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I think it might be possible to survive having part of your soul ripped out of you with the help of someone who can bind the surge of Progression. I think this because in interlude I-19 isn’t WoR, we read about someone revive someone who was mortally wounded via Regrowth. I think that something similar could be applied to someone stabbed in the heart by a hemalurgic spike. I’m unsure if the spiritweb can be mended in a similar fashion, however.

What can all you add? I want to see if we can't create a really full and fun list. Things we can imagine are possible, but haven't yet seen on the page. 1. Ferring of weight storage + mistborn powers. One could pull natural metal ore from under you in many locations to create an earthquake creating power, but you'd need to become heavy enough to be able to push them, etc. 2. High level bronze flairer or Mistborn + any weapon that damages investiture, like the fuzed use. The way they can intuit not only through blocking investiture but sense even the types of powers around and what they are doing, to even offworlder interactions with sensing kel's spren Syl, I think they'd be able to do it as easily as piercing a copper cloud, and in this coming cold war between them, i feel mistings or more with these tools hunting the spren in fights is dirty indeed, and a lot more practical and easy than having to use the sand like they did in stormlight. It would be ak instinctual radar they could practically shoot at. 3) Feruchemy weight manipulation + wind runner lashing. That's a doozy, lash something like 5000 times heavier than it should be, but with 4x the gravity? With what can be done if these two were on the same side for a fight... That might be mountain moving, lol. Just need to do it in the right timing combo. I also feel this combo would also be a trick to get people space bound very easily. 4) Hemalurgy + spren connection. It cuts a piece of the soul out even the points it's invested, ie, investiture and steals it for itself. Since the connection to Dalinar's spren was almost stolen in the same way by the herald, might it be able to steal the connection to the spren itself? But like all Hemalurgy, it might be impossible in a fight with the moving parts, but if the opportunity was there, and you figured out the metals or placement.... Wow. I think it should be conceivably possible? I'm imagining spikes that force a bond to a certain spren... Might as even this be part of the terrible spren experiments in the last stormlight book? 5) Imagine a windrunner or edge dancer burning atium? I feel that might be pretty much as good in most cases to a mistborn with it. Already some of the most agile and hard to hit targets becoming next level. Tbh, I almost feel if as in the last wax series it becomes easier to make a thing that makes the Mistborn powers, the forces of Roshar might also steal that and do that too. And then taking spren, etc. I could see it becoming a very mixed bag of competitors over the long haul .

One of the first things I thought of when HoA said that Ruin preferred not to kill Mistborn because the rest of their abilities got wasted was "What if you spike them twice at the same time?". I had assumed that, like everything, the answer would come eventually, if not in the text then at least in WoBs, and once I couldn't find the answer in there, I assumed I'd see it discussed on the Shard, which to my knowledge it hasn't been. There's no chance I'm the only one who thought of this, but I can't find any mentions of it anywhere. What happens if you spike someone simultaneously with two spikes, aiming to get two different powers? Say two very skilled Hemalurgists get their hands on a Twinborn who has A-Steel and F-Cadmium. For the sake of argument, let's assume that the stealing bind point for F-Cadmium is in the abdomen. If, completely and supernaturally in sync, the two Hemalurgists pound spikes through the Twinborn, looking to steal both powers, can they actually get both powers, or will only one be stolen at random? Or, will they disrupt each other and no power will be gained at all? If you can steal more than one power this way, how many powers could you reasonably steal from a Mistborn or Full Feruchemist? 1 from each quadrant? And again, I have trouble believing I'm the only person who's thought of this, so if you know of any other threads discussing this, I'd love to see them.

First of all, some WoBs: So, I recently came up with this theory. The theory was: pure atium burned allomantically would give the burner innate knowledge of hemalurgy, allowing them to instinctually know and use the finer points of hemalurgy, such as where to place the spikes and which metal to use for the desired effect. But from these WoBs I got that that’s not what it would do. It would just be more powerful (I believe). But I think it is possible that it is not impossible. Maybe, if you use pure atium hemalurgically it could give that ability. Some supporting points are: burning lerasium allomantically gives you the power of allomancy. Lerasium is the body and metal of Preservation, and allomancy is his magic system, so it makes sense that lerasium would give you his power. Would it not also make sense to use Ruin’s metal in his power to get the best effects? It also makes me wonder if you could do a similar thing with harmonium and feruchemy! Please prove me wrong, or supply me with more information to make it more rock-solid! I really like this theory, and I’m not the best at predicting what Sanderson is going to do. Odium Reigns…

So, I was just thinking about how God Metals somewhat reflect the properties of their Shard (Lerasium Connects someone to Preservation, Atium makes people into efficient killing machines) and thought of something. Harmony's God Metal is so reactive because his two halves are polarised against each other and are locked in an uneasy equilibrium, and so is pressurized in a sense, which is why it seeks to escape by reacting with something. If Harmony's Intent switches to Discord, and the two halves are no longer in equilibrium, that pressure of them straining against each other goes away. We know from a WoB that I can't find right now that a God Metal's properties can change over time if the Vessel changes; could the same be true for a shift in Intent and the nature of the Shard? Once Harmony becomes Discord, could Harmonium (Discordium?) become less or even unreactive, and therefore be used to finally test out its Allomantic, Feruchemical, and Hemalurgiv properties? What are your thoughts?

Here's my starting point: A year or two ago I theorized what would happen if someone was an incomplete Hemalurgy donor, if the correct Intent was activated so the spike would pierce the Spiritual realm and then was rammed into them and then just left in the body. F-Gold medallion to make it survivable, basically allowing someone to sign up as a hemalurgic donor like someone signs up as an organ donor. One objection to this was that the bind point for harvesting does not necessarily match the bind point for the recipient. I've recently been thinking about that and have a few thoughts. This mental model might be totally off, but I assume the anatomy of a Spiritweb to be similar to a physical body. Different parts of the Spiritweb correspond to different functions of the soul. When you rip out a chunk of soul and graft it onto another Spiritweb, assuming the recipient was healthy, then by nature you almost always would need to place the graft somewhere that still gives it access to components to let it function, but not disrupt the existing soul (as much). For example, think about how complicated it would be to say, graft an ear onto your leg and get it to actually function. Highly complicated rerouting of the nervous system would have to be done, and there would still be a slight delay in transmitting sound to your brain compared to the other ears. That third ear would also have issues based on the cochlea and inner ear fluid that would be disturbed whenever you moved your leg. There's also whatever background sound your leg makes, creating all of these issues compared to their natural isolated position on the head. You however would gain a third point to triangulation sound, and it seems as if this would allow for potentially greater ability to spatially place sound. I'm guessing it's not exactly like this, since adding Invesiture is raw power and the three Realms are based on the Platonic idea, in that there is such a thing as "strength" or "weight" that can be separated from an individual somehow and still allow that person to function relatively normally, as seen in Feruchemy. However IRL it is possible to graft toes as replacement fingers onto a hand and get them to function much more like a hand then you might expect. In essence the thought is that Hemalurgy in most cases has to place the spike in the recipient in a location that allows the Spiritweb to gain access to the charge, but generally can't be in the natural location from the donor because it will disrupt the existing soul. Think trying to graft an ear - over an ear. Or a hand onto the wrist when a hand is already there. No one would do that because you wreck the existing power in the process. As the spike has to be placed in a suboptimal location where it likely doesn't have any support from the surrounding Spiritweb like it would in the natural place, this in addition to any decay from the spike being outside of a body is a possibility for why Hemalurgic spikes never give as much power as the donor had. They aren't as efficient as a natural ability could be. This also illustrates just how necessarily accurate Hemalurgy must be to get the desired effect - it has to perform the exact and precise change to the Spiritual Ideal to get the right result. The followup thought is that perhaps if somehow someone had damage to the soul, a Hemalurgic spike charged correctly and placed back into the damaged spot that it may function at a closer to normal level. Say someone got A-Pewter and while carrying a F-Gold Medallion got their ability spiked out and survived. The idea is if they later got an A-Pewter spike back (maybe even their own spike) and put it right into where the ability was spiked out that the ability would be usable and that it's possible the level of power accessible would be closer to the norm. Think an amputee getting a limb graft versus someone who decided they wanted an arm growing out of their forehead. One is properly placed and supported by the rest of the body, the other is not. There may be adjustments the Thug has to make if the spike came from another person, just like how there may be adjustments from IRL organ donations, but I think this is plausible. As Scadrial gets more technologically advanced and Hemalugy can become more surgical in nature, I think we might see details like this. Thoughts?

Intent is very important to Hemalurgy. You could pierce the right person with the right metal in the right place- but not end up with a Hemalurgic charge because you didn't have the intention of charging the metal. I'm wondering now if this could somehow be used to a Hemalurgist's advantage to protect them from harmful, spiritual intrusions. If a Hemalurgist took a metal (without a Hemalurgic charge) then pierced themselves with it in the right Bindpoint, could they at some later date choose to excise a part of their Spiritweb in the spike? For instance, let's say there's a guy named Josh living on Roshar, fighting in the war against Odium. Odium decides to Connect to Josh, similar to how he's Connecting to Dalinar in an attempt to slowly corrupt and weaken him. Josh knows that this Connection exists, but he deliberately removes it and stores it in the duralumin (another situation where this might be useful is when Kelsier was Connected to Ruin; he could have removed those Connections, then removed the spike, thus ending his Connection to Ruin and subsequent interference with wielding Preservation). A further question here is; does the Intent matter as well as the Bindpoint for Josh's newly charged spike- at least, whether it is "active" or not? To explain better, could the spike be placed in the correct Bindpoint to allow for Josh to use the contents of the spike, but if Josh didn't have the Intent to use or those contents, would they just stay in the spike? Or would the Connection just re-rout itself and automatically hotwire to this Spiritweb, regardless of his desires? Other ideas for the use of this include; excising a Shade's corruption from yourself, tearing out a chunk of Spiritweb from a Voidspren that tries to possess you (such as with Sadeas's men at the battle of Theynena), or removing a Bondsmith's ties to you (such as when the Windrunners and Dalinar were attacked by Ishar). So, does this seem plausible, or am I going off the deep end again guys?

We know that it's already possible to take Invested powers made through Forgery with Hemalurgy (WoB). We also know that Southern Scadrial is finding ways to let inanimate objects use Feruchemy and Allomancy using Harmonium. We know that it's possible to Hemalurgically spike inanimate objects so long as they are "alive" enough (WoB). And finally, we know that you can force a Forgery to take on someone it wasn't intended for so long as their soul is "familiar" with the soul of the person who was intended to be stamped (basically, Connections must exist between the two). So, with that in mind, I hypothesize that you could make a Forgery to stamp a Scadrien (let's name him Joe for fun ) into an Allomancer or Feruchemist, then make a device that used Feruchemical duralumin to Connect to Joe. You then place the Forgery on the device instead of the Joe. Even though the Forgery won't take for long, you don't need it to last more than a second or two to Hemalurgically spike out the Invested power. And there you go, no people spiked but one Hemalurgic spike Invested with one Metalborn power. Get enough Investiture to use and you may be able to mass produce Hemalurgic spikes this way.

I had an idea recently in another post to Hemalurgically spike a Mistwraith, but then wondered if spiking a Kandra would lead to a different end result, which lead to this idea. When you Hemalurgically spike a human's strength from them using H-iron, you can use those spikes to twist another human into a Koloss. But what if you try to take a Koloss's strength via Hemalurgy? This would, I think, on whether all the power of the Koloss's added strength is in the spikes, or if it's a combination of their growing muscles and an enhancement of their spikes. My personal idea currently for how Koloss spikes work is that they provide a magical boost on top of "twisting" the recipient, causing them to grow huge muscles. The power in the spikes probably couldn't be spiked out (since it isn't actually part of the donor's Spiritweb), but the new, twisted Spiritweb might. So let's have a scenario play out; a Koloss tribe needs more members to help compete with their neighboring tribes. Unfortunately, they don't have enough spikes to make more Koloss, but they do have a human who knows how to make more spikes and wants to become a Koloss. The human helper convinces the Koloss elders to let him spike out the elder's strength and use those spikes to turn himself into a new Koloss. The question is, does anything wonky go on with the new Koloss? Does he get more of a strength boost than other Koloss, since the strength stolen was from much stronger creatures than human? Does the warping effect on his Spiritweb get worse, since it isn't stolen pieces of human Spiritwebs, but stolen pieces of Koloss Spiritwebs that have already been warped? Would even weirder things happen if the process continued to be practiced, eventually creating some crazy mutant Koloss from other Koloss that had also been made from Koloss?

I actually made a post a while ago about this very thing, and I'm pretty sure the idea is similar to what I had before, though now I have more information and have had time to consider things better. I also made a post recently about how Kandra Blessings were made- Kandra Blessings, Identity, and Commands- and that got me thinking on this matter again. Okay, based on my recent post about Kandra Blessings, I think that it's possible to spike out a being's "self" enough to change another being into taking on characteristics of the donor creature. I hypothesize that this is what was done with Chimera (canines were donors for humans, making the humans more like the canines) and potentially the Kandra (human donors used with correct Intent plus potentially a specialized Command on Mistwraiths, making those Mistwraiths take on some human characteristics). But, what happens if you use a Mistwraith as a donor and a human as the recipient for a Hemalurgic spike? I hypothesize that, with the proper knowledge, skill, and with the correct Intent, you could take some aspects of a Mistwraith and staple them onto a human. I don't know that you would turn them into an actual Kandra, but more like a "cousin" species; perhaps the human would gain some shape-shifting abilities, but not to the extent that a Kandra would have them and maybe they'd live a few hundred years longer than normal. As an upside, they might not have the Kandra's level of susceptibility to being controlled or the same need for Blessings to retain sapience. It also would be interesting to see if the new being could hold Kandra Blessings without being turned into a monstrous being due to their new shape shifting nature. This is speculative, of course, but we do know that it is possible to spike a Singer's ability to grow a Gemheart. Why not spike a Mistwraith's ability to change its shape? This older quote (from 2015) says that you couldn't spike a Listener's Forms, but I the quote above (from 2018) implies that you could take the abilities Listeners use to achieve those forms. As such, I believe that the same could be done with Mistwraiths. So, what are your guy's thoughts (especially you, @Tamriel Wolfsbaine; I know you really like Kandra related stuff )? Do you think that this would be achievable?

Kandra Blessings and their creation have been elusive for a while now, but I have another educated hypothesis as to how it's done. We know that the Lord Ruler personally created the Kandra Blessings. We also know that a few of the fundamental differences between Hemalurgic spikes made for Koloss and spikes made for Kandra is the amount of Investiture pulled from the donor and what specific segments are taken. We also know from Bleeder that it is possible for a Kandra to create new spikes for themselves to replace their old Blessings, otherwise Bleeder wouldn't have been able to use a Trellium spike. And we know from TLM that Commands can be used when using Hemalurgy to be more specific in what is taken and what is not. With that evidence in mind, my current idea for how Kandra Blessings are made is that TLR would use Commands to take larger than average sections of the Spiritweb of the donors for the Kandra Blessings, including more of the part that specifically makes humans... human (in fact, I think that something similar happened with the Chimera that Bleeder made; she spiked some canines, took a large portion of their innate "self", and spiked that into humans, creating a bigger change than what would have normally been possible with a single spike). True sapience and higher cognitive functions. As this was done, the Identity of the spikes was somehow Blanked, or at least made to be more adaptable to its host. When the spikes were given to a Mistwraith, they granted them sapience by altering them to be more humanlike in nature. The spikes would then "grow" into the Kandra, becoming a fundamental part of their Identity, which explains why ReLuur couldn't take another Kandra's spike without both of his; the Identity of the spikes weren't compatible with each other, so they caused him pain. This also makes sense if we look at Bleeder; she was able to make two spikes, one that provided Feruchemical steel, and the other that provided Allomantic steel, neither of which she should have been able to bear unless they were Identity compatible with her. Bleeder's case also proves that it isn't just the Kandra growing into the Identity of the spikes, since that would mean that she couldn't have created new spikes for herself, as their Identity wouldn't have been compatible with hers. There are some other very interesting implications for Hemalurgy if this proves true, but I'll make another post sometime for those ideas as this post is specifically for Kandra Blessings. In any case, I'd love to hear what all of you guys think. If anyone has solid evidence that disproves this hypothesis, I'll gladly listen, as I'd rather have this idea of mine be wrong than have a false head cannon. That said, if you do try to disprove it, I'm sure I'll defend my point if I reasonably can, cause it's fun Edit: Oh, and it may be worth noting that it isn't really the amount of Investiture in the spikes that matters too much, it's what is taken in them. Otherwise, enough Breaths would do the job of bringing them sapience.

In the Ars Arcanum for TLM, it mentions that the reason Steel Inquisitors got exhausted more quickly than normal people was because their Spiritwebs were unreasonably burdened by their large number of Hemalurgic spikes. I was wondering if perhaps bronze Feruchemy could help overcome this, particularly with Compounding, since it provides all the benefits of a good night's sleep. Also, could there be more problems with having too many Hemalurgic spikes, such as maybe a reduced healing rate (from Spiritweb deterioration)? Brandon Sanderson mentioned that some Inquisitors "burn up" more quickly than others depending on their specific power set. Perhaps those with more spikes age a bit faster due to their Spiritwebs being worn down? This also makes me wonder if it's the number of spikes that wears one down (due to more holes being in the Spiritweb) or if it's the total Investiture of the spikes; it would be kind of weird if more Investiture in the spikes led to a greatly reduced lifespan, since we've seen elsewhere in the Cosmere than more Investiture means a greater lifespan.

How would hemalurgy interact with a Shard? Could you steal a part of the Shard’s power? And what if someone tries to become a Shard while they have spikes in their body?

There's a short story about Allomancer Jak interacting with a group of Koloss. Inside the story, he finds a treasure; a pile of old Koloss spikes which are kept within a box lined with aluminum. Now, we know that aluminum can prevent a Hemalurgic spike from leaking Investiture, but I had assumed that it worked like gas under pressure, so aluminum would only work to prevent leakage if it were an air-tight coating sticking to the spike (such as if a previously charged spike were to be dunked into molten aluminum). However, it seems that this story suggests that this isn't the case; you only need to put the spike a box or something of the like to make it work. It may be that it's more of a field effect that aluminum provides, similar to aluminum hats protecting from Emotional Allomancy. So basically, I now think that the aluminum that prevents Hemalurgic decay works like that; it's a field that "confuses" the spikes, making them think that there is nothing else for them to seep into surrounding them, so instead of following their impulse towards seeking equilibrium they just keep their Investiture put. You may not even need to completely coat the spike to prevent decay, you probably just need enough nearby to confuse the spikes.

Let's have another fun little hypothetical scenario, shall we Say there was a blood thirsty Scadrien (basically Atilla the Hun, but Scadrial instead of Earth) who knows of Hemalurgy and is a big fan of ripping off chunks of enemies Spiritwebs as he kills them. Scadrien Atilla then gets regular steel sword forged for himself and gets an aluminum sheath for it. Every time Scadrien Atilla kills someone with his sword (which is a lot) he uses the Intent to perform Hemalurgy, charging his sword with a little more Investiture each time he slays an opponent, and since the sword his secured in aluminum between killings, it doesn't lose power during that time. Time passes, and Scadrien Atilla gets old and passes his sword to his descendants, who are each told the secret of Hemalurgically stealing Investiture when the use the sword, and they all use the same tactic as their fathers (/mothers?). More time passes, and the sword has become so Invested that it begins to take a life of its own, with its personality shaped by the view of Scadrien Atilla's descendants and followers. Eventually, it begins to become self-aware, and starts to act like Nightblood, absorbing Investiture of its enemies (and possibly wielder) of its own accord and takes on Shardblade-like qualities to help it fulfill its Intent filtered by its congnitive aspect; to destroy, to Ruin. Does this sound like a plausible way to create a new Nightblood, or at least to create some form of a Scadrien-style Shardblade? Also, would a Hemalurgic Shardblade be able to become supersaturated with Investiture, similar to Nightblood, or do you think it would have stricter limitations?

I got to wondering (again) about my favorite Cosmere magic system and how to creatively improve its usage. What if you took an un-Invested spike and then charged it by piercing a Metalborn with it- but then left it in them with the Intent to have the spike grant them its power? Could you use this as a way to effectively charge a spike while the person was alive, but while doing minimal damage to them? Most of their Investiture is still there in the spike and could stay there until the person passed away from natural causes. Then you wouldn't have to worry about not getting the chance to charge a spike after someone passed away; the spike would already be Hemalurgically charged, thus preserving the power. Plus, you wouldn't feel the need to cut someone's life short by having them sacrifice themselves for "the greater good". If you want to add some Identity blanking to the mix, you might be able to make an even better deal for the donor. You could have the donor Blank their Identity whilst donating, then give the charged spike to another donor down the line; that way, the second donor gets to keep most of their original Investiture plus whatever is left from the original donor. The process could continue to stack up, increasing the total Investiture in the spike, thus increasing the benefit for the donors and making the process more appealing, which would make more people willing to donate. Assuming the process to program Hemalurgic spikes made from non-Metalborn becomes a reality in Scadrial's future, this process could be extended to all Scadriens, and could allow for every single human being on Scadrial to someday have access to the Metallic Arts due to the ability build up the power in the spikes, contrary to Allomancy's decreasing power. Depending on the effectiveness of Malwish Medallion tech, which TLM suggests is far more limited than previously assumed, this may be the way to comedize the Metallic Arts in Scadrial's future and make all of its people truly equal.

Let's have a hypothetical scenario; two shady Hemalurgists in trench coats meet one another in a dark alleyway to buy/sell Hemalurgic spikes from one another. What spikes do you think would be most valuable to someone who knows what they do and why? Here's my idea (ranked lowest first, highest last). 1. Allomantic aluminum. Basically useless for nearly any situation. It depletes your metal stores and actively works against your best interests in most cases. 2. Allomantic gold. Unless you find a way to hack Hemalurgy in such a way as to allow Compounding, this power is not all that useful (except maybe for self-reflection). 3. Allomantic cadmium. Unless you have access to Malwish Primer Cubes, this isn't useful in most combat cases. Would potentially help skip time if you're impatient and don't have any concept of how to use time efficiently. 4. Feruchemical Bendalloy. Nice for long travels, but not useful for much else unless you're a Worldhopper (which I won't discuss here). 5. Feruchemical brass. Definitely useful for traveling to extreme locations and maintaining a comfortable temperature no matter the environment. Proper clothing and AC could help nearly as much in most cases though. 6. Feruchemical cadmium. Could allow for extended periods of time diving. Useful for that situation if you don't have scuba gear, or if you are a marine biologist and don't want to disturb the wildlife while you study it. 7. Feruchemical copper. Useful to a creative person for a hodge podge of mental tricks and can allow you to recall desired information if used correctly, but a notebook could probably do that nearly as well. 8. Feruchemical bronze. Could be useful to tap in many circumstances (adding some extra awake-ness when you need it) and would be a lifesaver if you're cramming for a test but storing limits its usefulness to a degree since you could use the time spent storing to do useful work. 9. Allomantic/Feruchemical electrum. Seeing into the future, if in a limited way, could be useful if someone practiced with it. Determination seems like it could be of general benefit to someone no matter the situation, though storing would be a pain. 10. Allomantic copper. Copper can help you hide from Seekers while still using your powers, but due to Hemalurgic decay it's less viable of an option unless you figure out how to put multiple Hemalurgic charges inside a spike or unless you take two or more spikes. 11. Feruchemical iron. could be useful if you are creative or could be combined with Allomantic pewter to add some combat ability. Combined with Allomantic steel it would allow for some truly impressive feats of destruction. 12. Allomantic tin. Useful to enhance senses and increase awareness of your surroundings. Night vision is definitely a plus as well. 13. Feruchemical tin. Similar to A-tin, it's very useful for increasing your awareness of your surroundings, but you have more control over it. Additionally, you can choose to store pain, which would be very useful in a fight or in any situation where you get injured. A lack of night vision is a bummer, but overall I still would prefer it to A-tin. 14. Allomantic nicrosil. Could be useful in a fight to remove an opponent's metal reserves (though that might prove more risky than A-chromium) or to boost an ally Metalborn. 15. Allomantic iron. Less useful than A-steel, but could be useful in a fight or if you want Metalsense. 16. Feruchemical pewter. Useful for combat, can help with physical labor, helps you win that arm wrestling match, and can give you an Olympian bod for when you go to the beach. 17. Allomantic brass/zinc. Can be nice for helping in all sorts of social situations, including convincing others to help you locate Metalborn. Not so useful if aluminum-lined hats ever become fashionable, however. 18. Feruchemical duralumin. Can be used to aid in making friends, reducing people's awareness of you (if you want to quietly slip away from an awkward social situation or are an introvert), can let to speak foreign languages while traveling, and probably has more useses that will be discovered in time. Hiding better would help an aspiring Hemalurgist steal more powers and being able to befriend people more easily would help find more/con more Metalborn. 19. Feruchemical zinc. While it doesn't actually boost your raw intellect (merely the speed at which you think and comprehend), and while storing would be a pain, tapping some F-zinc could help with all sorts of situations, be it from assessing a battlefield to coming up with a clever response in a verbal duel, this power has got your back. 20. Allomantic bronze. If you're a Hemalurgist who is morally questionable and plans to steal more Invested powers, this power is your best friend. There are other ways of locating Metalborn however, so this power doesn't rank higher than it already is. 21. Feruchemical chromium. Fortune sounds like a powerful ability to have, and seems like it could be useful for all manner of situations (I don't see a situation where not tapping Fortune would be beneficial), and it may even allow for precognitive abilities. However, not a lot is known about it right now, and the need to store hampers its usefulness a lot. 22. Allomantic steel. Lets you basically have a limited form of flight and telekinesis. Useful for combat, locomotion, some everyday tasks, and it's fun. Steelsight is another useful ability for a creative person. 23. Allomantic Bendalloy. As Wayne shows us, this power can be very useful to a creative person and has some obvious benefits for combat. 24. Allomantic chromium. Useful for fighting Metalborn, particularly if you're a Hemalurgist looking to incapacitate/capture Metalborn to steal powers from. Honestly not sure whether A-chromium or A-pewter is more useful for this kind of thing. 25. Allomantic pewter. Enhances a whole bunch of physical qualities. Extremely useful for a fight, Kinesthetic activities of any kind, and helps keep you alive and running through even terrible injuries that would normally incapacitate or kill you. 26. Allomantic duralumin. Very useful in combat when combined with other powers. You'd have to be careful with it, but it could allow for greater versatility and raw power with other abilities. 27. Feruchemical gold. Can save your life from all but the most destructive attacks (such as being vaporized by a nuke). Could be used by an ambitious individual to generate more Metalborn powers, though without Compounding this would likely be very restricted in its use. 28. Feruchemical steel. Amazingly useful for combat as well as useful for a number of mundane tasks. I'd think that this would be one of the most useful combat metals, particularly for a Hemalurgist who can zip to their opponent and spike their Metalborn power form them before they can even blink. 29. Feruchemical aluminum/nicrosil. By combining these powers through Hemalurgy, you could grant powers to others via Unsealed Metalmind, or potentially grant someone else the ability to store their powers and give them to you temporarily. F-aluminum may also be able to overcome the Identity contamination that Hemalurgy suffers from, which would allow for Compounding (assuming that it works)- which is amazingly powerful with the right power combo. So, what are everybody's else's ideas on this matter?

Okay, so Compounding isn't normally possible via Hemalurgy due to Identity contamination; so long as the Identity of the Hemalurgic spike and that other power (whether it be another spike or a natural Metalborn power) aren't the same. But what if you Forge someone into a Misting for a certain metal, Hemalurgically spike the power from them, use Forgery to turn them into a Ferring for the same kind of metal as they were a Misting for, spike that power out, and then you give them both spikes afterward. Would they be able to Compound since both spikes technically work from the same person? Or, what if you instead give the spikes to someone else? Would they be able to Compound since the spikes share the same Identity, and even though the Hemalurgist's Identity is there to muddy things up, it does so equally to both. So would that still work? Honestly, Forgery and Hemalurgy just go so well together.

I had come up with an idea before on how a Trueself Ferring could blank their Identity while having their power taken Hemalurgically, which would blank the Identity of the spike. The power could be given to other Metalborn, who in turn could blank their Identity to make Compounding and combining Invested charges a viable option with those spikes. This would require that you have willing donors, however, as you can't reliably force someone you're stealing a power from to blank their Identity. I'm now wondering if perhaps I've been overthinking the problem. If you gave a Hemalurgic spike that provided access to Feruchemical aluminum to a Hemalurgist, they could blank their Identity (and that of their spikes, presumably) to make Compounding possible for as long as they blanked their Identity- it wouldn't matter if the spike had an Identity tied to it, since you could blank it anyway. This wouldn't make it possible to stack Investiture in a single spike (no supercharged Hemalurgy ) and you'd need an additional spike to make the Compounding viable (a legitimate concern when you're dealing with a max of three, maybe four or five spikes if you don't mind Shardic intervention), but without the need of a willing donor, this feels like it would be a much more achievable solution to the problem of Compounding via Hemalurgy. I suppose you could upgrade this if you had multiple people working together; a natural Misting (say, a gold Misting) or someone willing to take another Hemalurgic spike could take the Feruchemical side of what they wanted to Compound and Feruchemical aluminum, then they could blank their Identity and Compound large stores of the desired attribute. Since the attribute is now Identity-free, the Hemalurgist's buddies could access those stores for their own use (only one Compounder is needed for the group assuming that you aren't going to be needing a constant intake of whatever power you're using).

A human needs four iron Hemalurgic spikes to be transformed into a Koloss- a Hemalurgic construct. But what if only one spike is used? I know the Chimera use only one spike, but Tensoon mentions in SoS that it shouldn't be possible for such large changes to occur with only one spike, suggesting that one spike doesn't change a person nearly that much. In addition, what if you did what the Koloss did and repurposed a Koloss spike for yourself, since it apparently allows for a greater amount of one's humanity to remain? Basically, I'm wondering if you could find a way to use one, maybe two Hemalurgic spikes that use human attributes rather than Invested powers and yet somehow retain your humanity (I'm most particularly interested in H-copper, as having 500 IQ seems pretty nice )?

The Hemalurgy table says that it concerns itself with the creation of Steel Inquisitors, but it has Bindpoints located for the Spiritual quadrant. Is this just to show a sample of where to expect certain Bindpoints for all Hemalurgic creations, or is it actually just for Inquisitors? Because if it is just for Inquisitors, there are some interesting implications. If Inquisitors actually used spiritual Hemalurgy on themselves, it would probably mean that the attributes granted by such spikes don't warp you into a Hemalurgic monstrosity, otherwise Inquisitors wouldn't be able to use them for obvious reasons. Perhaps it's like with Allomantic Savantism; only the physical metals have serious implications for one's physiology while others have little impact. Do you guys think I'm reading too much into this and jumping to conclusions, or am I onto something? Hemalurgy table link.

Forgery can only allow something reasonable to be changed about someone's past to create a different present version of oneself. Hemalurgy can take pieces of people's Spiritwebs, their Connection and Identity, and staple it on to someone else. So, could you take a part of someone's Spiritweb, give yourself the spike, and then use a Soulstamp on yourself that would have worked on the other person? For example, could a Scadrien Hemalurgist spike something out of Moonlight, give themselves the spike, then take her Elantrian-making Soulstamp and use it one themselves?

Often when people come up with crazy ideas on the 17th Shard we disregard how such a circumstance came to be for the sake of discussion. That's okay, but I think that it makes some theories seem far-fetched because from a meta perspective they would be too game breaking if they were true. Take the ability to combine multiple Hemalurgic charges into a single spike; if you took the power of one hundred Pewterarms and cramed it into a single Hemalurgic spike, the recipient becomes bulletproof (or near it at least), strong enough to casually punch people's heads off, and has their natural healing and physical speed increased to insane amounts. Basically like Shardplate, but you always have it, it helps you in more ways (such as healing quickly), it's easier to use when and wherever you want, and since you have an increase to your dexterity, you don't have to worry as much about breaking stuff accidentally (to a reasonable extent, at least). However, even if such a thing were possible, it would be very, very, very difficult to bring about. First, you'd either have to get a single Misting who was willing to donate their power and heal back parts of their Spiritweb a hundred times over via F-gold- which takes some serious Compounding with H-spikes or medallions (the latter of which may actually not be viable due to the Malwish not having Allomantic Medallions) to achieve- or you'd have to find one hundred Mistings of the same type who were willing to donate their powers, as they'd need to use Hemalurgy or Medallions to blank their Identity to prevent the H-charges from being incompatible with each other. Technically, it is achievable, but you pretty much won't see it happen; it's just not very believable that such a scenario could happen. Another limiting factor is Hemalurgic decay. If my hunch is correct, Hemalurgic decay works a bit like a gas under pressure; the more you try to squeeze into a smaller and smaller space, the more Investiture will leak from the spike within the same window of time. There probably are ways to offset this, such as using Raysium and Perfect Gemstones to collect Hemalurgic charges, but I think that there is one more limiting factor; Identity development. We see with the Southern Scadrien Medallions that they have developed some of their own Identity despite the fact that they would have to be made from Blanked Investiture originally, or else they couldn't be tapped (don't ask me why they can still be tapped; it likely has to do with some mechanic Sanderson has yet to introduce). Basically, I think that if you were to Spike out a Misting's power, let them heal it back with Investiture, then give them some time to recover from the lingering aftereffects, the Hemalurgic charge may end up developing a new Identity, which would prevent it from being combined with other H-charges. So you'd have to harvest all your power in one sitting, likely meaning that you'd have to have lots of Mistings willing to donate their powers to prevent the worst of the side effects, which could be possible, but not likely or easy. Basically, I think that the concept of having a single Hemalurgic spike providing godlike power is pretty neat, and we likely will see some spikes containing a few charges in the future, but I don't think that it would be a world-building pit that unbalances magic systems. And if we do ever see a supercharged spike, it will likely be a very rare occurrence which will be used by villains (kind of like Miles gold Compounding).

We know that Kelsier is trapped on Scadrial due to his Connection. However, I think that if he were to use a Trellium spike on himself he might be able to Worldhop due to Autonomy's nature. After all, Trellium spikes try to repel other sources of Investiture making it seem likely that this is an inherent property of Autonomy's Investiture. In fact, I think that Autonomy's plan for dealing with Harmony was to Invest Scadrial heavily enough that her Investiture shoved Sazed out of the picture. In light of that, allowing a Sliver to travel off-world seems almost trivial by comparison. Beyond that... SA spoilers

I recently made a post talking about using Rhythms to program powers into Hemalurgic spikes made from non-Allomancers. I'm now wondering if perhaps one could change the actual Intent of the Investiture within the spikes, thereby changing the Connection from Ruin to another Shard. After all, we've seen in RoW that you can use Voidlight to fuel a Radiant's powers if they have a sufficient Connection to Odium, so the powers inside the spikes should be left unmarred. I think that this would work as another work around if you wanted to prevent Ruin specifically from taking control of you since Marsh and the Kandra weren't vulnerable to Autonomy's control, but those that were Connected to her via Trellium spikes were; Connection matters just as much as having an open soul if a Shard wants to control a Hemalurgic construct. It would also be cool to see if Trellium could be alloyed with another Godmetal to disConnect it from Autonomy, but still have Hemalurgic spikes made from the new metal protect from other outside influences.