Aekiel2

That's fair, though I'd also point out that the manacles are very highly Invested devices, so it may not be a good idea to put them in contact with an anti-investiture being for other reasons. Such as the propensity for being turned into a fine red mist.

There's a significant difference between lifting up a large ship and carefully destroying a pair of manacles on a person's wrists, regardless of how delicately the Dakwara moved the ship.

I'm a glutton for knowledge so I'd have to go with F-Copper. This has the upside of letting me reread my favourite books from scratch again, multiple times. Allomancy-wise, I think I'd probably go with bendalloy if I get the built in immunity to it being highly toxic or steel if not. I just want to be able to fling myself through the air at high speed. That would be fun.

That's a good thought. I'm working on the assumption that anti-investiture is created by inverting the Intent of the Shard, and now that I think about 'Destroy Evil' is pretty close to the opposite of Endowment's Intent.

I thought about that, but I think having two sets of eyes focusing on the emotional allomancy allows for dealing with a greater variety of threats. It also means that if they run into an enemy that is immune to emotional allomancy (coppercloud, aluminium hat, etc.) then you're losing 1/4 effectiveness of two members rather than 1/2 the effectiveness of one. Besides which, because both metals can basically mimic each other there's less use for having them both on one person. They can always communicate with each other to hit specific targets as well. Just for fun, really. I find working with limitations more interesting that cherry-picking the most optimal case, because otherwise the logical solution is just to make a Mistborn and be done with it. Putting that aside, I do like your ideas here. Doubling up on the tank builds and alloying those metals to be a bit more powerful than the others is a nifty idea and makes the combat side of the team a lot stronger. I do think that cadmium is a viable replacement for bendalloy here, depending on what kind of organisation they're working for. If it's the government then being able to keep people in a slow bubble while the cavalry arrives isn't a terrible idea. If it's more of a Ghostbloods type organisation though, then bendalloy is the better choice. I will note that guns and kevlar make pewter a bit less useful than it was in Era 1, but duralumin can cover for that in a pinch. Does help for maintaining stamina through long combats too. I really like the idea of purposefully recruiting Ferrings and Mistings to bump up the pool of powers beyond the original Lerasium bead. Being able to create compounders is a huge advantage, and you can try to pick out those Ferrings that are most useful for the team.

So I had this idea a few weeks ago about what would happen if you had a bead of Lerasium, but chose to split it into 16 pieces, alloy each of the metals to it and then feed them to various people to form a team of very specialised mistings. What would be the best combination of allomantic powers you could give to 4 people to work effectively as a team? This assuming you don't just double up on some alloys so your entire team has A-Pewter or something and we're working with Era 3 stage technology (which is probably analogus to 1980s Earth tech with some magictech involved). The squad I came up with was something like this: Bruiser - Pewter, Electrum, Steel, Bendalloy Support - Copper, Brass, Cadmium, Nicrosil Disruption - Iron, Zinc, Chromium, Gold Information - Tin, Bronze, Duralumin, Aluminium I think this would work reasonably well for a well trained covert ops team. The Bruiser is there to be front and centre against the various threats the Cosmere can bring to bare and go toe to toe with them. Pewter and steel are there for brute force physical combat. Electrum (assuming you don't have access to Era 1 atium itself) is for providing a modicum of precognition while in a fight that can help you avoid danger, and Bendalloy has a ton of uses all by itself. The Support is a back lines squad member that works to manipulate the enemy through soothing. Cadmium bubbles are great for if a squad member is wounded and you need to wait for medical support from outside - the bubble slows time for the squad so an ambulance can arrive. Copper works to hide the team and to disrupt enemy information gathering (plus it interacts with other magic systems in weird ways), while nicrosil can be used for context specific things like burst Iron/Steel pushes or enhancing speed bubbles to the best they need ot be. Disruption does what it says on the tin. I picture them as being in the thick of things using zinc and iron to mess with enemy troops and their weapons, keeping the rest of the team safe. Chromium would be used to drain enemies that are bit too Invested for the Bruiser to handle alone (where the response would be for the Bruiser to restrain the enemy while Disruption leeches them). Gold is... Gold. Someone had to have it. Information is the key member of the team. They're the one that spots the enemy using tin and bronze, can make themselves immune to enemy Investiture using aluminium, and can burst through copperclouds with a duralumin-enhanced seeking. They're the eyes and ears of the team. What combinations do you think could be fun/interesting and does changing up the purpose of the team change those combinations at all?

My pet theory is that his little internal monologue about how becoming a mistborn wouldn't change him (as he'd used the Bands to protect his friends) set up his Intent to align with both Ruin and Preservation, which then contaminated the experiment and caused the metal to split.

Interesting thing to note. The behaviour Dajer is trying to induce in the Dakwara is exactly how Nightblood behaves after eating too much Investiture.

My pet theory is that iron and steel work by imbuing force directly on the object through a spiritual Connection.

I think the worm paste doesn't convey powers, it's just a means of gaining Investiture that can be used later. Similar to Stormlight. The worms likely need to parasitise the host to actively grant powers rather than just Investiture, which is probably limited to certain animals and those that eat them. I think the trappers gain their powers through proving themselves to Patji, or potentially through the initiation ceremony that inducts a new trapper. That's very in line with how Autonomy tends to grant power.

There is a perpendicularity on Patji... So yes.

I have the pet theory that F-Duralumin can be used to mitigate/negate Bondsmith Connection shenanigans, which may help even the playing field a bit.

It should be noted that these wobs were written for Sixth of the Dusk, not Isles of the Emberdark. There's been a few changes made to the story since it was first written and the Mother Frond character was only created for this book. I'd also point out that Cultivation hid herself on Roshar for a variety of reasons, including Odium being active and present in the system. Her behaviour on one world does not necessarily mean she'll act the same way elsewhere.

It's possible that perpendicularities only form after the Shard Invests the system, which Cultivation may not have done at this point.

So I was rereading Isles the other day and I got to the part where Mother Frond tells the story of Cakoban to Dusk and a bunch of kids. I don't know why it didn't twig the first time through, but there's a lot of symbolism in her introduction that is heavily reminiscent of Cultivation and I wanted to get you guys' take on it. First is obviously the name. Frond refers to the leaf or leaflike part of a plant and Cultivation is obviously very associated with plants and greenery. It's also not her real name, only one that people have taken to calling her. Second is that Mother Frond is introduced to us in a park that is described as 'too cultivated for [Dusk's] taste.', which I think is a not so subtle hint that Brandon is throwing at us here. Also mentioned is that the homeisles are becoming less wild both in nature and in the inhabitants. That feels like an effect Cultivation would have on a population to me, though that's very much speculation on my part. Third, and this is the least convincing piece of evidence to me, is that Mother Frond is both much darker skinned than even Dusk, wearing traditional clothing of the worldspinners. In Wind and Truth, Cultivation is described in much the same vein, though there's no mention of her eye colour. Those are the context clues that I'm seeing when I read through this passage, but I'm also seeing a very Cultivation-esque set of mannerisms at play here. When she talks to Dalinar in Wind and Truth, she tells him the information he needs to take up Honor, focuses on the stories of the past as a way to guide future action, and in doing so manipulates him into taking the actions he needs/she wants him to. I get the same feeling from Mother Frond during this sequence, and we know that Shards can appear basically as they wish but they do tend to prefer ones that remind them of their mortal forms (such as when Taravangian appeared to El in Wind and Truth and Cultivation looking the same in old murals as she does in modern times). Combining all these together, I think they suggest in not very subtle ways that Cultivation was present on First of the Sun during this time period, has the same Vessel, and is still doing her thing in quietly manipulating the future to one that she wants. Thoughts?