Scadrial
Scadrial was a planet of the Cosmere and was the setting of the Mistborn series. It contains several other planets in its system. Scadrial has no moons, but there is an extremely bright patch of stars visible in the night sky.
Geography and Ecosystems
Pre-Ascension Scadrial
Scadrial before the Lord Ruler took the power at the Well of Ascension was extremely Earth-like. It had a blue sky, with clouds, a yellow sun, flowers, green plants, and animals, like horses.
The World of Ash
At the time of the Final Empire, the planet was characterised by its ashfalls and nightly mists. When Scadrial was moved closer to the sun by Rashek, the temperature on Scadrial increased dramatically. To counter this Rashek created the ashmounts in the northern hemisphere nearby the pole, to pump ferromagnetic ash and gas into the sky to reflect some of the heat back into space. This decreased heat near the north pole but unfortunately, the thicker atmosphere raised the temperature of the rest of Scadrial, turning it into an uninhabitable desert, known as the burnlands. Rashek also radically altered the geography of Scadrial, rotating the crust of the planet further south, and flattening mountain ranges, and creating new ones elsewhere, all to hide the location of the Well of Ascension. The magnetic and geographic poles of Scadrial used to be the same, but when Rashek moved the Well south from the north pole, the magnetic pole followed it.[Falta cita]
The Final Empire existed in the northern hemisphere, but life managed to survive elsewhere as well. When Rashek altered the humans of the north pole to make them able to survive in a world so full of ash, he worried that the changes he made to their physiology would kill them. He left some of the humans on Scadrial unaltered, as a control, and moved them to the southern hemisphere, in the other cooler area in the southern hemisphere. He gave them an unknown method to survive there.
Few plants and animals survived from the world before, except horses, and some dogs. Rashek also created some entirely new animals. He designed new plants that could break down the falling ash, and microbes that broke it down as part of their biological processes.
The most notable new animal however was the mistwraith, a creature that was made mostly of muscle, and used the bones of other deceased animals to create unique skeletal structures for itself. They were created from all the living Feruchemists at the time of the Lord Ruler's Ascension. When the correct Hemalurgic spikes are placed in mistwraiths, the turn into the sentient kandra. Rashek also used Hemalurgy to design koloss, made from humans, and Inquisitors.
Post-Final Ascension Scadrial
When Sazed took both Ruin and Preservation, he remade the planet and moves it back from the sun, removing the need for the ashmounts. He returned the world to the way it was before Rashek took the power at the Well of Ascension. He used the knowledge of his copperminds to return the geography to its original form, and restored all the animals that were extinct. However there was one difference, the Elendel Basin.
The Elendel Basin
In the northern hemisphere of Scadrial, Sazed created an basin of fertile lands, that could never be over-farmed, and ringed it with Seran, Faleast, and Channeral mountain ranges. The Originators named it the Elendel Basin, and built the city of Elendel in the center, on the coast of the Sea of Yomend. Most of the population of the northern hemisphere live within the Elendel Basin. Around the edges of the Basin many people farmed the land. The cities in the Elendel Basin include:
The Roughs
The regular lands around the Elendel Basin were known as the Roughs. Due to the bountiful nature of the basin, there were few reasons to live in the Roughs. The cities in the Roughs include:
- Callingfale
- Covingtar
- Faradana
- Far Dorest
- Feltrel (now a ghost town)
- Isauec's Bend
- True Madil
- Weathering
History & Mythology
Creation of Scadrial
Millenia ago, the Shards Ruin and Preservation arrived on Scadrial. Since they were paired Shards with opposite intents, nothing could be created or destroyed, as they wished it could be. They were locked in an eternal conflict. But then a pact was struck. Preservation offered Ruin a bargain. If Ruin would help him create life on Scadrial, to make plants and animals, Preservation would allow him to destroy the whole planet. In addition to his word, Preservation offered him proof that Ruin could destroy everything. Preservation's greatest wish was to create sentient life, humans pattered after the other humans Ati and Leras had once known. In order to create humans with the spark of intelligence required a small amount more of Preservation's power then Ruin's. This made Preservation slightly weaker, meaning Ruin would eventually overcome his opposite, and destroy Scadrial. However, Preservation decided to break the agreement, in order to save the world. He couldn't overcome Ruin with his power, he was too weak. So Preservation decided to trap Ruin's mind in a prison, where Ruin would be practically powerless. In order to trap Ruin's mind Preservation used his own mind to forge the prison, sacrificing his cognition for the greater good.
Preservation did not leave the humans without hope to defend themselves if Ruin managed to break free. He left the people of Scadrial with the Terris Prophecies. They spoke of a series of heroes who would come to take the power of Preservation at the Well of Ascension every thousand years to become a protector of humanity. Eventually, a final hero would come, known as the Hero of Ages, a person who would carry the fate of the world on his arms. This person would take up the power of Preservation, to save the world.
Classical Scadrial
In the Era of Classical Scadrial the religion of Terris had spread all over Scadrial. The people had turned to this religion because of a new threat, the Deepness. The nightly mists of Scadrial had grown stronger, and began to stay during the day. The world was dying, all the plants and animals couldn't survive and the people were starving. At this time, a man named Alendi came to power. A Worldbringer, Kwaan, had discovered Alendi and believed him to be this final Hero of Ages, who would save the world. Alendi became convinced he was the Hero, and began a military campaign to unite the world against the Deepness, doing his best to fulfill the prophecies. Unfortunately those prophecies were no longer the same as they once were. Ruin had used his tiny bit of power to alter the words of the prophecies that were inside of the Worldbringers' metalminds. They now stated that the Hero should give up the power at the Well of Ascension, an action which would free Ruin from his prison. He also tailored the prophecies to fit Alendi more perfectly, so ther would be no doubt in peoples' minds that he was the Hero. Kwaan, the man who discovered Alendi noticed this alteration because of his prodigious memory. He turned on Alendi, and did his best to sow doubt against him.
Cosmere
Scadrial was home two Shards, Ruin, and Preservation. The physical forms of Preservation could be found in the beads of lerasium, and the white mists. Ruin's physical forms were the beads of atium, which formed in crystals in the Pits of Hathsin and the black mists.[Falta cita] Prior to Sazed's ascension both Shards had shardpools, though it is unclear if they were changed or removed by Sazed. Preservation's shardpool was the Well of Ascension, previously located at the north pole of Scadrial, but moved to under Kredik Shaw in Luthadel. Ruin's shardpool is the black lake, beneath the Pits of Hathsin.