Tamriel Wolfsbaine

Also, and this may be less of a point. Can we really say how much weight a massive beast is when we know they are bound to a spren to make them lighter? Rosharans haven't even convinced a chasm fiend onto a scale to weigh it and get measurements. They only have dead weight to consider. Not saying it wasn't impressive to catch it. Also not saying that Dalinar may have pulled on a one time feat being close to oaths the same way Kal did when killing a shardbearer.

Rashek is making a new kandra to send out into the cosmere... you. He has all 4 blessings to choose from as well as bonus atium spikes collected from across the cosmere. What blessing would you hope he creates you with and which power fueled spikes would you choose as a bonus? You can have a maximum of 4 spikes before Ruin is knocking at the door of your mind threatening to take full control. Blessings only count as 1 spike for that. What would you choose? All powers that are harvestable via atium are available and each spike contains only 1 bonus power.

It is a unique synergy for sure. Jumping from one shadow to the next to avoid dying is probably a great idea to avoid dying. It doesn't change the fact that all of your shadows will continue to multiply and move around as you make decisions. But if there are 20 safe shadows to step into at any time then you should be able to think through it just fine. And you would probably be able to juggle that with taking note of where your enemy is as well. It would be as confusing and discombobulated as fighting atium vs atium except you would not need to guess if you survive. Although... like a road trip every choice you make will narrow down the outcome more and more. When running through a minefield you may not realize your safe shadow has suddenly become the one that took the last step. There could be a safe shadow that suddenly erupts into no safe shadows. A gamble still the same.

Without digging up some old threads there were some WoBs sighted by others suggesting that you can't punch harder with iron. I personally think that there has to be some bonus but we haven't seen it used optimally. A big part of it is that as you tap weight you may gain the strength to not get crushed by it but you don't gain the strength to move the same. You get more sluggish and slow. In combination this could potentially do more as you would maintain higher speeds and higher weight combined. But we have these. Feruchemy breaks a ton of rules. And it is kind of very inconsistent on the page. Iron especially is impossible to find out. He says the math is out there but we won't see it for a very very long time.

That is the purpose of the atium vs atium showdown. Once two people can see the future their decision making process changes which changes the future for the other one. Electrum works on this same idea. As soon as you see your own future, the atium user suddenly sees a flood of shadows as well. With that understanding, looking at another person's future via atium only shows you 1 outcome because they can't see the future at all. Seeing your own future shows you all of the potential futures. I don't know if determination or zinc would help more to narrow it down to the fewest shadows. I imagine that zinc may cause more shadows to appear as you make decisions faster but you will keep up with it to a great extent. The real goal here would be attempting to sift through the beneficial futures vs the non beneficial ones. All that said, I have never really subscribed to the Feruchemical zinc Allomantic electrum bandwagon for this reason. I feel like the more you think and process your future the more likely you are to flood your brain and vision with more shadows. In fact we see Vin defeat atium, not by over thinking it, but by under thinking it. Waiting and refusing to allow her mind to make a decision until the last second allows her to get an edge. The entire purpose of zinc is to think faster to get an edge, which is contrary to the best example of using wits to beat future sight we have. I think zinc would pair far better with pewter and steel for any combat applications. F steel beats atium when tapped seriously on its own anyways. Doesn't matter if you can see the future when your opponent can temporarily break the sound barrier.

A case where tapping pain via F tin might prove useful to remind the savant they are still mortal. I love the pewter steel combo. (Especially on a kandra platform!) I mostly mentioned the combo as an alternative to the full feruchemist using steel and iron. I have seen a lot of cased made saying you can't hit harder with any kind of feruchemy other than pewter which breaks my heart. As much as it is one of my favorite systems I think you can tell that it was one of Brandon's early systems just because he has had to play some damage control on the outrageous potential of some of those physical metals. I will never understand how someone weighing 2000 lbs can sit on you and recieve all of the benefits of being 2000lbs but they can't hit harder with a punch. Same with steel. The MAG has a Brandon's thought stating that hitting someone with a bar at high speed would likely break your hands as you hold it... but then other wobs suggest that the gained kinetic energy would be way too minimal to really matter. I feel like he wants Feruchemy to be steel for faster movement but not if you have a weapon, iron for bonus to pushes and pulls and just to be massive unless it will benefit your throwing hands in which case the spiritual realm eats it up. Yet... I feel like maybe there are a lot of uses that typical users don't see. Perhaps the reason we don't see anyone punch or hit harder on screen is because they haven't had specific intent to do so? This is a good question. I would draw the line at this idea... what are you trying to effect? Wax can't push on plate but he could slap a coin against plate, tap thousands of pounds pushing on that coin, flatten it against the plate and the shardbearer would tumble through the air. You can't lash plate itself but you can hit it with a rock that has been lashed. So you couldn't make the plate slick directly but slicking up the floor should work really well at making an impossible zone for plate.

I feel like the only downside to it is that savantism would be that much closer and pewterarms just happen to die younger than other savants haha.

I am always a huge fan of that imagery. There have been a lot of theories explaining that something in the realmatics with feruchemy would shed the kinetic energy gains from increased weight and speed though. Honestly why I am more a fan of F steel with A pewter as the A pewter kinetic energy gains from boosted speed and strength are what it exists for and F steel would allow you to maximize the gains by compressing them into shorter time (metal burns faster when tapping steel and more metal tapped means more power gained). The additional benefits of an A pewter F steel combo are that you also get the durability boost from pewter and would be far less likely to break anything leading to a need of gold healing anyways.

Considering plate weighs like 1200lbs or whatever I agree. A single broken leg would do far more in a fight that you expect to last a while than cracking the breastplate. Give a pewterarm a dead blade and I would bet on them in more arena fights than I would be against them for sure.

Thanks for this. I need the help because I have wasted hours upon hours reading and searching. This will save me so much time.

Beyond that I would employ the muay thai leg attacks. Plate doesn't remove fatigue from the shardbearer. If you damage the legs first they will slow down to a speed that is beyond manageable for the pewter arm. We know pewterarms can drag for days so long as they have the pewter for it. Fighting someone with highly enhanced speed, strength, endurance, reflexes as well as perfect balance would be a nightmare if they damaged your legs early on. Flare that pewter until the legs are damaged and the shardbearers mobility is lower than a normal burn rate and just avoid them. Its kind of a lame way to fight but any sort of vs games end in lame fights. And the cosmere isn't above lame fights. Adolin broke the rules in every fight. One he just brutally smashed the opponent which was frowned upon. The next he chose to painfully slowly drain his opponents plate.

I would make sure you just search in text. The Arcanum search "Wax Shardplate" didn't show it when I had shardplate as a tag. Removed the tag and it was the first result.

I think modern weaponry would do really well against shardplate. Guns and Wax can already break plate via WOB. I get that that is with Wax as well and that is an important piece, but that is also with old ballistics. Fast forward to our day and a lot changes. Our powder is different now. Our actual bullets are different. Our capacity to carry rounds is better our delivery systems are capable of far greater rates of fire. A pewterarm would be strong enough to operate some seriously large weaponry and stay as mobile or more mobile than a typical soldier... and the tech will eventually evolve to where nearly every soldier can affordably be supplied with these things. Plus Scadrial is already intimately familure with Aluminum and all it takes is every 3rd round to be aluminum coated before you are mixing rounds that can eat through plate and rounds that can stop the ability to heal. Soothing is a great choice for everyday. The only downside is that it comes with the stigma of manipulating people around you. Once one person finds out you've been doing it then you will never be trusted again. Breeze was easily my favorite character from era 1 and it always spooks me out to think of what Hollywood would do to his character just due to the fact that emotional manipulation is so morally gray.

Maybe not Marsh himself but some spren like entity that is forming on different planets to fill that role? Perhaps the rumor mill has manipulated and created such a concentrated belief in it that it is now manifesting on other planets... further assumptions that it could just be appearing to those who believe what they have heard as well?

I may be misremembering but doesn't Vin specifically mention that she stops burning pewter to be more clumsy in one of her ball room scenes? From the coppermind: Also I like the mind over matter argument here. I think that we are just seeing the most basic uses of pewter in the books thus far. Perhaps as Scadrial starts to understand the importance of intent more pewterarms will become even more powerful. I'm not gonna say a pewter arm alone can take out a full shardbearer. But I also don't believe that shardplate is better in every way either. Pewterarms are wicked dangerous. One day we may see the allomantic power curve return to Lerasium strength and I think that would be tons of fun... we know that stacking spikes can do it. I believe that nicrosil feruchemy could do it. And now we have the harvesting of innate investiture on Scadrial as well which is going to have some really fun implications (perhaps the equivalent to heightenings on Nalthis allowing more instinctive uses of the metallic arts to show us more of what they can do). I would say a pewterarm with nicrosil feruchemy could be pretty dangerous to a shardbearer just in ramping up the strength of their pewter burn. Even with just pewter alone I see a world where a shardbearer may find themselves caught off guard by a pewter arm in a fight. They really are a sleeper build... Sadly hampered by the dangers of being one shot by the 6 foot kill everything knife. Pewter alone can't get through the plate on their own and they can't heal through the damage. Pewter with a wide variety of supplemental powers would give the fire power and agility to eventually break through the plate and avoid the one shot. Heck even if it was a pewter arm with a shardblade against a full shardbearer I think I would bet on the pewterarm. Their reaction speed is faster and they are moving more agily. Shardplate may make someone faster but I think something happens in the mind of the pewterarm as well that allows them to have near perfect balance and move the way they do. I subscribe to the idea that it also boosts proprioception which is a boon that plate doesn't provide.

I second this thought. My wife laughed at me when we first got married because I would wear my mask to bed and roll up a pillowcase to wrap around my eyes and ears. Had all the holes covered and good fresh air to keep my lungs happy. I have since become much better about that fear... not wanting to look too foolish in front of the wife helps that. I still 100% seal off my CPAP mask when not in use though. I guess it all depends on the size of the insects. I would say for maximum irritation and the least amount of risk to losing your breath bug the ears are a good bet. the eyes are going to water and the tears may make flight very difficult for smaller insects plus the batting of eyelids. Venom would certainly help to cause localized swelling quickly as well. I can imagine a bug in the eye would be as bad as sand in the eye or even worse. It would work wonders. The mucosa coating the nose and throat may mean a loss of the breaths as the insects might find it quite difficult to maneuver once coated in a thicker mucus / saliva. A single bug in the nose sends me into a frenzy... but that bug doesn't make it out without being crushed. Not saying a single bug in the trachea couldn't cause someone to choke... I know I have "choked on a bug" before and it usually involves a ton of violent caughing but again coughing is a great defense against this. That is high flowing bursts of air that the insect would be flying against and usually our sputum will catch it and we will expell it from the respiratory tract. Assuming each insect takes 1 breath to create I think I would stick with flying ants as they can sting and are highly mobile while also being among the smallest of options. Aim for the ears, as I believe that recovering that investment would be a high priority and the ears offer, in my opinion, the best bet of recovering your investment as they are drier and the ear canal is shallower with less natural defenses. As you said nightmare fuel indeed. I remember an ant landing on my computer screen one morning at about 2am. I spun around and a colony was actively moving in. There were probably 150 flying ants in my living room and I immediately through the animals in crates and got into the car. Called my parents telling them I would be showing up around 4am and that I was going to war. I set off a couple too many bug bombs and was off. Nightmare fuel indeed. I actually think a jar of flying lifeless ants given some group command to fly into individual ears of the enemy would act as a pretty solid form of crowd control as well. I think they would be a heck of an option because they are small enough that it would be hard to identify them as a threat and they would cause enough panic and confusion once they started finding ear canals to infiltrate and soldiers started freaking out. Even if you don't have anything in your ear if one or two in your rank start flailing around and freaking out I think it would ruin whatever strategy you had built up. Especially scary because you wouldn't necessarily know what was happening right away. So I agree that the eyes, nose, throat, etc. are good targets. I just think there is an advantage to far smaller insects also. For the size and the location of the attack I think flying ants would offer a safer investment. Not just in that they are harder to see and harder to counter, but also that if you target ears you offer them a safer environment with less biological defenses and more likelihood of being able to be retrieved at the end. While still causing 99.9% of enemies to become instantly useless. Someone in this world could ignore buzzing, moving and stinging / biting of the eardrum... but I think the chances of a soldier / shard bearer being deaf and having no pain / touch sensation is really low. It would be excruciating and impossible to get out. You don't breathe or cough out of your ear. You don't have tears or eyelids to bat out of your ear. Once its in your ear it is staying there until it wants to come out. There is ear wax though. But I think the ants with wings could navigate that fairly well... even if they did get trapped they would bat their wings and buzz like crazy in a spot where you cant get to without close examination or some fluid to wash them out. Edit: Just to add more fuel to the nightmare... there is an alternate universe where the insects get soulcast to diamond or some other terribly hard substance before being awakened.

Eyes nose mouth all gruesome things to think about. But I think @alder24 left out the worst one of them all. The ear. I had a patient that we had to sedate to calm down enough to pull out a beetle one piece at a time from his ear. The pain was excruciating and the fear was paralyzing. We pulled it out in 3 different pieces as once it had gotten back there it was stuck and the poor guy just had it trying to come out. It was pressed against, and even biting his eardrum. I laugh now, but my kid woke up screaming that something was in his ear one morning. I grabbed him and told my wife we needed to get to the ER asap. She, having a cooler head than me, poured some alcohol into his ear and out walked a tiny sugar ant. If I were fighting someone in plate and wanted them to take it off I would make the ears the first target. The insect doesn't have to have venom or be large at all. Once it gets into the ear canal and buzzes its wings or steps on that eardrum the helmet is coming off or the paralyzing horror is going to set in. I highly highly doubt anyone is going to continue fighting on once they have a tiny stinging / biting / flying ant inside their ear. As Alder pointed out once the helmet comes off and you are more focused on getting that thing out of your ear than your enemy, the rope dart will quickly finish you off. I actually think this would be one heck of a tactic against a radiant as well. Stormlight could heal the damage being dealt but it isn't going to get the insect out of that ear. You will have to intervene. And honestly I don't think the alcohol trick would work against an awakened ant either. Unless you use the incendiary method which would include starting a fire on your face and head.

When soulcasting can you form the material into shape or does it strictly maintain the shape of the object you soulcast from? How does this work for soulcasting air? Can you fuel soulcasting via fabrial with outside stormlight or only the stormlight present in the gems used to create the soulcaster themselves? If it is only the gems in the fabrial is there a trick to transferring stormlight from one gem into another? After reading the soulcasting portion of coppermind I am confused as to how much of an object gets soulcast. Seeing the portion about wax sculptures being soulcast makes me really curious about the specifications of how that works. If you were to have a wax sculpture of a chandelier all 1 piece could a soulcaster differentiate between what portions they want to be crystal and what portions they want to be metal? Are soulcaster fabrials capable of soulcasting a portion of the soulcaster themselves? Leading to a possible synergy with Kandra.... If a Kandra had a soulcaster capable of soulcasting metal... could they soulcast a portion of themselves into aluminum? Of course they would lose that portion of themselves but as a Kandra you sort of have liberty to do just that. Watching the mimic octopus change shapes I picture a kandra with a soulcaster shaping their outer flesh into carapace shapes and soulcasting it into armor on the go. I don't necessarily thing it is the most efficient use of the materials... but wouldn't convincing portions of yourself to become what you want, as a being that has mimicry at their root, make soulcasting easier? Of course a human turning their arm into aluminum would be bad news as they would never be able to change it back to flesh. But a kandra could shed unwanted portions of their body and grow it back after a decent sized snack. @Trusk'our due to yet another possible kandra synergy.

Thanks to some flu I am getting a chance to watch things I didn't think I would get to. Today's movie... The Tomorrow War. Cool story I know but what does it have to do with the cosmere? Well the same thing that I think about after seeing any cool alien on screen. How well could a Kandra replicate it! So I will have to @Trusk'our for this. The White Spikes are totally dope and perhaps tied for the thing I would want to be able to change into as a Kandra. But I must ask how. Kandra can't really grow hair or bone. I know I have seen thoughts of regrowth hacking to grow carapace armor which would come in handy for this build. What I really struggle with is the tentacles that shoot those massive spikes. I imagine it is just a huge build up of pressure and they shoot out. In the movie they hit with enough force to throw people off of their feet and back a good yard or two. Thinking this could be a viable weapon on any shard world. The carapace is also a trick. I like the idea of awakened ropes as skeleton that can shift and morph. Potentially there are some form of aetherbound that could grow hard armor and weapons as well. Perhaps a soulcaster that makes aluminum spikes to be shot out? How would you build it?

Honestly I always believed that was a part of living plate as well given that living plate could become completely translucent and the spren would be alive to cover the slit and then be translucent. By far my least favorite portion of any magic system... take someone who can nearly instantly heal though anything and then give them a space suit capable of surviving being crushed by a mountain. And it can be invisible. Plus I am pretty sure Kaladin would have been killed book 1 if the dead plate didn't have a dagger sized slot to fit through. To say dead plate can seal off the eye slit also points to a huge plot hole for why Kaladin is even alive still. Brandon was careful to point out that the Spearman couldn't hurt the plate on his own and he would have to exploit the one weakness in shardplate. If that can suddenly be shut then we are to believe that Helaran chose not to shut it out of pride taunting the Spearman? Or he was just a complete idiot? I would guess that anyone who had shardplate would choose to close up their only weakness when fighting someone... especially after that someone had already targeted that weakness and failed.

So far we have this: But that was back in 2017. Don't we have more evidence that a kandra can create skin grafts and organs for people at this point? If they can replicate the DNA to a point where they are creating compatible transplants doesn't that suggest we have more of an answer to this? As far as kandra being biolabs I feel like we have seen good evidence of it. I'm just curious where physical DNA and spiritual DNA draw a line. Also leads me to wonder what a kandra would look like in the cognitive realm.

How much of it is spiritual vs physical DNA. I know a kandra could replicate DNA and even reproduce for and as a specific person. But would they produce strictly unpowered individuals? Theoretically if Vin and Elend had had children their chances of having mistborn children would be much higher than anyone else. However Vin and Elend are dead. But if a kandra got samples of their DNA couldnt their physical DNA be brought back at least? Two Kandra could replicate that DNA and then reproduce with it and create Vin / Elend offspring no? However it would be 100% impossible to bring back mistborn because that is spiritual only DNA? Or does the DNA remember itself somehow?

I think anyone who can exploit the eye slot is in fine shape. Awakeners with rope darts that target the eye slit are a good start. I bet twinsoul with his jar of dor and the golem would put a beat down on the shard bearer. A kandra with an aluminum truebody would be all but immune to the shardblade. Any mistborn with atium. I would even suggest that Demoux could do it with a bead of atium. Any feruchemist with enough steel. Or any steel ferring on their own with enough stored speed. Shardbearers in dead plate and blade are awesome tanks with a ton of close area control but all you need to beat them is someone capable of getting to the eye slot. I don't know if this is confirmed by WOB but I am a strong believer that Kaladin was on stormlight even in that encounter. Kaladin hadn't spoken the words but his fight has all of the signs of him being perfected by stormlight even if it was only the first signs of it. Saying Kaladin did it without magic is only a thing that can really be said in a POV from a character with no understanding of the system. Others that could do it. I think Wax and Miles / Wayne both have a good shot. Wax because he is a great shot who cam utilize steel lines and pushes to not just crack plate and evade but also to get the eye slit shot. Miles and Wayne because they can tank a shot and stab the eye slit. If you have accurate ranged option or the ability to blitz the target or the ability to tank a hit or two you will eventually land in the eye slot and kill the shardbearer

Not only that but no magical healing around aluminum. Embed an aluminum knife into Miles spine and it would drain his gold minds really really quick. Combine this with chromium allomancy and leech them while you are stopping them from healing their spine with an aluminum knife. The Scorpion imagery is pretty dope. Rope dart to the max.

I am cautious about speculating over the magitech. We know that Roshar will evolve their tech around their magic where the magitech of Scadrial takes a back seat to more conventional technology. That said we have seen a certain radiant carry around a fabrial of a surge he is not meant to have. What happens when your radiants can carry around fabrials to grant access to all of the other surges?