Ideas for the best kandra true body.

[DoctaDajman]

Looking for thoughts on Kandra true bodies. 

I really like the aluminum true body but am struggling to think how well it will hold up and resist being bent in ways that would hold up long term against hammer blows. 

I was thinking about how it may actually have been advantageous to use a body that broke as opposed to bent because the broken bones still can be held together somewhat compared to bent ones which would surely cause the kandra some mobility issues as a fight may progress. 

 

[𝖂𝖍𝖎𝖗𝖙𝖊]

@Through The Living Glass

Someone's talking about bones.

Edited June 10, 2025 by 𝖂𝖍𝖎𝖗𝖙𝖊

[Qianweilian He/him]

I mean, you could have elastic bones. They could be stiff enough to stand normal wear and tear, but bend to a concentrated assault and bend back with focused muscle power, which kandra can surely provide. If you don't want them to bend, some form of fiberglass or heavy metal could work. The problem with finding a better material is that human bone is already extremely strong.

[Through The Living Glass She/They]

1 hour ago, 𝖂𝖍𝖎𝖗𝖙𝖊 said:

@Through The Living Glass

Someone's talking about bones.

BONES??

*ehem*

[Cinnamon]

Roseite, it's solid aether and will look really cool 

[DoctaDajman]

47 minutes ago, Cinnamon said:

Roseite, it's solid aether and will look really cool 

I agree this is a solid option. 

5 hours ago, Qianweilian said:

I mean, you could have elastic bones. They could be stiff enough to stand normal wear and tear, but bend to a concentrated assault and bend back with focused muscle power, which kandra can surely provide. If you don't want them to bend, some form of fiberglass or heavy metal could work. The problem with finding a better material is that human bone is already extremely strong.

Honestly I hadn't thought of this. And I really really like the idea of something rubbery or elastic. Something that can deform and return to true quickly 

But how well would it hold up to slashes.  

I must admit this whole question was brought up by my asking if aether could actually resist a shardblade. If it could roseite seems the obvious answer. If it doesn't count as highly invested enough to resist a shardblade then I would want to work on an aluminum option. 

Of course normal aluminum as a bone is one possibility but that was when I imagined the deformation, even without breaking, that could happen from a heavy hammer swing. 

My next stop was to break down the anatomy of the bones. I thought of the porous structure of soft bone and the outer solid layer of hard bone. If I made the porous structure from something like titanium I feel like that would give a solid solid foundation for something hard to bend or break. Dipping it in some molten aluminum and allowing that to fully coat it seemed an optimal option for offering the investiture resisting epicness of aluminum with a solid core. 

But rubber. I didn't think of rubber at all. 

Is there a way to take aluminum dust and mix it with some sort of elastic bonding agent to give a highly maliable bone that will return to true and yet has enough aluminum suspended in it to resist investiture?  That would be my next question to those engineers and cosmereologists out there. 

[Qianweilian He/him]

Depending on the level of control the kandra has, could it be possible to have bone fragments that can interlock? They could slide apart when needed to withstand a hit and slide together when needed to be stiff.

Now I kinda want to see a kandra engineer/scientist who pushes the limits.

Edited June 10, 2025 by Qianweilian

[Returned he/him]

An assortment of simple machines and rods/planes of different metals would be really handy. Being able to assemble a mechanical appendage on-demand from a variety of pieces, mediated by muscle, soft tissue, direct physical sensation, and personal attention could have all kinds of amazing applications. With the right materials a kandra could brace themselves nearly as well as Wax tapping iron, or leap as high as a coinshot, or lift something like a pewterarm would, among other applications. And it could all be stored pretty effectively when your body is totally malleable.

[Denissimo He/him]

Just somehow bring Tony Stark into the cosmere and send him to Scadrial. Get him to build an Iron Man suit.
THERE. THE BEST TRUE BODY.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

I think that at a minimum, a modern True Body will require at least some Aluminum just due to its Investiture Blocking properties, especially its ability to block Emotional Allomancy when placed around the skull. Any Kandra would be worried about potentially being controlled by either a powerful Allomancer or by a Shard, aluminum can help them resist.

On 6/11/2025 at 7:51 AM, Qianweilian said:

Depending on the level of control the kandra has, could it be possible to have bone fragments that can interlock? They could slide apart when needed to withstand a hit and slide together when needed to be stiff.

Now I kinda want to see a kandra engineer/scientist who pushes the limits.

Now this is innovative. With how malleable a Kandra's physiology is, why stick to regular human shaped bones when you can make custom bones to your own specifications. 

A Kandra in the potential Cyberpunk Era will be very interesting, since it would be ridiculously easy for them to equip cybernetics with little to no worries about basic biological limitations.

[Jult]

Shardplate seems pretty ideal to me. We saw in WaT that it could adapt to its user's form at least slightly with Adolin's missing leg.