Koloss17

Oh this reminds me that I should maybe actually get around to making those other npc sheets…

Good catch! Does that mean he essentially absorbed the physical aspect of the aluminum sheath? Would be pretty crazy if he did it that early on.

I agree with this, mostly. The main interesting thing to me is the sentience aspect of it. If someone ran away with Nightblood's cognitive aspect, would he be present in both? What would he see/who would he talk to? Is him getting sentience going to put a limit on how far apart the two (potentially three) parts of him can be from each other? And of course, the question of if one person drew him in one realm, how would that affect the other realm? can he bond to two people at once? Again, the implications are weird, and I don't think we currently have a good answer to any of them. This is actually a fair point. However if that was the case, the fact that he has enough power to integrate aluminum of all things into himself would be something. Now, given that its clear that aluminum only does so much to him, it is something I wouldn't be too surprised about. My bet is on the idea of a cognitive sheath though, as that seems more plausible.

okay, weird. So Malatium was somehow made through refining atium (dunno how they figured that out) and then alloyed with gold. Also, did Elend burn pure atium? I assumed he just duralumin bursted El-Atium, which just produced a pure atium-like effect. Also not to derail this post further, but are "seers" just electrum mistings? The coppermind is weird about describing it, but that seems to partially be because this retcon is entirely explained through WoBs. The whole retcon is infuriating to me, not because it didn't need to happen, because it kind of did, but because none of it is yet described in the books, and feels kind of important magic system-wise.

So this is kind of a tag post with @Stormlightsong, who brought up a portion of these points. They will probably also contribute their own thoughts to this post, but here is mine. WaT gave us a lot about nightblood, which I quite like. We saw the extent of his current powers, as well as some wild implications. Here I’ll summarize them and invite anyone to help explain them/add more to it. First, we’ll start in the beginning. at some point, Vasher and Shashara went to Roshar, where they saw shardblades. Inspired by this, they went about trying to create their own shardblade using awakening. This started their quest to awaken metal, which led to the creation of Nightblood. Originally, Nightblood was an ordinary steel sword, as outlined in Warbreaker. With the command “destroy evil” and potentially further shenanigans by Vasher and Shashara, Nighblood was awakened, immediately turning black. Clearly this was the first experimentation with awakening steel, but it was clear that something went wrong, and that it was *way* more destructive than anticipated. When Shashara wanted to spread the knowledge of how to awaken metal with others, Vasher quickly had a fight with her about it, eventually leading to him killing her with Nightblood. Obviously Nightblood is sentient, which is just a consequence of a lot of investiture being in the same place. It is interesting how immediate his sentience was, unlike how it took a long time for Honor’s investiture to become sentient. I suspect this is a consequence of awakening, as awakened objects seem to innately have some amount of personality. Now why is Nightblood so weird, and why is he black? To me, Yumi has a clear answer in the Father Machine, which is also an awakened object that is very black, destructive, and extremely powerful. All of this screams Ruin, and given that we know that Nightblood has Ruin’s investiture, I am inclined to think this is what’s going on, at least in part. I suspect the way this happened was that the command “destroy evil” is inherently very Ruinous, and the intent of the command led to Ruin’s investiture automatically getting sucked into Nightblood, turning the sword black (ruin’s color). Given this was meant to be an imitation of a Shardblade, Nightblood became a blade that had the ability to absorb investiture, and basically grow from it, quite similar to Larkins. Which admittedly isn’t at all like shardblades, but has a similar effect when stabbing someone, which is they die very quickly. For shardblades, this kills them in both the physical and cognitive realm, but for nightblood, this kills them in all three realms. However, from what we’ve seen with the vast power difference between nightblood of Warbreaker and nightblood of Stormlight, I don’t know if this has always been the case, or that it only became the case later on. There also seems to be shenanigans involved with the fact that Nightblood was originally steel, as stated by this WoB. How significant, I don’t know, but given that we know steel has inherent Cosmere magical significance (that of pushing things away), I can see that it impacted Nightblood’s power set. How it impacted it, I’m not sure. When Nightblood takes the investiture, it does eventually leak out of him and go to the spiritual realm, as described in WaT. However, it does seem clear that he does fully consume some amount of investiture, increasing his power over time. The rate at which he takes investiture, both from the bearer and whoever he hits increases over time, which probably coincides with his increase in strength and power, presumably meaning that Nighblood is getting exponentially more powerful as time goes on (more investiture held=more investiture absorbed=more investiture held, etc). When nightblood is drawn, he takes investiture from everywhere, as well as creating a certain bloodlust, which while not quite Ruinous, does seem weirdly Odious. Does that mean there’s some Odium in there? Maybe? I think the command of “destroy evil” has an inherently Retribution-like mentality, which would make sense if he was inspired from Rosharan magic. This investiture sucking is most prominent at his blade, but he also absorbs investiture from his bearer as well, albeit at a less deadly rate. There seems to be some sort of bond formed between him and his bearer, as both the bloodlust and investiture sapping seems to indicate. Is this a Luhel bond? A Nahel bond? Something different? I don’t know. But it is distinctly different from the bond that he made with Kaladin, which is possibly different than him granting surges, which was distinctly a Nahel bond. Past the whole investiture sucking and super mega overkill, Nightblood can also communicate telepathically with people. This is not unique to Nightblood, but it is interesting. Notably, this is not interfered with when he has his aluminum sheathe on, unlike his investiture sucking ability. Additionally, he can fill people with a sense of unease and sickness if they are not pure of heart, and also goad people into drawing him, which feels very Rioter-esque. There’s a reason as to why he can do all this while the sheath is on, and I will get to that. a tidbit on another aspect of nightblood: his ability to read thoughts, like a Radiant spren can. Speaking of the sheath, the sheath is…interesting. It was explicitly not created during Nighblood’s construction, and while it limits Nightblood, it doesn’t limit them fully. Additionally, Nightblood imagines himself with a sheath in the cognitive realm, which is incredibly interesting, and I will get to soon. How long that’s been the case is unclear, but it is significant. We do know that at this point, even though Nightblood started out as ordinary steel, that he is now something different. What? We don’t know. We know it’s not aluminum, not quite a god metal, and not an aluminum-titanium alloy. Now, Nightblood’s cognitive aspect is interesting for a variety of reasons. One, he seems to see through the cognitive realm, or at least partially through it, as he sees himself as the radiant sword that he is in the CR. As I mentioned before, he now sees himself with a sheath, which is incredibly interesting. This cognitive sheath is definitely not the aluminum sheath in the PR, as that is not part of nightblood and would theoretically manifest as a bead, and this cognitive sheath holds back Nightblood’s powers, which is incredibly interesting. As @Stormlightsong told me, this seems to imply that Nightblood is only bound by the aluminum sheath because he thinks he is. This…makes a lot of sense actually. Because again, Nightblood isn’t just the blade. He’s also the hilt, which is not at all covered by the sheath. When exactly Nightblood was trained to think that his sheath limits his powers is unclear, but it is likely that Vasher essentially gaslit Nightblood into thinking that the Sheath limits him. Obviously it doesn’t limit all of his powers, but it does limit at least the blade part of it. Now this brings up a lot of questions about why he forgets his actions while unsheathed, and why he basically changes personality and becomes way more single-minded while unsheathed, but it is interesting. Additionally, CR nightblood and PR nightblood are distinct entities. When Szeth emerges from the CR, he finds Nightblood to be in the exact same place he left it in the PR, which seems to indicate that his physical form didn’t move when his cognitive form moves. This implies some weird things about how distant Nightblood’s physical and cognitive forms can be from each other, and what would happen when two different people interact with both forms at the same time, but that’s a whole other thing. The possibilities and questions are endless, and I don’t think we have the answers to many of them. Lastly, let’s talk about Nightblood harnessing the surges. How did he do that? I don’t know. Could he have always done that? Probably not, likely only in his more powerful form that we see in Stormlight. The mechanics of it are slightly unclear to me, but it seems that he is essentially strengthening the bond between the user and channeling the investiture that he holds to imitate the surges. Does he actually channel Honor’s surges when he does this? Uhhhhh idk. Probably not? Again, many questions, almost all of them I don’t think we can even get the answers to right now. I believe that covers all of Nightblood’s many abilities and how/why they exist, but if I missed any, or if you disagree with any of my points, let me know! Nightblood is weird and complicated, and it seems incredibly likely that how he works have changed over the decade or so that he was created.

Btw once the era actually starts going, I’m going to be deleting this thread, so the gradual shift to using the collaboration thread for this would be good.

I would say at this point, especially after the stunt he pulled at the end of Era 7, any Scadrian would definitely know about him, and someone that likes to be informed about the going ons of Alleycity would know about him. Given all of the crazy shot that goes on, the people that just live in a district and mind their own business wouldn’t really need to care about Perses, as he’s almost exclusively acted inside of the Scadrian districts.

This also connects to the whole atium retcon thing, right? That og atium was actually a magically augmented electrum-atium alloy, and that pure atium would both be usable by anyone (like lerasium) and that we don't know anything about how pure atium works?

you can, but I will give a warning for all of the people who have second characters that aren't experienced in the RP yet: be very careful not to overextend yourself. If your two characters become important for two different plots, and you get busy with other more important things than the Alleyverse, that is a very easy way to put the RP to a standstill. So yes, you can have more characters, but for each character that you have active in the RP at the same time, the more times the metaphorical RP ball will be in your court, and you will have to be prepared for it. Of course if you do get busy with something, you are never expected to RP over anything else you have going on. I would very much appreciate it though that if you are unable to RP for longer than say a week, that you communicate your absence to the people you are interacting with, and possibly give a suggestion on how they can carry on without your character. @Steel Speedster this also applies to you. I will say that Soon (TM) I will be making a second character that will be a UFO agent, but you are always welcome to have whatever character. From what I understand, Stormlightsong wants to get to the point that for the most part, he doesn't have to have his characters be directly involved in the plot (at least for this episode), and more have them give out orders for other characters to follow through with. Also you are free to have NPC characters that you RP to further the plot in some way, with the main difference being that they don't have to be as fleshed out and can be used by other players, serving more of a plot device for other characters than a character themselves. You can see that with both Midas and Phemus in my debut post, where they're really just there to set the scene.

I actually like this character a lot! As to your point, are you asking the internal timeline of the Alleyverse, or the external timeline? Because essentially the Alleyverse is a pocket dimension that creates entry points across all of space and time in every one of Sanderson's works. It operates outside of the times of those universes, and once you're in the Alleyverse it is very difficult/dangerous to get out of it. Alleycity, given that it has people from many different places, times, and universes, will have a wide variety of technologies, cultures, and abilities. Its sort of Ankh-Morpork-like, if you are familiar with Terry Pratchett's Discworld. Have you read the worldbuilding and etiquette guide? I assume you have, so I won't go into more details about Alleycity itself. If you're asking about the events and history of Alleycity, I have a plot summary of the previous era (which still needs to be fully updated, and which I should have updated soon) that you can look at. Anything older than that you're kind of on your own for discovering in this subforum, but there is some stuff there. Era 7 was meant to be a soft reset to the Alleyverse RP, so you don't need to know anything earlier than Era 7, and Era 8 is in a completely different district than last era, with a largely different plot, so you don't need to know what happened last era to RP. If you have questions about anything, feel free to ask! Alright back to your character. So close to being approved. Two questions tho: 1. was the spiking of the allomantic powers two different instances of spiking a rioter and a gnat? I assume so, I just want clarification. 2. I generally like having a small portion of the backstory dedicated to how your character got to Alleycity. The how is intentionally extremely vague, so feel free to decide on anything. I know of characters that have traveled the cognitive realm for it, some that have just stumbled into it, some that were trapped in the Alleys for a bit, some that were forcefully taken into it. How you get here can be anything you want, but knowing the how can help bridge the backstory and the present. In your case, another small paragraph or so on what your character has been doing in the 6 months between arriving and now would also be nice.

Midas, New Hallandren, Mayor's Office. Midas strolled his chambers, troubled. He wore flowing, golden robes, which rippled slightly as he walked. Surrounding him was a sphere of color, brightening the colors of the already colorful room. The room was, quite frankly, a mess. Scrolls and cloth were littered all about the place, with many colors of ink sitting across many of the shelves, along with a myriad of books. So many books. However, the state of his room was not what worried Midas. What worried him was the news he had been hearing about a new organization. A dangerous one. A group of Idrians had gathered across the district, and were scheming something. What, Midas had no clue. And that scared him more than anything. A tap sounded from the window. Looking up, he saw Muninn, his crow. He opened the window sill, and Muninn quickly flew over to Midas' desk. In one of his talons, he dropped a note. Midas, Your concerns seem to have merit. This is bigger than you or I had feared. There have been sightings on non Idrians working with them, with multiple Scadrians and Threnodites spotted in company of the Idrians. Most recently, a Scadrian was seen dealing aluminum in the lower quarter, but unfortunately slipped away. I fear something is coming. Make sure to be alert, and I will continue to be on the lookout for further trouble. I suggest we increase surveillance, and keep tighter records of those entering and leaving the district. I know you are concerned about scaring the general public, but it might be necessary. The risk of violence seems to be growing, and it doesn't look to be something we can deal with quietly. Midas put down the note, troubled. How had the Idrians gotten so powerful? They had always been a problem, even when their numbers were few. Was this really something bigger? Muninn cawed softly, and Midas gently stroked him. Lifeless were often seen as mindless servants, but that seemed disingenuous. They at least had echoes of their past lives, however muted. Turning back to his window, he surveyed the district. A bustle of colorful, tightly packed clay buildings, each with a unique life to it. New Hallandren was one of the densest districts in the city, with endless pathways and corners. He tried to be informed about the going ons of the common people, but it was a nearly impossible task. Midas missed the days in Hallandren, where life as a Returned was much simpler. Still, the responsibility was invigorating, even with the stress. This was his district, and he would protect it. A slice of a glorious nation, and of a peoples like no other. He would do everything he could to keep this divine district safe. However, he would have to act quickly. .................. Phemus, New Hallandren, 403 Obsidian Lane Phemus sculked to his home, palms sweaty. He had successfully acquired his contraband, but had been tailed. He thought he'd lost them, but with Lifeless around, you could never be certain. Closing the blinds, he set a small briefcase on his table. He still hadn't gotten used to the sheer amount of color that surrounded him at all times. Rusts, even the streets were named after a color. For a place named Obsidian street, there sure was a lot of nauseatingly bright hues. Luckily, this district was known for complete freedom of home customization, so Phemus managed to paint his house's interior a tolerable beige. Opening the case, which was a professional black, he beheld his gear. A small aluminum revolver, with a convenient handling and maintenance guide. Alongside it, an obsidian dagger, carefully designed and reinforced to be easily concealed in typical Hallandren clothing. On the inside of the suitcase, recessed into the aluminum briefcase, was the logo of his new boss. Uninvested Future Organization. Feeling the weapons, Phemus felt a sense of safety that he hadn't felt in quite some time. New Hallandren had a strict no firearms policy, with nonapproved aluminum gear being strictly regulated. It was a dumb rule, and obviously was made to keep awakeners at the top of the power structure. At this point, it was blatantly obvious that this district played favorites. Non-Hallandren were quietly discriminated against, and non-Nalthians were openly disadvantaged. This district's attempts at maintaining a frankly backwards status quo infuriated him, and solidified his allegiances. Ever since he stepped down from being the Smokestack Constable General after a "magical accident" at the precinct, Phemus had been seeking employment in other districts. But this rusting city didn't make it easy for non-invested folk. So when he heard wind of a group that promised a home for the non-invested, he eagerly joined up. For now, he was just a field grunt. However, given time and loyalty, he was promised a respectable role. Phemus tucked his new tools away, carefully out of sight. "To an Uninvested Future," he muttered. Things were going to change, one way or another. ........ Perses, New Hallandren, Pygma's Workshop. “Aaaand done! Should be good to go.” Pygma finished her final stitch on the awakened mistcoat. “That took…” Pygma checked her pocket watch, which was doubtlessly also awakened. “35 minutes. Was hoping for 30, but hey,” She closed one of her eyes while looking at Perses. “Can’t rush art.” Perses had always struggled with social interactions, even on Scadrial. There was just so many body signals that people made, and even with rudimentary sight provided by tapping an incredible amount of steelsight, he still couldn’t decipher what people meant. Still, he thanked Pygma for her work. She was rumored to be the best awakener in the district, and thus far, Perses would be inclined to believe them. Though her sewing work was done by hand, the mistcoak was fashioned and awakened by her half a year ago, and after a number of fights, all that was needed on the cloak was a little stitchwork. The cloak was made of leather, with mistcloak tassels having sharpened bone blades at the end. The mistcoat was then ornamented with various carefully placed bones, forming light armor around the chest and arms. He was told that the black leather and the bone armor looked very intimidating, but Perses couldn’t know. To him, things are only threatening when they are proven to be a threat. Suddenly, a loud blaring noise sounded outside. Perses automatically turned down his hearingmind, so that the noise was a tolerable rumble. Perses didn’t know that New Hallandren had announcement systems, but then again, he didn’t know all that much about this district. “By the decree of Midas Glorybringer, this district is now under lockdown,” a pompous voice sounded across the district, “If you wish to leave, you may make a case for your departure at the New Hallandren Trades Building. Those without a direct permit will be barred from exiting, and those without explicit permission from me will be barred entry to New Hallandren. I apologize for the inconvenience, but thank you for your compliance.” Pygma breathed a sigh of annoyance. “It's not like I was planning on going anywhere, but what of my clients! I’ll have to speak with Midas about this. He probably has a good reason, but still. He could have at least told me!” She began to walk off, then froze, turning to Perses. “Oh dear. Will you be alright?” Perses grinned, something he had been told didn’t give the effect he wanted with spikes through his eyes. “Don’t worry about me. I'll be fine.” He wasn’t planning on crossing the district border anyways. As both he and Pygma went their separate ways, Perses’ face melted into a frown. What was that about? He was usually well informed about the going-ons of the city, but had heard nothing about anything bad enough to warrant a district lockdown. Plus, they rarely ever worked. While it was in each mayor’s power to order a lockdown, it often ended in violence. Usually, those in social power had the most physical power, which meant they could enforce their will on those under them. However, in Alleycity, a place of Radiants, Mistborn, Epics, and Elantrians, that was rarely the case. Unfortunately, Perses had other business to attend to. He would, however, be paying close attention as events unfolded in New Hallandren. Turning into an alleyway, he called upon Belias. As soon as he did, Perses vanished into the Alleys. @Lunamor, @Stormlightsong, @SpiritOfWrath, @Steel Speedster, @Ookla the Irreplaceable, @KnightSkye, @Wits instant noodles

Yayyyyyy!

I have been summoned! I haven't been on the non-Alleyverse forums in a while, but for the uninitiated, hi, I'm Koloss17, the F-Tin Overlord. I am here because someone mentioned F-Tin. Is F-Tin the same as A-Tin? Beyond the obvious (storing has more versatility than burning/flaring), F-Tin is vastly superior to A-Tin. Not only can you store senses that are unhelpful in the moment (closing off sense of smell/hearing when they are more a distraction than an asset), the ability to store pain is perhaps the single most powerful aspect of a non-twinborn tin ferring. Yes, the damage is still there, and both A-pewter and F-gold will be better for that, but being the third best thing is nothing to scoff at, especially since the ability to store/tap all the other senses provides such versatility in both combat and noncombat scenarios. However, this specific matchup is one that F-Tin will easily win. Why? Because of reverse compounding. This isn't an official term, and some people use it for different things, but for me, reverse compounding is the ability to store abilities granted by allomancy in feruchemy, breaking the net-neutrality of feruchemy, which over time will lead to a very rare feruchemy savant (relevant wob). F-Tin is the undisputed champion of this sort of thing, as there is a myriad of extra senses provided by Allomancy (Bronzesense, steel/ironsense, electrumsense, atiumsense, and goldsense). In addition to that, there are increases in specific senses through both A-Tin and A-pewter, which increases your sense of balance to account for the increase in strength. So in this case, the difference between an A-Tin/F-Pewter twinborn and A-Pewter/F-Tin savant is significant. While yes, F-pewter gives potentially much more strength than A-pewter, F-Tin, especially as a savant, would provide advantage far beyond what A-tin could provide. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

First of all-thanks for the feedback! These are all my first pass at cards, so any feedback is incredibly useful, and reworks are very doable. I'll list the cards that I based a some of the cards around: -Unruly insurgents->Unruly mob -Bathe in blood->barter in blood -Arrogant coinshot->activated ability based around Pia and Kiran Nalaar. I believe the current iteration is now down to 2 mana. -Tear to pieces->unholy heat -Studious scheming->careful study+Taigam's scheming As for larger set structure, here's the current working concept, which is of course still in flux: WU: Sagas+transform cards. Basically lore counter manipulation and shenanigans. As to the rules weirdness, see Myth Realized, a card that uses lore counters, yet is not a saga and whose counters have not been changed. WB: Skaa, Steel Ministry, and exploit. Aristocrats, essentially. I think your point of cutpurses not really being a thing is fair, but there also seems to be mutual exploitation going on. Not a lot, but Camon, for example, is very exploitative, and I believe there are scuffles between thieving crews. WR: Rebels and revolt. I thought the revolt mechanic was a cool keyword for the rebellion, and also synergizes with the WB archetype, which makes thematic sense. WG: Currently slightly nebulous, but the current idea is tokens, with a merging of noble treasure tokens and skaa creature tokens. Flavor-wise, the current idea is the various battles, skirmishes, and rival parties of WoA. UB: Surveil, library manipulation, and clash. Flavor-wise, it is meant to encapsulate the noble politics and deception of TFE and beyond, with a mess of lies and hidden information causing disputes and fights. Why clash? Well I'll be honest, I really wanted to make clash a playable mechanic, and the library manipulation of Dimir synergizes really nicely. The flavor of lorwyn clash was much more physical skirmishes, but this is more mental and social skirmishes (with a few physical skirmishes too). Why surveil? well it synergizes with the gy synergies of GB, and scrying has a very particular magical flavor to it. Why not both? I mostly think that would be confusing, but clash being also a scry mechanic tied to it could mess with that. I'm open to playing around with both of them, but I worry it would get confusing in a draft environment. UR: Allomancers and activated abilities. We've decided to have allomancy being expressed through mana-based activated abilities, creating the through-line of mana pool and mana as the main resource being easily translatable into the metal reserves of allomancy. Plus, I like the flavor of being able to use treasures as fuel for allomancy, either through burning the treasure, or selling it for vials. UG: Nobles and treasures. Mostly noble matters, as well as ammassing of wealth and using treasures as a currency. For example, I'll eventually make a card that gives someone a treasure or two to have their creature fight another creature. How that will change is still to be seen, but noble typal being mostly in UG is the current plan, with UB also having a lot of nobles. BR: Artifacts and Hemalurgy. How will artifacts be used? uhhhhh that's still to be determined. Currently artifact sacrifice seems to be an idea, but I also worry about the homogenizing of artifact sacrifice in BR, creature sacrifice in WB, and things leaving mattering in WR. There will probably be an effort to diffrentiate those archetypes, but that's something we havent gotten to yet. BG: Graveyard manipulation and the new excise mechanic. Name is still in flux, but its basically grave revolt, caring about a card leaving your graveyard. The main way this will be achieved is through exiling the card, but minor reanimation and EWit-style effects will be interspersed as well. The main flavor of this is the idea that in TFE, you die, your body gets looted, and your possessions are taken from you, with your very existence soon being erased and forgotten. This will mostly be through skaa scavenging and looting the scraps they can get (see how scavenge and loot are already magic keywords and can't be used for the new keyword), but there will also be kandra using a body for shapeshifting, nobles and the ministry covering up evidence of misdoings, and other small flavor bits. The big thing is that we want to have an archetype that deals with the graveyard while not being reanimator, as that really isn't something that is in the magic system. RG: This *used* to be the transform matters archetype, before we combined sagas and some transform things in UW. There's a chance we'll have this still be transform matters, but it could also be the monarch archetype. We'll see where the set takes us, but right now neither transform nor monarch have a clear, solid home, and we shall see where that goes. This is more a post explaining my reasoning for the larger strokes, and less for the specific feedback you gave, but I did read it and I agree with a lot of your points. Though I think a lot of it was about why certain mechanics were included, and so this will hopefully answer that. And yes, we're going with ten archetypes, but none of them are set in stone yet. I think right now we have close to 20 cards made, so starting from scratch with an archetype or pivoting directions is very doable and will likely inevitably happen. (I say we because I am working with someone else on this, they just don't use the Shard.)

Three new cards! The set will be having DFCs, and while not all of them will involve lore counters, there will be a synergy there with sagas in UW, so stay on the lookout for those!

Overall looks good! My main caution would be wary of not making it a gimmick character, and make sure he has more deep character than just “goofy mad scientist,” but knowing you, and knowing that your last character was both a gimmicky character and incredibly interesting, I will trust that you can handle that. Approved!

I can definitely make that happen. It would be a hair more work on my end, but I can make it work. Can't guarantee I'll be super speedy with it, but its basically just creating a list of approved characters and who they belong to. It was done in Era 6, but if it is useful (and it seems it is), then I can make it work for era 8.

Here's the very first batch of cards! I'll be honest, for most of em I found cool art that inspired me to make a card. Any/all feedback is welcome, whether that be a reworking of a card, a buff/nerf, or a rarity/mana cost shift. Anything is game! Edit: added two more, but neither are anything special. I have also made further edits to a few cards, but all of them are minor.

Looks good! Approved!

Okey doke! When you come up with a psychological flaw, lemme know, and you’re likely to get your character approved!

I'm a big fan of the backstory details, as this shows me you have a good idea of your character and what makes them the way they are. Great improvement there, and I have no need to prod further. Power-wise, I like the potential of a radiant still inexperienced with their plate, but I don't think it is quite enough to even out the sheer power of a skilled windrunner. Maybe rather than a physical flaw, it could be a mental flaw. Perhaps Kaiden is used to fighting with a team, and feels easily overwhelmed when facing someone alone. Perhaps his PTSD gets the better of him during combat, which leaves him vulnerable or unable to help at times, both assisting his fourth ideal while also making him struggle with it, as its this time his fault rather than others' choices that prevent him from protecting people. Something like that would be juicy, as it would be a point of character growth beyond "oh well he just needs some time to get used to his plate". This could be in addition to that flaw, or it could be instead of it. Flaws aren't necessarily just handicaps to put on a character because I tell ya to. They can be excellent motivators for change, as well as being something that defines how they interact with the world. And obviously these are just brainstormed ideas for the character, and you could probably come up with something better for your character. Also, exactly how recently has Kaiden arrived in the Alleyverse? Has it been a month, where Kaiden has been able to catch up on the going ons of the city and get used to the layout? Has is been a week or two, with enough time to get used to this weird new world? Has it been only a day or two, with enough time for him to come to terms with the fact that this is his home now, at least for the foreseeable future? Has it been less that 24 hours, where he still doesn't know what in damnation is going on? Will his first scene be him entering the Alleyverse? Any of these time spots are A OK, I'm just asking to get you thinking about how your first post will look like and what would be at the front of Kaiden's mind.

Hype! Thankies!

Alright. Knowing that its a retcon, lets take a look at this. 1. I actually like the whole forced shield thing, and I think that has a lot of potential. An alternative is doing something akin to Lift and Wyndle, where the form is variable, but is forced to be a nonlethal weapon. However, whatever floats your boat. 2. The socialism route is something I honestly wasn't expecting. I think it will be interesting to see in action, but seems out of left field for a radiant. What inspired such ideals, and how is that reflected in his oaths? Socialism is a fairly broad political idea, and so I'm wondering what inspired that and what in specific are Eleos' goals with it? I could see an attempt to break down class divides, as the whole lighteyes-darkeyes thing is a big element of at least Alethi politics. Altruism is a fairly standard radiant thing, and so attempting to encourage systems where people are accomodated for based on needs rather than social status has potential. I just think getting more specific than "socialist policies" and reflecting that in Eleos' backstory would be useful. 3. Speaking of backstory, I'm honestly considering forcing people who want radiants to explain their oaths and how they got there. That might cause an unintentional barrier to entry for people wanting to play radiants, which is why I'll probably not instate that, but still. Ideals are important moments of character growth, and I feel that including how your character got to the ideal that they got to is valuable for building up the character. I'm not going to make you figure out your ideals, but I do want some backstory as to how Eleos got up to fourth ideal, and what major events/character changes were required to make that happen. 4. I know that the ideals of Stonewards and Windrunners are very similar, but right now Eleos is feeling much more like his values are about protecting those that need protecting, rather than being there when needed and general dependability. I think that can be expressed in a stonewardy way, but clarifying that is important. Why did Eleos become a stoneward? what actions or morals led to that being the path he went down? 5. With any radiant, a NPC is kind of required in the form of their spren. Given that, dedicating a portion of the character sheet (or even a mini separate character sheet) dedicated to their spren is useful. While its mostly the personality of the spren that matters to me, its important to know that you have a three dimensional side character of a spren rather than pretending the spren doesn't exist or just acting as a voice in your main character's head. One of the most interesting things to me about radiants is their relationship with their spren, and knowing that you have the beginnings of that relationship already somewhat explored before RPing is useful. The concept is there, I just need more depth and explanation, especially in the backstory. Radiants are all about backstory and the intersection with morals, and I think its important to emphasize that rather than skim over it when playing a radiant. Similar thing with @RoyalBeeMage's character here. I like the idea of it, but I need a bit more from you, especially since you are playing a radiant. Points 3-5 of the above text also apply to your character, so I'll not rehash all of that here. Basically working on solidifying morals, backstory as to how the character got to the fourth ideal, why they became the order that they are along with what actions caused them to be noticed, and a brief section of the character sheet or separate mini sheet covering the spren, with an emphasis on comparing and contrasting between the radiant and spren's personality and values. And yeah, WaT spoilers is something to watch for. Slight backstory, so long as it is not spoiling any major plotpoints of the book is fine, but the RP does adhere to the Shard's spoiler policy. From what I'm reading as of right now, it seems fine, but I would be very careful about spoilers when getting into the actual RP. Specifically with the Spiritual Realm stuff, it's really tricky to navigate without relying on WaT stuff. I think it can slide, but as someone approving your character, I would want to know what their trip to the SR looked like and how it affected them. Beyond the backstory, which needs work (specifically with points 3-5 of my commentary on Eleos), my next biggest thought is that of power levels. This is something I went over with RoyalBeeMage when they first made the idea of Eleos in era 7, but radiants are powerful. Especially Windrunners. To explain why, I'll compare it to Scadrian magic systems. Say we had a character that was a lurcher, which is one of the more respectably powerful allomancers on Scadrial. I'm using this example because we actually have a lurcher in @Lunamor's character, Eza. Lurchers, combat-wise, have the ability to strip enemies of their metal components, which can be played around and accounted for. They can have increased mobility in the right indoor environment, and can also pull on small metal objects around the room and use them as potentially dangerous, or at least distracting, projectiles. But that's about it. Good crowd control, nice tricks and shenanigans that can be pulled off, and generally quite a formidable powerset. A Fourth Ideal Windrunner, however, can do most of that and more. For one, they can just straight up fly, with no real restrictions. Additionally, they can cause other people to fly, be immobilized, or have their weapons thrown about with relative ease. See the opening chapter of the Way of Kings for a great showcase on that, or Kaladin's badass scene against Lezian in RoW. Through the use of Stormlight, any radiant also has incredible self healing abilities, with the ability to brush off just about any blow so long as they have stormlight to spare. Beyond the power set, a fourth ideal radiant is also a full shardbearer, but better. With a shapeshifting shardblade that can instantly appear and disappear, a radiant has the ability, with at least a nine foot reach (assuming only 3 foot wingspan and a 6 foot blade) with the ability to instantly kill someone if the blade so much as touches someone. And may I remind you that shardblades are incredibly light, meaning they are much faster than you would expect a blade of that size to be (compare to a koloss sword, which are hefty even with pewter). Additionally, they are in full plate, which means that most blows deflect off of them, the majority of the impact of a blow is absorbed, and it provides the wearer with superhuman strength and speed (probably comparable to constantly burning pewter). A fourth ideal windrunner has the capability to singlehandedly take down an army, without taking any serious damage themselves. Heck, there's plenty of discussion on if a radiant could beat a full Mistborn, and if we're talking a TFE mistborn without atium, I think a radiant would win 100% of the time. That is not to say that you can't play a fourth ideal radiant. Especially this era, as there is going to be an organization that specializes in dealing with highly invested entities like radiants. What I am saying, however, is that there needs to be handicaps put on the character. If you haven't read the character creation section in the Alleyverse rules and etiquette guide, there's more on what I'm talking about there. Essentially, because you are dealing with a character that unhindered would be more powerful than the majority of other characters, having flaws that pull that power more in line with other characters is kind of necessary. I'm just going to quote a previous response I gave earlier in this thread on why that matters and how it can be achieved. This was in response to an elantrian character, but the same reasoning applies here, if not more so. If you have any questions, either about backstory or power level, let me know! I'm here to help.

yeah, I get that. I talked a bit with someone that was building a Stormlight set over at r/custommagic, and they only started thinking about the set aspect of things like 150 cards in, and while they did appreciate the whole “throw things at the wall and see what sticks” aspect of designing, they also wished they had solidified the archetypes earlier, as when they got around to thinking about the set aspect a whole, they had to scrap a lot of cards because they just didn’t fit the set. So my current plan is to still do that “slap things together and mess around” style of building, but with a vague idea of a set beforehand. If while messing about, I feel that an archetype should be switched or changed, that is totally something that can be done. And like-I’m not creating rigid archetypes here, just making vague ideas of what *type* of thing goes where, and when actually building cards, I’m sure the themes and archetypes will solidify and shift.

That’s the best thing: I don’t know. Like, flavorfully there’s a lot of aspects to Allomancy that I think are all awesome, but have aspects that can’t all exist in magic. Here’s a list of some of them. -You need specific metals for specific powers: color bound/mechanic bound abilities. Seems restrictive and unnecessary, so probably not. -burning vs flaring: could be exert or a similar thing, possibly two separate abilities, with one costing more. I tried it, and while I liked the flavor, it ended up being very wordy. Maybe there could be something like keywording flare to basically be “pay double this resource, get this extra effect” but again that’s wordy. -metals are a limited resource to be managed: this one I think is very in keeping with Magic, and could be done. I think this kind of rules out the option of representing allomancy as a static ability, which I’m fine with. Either paying mana or using some other resource (such as metal counters/tokens, essentially reskinning energy counters) are both viable options, and have their own downsides, as previously discussed. -savantism: overuse leads to addiction. I don’t think this can be a common mechanic, but you can certainly have a Spook card that needs an amount of mana/resource to be paid on the upkeep to do anything that turn. There’s compromises that need to be made, and I feel like I can make them, but it’s hard to decide which ones to give up on. I’m slowly coming around to the off brand energy idea (possibly making them artifacts to sacrifice, but I worry that might clutter boardstates), with one big hurdle: with energy, there’s generally inherent generation of energy on the card itself. A lot of kaladesh cards just said “get some amount of energy when this enters,” which is a fine enough solution, but doesn’t seem flavorful for allomancers. Generally allomancers acquire their own vials from other sources, which is why a flavor of mana metaphorically acting as metal makes sense to me. It also has the upside of being able to use treasure tokens to fuel allomancy, which can both be buying vials or just eating the metal, which I’m a fan of. maybe instead of having just activated abilities, there could be triggered abilities that cost mana to activate as well. Like “whenever x happens” or “whenever this creature attacks”, which could solve some of that mechanical restriction. Obviously it leads to the problem of meaning that non-allomancers probably wont be able to have abilities that require mana, but I honestly think that’s fine. That just means that I have to get creative with cost payment, and I can have spells and noncreature permanents be mana sinks instead.