Deus Ex Biotica

Really? Since the core thematic of Mistborn's magic has been repeatedly stated to be "two figures spinning through the mist," I would assume something with a bunch of Iron and Steel-driven platforming, and (as Mirror's Edge showed us) that plays better in third person, as a rule.

Technically, weak Mistings existed even before the Ascension (Alendi was a Seeker, after all), but I agree - it would be silly to make a game such as this and not have the main character be a Mistborn.

Technically, that "new" combination is mentioned in literally the first post of the thread, but I agree, it is a juicy one. Poppycock and balderdash! Walls of text can be a good thing, so long as they communicate interesting and cogent ideas, which yours does. I like your point about aerial collisions being less damaging than expected - if the Twinborn is managing things such that they and the anchor are moving at roughly the same speed and trajectory (I maintain that this is more difficult that you are indicating - Ranette didn't prove she had exceptional control, she merely set things up so that yanking objects towards herself was all she needed to do), hitting or being hit by the anchor is relatively harmless. Sadly, this ceases to be the case if you add a second anchor - this guarantees that you will always have an anchor with a different trajectory from you, increasing the risk from collisions drastically. The analogy of tacking reminds me of another issue: wind resistance. For the repeated alternating of weight much greater and much less than the anchor to not send you spiraling off course, your default weight during this operation has to be immense. That's not necessarily a problem for a Compounder, but it increases the risk factor even further - if something goes wrong, there is now no way to use an Ironmind as a makeshift replacement anchor if one of your giant iron balls falls. And speaking of falling, how do you land without at least one heavy object crashing into the ground with destructive force? -- Deus Ex Biotica

Unless there's something I really missed about ranches on Shadow, also minus the being a nobleman, but yeah. Let's just say there's a reason I went through my old Firefly RPG adventures for inspiration when I began plotting an Alloy of Law-era game. And a reason it sparked much better ideas than similar experiments with Deadlands, Dresden Files, and Eberron. -- Deus Ex Biotica P.S. You know which Firefly actor really does need to be in a Final Empire movie? Adam Baldwin as Ham. I've never seen him as a nice character, it'd be interesting.

Agreed. I still don't really see the value of Duralumin in compounding: it explicitly does not flare itself down to nothing like Aluminum does, so it could not be boosting your burn of Duralumin, even Feruchemically charged Duralumin. And even if you had Duralumin plus some other form of Compounding somehow, Duralumin doesn't give you greater yield than everything you could have gotten out of your current metals, as far as I know. It just lets you have it all at once. Of course, Allomancy is the art of getting extra, so maybe I'm wrong, and Duralumin does give you more total than you could get without it, but even then, all you've managed is to save yourself the cost of some metal (they type you Compound, obviously) at the expense of some also-pricey Duralumin. You don't need the Duralumin to reach an arbitrarily large amount of an attribute, since Compounding is an infinite loop already. As for the connection cutting both ways, I don't see this as RPG necessity so much as it makes sense - emotional Allomancy can cut one way since it is literally creation "emotional energy" out of nothing, Feruchemy has to use what you put in, and what most people have to store is the capacity to form connections which affect both parties. It also makes for more interesting stories than "this guy has mind control". That said, I wonder what happens when a true sociopath stores Connection. -- Deus Ex Biotica

This is all starting to sound like The Force Unleashed: Mistborn Edition.

I had assumed that the game would be a doomed attempt to stop the Lord Ruler (or, as they knew him then, The Conqueror) from taking over the world, probably ending with sending some sort of hope into the future (which might tie in to some plot point from the original trilogy, or even foreshadow events in a later one).

And so, the Thread is re-purposed. Originally, this was an effort to recruit people for a possible Alloy-era Mistborn game. I was shaky on the details, and nobody was really interested, so now it takes on new life, as a resource for the games of others! I will be posting the characters and situations I had in mind for that game. If other people have RPG ideas they cannot use (whether meant for Alloy or Empire-era play), they are welcome to add them here. Just skip on past the helpful Moderator's note (a holdover from the old Thread) and join the fun! -- Deus Ex Biotica

It's a cool scenario to give an RPG group, but I am a little confused about why you chose to post it, but no further elaboration...

Wrong? No. And he makes a fine villain - Caleb was classic in Buffy S7. However, I find his persona a better match for Wax, and his looks a flawed match fr either one, so I solidly disagree. Is that so wrong?

Not quite what I meant. Wax's trick with hitting his own bullet is impressive, and manages to shoot at a normally impossible angle, but it cannot shoot out of a speedbobble - the distortion is (as far as I can tell) not always the same, which is why he needs Wayne to drop the bubble before he fires the second shot. What I propose is simpler: throw metal things through the bubble, then push on them there. That force shouldn't distort meaningfully, since it is, by definition, between two points, neither of which is passing through the bubble. On further thought, however, the simple fact of people not doing this must imply that you cannot Push/Pull metals through the edges of a bubble. I wonder if the same holds true for emotional Allomancy. I'm still partial to Bendalloy/Chromium, but this has potential. Whenever you see something bad, Tap like mad! I'm not sure this is easy as you seem to think. Pulling with a force less than "hit it hard enough to break things" requires a lot of control (Zane might be the only person with enough control, and he had been practicing for years with the extra power granted by his spike), and Mistborn repeatedly hit each other with coins while both are moving through the air, so "it can't hit me due to falling" doesn't seem totally safe here. At the least, I'd expect you to crack ribs while practicing the move (and, unlike Vin, you probably wouldn't have Pewter to save you). And then there's steering. The system you describe would fling you wherever your anchor went, but without having any other way to reposition yourself, how are you controlling its trajectory? For that matter, what are your relative weights? I'd assume you'll want a decent-sized Metalmind, so you can fill for a long time if you have to - Compounding doesn't increase the capacity of Metalminds, so that's a decent amount of wieght. Thus, you need an anchor significantly heavier than your several pounds of iron (plus clothing). A 30-50 pound metal ball is doable, sure, but you clearly cannot carry a spare - if something distracts you and it falls further than you can Pull, you're out of luck. If you have multiple Metalminds, you might be able to throw one of them, then reduce your weight with the other and Pull to slow your fall, but will you bet your life on it? In short, it's a very inventive idea, and it could work well for short distances (assuming you find a way to steer), but in general, I doubt it would grant greater benefits than an Ironmind and a hang glider. There's a reason I think Nicroburster + Steelminds is utterly horrifying, and this is a good example. Nobody likes my idea of Copper Compounding letting you flawlessly duplicate stored memories. The "add them to your mind forever" thing makes sense, too, though. Why would you assume that Duralumin can enhance Feruchemy? The Metallic Arts are not interchangeable, and Brandon Sanderson recently confirmed that Chromium/Aluminum only drins your Allomantic metals, not your Metalminds, so this seems very unlikely. Also, even if this did work, wouldn't the person revert back to normal as soon as your Metalminds were empy? And, even if they didn't, it would be less "mind control" and more "constantly gambling everything" - it not as if history lacks examples of people betraying their own parents or lovers for one reason or another. Even the closest connection is never absolute. -- Deus Ex Biotica

That kind of stacking makes me impressed by A:Pewter/F:Gold, as well. I like this a lot.

Ruin believes that Rashek could and would use the power again. This is why Ruin worked so hard to kill Rashek at the proper time. With 1,024 years to brood on his failures, Rashek no doubt would have found solutions to many of the problems he created the first time. And, almost certainly, these solutions would have caused more problems. In any event, he would have maintained some form of society in which a minority is given near-absolute and often cruel dominance over the majority. He is, after all, Rashek, and that's kind of what he does. -- Deus Ex Botica

It seems to me that those are different ways of wording the same things, though admittedly the game doesn't bother to model the "if you keep on tapping the same memories again and again for years, it gets blurrier" part, for the same reason it doesn't model Hemalurgic spikes winding up with a charge that grants no measurable power.

Throwing Obsidian knives a great way to capitalize on Steelminds, but in Alloy times, I prefer small bombs. You're so fast, you could run up to people, place a few where you want them, and run away in the second or so allowed by a very short fuse. Other amusing tricks when you can get close and then escape before they react: stealing a Coinshot or Mistborn's coin pouch, using chains and locks to immobilize foes before they can react, or generally sabotaging enemy tools/weapons. Combined with Pewter, as you describe, thrown objects become even deadlier, and wrestling things away from people gets even easier, but I think you're missing your key ability: carrying allies into and out of strategic locations, and conversely, grabbling a deadly enemy less strong than yourself and carrying them away from the rest of the fight, thereby neutralizing some strong and mobile threat (Wax, Wayne, and even Miles for example, would be pretty ineffectual if such a person grabbed them successfully). -- Deus Ex Biotica

Well, I don't think that's quite possible - we know that the second trilogy will involve a Misting SWAT team, so they can't have been outlawed totally. And if there were a search for a secret immortal Mistborn, wouldn't Marsh fit the bill best? That said, I rather like the idea of the Sea Peopl dominating Scadrial with highly-advanced technology. Note: Some Kandra are still in the Elendel region, as the "Faceless Immortals". One of them (I seem to recall Brandon Sanderson saying it was TenSoon's protege girl, but cannot recall the source) gave Wax his earring. However, some working for Sazed elsewhere also makes sense. -- Deus Ex Biotica

I have always believed this. The mystery is too metaplot-ey for the Alloy timeline, and too significant to not be a large focal point. -- Deus Ex Biotica P.S. I had also been assuming that they survived by having a mostly subterranean civilization, which is good for dodging the impact of both the sun and Sazed remaking the world. That must have been very confusing for them - without Ashmounts, Koloss, or the Lord Ruler, they would have had far less advance warning about the end of the world coming. They wouldn't have gotten the Words Of Founding, either, but no doubt Sazed managed to send a few Kandra among them, so there's no telling what they have "guessed" about the outside world.

Not exactly. There is a quote where he says that the Words of Founding mention two other metals, but they already know all sixteen, which is confusing ("either Harmony changed the way Allomancy works, somehow, or we never understood it to begin with," he concludes). But he never specifies whether this is Chromium and Nicrosil being mentioned in the Words Of Founding but undiscovered, or Atium and Malatium (which no longer exist outside of Marsh's pocket) being mentioned in the Words, but it's hard to see how they ever could have existed, given the rule of sixteen. For more discussion on the topic, but no real resolution, see this thread. -- Deus Ex Biotica

Really? One of the first things I would do is test it on Feruchemical storage, too. Since the claim to fame of Feruchemy is how those traits will stay there forever, I doubt this would work, though. -- Deus Ex Biotica

Alloy of Law times seem to have knowledge of Chromium, but certainly no tech for metal detectors. My guess? The same way they would deal with any cheat: a combination of searching you, throwing you out, and beating you up, done in any combination and any order, should they get too suspicious. Something I noticed but never mentioned in this thread: Scadrial has had wars in the past 300 years, they've just been between Noble Houses. There's really no reference for how large or long-lasting they might have been. though... -- Deus Ex Biotica

Or to Preserve your ability to Ruin your opponents. DEEP! More seriously, the immediate effects of Atium did always surprise me. I would expect it to disintegrate things, or make you stronger but actually harm you when burned, or something. It does not, which probably indicates something grand and complex we don't understand yet, but it makes perfect sense to me for the side effect of Atium to be increasing the Ruin in your Spiritweb. -- Deus Ex Biotica

I shall do so, then: "Marsh, unlike other Inquisitors, had been a member (and, eventually, leader) of the Skaa rebellion for much of his life. They, on other hand, were exceptionally dutiful Obligators, who had spent years as Inquisitors worshiping the Lord Ruler as God. It would have been child's play for Ruin to convince them that it was The Lord Ruler's immortal spirit, grooming one or all of them to become the next Sliver of Infinity and guide mankind into a new era, after scourging away the unrighteous with hordes of Koloss. Marsh would never believe that, and they both knew it, which is why Marsh got more spikes then other Inquiisitors, with the net result that he barely had enough control to twitch a finger. Had any other, less-spiked Inquisitor had Marsh's perspective, they might have been even more devastating to Ruin's plans... had they been smart enough to use that advantage nearly as well as Marsh used his. In short, Marsh differs from other Inquisitors wildly in terms of perspective and reasoning, but despite being famous for his resolve, we have no reason to assume he was more resistant to Hemalurgy innately." -- Deus Ex Biotica P.S. Also, didn't TenSoon have Mental Fortitude? My books are not with me right now, but I recall the footnotes remarking that we never actually see the Emotional Fortitude Blessing in the book.

Kelsier is one of my favorite Brandon Sanderson characters. I would be disappointed if he returned under almost any circumstances.