Southern Peoples of Scadrial

“And I still haven't said anything about what happened at the south pole.”

—THoA Annotations, Chapter 76, after a long discussion on Scadrial's tilt and its poles.

The Southern Peoples are a race on Scadrial. They are mysteriously referred to in The Hero of Ages annotations, suggesting that something is perhaps there. Later, Brandon confirmed that there is life on the southern pole of Scadrial.

Known Facts

During the Final Empire, the Lord Ruler moved Scadrial out of its orbit, instead putting it closer to the sun. Life could only exist at the poles, where a combination of the planet's magnetic field and ferromagnetic ash shielded the land from the heat of the sun. The Final Empire was at the northern magnetic pole of the planet. However, there were people at the south pole.

These people were placed there by the Lord Ruler as a reserve in case his genetic modifications of humanity failed, such as enabling humans to not be killed by the ash. The Lord Ruler managed to find a way other than genetic modifications to help them survive in the world he created. The southern peoples do have the seeds of the Metallic Arts, though since none of them had ingested lerasium, Allomancers would have been extremely rare and Mistborn completely unheard of.

Theories

This page or section deals with theories or speculation.

Please read carefully and note that this is not necessarily canonical.

It is theorized that the southern peoples are the men of "red and gold" that Miles Dagouter refers to shortly before his death.