Koloss17

Alright! I think it’s safe to say that there’s a good number of approved characters now, so we can start plot scheming. The first thing I’m wondering is this: what does your character want? If nothing interfered with them, what would they be doing in the Alleyverse? My character, Perses, has a fairly clear goal: to be a known power in the Alleyverse. How would he go about that? I don’t really know. He needs contacts, he needs resources, and he needs his name to spread. Perhaps something like a powerful macguffin would push him forward? Something that would give him power and incidentally be something that other people get in his way for. @Stormlightsong, @Edema Rue, @Ravenclawjedi42, and @Ancient Elantrian, what do your characters want? What would they do if they could do anything?

Alright folks, I have been granted temporary approval privileges by the one and only Voidus. I will give y’all some feedback, and if it looks good, I’ll approve ya. Otherwise, I’ll give you feedback and send it back for you to workshop it. So, as long as we can find a way to make him sociable and actually, ya know, interact with people, they look perfectly good to me. My main wondering is this: why are they in the Alleyverse? What caused them to be here? Why do they stay? Additionally, I worry that a quest to be an elantrian would be a hard thing to focus on. However, I think we can find a way to weave it into a narrative. Approved! Alright. From what I understand, this is fairly balanced. However, it is teetering on the edge of overpowered. The only thing keeping this in check is that they are completely new to the Alleyverse, and that they have no clue how to deal with other magic systems. For now, it should be fine. However, make sure to keep an eye on the power level. Approved! This is very close to being approved, though I have a few inquiries: 1) what ideal is he on? That will most certainly affect how strong this character is 2) how did he encounter his spren? What characteristics earned them the honorspren bond? And since you are likely going to be speaking to and interacting with your spren, what is their personality like? 3) the idea of bending the ideals based off of Intent seems very interesting. How do they make that work? And what exactly has been altered? Also, since the oaths were bent, what have their oaths been? This is a very interesting idea, but it needs to be elaborated on for me to approve it. Alright. Overall, the character and personality seems interesting, and certainly workable. However, given that they currently don’t have anything in the way of backstory, I can’t approve it. The goal of the backstory is to 1) explain how they got to the place that they are, and why they became who they are. 2) to help flesh out the character, and make it easier for you to roleplay it. 3) to give a hint of deeper characterization and motivation. It is frankly a vital part of staying invested in a character, and I worry that you won’t be dedicated to roleplaying with your character if they don’t have a backstory. If you are stumped, and this really applies to everyone, send me a dm and I’ll help you out. So from what I understand, this is more volatile chromium. It had the potential to be very powerful, and alternatively, quite dangerous. Given that this is influencing other people’s actions, it would need to be very carefully roleplayed and coordinated with whoever you are roleplaying with. However, I have faith that you can make it work. Be careful, and make sure to play to the superstitions, giving bad luck as well as good luck. Approved! Alright folks. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to not only comment here, but also send me a dm if you feel so inclined. This post will not be permanent, and will only be for assisting the revival. The most important thing to keep in mind for a character is to make sure it is someone that feels three-dimensional, and is someone you feel you can be happy roleplaying, and will not quickly abandon, as that is kind of what caused the Alleyverse die off in the first place. Also, be proactive with communicating with those you plan on roleplaying with. If someone needs to step out due to more important things than roleplaying with random internet strangers, try to be flexible in the plot. I’ll try to help the best I can, but when it comes down to it, that will be a shared responsibility we all have. Best of luck, and let the fun begin!

Doesn’t look like you’re approved as of yet ;(.

Well, there’s enough characters in the character thread, they just haven’t all been approved. If one or two more get approved, I think we can get to business in scheming. Right now though, we have what? 3 approved characters? I don’t think that’s really enough for scheming up an actual plot.

@Voidus, @MacThorstenson or @ZincAboutIt, are any of these yet to be approved characters approvable?

My main concern with F-pewter is that it’s only useful for physical tasks. F-Iron helps with physical tasks and assists with other tasks, leaving it good at more things than F-pewter.

Eh, you might be right. We’ll see what others point out.

I mean, F-steel’s third place. Do you want it to be higher than that?

All right all right, I’ll bring F-Tin down a few notches. As much as I hate to admit it, you make good points. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think F-Tin is the best, but maybe not when it’s only F-Tin. It still would be my first pick. And yeah, copper should be lower down.

As long as you spren-d good time on them, it’ll wind up being great.

Okay that’s good!

Only about 20 minutes. When the brain is set on something, it will Elend you a hand.

Glorious stuff. Sel-dom do you get a joke so Dor-kishly clever.

I appreciate that you’ve taken a Larkin to my work!

Come pun come all, all you of Wit. We shall Unite under a Shard banner of Whimsy. Our goal is clear: to Cos but mere disruptions in the flow of conversations, to interject with a quick quip and to bring Ire to those compound us. This Path was Awakened in me by @Justice_Magician, who I was Fortunate enough to bump into. Without her words Snapping me into motion, I might not have decided to Cultivate this thread. So, all are welcome in this Journey to Destine those around us to endure a living Hell. Our Discordant Harmonies will spike the eyes of those Wit-nessing our tuneful Threnodies. Together, we can Roshare this Chaos with those around us, and write with Intent to cause mischief. You are free to stay in damnation with me, but know this: it might lead to your Ruin. Through the Spirit of fun, we shall employ our Cognitive prowess to cause nearly Physical pain to those around us. Cett the Dunn beVin!

That joke was mind-Shatteringly bad.

I suppose… also, rude! My arguments make perfect sense!

Whisper?

Have you not read the sacred texts? I provide plenty an example. But, if you insist, I shall rehash them. Sight: there are admittedly few points in which is would be useful to dim your sight, but depending on if you could create biological shades with it, it could be nice. Do we know if that works? Not really. It seems very possible though, especially with the right intent. For actual sight, F-Tin works differently than A-Tin. When tapping, it basically acts as binoculars, removing near sight, and amplifying far sight. When storing, it would be basically equivalent to making you nearsighted, which we have already discovered a host of ways to fix (glasses, monocles, you know the gist) so overall, really easy to store. Smell: often, you really don’t need your sense of smell. And depending on where you are, it might be advantageous to not smell what’s around… Hearing: Dampening loud noises, turning off your hearing to better focus on a particular task, or just to better ignore someone that you don’t like! Taste: eating something you don’t like? Not eating anything at the moment? Store away. Touch: again, touching something unpleasant, improving focus, and dissipating itchiness are all good times to store your touchminds. Pain: it’s the only thing that you actively want to store and never touch, completely breaking the net neutrality of Feruchemy!! Balance/Proprioception: easy to store when sitting down, which is a pretty common position to be in. Where storing F-Tin can actually improve your focus, storing F-Steel would absolutely obliterate my focus. Typing, playing a board game, or even just reading, when I go to move something, it being infuriatingly slow? That sounds insanely irritating. Additionally, though I’m sure intent would make this not matter, does storing F-steel decrease your eye speed? Do you lock onto or look at something slower? Probably not, but if so, that sounds like a new level of annoying.

I find this argument compelling. How much higher do you think it deserves to be? Would you believe me that this post was not meant to be more F-Tin propaganda? I understand if you don’t, but now, you’ve forced my hand. So what makes F-Tin the most versatile metal is the fact that storing is just as, if not occasionally more useful as tapping. There are plenty instances where you can easily store every possible sense, as well as actively benefiting from it! I doubt that there is a very easy way to run out of any of your tinminds. Also, we are an insanely sensory species, and so having the ability to manipulate that allows for a massive increase in capability. The limitations with Duralumin and Electrum is that they make everything better when you tap it, but consequently make everything worse when storing. With Chromium, I don’t think we really know how it works with futuresight just yet, and if a chromium Ferring would be able to use that or not.

No such thing!!!

HAPPY TRANS AWARENESS WEEK EVERYONE!!!!!!

Well, now that I’m done with my analysis of every feruchemantic ability, found here, it’s time to rank all of them! I’ll be ranking these in isolation, so assuming that the user is not dual wielding magic systems (except for F-Nicrosil, which I’ll assume is just paired with any other magic system). 16: F-Cadmium Its a tight race between 15th and 16th and I think Cadmium just manages to steal last. Storing breath is cool and all, but is generally only useful for either athletic activities or surviving being suffocated. And to add on to that, storing seems like a nightmare. Having to struggle to breathe and to hyperventilate just so you don’t have to later seems to be a bit much. I’ve ranked it the lowest in my daily analysis, and I stand by it. However, I do admit, it has the most potential for being used as the basis of space travel on Scadrial. But then we are getting into medallions, and that opens up a whole new can of worms. 15: F-Bronze Wakefulness is very useful, don’t get me wrong. But compared to other things? It’s not fantastic. However, I’d say it has the potential to be good. And frankly, I’d be a happy human if I had this. 14: F-Electrum Storing determination has a lot of potential. If we knew a bit more of how it would work, it might get a higher ranking. Right now, I’m seeing it as unlocking your full potential with what you know on one thing, at the cost of doing basically nothing or doing very bad at doing anything for a period of time. Interesting, but doesn’t exactly allow you ability you wouldn’t have otherwise, which is what holds this back. 13: F-Aluminum I’m only putting this so high because I think there’s a lot of potential here. Identity is a very important thing in the Cosmere, and being able to manipulate that in any form is theoretically very powerful. However, we have no clue how it works, and so I can’t really rank it higher. It beats out some of the things we do know, but I can’t in good faith give it a very high spot in this ranking without knowing exactly what it does. 12: F-Bendalloy Being able to store calories seems very nice. It doesn’t give you the ability to destroy worlds, but it sure is convenient. Overeating when you have the resources, and then not having to eat days on end just seems like something that everyone can benefit from. It’s not a crazy good power, but it sure ain’t bad. 11: F-Nicrosil This is another one of those abilities that I can’t put in the top 10. If we knew how it works, sure. I’d still dock it a bit for being useless (as we understand it right now) without having access to another magic system, but it would still be fairly high. Right now, we can only guess at what it can do, and that’s not enough to put it above things that we already know what they do. 10: F-Pewter Okay, top ten are all really tough. All of them are very solid abilities, and placing pewter so low gives me just as much pain as it does you. However, an ability that is probably just not as good as it’s allomantic counterpart that is only really useful for strictly physical jobs is a bit too limited in scope. Especially in a world where there’s guns, being able to be big and beefy can only get you so far. It is, however, still really good in certain situations. 9: F-Zinc This is another ability that is really nice, but comes at a harsh cost. I feel like you can do stronger things with cheaper prices across other metals. Being able to think fast at the cost of thinking slow is quite the extreme. 8: F-Brass This one has serious potential to be higher on the list. Being able to melt or set fire to things with your hands has the potential to be very powerful. Additionally, being comfortable in literally any temperature is very nice. Awesome metal, and really cool. 7: F-Copper Being able to recall anything from memory is seriously nice. It can help with a whole range of things, and is helpful for nearly any walk of life. However, memory can only take you so far if it’s false memory. Keepers have insane memories that normal folk would not be able to match, and so @alder24 makes a fair argument that it would likely be nowhere near as strong as it is in the books because of that. 6: F-Chromium This a lot of potential, and even with the basic idea of ‘luck’, it’s quite good. It stores Fortune, which is something we don’t quite grasp. If I knew the true ramifications of storing fortune, this has the potential to be very high on the list. 5: F-Duralumin Connection is a seriously strong ability, in both storing and tapping. It’s solid in pretty much any situation, but it gets truly powerful when worldhopping. It is an automatic language processor and a super Rioter, as well as dulling people’s awareness of you like A-brass. However, given that I don’t know the full extent of what it can and can’t do, I’ll keep in around here. 4: F-Tin Well, don’t tell me that I’m an unreasonable overlord. F-Tin I’d seriously good, and useful in some capacity for just about anything. However, there will always be something more useful than it in a certain task, and while I still stand by the fact that it is the most versatile metal, something like F-chromium would suit people better in many situations. However, due to the fact that the skill curve is so much higher than F-chromium, as you know exactly how it works, this will still be in the top 5. While it is initially kind of meh on its own, with years of practice, I have no doubt that it can be used to vastly assist the efficiency of just about any task. 3: F-Steel As @Trusk'our has rightly argued, this is one of the most powerful feruchemantic abilities when tapped. It is the undisputed champion of combat, and it is just really convenient in general. It does seem annoying to store, but when the advantage is so great, it is likely worth it. 2: F-Iron Now, this is the single most documented metal, so that might influence things, but it is still just really good. Having upsides when storing and tapping is very strong, and I can see a use in just about any task (aside from politics or IT, I suppose). But any task that requires movement will benefit from this metal, and it is the key to space travel, so I’d say that influences things a lot. 1: F-Gold Now, I freely admit that I am biased towards metals that are easy to store, or even have advantages when stored. But when the advantage is temporary immortality, there are very few prices that would not be worth paying. And if you have to be sniffly for a day or two, it is 1000% worth it for instantly recovering from sickness or injury. This is easily second place. And that’s the list! Let me know if you would change things, and in all likelihood, I’ll end up shimmying this ranking around. I’ll be keeping a log of the changes made to this as little notes at the bottom here, so that we can see what the history of this is. For now though, let me know your thoughts! Let the arguments begin! Edit 1: shifted F-Steel to 5th place Edit 2: dropped F-copper to 7th place, and dropped F-Tin to 4th place. F-Tin is still supreme, but not in this battle.