Deus Ex Biotica

Yet again, Wax does outrun a train, seemingly easily. (He could not outrun a telegraph, but that's a whole different issue) the debate of Coinshots versus mundane messengers is one of price and availability - Pony Express riders could just be any orphans, after all, but Allomancers know they could get good wages in several fields. The same goes for Steel Ferrings, Thugs you expect to Drag, etc. So, I suspect that both super-couriers and more mundane ones are used. -- Deus Ex Biotica

Interestingly, Kurk, looking back at that conversation, I tend to read it in exactly the opposite way: the sixteen metals from the Ars Arcanum are all known, but people are confused by ancient references to Atium and Malatium. I suppose both are plausible, though.

I will make another: It's useless for Hemalurgy, since that art requires metal. Also, it would be the odd flamethrower which does not reach 400F (Napalm burns at something like 1500F, or 800c for people who like real units), and it study, but probably too brittle to make good bladed weapons (certainly, I've seen plenty of sailboat rudders made of it snap in half). Some sort of high-grade ceramics might avoid all these problems except the Feruchemy one, once available. -- Deus Ex Biotica

You of all people know that any good Hazekiller must be prepared to fight any and all stray cats they meet.

Weeeeeeeeeeell... I am not so sure. Until the Lord Ruler's death, Ruin seemed more limited in his actions, and even if he weren't, he can't pull together and end the world until he's been let out of the Well of Ascension. That said, for what Leviathan is describing, it would make more sense to me for there to be a hidden cache from some dead House, Mistborn, or Kandra (think like Zane's stash, but much bigger) that someone finds - in the case of a defunct Noble House, that could be decades or centuries of Atium, carefully hidden in the middle of nowhere, for some modern-day baddie to discover. For bonus points, said baddie could pretend privately that they had a secret Atium Mine, to further confuse the matter. -- Deus Ex Biotica

I know! That's why it's such a cool thought experiment!

Finally, a legitimate use for the FLYING GUILLOTINE! I'm not sure there's an electromagnet strong enough to pick up a few metal flakes in someone's stomach, but that would be devastating against Ferrings. And a stead spray of napalm is great, for as long as you can keep it up. It would be a little grim, living in your all-cement manor house (wood or plastics would get ruined by the napalm, and of course you're not using metal), but it's certainly a strong defense - Coinshots and Sliders could get some advantages to avoiding the stream, but even for them it would be a credible threat. I think your biggest hole is long-ranged attackers in general and Tineyes in particular, who just never come within napalm range. And when your biggest weakness is "smart people are too afraid to come close," your probably onto something. I still don't think you're likely to beat a Gold Compounder this way, though. You'll run out of fuel before they run out of healing (fuel is why flamethrowers tend not to be practical weapons of war, along with the range limits). Also, it would take some work to make a flamethrower with no metal parts, though I guess there's always aluminum... -- Deus Ex Biotica

Complacency is huge, and almost inevitable when you have 8-32 superpowers. Mistborn fights are all about trying to mislead your opponent long enough to take them down (or who has the Atium, depending). Hazekilling a Misting or Twinborn requires a more focused approach, since your foe is in the habit of approaching every situation with their power. Thus, you either want to mislead them (as thee Coinshot Rounds showed, Vin's trick works as well on a Misting as an Inquisitor), or presenting a situation they cannot easily answer with their powers: * Against a Slider, try throwing a short-fused stick of dynamite. If they stop time before it gets there, then that will keep them thinking about the bomb, rather than how to attack you. If it lands inside their bubble, then they're really in a bind, since if they throw it out, it will probably still be close enough to get them in its blast when they drop the bubble. Either way, the bubble keeps them from easily escaping the blast. (Sure, they could pull the fuse, but it's hard to think that fast when you're used to people all being slowed down). * Against a Thug, try using weapons coated in an anti-coagulant, then running away. With any luck, they won't notice they're bleeding until they've really exacerbated their wounds. * If you have an area you want to keep Lurchers, Coinshots, and Mistborn out of, construct it using wooden pegs and stone nails (such building do exist in the real world), but with a few strategically placed pieces of metal which, when pushed/pulled, set off alarms, get shot off far from the building (so as to surprisingly provide no purchase as Anchors), and other nasty tricks. * If you, like me, are terrified by the possibilities of Steelminds, set up rooms with movable floors (since their minds are not sped up to match), or hallways filled with razor-thin wire they might not see (but beware of Coishots cutting you with that wire). If you expect to meet them where you cannot control the place as much, bring buckets of tar, and coat the floor. * Wax needing to deal with the chandelier before saving Wayne makes me think tht non-metal-fastened ropes just strung randomly around the ceiling of a large room would really cut don on how much advantage a Coinshot could take of it. Someone with an Ironmind might be able to climb them impressively, though. * Here's an idea I'd like to pitch to Ranette: A Hazekiller gun similar to a LeMat, with one set of chambers that fire normal rounds, and an aluminum round in the extra barrel. When engaged, it fires both barrels at once, so that while your enemy smugly Pushes or Pulls the bullet, they don't realize you fired two until it's too late. This has the advantage of working just as well on Pullers as Pushers. -- Deus Ex Biotica

I like to imagine that the Words Of Founding have a line which reads "alternating current is in every meaningful way the superior to direct current as soon as the technology to utilize it is available. Do not waste time on this. (Also, make sure all your famous inventors are really the ones inventing most of their claims.)"

Well, even with Direct Current, you could just have a really fast flickering shutter, right? That should mess them up properly, even it is less fun at parties. And, yeah, Vin's tricks from the end of The Final Empire are pretty brutal - I always wondered why they weren't using them against the Inquisitors in Hero Of Ages.

Cool! We will, of course, expect reports on events in yor game once it gets going. Well, Gold looks at the past, not the future, so predicting things that way is out (an Electrum savant might have some luck, possibly). And even for a high noble, burning gold constantly for weeks or months seems pretty non-feasible. If someone did pull it off, I suspect that they would mostly just lose a clear idea of which version of them is real and which isn't. At your option, they might start seeing three versions, rather than two. Honestly? The Steel Inquisition doesn't want any Allomancers among the Skaa, so they wouldn't care who the father was, so long as the noble-blooded child was raised Noble. The official policy is probably that noblewomen should never sleep with Skaa, ever, but I doubt they work too hard to enforce it. There seems to be a reason, but it's tied to deep, mysterious metaplotey stuff we don't know yet - it seems that every Shard (godlike beings such as Preservation and Ruin) has a "pool," of wich the Well Of Ascension was Preservation's and the Pits of Hathsin were Ruin's. Of course, since its larger implications are all tied up with things from other series that are unlikely to be relevant to your campaign, if I were you, I would not worry about changing that detail for my own game. -- Deus Ex Biotica P.S. As I just recently learned, using the

The title says it all: in the Final Empire, Alloy of Law, or even modern times, what are some good countermeasures to take against various kinds of Misting and Ferring (or even Mistborn and Feruchemist)? * I keep on coming back to Miles' boast that typing him up is the only way stop him. That's clearly not entirely true. What if you had a cleaver thicker than his neck? With a really good swing, you could take his head off, and he could not regenerate his neck through the metal. Since even The Lord Ruler would have died to beheading, I am sure he would, too. * Likewise, what about a sharp but barbed spear, to nail him to something behind him? That would be harder to completely get rid of with dynamite (a Coinshot or Lurcher would make this extra unpleasant). * In the modern day, white phosphorous would also be a good counter to Bloodmakers/Gold Compounders, since it would just keep on burning. * If I were a noble in The Final Empire, I would think of an excuse for construction projects on the buildings near my estate, and bribe the workmen to put critically weakened ceilings on several of them. If my House had any Mistborn, they would know where these weaknesses lay, but anyone else's Mistborn snooping about would crash through, which is a serious detriment to stealth, and really embarrassing to boot. * Come to think on it, flaming arrows might be useful for lighting Mistcloaks on fire. * In Alloy of Law, they must already have the technology for strobe lights. Take that, Tineyes. * Against an Atium-less Mistborn of any era, having most of your people attack with metal while one or two use obsidian/aluminum ranged weaponry could be a deadly bluff - all those blue lines will make it harder for the to pick out the one or two "invisible" projectiles, even if they do think to look for them. (I maintain that the Vanisher's final battle with Wax would have gone much more smoothly if most of them had not fired Aluminum, as he would have made the mistake of standing still more often.) * If you don't have the money for an aluminum hat but really want to know when there's emotional Allomancy going on, try keeping an infant on hand, but out of sight. It will respond quickly and visibly to most emotional stimuli, which is useless if they just target you, but can be a great hint when someone Riots or Soothes the whole area. What are your evil plans? -- Deus Ex Biotica

Have we? I thought it was still possible, assuming that the Lurcher remains moving at a constant velocity.

Aww, man. Here I was hoping it was from the traditional Scadrialese sport of Canal Polo (attempting to play while wearing any sort of Metalmind is a bannable offense), or Obligat (a handball game which first became a popular pass-time among the Obligators of the Final Empire), or Bowling (I bet Wayne would be a wicked bowler). C'est la vie. -- Deus Ex Biotica P.S. Welcome to the forums, Raphael!

(This post will have some Alloy of Law spoilers, which it would break the flow too much to mark individually. You have been warned.) I agree with that theory as far as motion is concerned, but not energy. Allomancy is explicitly drawing energy from a Shard, thereby bringing energy into the system that could not have been accessed otherwise - that's the whole meaning of being an end-Positive Art, and the reason why, say, a Thug is suddenly able to exert more force, even though their muscles to not change structure. And it has to be a lot of energy: Wax is able to collapse an entire building with a Steelpush. And it's not just gravity doing all the work: he's still moving up when the Push ends1. This means that a strong Coinshot is able to, temporarily at least, arrest the motion of a body which weights enough to crush the supstructure of a skyscraper into the ground - tens or hundreds of tons, at the least. There is just no way human biology could provide that many calories. And, yes Sir Read-A-Lot, you are technically correct about how one cannot have a literally "limitless" source of energy, I just meant a system which can produce energy without meaningful costs, with the only limiting factors being wear on the components and time. As it happens, I was mistaken about Iron Orbiting ever quite reaching that level (it also needs Iron as a catalyst), so unlike the Ironmind trick, this one cannot quite become a "perpetual" motion machine (where "perpetual" is read to be a factor of the lifespans of your Feruchemists), but it could probably be hacked to generate power in a pinch. -- Deus Ex Biotica 1: Alloy of Law, page 296: gravity specifically starts pulling him down after the building is pulverized.

You liked it? I was beginning to think I should have opted for "Number Crunchers".

Oh yeah! I had forgotten about that, thanks. (I was probably too distracted by wondering why it was worth burning a rare metal to have that conversation right away, instead of half an hour later, once the guests had left.)

Some of the science and temporal threads give me ideas for thought experiments only slightly related to them, and I cannot be the only one. This thread is for those! 1) If you did have a telegraph line in Scadrial, and a Slider were standing partway along it, creating a time bubble, would telegraph messages be altered by the "refraction"? Would they be noticeably altered by the slow time spot (even though the "message" is traveling at near-light speeds)? 2) Two Coinshot/Bloodmakers are having a duel in a frictionless vacuum. Each anchors herself to a large object behind them, and then pushes on a metal sphere, exactly between. The anchors and the Allomancers are of exactly equal mass between the two sides, and both have exactly equal skill and power as Allomancers. Will the sphere eventually become a smooth and thin sheet of metal, or do the straight-line forces from the Allomancers' centers of gravity mean that, once it deforms too much, the wayward pieces will be forced back into the whole? 3) I light a huge fire, then climb to a platform above it and begin burning Cadmium. My assistants extinguish the fire. Do the flames held inside immediately begin (slowly, from an outside view) dying, or does it take time for the removal of fuel to affect them? What if the fire is not extinguished, but it is a Bendalloy bubble - do the flames in the bubble die anyway, since they cannot get fuel fast enough to feed themselves from outside? I know I had others, which I will recall eventually... -- Deus Ex Biotica

Also, since you could control the parameters pretty completely, you could have a bunch of objects orbiting you at the same speed (so they don't collide). Happyman may be nervous about having a 1kg ball spinning around him at 30 kn/h, but ow will people want to get close to you is you had six of them doing that? This could be a potent personal armament! Also interesting: with the right equipment, this might be yet another means to generate infinite power, though I admit it is far less practical than an Iron Ferring and a level. -- Deus Ex Biotica

Regarding propulsion: is it such an odd idea that they would use actual rockets, but just not need nearly as much fuel, since they would be cheating with time on the journey? Also, I am curious whether you need enough Sliders to cover the full area of the ship, or just enough to form a "layer" of bubbles on its outer surfaces.

You think? I am not sure I can agree that a Coinshot with a Spikeroad could go at 200 MpH, just in general, but even if I were, people have previously noted that a big part of the value of telegraph lines is allowing for train stations to co-ordinate with each other. Wax seems to have no trouble catching up with a moving train, but even if we assume that non-Lurcher Coinshots could all do that, having several of them at every train station seems prohibitively expensive. No matter how fixated on the Basin people are, fast communication is always valuable, and Allomancy cannot provide it as constantly as telegraphs (or, say Seons). -- Deus Ex Biotica

So, some people are going around with the assumption that the people of the Elendel Basin don't know what the last two metals (Chromium and Nicrosil) are. I will admit that I am one such person. But do we really know that? Nobody mentions them in Alloy of Law, sure, but it might have just never come up. It seems odd for Sazed to leave them out of the Words Of Founding (the last part of the Words we got to see was him saying he'd reveal the last two metals, which gets confusing when we learn there were four new non-God metals at that point), certainly. The Sea People are rumored to have new metals, but that might just be a rumor, or a god-metal alloy, or deliberate trickery on their part. The Brandonthology records no questions about this I could see. Do we really know, or are we just doing what we do best? -- Deus Ex Biotica

The more I think about it, the less sense it makes for a Keeper to be a one-man anything. Unlike Allomancers, Keepers have no limit on potential power, but need lots of cooldown time, so I will have to change my concept to include some allies, who will take care of the Keeper's travel (allowing for the storage of physical qualities), and the prodigious amounts of food and rest a Keeper might need while storing things like Health and Energy. That means they will have to be one of the more philosophically-minded variants, to have willing followers, but that's fine - it helps make the Keeper more different from the largely self-interested or outright psychotic villains I have elsewhere. Excellent - I have a concept which works. You've all been very helpful! I shall post the concept here once my game begins: I would do so sooner, but if I cannot get a live group, I may try to set this game up online via some chat client, and would not wish to make everyone who stumbles upon this post ineligible to play such a hypothetical game. -- Deus Ex Biotica

No, Ironminds! Everyone knows that the more a brain weighs, the faster it can think, right? I NEVER MAKE MISTAKES! And, yeah, Mental Speed in combat is really awesome, however you slice it - though your analysis makes me most frightened of A:Pewter/F:Zinc, or as I will be calling the combo, Math Smashers. -- Deus Ex Biotica

I thought he was there to say "congratulations" to a couple of friends of Brandon Sanderson's. How they got to Scadrial I would very much like to know. Of course, I am not ruling out the possibility that Hoid might have stopped to run a few errands while he was there. He might have strangled half a dozen potential Mistborn, ruined several fine carpets with overly-stylish storytelling, played chess with Marsh (and cheated, since he was using glass pieces), adopted a pet a Mistwraith named Steve, corrected a couple spelling errors in the Words Of Founding, and stolen Tillaume's finest Jasmine tea (a normal day in the life of Hoid), for all I know. But I thought we'd been told that his actions at the wedding, specifically, were nothing untoward. -- Deus Ex Biotica