Humanity

[Quiver he/him]

A rather broad, albeit it ignorant question; are there concrete details as to how humanity differs from one Shardworld to another, in terms of physical appearance? Is there any connection between the Shards original forms or Intents and how humanity looks on each world?

[Shardlet he/him]

I think it likely that humanity is remarkably similar from world to world.  Else, the worldhoppers would have a rough time blending in.  It is my belief that they all have common stock or were patterned after that common stock.

[Kurkistan he/him]

I'm unsure on physical differences, but we know that Intents have only minute effects on people:

 

Source:

EMERALIS00

Does the intent/personality of the Shard affect the personalities of the humans they create?

 

BRANDON SANDERSON

It has some very small effect.

[Vortaan he/him]

Probably around the same variation you get from people on Earth. Shin lack the epicanthic fold, which most people on Roshar have. Actually Scadrial seems the most homogenous of what we've seen so far... which makes me wonder if the people at the South Pole aren't more racially diverse.

[Shardlet he/him]

They may not be.  Scadrial is likely one of the youngest, and therefore least diverse, human populations in the cosmere since we know they were created by Ruin and Preservation.  I suppose it depends on how long Ruin and Preservations pact was for and how long Preservation was able to keep Ruin bound.  Even so, it seems unlikely that enough time would have elapsed for much diversity to occur.

[Chromium Compounder]

Scadrial is an interesting situation.  Whether it's younger or not isn't really why it's so homogeneous.  That's 100% TLR's doing.  Before he took power there were hundreds of cultures, and most likely they each had there own particulars about their appearance, just as we do on Earth.  When he took power though he basically forced everyone in the Final Empire into one of three cultures: Nobility, Skaa, and Terris.

 

The Terris are described as being tall and having differences in the shape of their faces.  Thanks to TLR's very strict control of Terris breeding, they are still separate from the other races when the story starts.  They don't start to mix until the end of HoA.

The Nobility and the Skaa intermixed quite a bit over his thousand year reign, so by the time we see them they're practically the same race, but in one of the books (I think MB:TFE) it says that at the beginning of his reign the nobles were taller than the Skaa.  Nobles also had a harder time having children while Skaa had a hard time not having children.

 

In AoL Scadrial has pretty much had a fresh start.  It's only been 300 years since Harmony remade the world, so it makes sense that everyone is pretty much the same.  

[Arook he/him]

Do to the harsh conditions in the south it seems unlikely that they would be more diverse. If I remember correctly they were not changed by TLR so to survive they would almost certainly have had to band together.and over 1000 years any diversity would have disappeared. i can't believe that more then a few thousand original humans would have survived the environment at the start of his rule.

[Oudeis he/him]

Do to the harsh conditions in the south it seems unlikely that they would be more diverse. If I remember correctly they were not changed by TLR so to survive they would almost certainly have had to band together.and over 1000 years any diversity would have disappeared. i can't believe that more then a few thousand original humans would have survived the environment at the start of his rule.

 

I see a lot of people who seem to simply take it on faith that Rashek dropped some people on the south pole and said "best of luck." Since he intended it as a genetic lockbox and since we've seen what a control freak he is, I would guess that he did something to ensure they couldn't spend 1024 either dying or even just simply changing things. With the power of Preservation at his fingertips he could likely have just crafted some form of stasis through direct shardic intervention, but I personally suspect he set up some mechanical allomancy to trap them all in a super cadmium time-bubble for an external thousand years, which neatly explains 1) how they could have survived all that time/the end of the world, and 2) how they learned about mechallomancy.

[Satsuoni he/him]

I see a lot of people who seem to simply take it on faith that Rashek dropped some people on the south pole and said "best of luck." Since he intended it as a genetic lockbox and since we've seen what a control freak he is, I would guess that he did something to ensure they couldn't spend 1024 either dying or even just simply changing things. With the power of Preservation at his fingertips he could likely have just crafted some form of stasis through direct shardic intervention, but I personally suspect he set up some mechanical allomancy to trap them all in a super cadmium time-bubble for an external thousand years, which neatly explains 1) how they could have survived all that time/the end of the world, and 2) how they learned about mechallomancy.

 

Oh, he didn't just drop them, there is WoB on that:

 

No, they're not dead. Yes, Rashek was aware of them. In fact, he placed them there as a reserve. I knew he wanted a 'control' group of people in case his changes to genetics ended with the race being in serious trouble. All I'll say is that he found a way other than changing them genetically to help them survive in the world he created. And since they were created by Ruin and Preservation, they have the seeds of the Three Metallic Arts in them—though without anyone among them having burned Lerasium, Allomancers would have been very rare in their population and full Mistborn unheard of.

 

I highly doubt the giant cadmium bubble, though - it would mess the weather somewhat fierce, for one thing (imagine ashfall from outside the bubble, for example), and also the question of powering it up would remain (Cadmium reserves?). It is possible that he simply left them the knowledge of mechanical Metallic Arts, much in the way as Sazed did it (books, tablets, direct mind speech) and built a shelter that would last long enough for them to adapt that knowledge into their lives.