Fain

Fain
World of Origin	Yolen
Universe	Cosmere

The fain or fainlife is a class of lifeforms on Yolen. Although fainlife looks like ordinary flora, the plants and land overtaken by it are bone-white, and spill red liquid when crushed or snapped. Singer gemhearts are a milky white and are similar to a type of fainlife known as Tamu Keks in some way.

The existence of fainlife remains known to cosmere-aware people after the Shattering of Adonalsium; when discussing how Ruin and Preservation used the Yolish ecosystem as a model for Scadrial, Khriss was able to mention without further explanation that "of course" this means the non-fain parts.

Dragonsteel Prime

This page or section contains details from the unpublished work Dragonsteel Prime!

This information has the potential to ruin plot elements of both published works and upcoming book releases for the reader. It should also be considered uncanonical and could completely change in the future.

In one version of Dragonsteel Prime, the fainlife had rapidly grown to cover much of the planet, though humans eventually learned to keep it in check with something known as a trune ring. A type of fainlife known as skullmoss heralded the advance of further fainlife. Its leaves would sometimes drift across a trune ring and some cities would gather them up and burn them, though this was not strictly neccessary. Merely interacting with the fainlife was safe and some cities even used fain wood for construction, but eating any amount of fainlife was deadly to humans.

In a different version of Dragonsteel Prime, the Yolish version of the Shattered Plains was the only connection between the fain and non-fain parts of the world. At the Shattered Plains, fain creatures known as the Sho Del fought humans for a material known as dragonsteel. According to Jerick, at least some Sho Del had also made it past the Shattered Plains and killed civilians, and had attempted to kill his king.

Trivia

• Brandon has RAFO'd whether any of the original Vessels were fain. He later said that Uli Da is a Sho Del, though it is possible—if unlikely—that the Sho Del are not fainlife in the canonical version of the cosmere.

Notes

This page is probably complete!

This page contains most of the knowledge we have on the subject at this time.
It has yet to be reviewed.