In the Mistborn world, a Terrisman is a servant to the nobility. The noble houses prefer them to other stewards and attendants.
Many think of them as rigid and formal. Sazed, however, claims they are subtle. They are supposed to be the perfect serving men, completely loyal to the Final Empire.
“A Terrisman without a master is like a soldier with no weapon” (1.166).
Position in Society
The Terrismen fall somewhere in the middle of the social hierarchy in the Mistborn world.
“Not quite skaa, but definitely not noblemen, the Terrismen held a strange place in imperial society” (1.177).
According to Sazed, they are lower than slaves, however, because they are “fabricated automatons, created by breeding programs, trained from birth to fulfill the Lord Ruler’s wishes” (1.273).
History
The Terris people were Feruchemists with their own religion, culture, and traditions, long before the Lord Ruler took up power at the Well of Ascension.
When the Lord Ruler took power at the Well of Ascension, he took twelve of his loyal Terris friends along with him. Since they knew he had betrayed Alendi to gain this power and were quite powerful themselves, the Lord Ruler got them to agree to become kandra in exchange for immortality, thereby neutralizing their power over him.
As for the rest of the Terris Feruchemists of the world, he feared that one day, one of them would rival him in power, for if a Mistborn Feruchemist was born, her or she could live forever, like him, and be just as invincible.
So, the Lord Ruler began a violent purge of the Terris people, killing as many off as he could. However, he eventually found a better way to neutralize their power, and that was through a breeding program. This breeding program was intended to wipe Feruchemy out of the Terris population. The men were castrated at birth and became servants of the nobility, while the women were used to breed the Feruchemist genes out of the population.
Furthermore, in the first two centuries of his rule, The Lord Ruler had successfully destroyed the Terris religion. As a response, the Terrismen formed the organization of the Keepers in the next century, with its members intent on discovering their religions which had been lost, and remembering them for the future.
Role as Keepers
Terris Keepers pass the forgotten truths of the past onto future generations. They are “storehouses” who remember things that can be used in the future.
The Synod
The Synod is the Terris leadership, known informally as the Keepers of Terris. Their sole duty is to hold information in their copperminds until the Lord Ruler falls. Each member is given a specific focus. Sazed’s, for example, is religions, while Tindwyl’s is biographies. They maintain that if even one of them survives the downfall of the Lord Ruler, their culture can be passed on.
Terris Religion
The Terris religion focuses heavily on knowledge and scholarship. The Worldbringers—their word for Keepers—were holy men and women who imparted knowledge, but who also wrote of their god, Terr. Terr is the ancient Terris word for “to preserve.”
A central focus of the religion had been the histories of how Preservation—or Terr—and Ruin had interacted, and these included various prophecies about the Hero of Ages, who was seen as a successor to Preservation.
Aside from prophecies, the Worldbringers had taught temperance, faith, and understanding to their people. They had taught that it was better to build than to destroy, a principle at the core of their teachings
Settlement
By the events of The Hero of Ages, most Terrismen have settled near the Pits of Hathsin, transforming it from an industrial center to a set of pastoral villages. They return to being herdsmen—what they had originally been in the centuries before the Lord Ruler’s Ascension. Sazed remarks at how strange it is that they now had easier lives than most (3.178).
