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Yoden walked through the streets of Garmet, listening to the crowds of people quietly discussing the latest news from the political convention that was meeting in this otherwise quiet city in the far reaches of the Elendel Basin. The People’s Republic of Elendel was nearing its 25th year since its founding, but that did not mean everyone was happy with the way things were now. With the latest rebel attacks up north in Drypost and Mycondwel, tensions were high throughout the Republic. So, to quell tensions between the capital and some of the outer cities, a group of prominent politicians and influential figures had come all the way out here to Garmet to meet with their local leaders and try and figure out how they can improve things. I don’t think things are going well at all, Yoden thought to himself. For the past week, most of the meetings each day had involved the Elendel representatives mostly refusing to listen to the Garmet representatives’ pleas. And the Garmet representatives were far too angry for a governing body, that shouldn’t be happening in the Republic. Though to be fair, Yoden himself might be a bit biased, considering he was an Elendel representative himself. As he thought this, the crowd around him began to part around him as someone inevitably noticed who he was. He sighed to himself, then continued walking to the meeting building. Another day of constant bickering, all to make the Republic look better. ~ Some time later, a break was called. Yoden didn’t remember much of what happened, as it had been another four hours of bickering between people who really couldn’t understand the other side. There might’ve been some agreement that the rebels were causing trouble for everyone, but the people of Garmet almost seemed excited that Yoden and the other Elendel representatives had to worry about them. At least it’s time for lun- Yoden’s thoughts were interrupted as a tall man burst through the chamber doors, his coat torn up and his hair disheveled and incredibly dirty. “The rebels have taken Steinel!” He paused to catch his breath. “The tracks from Elmsdel to Steinel are also ruined. They overtook a train that left Elmsdel yesterday, and blew up the tracks as they went towards Steinel. We’re trapped.” The chamber room was instant chaos, people shouting that that couldn’t be true, others trying to ask the man what else he knew, and throughout it all, there was an underlying realization that this was planned. The rebels knew that all of these representatives from Elendel were gonna be here in Garmet for this month, and now none of them could get back to Elendel. Unless they wanted to take a 200 or more mile long journey walking from Garmet to Elendel. Eventually, someone managed to calm down the group of people within the chamber while Yoden was lost in thoughts. “Listen up everyone,” the man, Goren, said. He was a relatively young man for one so influential, and he was a Garmet native too. “We’re all stuck here, and we all know that the rebels wanted us stuck here. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure that means we’ve also got rebels in our midst.” There was a gasp in the crowd, and a tall woman began to shout, but Goren cut her off. “I’m not accusing anyone...yet. But it’s only common sense. The rebels needed to know that all of you visitors were still here in order to start their plan. Someone had to tell them that. So, I vote that we lock down the city. No one leaves or comes in until we figure out what’s going on, and until we get word from Elendel. All in favor?” There was a moment of silence as everyone took in his words. Slowly, people began to raise their hands in assent of his motion. Yoden was surprised to see even some people from Elendel raising their hands first. It wasn’t long before everyone begrudgingly raised their hands, even Yoden himself. Goren nodded. “Good, glad we’re in agreement. Now, I say we call the meeting off for today and we all go home and relax for a bit. It’s going to be a long while before we hear back from anyone.” Well, Yoden thought to himself, this trip certainly got more exciting. ~ Welcome to Long Game 77: A Political Trap! This game is a rerun of LG66 (which you can read here if you want). Helping me with this game is my co-GM @Young Bard and my IM @Elbereth I encourage everyone to RP as much as possible. It makes my job doing the writeups more interesting if you all do a lot of RP, not to mention that you get more boxings if you do RP. I’ll be posting the rules down below, in this post itself, but I’m not sure how well they’re going to translate in the transition from my google doc. Here is the link to the rules doc. Clarifications are going to stay in the doc itself because moving them to this post would be a pain. Signups will end on May 27, at 9 am CDT. The game will start as soon as we can get it going. Rollover will probably take 45 minutes to an hour after each turn as well. Also, for what it’s worth, I’m going to preemptively apologize because my work schedule is...variable, to put it lightly, so the rollover time will probably move around a few times over the course of the game as I find out my work schedule for each week. Hopefully I won't have to change it, but you never know. ~ Rules: Player List: Quick Links:

Lerasi walked through the streets of Elendel, careful to watch for signs someone was tailing her. Her handlers had missed the scheduled meeting to discuss what she’d learned about the People’s Republic of Elendel’s plans with the allomancers and feruchemists they were recruiting. It had been almost a year since they’d overthrown the old government and installed a military regime. Lerasi and the other Loyalists were doing everything they could to tear the regime down, which is how she’d found herself being recruited into a secret force of metalborn. She checked her pocket watch as she walked past the meeting point one more time. It was the time that her handlers were supposed to meet her several days ago. She’d finally received a message from them a few days ago. Apparently they’d almost been caught by the PRE’s hazekillers and had to abort the mission. Lerasi shuddered at the thought of having been there when it happened. Lerasi opened the door to the abandoned building and began to make her way to the meeting room. She tapped bronze to check for any signs of allomancy nearby. Thankfully, she didn’t feel anything, so she opened the door and walked in. There was no one there. Before she had time to react, a hand was around her mouth and someone threw her to the ground. A tall man walked into the center of the room from where he’d been hiding in a shadowed corner. Lerasi’s heart stopped for a moment. They’d found her, they must’ve set her up, she was going to die- “Are you alone?” The man said calmly. Lerasi looked up at him, careful to not move too much lest the people holding her down thought she was trying to escape. “As if I’d ever tell you.” She spat at him. He smiled. “That’s what I wanted to hear.” ~ The group of metalborn had been gathered altogether for the first time since they’d all been recruited. People of all ages and from all over the Elendel Basin had been gathered in Elendel to become the peacekeepers for the fledgling republic. A tall man stood in front of the group, their eyes focused intently on him. “I have gathered you all here today,” he said, his eyes scanning across the people before him, “because there are traitors amongst us.” He held up a hand to prevent the whispers that were already spreading through the group. “Lock the doors,” he said to the hazekillers at the edges of the room. “The building has been locked down. There are enough rations here to keep us all alive for the next...month or so. No one is leaving until we have rooted out the traitors amongst us.” He smiled. “I hope you enjoy your stay.” ~ Welcome to Long Game 66: A Struggle for Power! This is a spiritual successor to the game I ran last summer, LG56. This game will be run by me and my fantastic co-GM @Young Bard with @Fifth Scholar as our wonderful IM. I’ll be posting the rules down below, but I’m not sure how great the formatting is going to be when I try to put them in here. If you want to read the rules with much better formatting, you can do so here. Signups will end on Wednesday, June 3rd at 9 pm CDT. The game will start around 10 pm CDT. ~ Rules: Player List: Quick Links:

basic question. different people have different spiritwebs (unique and all). hemalurgy steals bits of the spiritweb. savants have different and somewhat warped spiritwebs in comparison to normal allomancers. if you spike a savant, do you get savant level abilities when you use that spike?

Alright, is it just me or has Wayne been spiked at some point throughout the Wax and Wayne series. In shadows of self Wayne makes a throw away joke of hearing voices in his head when he was younger and I don't know why but that really stuck out to me. If he has been spiked, I think it might be Kelsier because it seems like something he can do and Wayne makes another throw away joke later on in shadows of self when he's thinking about the differences between a crapper and a bathroom and he makes a joke about asking kell what the bathroom is called. Either I'm on to something or I'm reading waaaaaaaay to far into this

At the end of RoW, Moash appears to be physically blind, and it appears to be permanent. Without getting into the reasons for his blindness, the question remains, what is Moash's character arc from now on? Will he just go out with a whimper and no bang? I really hope not. He's too well developed a villain for him to go out like this. So here is my theory: At the end of the book we see El spike Lezian. This indicates that he is either competent in, or experimenting with Hemalurgy. We know from Khriss's notes that Hemalurgy has vast implications cosmere-wise. All that being said, my theory is that Moash will find his way to El at some point in book 5 and El will spike Moash, Inquisitor style, and this is how he will regain his ability to fight and be a villain with style once again. I imagine that with the spikes, he would be able to see investiture or he will be able to see into the cognitive realm in some way. I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on this!

There are sixteeen (16) metals for the Metallic Arts, usuable for Allomancy and Feruchemy, for a total of 32 possible Metalborn powers. Marsh was made an Inquisitor at the end of the Final Empire, and then enhanced by Ruin according to the same set of metals - before Harmony switched back cadmium/bendalloy for atium/malatium on the Metallic Chart. Even though chromium/nicrosil would have been unknown or unavailable metals to the Scadrians of the Final Empire, their abilities would still be on the Chart, and Ruin would have known about them and their uses. With that in mind, what is Marsh's known or suspected power set? (A) What was the Standard Set of (11) Steel Inquisitor spikes? Marsh says he had 11 spikes in him as a recently minted Inquisitor, in the Lord Ruler's throne room at the end of The Final Empire: 8 for the basic Allomantic metals 1 for F-gold 1 for A-atium (?) The linchpin spike (which may have had a property of its own as well) It would seem all Steel Inquisitors should be able to burn atium, but can we be 100% sure? Certainly Bendel and Kar were seen to do it, so either they were base Mistborn, or a spike for A-atium was standard issue. I would think that it was: it would be odd for a significant subset of Inquisitors to be subject to an ordinary Mistborn's use of atium against them. But that would raise the further question: where would they harvest hemalurgic spikes for A-atium from, without skaa Seer Mistings to harvest? Yomen said that Seers like himself were flushed out by the Ministry spiking the punch at noble balls with atium dust and then Seeking out any instinctive, unconscious use of Allomancy to burn it (since all nobles would have been Snapped by a certain age), which certainly isn't a viable strategy to discover any skaa Seers; yet he didn't seem to be nervous about potentially being a walking Inquisitor spike in waiting. The same problem seems to be there for creating new Inquisitors if they all have a spike for F-gold healing. It just doensn't seem like there'd be enough Feruchemists on hand to create the 20 or so Inquisitors alive at the time of TLR's overthrowing. Did the Ministry reuse weakened but usable spikes for A-atium and F-gold from previous Inquisitors? That seems the only logical conclusion, which then would set an upper limit for how many Inquisitors there could be at a time. As for where the putative set of spikes for A-atium came from originally, that could come from either dying Mistborn Inquisitors, condemned criminal Mistborn or discovered Seers, or straight up "kidnapped and disappeared" Allomancers whose fate would be assumed to be a loss in a House war - this is the Steel Ministry we're talking about, after all. (B) What did Ruin add to Marsh's set later? Marsh is later described has having "upwards of twenty" spikes in him at the end of The Hero of Ages, which means Ruin gave him at least 9 more spikes. Assuming A-atium is in fact part of the default set, he's seen or inferred to have used these five (5) powers: F-steel F-pewter A-duralumin (per the Mistborn Annotations, gained by spiking a Mistborn*) F-atium**, as inferred by his surviving via Compounding atium, and given by Ruin, per WoB F-bronze**, as inferred by the same (otherwise he'd die while sleeping once past his natural age) *That Annotation about how Marsh got a spike for A-duralumin carries implications with it as well. Ruin considered using up a Mistborn to gain a single Allomantic power a waste, and only did so for a power like A-duralumin where no Misting for it could be found, due to a case of "bad gnattitude". And we know Ruin created new Inquisitors from scratch (I think?) as well as enhancing existing Inquisitors from outside Luthadel that escaped Marsh's murder spree outside TLR's throne room. So why wouldn't Ruin have created or used a Mistborn Inquisitor as his chief pawn, instead of adding A-duralumin to Marsh? I think the logical answer is that any "base Mistborn" Inquisitors (the most powerful ones) were kept close to TLR in Luthadel, and thus one of the 8 killed by Marsh in his little murder spree outside the throne room. And by the time Ruin got his hands on a Mistborn to make a spike from after his release, Marsh had already gained a number of other enhancements as his "work in progress" as a chief pawn, and it was more economical to add one spike to Marsh than to add 11+ spikes (requiring 11+ Mistings or Feruchemists) to the Mistborn, even if it was kind of a waste. The illogical answer, but also possible, is that Ruin wanted to twist the knife into Kelsier in the Cognitive Realm and into his surviving crew on Scadrial by using their former friend and associate to be his most visible hand against them. And in further thinking it through, there probably weren't many base Mistborn Inquisitors, anyway, since they all start out as obligators in the Ministry. Any noble House would value their Mistborn as assassins in the service of their House above letting them become an obligator, unless the person in question was particularly religiously fanatical and enrolled him/herself, or if the Ministry paid a handsome bonus for such an obligator (groomed to become an Inquisitor) and the Mistborn came from a destitute or more minor House. **As for the inferred spike for F-bronze: if we take Ruin's giving Marsh a spike for F-atium as an indication of his intending to prolong the use of Marsh as a super-pawn in his plans for the Cosmere once he was done destroying Scadrial, via Compounding atium in what I call "The Rashek Maneuver", then the other part of The Rashek Maneuver would require compounding bronze for wakefulness. As has been pointed out in several threads before, because tapping a metalmind requires Intent, TLR could not sleep once he aged past his mortal lifespan, as he needs to constantly and increasingly draw on his atiummind to reverse his aging, and cannot do so in his sleep. Ruin would have known and observed this, and after a while, the same would apply to Marsh. So that tally brings us to 16, leaving at least 4 still to account for. There are up to four (4) obvious enhancements with immediate utility in the Scadrial End Game: A-gold - so as to be able to Compound health for healing A-electrum - at a minimum, to function as "the poor man's atium", to conserve the Real Thing. One drawback which could be a deal breaker, though: Electrum Mistings were unknown to the Final Empire, unless their existence, like Seer Mistings, were a Ministry secret. So giving Marsh a spike for this would likely have required using a Mistborn, who would be far more valuable to harvest for duralumin for a different Inquisitor. F-zinc (speed of thought) F-iron (weight) - pairs great with Steelpushing or Ironpulling That's 19 or 20. What might be the "upwards" count of spikes, then? Three (3) long-term Metalborn powers, excellent for a post-Scadrial future: F-duralumin - Compound Connection? Yes, please. Ruin would realize how useful this would be in going off-world. A-chromium (would require a Mistborn, like A-duralumin). If Ruin had been planning to take Marsh off-world, being able to Leech Investiture across all magic systems would be extremely useful. F-chromium (Fortune) - very possible Ruin would love to Compound this. Whatever it is. That's 22 or 23. Seems about right. The other nine (9) potential spikes seem less useful as add-ons for Ruin, with one possible exception, especially at the cost of a Feruchemist or full Mistborn which could be harvested for other Inquisitors (and we did see others with Feruchemical spikes, especially for F-steel): F-tin (sensory storage) F-brass (body heat) A-nicrosil - unclear why this would be useful unless there were a second Inquisitor around, except... F-nicrosil - ...maybe to compound Investiture? Hmmm! (But not if it just means creating unsealed metalminds) A-malatium, F-malatium: implausible to the extreme A-aluminum - would require spiking from a Mistborn, and to what end? F-aluminum (Identity) - ditto, but for a Feruchemist F-electrum (Determination) - No need, as Ruin planned to have direct control of Marsh.

On-screen, we've seen Inquisitor Marsh exhibit three Feruchemical abilities: using pewter (he grows beefy while choking Vin in Fadrex City), steel (he blurs in speed while fighting Elend), and gold (multiple instances of healing). He is implied to have gained the spike for F-gold as part of his original set of Inquisitor spikes, before Ruin went about massively upgrading him to use him as his primary pawn. As the Coppermind entry notes, we can infer he has a spike for F-atium, as he's documented by WoB to have survived into Era 2 (and will last for a good while further) by Compounding atium the way TLR had done. Why Ruin saw fit to use up one of a small number of Feruchemists available to spike out attributes from to give Marsh a spike for F-atium is unknown; the most obvious one being, he wanted to continue to use Marsh around the Cosmere after destroying Scadrial, and thus wanted to ensure his longevity. If that's the case, we can also infer Marsh has a spike for F-bronze, with which he can Compound wakefulness. Why? For the same reason that TLR must have constantly tapped an infinite bronzemind: once past his mortal lifespan he cannot fall asleep, as one cannot tap a metalmind unconsciously, and he needs to maintain a constant draw on an atiummind to stay alive with The Rashek Maneuver. So concurrent with that constant drawing of youth must be a constant drawing of wakefulness.

It seems that various combinations of spikes can make an Inquisitor, and you can keep adding more - Marsh had 11 at the end of the first book (2 in eyes, 1 linchpin in shoulders, 8 in ribs) and had 20-plus by the end of the trilogy. But koloss seem to be always the same, 4 iron spikes. Why? If someone accumulates spikes, what's the line between human and Inquisitor, and what does crossing that line mean? Maybe the point where you become controlled by Ruin or Harmony (Mr Suit says 3 spikes are safe, 4 aren't)? The point where you need a "linchpin spike" to survive? What if you give an Inquisitor 4 iron spikes? Does it turn into a koloss, just die, become a super-strong Inquisitor or what?

I've only recently finished Elantris and am quite interested in the Elantrian magic system and so have been developing a character for fun. However, if I wish to worldhop as said Elantrian character (who wouldn't if they could) I face the slight disadvantage of being away from Elantris and, oh I don't know, the magic not working. So the crux of my inquiry is, is it possible to somehow capture or store the Dor in some sort of vessel to carry around with you in your adventures? Would these be nicrosilminds? Spheres? Some other Thing™? I do hope it's possible, otherwise Elantrians prove to be pretty worthless worldhoppers.

So, been on the Cosmere reddit page. and people seem to think they KNOW where the bind points are on the body. with (from what I've seen) these being "common knowledge" Mental Allomancy: Earlobe (Vin's earring) Physical Allomancy: Heart/Chest (Zane's spike, Spook's spike) Temporal Allomancy: ??? Enhancement Allomancy: ??? I think this is wrong. because (A) we only see this from people who have BEEN spiked and (B) it just Doesn't add up. there are cases of people being spiked with the "known" attributes in different places. so here is my theory on bind-points: 1. The bind points are only involved in the STEALING of attributes, not the giving of it, with inquisitors having spikes of steel in the eyes, and Zane being spiked through the chest. 2. Where they are gifted DO matter, but they give different attributes, like how being spiked through the eye gives steel-vision and being spiked through the chest gives enhanced steelpushing powers. 3. The metal matters, but the INTENT matters more. I think each allomatic/feruchemical metal steals the "human" power AND can steal the matching allomantic/feruchemical abilities, depending on the intent of the spike. PS: I think that the "evil faceless immortal" seen at the end of Alloy of Law ISN'T a hemalurgic construct. but of odium, I think he (and his proxies) are working on scadrial at the time of BoM. and the set matches his goals. but more on that in another theory.

Re-reading HOA, and now I'm really confused. Vin says at one point that the normal Inquisitor spikes are 2 steel in the eyes, 1 steel in the shoulders, and 6 in the sides/ribs - 4 bronze and 2 steel. That would allow for the basic 8 allomantic metals (with one doubled), but neither steel nor bronze can grant Allomantic Atium or Feruchemical Gold. Now, we know from WOB that the Inquisitors didn't all have those powers, but surely most did - without either, they'd be too vulnerable: Atium's just too overwhelming a weapon. Also, the HOA epigraphs talk about the Inquisitors gaining their healing powers from a pewter spike stealing/granting Feruchemical gold, and the way it's written implies that was part of the "normal" power set. Weird...

Hi! Kell here. So, I have a strange question. Let's say John is a Fullborn Feruchemist. One day he finds a tiny Hemalurgic spike. It's made of steel, so he decides to turn it into a Metalmind. When he stored his speed into it, he was also actively filling an aluminum Metalmind, so anyone could use the spike as a storage. Then, one day, a Mistborn or Coinshot/Crasher/whatever finds the spike, and burns it. It's a Feruchemical storage that he/she can use, so it obviously compounds, but what about the Hemalurgic part? What will it do? Ising the me of wanting the you to post opinion of you below.

Let's tackle that topic. Unfortunately we lack WoBs about it (or my theoryland search-fu is weaker than I thought) but we can still discuss about it. Feel free to throw WoBs at me. SOURCES There are four main sources of the differences in Allomantic strength: Inherent difference: some Allomancers are born stronger and some are born weaker (and some rebuild themselves during their Ascension...) . I believe the difference is in the amount of the Innate Investiture. Hemalurgy: after charging a spike with the ability of someone else, it adds up to the strength of the Allomancer. That ability remains tied to the spike and spikes hold Investiture, so they steal and add up the Innate Investiture. Nicrosil Feruchemy: it's possible to store Innate Investiture in nicrosil and upon drawing from that storage the Allomantic strength is increased. This obviously changes the amount of Innate Investiture. Savantism: it widens the cracks in the Spiritweb, allowing more power to flow in. Here I am not so sure it changes the amount of the Innate Investiture. WoB: I believe that the amount of the Innate Investiture is directly proportional to the strength of the Connection to Preservation. MECHANISM Now, we are not really sure how does Allomantic Strength work. The main theory is that it allows the Allomancer to burn metal quicker - the normal burning rate is higher than the average and the flaring burning rate is higher than average flaring burning rate. It also assumes that the Investiture density of the metal is fixed - no matter who burns it, the same amount of the metal will produce the same amount of the Investiture. The other theory is that stronger Allomancers get more Investiture from the fixed amount of metal. So here the Investiture density is tied to Allomancer and is directly proportional to the Allomantic strength of the burner. I could see how the amount of the Innate Investiture you have changes the normal burn rate and flaring burn rate but it seems that's not what is happening with savantism. Savantism cracks the soul more "allowing more Investiture to flow in". So it would mean that the burn rate remains the same but more Investiture flows in. I don't like that conclusion but it seems logical. Soo... thoughts, WoBs, counter-evidence?

Do we have anything more on this "soul proximity thing"? I mean, is it harder to Push on the spike in person than the sum of how hard is to affect a spike and a normal metal piercing person? (spike in person > spike + in person ?)

Why did Inquisitors have spikes driven through their eyes in the first place? I mean, there are so many bindpoints that those spikes could surely be inserted somewhere else, so what's the point in depraving them of one of the most basic senses? Did TLR made this deliberately so they'd have another weak point?

So, I recently visited the dark alley, and a thought came to me: what if you spiked someone who only had powers through hemalurgy through the heart and took their powers. Would they lose their powers, or would the hemalurgy simply fail?

... and came up with an odd idea. So, hemalurgic spikes allow Ruin to speak to their users, right (in the first era, anyway)? So, say this is before the truth about Ruin and Preservation comes out. There's an obligator along the lines of Yomen who wants to better understand the dichotomy between good and evil, and so he takes a spike he steals from a killed Inquisitor (at great personal risk), uses it himself, and BOOM, you've got the Scadrial version of Jekyll and Hyde. I think I might need to start listening to a different soundtrack at work.

Question from a confused person. Did Paalm have one spike (the silver+red one), or two spikes in her (silver+red, and a Harmony spike)? If she just had one spike, did that spike just give her full Twinborn powers, then? Since she uses speed and steelpushes and so forth. Do we ever see her actually changing spikes by falling on them, like MeLaan mentioned?

I don't know if someone already brought this up, but Wax's earring is a hermalurgic spoke, right? Hermalurgic spikes give powers of the metallic arts. Can anyone see Wax helping to resolve the plot by suddenly pulling a piece of metal, instead of pushing? Or maybe cloaking his allomancy with copper? A sudden burst of feruchemal speed would be cool.

I've seen this come up in many threads but have yet to see a thread devoted specifically to the topic so it seemed appropriate to start one. The question here is, what exactly do we know about the process of Hemalurgic decay? Take particular note of any apparent contradictions as they likely mean a gap in knowledge where we can start to speculate. Below are the points that we know. This is only what is actually evidenced in the books or confirmed in a WoB, not dealing with theories on the subject (we'll get to those). For the sake of this discussion we should have some standardized terms. The terms to be used (so we all know what we are talking about) will be as follows: Hemalurgist: The one performing the act of spiking Donor: The one whose power or attribute is being taken Host (Changed from Beneficiary): The one who is being spiked and thus gaining the trait Hemalurgic Construct: A creature like a Koloss or Kandra who has gained or lost traits through Hemalurgy that are not directly connected with the powers or attributes granted by the spikes. Note that Inquisitors are not in this category as we have no direct evidence that they have any effects from Hemalurgy other than the direct powers of the spikes themselves. Laws of Hemalurgic Decay A spike left outside of a body loses charge at an indeterminate rate for an indeterminate amount of time to an indeterminate minimum. Inquisitors took great pains (as well as inflicting great pains) as they made spikes to ensure they spent as little time outside a body as possible. Spikes can be reused. When as spike is reused it is also important to get it back into a body as quickly as possible (as seen by Human rushing to make a new Koloss as quickly as he could with the spike1). A spike kept in a body intermittently will still maintain some degree of a charge (Vin's and Wax's earrings), though what degree of charge is indeterminate. Spikes may be divided, separate pieces maintaining some charge, but a lesser amount each. This process heightens Hemalurgic decay in some indeterminate way. Please note any other laws/evidence I have missed and this list will be updated. Similarly note anything you think I have misphrased or misrepresented and with appropriate evidence the list will be altered. Remember this list is for provable, verifiable facts, not extrapolations and theories. Now the list was not really the intended subject of this thread, but it is a good starting point. The issues of the earrings have plagued us for far too long and it is time we put our collective obsessive minds to work on trying to figure out hemalurgic decay. Maybe it will come to nothing as we simply don't have enough information yet to make a definite conclusion on, or maybe we'll find that nugget buried somewhere that cracks this all wide open. Below I'll keep updated a synopsis of each possible theory based on our list of laws that seems to explain all of our gathered evidence. As long as a theory remains sound it keeps its place on the list. I'll use a series of codes to indicate usefulness of said theory. Since I'm starting and organizing this discussion the categories are at my discretion and opinion though if anyone disagrees with a categorization make your case and I can probably be persuaded. Plain Text = Possible theory, takes all points into account and has not been fundamentally disproved but cannot really be proved either. Strikethrough = Debunked theory, disproven via direct undeniable evidence. Italics = Unlikely or tenuous theory. Technically possible but unlikely due to other known factors. Bold = Highly likely theory. Takes all points into account and elegantly explains the inconsistencies. Blue = Wild stab in the dark. Theory technically possible but not really based on presented evidence. Pink = Mocking. 17th Sharders taking the piss as we are often wont to do. The first theory presented is one of mine for this, but I'm ready to admit it doesn't really belong as anything but plain text by my codes. Possible Extrapolations from the Laws of Hemalurgic Decay Spikes continually lose charge at a relatively quick rate whenever they are outside a body. The decay rate is constant but exponentially decreasing (basically a half-life, though not necessarily based on a factor of 2) to some bounded minimum charge. This minimum is some factor of the original charge placed in the spike, not an absolute. Spikes lose charge quickly until they are first attuned to a Host, at which point they stop losing charge even while not actually in the Host anymore. (Attributed to Outis, full theory link here) Please join in this discussion. It's long since time we got organized on this one. If this format works out, it might also be something to try for other head-scratchers that plague us all. Footnotes 1. Supporting evidence debunked. Law #4 changed to Wild Stab in the Dark due to lack of supporting evidence.

TheoryMaker's put this question on the Shardcast thread: What happens when a Kandra gets cut by a Shardblade? My Friend and I tried to answer this question, and failed. A shardblade affects the flesh away from the heart and brain, by cutting away Either the Spiritual of Cognitive Connection. But a Kandra needs no Heart or Brain. Their sentience comes directly from their Spikes. So, If a Shardblade does cut off a Limb, could the Kandra reabsorb it, and heal the flesh? Would it actually cut the bone, since it's techniccly dead already? If you beheaded a Kandra, would it Survive? Can you cut through a Hemalurgic Spike with a Shardblade?

My Friends and I are going to put together a MAG campaign, and my friend decided to be a kandra assassin. A Kandra who has broken the First contract. So he decided to strengthen his bones. He wanted to make them unbreakable, and unpushable, so he made them out of obsidian, then he had a better Idea, and just used weapons. His Ribs are daggers, hiss leg is a Mace. He has full on swords in his arms. Then he started throwing in Hemalurgic Spikes. I'm just wondering, do the Kandra have enough Muscle control to pull something like this off? Could they weapons as bones?

So, today's crazy topic is based on creating a Spike Farm that would work economically based on Feruchemical gold/Allomantic gold mining of Allomantic and Feruchemic (or any power you want, if you breed people correctly, want unlimited Breath? JUST FARM IT!) powers using Hemalurgic spikes! The classic "power farm" scenario, but one that considers the economic effects of such farming could have on [future] Scadrial and how one could do it without "upsetting the balance". The discussion is based on the discussion in this topic here: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/14995-goodreads-qa/page-5#entry169867 And is particularly based on Moogle's last post (quoted for your convenience!) Miles no longer felt pain. Spiking him would only be a minor inconvenience for him, and he could be compensated for his time. (Or, I mean, instead of executing him they could have harvested spikes from him unwillingly. It would end up saving more lives.) Harmony's stated ideology is to allow people to have as much choice as possible, and allowing those born without Allomancy to gain it through hard work (ie. paying loads of cash) seems right up his alley. You'd just have to make sure you don't torture people (Sazed might have issues there) and let economics decide how many spikes exist. A down-on-his-luck Coinshot could just visit his local Hemalurgy store and sign up to be a donor, get spiked a few times and then given a huge paycheck. (Maybe less of a paycheck if he has to pay for his own Feruchemical gold/Allomantic gold spike, but then he'd still be up.) Sazed still doesn't seem quite willing to stop pain and suffering, though. The Set seems to have successfully taken a number of women hostage who will be used as brood mares. You'd think Sazed would be intervening around that point, but it doesn't seem he has except for the barest exertion of power teleporting Wax some guns (which he may or may not have even done). You also wouldn't expect someone holding Ruin to be very focused on stopping pain and destruction... This is probably a conversation for a different thread, though. I enjoy Hemalurgy discussions. As you can see, Moogle threatened to Spike me if I didn't make topic convinced me to start this topic to continue this discussion here. So, here you go guys! Have fun Spiking!

Ok, so I was thinking about invested objects we have seen in the Cosmere to try and find some commonalities in order to gain some insight into the construction and nature of Shardblades and Shardplate. The big headline invested objects we know of are: Nightblood Metalminds Hemalurgic Spikes Fabrials (modern) Making Invested ObjectsFirstly, we know how Nighblood, Metalminds, Spikes and Fabrials are made: Nightblood was a regular sword invested with a huge number of breaths (1000?) and given a Command. The breaths provide the investiture and the Command is the focus of Nalthian magic. Metalminds - The Feruchemist 'saves' an attribute into the appropriate metal for use later. The investiture comes from the Feruchemist and the focus is the metal. Hemalurgic Spikes – the appropriate metal is stabbed into (or through?) an individual with the appropriate power, in the correct location and therefore gets charged with the power. This can them be grafted onto the recipient by stabbing them with the spike (again on the correct location). The Investiture comes from the donor and the metal is again the focus. Fabrials (modern) – A spren is trapped in a gem that is cut in a certain way and mounted in a framework. The cut and type of gem determines the species spren that is trapped and the framework determines the final application of power available. In this case the Spren seems to be providing the investiture and focus seems to be the gemstone. (I am far less certain about this as the metal framework seem to have an impact on the application of the final fabrial). In all the cases above, the common theme is that they all began life as mundane objects, even if specific materials or shapes were required. This may seem obvious but I think it is worth noting. Invested Objects in ActionWhen we look at the various types of invested objects in use, there are also some general commonalities. Nightblood – Acts as a self aware sword and consumes breath from the wielder. In this case, I believe the Breath is acting as a power source for Nightblood’s abilities. Fabrials (modern) – Have a single function as defines by the makeup. IT is not explicitly stated I the book but I have always assumed that the gemstones in the fabrial must be infused for them to work. This would be consistent with our knowledge of how magic works on Roshar. Therefore the Stormlight is acting as a power source for the fabrial’s abilities. Metalminds – Returns stored attributes for use. No real power source here, I think, due to the end neutral nature of Feruchemy. You can only use what you store so there is no need for a power source. Spikes – Imbue recipient with power though spiking. Again no power source required since it is end negative. The maximum you could graft to the recipient is the total of what you stole from the donor. This is more shaky ground but I believe each end positive result requires an active power source to make the objects function as required. Shardblades and ShardplateSo now I come to the theory aspect of my post. First, I believe that both Plate and Blade are end positive as we do not see any diminishing qualities in either of these. Neither do thay seem to have a trade off of power with the holder / wearer. So looking at the above discussions I have come to the following conclusions. Plate / Blade started life as regular swords / armor and were invested afterwards making / forging. (Given the ornate nature of many blades, they may have been carved in wood and then soulcast into metal before being invested). Given this is it logical that different weapons could be invested in the same manner. So swords were merely a convention with the KR rather than a necessity of construction. By the same logic a ShardShield (along similar lines to Plate) would also be possible. Blades draw power / stormlight from somewhere*. Plate is clearly powered by stormlight in the form of gemstones (if it was powered differently in the past, I believe it still required a power source). I am not going to theorise about how this investiture occurs. Maybe one of the Surges / Orders we have not yet seen allows the constriction of the Blade / Plate. Maybe only a full KR is able to make them. Maybe a spren needs to sacrifice itself to make them. Maybe the Heralds made them. Maybe a wizard did it! The big question to answer this is: What is the focus of magic on Roshar? Either way I think the above are fairly logical conclusions Why do you guys think? (* I suppose a possible work around to this could be that the investiture of the blades makes it special abilities properties of the blade rather than abilities. However given that the Plate does not behave this way, I think it unlikely)