Brainiac Character ideas (for fun)

[Trusk'our he/him]

Usually, I make a post talking about a new possible way to utilize Investiture or some Cosmere phenomenon, and I suppose that this thread will do the same, to an extent. However, more to the point, I wanted to make a character that would be in the Mistborn setting but have cognitive benefits in a similar way that a Koloss-blooded person has athletic ones. Basically, if a Koloss was made with copper spikes instead of iron and had a kid, what possible ways might that person be like?

Any fun ideas how this cognition could manifest itself, or how it would look if roll playing? Raw "intelligence" seems a bit amorphous (I suppose you could break it down into the different types of intelligence though, and say only one or a few are improved), so more specific perks would probably be more engaging. 

[+hwiles]

2 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Usually, I make a post talking about a new possible way to utilize Investiture or some Cosmere phenomenon, and I suppose that this thread will do the same, to an extent. However, more to the point, I wanted to make a character that would be in the Mistborn setting but have cognitive benefits in a similar way that a Koloss-blooded person has athletic ones. Basically, if a Koloss was made with copper spikes instead of iron and had a kid, what possible ways might that person be like?

Any fun ideas how this cognition could manifest itself, or how it would look if roll playing? Raw "intelligence" seems a bit amorphous (I suppose you could break it down into the different types of intelligence though, and say only one or a few are improved), so more specific perks would probably be more engaging. 

Well, first and foremost, I wouldn't expect them to be caught dead anywhere near a classroom. An impossibly intelligent person would make both an extremely frustrated teacher AND an extremely frustrated student. Frustration and inappropriate pacing ruin creativity and the most insanely intelligent person who ever walked the earth, be they man or woman, would be nothing if not absurdly creative.

What does that leave? Well, they sure as heck would not be left alone by the government or authorities, because those societal functions can't sustainably operate without keeping a close eye and ear towards the minds of their brightest citizens. I would expect them to most likely have rocky relationships with their family if their family was all human, if not because many (maybe most) parents and elders in a family tree struggle severely with raising, respecting, maintaining positive engagement with children who are more than 3 standard deviations to the left or right of them on the general intelligence spectrum, then simply because of how their child benefitted overwhelmingly from the death and suffering of others. It doesn't make either child or family members bad people, it just very fundamentally makes for unusual and awkward social situations that are impossible to avoid and that generates resentment...

So...I'm thinking: hapless loner, who fully understands the benefits of social engagement but probably avoids close ties except when they can't avoid it, and prioritizes personal liberty, creativity, and self determination above all else. They should pretty unmatchable control over their body and reflexes (think Sherlock Holmes, or the most extreme su kong tai djin myths from real life). They should have uncanny intuition; it should be difficult to distinguish from precognition and telepathy to be honest. And lastly, I would expect them to be lazy as hell and to almost always use other people to do their bidding except when they have no other choice. 

[Quantus he/him]

Koloss balance the extra Strength with decreased Intelligence and emotional Control. Realmically I think this is because they have a lot more spiritweb machinery trying to be run on the same total allotment of Investiture (Feruchemically speaking).  So an intelligence equivalent should have a similar trade-off.  For a mirrored approach, Id think they'd be smaller than an average human, much weaker physically, and maybe a bit thin and stretched out and similarly grey and hairless like normal Koloss...  Soooo, Roswell Greys with a heightened intelligence, memory, and processing but reduced Emotional intelligence and empathy, more or less like [vague Stormlight Spoiler]. 

Spoiler

That one character on their "Smart Days".

And just for some extra flavor (like the skin ripping thing with Koloss), give them all racial speech impediment that makes them sound vaguely reptilian. 

I Dub them the Ssolok!

[+hwiles]

23 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Koloss balance the extra Strength with decreased Intelligence and emotional Control. Realmically I think this is because they have a lot more spiritweb machinery trying to be run on the same total allotment of Investiture (Feruchemically speaking).  So an intelligence equivalent should have a similar trade-off.  For a mirrored approach, Id think they'd be smaller than an average human, much weaker physically, and maybe a bit thin and stretched out and similarly grey and hairless like normal Koloss...  Soooo, Roswell Greys with a heightened intelligence, memory, and processing but reduced Emotional intelligence and empathy, more or less like [vague Stormlight Spoiler]. 

  Hide contents

That one character on their "Smart Days".

And just for some extra flavor (like the skin ripping thing with Koloss), give them all racial speech impediment that makes them sound vaguely reptilian. 

I Dub them the Ssolok!

Hmmm...sadly, I have to agree that they would probably exhibit severe deficits in empathy though, and maybe physical capability too; i think they would feel and be aware of the emotions of others, but they probably wouldn't be meaningfully influenced by them, which is like a weird and inverted form of psychopathy... Empathy problems does open up the question of whether such a creature would be vulnerable to remote control via concentrated emotional allomancy; honestly, it sort of breaks some of things many people think that they know about Hemalurgy, but I think they would be functionally immune to control like Inquisitors typically are or kandra with the blessing of stability or presence can become. They might land themselves some sensory deficits though while we're on the subject of physical capability unfortunately.

If it helps at all, my best guess and advice for defining exotic engineered psuedo-human sapient constructs would be:

Assume that augmenting and stacking power of one of the known classified kandra blessings comes with a partial (but not equal!) reduction in the other three. So...theoretically, it should be possible to load up a body with spikes until it is superior in capability to any naturally born creature with no detectable flaws, buuuuuut...one would have to kill an insane number of people and perform experiments on an absurd volume of human test subjects to master such a creation process...

On second thought...You might be onto something with that grey aliens description...

[Quantus he/him]

39 minutes ago, hwiles said:

Hmmm...sadly, I have to agree that they would probably exhibit severe deficits in empathy though, and maybe physical capability too; i think they would feel and be aware of the emotions of others, but they probably wouldn't be meaningfully influenced by them, which is like a weird and inverted form of psychopathy... Empathy problems does open up the question of whether such a creature would be vulnerable to remote control via concentrated emotional allomancy; honestly, it sort of breaks some of things many people think that they know about Hemalurgy, but I think they would be functionally immune to control like Inquisitors typically are or kandra with the blessing of stability or presence can become. They might land themselves some sensory deficits though while we're on the subject of physical capability unfortunately.

If it helps at all, my best guess and advice for defining exotic engineered psuedo-human sapient constructs would be:

Assume that augmenting and stacking power of one of the known classified kandra blessings comes with a partial (but not equal!) reduction in the other three. So...theoretically, it should be possible to load up a body with spikes until it is superior in capability to any naturally born creature with no detectable flaws, buuuuuut...one would have to kill an insane number of people and perform experiments on an absurd volume of human test subjects to master such a creation process...

On second thought...You might be onto something with that grey aliens description...

If not immune to the typical hemalurgic control, then at least as resistent as the Kandra Blessing of Presence grants. Probably a similar suit of benefits too: "the ability to focus despite physical discomfort or distraction, exceptionally sharp memory, resistance to madness, and the inability to lapse into unconsciousness due to shock."

[Dofurion]

I was just preparing a publication entitled "Hemalurgic Table 2.0", a table not for the effects that the different types of spike have that we already know, but for the hemalurgic constructs. From my point of view there should be between 4 or 8 human-based constructs given the non-allomantic/feruchemical attributes that can be stolen with hemalurgy.

Note: All of these constructs are based on the 4-spike limit of modern hemalurgy. Coincidentally, it is the number needed to create Koloss.

Physical Metals:

• Iron: Koloss
• Tin: This construct could manifest hypersensitivity like a Tin Sevant. It could also have mutations in the organs dedicated to the senses such as reversing the construction of the retina in the eyes to repair the blind spot and color perception.

Cognitive Metals:

• Copper: I already had an idea similar to what was already stated in the previous comments, but, the inherent disadvantages of this construct were not planned in a reduction of physical qualities, but rather I had planned it for the bind points necessary for this construct, example: That it is necessary to place 2 of the 4 in the eyes and given that the vast majority will not have the ability to perceive these metals they will be virtually blind.
• Zinc: I imagined them as beings with emotions, but they wouldn't perceive them like normal humans, but they could perceive and quantify how much of each emotion they feel. They would instantly detect if they were being emotionally manipulated.

From here I'm not sure if they are viable but it is still interesting to consider them.

Spiritual Metals:

• Chromium: [??]
• Necrosil: This would be a wildcard since it would work depending on the power of the stolen investment, for example with 4 nails loaded with the investment of Autonomy you could replicate the Chimera.
• Aluminium: These constructs would look more or less like drabs, normal humans but with a sickly appearance. In their vicinity (say about 16 feet) all invested arts stop working. (Imagine someone with the pariah gene in Warhammer 40K but without causing a headache)
• Duralumin: The opposite case to the previous one, this construct would improve the efficiency of the use of people's investment in the vicinity in addition to morality, but (I can't think of a disadvantage). I'm having a lot of doubts about this one.

[Trusk'our he/him]

5 minutes ago, Dofurion said:

I was just preparing a publication entitled "Hemalurgic Table 2.0", a table not for the effects that the different types of spike have that we already know, but for the hemalurgic constructs. From my point of view there should be between 4 or 8 human-based constructs given the non-allomantic/feruchemical attributes that can be stolen with hemalurgy.

Interesting!

I think there should be far more than just 4-8 construct possibilities though, as you can mix up Bindpoints and the contents of each spike.

For example, Kandra Blessings aren't just due to being used on Mistwraiths, but because different parts and percentages of the Spiritweb were used to Invest them.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/90-barnes-noble-b-fest-2016/#e4652

Questioner

What's the difference between a spike prepared for a Koloss and a spike prepared for a Mistwraith or Kandra? What side effects might occur from... [?]... Koloss spikes?

Brandon Sanderson

It's the pieces of the soul that are being ripped off and the amount of the soul that's being ripped off. That's a big part of it. What side effects would there be? You would probably not get something as intelligent.

Questioner

What's the difference in how you prepare those spikes?

Brandon Sanderson

The Koloss spikes, you've seen how they're done. The Kandra spikes were prepared by the Lord Ruler. He gave them to them, and so we don't know what he did, at least in canon.

<snip>

 

10 minutes ago, Dofurion said:

Cognitive Metals:

• Copper: I already had an idea similar to what was already stated in the previous comments, but, the inherent disadvantages of this construct were not planned in a reduction of physical qualities, but rather I had planned it for the bind points necessary for this construct, example: That it is necessary to place 2 of the 4 in the eyes and given that the vast majority will not have the ability to perceive these metals they will be virtually blind.

I don't know if copper spikes can be placed in the eyes, at least according to Spook's research of Inquisitor Bindpoints with the Hemalurgy table. That's where physical metals go.

I wouldn't be too surprised if it was more dependent on the specific contents of the spikes though, so perhaps it's plausible. 

As for blindness from eye spikes, I don't think that this would be an issue. I made a thread discussing the possibility of Hemalurgic spikes pulling the Spiritual Aspect of an organ, allowing it to continue functioning despite physical disfigurement. As such, my belief is that any functional Hemalurgic spike in the eye should grant Steelsight as a side effect. 

18 minutes ago, Dofurion said:

Zinc: I imagined them as beings with emotions, but they wouldn't perceive them like normal humans, but they could perceive and quantify how much of each emotion they feel. They would instantly detect if they were being emotionally manipulated.

Ooo, that's an interesting one. Really creative take on that attribute, in a good way.

Maybe they could also be hyper-aware of other's emotions by reading their body language or facial expressions, allowing them to predict behavior with extreme accuracy. 

[Dofurion]

9 minutes ago, Trusk&#x27;our said:

Interesting!

I think there should be far more than just 4-8 construct possibilities though, as you can mix up Bindpoints and the contents of each spike

Thanks 

I also think that there should be many more, but I consider that the number was severely limited after the Harmony reform that limited it to the exact amount for the Koloss to continue existing.

15 minutes ago, Trusk&#x27;our said:

For example, Kandra Blessings aren't just due to being used on Mistwraiths, but because different parts and percentages of the Spiritweb were used to Invest them.

I am a supporter of the hypothesis that Kandra blessings are spikes that are the hemalurgic equivalent of Unsealed Metalminds.

[Trusk'our he/him]

42 minutes ago, Dofurion said:

 I also think that there should be many more, but I consider that the number was severely limited after the Harmony reform that limited it to the exact amount for the Koloss to continue existing.

It could be that four is the soft limit, but it's possible that Dumad had five spikes instead of four. We don't know for certain. 

Plus, Telsin seemed to be careful not to give too much power to her minions, so I wouldn't be surprised if the max is actually greater than most Set members were allowed. 

45 minutes ago, Dofurion said:

I am a supporter of the hypothesis that Kandra blessings are spikes that are the hemalurgic equivalent of Unsealed Metalminds.

How so?

I do think something weird is going on with Kandra Blessings, as they seem to Key to each Kandra's Identity despite their contents not being taken from them (and TLR handing them over for the Kandra to use as they see fit, so they must change Identity, at least at first), but Unsealed Metalminds seem to be completely different to me.

[+hwiles]

Just gonna hemalurgically staple this comment in here real quick:

Just like the koloss are named for the real world colossus of legend, I would propose similar naming conventions for their counterpart hemalurgic monstrosities:

H:iron (strength): the koloss after colossi, giant monsters of immense strength

H:tin (sensing): the nym after nymphs, faelike creatures who achieve extreme sensory perception through their environment (such as being able to see/hear remotely like modern security cameras)

H:zinc (emotional fortitude): the Yamus, for the yama, gods of death and justice who are depicted as completely unshakeable.

H:copper (mental fortitude): the kitted, for the kitsune, fox gods of immense wisdom.

H:chromium (fate): the fated, for the fates, the blind witches who choose who lives and who dies and when.

H:aluminum (removes power): the lame, for lamia the demoness who's mere presence sucks the power out of nearby sources.

H:nicrosil (steals investiture): the babi, for the baba yaga, the Slavic witch who steals valuables from anyone who asks her for help.

H:duralumin (connection/identity): the skinchangers, for changelings and skinwalkers, known for impersonating others and mimicing their identities.

It would probably be better if more of the above leaned closer to French origins given the general naming conventions of characters in world, buuuut...themes don't have to be perfect, so whatever.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

If we're talking about Copper Spikes I've got an idea to pitch.

The Brimer, based on the Jotunn name Brimir, which are Hemalurgic Constructs given two Iron and two Copper spikes. The different spikes would balance each other out, so you'd have someone with half the strength of a Koloss and no loss in intelligence whatsoever. The perfect combination of brawns and brains and they make for much better soldiers than the more simpler and vicious Koloss, since they can actually follow orders and use tactics.

[Dofurion]

10 hours ago, Trusk&#x27;our said:

How so?

I do think something weird is going on with Kandra Blessings, as they seem to Key to each Kandra's Identity despite their contents not being taken from them (and TLR handing them over for the Kandra to use as they see fit, so they must change Identity, at least at first), but Unsealed Metalminds seem to be completely different to me.

Sorry I wrote Unsealed Metalminds instead of Unkeyed Metalminds.
Taking the Wob that you placed as an example, normal spikes always have an identity residue but I think that Kandra spikes do not have said residue. So when they are inserted in the Mistwraiths the nascent identity in these ends up impregnated in these spikes, making them unique for each Kandra.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

1 minute ago, Dofurion said:

Sorry I wrote Unsealed Metalminds instead of Unkeyed Metalminds.
Taking the Wob that you placed as an example, normal spikes always have an identity residue but I think that Kandra spikes do not have said residue. So when they are inserted in the Mistwraiths the nascent identity in these ends up impregnated in these spikes, making them unique for each Kandra.

So how would he have Unkeyed so many spikes? There are hundreds of Kandra, each one having two spikes. Rashek would never have made something like Unsealed Metalminds that store Identity for this, the very existence of such a thing would threaten his power. It's impractical for him to have forced Feruchemists to store their Identity and spike them, since he would have just spiked F-Gold out of them for his Inquisitors. 

I like your theory, but I don't think that Blessings are Unkeyed Spikes, there just isn't a conceivable way for them to be made on such a scale, not back in Era 1 at least.

[Trusk'our he/him]

1 hour ago, Dofurion said:

Sorry I wrote Unsealed Metalminds instead of Unkeyed Metalminds.
Taking the Wob that you placed as an example, normal spikes always have an identity residue but I think that Kandra spikes do not have said residue. So when they are inserted in the Mistwraiths the nascent identity in these ends up impregnated in these spikes, making them unique for each Kandra.

Ah, yes, I agree with that idea: if the spikes started with no Identity, they could resonate with the Kandra and eventually adopt theirs.

1 hour ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

So how would he have Unkeyed so many spikes? There are hundreds of Kandra, each one having two spikes. Rashek would never have made something like Unsealed Metalminds that store Identity for this, the very existence of such a thing would threaten his power. It's impractical for him to have forced Feruchemists to store their Identity and spike them, since he would have just spiked F-Gold out of them for his Inquisitors. 

I like your theory, but I don't think that Blessings are Unkeyed Spikes, there just isn't a conceivable way for them to be made on such a scale, not back in Era 1 at least.

Hemalurgic duralumin can steal Identity/Connection, which is something he would have access to.

With the right set up, including his Shard-expanded knowledge, he could non-lethally spike two donors of their Identities, then spike them with the other spikes intended to become Kandra Blessings. 

Edited Thursday at 01:41 PM by Trusk'our

[+hwiles]

28 minutes ago, Trusk&#x27;our said:

Ah, yes, I agree with that idea: if the spikes started with no Identity, they could resonate with the Kandra and eventually adopt theirs.

Hemalurgic duralumin can steal Identity/Connection, which is something he would have access to.

With the right set up, including his Shard-expanded knowledge, he could non-lethally spike two donors of their Identities, then spike them with the other spikes intended to become Kandra Blessings. 

I'm inclined to agree, I feel like @Dofurion's suggestion might have some legitimate merit. Bulleted misc. Support in case it helps sway anyone:

1. The process for making kandra spikes reportedly legitimately differs from that of koloss spikes; koloss spikes are demonstrated as maintaining some of their victim's Identity and their previous user(s)'s Identity if reused, as shown with Human. No such demonstration that Kandra maintain a Connection to the victims from whom their spikes were harvested has been made. This is isn't conclusive, but it does leave the door open.

2. The Lord Ruler routinely delegated tasks to his Inquisitors; it is likely that he told them how to make Kandra spikes so that he wouldn't need to run around his own city kidnapping and killing people at night and simply forbid them from writing it down or speaking about it. This means Marsh probably knows and a confirmation of how kandra spikes are made would be rich content reveal for a second secret history novella, so...the theory should be able to be verified or contradicted on page eventually.

3. The Lord Ruler should have been aware of what storing/tapping aluminum and duralumin did, and Inquisitors showed that they could essentially beat and force mistborn to burn aluminum in order to wipe out their metal reserves. It seems to me that the Lord Ruler could have simply made and kept a handful of hemalurgic spikes on hand for granting people f:duralumin/aluminum. Stabbing a random Ska to give them these powers and forcing them to store Identity and Connection would be easy for a couple full-blown Inquisitors (monstrous, but easy). Then they could simply excise whatever Identityless and unConnected attribute they wanted and take their two duralumin spikes back I would think.

4. The point that Kandra spikes can't be swapped between bodies or reused and do seem to organically develop their own form of Identity definitely means something.

5. Mistwraiths were originally created by ripping something important for sapience out of the spiritwebs of Feruchemists, and kandra's two Blessings fill these two holes. I'm thinking Rashek might have just severed their Identities and Connections while ascended.

6. The lord ruler had many many many more koloss than kandra and each koloss took twice as many spikes; even if the kandra spike creation process is 10 times more complicated or difficult than that of making koloss, the bottleneck here shouldn't be one of manpower or the availability of victims.

7. I would opine that Identityless & Connectionless hemalurgic spikes could absolutely be made in era1, Rashek definitely knew how, and the resources and methods would have been easy for him to employ while keeping secret. I just hadn't considered that that might be how kandra are made.

8. The kandra of era2 might never be able to create another generation unless they can find a way to reuse existing spikes or find an ethical or artificial method for creating new ones if the original process specifically required kidnapping and torturing people. We shouldn't be surprised if it turns out it did; Rashek's inquisitors were already doing that.

It's a terrible concept, but I think it kinda works unfortunately.

[Dofurion]

2 hours ago, Trusk&#x27;our said:

Hemalurgic duralumin can steal Identity/Connection, which is something he would have access to.

With the right set up, including his Shard-expanded knowledge, he could non-lethally spike two donors of their Identities, then spike them with the other spikes intended to become Kandra Blessings. 

True, something that can be very easily forgotten is that Hemalurgy does not necessarily require stabbing the heart with a spike, it is simply the most convenient place since that is where all the attributes can be extracted with the least loss of them.

 

56 minutes ago, hwiles said:

2. The Lord Ruler routinely delegated tasks to his Inquisitors; it is likely that he told them how to make Kandra spikes so that he wouldn't need to run around his own city kidnapping and killing people at night and simply forbid them from writing it down or speaking about it. This means Marsh probably knows and a confirmation of how kandra spikes are made would be rich content reveal for a second secret history novella, so...the theory should be able to be verified or contradicted on page eventually.

3. The Lord Ruler should have been aware of what storing/tapping aluminum and duralumin did, and Inquisitors showed that they could essentially beat and force mistborn to burn aluminum in order to wipe out their metal reserves. It seems to me that the Lord Ruler could have simply made and kept a handful of hemalurgic spikes on hand for granting people f:duralumin/aluminum. Stabbing a random Ska to give them these powers and forcing them to store Identity and Connection would be easy for a couple full-blown Inquisitors (monstrous, but easy). Then they could simply excise whatever Identityless and unConnected attribute they wanted and take their two duralumin spikes back I would think.

There is another way, although it depends a lot on how much Lord Ruler wanted to keep the Kandra blessings secret.

Lord Ruler was a 'fullborn', so he could decant his identity and extract attributes from himself. He could recover it by means of gold composition. And if we think about the issue of quantity, let's remember that the Kandra had generations, so the amount of blessings they have at present were given over time and not all at once.

[Trusk'our he/him]

1 minute ago, Dofurion said:

True, something that can be very easily forgotten is that Hemalurgy does not necessarily require stabbing the heart with a spike, it is simply the most convenient place since that is where all the attributes can be extracted with the least loss of them.

I don't know if stabbing the heart is necessarily more efficient, it just seems that the Set's method of charging spikes non-lethally got the Bindpoints without physically penetrating too deeply. 

In other words, I think it's likely the same amount of Investiture was collected and damage done to the Spiritweb, just that the physical trauma wasn't enough to kill.

[+hwiles]

5 hours ago, Dofurion said:

True, something that can be very easily forgotten is that Hemalurgy does not necessarily require stabbing the heart with a spike, it is simply the most convenient place since that is where all the attributes can be extracted with the least loss of them.

 

There is another way, although it depends a lot on how much Lord Ruler wanted to keep the Kandra blessings secret.

Lord Ruler was a 'fullborn', so he could decant his identity and extract attributes from himself. He could recover it by means of gold composition. And if we think about the issue of quantity, let's remember that the Kandra had generations, so the amount of blessings they have at present were given over time and not all at once.

Whoa.

It would add a lot of credence to why they call the spikes "blessings," if they came from the splinter of infinity himself yeah, and also why they called him father.

Edit: huh...I suppose that would mean that, with enough gold (or equivalent generic/liquid Investiture), Kelsier, or anyone else who gets their hands on a/the bands of mourning (assuming they get refilled or reproduced eventually) could make their own personal kandra army. Northern Scadrial's military might even be able to create secret kandra that Harmony can't detect or control doing something like this...that would be a great way to change him to Discord...

Edited Thursday at 09:07 PM by hwiles

[Dofurion]

22 hours ago, hwiles said:

Northern Scadrial's military might even be able to create secret kandra that Harmony can't detect or control doing something like this...that would be a great way to change him to Discord...

Well, technically he would have control over these hypothetical Kandra (since hemalurgic control still exists) but the thing is that he exerts said control.

Returning to the original topic of the thread, we still have to see if the descendants of the Kandra would have modifications in their physical DNA or not. Since this will come into play in Era 4 and 5.

[+hwiles]

33 minutes ago, Dofurion said:

Well, technically he would have control over these hypothetical Kandra (since hemalurgic control still exists) but the thing is that he exerts said control.

...

I mean...maybe...but maybe not if they ONLY made new kandra with the blessing of stability. Those ones might be able to resist hard enough to remain covert and autonomous.