Become a ferocious tank or a gentle giant with this potentially mighty ancestry.
Koloss were hulking humanoids created by the Lord Ruler during era 1 of the Mistborn books. They served as deadly troops he could compel to his will. However, after the Catacendre, Koloss were given their independence by Harmony and were able to procreate. Their offspring no longer had the iron hemallurgic spikes that granted their phenomenal strength, resilience and inclination towards violence. This led to a new type of Koloss known as Koloss-Blooded. These are more like Humans in nature and while they naturally are not stronger or more resilient than Humans, they are capable of training themselves towards heightened physical capabilities.
Koloss-Blooded are 1 of 4 ancestries available in the Cosmere RPG and are exclusive to the Mistborn era 2 setting. Unlike Humans, but like the other ancestries, Koloss-Blooded characters have their own talent tree from which they can take talents and improve their prowess. I’ve gone through this to help you build and optimise your own Koloss-Blooded character.
Koloss-Blooded Traits
Koloss-Blooded get the following traits and capabilities:
Size: Medium
Increased potential strength: +1 maximum strength and can place up to 4 attribute points in strength from level 1.
Koloss stamina: Gain the Koloss-Blooded key talent at level 1.
Unique talent tree: Whenever choosing a talent, can do so from the Koloss-Blooded talent tree.
Ancestry bonus talents: Whenever you gain a tier (levels 6, 11, 16 and 21) you can gain an extra talent from the Koloss-Blooded or any heroic path trees.
All of this is objectively better than what Humans get, but doesn’t necessarily make Koloss-Blooded characters a better pick. Humans get an extra heroic path talent at level 1 that Koloss-Blooded individuals don’t get (instead they get the Koloss-Blooded key talent).
Of course, that Koloss-Blooded key talent is quite good (+1HP per level), but if you want to advance further down a heroic path, a Human will get you there quicker.
But on top of this, Koloss-Blooded have an entirely unique talent tree they can also pick from which is all about resilience and strength. If you want this, then a Koloss-Blooded can easily be a little better than their Human counterparts.
They also have greater strength potential than anyone else. This means better resilience and hitting harder. This can be beneficial to anyone, but is best on strength builds. In fact, many of your Koloss-Blooded talents will require a strong athletics skill rank to access them, which again, leans into a strength build.
Koloss-Blooded talents
I’ve rated all the Koloss-Blooded talents below and given them a level based on how far down the talent tree you must go to access that talent.
Level 1 talents
Koloss stamina (4/5)
Who doesn’t want more hit points!? An extra hit point per level does add up, making you more resilient. Just a straight forward, good talent.
Level 2 talents
Koloss recovery (3/5)
Better recovery with 2 dice instead of 1. It only works for recovering health, but that’s some solid extra recovery (double in fact). The higher your willpower, the larger your recovery die which in turn, increases the gains from Koloss recovery.
Unchecked size (5/5)
Increasing strength by 1 is pretty great (that’s increased physical defense, hit points and heavy weaponry attacks). Not only that, but your maximum strength increases by 1 as well meaning you can be up to 7 strength which is pretty huge. You also count as large for the purposes of weight which can be useful for certain situations like if someone’s using an ironpull or a steelpush on you (or you’re using it on them).
You will have to be level 11 to access all of this though.
Level 3 talents
Rapid recovery (4/5)
Normally the recover action requires 2 actions, this makes it just one allowing you to do more with your turn. You can also use it more often (+1 each scene for every tier you’ve achieved). This can mean plenty of recovering each scene and leans heavily into a tanky kind of build.
Level 4 talents
Reactive recovery (4/5)
With this, you don’t even need to use your action for the recover action, you can just us a reaction and you can do so before you take damage. This means if you’re about to be knocked to 0HP, you can prevent that by quickly taking the recover action which is a great resilience buff.
Optimising A Koloss-Blooded
Koloss-Blooded are built for resilience and damage, as such, you’ll want to lean into these aspects of your build. Much will depend on the paths you choose, but your best options will favour similar aspects of your build. Below is what I’d recommend, though Koloss-Blooded can work reasonably well for many different builds:
Recommended attributes
Strength: Koloss-Blooded have extra potential for high strength and also rely a fair bit on athletics for their talents so building for strength makes a lot of sense.
Willpower: Koloss-Blooded also have excellent health recovery. You can improve their enhancements here by investing in willpower to get your recovery die higher.
Recommended skills
- Heavy weaponry: With such a big focus on strength, it makes a lot of sense to build for heavy weaponry, which uses your strength attribute for attacks.
- Athletics: Most Koloss-Blooded talents require at least some investment in athletics making this an important skill if you want to take advantage of the talent tree.
Recommended paths
Koloss-Blooded can choose from any heroic or metalborn path available in era 2. This does however, mean that they cannot take the mistborn or feruchemist paths because these are only available in era 1.
Recommended heroic paths
- Hunter: Hunters can work well as strength builds and especially melee builds will appreciate the extra resilience.
- Leader: Leaders can be built for strength and may benefit from some extra resilience. Probably the least ideal option of the 3 heroic paths I’m recommending, but still a decent option.
- Warrior: Your main tanks and usually strength-focused damage dealers. Koloss-Blooded tend to make excellent warriors.
Recommended allomantic arts
- Iron: Not only are lurchers built for close combat with plenty of increased movement and attacks while making ironpulls, but the larger size you can achieve can be great for dragging others to you and pulling on bigger objects.
- Copper: If you’re going for a melee build, then you may want methods for dealing with other metalborn. Copper will prevent their investiture from affecting you.
- Electrum: Defensive and reliability art that can help protect you from danger and make you more accurate. Great on a tank that will likely draw plenty of attacks.
- Pewter: Great for resilience and enhancing your strength, making this excellent for a tank.
Recommended feruchemical arts
- Brass: Can enhance your unarmed attacks with energy damage. Great if you’ve built a frontline tank.
- Gold: Provides healing and regenerative effects which can be excellent for a tanky character taking a lot of hits.
- Iron: Works well for melee builds as you can gain things like advantage on attacks and the ability to push your target.
- Pewter: Increases strength and some strength skills, grants greater resilience and allows you to throw further. All great on a strength build.
- Steel: Speed can work well alongside strength and this enhances that. It will also let you move as a free action (great for closing down enemies), dodge better and gain extra actions.
