Preservers

The Preservers is the name given to the core group of people that led humanity to defeat the Lord Ruler, and soon after, Ruin. They are referred to as legendary figures in post-Catacendre Northern Scadrial.
== History ==
Most members of the Preservers come from Kelsier's original crew, and the rest join at different times after Kelsier's death.
The namesake of the Preservers is the Shard of Preservation, held by Leras since the Shattering of Adonalsium. After Leras's death, several members of the group became a vessel for the Shard. First, Kelsier as a Cognitive Shadow after using the Ire's orb, then Vin after removing her Hemalurgic earring tethering her to the Shard Ruin. Finally Sazed, after Vin sacrificed herself to defeat Ati, vessel of Ruin, took up both Ruin and Preservation to become Harmony.
=== Overthrowing the Final Empire ===
The initial spark to overthrow the Final Empire was due to Kelsier's will for vengeance for the death of his wife Mare and his suffering in the Pits of Hathsin. His wished to kill the Lord Ruler, using an organized skaa crew. He invited important members of his crew to a meeting, which was attended by Breeze, Clubs, Hammond, Dockson, and newly recruited member Vin. Marsh, Kelsier's brother, was invited, but did not attend. At the meeting, he outlined his plan to overthrow the Lord Ruler, and struck a deal with Yeden, the leader of the skaa rebellion.
==== The Plan ====
The goal of Kelsier's crew was to recruit and train skaa with the established skaa rebellion to get a large army(around twenty thousand skaa), while simultaneously causing confusion and distrust in the nobility, leading to a house war. Once the army was big enough and the noble houses were unstable enough, part of the skaa army would attack the Pits of Hathsin, drawing out the Luthadel Garrison. The rest of the army could then take over the unguarded and unstable Luthadel. After the Lord Ruler was forced out of power (or outright killed), Kelsier wished to take over the government of the Final Empire and gain control of the Lord Ruler's atium stash.
When enacted, the plan had several moving parts, with each member playing a key role:
* Breeze, the Soother, leading a team of Soothers and Rioters to help sway skaa emotions and recruit skaa workers for the rebellion.
* Hammond, who had previous military experience, was in charge of training new recruits in the Arguois caverns and was the military commander until Yeden took over.
* Dockson managed finances and Clubs shielded the team's Allomancy with his coppercloud.
* OreSeur, a Kandra disguised as Teven Renoux, moves to Fellise to expand his business of selling weapons in the north, but this is a front to arm the skaa rebellion.
* Marsh, brother to Kelsier, infiltrated the Steel Ministry to gain information for the skaa rebellion. Eventually turned into a Steel Inquisitor.
* Vin, the newly recruited Mistborn, pretended to be the noble Valette Renoux, infiltrating balls held by different noble houses and gathering information on the nobles. This is where she met Elend Venture. She was also trained as a Mistborn under Kelsier, and expands her knowledge of specific metals with Allomancers of that metal. For example, Hammond gave her tips on Pewter.
* Sazed, the Feruchemist Keeper, was steward to Lord Renoux and Vin, gathering information with his copperminds while attending the noble balls with Vin.
* Finally, Kelsier trains Vin in being a Mistborn, attacks houses to spread uncertainty, and tries to figure out how to use the Eleventh Metal to destroy the Lord Ruler.
Eventually, Yeden took over control of the skaa army from Hammond and led a premature assault on the Luthadel Garrison. After the victory, they were intercepted and ambushed by the garrison from Valtroux City, leading to the skaa soldiers being slaughtered. Demoux(one of the generals) and a group of about 2,000 soldiers stayed behind in the caves because they thought Yeden was "acting rashly". This event effectively removes the skaa rebellion from Kelsier's plan, but the soldiers were still useful later.
==== Kelsier's death ====
After the last House Ball and Vin kills the Mistborn Shan, Kelsier and Vin go to meet with Marsh, and understandably mistake a corpse as his body. Because Kelsier thinks they killed Marsh, he goes to the Pits of Hathsin and destroys the atium geodes, which prompts the Lord Ruler to hold an execution. The group notices there are several members from the rebellion in the prisoner carts, including Spook. The crew springs into action: Kelsier begins fighting an Inquisitor, Ham runs to find members of the skaa army, and Vin helps Breeze Allomantically Soothe the soldiers. Elend is also in the fray looking for Valette.
The fight continues between Kelsier and the Inquisitor, and at one point Kelsier, remembering Vin's love for Elend, saves him from the Inquisitor. When Kelsier kills the Inquisitor by decapitating him, the Lord Ruler shows up. After a brief conversation, the Lord Ruler backhands Kelsier, killing him.
==== The Death of the Lord Ruler ====
After Kelsier's death, the crew noticed how the skaa seemed to be rallying around Kelsier's death. They realized Kelsier's plan all along was to die for the skaa to be inspired. OreSeur, the kandra who was previously Lord Renoux now wearing Kelsier's bones, addresses Kelsier's crew at the informant warehouse, giving them instructions from Kelsier on how to continue. Clubs leaves to gather the remnants of the skaa army, Dockson begins giving out armor and weapons, and Vin takes it upon herself to kill the Lord Ruler.
After entering Kredik Shaw and fighting several Steel Inquisitors, including using pewter dust to blind one, she goes to her target: the unknown room. Inside she is baffled to find an old version of the Lord Ruler. She is captured by the previously blinded Inquisitor, Kar, and left alive to be used against the Canton of Orthodoxy by the Canton of Inquisition. After she is forced to reveal that Tevidian is her father, several Inquisitors attack him with knives. Vin is then brought back to her cell with beaten and naked Sazed. Sazed then uses a swallowed pewtermind to tap strength and free himself and Vin. After a fight with Ministry soldiers and a reunion with Elend, an Allomantically recharged Vin goes to fight the Lord Ruler. She is met by Kar, but Marsh manages to trick him and pull out his linchpin spike, killing Kar. He tries to do the same to the Lord Ruler, only to discover he doesn't have a linchpin spike. The Lord Ruler sends out a massively powerful Push, which Pushes off the earring Vin is wearing. She is then able to draw upon the mists and Pull the atium bracers directly off of his arms, killing the Lord Ruler..
=== Post-Collapse ===
Surviving members of Kelsier's crew after the Collapse became part of the new government. Elend Venture established himself as King of the Central Dominance. Breeze was an advisor to Elend and Hammond was general of his armies. Tindwyl, a Terriswoman acquaintance of Sazed, began (forcefully) teaching Elend how to become a good king. Sazed went to the Southern Dominance because Kelsier said the Eleventh Metal stories come from there. Initially Elend asked Vin for her hand in marriage, but she declined, thinking he deserves someone better.
==== Siege of Luthadel ====
Problems in Luthadel reared their ugly heads quickly, as Straff Venture, Elend's father, as well as Ashweather Cett from Fadrex City, began sieging Luthadel simultaneously. Elend tries negotiating with Cett and threatening Straff, to little avail. Several fights between sides happened involving Mistborn, such as Zane Venture.
===== Sazed in the Southern Dominance =====
Sazed found villages around the Southern Dominance suffering because the mists were coming out at day, and questioned the effects of the rebellion. While he was teaching villages skills to survive, he is met by Marsh, who asks Sazed to accompany him to the Conventical of Seran. Sazed accepts. When they get there, Sazed sees a message carved in metal the Terrisman Kwaan left, the man who first proclaimed Alendi as the Hero of Ages. He takes a charcoal rubbing of the message. and leaves. On the trip back to Luthadel, he finds the village of Urbene, with bodies of skaa dead from starvation and dehydration. He talks to a survivor who fears the mists and describes what happened. After the survivor runs, Sazed decides to use a steelmind and taps the stored speed to get to Luthadel faster. On the way back to Luthadel, he runs into a koloss camp, and is brought to their leader, Jastes Lekal, a former friend of Elends'. After he agrees to let Sazed leave, he tells Sazed to tell Elend he wants to team up with him.
==== Lead-up to Battle of Luthadel ====
Elend had set up a system that allowed the government to depose the rulers so another Lord Ruler could not happen, but it allowed them to depose him quite easily. After Elend has a lengthy political battle to get the throne back and prevent Cett from circumventing to the throne, the Assembly replaced him with Penrod. Elend continued to help the city regardless, from keeping people from freezing to attempting to fix the city's poisoned water supply.
Sazed, Dockson, Breeze, and Clubs conspired to send Vin and Elend away because they believed the city would fall. After Vin kills Zane, she asks for Elends hand in marriage, and he says yes, with Sazed officiates the marriage. Sazed tells them the Well of Ascension is in the Terris Mountains on Derytatith, so the couple leaves with Allrianne and Spook, although Allrianne leaves them shortly after. Spook reveals to Elend and Vin that Sazed tricked them, and Jastes shows up. Enraged that Jastes left a koloss army unattended, Elend executes him. Vin and Elend decide to return to Luthadel after realizing the Well of Ascension is there.
==== The Battle of Luthadel ====
The koloss army Jastes left unattended began to enrage and charged on Luthadel. Breeze and Clubs are at the Zinc Gate while Breeze tries to Soothe the emotions of the soldiers there. The Zinc Gate is shortly after down by the Koloss. After hearing of the Zinc Gate collapse, Sazed, guarding the Steel Gate, takes out a koloss in one punch with his pewtermind after the Steel Gate collapses. During the battle, rampaging koloss kill Tindwyl at the Tin gate, Clubs at the Zinc Gate, and and Dockson at Keep Venture. Vin shows up and takes control of some koloss using duralumin. After the battle, she kills Straff and forces Penrod, Cett, and Straff's general Janarle to accept Elend as Emperor.
==== The release of Ruin ====
Vin, Elend, Hammond, and Spook are led to Kredik Shaw by the Well of Ascension's pulses. After going underground through the keep, Vin and Elend find the Well, while Hammond and Spook double back to attack Marsh, who was fighting Sazed in the keep after Vin and crew went through the secret door. The mist spirit stabs Elend, mortally wounding him. However, instead of taking the power to save Elend, Vin still decides to give up the power, believing it to be the truly selfless thing to do. Ruin is released from his prison as a result.
=== The New Empire ===
After Ruin was freed from his imprisonment at the Well of Ascension, Elend was made a Mistborn when he ingested and burned a bead of lerasium, and was named Emperor of the Northern Continent. Ruin's end goal was the destruction of the world, so the Preservers fought against Ruin by attempting to unify the Northern Continent against him. A major goal of this period was to locate the Lord Ruler's atium cache, which meant they had to secure all of the storage caches in the major cities. This led to a two pronged attack by Elend's allies:
* Spook scouts for and finds the cache in Urteau, and then Breeze and Sazed are sent with troops to secure it. After securing the cache, Spook was Hemalurgically spiked, and was under the influence of Ruin masquerading as Kelsier's ghost. Spook later overthrows the Citizen, the ruler of Urteau after the death of the Lord Ruler.
* Vin, Elend, and his army seiging Fadrex City to get the last cache. Ruled by Aradan Yomen, previously an Obligator for the Lord Ruler, he is convinced Elend has bad intentions, due to his seemingly hostile move to bring the armies. Yomen later captures Vin and holds her hostage.
Marsh, now completely under Ruin's control after his release, is forced to do Ruin's bidding. He still keeps a rebellious spark in his mind for later. Marsh is brought to Vin while she is captured in Fadrex City, and forces Yomen to send out his army.
Meanwhile, TenSoon is on trial for betraying the kandra's First Contract and killing the human who contracted him. He attempts to convince the kandra to follow Vin because she killed the Lord Ruler, therefore making her their leader. Sazed later shows up to talk to the First Generation of kandra to get the first-hand accounts of the Terris religion before the Lord Ruler took over.
=== Lead-up to Catacendre ===
After Vin's first fight with Marsh and escape from Fadrex City, she fled to Luthadel and fought the thirteen remaining Inquisitors at Kredik Shaw. After fighting well but still being overpowered, Marsh tortures her under the influence of Ruin by breaking her legs. He then realizes her earring is a Hemalurgic spike and uses the small part of his brain that is still rebellious to resist Ruin momentarily and pull the earring out of her ear. The mists flow into Vin and she fights with Marsh, her enhanced powers allowing her to flatten Kredik Shaw and kill all Inquisitors but Marsh. However, before she can kill him completely, she Ascends and disappears..
==== The Battle of Hathsin ====
Vin attempts to use her new power to save the world, but much to Ruin's amusement, all attempts she tries makes things worse.Meanwhile, at the Pits of Hathsin, Ruin discovers the atium is there. He sends his koloss army there, but Elend, his army, and the mistfallen(who as it has been discovered are atium mistings) fight the Koloss army while burning the atium cache.
After several hours of fighting, Ruin, through Marsh, corners and decapitates Elend in a rage after Elend shows they have burned all of the atium cache. Vin, after seeing Elend's death, sacrificed herself and killed Ruin's Vessel Ati. One notable member of the Preservers, Sazed, took up both the power of Ruin and of Preservation, started the re-creation of the planet, and saved the population of Scadrial.
=== Post-Catacendre Influence ===
Some of the Preservers are part of the Originators, the group that survived the Catacendre, and other Preservers are alive circa 300 years post-Catacendre, but all of the Preservers are now part of the mythology of northern Scadrial.
After the Catacendre, Sazed left the Words of Founding for the Originators, which hinted at new technologies and helped them advance quite rapidly. TenSoon also continues to serve Sazed.
Spook became the Lord Mistborn after Sazed gave him Mistborn powers, then ruled over the Elendel Basin for a century. Breeze became the Counselor of Gods, advisor to Spook, and founded House Ladrian. Aradan Yomen founded House Yomen.
Vin and Elend have much prominence as a couple post-Catacendre; a statue of the two of them can be seen in the Field of Rebirth. There is also a play in Elendel called A Hero for All Ages which has the two of them reaching out to each other on the promotional material. Vin also serves as a role model for the women of northern Scadrial.
The Docksithium, a document on post-Catacendre Scadrial, was allegedly written by Dockson, but the validity of that claim is questionable because Dockson died before the Catacendre, meaning the book would have had to survive the Catacendre.
; Religion
Many major religions in Elendel worship members of the Preservers. Survivorism worships Kelsier, the Survivor. Kelsier is also worshiped in the Southern Continent after ruling there, and created an unnamed religion that deified Metalborn. Sliverism worships Marsh, known as Ironeyes or Death. The Path worships Sazed, known as Harmony.
; Naming of places, things, people
Many streets and cities post-Catacendre are named after Preservers. Examples include Elendel, Elendel University, Elendel Basin, Lestib Square, Hammondar Bay, Hammond Promenade, Tindwyl Promenade, and the Sea of Yomend.
Tindwyl is the name of the youngest of Waxillium and Steris's two children, as Steris likes traditional names.
== Members ==
== Notes ==
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