Thor

I responded to your thread and based off the theory I have there, this is still valid, just in a different way.

Technically you can tap/store a Hemalurgic spike (Marsh does it when he "fights" Penrod.)

Make sure it is sentient enough to use the Lord Ruler's trick, otherwise having both Gold powers won't help very much... Actually, I think that Allomantic/Feruchemical spikes don't warp the host as much as a Human attribute spike does (this is believed to be the reason why Marsh spike Penrod with an Allomantic spike instead of an easier-to-acquire Human attribute spike.) Two words: depth perception. Without it, you might as well go with both eye sockets. Kurkistan: Try this URL and Gah! WHY U NO WORK?!?!?! And why does the second one work!?! They are exactly the same!!!!! Sigh, the URL is http://oi41.tinypic.com/1zwj7kw.jpg for the Cat Inquisitor Smiley... It may be possible with Hemalurgy...there should be about 26 different Human attributes that can be stolen by Hemalurgy. This is based off of some calculations done in the Feruchemical Powers thread; basically it boils down to eight different attributes for each of the following groups: Normal metals, Atium-alloy, and Lerasium-alloy. Then you can add two more: one for Lerasium and one for the Lerasium-Atium alloy, as Lerasium and Lerasium-Atium probably don't steal Allomantic or Feruchemical powers (Atium can steal any.) And we only know 4 of them. Gah! This is what happens when I wait to long to post... 9 10 posts since I started typing this thing!

Went through KOTOR 1 for the first time a few weeks ago and followed up with a replay of KOTOR 2. And I am (again...) thinking about maybe starting to ladder on Starcraft 2 (or Starcraft 1). I always think about laddering and then chicken out (which is weird in that I am pretty good at both games...) Maybe this week I will actually start. I recently played this Super Mario Bros look-a-like game: Cat Mario which is stupidly hard, to the point of being literally unbeatable, but it is hilarious to watch someone else play the game for the first time! I started to replay Ventus' storyline in KH:BBS on Critical Mode (I thought you might get 10 total slots for commands since you start out with 5 instead of 3, which is, alas, not the case...) and I am rather tired of getting three shotted by everything in Neverland...I had to replay the opening areas 8 or 9 times before I could reach a save point. (It doesn't help that I am probably under leveled.) Some day I will also get around to beating the Mysterious Figure with all of my characters and IMBAnitas with Aqua and Ventus... (Why do you always release versions of the game that I cannot get, Square Enix?! You even do it with MOVIES!?!) I've been thinking about getting Final Fantasy VII and Crisis Core for a while now...If I do get them, which should I play first?

Thanks! I will probably come up with some others, if I can think up some good lines. If you double up on every possible spike combination you get 256. Linky for the listing of all combinations (this may or may not work after we find out what all of them do.) Ask and you shall recieve: BEHOLD! The Cat Inquisitor Smiley: Edit: Not sure why there is a grey box around the CIS...oh well.

Edit: Changed post so it is less thread derailing (at first glance, anyway...) Spoiled for off-topic shenanigans on Cat Inquisitors: On-topic: The list is great! Hopefully the powers will get explored more in AoL and the next trilogy. Though, slightly related to the information in my off-topic Wall O' Text, I do wish we could get tables for the god metal alloys...I am really curious to find out what they can do.

Bolded emphasis added. These two events (when connected) yield some very interesting possibilities: if Hoid pops up in Alloy of Law, then we can assume that his method of transportation is (effectively) instantaneous, suggesting it is possible to move around the Cosmere without resorting to space travel. If Hoid isn't in Alloy of Law then we can assume one of two things: (1) Hoid doesn't care about the events in AoL or (2) Hoid cannot travel large distances in an instance and (it would be assumed) it would take some large amount of time to travel between worlds. For the visions...well, you have already seen my thoughts on them and their order, which is very incomplete.

I did indeed use spoiler tags for length. (It isn't as long as some of Chaos' theories but it clocks in around 1.5k words, and it looked really bad without them...) Good point on Yesteel, though we don't know enough about him to put him higher than Vasher on a list. Sunblesser: I do like your idea on having Adien being a worldhopper and I like the idea but, as with Yesteel, we don't know enough about him. (It is so sad to not have enough information.) Didn't someone speculate that tattooing Aon Rao onto your body might allow you to use AonDor anywhere and Brandon RAFOed it? It would be very weak in comparison to Elantris, as Elantris is a massive AonRao but might give you enough power to be effective. I think that this statement actually supports him being the AoL AA author (or at least a worldhopper/member of the Seventeenth Shard). If someone from the Cosmere suggested that Odium/Hoid/Something could threaten the entire planet I think Raoden would jump on board, especially if the major problems on Sel were resolved (Dahkor). And the excitement could be less since an Elantrian can't use Allomancy/Feruchemy. (And it is text: the author has probably mulled over the data and is therefore less excited since the ideas he is putting on paper aren't completely new to him/her. Additionally, the data is presented in a very dry manner, ala a text book.) Edit: Fixed some errors in vocabulary...

After reading some of the discussion on the Feruchemicl Powers page, I decided to create a list for the relative knowledge of the writer (in regards to the Cosmere) and speculation on who the writer is for each Ars Arcanum page (or the AA equivalent.) Elantris: The Final Empire: Well of Ascension: Hero of Ages: Warbreaker: Way of Kings: Alloy of Law: Feel free to add any speculation and correct any points I may have missed (or misinterpreted.)

Unfortunately, that Chronology is VERY flimsy (I was looking at it the other day...): there is a small amount of detail on the Mistborn trilogy and the rest of it boils down to "the order in which the books were published" timeline. While that is technically correct (AoL notwithstanding), it doesn't give us much to go on. I'm not sure if all of the time gaps are substantiated (some are relatively easy to confirm, others not so much.) Edit: One of the biggest problems we will have with coming up with a comprehensive timeline is the incompleteness of the Cosmere (as we know it.) While it is comparatively easy to get fairly accurate timelines for each novel (or series) individually (though YMMV: see the WoK timeline thread...), we will need to use at least a drill press and thumb screws to get any complete inter-series timeline out of Brandon/Peter...

I agree with Jasnah not being the author. (Besides, she probably isn't born yet; afaik, AoL takes place some time before WoK.) I'm thinking it is an Elantrian member of the SS: the references to Sel and its magic, and only Sel, support this.

I think that the author of the Ars Arcanum is a member of the Seventeenth Shard from Sel, most likely Raoden, who is making the list as an entry in a sort of encyclopedia of Investiture in the Cosmere. I contemplated it being Vasher, due to Vasher's scholarly background (and if anyone from Nalthis could be a member of the SS it would be Vasher; he is probably the most knowledgeable person on Nalthis, with Yesteel being nearby. Vasher deducing that there are other worlds wouldn't isn't much of a stretch.) However, afaik Alloy of Law takes place before Warbreaker (someone correct me if I am wrong,) making that particular idea a dud (and Vasher's pattern of speech doesn't quite fit with the Ars Arcanum chapter: Vasher is very specific when talking about Bio-Chroma in Chapter 46 of Warbreaker, while the AA author is speaking of the Metallic Arts in a very general fashion. Even the individual entries on the metals don't go into as much depth as Vasher does when speaking with Vivenna about Bio-Chroma.)

All right, found the quote I was looking for (which is what I based my statement on; it is also the quote that Wispsy was looking for, I believe.): Emphasis added. (I don't have the page number, got it from the e-book.) There is your reasoning for the KRs creation being after Nohadon. My apologies for not specifying that it was Nohadon's ideas, not Nohadon himself, that helped to created the KR. Then again, Kaladin's father mentions that the KR were founded by the Heralds, and we don't know which of these is the correct interpretation, if either of them are correct, or if the real answer lies in a mixture of the two. I wouldn't be surprised if the Heralds founded the KR after seeing Nohadon's book, looking at the problems that the surgebinders were causing (as mentioned by Nohadon) and then cribbing the ideas from TWoK. It definitely makes their job easier to have an order of armored knights running around protecting people before they can arrive. Not enough information is a large problem with only one book out of ten being released... The visions aren't in chronological order, though we can deduce the CO fairly easily through context clues. The scenes are (with the chapter they are found in and a very brief summary): Starfalls (chapter 19, attack of smoke creatures), A Highway to the Sun (chapter 52, The Day of Recreance), That Which We Cannot Have (chapter 60, Noahadon's Musings), and In the Top Room (chapter 75, rehash of the introduction and The Everstorm). In CO, first to last, with reasonings are as follows: That Which We Cannot Have (As has been stated, the KR came after Nohadon.) Starfalls (There are members of the KR in this vision.) A Highway to the Sun (The disbandment of the KR.) In the Top Room (Last section of the vision, as it is the Everstorm. The earliest section is impossible to date with current information. If Dalinar's walk up the hill doesn't signal a scene change then this earlier segment is also set in the future.) If I missed any, which I think may have happened, feel free to mention them. At least the Wikipedia article is fairly accurate... Edit: Fixed spelling...

As far as I can tell, the Prologue takes place after the Nohadon scene and before the Recreance (the KRs fall.) Because there are KR in the Prologue it must take place after Nohadon (as he effectively started the KR) and before the KR disbanding (again, their are KR.) Timeline is something like this (assuming no one in the novels is lying or there is information lost.): Expulsion Desolations <Nohadon's Reign> <Breaking of the Oathpact> The "Last" Desolation The Recreance <Death of the Almighty> (inferred from the Highstorm visions: none of them take place after the Recreance and there are a few other ideas that help confirm this idea. This thread shows at least one other idea that supports this time frame.) The Hierocracy <Gaviliar takes control of Alethkar> <Gaviliar is slain by Szeth> <Events of the Way of Kings> Sadly, we only know one set of dates: it is 4500 years from the "Last" Desolation to Gaviliar's assassination. Other than that we have no information on dates, afaik, just their relative order. Oh, sometime between The "Last" Desolation and the "current" time, the Shattered Plains were created, which may be the same time as the Death of the Almighty, depending on how you feel about what/who caused the creation of the Shattered Plains.

Great thread! My amazingly lame superpowers are as follows: Situational Narcolepsy: Need I say more? Sweat Powah!: I sweat. A lot. I sit in a chair, I sweat. I ride my bike to class, I sweat. I walk to class, I sweat. I sleep, I sweat. I take a shower, I sweat. Yeah, it's that fun. Though it is, with a stiff breeze, very easy to cool off. (As an interesting note, I have a slightly lower than normal body temperature: high 97s is what I usually read as.) Joint Fast Expand: At the beginning of a match, my joints like to quickly take the nearest expansion and proceed to macr-oh, wait! Wrong expansion! My joints have a lovely tendency to increase in size, while decreasing my mobility (and they heat up a bit, too!) This grants me the ability to be less flexible and in constant pain, increasing my, um, toughness? Yea, toughness! We'll go with that! Procrastination Fuel: I find it easy to stay awake even if I am tired, which can cause me to stay awake much longer than I intended (or as long as intended: I'm looking at you WoK), but waking up is VERY hard, even with plentiful amounts of sleep (and on a normal sleeping schedule.) I can also force myself to sleep longer. Ex: Say I go to bed at 10 P.M. and wake up for the first time at 8 the next morning (ignoring the usually bathroom break.) If I don't have anything going on, I can force myself to fall back asleep, until I feel like getting up. (Wake up at 8, force self to sleep, wake up at 10, force self to sleep, wake up at noon, force self to sleep, etc.) It gets harder (and the gaps get shorter) the longer I tray to stay asleep. (In the above scenario, it is more likely that I would wake up at 8, 10, 11, 11:45, 12:30, 1, etc. instead of neat 2 hour increments. [The name for this "power" comes from the ability of being to stay awake all night, if necessary, to finish a project and is combined in horrid, eldritch ways with the goal of procrastination: "Put off what you can do tomorrow, today!" (or tonight in my case)] Shrubbery: I tend to hedge my answers/responses (and opinions) way too often, so as to avoid confrontation. <insert obligatory Toy Story clip> [hedge] While this is often a good thing, allowing me to see through others' eyes, it also tends to make my own opinions look soft/weak in comparison. [/hedge] Ni! You knew it was coming. I too possess the powers of Excessive Patience and the Mid-Sentence Infodump.

The Almighty's time of death being placed after the KRs fall seems to be also corroborated by the Highstorm visions: there aren't any visions that take place (chronologically) after the KR disbanding (excepting a vision of the Everstorm, which is only a hypothetical.)

I think that is has been confirmed that Atium, as a god metal, isn't associated with the normal groupings for either Feruchemy or Allomancy (or even Hemalurgy), and has its own rules for the three Metallic Arts. If Ruin gave Marsh abilities, then he definitely didn't miss (he is the one responsible for its existence, after all.) And I don't really see a reason for TLR giving any Inquisitor Feruchemical Age, except under conditions I've already listed: Also, to grant the Feruchemical power of Age, a spike must be used to kill a Feruchemist (with the right metal spike), making it almost impossible to "accidentally" give Feruchemical Age with a spike that killed an Allomancer, debunking that part of the theory.

I believe that it is mentioned somewhere that the size of the spike doesn't matter (though I can't seem to find any reference.) Steel Inquisitor spikes are specifically mentioned as being large to be intimidating, but a much smaller spike applies the same amount of power (ala Vin.) The larger spike that the Inquisitor in the beginning of HoA uses to try and spike Elend with is larger so it can be used as a weapon, same with the spike that Marsh uses to kill the Coppercloud and spike Penrod with. For the Kandra blessings to work they need to fit in the shoulder of a kandra posing as a human, so they can't be too big. (I've always thought of the blessings being 2"-4" myself, same as the Koloss spikes, which are mentioned in an annotation as being small: HoA annotation for Chapter 37 part 2.) From a chapter Epigraph in HoA (I don't know what chapter it is from, got it off the wiki.) This suggests that the spike size makes a difference for the "backdoor" weakness of a Hemalurgic creation, nothing on power though... I can't seem to find a reference to the size of a spike relating to the maximum amount of power it can steal (only references to the size of anything influencing its power that I can find is the size of a Metalmind being proportional to the maximum amount of an attribute you can store in it.) Anyone else have any luck?

Ah, but those are the burning questions that underly the next book(s) in the series! As far as Marsh goes, I think out of all the characters, he needed the most rest. Telling the others that he was still alive might have been uncomfortable, at best. (Especially since almost everyone Marsh really cared about is dead.) I think Marsh might need some soul searching time alone... Also, in case you are curious about the Koloss: Now you get to read the annotations and reread the books. Then you can start spouting ideas like the rest of us!

While I agree with the concept of the idea, it is important to note that the quote is: Emphasis added. This suggests, to me, that there won't always, nor need there, be a champion for a particular Shard. A Shard can choose one, but they do not have to have one. I agree completely on Vin-Preservation(Leras), Elend-Preservation(Vin) and Marsh-Ruin, as these three are pretty obvious. And if Marsh is still alive in AoL (which I think Brandon confirmed?) then I think it is safe to assume that he is Harmony's champion. However, I don't think that any of the other known Shards have champions at the time of their novel(s) (I think the Shard with the best shot of having a champion is Endowment, most likely being Vasher.) I think the biggest reason why Honor suggests that they force Odium to choose a champion is that it will limit Odium's power to destroy/change the world, as he will be focusing some of his power onto a mortal, instead of slinging his power around destroying mankind. Additionally, it is rather difficult to kill an incorporeal, near-diefic creature unless you are an INDC yourself; killing a mortal who has been strengthened by that creature is much easier (though reaaaallllly hard.) The quoted line seems to suggest that Odium does NOT want to use a champion, for some reason.

Hmmm, I thought that the spikes just moved the organs around, by physically changing the anatomy of the creature, so much that a spike through each eye socket merely moves the brain around and a spike that should go through a lung or heart doesn't because the organs have moved. Though I can't seem to find anything that outright supports this...

Makes sense, yes? If you want to get into weird territory: Sazed can take control of Marsh if he feels like it! (Assuming Marsh is still an Inquisitor.) That is definitely an avatar-like characteristic! (Either from the movie by James Cameron or the more traditional, fantasy deity's projection of self on a material plane.) While I mostly agree with the method of gaining the ability to use Feruchemical Atium (the only other real option being Sazed turning Marsh into a full Feruchemist or Atium Ferring, which is even less likely than Marsh getting an Atium spike for Age), we don't know why Ruin/TLR would give an Inquisitor the ability to store age, especially if it takes an Atium spike, since there are much better uses for the Atium during the respective time frames. The mistake theory falls short because they would have tested Marsh to see if he could burn Atium after being spiked, to make sure that the spike was in the proper place, and you would need to kill a Feruchemist, not an Allomancer, to steal the Atium ability that we are talking about. Using an Atium spike to steal the ability to burn Atium as an Allomancer is much stronger than being able to use Feruchemical age; this being a justification for not giving an Inquisitor Feruchemical age during the time of TLR (assumming that Inquisitors don't need TLRs trick to live for a few centuries; they do have a very odd anatomy.) And during Ruin's "End of the World" party it would be superior for an Atium spike to be used by one of the few Inquisitors that could burn Atium, instead of giving the ability to store age to an Inquisitor, especially when Ruin believes (He would have been correct if it weren't for those meddlesome kids and their dog/kandra!) that the world will be over within a year, at the most.

For teh Evulz!! Back on topic: Sneaking around without being recognized is rather hard if you have spikes in your eyes, no matter your age. Besides, the concept of sneaking around for Marsh and the other Inquisitors is one of not being seen (obligatory Monty Python joke; see what I did there?), as opposed to fooling others. Either way, I'm not sure that Atium allows you to change that much...anyone know more on Atium's Feruchemical limitations? Even if it were possible, a big flaw in that idea is that the spikes wouldn't change size and that would cause lots of problems, even for an Inquisitor. (Having 8 to 10 spikes in your chest as a physically strong adult doesn't take up an excessive amount of spce, but a child would have a quarter or less room for the spikes to fit in...there wouldn't be any room left for organs! And lets not even talk about the Marsh of HoA, with 20+ spikes...) It seems like reversing your age that much is out of its reach too. However, it IS a god metal... The problem with stealing powers from a young child/baby (if you ignore the obvious ethical issues...but these are Inquisitors we are talking about) is that you cannot know what Allomantic metal they have, if they even have one, as they haven't snapped yet. And you have to know what metal they have in order to steal it, since the metal of the spike (and bind point) varies with each metal. I suppose the Ministry could kidnap them, let them grow old enough to snap and then turn them over to the Inquisitors... That is pretty creepy. I am glad I don't live in TFE.

This is going to be awesome! I can't wait to hear more about the game and I am totally planning on buying it on the 25th. (Plus, by having this game come out, I don't have to worry about finishing my MB conversion of SWSE, which was stalling badly...) Since this seems to be the best thread for this question and I don't particularly wish to start a new thread with a fairly trivial question...do we know what the mechanical style of the game is? Is it d6 or d20-based, diceless, or something completely different?

One of the other things about Marsh that has bugged me...other reasons that are related to this are in TLR Allomantic strength thread, though they are in a later post on that thread (mainly the reasoning behind Marsh getting the largest number of spikes, which makes very little sense if an Inquisitor that was originally a MB is alive.) Another problem with Marsh having the ability of Feruchemical age is that it would require a spike of a metal that steals the Feruchemical Atium power. This is, presumably, Atium/Lerasium (since Atium falls under the "God metal" tab and, logically, would require another God metal to steal it.) The problem that arises from this fact is due to the rarity of Atium/Lerasium (or even lack thereof) during the timeframe where Marsh/Ruin would have been able to steal Feruchemical age (between the end of WoA and HoA.) If you even can make a Hemalurgic spike out of Lerasium, assuming you had enough to fashion a spike. Another idea that stems from the above: Inquisitors have a spike that grants them the ability to store Feruchemical age like TLR but they can't get nearly the return from burning a storage than TLR can, limiting their agelessness to a few centuries (which is another way to explain their extended lifespans, in addition to the change in their anatomy.) The older you are, the more age you would need to tap to seem the same age, putting a cap on the maximum age you can reach that is proportional to your Allomantic strength. For TLR this cap might be in the thousands or even millions of years, while Inquisitors, who aren't as strong as TLR in Allomancy, and aren't very efficient with Feruchemy due to Hemalurgy being the source of their Feruchemy, can only get a much smaller boost from burning a storage, limiting their maximum age to a few centuries. I came up with the idea of requiring an ever increasing amount of Atium to stay immortal to explain the lack of Atium in the Final Empire, since I hypothesized that TLR burned most of it away to stay young, which was debunked during the the end of HoA (though it is still possible for this idea to be true, it obviously takes less Atium than I originally thought, since there is an incredibly large amount of Atium in the Trust.) A decent (but very fallible) idea that I have considered is that every additional spike one has gives a boost to the spike's related magical power (every aspect of the power, not just the spike's stolen attribute: Under this idea a Steel spike that stole Allomantic Pewter would grant a very small boost to all of the host's Allomancy, in addition to a much larger boost to Pewter), slight but noticable (veeerrrryyy sketchy, but why not? The Allomantic strength of someone is based on their connection to Preservation, IIRC, so each spike should add to that connection, even if it is corrupted by Hemalurgy.) An example that demonstrates this idea: A Pewterarm is turned into an Inquisitor by the "normal method." For this example note that a spike grants a % of a normal power due to the decay that naturally occurs with Hemalurgy. Additionally, assume that a "normal" MB/Misting has a value of 100 and any Hemalurgic spike that is used to kill someone and enter a host with very little time between the two, ala what Marsh describes/does at the beginning of HoA, has a value very close to 100 (in this case 95). "Standard Model" Base strengths for each Metal (Spikes given contained the powers of Pewter, Tin, Steel, Iron, Brass, Zinc, Copper, Bronze and possibly Atium): Pewter: Was at 100, is now at 195 (+95 from spike and 100 base) T/S/I/Ba/Z/C/Bo/(A): Was at 0, is now at 95 (+95 from spike) "My model" As above but with an extra power boost due to the theory; boost is an arbitrary value of +1 per spike other than the one that granted the ability (it is much smaller than the boost given by the spike of the intended ability, but enough to make a difference, especially if one increases the boost to a higher number than +1): Pewter: was at 100, is now at 202(203) (100 base, +95 from spike, +1 for each additional spike = +7(+8)) T/S/I/Ba/Z/C/Bo/(A): Was at 0, is now at 102(103) (+95 from spike, +7(+8) from extra spikes) The "standard model" yields an Inquisitor that is weaker than a comparable Mistborn (except in Pewter.) The only thing it has going for it is the spookiness of the spikes and its increased ability in Pewter. If we do an arbitrary power boost ("My model") for each spike (+1 in the above example) then the Inquisitor is (very) slightly stronger than a comparable MB and incredibly stronger in the power it had as a Misting, which follows the observed reality of TFE. As a final idea, Sazed grants Marsh the ability to store age or makes a Hemalurgic spike and gives it to Marsh. This idea is even more unlikely than the others but it is plausible. Who else would be more trustworthy with immortality than Marsh? This was a reason why I thought Marsh, as an Inquisitor, couldn't stay alive long enough to still be around during AoL. Other factors: Marsh could have died during the end of the world (debunked). If Marsh was conscious when Vin and Ruin killed each other, or even if he regained consciousness after Sazed Ascended but Sazed wasn't able to talk to him quickly enough, Marsh would have almost certainty committed suicide as soon as he realized that Ruin was not controlling him. If he didn't die and Sazed could keep him alive while he took out his spikes then Sazed could have made him a full MB, like Spook, and added Feruchemy on top of that. If he didn't die and had a choice in staying or going, who deserves a rest (to quote Sazed on Vin and Elend) more than Marsh!?! Though Marsh might be willing to stay an Inquisitor to work as an avatar/guardian of Scadrial for Sazed (This being the only way that I can see for Marsh to still be an Inquisitor during the events of AoL.) They aren't the greatest ideas, but at least it's something. Also, it is waaaayyyy to late... :/