Wrath

With Invocation not having stuck around, having control over his sanity should be literally effortless, so I'm not sure why you mentioned it at all.

If you don't think SANITY is an advantage in any given situation then you're dead wrong. Take it from someone who has to struggle with sanity every day.

I'd bet on Blain because I suspect being in control of his sanity and actively seeking to fight other Epics means he's got better control over their powers and more experience fighting. But even so their invulnerability is really hard to get around. We know that sometimes Prime Invincibilities can be bypassed by sufficiently powerful attacks but it'd be very hard for one of them to put the other in such a situation and manage to survive themselves.

So essentially they fight forever until one of them manages to find some way of hurting the other, and because I think Blain will have a small edge in skill I'd expect him to be the one to find that way. But Calamity only knows how long that would take.

Which to be fair are some of the most powerful abilities in their respective magic systems (Brandon really has a thing for steel, doesn't he?) and thinking about it a bit more, the limits on his powers would most likely mean he couldn't affect metalminds that someone is already wearing.

They certainly are, and you're absolutely right about the limitations but it's much funnier to ignore that for a second and imagine Steelheart flying around ruining everything for Mistborns and Feruchemists.

Yeah, even if you can compund, there's only a limited amount of metal you can carry on your person. It doesn't help that Obliteration and Prof both have ways to destroy his metal reserves with relative ease. Steelheart too, although he would leave the Lord Ruler with steel, which is of limited use, if your opponent can trap you in the air with a tornado and you don't have gold to heal.

Haha, I love it. I hadn't realised that Steelheart is the enemy of all the metal magics. Sorry guys, you're stuck with Steelpushing and speed storing from now on!

At first I thought it was because parallel David had the same powers, so Blain felt pain every time David used them. Now I think it was probably just an accident with new powers.

As for whether there was a Rending or not... I'd say that depends on whether Invocation is a parallel Calamity or just another of the same species. Parallel Calamity seems more reasonable, IMO, so I think there probably was a Rending that has been written in history as just a reaction to gaining powers (ironically what Calamity believed it to be) rather than the influence of Invocation.

Well the Lord Ruler essentially has a whole slew of super-powers.

 

-Super-speed (compounded steel feruchemy)

-Super-strength (compounded pewter feruchemy and Allomancy)

-Super-mental speed (compound zinc)

-Steelpushing/ironpulling (steel/iron

-Perfect senses (compounded tin)

-Emotional Manipulation

-Can be infinitely heavy/light

-Can be infinitely warm/cold, potentially to the degree that he ignites the air around him, although that depends how F-brass works

-Endless healing (compound gold)

-Precognition (atium)

 

 

I mean, this guy is so tough. He is.... wow.

Atium (combined with the strength and speed to use it) alone means that he can't really lose a fight. And there is a 100% chance that he wouldn't be scared of Steelheart, after a millennium of not fearing anything but Ruin.

Now, chances are Obliteration could avoid his attacks and teleport away, but if anyone has a chance of at least touching him gently before he can teleport away, its the Lord Ruler.

He does have a lot of different powers but are those powers really up to High Epic standard? Not to mention that High Epics can more or less just keep going unless you know their weakness whereas TLR has definite limits on how long/intensely he can use his powers.

For example, Compounding Gold is like a Prime Invincibility except it will eventually be exhausted. After all even though TLR lived for centuries beyond his natural lifespan thanks to Compounding Atium he still needed to be old every so often.

More rules mean more limitations and weaknesses.

It'd honestly be about as useful for impromptu plans as Prof's tensor shockwaves.

Really it's the opposite of Prof's power, and that's significant because Prof starts off using the tensor power in small and tactical ways but in Calamity is using it in the same way that Steelheart used his steel power - enormous blasts. Reverse that and the steel power is also something that can be used in small and clever ways if the Epic is so inclined.

I imagine it would be very useful in plans that require specific items, since you could make them or components of them out of any soft material and then transform it into steel.

The way I see it, Calamity wasn't the embodiment of Epic powers but something like a guiding force to them. He could give them to people and take them away, and was always connected to them, but wasn't in total control of them. That's why he couldn't take Megan's away from her or force Steelheart's on David. Likewise, the powers didn't vanish when Calamity did, but without him some of the rules changed.

So following on from that, Tavi can inherit Prof's powers because Invocation left, removing the restriction on that. We already know that DNA is a factor in how powers work even under Calamity - neither the powers themselves nor Calamity can distinguish between two sources of exactly the same DNA, to the extent that all you need is some of their living cells to access those powers.

The child of an Epic has 50% of their DNA, which makes inheriting the genetic component of Epic powers entirely possible, but perhaps Calamity was able to distinguish between children and parents and shut down the powers in children, even if they inherited whatever gene carried that Epic potential.

We even have two examples, since both Tavi and David had the same powerset as their Epic parent. It makes me think that the powers one can potentially possess are determined by genetics before Calamity ever gets involved.

...interesting.

Looking at everyone's posts, it shouldn't be too surprising that I'm a Truthwatcher, since that appears to be the most populous order. What is surprising is that apparently I'm the head of the order, since I managed to score 94%!

I also got 71% Elsecaller and 61% Lightweaver.

Wait... if you can use Hemalurgy to remove someone's Allomancy, then they can use Feruchemy to repair the spiritual damage, does that mean that you could potentially produce people whose Spiritweb is no longer tainted by Allomancy? Meaning they could then breed full Feruchemists?

Though altering writing is very mystical, the books went out of their way to point out that unless an individual has some kind of spike/metal in them, Ruin cannot control the individual. Perhaps that is simply me misunderstanding the novels.

It's one of the flaws of the series that Egwene is a terrible person whose behaviour is essentially endorsed by her reality. She's the real ta'veren, the one the Pattern bends around to make sure that everything works out right for her. When something bad happens it's just so that she can prove that she's better than everyone else.

Why not the dimensional double whose weakness is bad similes? Just have David talk to Calamity for a while and you're good.

That's probably been Calamity's weakness all along. What, did you think David really turned down Epic powers by conquering his fear? Please.

The convenient detail about Epics with a power set that alters reality based on probability. You just have to know what you want, and it doesn't need to be terribly accurate.

Unlike Aons.

Firefight needs to figure out how to continuously sustain a reality shift where she is specified as "standing in enemy's blind spot". That will be fun.

Calamity: "You can't beat me because you'll never guess my weakness!"

Firefight: "I don't need to guess it, I just need to find the dimensional version of you whose weakness is being shot with a pistol."

*BANG*

While your thinking of playing as the Reckoners I was thinking of the other side of the spectrum. An open world game where you play as a fully customisable epic and you fight Reckoners and level up your powers. 

Rather than fighting Reckoners, it would be fun to play as an Epic who is trying to conquer their own city. You'd have to take down other Epics to make them your subordinates, take control of the city's resources and infrastructure, teach mortals to fear and obey you, etc. And because of the way Epic corruption works the story can start off with you having good intentions but gradually losing your sanity as you become more powerful.

It'd be pretty dark but it could also be really good. I suppose you could also have a good ending where you learn to stop using your powers.

Well her "reincarnation" is actually shifting a version of herself who didn't die into reality. So she shifted in a version who was with David, naturally! After all the secret is really the power of love

Well, I think that having Prof available would be good. You can send in gifted Reckoners, which wouldn't corrupt Prof, but would be weaker. However, Prof would have a corruption meter that would be difficult to manage. That would be cool.

Well following the X-Com suggestion (which I think is an excellent fit) what would work is if you can research Epic powers as you progress through the game and eventually capture Epics. If you capture a Gifter then you can add their abilities to your team, though it might interfere with any Epic-derived equipment you have, or if you capture a non-Gifter you can try to redeem them, at which point you can try using them in combat when a corruption metre would come in.

 

 

Right. But it's possible you could strap some gemstones to Nightblood's hilt and prevent that, or Szeth could find a way to take in Stormlight to power Nightblood. (Hello, highspren bond?)

 

 

If Szeth bonded a highspren, he wouldn't be able to attack Kaladin anyways.  Or kill the Stone Shamans, for that matter.  I'm thinking that Stormlight 3 will have Szeth bond a highspren, and then choose between letting the Stone Shamans live or blindly following Nalan.  That would be a nice turn of events, I think.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Skybreakers provoke Kaladin by going after his father - who did, after all, steal those gems. I don't think they're above using the law to manipulate their actual targets into breaking the law.

Sadeas as an Inqusitor would continue to stubbornly deny that superpowers exist even as he uses them to see and stay alive.

On the theory of how Nightblood relates to the Skybreakers- According to the Coppermind wiki (http://coppermind.net/wiki/Order_of_Skybreakers), one of the traits of Skybreakers is their innate ability to tell guilty from innocent. They value the law above all else. Isn't this basically what Nalan/Darkness has been doing when he kills surgebinders? He's trying to prevent the Knights from returning so as to prevent the desolation from returning. Sort of an ends justify the means ideology.

Wasn't Nightblood created for the sole intent of 'destroying evil'? I feel like that fits right in with the Skybreaker's mentality.

Apparently "destroying evil" was the job of the Dustbringers. Skybreakers are not interested in the concept of evil at all, they just care about the letter of the law.

Brilliant! I laughed so hard when I saw this. That's kind of what I think. It would be interesting if Spren start to bond with "real" Skybreakers and then they have to have a showdown with the fake ones.

That is an interesting possibility. I imagine the fight would involve both groups of Skybreakers staring at each other waiting for someone to break a law. But seriously, I think both Nalan's Skybreakers and any potential KRs would be drawn from the same talent pool, so perhaps Nalan is able to prevent someone from forming a Nahel bond (with a larkin maybe?).

My personal belief (and one that I know a lot of people share) is that the current organisation known as the Skybreakers is not the same as the Radiant Order of Skybreakers. No Surgebinders, just people. Interpol, not the Justice League.

I think it was announced some time back that the third SA book, currently known as Skybreaker, will focus on Szeth.

Originally, yeah, but then it was announced that Sanderson isn't sure on whom it will focus.

What I want to see is a brand new Radiant character who is not a Kholin.