistborn, so I doubt that Koloss are 4-4.5x as strong the second they get made.

The soul change *is* a magic boost. It just also changes their Physical aspect. Now it's totally possible that they just get enough muscle to reflect that strength... but they do nonetheless get a magical boost, as they don't need to eat enough calories to make up for the energy they expend.

Muscular strength doesn't mean tougher skin. Elend killed one with a knife before it got into rage mode; muscle strength doesn't protect from that.

Edited April 17, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[therunner he/him]

3 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

The soul change *is* a magic boost. It just also changes their Physical aspect. Now it's totally possible that they just get enough muscle to reflect that strength... but they do nonetheless get a magical boost, as they don't need to eat enough calories to make up for the energy they expend.

I consider magic boost to be something like A-pewter, as in the muscles do more through Investiture.
In Koloss it seems to me that their strength is proportional to their muscles, because as you mention smaller are weaker then larger ones.

I don't think there is much that would point to Koloss being anywhere near 10x as strong as human.
Vin can use a sword smaller Koloss use, just burning A-Pewter, and she is definitely not 4x as strong as human. So small Koloss must be weaker than 4x boost.

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Muscular strength doesn't mean tougher skin. Elend killed one with a knife before it got into rage mode; muscle strength doesn't protect from that.

Yeah, but going to kill with a knife something you know is at minimum 4x as strong as you (if not more) is frankly incredibly dumb.
Why would Elend think he has any chance if that was true?

[StanLemon]

4 hours ago, therunner said:

Yeah, but going to kill with a knife something you know is at minimum 4x as strong as you (if not more) is frankly incredibly dumb.
Why would Elend think he has any chance if that was true?

The strongest person in the world is still going to die by a knife. Elend took the chance because he needed to know how they were being 'controlled' and he even acknowledged that the reason he killed it is from a surprise attack. It also helps that Koloss are incredibly dumb and Elend knew that they have trouble even understanding the concept of a smaller opponent attacking a bigger one which made his surprise attack even more effective 

[therunner he/him]

6 minutes ago, StanLemon said:

The strongest person in the world is still going to die by a knife. Elend took the chance because he needed to know how they were being 'controlled' and he even acknowledged that the reason he killed it is from a surprise attack. It also helps that Koloss are incredibly dumb and Elend knew that they have trouble even understanding the concept of a smaller opponent attacking a bigger one which made his surprise attack even more effective 

Fair point.
However, there is still the fact that Vin can use Koloss sword using just A-Pewter. Vin is a bit of an outlier, but not by great margin, so still small Koloss cannot be too much stronger than 3x strength.

[StanLemon]

1 minute ago, therunner said:

Fair point.
However, there is still the fact that Vin can use Koloss sword using just A-Pewter. Vin is a bit of an outlier, but not by great margin, so still small Koloss cannot be too much stronger than 3x strength.

Oh I'm sure that they aren't, just that they are indeed stronger that their size would imply.

Considering what is shown in the books, a 5 footer is probably around that strong. Though Vin never does match a Koloss strength for strength which makes it hard to judge. But considering that she uses a sword longer than she is tall, it would require a massive amount of strength. Zweihander's which are of comparable length are really really heavy swords

[alder24]

4 hours ago, therunner said:

Vin can use a sword smaller Koloss use, just burning A-Pewter, and she is definitely not 4x as strong as human. So small Koloss must be weaker than 4x boost.

Vin had to burn pewter to even lift that sword. That's not how wielding a sword works. Zweihander, the biggest sword, weighs 4 kg. That's not a lot, you might think, but good luck swinging a sword that heavy for several hours. It also helps that it's well balanced with its center of mass close to its hilt. But that's paling in comparison to a Koloss sword. I tried to do some math to determine how much a Koloss sword would weigh, but that's hard as there are barely any numbers on that. Assuming that sword has around 8.5 feet, but cutting 1.5 feet for a handle (so blade has 213.36 cm), 30 cm wide and 2 cm thick, and iron density of 7.86 g/cm3 (as why would you waste steel for that), Koloss blade of that size would have weight of around 100 kg. Which is a lot. But that would be reasonable if Vin had to burn pewter to even lift it up. But because this sword is very, very, very impossibly top heavy, it can be lighter and people would still struggle to even pick it up, so making it only 20 cm wide would change the weight of the sword to around 67 kg. 

Now how strong would Koloss have to be to wield a sword that weighs 67-100 kg? A lot. But they are not using the sword with any skill, they are just using brute force and its weight and nothing else. With this math I don't think that Koloss that are only 4x stronger than a person would be able to effectively swing a sword for long periods of time as that would be extremely exhausting. Not to mention Vin with Pewter (who because of her skill could be stronger then normal 2x boost).

Of course, dimensions can be smaller, making this sword lighter and people would still be unable to pick it up and use it because of where its center of mass is located, but a lighter sword would make it more reasonable for Koloss 4x the strength of man to use it during the entire battle.

4 hours ago, therunner said:

Yeah, but going to kill with a knife something you know is at minimum 4x as strong as you (if not more) is frankly incredibly dumb.
Why would Elend think he has any chance if that was true?

Because Elend didn't know any of this at that time. He only knew Koloss were stronger, and had rage attacks, nothing more. He didn't know they were made by Hemalurgy, that spikes were granting them strength of 4 people. He observes them during his visit and bet his life on the fact that those who attacked first are usually the one who win (despite the fact that the one attack he witnessed ended the other way around). He was lucky. That's it.

And to make it clear, I don't have an opinion of Koloss' strength. Older ones are for sure stronger than younger ones, but I doubt the difference is that drastic. I tend to agree that Koloss are 4x stronger and that's it, but I find it  reasonable to assume that their size is a contributing factor and they can be even 10x stronger. Koloss sword mass points towards the second option in my opinion. 

[cometaryorbit]

6 hours ago, therunner said:

I consider magic boost to be something like A-pewter, as in the muscles do more through Investiture.
In Koloss it seems to me that their strength is proportional to their muscles, because as you mention smaller are weaker then larger ones.

I don't think there is much that would point to Koloss being anywhere near 10x as strong as human.
Vin can use a sword smaller Koloss use, just burning A-Pewter, and she is definitely not 4x as strong as human. So small Koloss must be weaker than 4x boost.

Strength may be proportional to their size, sure, but since they can eat dirt and such rather than real food, much of their energy must be non-Physical. It doesn't work exactly the same as kandra Blessing of Potency (which just gives the extra strength with no muscle mass change) but it's similar.

Koloss swords are weird, and I don't know if the description is totally consistent. Swords just aren't that heavy, so if Vin needed to burn pewter to lift it, even x10 strength wouldn't be enough to use it in battle.

Realistically I'd expect the sword of a small koloss to be no more than 6' long (due to impracticality of wielding a sword much taller than themselves) and so only somewhat heavier (due to thicker, probably single-edged blade) than RL two handed swords. 5-10kg maybe.

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Assuming that sword has around 8.5 feet, but cutting 1.5 feet for a handle (so blade has 213.36 cm), 30 cm wide and 2 cm thick, and iron density of 7.86 g/cm3 (as why would you waste steel for that), Koloss blade of that size would have weight of around 100 kg.

I think that's way, way too big. A 5'-6' koloss couldn't effectively wield a 8.5' sword. A 6' sword with 5' blade seems much more reasonable (so 150cm).

A koloss blade iirc is a handspan wide (so about 4" or 10 cm) and 2 cm average thickness for a sword (which is necessarily sharp) seems just vastly too high. If it's a single-edged sword, 1 cm thick on the blunt side and effectively zero on the sharp side = 0.5 cm average.

Which would be 150 x 10 x 0.5 = 750 cubic centimeters, about 6kg at iron density. Add in the handle mass, so maybe 7kg? Which fits the range I got from extrapolating from RL swords. Even if it was twice that thick, 13kg would still be easily lifted by Vin without pewter.

So something's off.

Edited April 17, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[therunner he/him]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Vin had to burn pewter to even lift that sword. That's not how wielding a sword works. Zweihander, the biggest sword, weighs 4 kg. That's not a lot, you might think, but good luck swinging a sword that heavy for several hours. It also helps that it's well balanced with its center of mass close to its hilt. But that's paling in comparison to a Koloss sword.

I know it is a lot, I did swordfighting

Elend takes the 'sword' away from the Koloss he killed (5 feet tall Koloss), and while unable to swing it he can carry it. So I would expect it to be ~10 kg.
Sazed could wield Koloss sword for hours before wasting his F-Pewter, and was mostly using Strength to enhance his blows.

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Now how strong would Koloss have to be to wield a sword that weighs 67-100 kg? A lot. But they are not using the sword with any skill, they are just using brute force and its weight and nothing else. With this math I don't think that Koloss that are only 4x stronger than a person would be able to effectively swing a sword for long periods of time as that would be extremely exhausting. Not to mention Vin with Pewter (who because of her skill could be stronger then normal 2x boost).

Yeah, but we know that Vin with Pewter wielded a sword like that, even if perhaps for shorter time than Koloss would.
And if Koloss don't tire as easily (which when frenzied is probably the case) that would help as well.

Also skill with pewter won't make you stronger. Vin is strong for Era 1 Mistborn, but I doubt she is 33% stronger, at most like ~10-15% (so noticable, but also within variance).

13 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Strength may be proportional to their size, sure, but since they can eat dirt and such rather than real food, much of their energy must be non-Physical. It doesn't work exactly the same as kandra Blessing of Potency (which just gives the extra strength with no muscle mass change) but it's similar.

They can eat dirt and such, that does not mean it is their primary source of sustenance (that would be humans, lifestock and cannibalism seemingly).

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I tried to do some math to determine how much a Koloss sword would weigh, but that's hard as there are barely any numbers on that. Assuming that sword has around 8.5 feet, but cutting 1.5 feet for a handle (so blade has 213.36 cm), 30 cm wide and 2 cm thick, and iron density of 7.86 g/cm3 (as why would you waste steel for that), Koloss blade of that size would have weight of around 100 kg. Which is a lot. But that would be reasonable if Vin had to burn pewter to even lift it up. But because this sword is very, very, very impossibly top heavy, it can be lighter and people would still struggle to even pick it up, so making it only 20 cm wide would change the weight of the sword to around 67 kg.

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Koloss swords are weird, and I don't know if the description is totally consistent. Swords just aren't that heavy, so if Vin needed to burn pewter to lift it, even x10 strength wouldn't be enough to use it in battle.

Realistically I'd expect the sword of a small koloss to be no more than 6' long (due to impracticality of wielding a sword much taller than themselves) and so only somewhat heavier (due to thicker, probably single-edged blade) than RL two handed swords. 5-10kg maybe.

I think that's way, way too big. A 5'-6' koloss couldn't effectively wield a 8.5' sword. A 6' sword with 5' blade seems much more reasonable (so 150cm).

A koloss blade iirc is a handspan wide (so about 4" or 10 cm) and 2 cm average thickness for a sword (which is necessarily sharp) seems just vastly too high. If it's a single-edged sword, 1 cm thick on the blunt side and effectively zero on the sharp side = 0.5 cm average.

Which would be 150 x 10 x 0.5 = 750 cubic centimeters, about 6kg at iron density. Which fits the range I got from extrapolating from RL swords. Even if it was twice that thick, 12kg would still be easily lifted by Vin without pewter.

So something's off.

The sword Vin has is just a bit longer than she is tall, handle included, and is given to her by one of the larger Koloss (so perhaps one ~6-7 feet tall).
The sword is described as 'wedgelike', and Koloss swords in general are blunt. Handspan (10 cm) wide on average (double that close to handle, 0 at the point), with 1 cm thickness (2 cm is far too much) would result in sword that is ~100 cm long (blade) 10 cm wide 1 cm thick, for total weight of the blade (using 7.89 g/cm3) of 7.9 kg. Add in handle and it would be ~9 kg at most.
At the point where Vin takes it from the Koloss she possibly does not have Pewter (she took control of Koloss after running out of all 'combat' metals). Edit: But when fighting she is burning Pewter.
 

If the largest Koloss had blade that are 2 the size in all parts then those blades would be at most ~70 kg in total weight. Though there is little reason to double the thickness of the sword, so I would expect around 35 kg at most for the largest Koloss swords.

Koloss use them more like warhammers/maces/clubs, and those could weight up to ~10 kg (in the extreme cases). So, they are a bit heavier then would be expected, but they are crudely made. So if they are around 40 kg at most, then that is within scope of the largest Koloss being about 4.5x as strong as human (their larger size would help them wield the weapons more easily as well, since the body would serve as counterweight).

Edited April 17, 2023 by therunner

[alder24]

7 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

I think that's way, way too big. A 5'-6' koloss couldn't effectively wield a 8.5' sword. A 6' sword with 5' blade seems much more reasonable (so 150cm).

A koloss blade iirc is a handspan wide (so about 4" or 10 cm) and 2 cm average thickness for a sword (which is necessarily sharp) seems just vastly too high. If it's a single-edged sword, 1 cm thick on the blunt side and effectively zero on the sharp side = 0.5 cm average.

Which would be 150 x 10 x 0.5 = 750 cubic centimeters, about 6kg at iron density. Add in the handle mass, so maybe 7kg? Which fits the range I got from extrapolating from RL swords. Even if it was twice that thick, 13kg would still be easily lifted by Vin without pewter.

So something's off.

15 minutes ago, therunner said:

The sword Vin has is just a bit longer than she is tall, handle included, and is given to her by one of the larger Koloss (so perhaps one ~6-7 feet tall).
The sword is described as 'wedgelike', and Koloss swords in general are blunt. Handspan (10 cm) wide on average (double that close to handle, 0 at the point), with 1 cm thickness (2 cm is far too much) would result in sword that is ~100 cm long (blade) 10 cm wide 1 cm thick, for total weight of the blade (using 7.89 g/cm3) of 7.9 kg. Add in handle and it would be ~9 kg at most.
At the point where Vin takes it from the Koloss she possibly does not have Pewter (she took control of Koloss after running out of all 'combat' metals).

Handspan (the maximum distance between the tips of the thumb and little finger, taken as the basis of a measurement equal to 9 inches) is on average around 23 cm in the adult male hand. My small hands are like ~18 cm alone. So 20 cm for width is a good assumption. I also think that thickness must be greater than the average sword - this is not an average real life sword, it was constantly said that the blade is not sharp, that it's just a club of metal striking with a blunt force. When Elend fought with Koloss in WoA his sword was described as "a thick, almost club-like sword" (translation) So I stand by 2 cm thickness, which is not that much for a bar of iron.

For a sword 150 cm, 20 cm wide and 2 cm thick, it would weigh 47 kg.

The sword Elend picked up form a small 5 ft Koloss, was described (translation) "he grabbed the creature's greatsword and rested it on his shoulder. It was so heavy that Elend could hardly carry it, and he certainly would not have been able to swing it." 10 kg is not something people struggle to carry.

In HoA ch 3 Vin picked up a sword from the ground that was her size (likely from a large Koloss she was fighting at that time), but later she fought with 13 ft tall Koloss, who had a sword so large that even with Pewter she wouldn't be able to parry it.

In HoA ch 51 Elend with flared pewter was able to be as strong (or stronger) as a Koloss twice his size.

I don't have an English Era 1 trilogy so I can't provide precise quotes.

10 minutes ago, therunner said:

Elend takes the 'sword' away from the Koloss he killed (5 feet tall Koloss), and while unable to swing it he can carry it. So I would expect it to be ~10 kg.
Sazed could wield Koloss sword for hours before wasting his F-Pewter, and was mostly using Strength to enhance his blows.

10 kg seems too little to me. People can easily lift that, they can lift much more that 10 kg, they can lift their own weight. Elend was barely able to carry a Koloss sword in WoA.

[cometaryorbit]

24 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Handspan (the maximum distance between the tips of the thumb and little finger, taken as the basis of a measurement equal to 9 inches) is on average around 23 cm in the adult male hand. My small hands are like ~18 cm alone. So 20 cm for width is a good assumption. I also think that thickness must be greater than the average sword - this is not an average real life sword, it was constantly said that the blade is not sharp, that it's just a club of metal striking with a blunt force. When Elend fought with Koloss in WoA his sword was described as "a thick, almost club-like sword" (translation) So I stand by 2 cm thickness, which is not that much for a bar of iron.

For a sword 150 cm, 20 cm wide and 2 cm thick, it would weigh 47 kg.

The sword Elend picked up form a small 5 ft Koloss, was described (translation) "he grabbed the creature's greatsword and rested it on his shoulder. It was so heavy that Elend could hardly carry it, and he certainly would not have been able to swing it." 10 kg is not something people struggle to carry.

Oh, ok, I was thinking "hand" (what's used to measure horses = width of a palm or 4 inches). Yeah 20 cm width seems possible then... though very absurd for a sword. Swords just aren't that wide, even huge greatswords. https://www.thearma.org/essays/2HGS.html#.ZD1e1x7MKIQ

But I think that thickness is way too much. Thicker than a RL sword, absolutely, but RL swords are *extremely* thin, more like 5-6 mm (1/4" or 1/5") *at the thicker part*. The average thickness would necessarily be less, since the blade is sharp. So my 0.5cm average would mean 1cm at the blunt end, if the cross section was triangular, which is already about twice as thick as your average RL sword. Even huge greatswords were thinner than that (7.5mm for one example in that article I linked).

Even if we double that (1.5cm wide part = 0.75 average) ... if the sword is as long as Vin's height, that's about 5'. Allowing for some hilt... maybe 4'2" (125cm) for the blade? that would come out to 14.7kg.

I agree 10 (or even 15) kg is too little for that description, what I'm saying is that the description is basically inconsistent. It doesn't make sense for a 5'-6' koloss to be swinging a 47kg sword, no matter how strong they are. Making a sword that shape doesn't make sense.

[alder24]

13 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Yeah 20 cm width seems possible then... though very absurd for a sword. Swords just aren't that wide, even huge greatswords.

Yes, I agree. But this is not a real life sword. This is a fantasy sword. It doesn't work by normal rules. Especially when that sword is made for ultra strong monsters. 

15 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

But I think that thickness is way too much. Thicker than a RL sword, absolutely, but RL swords are *extremely* thin, more like 5-6 mm (1/4" or 1/5") *at the thicker part*. The average thickness would necessarily be less, since the blade is sharp. So my 0.5cm average would mean 1cm at the blunt end, if the cross section was triangular, which is already about twice as thick as your average RL sword. Even huge greatswords were thinner than that (7.5mm for one example in that article I linked).

Real life swords are very thin. Yes. But once again, this is not the case. There are no sharp edges in the Koloss blade, it's blunt, wedge-like shape, but with no sharp edge. Because the sword is made for smashing, not cutting, it has to be thicker, otherwise it would bend and break on impact. Normal swords are already very bendy, and if you have a sword that wide, the sheer weight of that iron would bend it even more, so it has to be thicker to prevent this from happening. There is also no pommel or hilt for counterweight, therefore the blade is very top heavy, which again, forces it to be much thicker than normal swords.

Keep in mind, I'm not accounting for a wedge-like shape, nor its handle (which would be an additional weight). 20-50 kg is my range of estimates for Koloss 5 ft tall. Depending on the number, the biggest koloss might have ~50 kg swords, or greater. But I tend towards the minimum side rather than maximum.

19 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

I agree 10 (or even 15) kg is too little for that description, what I'm saying is that the description is basically inconsistent. It doesn't make sense for a 5'-6' koloss to be swinging a 47kg sword, no matter how strong they are. Making a sword that shape doesn't make sense.

It's not a sword. It's a bar of iron. It does make sense to make them as heavy as possible as a sheer amount of blunt force would crush their opponent and break through every parry. Only for that reason.

Official artworks made by Ben McSweeney:

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

Of course, these are only artworks, but still the blades are very wide and long, and the second one looks very thick as well.

WoB:

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Fifty-Five

Vin Kills Straff

I told you that I couldn't just let Straff die to a random poisoning. He's been an antagonist for far too long–surviving through two whole books. He deserved a sword in the head.

Oddly, there was a great deal of conversation in my writing groups about how to describe Straff dying. The thing is, Vin pretty much chopped him in half–but I don't imagine the koloss sword being that sharp, so I think it would smash and crush as much as cut, particularly considering how hard Vin hit. Some disagreed, and thought the cut should be clean.

Eventually, after trying several things, I just went with this. It's abstract enough that you can imagine what you want. I didn't want to be TOO graphic, nor did I want to cause arguments about something that silly.

The Well of Ascension Annotations (Jan. 23, 2009)

 

[cometaryorbit]

I agree koloss swords are blunter than most RL swords, due to poor construction and maintenance. But surely not that blunt! If it was that blunt, why have a blade at all rather than using giant clubs or hammers or maces?

Wedge-like isn't that unusual in RL swords, though it's not what you see in the kind of High Medieval to Renaissance ones we usually imagine. Backswords have a triangular (ie wedge-like) cross section.

The first picture you posted is actually where I got my mental image of koloss swords, which is kind of half backsword and half meat cleaver. If the smaller koloss in that picture is a small (human height, say 5'-6') individual, I don't think the sword looks *that* ridiculously large. The giant koloss's is, of course, but we know koloss swords vary.

But you're right that that second picture does look like a very thick blade. It doesn't look remotely plausible to me as a weapon, even for a super strong koloss, but I could certainly be wrong.

(The problem - besides the thickness of the blade itself - that wielding a heavy weapon isn't just about strength, but inertia. A newly made 5' koloss might be 4-5x stronger than a human, but while they're bulkier, it's not by *that* much. More like 1.5x to 2x weight than 4-5x.)

[StanLemon]

So a gorilla is anywhere from 5-10x the strength of a person. Answers i found from Google varied but were around that range. From muscle mass alone I could see a 12 foot Koloss being at least on the lower end of that scale. Add in the 4 Iron Spikes extra strength it's probably safe to say that a 12 foot Koloss approaches 10x human strength even if not quite reaching it.

[therunner he/him]

16 minutes ago, StanLemon said:

So a gorilla is anywhere from 5-10x the strength of a person. Answers i found from Google varied but were around that range. From muscle mass alone I could see a 12 foot Koloss being at least on the lower end of that scale. Add in the 4 Iron Spikes extra strength it's probably safe to say that a 12 foot Koloss approaches 10x human strength even if not quite reaching it.

Which assumes that large Koloss have strength from size + from spikes, not that size is due to spikes.

[alder24]

16 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

I agree koloss swords are blunter than most RL swords, due to poor construction and maintenance. But surely not that blunt! If it was that blunt, why have a blade at all rather than using giant clubs or hammers or maces?

Intimidation factor. Rule of cool. Like WoB said, they were so blunt that they were unable to cut like normal swords.

23 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

The first picture you posted is actually where I got my mental image of koloss swords, which is kind of half backsword and half meat cleaver. If the smaller koloss in that picture is a small (human height, say 5'-6') individual, I don't think the sword looks *that* ridiculously large. The giant koloss's is, of course, but we know koloss swords vary.

The smaller blade with the handle is as long as Kollos is tall to his mouth (I measured). The Koloss is 200 px tall, sword with handle is 180 px long, without 140 px and 20 px wide. That means the blade alone is 70% of Koloss' height. For 5ft Koloss (152 cm), the blade would be 100 cm long. The blade is 10% as wide as Koloss high, so that's 15 cm for 5ft Koloss

The big Koloss proportions are greater, 300 px tall Koloss and blade is 48 px wide, 212 px long (without handle), still 70% proportion. So if the smaller Kollos is 5tf tall, the larger is half as high, so 7.5ft tall (228 cm). The blade is 160 cm long, and 36.5 cm wide.

And that's only 7.5 ft tall Koloss. Vin and Elend fought with 13 ft Koloss, with much larger swords. if 70% proportion is still applied, then his sword's blade would be 277 cm long. Enormous. Assuming width of 16% of Koloss height (like with 7.5 tall one), the blade is 63 cm wide. With 2 cm of thickness, it would weigh 275 kg! I doubt 2 cm thick metal of that mass wouldn't just break in half on impact.

26 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

(The problem - besides the thickness of the blade itself - that wielding a heavy weapon isn't just about strength, but inertia. A newly made 5' koloss might be 4-5x stronger than a human, but while they're bulkier, it's not by *that* much. More like 1.5x to 2x weight than 4-5x.)

And we're going back to the topic how strong were Koloss - 5x stronger, or more because of their muscle mass. I don't know. I've just done math on the sword. 

47 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

(The problem - besides the thickness of the blade itself - that wielding a heavy weapon isn't just about strength, but inertia. A newly made 5' koloss might be 4-5x stronger than a human, but while they're bulkier, it's not by *that* much. More like 1.5x to 2x weight than 4-5x.)

It's about balance. Swinging 40 kg of metal, 1.5 meters away from your center of gravity, even if you weigh 200kg, would push you out of balance with every swing. That's not manageable in a fight.

[therunner he/him]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Official artworks made by Ben McSweeney:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Of course, these are only artworks, but still the blades are very wide and long, and the second one looks very thick as well.

WoB:

  Reveal hidden contents

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Fifty-Five

Vin Kills Straff

I told you that I couldn't just let Straff die to a random poisoning. He's been an antagonist for far too long–surviving through two whole books. He deserved a sword in the head.

Oddly, there was a great deal of conversation in my writing groups about how to describe Straff dying. The thing is, Vin pretty much chopped him in half–but I don't imagine the koloss sword being that sharp, so I think it would smash and crush as much as cut, particularly considering how hard Vin hit. Some disagreed, and thought the cut should be clean.

Eventually, after trying several things, I just went with this. It's abstract enough that you can imagine what you want. I didn't want to be TOO graphic, nor did I want to cause arguments about something that silly.

The Well of Ascension Annotations (Jan. 23, 2009)

 

The second artwork has bit of an artistic license going on, since in the book, the entire sword including handle is described as just few inches taller than Vin.
In the artwork, just blade itself is as large (a bit larger I think) than Vin, and with handle is a good 1,5-2 feet taller. So that artwork shows something Vin did not use, and is out of scale by ~25-30%.

But if we take that sword and calculate weight we get:
Blade is 5 feet ~ 150 cm long, wide ~ 25 cm, thickness is not visible, however even largest two-handed swords have at most 7.5 mm at the thickest part, so I think 1.5 cm for average thickness is basically reasonable maximum. (while they are blunt, they are still described as basically swords not rods or bars of iron so they cannot be that blunt).

Such blade would weight 44 kg, add in at least 6 kg for pommel (which would still be insufficient to counter the blade weight, but the weapons are crude), it is far outside of ability of even Mistborn to wield. Even if Vin had somehow A-Pewter 2x as strong as anyone else (which she clearly does not, mostly benefiting from being lightweight) she would peak at 6x strength, which would let her at best wield 24 kg two handed sword (neglecting she is way too light to do that without messing up her own center of gravity).

If we scale down the blade by ~25% in all dimensions, we get more reasonable estimate of 18.75 kg for the blade itself + shaft and pommel. Though that is still too much for Mistborn to wield
TLDR: Artistic license, at least in the second image.
Edit:

Quote

And that's only 7.5 ft tall Koloss. Vin and Elend fought with 13 ft Koloss, with much larger swords. if 70% proportion is still applied, then his sword's blade would be 277 cm long. Enormous. Assuming width of 16% of Koloss height (like with 7.5 tall one), the blade is 63 cm wide. With 2 cm of thickness, it would weigh 275 kg! I doubt 2 cm thick metal of that mass wouldn't just break in half on impact.

That leaves basically two options:
1) Koloss blades don't scale with Koloss height, but at some points Koloss just wield the blades.
2) Rule of cool, and we should not think too much about it.

Also, as far as I recall, the tallest Koloss were around 12 feet, not 13 feet.
Edit: And per WoB (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/270/#e7711), Koloss are twisted because of the power in the spikes, which I think supports that the strength from the size is the spiked strenght showing itself.

Quote

 

Brandon Sanderson

The Mechanism of Hemalurgy

....

Hence the decision that where the spike was placed in the receiver, and how it was used to kill a person, influenced how the power was shaped. Now a pewter spike could steal any of a number of powers, based on how it was used. And regular people could be used instead of Allomancers—however, when that happened, the receiver was twisted much more than if an Allomantically charged spike or a Feruchemically charged spike was used.

My rationale for this is that if the spike is pulling out the pure power of Preservation—part of the power of all creation—and twisting it, it would change the body of the recipient greatly. Twisting them through use of the twisted power.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (Nov. 17, 2009)

 

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by therunner

[StanLemon]

A sword used by a 5 ft Koloss was so heavy that Elend barely could lift it. As Koloss take larger swords as they get bigger this would imply that a sword used by a 5ft Koloss is at least the approximately the size of a claymore if not even heavier. 

Quote

Finally, not certain why, he grabbed the creature’s large sword and rested it up on his shoulder. It was so weighty that he could barely carry it, and certainly wouldn’t be able to swing it. How does a creature so small use something like this?

As far as their strength goes in general, during the siege a Koloss throws a rock with enough force to hit a soldier, crush his face, and still have enough force to throw him off the wall. I've been on the top of defensive walls before and it would have to knock the soldier several feet backwards to do that. That implies a great deal of strength 

[alder24]

1 hour ago, therunner said:

The second artwork has bit of an artistic license going on, since in the book, the entire sword including handle is described as just few inches taller than Vin.
In the artwork, just blade itself is as large (a bit larger I think) than Vin, and with handle is a good 1,5-2 feet taller. So that artwork shows something Vin did not use, and is out of scale by ~25-30%.

In which scene did the size of the sword matched Vin? Because during the entire series she held many different swords. In HoA ch 3, she briefly held a sword of her size, but in WoA, in the scene depicted on the image (and in the WoB below), ch 54 talking with Penrod, at the end of that scene, she picked up a sword a few inches taller than her (Vin is barely 5 ft / 152 cm tall, HoA ch 3). I went through many WoA and HoA scenes with Koloss (searching for the word sword), and I haven't found many mentions of sword's sizes. All that did mentioned it were something like "a sword as tall as her".

Spoiler

Herowannabe

In his chapter annotations, Brandon specifically pointed out the scene in Well of Ascension where Vin and the Koloss walk out of the mists, and said that- well, let me just find the quote... Ah, here it is.

"The scene where Vin walks away with the koloss in the mists, sword over her shoulder, all of them making silhouettes. . .well, that’s one I wish someone would do an artistic rendering of sometime."

As far as I can tell, nobody has ever done a rendering of that scene (though you have done one that was similar, with just Vin in the mists- that image now adorns my mousepad. thanks!)- have you ever thought about doing it? I'd love it if you did.

Brandon Sanderson

The illustration of Vin you mention was, in fact, an aborted start to illustrating that very scene. One day I might get back to it.

Ben McSweeney AMA (Oct. 6, 2015)

The description of an sword matching Vin's height isn't necessarily valid, as Vin held many different swords of many different sizes. Most of them very briefly during a fight.

 

1 hour ago, therunner said:

That leaves basically two options:
1) Koloss blades don't scale with Koloss height, but at some points Koloss just wield the blades.
2) Rule of cool, and we should not think too much about it.

Also, as far as I recall, the tallest Koloss were around 12 feet, not 13 feet.

Very few of them were 13 ft, one in HoA ch 3.

Option 1 is not supported by the book, as it was told that larger koloss required larger swords and they were fighting for them. Option 2 is the only valid option - huge blunt swords are cool (not in my opinion)! 

 

Edit: @therunner

1 hour ago, therunner said:

If we scale down the blade by ~25% in all dimensions, we get more reasonable estimate of 18.75 kg for the blade itself + shaft and pommel. Though that is still too much for Mistborn to wield

One of the heaviest swords were almost 6 kg (link by @cometaryorbit), so a Mistborn flaring pewter, who is 3x as strong as a human, would be able to wield that 18 kg koloss blade. 

Now going back to my calculations for the image, for the smaller koloss, assuming he is 5ft tall: the blade would be 100 cm long and 15 cm wide. With the blade thickness of normal great swords of 7.5 mm, the swords without the handle would weigh 8.8 kg. In the article linked by cometaryorbit, the thickest blade had 11 mm thickness, with this thickness the sword would weigh 13 kg. That's with uniform thickness across the whole blade, and without the handle.

For the larger sword: the blade is 160 cm long, and 36.5 cm wide. with 11 mm of thickness it would weigh wooping 50.5 kg. And that's only 7.5 ft Koloss. With 7.5 mm that's still 34.4 kg.

And that's only with the assumption that the thickness of the Koloss blade is comparable to real life greatswords.

Edited April 17, 2023 by alder24