Tamriel Wolfsbaine

49 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

tl;dr, I suggest we look at expanding the discussion to the task of "Winning Shards" and not just beating the Shardbearer

Now this is beyond the scope of the original post, but I feel like it's worth mentioning how the powers we see at the very beginning of the Stormlight Archive are significantly different from nearly every other accessible magic system based on the following distinction: if you kill a Shardbearer or wielder of an Honorblade you gain full access to their powers relatively quickly and you can freely trade that power around. This is different from all of the genetic systems (Allomancy, Feruchemy, Sand Mastery), cultural adoption systems (Elantrian, Dakhor), symbiosis (Radiants and Aetherbound generally need consent), and Identity based technically transferrable goods (Soul Stamps, Breath). Hemalurgy can be used to steal powers and spikes can be harvested from fallen Hemalurgists but they require compromising your own soul and aren't easily exchangeable. Medallions are the closest to easily and freely transferrable power, and being metal they are hardier than most, but are nowhere close to as hardy as Shards and frankly aren't as busted (yet).

On a battlefield, I would expect a fallen Shardbearer to be the most highly contested ground on the whole field. Because of this Shardbearers are generally deployed with this in mind - if the Shardbearer falls on a battlefield then their honor guard needs to do their absolute best to recover the Shards otherwise they will have to face those same Shards in the next battle. It's why backup Shardbearers are trained or sometimes made the primary user of the Shards for the nobility. Dalinar thinks about this pretty much every time he outruns his honor guard, and this is why I think Helaran wasn't the best Shardbearer because of how far he extended himself beyond the aid of his own army and lost the Shards. Beating a Shardbearer isn't really the goal, it's winning their Shards, because the bearer is replaceable while the Plate and Blade persist.

So... it's not in the scope of the original post, and I'm continuing with one of my earlier thoughts about how Shardbearers are rarely deployed alone (there's the old adage that Shardbearers can't hold ground), but I feel like a significant condition that almost everyone will want to add to beating a Shardbearer is recovering the Shards after the fact, for the obvious reason that you have them and your enemies don't. In some cases this conditional will be naturally fulfilled, like a Pewterarm managing to get a killing hit through a crack or visor can probably deal with an honor guard, particularly if equipped with a newly acquired Shardblade, but it won't be a bygone conclusion in every case. Once a Shardbearer dies, the armor will fall off of them (at least it did in the scene with Helaran), so it's not in a tidy contiguous unit to drag back home, and you'll need to recover the majority of the Plate components as whoever has the most can feed Stormlight into it to recover the rest. It takes considerable time to don Plate, and it has to be assembled from the feet up to allow the Bearer to support the tremendous weight - so putting on the Plate and wearing it home requires you to basically have conquered that area or have sufficient support to protect you while you get geared up.

Thus, if you send Lifeless insects to attack the Shardbearer, you'll want Awakened ropes on standby to drag the Shards once they go down. Simply deploying aerial bombardment on a Shardbearer won't remove their Shards in a war, you'll want to retrieve them as well or have to face them again the next bout. This is why I think super risky last ditch efforts like a double Iron compounder jumping on a Shardbearer isn't as useful as it sounds if they have no way to carry it back home. They can probably grab the Shardblade, but their powerset isn't the best at recovering  the Plate. Best option I have is jumping on and crushing the majority of the armor and bringing home the sole remaining piece. This does introduce uncertainty into the debate, since it's undefined what they are recovering Shards from, but it does make me expect that expensive ranged attacks are less likely to be deployed against Shardbearer if there's no option for recovery.

I still think the lifeless insects are viable. If an awakener were to show up equipped for a fight they could unleash the insects. If you had a hundred flying ants attacking eyes and ears solely then you would take care of the honor guard as well as the shardbearer.  Walk in as they work themselves into a frenzy, which they will. And then clean up with an awakened rope dart or meteor hammer. The helmet will come off once those ants make it into eyes and ear canals and then the ropes can easily pick the shardbearer apart. 

Honestly I love this idea of Awakening insects so much @alder24.  I have now envisioned a new character collecting powers and items. An emotional allomancer with a small swarm of soulcast and then awakened flying ants. I really don't even care if they can inject venom after being soulcast or if it takes extra breath to make the wings work after being soulcast.  I don't think it is a huge leap to say a winged ant can fly with extra breath after being turned to metal, stone or diamond if a man soulcast to stone can get working joints and operate as an indestructible lifeless. 

Side question on the swarm.  Does anyone think that midnight essence aetherbound could control a swarm of midnight essence to a similar effect?  Bonus to that is the spy aspects of making a midnight essence insect and flying into rooms and listening / viewing what is in them via the connection to the essence. 

Another one that would do great would be a mistborn. Drop down into the group and shove them all away.  Even if they drop their weapons and come at you afterwords they will all die to the mistborn quickly. Getting the shardbearer dead is the hard part of that set up.... although I think a mistborn can do plenty.  

A full feruchemist could clear the area with ease thanks to steel. 

A steel compounder would have everyone dead and a knife in the eye slit before the shardbearer realizes they should defend themselves. 

As strong as shardbearers are compared to normal soldiers, when facing prepared invested entities they are still pretty low on the totem pole. 

And most invested individuals beyond some of the mundane misting and ferrings are going to make short work of a squad. 

The least amount of investiture needed to secure a set of shards I would guess is a steel ferring with a ton of storage... and I mean a ton.  If there were a rating I would say this is either equal to or better than an atium misting with a bead or two for the fight. 

Ramping it up past that you have a host of twinborn combos that could... really anything that includes F steel. 

The amount of breaths you would have to spend for 100 flying ants to become your swarm plus a cloak to protect you and a few ropes to attack I would say is more attainable than being born a mistborn or feruchemist... but it is still costly costly. But someone past the 3rd heightening I bet could do it with the swarm idea. 

29 minutes ago, Colors said:

Yeah, I'd never suggest using this tactic alone. My original question was whether doing that while tapping F-steel to increase your speed would basically create a super-speed battering ram.

The mechanics of catching the claw are different, I wouldn't classify that as an impact because it isn't a direct impact with the plate per se like being shot with a bullet or punched. We know that cracking plate is much easier with a blunt impact of force applied perpendicular to the armor's surface, this is the type of damage we see most often cracking shadplate.  When you catch something the force as you say is distributed differently, and since this is a suit of armor the direction the force is applied is important. Moreover, the mechanics of the human body catching something help to dissipate the energy through some of the controlled give and flexibility of the joints. Dalinar bent with the blow, which significantly reduces the peak force applied to the armor, just like bending your knees when you jump from a height can halve the peak force applied.  I don't think the chasmfiend claw catching feat is really a valid comparison for these purposes, but when he is bludgeoned by the chasmfiend's tail that is probably a fair point of comparison. Then again, Parshendi slinging head-sized rocks is enough to crack the plate so I think that's a pit of a discrepancy there. Even accounting for the force being spread over a significantly larger area I'm not sure the rocks would apply more peak force than the tail did. Maybe I'm wrong though, I don't have the time to run the math. 

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. 

2 hours ago, Crow said:

While you make some good points my personal theory on this is imagine you are in a fight all you have to do is burn electrum for the shadows and tap zinc for mental speed then move to the shadow that doesn't get punched/shot/etc. I may be wayyyyyy underthinking this as I am much newer to this but that is my theory/reasoning. (Side note you make a good point about F-steel but I was going more for unique synergy than optimal abilities)

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.  

40 minutes ago, Colors said:

Doesn't Wax increase his weight to plow his shoulder through a door at some point? Isn't that the same premise?

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. 

1 hour ago, Crow said:

Someone on the discord pointed out that the increased comprehension from F-zinc may split A-electrum shadows. Their argument makes sense but I also feel that if that were true then people reacting to atium shadows would split the atium shadows. Thoughts?

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. 

Just now, Trusk'our said:

I mean, it certainly could be. Especially since their powerset encourages them to Burn pewter almost constantly. 

But that in and of itself could become another benefit, as Savants Burn their metals more efficiently, which would be of particular use to this pewter guzzling Twinborn. 

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/120/#e1901

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?  

27 minutes ago, Colors said:

So question:

Investiture resists investiture, that's why you can't lash someone in plate. 

So if Lift made a surface slick would it not interact as if it was slick if someone was wearing shardplate? Like if she made the whole floor slick, would someone with shardplate be able to walk on it normally?

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.  

16 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Oh yeah. A A-pewter/F-steel Twinborn would absolutely stomp a full Shardbearer as long as they had some prep time.

And considering that they can siphon off extra speed from Burning pewter for Tapping later, it's almost like a lesser version of Compounding (and seeing as A-pewter seems to speed you up quite a bit, you could Store a LOT of speed). 

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. 

28 minutes ago, Colors said:

To me Feruchemist is going to come down to how much of different attributes they have stored up. They aren't going to be storing anything in the moment, but if they have a healthy store of F-steel, F-gold, F-Iron, and F-Pewter I think they could make VERY quick work of a Shardbearer. Tapping strength and then using speed and weight to amplify their blows would smash right through plate and then just tap gold to heal any self-inflicted injuries. Shadplate cracks fairly easily to blunt force in the grand scheme of things. Someone manipulating F-steel and F-iron would become a human wrecking ball. 

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. 

1 minute ago, alder24 said:

That's actually a very good tactic - just break leg segments. It may be enough to break just one segment and the plate below it would have to be dropped as it's no longer powered by Stormlight and is just a dead weight. It may be even too hard for a Shardbearer to hold the entire weight of the plate on just one leg. I think there was a situation like this in books somewhere, I don't remember how it ended and I don't have time to search for it now. Either way breaking leg segments is a very good way to severely hinder Shardbearer’s mobility. 

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.  

4 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Just search Wax+Shardplate. Many WoBs have no tags attached. Check out help page on Arcanum: https://wob.coppermind.net/help/search

 

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

55 minutes ago, Returned said:

In the duel with Ruthar, Adolin was specifically damaging the Plate in a way that would be slow, distributed across different sections of the armor, and hard to notice overtly, especially avoiding blows that would cause it to break. He wanted to humiliate Ruthar by dragging the fight out in a boring way and showing his contempt for his opponent; it was death by a thousand cuts while showing that Ruthar couldn't touch him. It was a particular circumstance and a particular approach meant to be slow, so I don't think that it's a good measure of the rate of Stormlight loss for Plate generally.

Anyways, I'm not suggesting that the Plate would lose Stormlight at any particular rate, only that it has a weakness related to its supply of fuel and so a strategy for beating it doesn't need to rely on shattering it directly and immediately. I  don't see any reason to think that a pewterarm could only land 2-3 good blows, nor why they couldn't drag the fight out as long as it took for the Stormlight to be consumed or lost (provided they had enough pewter, which is obviously an important consideration).

Draining Stormlight is clearly a viable tactic when dealing with Plate in at least some circumstances (Alethi soldiers and Singers know about it), if not an ideal one, and it might be the best one available to a pewterarm. The focus on "a pewter Misting can't necessarily shatter a section of Plate very easily" may or may not be true, but doesn't cover the whole array of options available to them, and to the extent that it is true it's obviously not a good strategy to pursue and so not one that a successful combatant would use. It's a reason the fight would be harder for the Misting than for other Invested people but not a reason they would necessarily lose.

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.  

3 minutes ago, Highprince10 said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Thanks I didn't know about that WOB

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. 

On 2/15/2024 at 9:46 AM, Highprince10 said:

I don't think Guns will make a big difference if Scadrians are only facing Radients and we know Shardplate is pretty resistant to bullets but shooting someone who can heal almost instantly won't help much especially if the Radients are part of the later oaths . 

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.  

6 minutes ago, Highprince10 said:

It think for everyday life I would probably want to A-Brass and F-Zinc  soothing or rioting would be more powerful then most people probably think because no one would know you were doing it and you could win over people or make people trust you. A-pewter is useful but I think Emotional Allomancy would be the most helpful in our world if there are no other mistings.

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. 

40 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Notice please that Khriss speculates between two possibilities. It's equally as likely that due to Scadrians perception of Marsh as Death, the concept of death in the Spiritual Realm is filtered through overwhelming perception of Scadrians and it starts to manifest on different planets as Marsh (or via whatever different Cosmere spiritual mechanics this is happening) - just like the concept of the God Beyond pops out from Dalinar and Wayne's mouths suddenly out of nowhere. 

I think this idea is too important to just dismiss it and simplify it as “rumors.” In my opinion there is something spiritual going on here.

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?  

42 minutes ago, therunner said:

Shardbearer can do everything Pewterarm can, but better (possibly sole exception of agility, however 'Thug' does not exactly imply they are known for their grace).

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. 

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

I'm also probably a bit biased against insects because they are the most terrifying creatures on this planet, spiders especially.

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. 

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

This idea is terrifying for me in general, that's why I've missed this. It was fine as long as spiders weren't mentioned but now... Thanks for the nightmare fuel  

Eyes are probably the worst of them, because you see with them, you see those bugs eating you, while you can't see your opponent. Insects crawling into your throat is the second worst because it can cause suffocation. 

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. 

19 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Ok, tell me what will you do when insects are on your face? Take off your helmet?  You're dead, the Awakener will use it to just kill you with ropes or other Awakened objects. Use your massive gloves to pick up insects individually from your face? Too big hands, you're more likely to hurt yourself with this additional strength while you're panicking. Taking off your gloves takes even more time and exposes you even more. Use your Shardblade? Yeah, no. You can't stop them once they are inside your helmet without exposing yourself to the Awakener, and they are just waiting for you to do that. All you can do is feel them eating you alive, biting your eyes, crawling into your nose and mouth, biting your neck etc. How comfortable can you be when dozens of insects are crawling all over your skin, biting, chewing and trying to get into your eyes? 

1 hour ago, Duxredux said:

Also... why is it too late once they get to the visor? How fast are you expecting insects small enough to crawl through a visor to chew to something fatal? Can't the Shardbearer, I don't know, take off their helmet and glove, step back and have a subordinate pick or brush off these bugs or do it themselves?

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? 

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Please provide a quote because I could not find one. I couldn't even find that part you're talking about.

A Shardplate's helmet is made out of 2 parts - main body helmet and a visor - a faceplate - which opens up and uncovers the whole face, just like in classical medieval knight's helmets. That's what Shardbearers open or close. But that faceplate has an eye slit in it which CAN'T be closed in dead plates. Repeatedly throughout WoK and WoR it was said that the eye slit is the most vulnerable part of a Shardbearer, it was shows Dalinar and Adolin raising their hands to protect their eye slits from arrow volleys. I don't remember an eye slit on a dead plate being closed fully as you suggest - that's what can be done with a living plate, that's what Jasnah did in RoW.

WoK ch 13:

WoK ch 26:

WoK ch 47:

WoR ch 57:

WoR ch 81:

The only thing Adolin's helmet did was darken the translucency of it when lightnings were to bright, but that could be an effect of direct lightning hit which blackened his helmet from the outside - but it sounds like the helmet darkened that on its own because of this perfect overlay:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

I want to point out that you don't have to do enough damage to the plate to destroy a segment of it, you just need to crack it. Slingshots can do that. If you crack a plate, Stormlight starts to leak out, if you do that to every segment, that plate will eventually lose all its light and lock the Shardbearer with little to no mobility. That's an easy kill. Adolin defeated one of his opponents using this tactic in WoR. 

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. 

3 hours ago, Returned said:

I think that it wouldn't work for two reasons:

1. Kandra can't have Allomantic powers (absent Hemalurgic spikes), as per Well of Ascension and Shadows of Self. This suggests that they can't just adopt them by imitating an Allomancer or Feruchemist
2. Kandra reproduction, such as it is, only produces Kandra/Mistwraiths as far as we know. I have no idea if reproduction while imitating would be possible, but even if so I would have to think that the offspring would still be Kandra and so could not be Metalborn

It seems that Kandra retain their Kandra nature even while imitating (they can still do Kandra things like moving organs around), so they aren't just the person they're imitating despite perfectly reproducing them. Maybe sufficiently skilled Kandra could mimic people well enough to allow for standard, human-style reproduction to get around this? That would have some pretty interesting implications, if so. Now I'm imagining Kandra operating as sentient biolabs, producing all sorts of biologic compounds like insulin and replacement organs, working to help repair people suffering from radiation damage, and even isolating whatever parts of DNA are associated with Metalborn abilities. It's probably for the best they're mostly working for Harmony even without all of that, but even more so with it!

Metalborn powers definitely have a spiritual component, given how Hemalurgy works, so even though it's clearly associated with regular DNA (Allomancy and Feruchemy are known to be heritable, reinforced throughout all of the Mistborn books) I don't think that that would be enough to "trick" the powers into returning at full strength.

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?  

2 hours ago, Highprince10 said:

What characters in the Cosmere can beat a full shardbearer with dead plate and dead blade without plate or blade.So Kaladin is the only character I think we have seen take out a shardbearer with almost no powers but what other characters could using there powers. The one I can think of is Susebron using a carpet to beat up a shardbearer. (Preferably don't just pick knights radient because they are just upgraded shardbeares and Shards of Adonalsium are also off the table.) 

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 

16 hours ago, Sythrin said:

Yeah precisely. Would be kinda neat to do such a thing. And if you would use an aluminium blade it could be even truly hidden.

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. 

9 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Aluminum isn't the best for killing, though it's properties would be most effective against Allomancers, specifically Coinshots and Lurchers so it's not a typical situation to have Breath and be fighting Allomancers.

A regular steel blade would be cheaper and more effective for stabby-stabby fun times in 99% of most situations.

Though you could always swap the blade, or the cloth handle, or anything besides the Breath.

You could probably give it more cloth and with more precise Commands you might be able to have it jump from your wrist to stab somewhere outside of your reach, like a snake jumping from your wrist.

The Scorpion imagery is pretty dope. Rope dart to the max.