Trusk'our

47 minutes ago, BinarySecond said:

We need an invested soldier bracket. I have been confusing Direforms for Magnified Ones (Yazed-im).

I do wonder regarding the logistics of the creation of a 1xKalad's Phantom vs 1xKoloss vs 1xRegal

So when it comes to fielding an army the speed at which numbers can be accrued and the associated investiture cost is something I would consider.

Shashara developed single breath awakening which was used to create the Phantom's - But I'm quite sceptical by the written prose that a Phantom would only take a single breath.

Happy to read anything that gives a clearer answer as to the cost. But could range from 50:1 (pre Manywar cost) to 1:1.

It does seem that the creation of a Phantom is going to be very involved. Clean skeleton, encased in stone which doesn't seem all that quick! I would really love to read Vasher's notebooks from his time developing them.

You could acquire the breath from a person and then use them to make the lifeless so that would go some way to limiting the external costs for creation.

I believe Awakening skeletons actually takes upwards of a 100 Breaths if I'm remembering the scene where Vasher explains Awakening to Vivenna correctly. 

It's 1 Breath Lifeless that were the big thing.

1 hour ago, BinarySecond said:

That's a very interesting question - Using the same Hemalurgic method but on differently invested worlds...Identical result or would there be variance?

There's some variation in Koloss output based on the host's attributes. 

34 minutes ago, Nitpicking said:

Also, hemalurgy is hard, you have to place each spike precisely, twice, IIRC (once in a victim to charge it, once in a second victim to use it).

Once you know how it's not hard.

Independent Koloss from Era 1 can do it, and they're absolute meatheads.

On 6/12/2026 at 4:40 PM, Frustration said:

Both can be made rather obedient, with direform psychology making them more dogmatically loyal to their leaders even than other regal forms. Koloss however can be directly controlled, however this is also a potential weakness as someone else could take control of them. 

I suppose that's true, but I think they'd still feel a broader range of "human" emotions that would eventually lead to them breaking with sufficient losses.

Unless we're also comparing to Era 2 Koloss, in which case their craziness advantage probably goes away.

On 6/12/2026 at 4:40 PM, Frustration said:

That would put them at about the same strength maybe slightly leaning towards the direform as Rosharan humans are larger and therefore slightly stronger than Scadrian humans.

Why not use Rosharan humans to build your Koloss? Or transform Singers in Warform or Direform to become elite Koloss brutes?

6 hours ago, Sythrin said:

Do you think in the future its possible to alter alter density and make somebody not only heavier but also tougher and stronger?

Using pewter Allomancy in combination should yield similar results. 

Aside from that, I don't believe there's anything in the Cosmere forbidding such a power from existing, but you'd probably need to tweak Feruchemy enough that it wouldn't exactly be the same thing.

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

So on another thread I was talking about direforms being perhaps the single greatest foot soldiers in the Cosmere, when @Trusk'our brought up Koloss. So I have a two questions to pose to the community.

1. Which one would you choose as a foot soldier in your army?
2. Who would win in a fight?

Depends on some stuff, including what Era of Koloss we're talking about.

Era 1 Koloss won't retreat from a fight. They're not psychologically wired for that. Meanwhile enemy armies will often break after only like 20% casualties I think?

They're also pretty dumb, and can be out maneuvered if not directed by an Allomancer or other powerful, intelligent force. Era 2 Koloss are more intelligent, but probably still on the slower side cognitively. 

They can subsist off of basically any biological substance, so keeping them in the field with no supply lines is quite feasible. 

Infections and disease don't appear to be a major issue given how torn up they get and we never hear it slow them down.

You can also create more of them if you have an enemy population, iron to shape into spikes, a potent Emotional Allomancer, and no morals so speak of.

Also, you don't need an Everstorm to create Koloss with spikes. An offworld Koloss force could create more in the field, but more Direforms likely would have to be converted from Singers on Roshar.

Direforms are very likely more Invested, and have full carapace armor.

They have minds more intact and can use their own agency to occupy captured territory without you needing to worry about them simply destroying it all.

They're also not going to get mind controlled, though given how Elend and Vin couldn't do this to a Koloss army untol the controlling Inquisitor was killed (at least as a whole. They got a few beforehand by causing enough emotional turmoil in them) I think this is much less of an issue than typically assumed. Unless you're going up against a Shard or something and don't have your own to back you up.

I'd probably choose Koloss for an army, but I don't know how they'd compare to a Direform 1 v 1. Probably weaker, but they're easier to get in large numbers and replace, easier to field, and easier to force into meat-grinder tactics.

28 minutes ago, Timeloss11 said:

I'm currently creating a table of the confirmed resonances of Radiants and the three most prominent theories for the orders that don't currently have a confirmed one. So, I would like to try and get some of the communities' opinions rather than just my own theories and the theories put forth on the Coppermind (Elsecaller GPS, and Edgedancer communication).

So long story short any and all theories about possible resonances would be greatly appreciated.

As an added bonus here are some of my personal theories:
a) Dustbringer: A knack for picking out structural flaws.
b) Truthwatcher: Either perception of the spiritweb or perhaps the ability to see the cognitive aspect of things?
c) Stoneward: Comforting presence? Like people just get the feeling that they can trust/rely on them.
[Note: None of these are actually based on evidence atm, purely vibes and what I've seen others suggest]

Thank you to anyone who participates, I will either add the table onto here when it's done or make a separate post about it.

I made a few threads a while ago touching on the nature of Resonances if you're interested: 

https://www.17thshard.com/forums/topic/199591-two-types-of-resonances/?do=findComment&comment=1900545

1 hour ago, owlmonster said:

Cool. I just find it fun to think about!

Same. I think you'll find lots of people here on the Shard that enjoy thinking about such things.

2 hours ago, owlmonster said:

Could they shave off a part of it? Or do you think that that would still not work?

That's a good question. 

I think that they could do that and produce a metal they could burn, but it depends on which process it mirrors more-

Stormlight spoilers:

3 hours ago, owlmonster said:

I know that Aether of Night is no longer canon, but the magic still is. So, do you think that a mistborn could burn Aether of Ferrous/Corpate metal? What would it do?

That would likey not work, as metals with an Identity cannot be burned. 

Stormlight spoilers:

14 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

You might get a laugh out of this, but I didn't realize that character's start each Combat with their Weapons automatically drawn without needing to use up an Action unless they're surprised. I was doing a solo Stonewalker's campaign and had to go back and redo every chapter 1 combat scene because of how much that changed.

Gonna be real, I don't think we were even aware of the auto-drawing rule, we just ignored that function all together and assumed everyone's weapons were always drawn.

Though, redoing multiple combats does seem a bit excessive to me. I'm more of the mind that you just accept how things played out and change from thence on. Did it really change the story that much?

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Well Regals can use voidlight in some ways, at the very least they can get it from the song of prayer, and Venli asking for lots of it wasn't considered unusual.

True. I was (and still am) actually thinking of giving Fused the ability to spend three actions and become vulnerable in some way to recover Investiture via the Song of Prayer, but I don't think we see most Fused actually do this in canon, at least not on screen (perhaps Lezian did, though he could also have had a stockpile of spheres wherever he retreated).

This still shouldn't mean Regals can regenerate or enhance their physical abilities on top of what the Form typically provides though. That would basically make every one of them a low-Ideal Radiant, and there have been plenty of opportunities for fatal injures against them to be healed (it would be a cool story beat to have Odium tweak the system during the True Desolation though. Grant more power to Regals in order to push his forces even more, and the PCs get caught up in it).

I thought it would be fun to go over some of the rulings for the Cosmere RPG I initially overlooked, and to hear from others their thoughts on those and of course if there are any other subtle rules they overlooked. 

• Only the Elsecalling and Lightweaving Surges appear to not require an open hand to perform the base external Surge and their talents- everything else does. The Distant Soulcasting talent is finicky as it says your Soulcasting range is now 20 feet and no longer requires touch, but it doesn't say you no longer need an open hand. I think this may have been done to help balance the power of Radiant characters versus Heroic characters, since this is a non-issue in the books (Kaladin and Bridge Four use two-handed spears but can just momentarily pull a hand away to use Adhesion or Gravitation on something, and Lift I'm pretty sure uses her feet to affect the ground the Feruchemist slips on).

• Unarmed Attacks do not need an open hand to perform, and it seems that they can always be used as an offhand attack even with both hands full. This could be useful with high strength and expertise in Unarmed Attacks, since two-handed weapons shouldn't interfere with such an offhand attack as I understand it.

• The second ideal for Radiants makes the enhance action is always a free action and doesn't expend Investiture (though you do still need to have at least 1 Investiture in reserve). I legitimately thought it served only to Empowered a PC for a scene and act as a necessary buffer in between the 1st and 3rd ideals. So there's something actually cool there, which is nice.

• Enhanced attributes do not contribute to defenses, HP, focus, or Investiture. Singer forms do not count as part of the Enhanced condition though, so they still do. It was funny how (the people in my last gaming group) we did add these to our stats initially, and it's pretty busted.

• Weirdly, on pg. 186 of the Stormlight World Guide, it says in the middle of the far top-left Using Actions paragraph "Rosharan adversaries with an Investiture pool can also use the Breathe Stormlight, Enhance, and Regenerate actions from chapter 5 of the Stormlight Handbook (though Fused and Regal characters breathe Voidlight from their infused spheres, not Stormlight)." Given that the Regenerate action can change from statblock to statblock and that it's directly put into every Fused's statblock but not Regals', I think this part was made by someone else and not aligned correctly with the actual statblocks (not to mention that Regals really shouldn't be able to do those things canonically).
 

7 minutes ago, Frustration said:

In total the Radiant forces during the desolations are the single most formidable army in the entirety of the Cosmere, and nothing even comes close. I fail to see how such a force would struggle against any other for any considerable length of time.

Yeah, not even the hypothetical army of a million Koloss is gonna cut it this time. They'd realistically adapt and cut off Koloss growth beforehand anyways. 

This line of reasoning does make me wonder why Odium and Honor seemed to care about using armies in their future goals for the Cosmere though. 

I mean, Rayse's backup plan at the end of RoW (before being vaporized) seemed to be along the lines of sending agents out into the Cosmere from Roshar even while trapped for the next millenia, but why?

If basically any opposing Shard (maybe not poor Harmony, though even Preservation could surely turn them away) took a look at them entering their domain and sneezed in their general direction their axi would be shredded and their souls unraveled. The functionally infinite power of a Shard of Adonalsium will do that, especially once you leave your own Shard's direct oversight. 

Maybe it's the whole "Shardbearers can't hold ground" argument, but the planet in question needs to be conquered from its respective Shard first I'd think.

4 hours ago, Knoebel said:

One scenario I wanted to explore was the use of Hemalurgic Duralumin. Could this be used to make someone Elantrian or Threnodite? 

I mean, if you stole Connection from someone born in Arelon or Teod as a worldhopper you should become a viable candidate for being taken by the Shaod.

Might be able to steal Connection from someone adopted as an Elantrian to become one, but generally I think you're gonna want a metal that specializes in power-stealing (Connection to Arelon is also necessary to perform AonDor however, so two spikes may be necessary- one to steal power, one to steal Connection).

4 hours ago, Knoebel said:

If killed while spiked with duralumin from a Threnodite would the new host then become a shade? Would the donor lose the ability to become a shade?

This one is a bit trickier, since Threnodites seem to become Shades upon death because of some extra, twisted Investiture within their Spiritwebs (though the exact mechanics are unknown at this time). Probably also receiving an extra infusion upon death from the SR.

I think using nicrosil Hemalurgy would be better in this situation, though honestly I'm not sure if even this is enough to artificially become a Shade- the Investiture is in the spike and is attached to the recipient's Spiritweb while implanted in the right bindpoint, but that Investiture doesn't pass with them upon death seeing as Hemalurgic spikes can be recycled (though the active use of Investiture granted by a spike or perhaps simply bearing one will leave the recipient with some residual Investiture upon death).

If there is a large extra infusion of Investiture upon death and all you need is a Threnodite's Innate Investiture to make this happen, then it could probably work. 

These are just my own takes though, so take them with a pinch of Copper.

6 hours ago, Sythrin said:

Coppermind states that as long as a part of somebody is inside the body. The whole effect is affecting them. So what if something big like a Chasmfiend is touching it if you create a giant krakenlike creature with Midnight aether.

Would it be affected normaly and flail its appendages at highper speed outside the bubble?

Initially, I was thinking yes it would affect them since it only requires a portion of the body to touch the bubble in order to speed them up. Wax shows this to be the case in TLM during the final fight against the fakers.

However, I think sufficiently large beings might not be affected since the trains Speed and Slowness bubbles have been used on do not speed up or slow down.

It could be a perception thing though, in which case a Slider/Pulser could probably make it work, but even if they could it probably won't speed them up that much since there's so much more mass to affect than normal. The Investiture the Allomancer has is finite, so it's effects would likely just become very spread out and largely impotent. 

31 minutes ago, robardin said:

That’s a depressing thought.

Imagine in Ghostbloods Mistborn Era 3, we see some descendant of Ham’s burning the midnight pewter while trying to reconcile a spreadsheet on a 1980s era PC equivalent, and reflecting how “once, Allomancers like him were called Thugs, prized warriors or at least, bodyguards, for the advantages of having bursts of strength, recovery, and agility. Now, with aluminum guns and bullets commonplace, pewter was now most useful for professional sports leagues that permitted it, and for the endurance it granted. Like in long-distance airship piloting, long-haul trucking, and untangling accounts receivable, he thought wryly.”

Well, tbf, aluminum bullets are a lot less effective against Pewterarms than Bloodmakers.

But I am now stealing that character concept for the Mistborn RPG.

You know, I initially chose pewter because I imagined it would be cool to be stronger and faster, but figured it wouldn't be super useful in modern society. 

Honestly, I now want pewter because of just how great it would be for my current job. Ignore aches and pains, work quicker, lift easier and for longer.

It probably wouldn't even be expensive to maintain- lead and tin aren't super expensive, and Allomantic metals actually get you a lot of bang for your buck.

Could probably pull overtime easily too, even at a desk job.

20 minutes ago, Nitpicking said:

This sounds to me (and apparently to @Frustration) like a discarded draft of what became Mistborn, not something canon. It's something like Dragonsteel Prime, which Brandon mined for ideas used in later books (the Shattered Plains from DP for the Stormlight Archive, the mists from this one for Mistborn, bits of the Dead from this for Shades).

He does say though that he considers it canon still, though it could change as things are published. 

Though honestly I agree with the vibe pretty much being what you suggest.

You know, the dead greatly resemble Shades. 

Cosmere spoilers:

If I were to throw out a guess, the Midnight Dead are visiting Shades pushed into Scadrial's PR by the Murk, which I agree is almost certainly a manifestation of Ruin's essence.

Or they could just straight up be our first known form of Ruinous CS, I suppose.

11 minutes ago, Sythrin said:

Lets say they are the child of a Nalthien Awakner and an Alomancer world hopper. Born and raised on Nalthis. Maybe even got a breath.

Got their power from the genes and than died and Returned. Would they keep their alomantic power?

RAFO on that, but given that it's the same soul, just saturated by Endowment I would think they would keep their Allomancy. 

On 5/19/2026 at 7:01 AM, PanLin said:

I don't recall this one but would love to be corrected—ping me if you find it!

I believe this is the one: 

On 5/19/2026 at 7:01 AM, PanLin said:

They were wildly Invested, yes. Not sure what you mean about them acting like a godmetal though?

 

They were pretty Invested compared to the typical Metalmind, but less Invested than other powerful artifacts, like Shardblades. 

Though it's my believe that they do make the user far more Invested than with what they could innately contain, as they grant not only Feruchemy, but LR level Allomancy, which draws directly from the SR. Enough so that the user actually leaks Mist (though we don't have a good measuring stick for how much that is).

3 hours ago, Frustration said:

However I can confidently say that with the exception of Radiant forces this is by far the most dangerous army we have thus seen in the cosmere.

Hmm, I don't know. . . a quarter of a million Ruin-controlled Koloss are pretty tough to beat.

Not to mention that more can be made as long as you can get more iron (or recycle spikes) and have more bodies.

1 hour ago, Qianweilian said:

I was unaware that the opponent was using a speed bubble, I was under the impression that I was fighting a double steel Twinborn.

If the bubble is large enough to allow the Mistborn to step to the side, and the Unoathed is "a split second" away, that implies a very high level of mastery, almost savantism, in the ability to sculpt bubbles.

Honestly, after reading your description, I suspect the Mistborn would've lost without either the ability to sculpt bubbles, or at least make them very small, or the camelback. There are several moments where the Mistborn uses bubbles and replenishes metals in very close quarters.

Personally I felt it was fairly achievable for the Mistborn to keep the Unoathed out of speed bubbles since they're typically not that big anyway and there usually was a fair distance between the two combatants. 

I did add some RNG for the final one though since I felt it could go either way, the but given their mobility the favor was still in their court.

1 hour ago, Qianweilian said:

Also, I don't know how I feel about the arena just being a sandy floor. I wonder if we should add terrain of some sort.

I have to agree with you there. I realized right after stating that the Mistborn’s coins flew "across the entire arena" that I should have made and stuck with a more consistent size and communicated that.

A more complex arena would also be more interesting, so I'll add something more for the next fight I run.

In the end I also wasn't happy with how I ran the Mistborn’s use of chromium, as it's already a quick burning metal, so duralumin doesn't affect nearly as much as some other metals. That plus after I thought about it more, a suit of Shardplate is basically 1,400 lbs. of Godmetal Metalmind. Realistically it shouldn't have been so strong given how they could struggle with Compounders, who would probably have less Investiture. 

Though, I would probably also have had the chestplate be broken entirely by the 3rd duralumin-enhanced attack as well, since the Unoathed took no precautions to dodge or block and it's the easiest piece to hit.

Third battle was Unoathed vs Mistborn.

1 minute ago, coldfuzion76 said:

Ah, ok, I haven't gotten that far in this listen of Warbreaker, but I kinda remember that now that you mention it. 

It's interesting that you mention him using them like a Coppermind, I think that's exactly how I was thinking of him using it based on how he talked when he lost time to Odium. The expanding of the soul does make a lot of sense, though for sure. I think that's how I'm going to think of it until we're told differently.

Glad I could help