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Powering surge binding with the metallic arts


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If Nightblood can be fueled by any form of investiture, is there a way to power the Surge bindings of Roshar with the metallic arts from Scadrail?  I am thinking that the investiture may be keyed to the local magic system, but I have not had time to look into this very much.  Feruchemy and Allomancy can both provide a sustained source of investiture, so they would make a nice backup if a Knight Radiant were able to use them to power the Surge bindings if their supply of storm light became too depleted.

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Feruchemy and Allomancy have very interesting mechanics and possibilities to use them in creative ways. The amount of Investiture used however, is quite low. Brandon said iIn a recent interview that Roshar will be developing to a kind of magipunk society because of the vast amount of Investiture floating around and it's easy availability.

I  guess that a surgebinder trying to get allomantic Investiture to fuel the surges would be surprised of the little amount of power he'd get from flaring metals.

Another problem would be to get Allomancy or Feruchemy at all. The classical Hemalurgic spike probably would mess with the Nahel bond, since a part of another soul would be attached to the surgebinder's soul. It would require a very tolerant spren to allow this. The only other possibility we have seen until now are the Southern Medallions. I am not convinced that they work on non-Scadrians, but I need to look that up again in recent WoBs.

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We have seen (kinda) Hoid use allomancy on Roshar, so I think that if a surgebinder had allomancy, perhaps through a lerasium bead (maybe a medallion would work too, but I agree with Pattern that hemalurgy might not), they could at the least use their surges and allomancy. I'm less sure with them being able to use allomancy as a way to fuel their own surges though. On a side note, having both powers is probably really cool anyway.

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The following is entirely my opinion based on the few WoBs and other information on the subject. 

The way I see it is that most manifestations of investiture are designed to use a specific form of investiture to power itself. Awakening uses breath, surgebinding and fabrials use stormlight, AonDor used the Dor, and allomancy uses Preservation's power. However, at its root, all forms of investiture are just investiture. This is shown with Nightblood, as it just desires investiture, irrespective of its form. 

While each manifestation of investiture desires to using a specific form of investiture, it is possible to use a different form of investiture to power it. This is primarily seen with compounding on Scadrial, using the power of Preservation to fuel feruchemy, a power normally fuelled by the user's own investiture. Therefore, it should be possible to fuel any system with any type of investiture, as indicated by the WoB which confirms that it is possible to awaken using stormlight surgebind using breath (though awakening with stormlight has been implied). However, it is fairly likely that to do so, hacking the process of a magic using another magic, is a fairly difficult proces usually. While compounding does appear to be easy, it is likely an exception due to the close ties between allomancy and feruchemy. Therefore, I would say that it is theoretically possible to fuel surgebinding with allomantic power, but it would not be easy, and possibly not practical.

tl;dr: Possible? Yes. Easy and practical? Probably not.

Edited by Spoolofwhool
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3 hours ago, Sanderson-Savant said:

We have seen (kinda) Hoid use allomancy on Roshar, so I think that if a surgebinder had allomancy, perhaps through a lerasium bead (maybe a medallion would work too, but I agree with Pattern that hemalurgy might not), they could at the least use their surges and allomancy. I'm less sure with them being able to use allomancy as a way to fuel their own surges though. On a side note, having both powers is probably really cool anyway.

As spren bond based character/actions, it is possible for a Scardinal world hopper to become a Surgebinder. 

And yes, Really Cool.

Although I think a Soulbearer  (Nicrosil ferring ) would be a better hybrid with Surgebinding 

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4 hours ago, john203 said:

@Spoolofwhool, can I get the WoB that you can awaken using stormlight?

Hmm. I thought there was one which says so, but all I could find were implications. Here's one though that says you can surgebind with breath, so close enough I guess.

Quote

LEINTON

Can Breath be used to power Surgebinding?

BRANDON SANDERSON

They are very similar Investitures, and most of the magics can be powered with the other magics if you are capable of making that happen.

LEINTON

What would happen to the Breath?

BRANDON SANDERSON

The Breath would be consumed in the same way that Stormlight is. A renewing resource, much like Atium is.

[Source]

 

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11 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Hmm. I thought there was one which says so, but all I could find were implications. Here's one though that says you can surgebind with breath, so close enough I guess.

 

Yeah I wasn't able to find any confirmation, only these

Quote

QUESTION

If you used Stormlight to Awaken, would you drain color or create frost?

BRANDON SANDERSON

You'll have to see if this happens in the future! (Note that mixing the investitures is usually not easy to do.)

Quote

ZENBOSSANOVA

Can Vasher use Stormlight to Awaken things?

BRANDON SANDERSON

No, all it does is keep him alive. But he has tried and has not figured out how to awaken things.

I too am sure it can be done, but no confirmation and the fact Vasher hasn't figured it out yet makes me think noone has.

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1 minute ago, Extesian said:

Yeah I wasn't able to find any confirmation, only these

I too am sure it can be done, but no confirmation and the fact Vasher hasn't figured it out yet makes me think noone has.

Well he said that most of the magics can be powered with other magics so that feel like pretty solid confirmation.

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I have found something that may make this thread more viable. Here

Quote

[–]youshallannotpass 2 points 1 year ago 

1.Can stormlight be used to fuel allomancy like the mist in the mistborn trilogy?
2. Will there be a metal called harmonium in the mistborn world?

Thanks again

[–]mistborn[S] 8 points 1 year ago 

  1. This is possible.
  2. RAFO. But good question.

 

Edited by The One Who Connects
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Well, if nothing else, a nicrosil ferring with access to surgebinding might be able to poke their head outside during a highstorm and absorb, then subsequently store, a massive amount of investiture that they could then draw upon at will for fueling their surges.  This would still technically be using stormlight to fuel the surges, but it would be mega convenient.

Alternatively, a windrunner-mistborn might be able to burn a hemalurgic spike that had been charged with another windrunner's surges to use harmony's Investiture to fuel their own surgebinding.  But...even if this worked, we have confirmation from WoB that burning hemalurgic spikes causes permanent changes to one's spirit web, so it would probably be a bad idea unless you really, really, knew what you were doing...

The extreme and super unlikely version = nicrosil-compounding-surgebinder.  They breath in stormlight, then store it in a metal mind that they then burn and compound, allowing them to convert Harmony's Investiture into raw Stormlight that they can then draw upon to fuel their surges.  Hoid and Kelsier are probably the only characters in the Cosmere who could reasonably accomplish such a feat though, and only if they got their hands on a high spren or an honor blade.  (I sort of doubt this will happen, but...who knows?)

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2 hours ago, hwiles said:

Well, if nothing else, a nicrosil ferring with access to surgebinding might be able to poke their head outside during a highstorm and absorb, then subsequently store, a massive amount of investiture that they could then draw upon at will for fueling their surges.  This would still technically be using stormlight to fuel the surges, but it would be mega convenient.

Alternatively, a windrunner-mistborn might be able to burn a hemalurgic spike that had been charged with another windrunner's surges to use harmony's Investiture to fuel their own surgebinding.  But...even if this worked, we have confirmation from WoB that burning hemalurgic spikes causes permanent changes to one's spirit web, so it would probably be a bad idea unless you really, really, knew what you were doing...

The extreme and super unlikely version = nicrosil-compounding-surgebinder.  They breath in stormlight, then store it in a metal mind that they then burn and compound, allowing them to convert Harmony's Investiture into raw Stormlight that they can then draw upon to fuel their surges.  Hoid and Kelsier are probably the only characters in the Cosmere who could reasonably accomplish such a feat though, and only if they got their hands on a high spren or an honor blade.  (I sort of doubt this will happen, but...who knows?)

My guess is that the Light would leak from a metalmind just like anything else. They aren't a perfect container either, though you might be able to get a better one than a gem. Plus, they can most likely hold far more than a gem.

And your super unlikely situation is more so since you can't convert one type into another that easily, if at all. I have asked about using Allomancy/Feruchemy to do some whacky things on Roshar, but Brandon has said that it would require Light since it has the Intent necessary. This wouldn't apply to fueling powers as much as what I was suggesting, since I was asking about 'manufacturing' spren to bond with, but it would still be an issue. To clarify, you can use Harmony's Investiture to power Surges, but you can't use Harmony's power to make Stormlight. Harmony already has the mists, so it probably can't get another gaseous form.

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5 hours ago, Djarskublar said:

My guess is that the Light would leak from a metalmind just like anything else. They aren't a perfect container either, though you might be able to get a better one than a gem. Plus, they can most likely hold far more than a gem.

And your super unlikely situation is more so since you can't convert one type into another that easily, if at all. I have asked about using Allomancy/Feruchemy to do some whacky things on Roshar, but Brandon has said that it would require Light since it has the Intent necessary. This wouldn't apply to fueling powers as much as what I was suggesting, since I was asking about 'manufacturing' spren to bond with, but it would still be an issue. To clarify, you can use Harmony's Investiture to power Surges, but you can't use Harmony's power to make Stormlight. Harmony already has the mists, so it probably can't get another gaseous form.

Well, Harmony's power is a form of Investiture, and Stormlight, as near as I can tell, is also a form of Investiture.  In order to fuel one magic system with Investiture from another magic system, you simply have to "squeeze" it into the right shape to fit the correct focus.  (It's super easy with compounding, since allomancy and feruchemy literally use the same foci.)

My scenarios are quite speculative, any number of new revelations could render them impossible, but to clarify, yes, you absolutely can convert one "type" of Investiture to another "type."  How difficult it would be is not being commented on right now because Sanderson isn't ready to canonize it.  (I speculate that this is because the rules and limitations of all of the magic systems haven't been fully decided.)

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Operating on the assumption that you can store stormlight using nicrosil feruchemy, which I personally doubt, this could be viable. In any case, should it be possible, I don't think you would lose stormlight, as feruchemy doesn't store the attribute directly as it is, but rather converts it to a feruchemical charge which knows what attribute to become when tapped. From there, it could be possible to compound stormlight. 

Like I said though, I don't think this is actually possible as my opinion is that you can't store stormlight with nicrosil. Brandon has RAFOed a question on compounding stormlight and breath.

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47 minutes ago, The Voiceless One said:

What if you stored the extra strength that comes from having stormlight?  It could then be used to power surges, and would not leak away while being stored.

So pewter feruchemy then to store the extra physical strength? That's possible, but then I don't see how you would be able to power surgebinding with it.

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The main reason, as I see it, that it may be impossible to store stormlight using feruchemical nicrosil is that it's unclear how Connected the stormlight is to the surgebinder upon being inhaled.  For example, you can't touch someone and store their Investiture using nicrosil, you can only store your Investiture.  Does stormlight "belong" to a surgebinder upon being breathed in, or is it just being channeled (funneled?) through them?  There are some subtleties to the systems that can potentially make converting Investiture between magic systems fairly complicated.

Now, if you could find a way to store "blank" Investiture into a metalmind along with "blank" Connection (like the translation medallions used by the southern scadrians) it might be possible to fuel any local magic system from the metalmind.  This is speculative however, as it may literally just be impossible to create/store blank Investiture, and Connection might not be enough to convert blank Investiture (assuming it exists) into the form required by a local magic system.

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21 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

I don't see how you would be able to power surgebinding with it.

Earlier it was said that stormlight could be used to power allomancy, and I think that this process should work in reverse as well.  Because allomancy and feruchemy are similar, surgebinding should be able to work off of feruchemmy.

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8 minutes ago, The Voiceless One said:

Earlier it was said that stormlight could be used to power allomancy, and I think that this process should work in reverse as well.  Because allomancy and feruchemy are similar, surgebinding should be able to work off of feruchemmy.

So you're saying use the feruchemical charge to power the surgebinding? That's possible, though once again, it would require some hacking of the systems to make work. Sorry, I got a bit confused because I thought we were still talking about the stormlight storage trick.

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I was only trying to figure out how to store the stormlight without losing any over time in a more plausible way.  Earlier, the proposed method was to use nicrosil, which you did not think would work.  This method should be more reasonable, even if it is a little harder to retrieve the stormlight.

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51 minutes ago, The Voiceless One said:

I was only trying to figure out how to store the stormlight without losing any over time in a more plausible way.  Earlier, the proposed method was to use nicrosil, which you did not think would work.  This method should be more reasonable, even if it is a little harder to retrieve the stormlight.

Oh, you wouldn't be retrieving stormlight in this method I thought. You would be retrieving the feruchemical charge and using its investiture to power surgebinding, instead of increasing your physical strength like it would normally do when tapped.

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There's another WoB (that I ant find at the moment b/c on mobile) possibly from the same Reddit AMA as the one I linked yesterday. 

It was a "powering Nightblood with Stormlight" question with a little added on. Brandon said that fueling Nightblood is easy, storing Stormlight in a Metalmind is much harder. (He didn't say impossible, so it's relevant)

Edit: Found it.

Quote

[–]shoeties 4 points 1 year ago* 

Since you still seem to be answering questions, I thought I might ask a few.

  1. Since Stormlight and Breath are both investiture, would it be possible to use Nightblood with the former rather than the latter? Would it be possible to store Stormlight in metal using Feruchemy?

[–]mistborn[S] 6 points 1 year ago 

Mixing the magics is possible, but some are easier and more natural than other. Feeding Stormlight to Nightblood is easy. Storing stormlight in metal is tough.

 

Edited by The One Who Connects
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So, I wonder what would happen to a surgebinder with the Nahel bond if they burned Lerasium. Would the cracks in the surgebinder's spiritweb that their spren occupy be removed? 

 

If Lerasium doesn't remove a spren when burned, I'd imagine that a knowledgeable spren could potentially sense the power of Preservation being used to fuel Allomancy. Maybe the spren could hijack the Investiture called up before it goes towards Allomancy for use in surgebinding.

 

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1 hour ago, Knight Oblivion said:

So, I wonder what would happen to a surgebinder with the Nahel bond if they burned Lerasium. Would the cracks in the surgebinder's spiritweb that their spren occupy be removed? 

 

If Lerasium doesn't remove a spren when burned, I'd imagine that a knowledgeable spren could potentially sense the power of Preservation being used to fuel Allomancy. Maybe the spren could hijack the Investiture called up before it goes towards Allomancy for use in surgebinding.

 

Probably different cracks. This is assuming that turning into a mistborn even requires the use of cracks. It might just bypass that entirely by creating the connection to Preservation itself, instead of allomancy using the cracks of snapping in order for the connection to Preservation to form. I doubt also that lerasium would be able to remove any underlying structure, following the intent of Preservation to maintain what is already in place.

Nonetheless, I like your idea that a spren might be able to sense the flow of investiture form Preservation and somehow tap into it. 

Edited by Spoolofwhool
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