Koloss-blooded Proportions

[Trusk'our he/him]

In the artwork made by Ben McSweeney for the Mistborn RPG, Koloss-blooded possess very large hands and feet in proportion to the rest of their body. Their arms seem to be disproportionately long compared to humans too. 

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Thing is, given that Elizandra was able to hide her heritage from Allomancer Jack with only makeup and gloves, and that Wax never mentioned Tarson's proportions being wonky (if I'm remembering correctly), this feels too exotic of an artistic interpretation to me.

So, is the Wreck-it-Ralph body type not truly canonical for Koloss-blooded then? Or, am I misinterpreting something?

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

So, is the Wreck-it-Ralph body type not truly canonical for Koloss-blooded then?

Correct. Litttle to nothing from the Mistborn Adventure Game (MAG) is canon - especially artwork. In the examples above, it seems more comic book style than mistborn style. Nothing wrong with that, but certainly not canon. Also consider, we don't know Elizandra's parentage. Koloss Blooded can be the child of two Koloss, but can also be a Koloss-blooded and a human (basically 1/4 Koloss, rather than half - like Tarson who was the child of a Koloss Blooded and an Allomancer) so we don;t know if that changes any of these characteristics (except how deep the blue/gray tinge to the skin is). The only WoB on KB body types I found is:

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Questioner 1

Alloy of Law. We've got koloss-born guys. What's their origin?

Brandon Sanderson

So... Currently in Mistborn-- And I delve into this a lot more in the later books, but, you know, it's not a big spoiler so I can tell you. Um... Koloss have become... They can breed, but when some-- when a child is born to them it is born as a koloss-blood. It is not born the full thing, right? Grows up normally, and at maturity, at their right of passing, they can choose to ma-- take the step, gain-- get the spikes, and turn into actual, true koloss. Or if they don't, they have to leave the tribe and go... You know.

Questioner 1

But they're more, like, human size? Like, human looking?

Brandon Sanderson

They're human size, human-- I mean, they've got some residual effects. They're a little bit tougher. But yeah. General, they can be human. And so what you're seeing in Tarson is some-- one of those who actually came and-- He's the son of a full koloss-blood and a human Allomancer, which makes an Allomancer koloss-blood.

Questioner 1

Okay. So that's what I thought. A little human interbreeding. *unintelligible* weird.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, um, and a human could, if they wanted to, go convince the koloss to accept them, join the tribe, and get spiked. So yeah...

Questioner 2

It makes their skin saggy, and they start growing...?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. It makes their skin saggy, and start growing, and start ripping, and all that sort of stuff.

Salt Lake City signing (March 29, 2014)

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Phantine

Do the other uses for those metals [nicrosil, aluminum, duralumin] currently in the RPG also work in-universe, or are they just there for RPG mechanics?

Brandon Sanderson

Most of the things in the RPG books relating to the metals that you don't see in the books fall under the "We need to make a game out of this somehow, Brandon" clause. I've told them they can extrapolate if they want, but that I wouldn't consider their extrapolations canon.

Herowannabe

So does that mean that these metals will be getting updated rules in a future RPG supplement?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a possibility. I've said before that you should consider any games you play to be in an alternate dimension anyway, where the rules work slightly differently, and your players can control the fate of what is going on. Plus, it will be years before I can get to the nature of all this in the next trilogy, so we'll see how relevant it all is in five years or so.

Mistborn: Secret History Explanation (Feb. 5, 2016)

 

And while negative evidence is not, itself, evidence - I think it's worth noting that when describing physical effects, Brandon mentions the toughness and stamina, and does not mention anything about body proportions. Even in Era 1, there was not a body-proportion differential, just muscle-bound-human-shaped that kept growing until they died.

Hope that helps

Edited December 4, 2024 by Treamayne
SPAG

[Trusk'our he/him]

21 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Hope that helps

It does. Thank you 

This had been bothering me for a while, and your explanation seems quite sound. 

Edited December 4, 2024 by Trusk'our

[DoctaDajman]

On 12/3/2024 at 9:24 PM, Trusk'our said:

It does. Thank you 

This had been bothering me for a while, and your explanation seems quite sound. 

Yeah I love the MAG. And I really like that picture of the KB scholar. The other examples freak me out a bit.  

I personally dislike the body builder physique and much prefer to picture them closer to worlds strongest man athletes. 

But perhaps for some kolossblooded it truly is as simple as blue or gray skinned humans.  As examples pointed out. That blood will continue to dilute itself. 

We breed a lot of rabbits. If I get a Californian rabbit and breed it to a New Zealand then I have a mix breed. If I breed that to a full NZ the babies are only 25% Californian at that point. Pair it again and it is 12.5. Again and it is 6.25%.  At this point it is acceptable to call it a full NZ but honestly there is still 6.25% of its DNA that could prompt one of the babies to come out looking more Californian than NZ. 

You could be down the line 4 or 5 generations from the first koloss and have a set of fraternal twins where one is a 5foot 2 blue skinned human and the other is a 6foot 8 pale skinned twinborn. 

Of course that is just me thinking genetically with what I have seen from breeding rabbits, boas, and pythons. Unless you are playing with true recessive genes and hit something that covers up all other genes (like a red eyed white rabbit... it will never look like anything other than all white with red eyes) then the possibilities are endless. 

More to that point, for breeding meat rabbits, we specifically hold back the monsters targeting very specific attributes. Some of my rabbits have feet that are nearly twice as long as others. I am sure somewhere in their past was flemish giant. It still happens that some are born that way and we have to send them to freezer camp because I dont like the massive feet... that is fake weight on the scale.  Others grow bone faster and others will have that perfect back strap that we are after. 

 

Back to cosmere...

I dont believe that everyone on Scadrial is strictly human.  We know that skaa were built differently than nobles even. We know that the Terris have different proportions as well. Found in the coppermind: 

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They are also, notably, a rather tall people.^[27][25] Terris people often have a willowy build.^[17] Ancient paintings, during the post-Catacendre era, show Terris people with exaggerated elongated features.^[16] Some Terris women wear their hair in a braid, and some men keep their head shaved.^[28]

So I dont see why a KB couldn't possess some odd looking features like larger feet or thicker build. I personally envision my KB to be mixed and just look bigger in general. The strength difference I envision as being more like a certain % more use out of whatever mass they do have. Not cannon but knowing how genetics work it make sense. Some people are just denser and can move more weight with a different build completely naturally all training aside.

Blue skin is a bit wild as well. I would say why not have a person gifted with more kolossblooded traits who doesn't have blue skin?  End of the day Brandon has left space to write in a genetically gifted fullborn. It is all in the genepool.  It could happen. 

And Brandon has opened an entirely new can of worms with spiritual DNA. Its not all based off of what we see in the physical either.  

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In the end, if you dig the blue and gray skin but want human proportions make it happen. And note also that the further into new eras we get the more likely it is for the unlikely genetic combos to happen. 

If I stopped a selective breeding program and allowed my rabbits to breed with whomever they want then I would end up with some really really cool bunnies. I would also end up with really weird ones.  Here are 2 rabbits I really like. They are both what you call tort, one carries a dilute gene and the other is not dilute. Everything else is the same... not speaking for proportions. It was exciting to see it because we have no dilute in our rabbitry. We got a new white rabbit and white covers up everything so you can't know until you breed them to a colored rabbit. We hit our dilute and, while I think it is uglier than the clean reds of its brother, keeping the dilute will put that gene into our pool and it opens up a ton of possibilities for other rabbit colors in the future. 

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