Aminar

I will never buy "too easy" as valid. Its called a loophole for a reason and even the best systems have it. I'm imagining a scheme where a group of full feruchemists all store their entire identities all the time so they can all share metalminds and then just compound (via hemalurgic spikes) nicrosil chull group until they're majority shareholders. Seems like a decent RPG story if nothing else. Fortunately full feruchemists don't exist in Alloy as of yet.

Ok. Most Cheshires don't have a throat to cut most of the time. It's hiding in their other dimension. Fire is still the way to go.

First Law-I couldn't care about any of the characters at all. Total ambivalence. Malazan. This will be longer. The series is probably amazing. I love it for the first several hundred pages of each book but then the story starts to get stale for a bit, i lose interest, and come back to it much later. I don't have the time I did when younger to just burn through the series and each book feels like it loses continuity with the others.(noting that when i last stopped reading I was halfway through book 4. And I have to agree, most of the characters aren't prone to developing interestingly. They are almost all adults that are very set in their ways, something I find an intolerable character trait. Few of them are adaptable. Lastly I can't tell where anything is going because half the time things aren't explained. Like the Jaghut. I had to go read the Malazan wiki entry to figure how what made them different. Same with the random shapeshiftery things. It's just overly dense and frustrating to read and figure out. And I like reading. Erickson is brilliant but he can't develop things in a way that explains them.

I thought it was strange... All is forgiven. Is that cookie coming by mail then?

I have two in a way. First off. War of the Flowers by Tad Williams. I love it. The first Hundred pages are depressing and a little boring but Theo is still a great character, the story is brilliant, and it has as much story as most trilogys in one book. Besides which its possibly the most original Urban fantasy Work to this day, definitley the most original I've read. The second is my current book to find. I read it years ago-In the mid to late 90's. I don't know its name. I've never met anybody that has read it. It was full of potential and very unique. What I remember is this. There were three lands split by mountain ranges. One was Medieval europy. One was Hellish. And one was Faerie. The main character was a mountain climber. Early in the book he falls, spearing his heart on a chunk of ice made from water from all 3 lands. It ressurects him, but leaves a piece of that ice in him. It saves his life later. Anybody know the name?

I think you're misunderstanding compounding. It gives you the feruchemical power not the allomantic one. Hence why the gold compounder heals super fast. His allomancy is unaffected. We've seen Sazed draw on huge stores of feruchemical power. His body accomodated for parts of it. The only true danger is drawing more than you can use independantly. A steel compounder has to be careful not to go too fast and trip. A Pewter compounder can only use so much strength before he dislocates his joints with the force of his punches(although if he burns allomantic pewter too he'll be pretty beastly and adaptable(if that is possible, I don't think it's ever stated.) You'd have to be careful with Tin too, but I don't see the affects being deadly...

It gives you 10* the feruchemical power you put into the metalmind. It's unclear if you burn it at the same rate you burn the allomantic metal. But even if you were burning instant burn metals constantly I don't think it would kill you. But that means you can burn alot of nicro really quickly. Eep the power storage... That said, Compounding Nicro might do nothing... So far it seems you store generic feruchemical power. You might be unable to burn it for anything...

I would guess because metal acts as a powers ource for Ruin and Preservation. However Feruchemy draws on power you've stored. I've always heard the power of a compounder draws straight from Preservation like Allomancy, tricking the system. I imagine most of the time that power filters back to the Preservation pretty quickly but a compounder with enough knowledge might... Just might be able to drain the preservation from Harmony making him into Ruin. Doesn't that seem like a story Brandon would tell? It feels like the way he'd work things to me. And it scares me a little because I like Sazed.

Apparently a lone Grumagnum reference got missed by control f. I'd taken those out for not fitting the tone... Great advice. One of the big things I apparently missed describing was the fact that the area they were in(with the Komodo Dragon of fire) is that the area was pretty abandoned when everything happened. Even so, Aldriu is pretty openminded about the subject of magic Alot of magicy types hide out there. the natives are pretty clued in but its an open secret... A bit like if Alien Abductions were real in life. For all we know they are. Same with magic. It's pretty evident people believed in it once. It might even have existed. but we don't believe in it now... I'll have to work on that. The painkillers are currently foreshadowing one of the darker sides of summoning, as well as the fact the Turtle was the first summon I ever created for Keth. Once upon a time his first raptor fight involved a giant six legged Chameleon trying to eat said turtle and disintegrating it's internal organs while being paralyzed instead. That Turtle has backstory and implicatiosn up the whazoo.

Did I have the imp kill a cheshire. Crap... It shouldn't have done that unless the Cheshire was really careless. The bit about Iraisa's home needs to get cut. While Aldriu was built by the Hamara millenia ago her in her home dimension the city was A: on the coast not an Island and B: Has since become a crumbled ruin several times. That's one of those things to fix for continuity as I edit.

Yep. Seems likethe contest to win.

Compounders seem to draw a bit more than just on what is within them... They seem a mite bit scary. Allomancy is end positive after all. I'm just debating if with hundreds(maybe thoisands or more) metalminds if You couldn't drain a shard and then become the shardbearer.

I don't think Aluminum stops ruin. Aluminum spikes can be made They store certain types of Allomancy. If Ruin couldn't control those it would be awfully strange. I dont thin Marsh-even compounding investiture could have stopped ruins involvement. No matter how much power he stored he would only be stealing from Preservation... Which makes me wonder if an investiture compounder could turn harmony to ruin... Yipes.

I'm not super aiming for the next deadline. I didn't even look when the next deadline is...

Anybody mind if my next entry is 8122 words long? It's a short story for a writing contest and I'd love feedback on the whole thing.

The SouthPole There is a huge metropolis on the south pole. Here The Lord Ruler tried something a little different. He let a free society work, learn, and experiment. Here the Terris people can practice freely, hemalurgy is studied in secret, Skaa and Nobles aren't all that different, and the city chooses its governors. The city is tall. Building stretch 40 to 50 stories in the sky, some buildings are even above the mists. The lower levels are a putrid squalor, with the poorest people living at ground level. The richest live on the highest floors. Bridges stretch from building to building, many nobles never go below the 20th story-where most Skaa merchant shops exist. Ash filters down into the lowest levels of the city, filling the streets with around 2 inches of ash at a minimum. Buildings have wide sloped roofs meant to push as much ash away as possible, often leaving ash banks in the lowest levels of the city. Below the city is a huge network of abandoned caves and mines carefully reinforced to stop the city from collapsing. These mines are rich in metal deposits and can practically be flown through by a talented mistborn or reckless coinshot. Most of the Allomantic metals have been discovered or refined through centuries of testing. The party is intended to be a group of obligators sent to investigate crimes. There are a variety of gangs, at least one of which should be a hemalurgic cult preying on Skaa Mistings.(remember that in theory 1 in 16 people should be mistings here, but many don't snap until tortured into it by the cult.) There is an illegal trade in spikes, but ownership of a spike isn't actually considered illegal. Thus they have become a sort of lower class status symbol. Atmospherically this city should feel a little like Gotham City, with the villains being insane criminals, the occasional politician, gangs, and sometimes higher authorities. I imagine Steel Inquisitors being something like the FBI is portrayed in Cop Shows. An obstruction in the form of an ally. The area around the city should be fields worked and owned by the lower classes. There should be a smattering of farm towns around and some form of guard. The mines should be dangerous, filled with terrifying Cave Mistwraiths, strange creatures pulled from lovecraft and D&D books(imagine a rustmonster...) They should also shelter a few criminals, some Koloss made by the hemalurgists, maybe some Kandra, some vagrants, a gang or three, and whatever else you like. The city itself is a beautiful place to have Mistborn fight, leaping from roof to roof avoiding deadly falls and bridges. The lower levels should be dangerous places where Skaa thugs might break your bones for bread. Kandra should live in all levels of the city, free of the contract but hiding their true natures. Many of them will be spies for somebody, but just as many might just want to eke out a living. They should culturally be tied to the spike trade. In theory Twinborn and Ferring could exist here as well. A twinborn should be have high power and get one Feruchemical metal at 3 and Allomantic Power at 5 with a stunt.(I derived this from NPC character creation rules involving hemalurgy.) A ferring should start with a 4 in their metal and a free prop for their metalminds.(As far as I can figure)

See that point about Ruin's inability to read minds is definitely a good one. I can get behind that. It does a good job of balancing mental speeds ability to counter Atium. That said, I still see it as a potent way to recreate Vin's split though.

I saw this on cracked and immediatley thought, MISTBORN!

And Zane could have a muscle cramp, a brain anuerism, get stabbed in the back, etc. There are always other variables, One's Atium doesn't appear to recognize either. I don't see how the analogy is bad. Far from perfect, but understandable to most people with internet access. The debate has wandered way off topic. The initial question I posed was if Atium causes a reflexive response to the action. We don't really have a lot of evidence on that, but its implied at times and the oppositre is implied at times. The other question, the real one, is where an Atium shadow is drawn from. Given that Atium doesn't see effects of outside interference such as getting stabbed it can't be entirely precognitave. Nobody has given a good reason it isn't drawn from a persons plans or subconscious. There is a good deal of evidence in characters possibly flawed opinions that Atium does rely on thought, a form of mind reading.

Again, it isn't seeing the future any more than me seeing a car driving down the street with its blinker on and knowing it will turn is seeing the future. There is nothing metaphysical about her seeing his muscle twitch and predicting his action. Thus humans can defy Atium. As to the Free Will Debate, what it is in real life doesn't matter for the books. The authors beliefs and representations of things within the books do. I think its fairly clear Mistborn characters have souls, free will, and can do other things normal people can't.

In many ways free will is believed to have been disproved. What it really comes down too as that we all have choices we really want. I want to go buy a new video game. I could drive and get one but I won't. Because I have enough self control to choose not to. In a way Free Will is self control. If you look at the people you spend time with who lack self control it seems they are slaves to their vices doesn't it. Same idea. It also deals more with long term things. The morals you choose. The people you spend time with. Etc.

Inanimate you say? Not that I think that is a plant thinking, but given the Cosmere's physics I can totally see it. Plants are in fact nuts. Their ecosystem is tons more violent than ours. Every Plant is attacking or feeding off of, or infecting or something every other plant. Trees pump acids into the ground to stop other things from growing by them. Vines strangle trees. Trees have such wide toips not only to steal as much sunlight as possible, but to make it harder for plants to grow by their roots. Same reason pine needles drop everywhere.

It isn't. In all honesty the difference is we can think well enough to recode ourselves-changing how we react to stimuli based on past results.(Or at least this is what psychologists would say.) I'm of the opinion there is a soul involved somewhere too. And our filing system sucks. When was the last time your hard drive forgot something without it dying?

Hroom. (Had to be said.) I'd bet its realmatic in a very loose and referential way. Nothing important. Just a little joke from Brandon to himself.

I think what this comes down to is Atium is treated as a large mystery.