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Measuring the Investiture and efficiency of that Investiture in practice is something that would be really, really good to know. Once we get to that point we'll start actually getting Invested units and whatnot, which is something I've been really looking forward to. But how to do it (in world, that is)? Well, here's a few Ideas of mine (please feel free to pitch in and come up with more ways to measure the Investiture as well). 1. Using a spectroscope to determine Investiture amount; a spectroscope was used in TLM by Wax to determine whether Trellium was a Godmetal, and it seemed that the Set used a similar device to determine the amount of Investiture inside of a Hemalurgic spike. This device could be used to determine the baseline of Investiture for Hemalurgic spikes and Metalminds. This would also be useful to tell what the size categories are for Metalminds and Hemalurgic spikes when it comes to storing Investiture in ideal vessels (WoB). 2. Feruchemical practice; with this method you just hire a Feruchemist to store attributes of certain types for certain periods of time at certain percentages. Then you use the aforementioned spectroscope to tell how much Investiture is inside. This will tell the level of Investiture that each attribute actually equals- different Allomantic powers equal different levels of Investiture, so Feruchemical ones likely follow suit. Then have the Feruchemist tap those attributes at fixed rates so that the level of attribute loss due to compression can be determined- then we'd finally know just how long one must store to get a set amount of time at X amount of tapping. 3. Hemalurgy and decay; this one is pretty simple. Just take a spikes with a set amount of Investiture (determined by a spectroscope) and let it sit and decay naturally, testing it on occasion to tell how the rate of Investiture loss. Different amounts of starting Investiture, varying sizes of spikes, and periodically stopping decay and resuming it could determine how much those factors impact the rate of decay. 4. Hemalurgy and practice; you could use Hemalurgic spikes that have a determined amount of power inside them to tell how much of an effect they give the wielder. For example, you give a Hemalurgic spike to the test subject (in an easily removable way, such as an earring) that grants Allomantic pewter. The subject would have had their natural strength determined beforehand. They burn pewter under the effects of spike and you use the new amount of weight they can lift to tell how much actual strength the spike gives. Repeat the process with more spikes of various levels of Investiture to determine the rate of efficiency you get with more and more Investiture being squeezed into a small space (i.e., I don't think that 200% of the Investiture of the spike would yield 200% the muscle strength- we see that Feruchemy doesn't work that way, so Allomancy and other Investitures are likely similar). You could use a similar process with Hemallurgically granted Feruchemy to determine the efficiency of storing or tapping attributes at higher or lower levels of Investiture.

So, I had this genius thought: Lifeless require a breath to make, right? And the investiture keeps it alive, right? What happens if we put either: Another type of investiture in place of the breath? Sentient investiture (I was thinking unmade) in place of the normal breath? Different Investiture alongside a breath? Divine breath as well as a breath? I think that if other types of investiture could be stuffed into a corpse, it would be very important in the future. Note: these aren't cognitive shadows, nor stapling on a CS to a body, since it's just investiture in a long dead body. Any thoughts?

How exactly does the Dor being shoved into the Physical Realm function? Is it all of DnD's Investiture, or just most of it? When any of the Selish Arts (or other Arts being powered by the Dor) use the Dor, does it return to the masses of Dor that are stuck in the Selish Subastral, or do they return to the Spiritual Realm like Investiture normally does? Could the use of Selish Arts eventually return all of DnD's Investiture to the SR (even if it takes an extremely long time), or has it somehow been permanently grounded in the CR? Do AonDor Fabrials like the Light and Travel Plates continually return Investiture to the SR when active? Does Elantris itself (the massive Aon Rao) do that on a massive scale?

So, I've noticed a lot of Nghtblood-centric threads on this forum (as there well should be, given that Nightblood is the singular most Invested object in the Cosmere and one of the most unique), and it got me thinking about how it works and what it really is. After leafing through some other theories and looking through the Arcanum, I think I have an idea. So, a quick refresher on how Nightblood was created: So, Nightblood is an Awakened Steel sword with the Command "Destroy Evil" Now, take a look at this WoB: Nightblood, a regular Steel sword that was mined, smelted, alloyed, and forged on Nalthis, and then imbued with Breaths, which is Endowment Investiture, has Ruin's Investiture in it. Why? Well, my theory is as follows: The Breaths in Nightblood were given a Command, which became the sword's Intent: "Destroy Evil". And what happened when this Command was given to Nightblood? Does that ring a bell? The Command breaks down into two basic concepts. "Destroy," and "Evil". I think that, upon receiving the Command, the Breaths were corrupted with Ruin's Intent, that of Destruction, which essentially makes the Breaths part of Ruin's Investiture. All of those Corrupted Breaths, now being forced into a single sword, oversaturated it with Investiture, and so it started leaking it, letting those Corrupted Breaths dissipate. However, here's the problem: Investiture can't be destroyed. The closest it can come to being destroyed is when it's exposed to Anti-Investiture, where the Investiture simply becomes energy, which can presumably be turned back into Investiture. So, how can the Breaths follow their new Intent? The closest it can come to 'destroying' Investiture is Corrupting it and keeping it stuck in the sword, forcing it to stay out of the Investiture systems for as long as possible. Nightblood is, functionally, a prime manifestation of Ruin's Intent, doing its best to destroy Investiture by Corrupting it and trying to keep it compressed within the sword. This is why Nightblood has grown in power over the centuries; it absorbs the Investiture from everything and everyone that it possibly can. The "Destroy" half of the Command essentially dictates the method by which the sword works. All this is separate from the "Evil" part of the Command. That part forms the basis of Nightblood's 'test'. If you want to use the sword for personal gain, extortion, killing your enemies, etc, you will be drawn to kill others with the sword, and then yourself. If not, you feel nauseous. Use the sword and you become Bonded to it, and you become immune to the test. "Evil" determines the test by which the sword decides whether someone is evil or not, and the "Destroy" part ordains how it will kill someone who is decided to be evil. The fact that Nightblood-inflicted wounds cause blackness to form on the corpses through its Aluminum sheath just goes to show how powerful it is. It suggests that Ruin's magic system could have been far, far darker than Hemalurgy. Had Ruin settled on a planet other than Scadrial, alone, it could have resulted in a magic system more like a twisted, nightmarish version of Breaths and Awakening: A world where you can kill other people and suck their Investiture out as they die, with more Investiture gained the more the agony the victim is in as they pass. Collect enough Dying Breaths and you can create creatures or constructs out of Midnight Essence. Infect someone with Dying Breaths and you can possess them through an Entropy Bond, controlling them like a puppeteer, their eyes leaking black smoke all the while. Each use of Dying Breaths expends Breaths in a way that they can never be recovered, always driving people to kill more to gain more power. The more Dying Breaths you have at any given moment, the more sadistic and masochistic you become, reveling in pain. Luckily for the denizens of the Cosmere, Ruin never gets a chance to truly express his Intent, beyond wanting to destroy Scadrial. Nothing we see him do is unique to him; Any other Shard could recreate those effects, Intent notwithstanding. Nightblood is a tiny window into the truly destructive power Ruinous magic systems can have. Thoughts?

Hey everyone! This came up in another topic about SA, but I was curious to see what the mistborn crowd thinks. The topic is invested metal, question is: If a feurochemist had a metalmind shaped like a dagger capable of storing some attribute, could they store so much in it to make it so invested that it would start cutting like a shardblade?

Disclaimer: I have no idea where to put this, so please benevolent mods, move this if necessary. SPOILER WARNING: Alright so, this theory contains the heaviest spoilers in the world for Stormlight Archive Rhythm of War, Warbreaker, Elantris, Tress of the Emerald Sea, and I might have to borrow from Mistborn Era 2 It also spoilers ALL of Avatar the last airbender and Legend of Korra. The world of Avatar almost perfectly fits into the cosmere, here me out. I'll be using cosmere words like Bond, Connection, Investiture, Spren, Shards, cognitive realm, Intent, and the like, so if you don't know any of those, read the cosmere books before reading on in this theory. I'll to capitalize those words in order to make them stand out. I will call the Avatar-World the Avatar-World in order to avoid confusion. --- Let's get started, first of all, of course there are not really fitting shards left over for this planet, but to put it simply, something similar to Roshar is going on. Spren-like splinters called Spirits inhabit the Cognitive Realm known as the Spirit-world of the planet Avatar-World, and two perpendicularities known as Spirit Portals in the North and South pole of the planet exist. This is a fact that points towards two Shards of Adonalsium having been shattered on that world. The Spirit World, Spirits, and the Perpendicularities Judging from the original humans having been in the Cognitive Realm first, they might've migrated over from another planet, before having been changed by Cosmereological Intent (see Pure Lakers on Roshar) to let the ever present but Mist-like (see Scadrial) invisible form of Investiture known as Chi, flow through their bodies. The Spren/spirits/splinters of those Shards known as the lion turtles could thus grant the humans a special form of Bond to allow them to use the power of an element. In the Avatar-World there must be two new types of Bonds: one that lion turtles use to grant the ability to use investiture to control and element, and one bond that Spirits use to possess a human. Bending and Investiture - an End-Positive System Forming a Connection to the power of the Splintered shards (see what happened on Sel), this Bond is not very similar to the Nahel Bond (Roshar & Spren) and a Luhel Bond (Lumar), but instead only requires an initial bond that unlcoks the power in a human and can then be passed on genetically. Investiture in the Avater-World in the physical realm is an invisible gas, or at least humans have evolved to not see it, and is ever-present, seeping into the humans where it is called Chi. The unlocking of bending and chi-gates might form cracks in the soul that are passed on genetically, seemingly even the more powerful Splinters or rather Cognitive Shadows can hold such powers, as evident by Raava and Vaatu. Bending itself is a way of Accessing Investiture, requiring intent and specific physical movements that look almost like a martial art. This is similar to Aons drawn by Elantrians using AonDor or the martial arts on Sel. The Avatar Both bonds were used by Raava and Wan to create the first avatar: A cognitive shadow that holds memories of all prior avatars, held together within a human body by the Spirit Raava. Whenever an Avatar dies, the memories are added to the cognitive shadow known as the Avatar, and the spirit Raava carries it on to a newborn human from another nation to use the possession Bond with. Similar to a Bondsmith, the Avatar can create and sever connection, such as completely taking someone's ability to bend, or temporarily elsecalling into the Spirit World (Cognitive Realm). Chi-Blocking Chi-blocking blocks spiritual pathways for the Soul which investiture would need to take. Healing Healing works well in the Avatar-World since due to the physical movements through which investiture is accessed, the humans of the Avatar-World have developed a stronger image of self and their cultures, even associating them directly with how they can use investiture. Savantism Savantism in bending might require something more than just a lot of investiture and using their power, but these are known as specialized bending types. --- Tell me what you think. Did I make any mistakes? Any way you can fix my mistakes and still make it fit?

I have a hypothesis about Realmatics that has ramifications for a number of different things. I will mostly be sticking to Metalmind capacity in this post though, and will shortly post the other idea We know that Investiture exists in all three Realms (WoB)- though not equally, as Breaths are considered to be mostly physical (WoB) and Shards typically have the vast majority of their Investiture inside the Spiritual Realm (with the exception of the Dor, which resides almost entirely inside the Cognitive Realm). We also know that Metalminds don't have a linear increase to their Investiture capacity, but that they have different categories of size and storage capacity (WoB). My idea is that when you take a lot of Investiture and pack it together in any Realm it will begin to leak into the other Realms. We see this with Shards that exist in the Spiritual Realm that create Perpendicularities in the Physical Realm because there is so much Investiture in the Spiritual that it pushes into the Physical. So, if you have a Metalmind in the Physical Realm and pack it with enough Investiture, the Investiture will begin to push into the Cognitive and Spiritual Realms due to its nature- which consequently will allow there to be more Investiture put in, since there is more "space" that will exist in those Realms for the Metalmind to access; a larger Metalmind allows for more Investiture to be physically put in, which increases the amount of Investiture that can be squeezed together to create a bigger opening to the other Realms, which further increases the Metalmind's capacity. What do you guys think of this? Do you think I'm on to something?

This is a follow up to my other post hypothesizing about the nature of Metalmind capacity and Investiture pushing into all three Realms (link here). I've been stumped for a while on how it is that Bio-Chromatic Breaths seem to increase one's lifespan, but someone with quite a bit of Spiritually based Investiture didn't have such benefits (Rashek). But, I have an idea now. My original hypothesis is that when enough Investiture in one Realm exists together, it pushes into the other two Realms; we see this with Shards creating Perpendicularities. Here's my new hypothesis building on that idea; Breaths are mostly in the Physical Realm, which means that they saturate the body and help it run better. However, Allomantic (and Feruchemical) power is mostly in the Spiritual Realm, which keeps it away from the body, meaning that it can't help you stay young. Now, with enough Investiture in either case it would start to bleed into the other Realms (Breaths would leak into the Spiritual and the presence of Allomantic powers would physically manifest), but you would need a lot of it to see that happen at any scale that would help someone like Rashek live noticeably longer; he's strong, but not strong enough to be naturally ageless since the majority of his Investiture resides in the Spiritual Realm. What about Returned and their agelessness? Their Divine Breaths are mostly Spiritual, after all. They're already Cognitive Shadows, so they wouldn't age even without having the 5th Heightening. It's also worth noting that the Idrian royal line has fragments of Divine Breaths inside them, yet they do not have noticeably longer lives, which further supports the idea that Investiture in the SR doesn't help nearly as much as Investiture in the PR when it comes to longevity. Another thing that comes into play here is Hemalurgy; Hemalurgic spikes have their Investiture exist mostly in the PR, which may extend one's life if enough Investiture could be obtained through this way. In fact, this may be why some Steel Inquisitors had longer lives than humans; the Investiture from their spikes increased their total lifespan (WoB). So, what do you guys think? One last afterthought; Breaths and Hemalurgic spikes are both tied to oneself; they are static Investiture that is an actual part of you in the PR, so they give you a boost to your health and longevity. Simply Compounding a bunch of Investiture into some Metalminds and implanting them into your body probably wouldn't work to extend your lifespan, as they aren't part of you (but I don't know, that's just a guess).

These alomancy grenades are suuuper cool. They add a whole different dimension to abilities but there's a few edge cases where I'm kind of unsure as to what the result would be, like tin and pewter? they'd just make everyone inside be tineye's and pewterarms for duration? this is probably a headache which Brandon is trying to figure out atm (unless he already had to sit down and really think about it). But what's interesting about these grenades is how they erase Intent (or maybe it would be more accurate to say Command) because anyone can use them and they work on general not specific things. I also wanted to add if these things could be done for things outside the metallic arts but I find it difficult again because of lack of Intent or Command. Unless you can also store certain Intents or Commands like a Lightweaver illusion or a gravitational pull in all directions.

After I started to think about it more, there may be quite a few ways that Southern Scadrial's mag-tech could be used. Here's a few ideas I came up with- most of them use the idea of being able to let inanimate objects use Allomancy or Feruchemy, as we've already seen that is possible with the Malwish airships. Weight reducer: This one actually exists already, but we've only seen it in action on the Malwish airships, making them light enough to fly. But it also could be used to make transporting heavy goods or perhaps for construction (moving heavier parts of building and such around when building them). You could also make a BIG sentry gun, reduce its weight to move it around, then increase its weight beyond normal when firing to give it a better footing. Big firepower for the military. Heat Manipulators: Using Feruchemical brass, you could create a device that could quickly melt holes through thick metal doors, possibly useful for spies and such for breaking into secure vaults (only thing I was creative enough to come up with, though I'm more than open to other ideas of how to use this device). You could also create a suit that reduces and regulates the heat of the wearer as well as itself. When moving into extreme environments, such as a frozen mountain top or the inside of an active Ashmount (yes, I know that they're not active currently, but let's pretend for a moment, shall we?), you could protect the wearer and their equipment- an improvement over natural brass Feruchemy. You could probably use the suit to protect a Steelrunner from friction as well, but they'd have to be moving fast before they'd really need it. Temporal Trains: By harnessing Bendalloy and cadmium to create an Alcubierre drive, allowing for faster than normal travel. Bullet trains (Bendalloy trains?) could create Speedbubbles to speed up the train's movement while using cadmium to negate the temporal effects on its passengers (F-steel might also work in place of Bendalloy and cadmium, but seems somewhat less viable). Basically, a lesser version of FTL travel, but for trains. Speaking of FTL travel, an obvious use for such a device is on spaceships once Scadrial gets the necessary technology. Pewter-strengtheners: Through the use of Allomantic pewter you could create items with an enhanced durability and toughness. One potential application for this would be creating shields or suits of armor for the Scadrien military that were lightweight but strong (basically, another way to create Half-Shards). F-iron may also be able to aide in creating such shields and armors. You may even be able to replicate Shardplate, though it likely would be less efficient (wouldn't self-repair, requires Godmetals to fuel it). A more constructive use for A-pewter used mechanically would be to strengthen buildings, allowing for larger than normal structures to exist. You'd need a constant use of Harmonium however, so it would likely be risky, especially if a shipment of the Godmetal was interrupted or if such a structure were used by the Northern Scadriens but the Southern Scadriens refused to sell them more Harmonium (such as if a war broke out). Coppermind Technology: Now, this one has some interesting potential applications. You could create a Coppermind archive that anyone could access (basically just a big Unsealed Coppermind), using it to store personal memories or to store information on all kinds of things. If you could figure out how to copy those memories you could quickly spread information that would have taken more time to do so (F-zinc could help process it faster too). You may be able to use this design to create a "CopperWeb" that could let people all over Scadrial share memories with each other. You could perhaps even make a real-time (or past-time) VR themed device by copying memories and transferring them to others over the CopperWeb. Depending on the extent of F-duralumin's abilities, you may even be able to make the CopperWeb wireless by using Connection (the spiritual kind ) rather than physically connecting the whole thing with copper wires. Future Sight Devices: This one is basically just a big Unsealed Metalmind that allows for enhanced access to F-zinc and A-electrum (and possibly A-duralumin), but it could be used to give people the ability to see into the future, which would be of use to leaders of Scadrial who want to look out for its best interests. Identity-Modification: I'm not sure to what extent this could be used, but though F-aluminum, F-gold, and possibly F-copper you may be able to modify the appearance of people. I could see this being used as a form of magical plastic surgery, giving those with the money the ability to appear unnaturally beautiful, similar to Returned. Potentially this could be used for those that are running from the law, or those that are acting as spies. Mist Condensation: This one is more of a guess, so it's on the bottom of my personal list. Using the Tones of Preservation and Ruin, Scadriens may be able to directly draw the Mists into a more concentrated, usable form. You'd also need to strip it of its Identity as well (it seems that it is tied to Sazed, hence the reason Mistings can't just use them to fuel their powers), but if using the Mists to fuel Invested tech became possible, you could make mass production of all the other devices possible. This would be especially useful for large structures that needed A-pewter or F-iron to make them stand, as the fuel necessary to make it happen would become much cheaper and more reliable. In any case, these are some of the ideas that I came up with for Scadrien mage-tech. If anyone else would like to add some ideas, I'd love to hear them

No idea if this idea has already been presented, but I have an Identity and Connection theory as to how unkeyed Investiture works, why Fuzz even in a crippled state could appear to people passing away, why Investiture "degrades" and why certain people are having issues leaving their planets. It also has to do with why many Cognitive Shadows need to consume Investiture to persist. And I think the very first clue is in Hrathen's trunk in Brandon's first published book. I think it all has to do with Connection and Identity. Living beings have valid connections to all three realms. I was reading @Trusk'our's post on Unkeyed Dor and BioChromatic Breaths, particularly about why a human can seem to hold a seemingly indefinite amount of Breaths while Nightblood leaks, and I had this idea. In essence it has everything to do with what makes a good vessel for each kind of Investiture and to an extent how strong the Connection is to both the vessel and the Shard the power came from. In essence, to get unkeyed Investiture, it's more of a matter of placing the Investiture in a vessel that allows it to persist to a valid Connection to the vessel, but isn't so Connected that it can't be retrieved. The main "aha" is that Investiture doesn't degrade. Investiture unless it is in a vessel that can appropriately hold its power, is drawn back into the Spiritual Realm by its Connection to its Shard. It's why Breaths can persist for hundreds of years in a body but degrade after a week in an Type 3 Awakened Object, or why an 300+ year old Inquisitor has abilities as strong as ever, and why Stormlight dissipates so fast. Let's start with Breaths. Breaths are the easiest to move off world, to the point that even Returned are able to casually wander around and explore the Cosmere. They are of Endowment, and must follow the function of Endowment, of giving away power. It is also the power of Life, and living beings are the ideal vessel for Breaths. The reason why Susebron can hold over 50,000 Breaths compared to leaky Nightblood is two-fold. First, Susebron was given each of those breaths, and as a healthy living being he is the ideal vessel of the power of life. Nightblood is not in the form of a living being, does not have the accompanying Identity of a living being, and other than the initial Breaths that were used to Awaken him, he was not given any of the other Breaths, they were forcibly taken. All this adds up to why Breaths are easy to move off world - they have a strong Connection and Identity paired with the person carrying them, even more than to Endowment. Next, Scadrial. Metalborn can world hop fairly easily (with the exception of a certain Scadrian who happened to dunk his Cognitive self in the Well of Ascension Connecting himself to Preservation). This is because they have relatively little Investiture that is not keyed to themselves - the metals are catalysts that unleash the power of Preservation in a specific manner. Metals, seem to have been intentionally Connected to the power of Ruin and Preservation, the abilities of Allomancers and Feruchemists is directly tied to metals. This is why Metalminds make fantastic vessels for the Investiture of Feruchemists and do not degrade, even if a Feruchemist takes off his Metalminds while considering the religions of his world. This is also why Hemalurgy does not follow the same pattern - because it is a fragment of soul that is Connected to The Beyond and is drawn there when it has no valid Connection to a living body. Unlike a Returned, Kelsier as a Cognitive Shadow did not need to consume Investiture to persist because I believe he was directly Connected to Preservation, and let's just say that Preservation is good at making things stick around. On to Sel. I think Aon Rao really is just a way of Connecting a location to the Spiritual Realm - particularly to the Cognitive Realm-locked Dor that pools into Arelon. What Moonlight did on Scadrial was to use Unkeyed Dor to jumpstart a Connection through the Spiritual Realm from Elantris to the Basin. Elantrians by the Shaod or some other means becomes Connected to the city Elantris and by extension to the Dor, so long as they have a valid (or strong proximity in terms of Cognitive space if not using other shenanigans) Connection to the city. Seons were not transformed by the Shaod - not unless the one they were bonded to was also transformed, making them an invalid target for AonDor. Back to what I alluded to at the start, I think Hrathen's Seon wasn't Passed to him. I think it was Passed to it's box, and through the Connections made valid through Devotion, there it stayed. I think that Devotion to the object or container rather than a person makes it far easier to transfer a Seon off world. In fact, I suspect it's not hard at all to move a Seon off planet. Moving on to my theory about the jars of Unkeyed Dor, I think it's really just an ordinary glass jar bought from the Ire that have an Aon Rao drawn on top of a picture of the jar itself, making the jar itself a valid vessel for the Dor, just like what Moonlight did. Next, Roshar. Honor lives in the hearts of men (and near copies in the form of gems similar to gemhearts). In Roshar at least, Honor and following bonds and oaths makes them a more valid vessel for Stormlight (and maybe Dalinar with his strict observance of the Codes allowed him to become a slightly better vessel for Stormlight, allowing him to heal even without a bond). Many Spren consider themselves to be of the planet itself, that everything has spren as is the natural way of things. Honorspren consider themselves to be of Honor. These Connections prevent the spren and by extension the Radiant Connected to them to leave Roshar. Heralds can't leave, because they only persist because of the Connection formed by the Oathpact, binding them to Roshar. Cut that Connection, and they have no valid ties to the Physical Realm and they fade to the Beyond. The main thing that I'm not sure on is why Stormlight in Gemstones can't be taken off Roshar. Maybe it has to do with a component of there not actually being any Honor in sitting in a gem? Maybe it's that gemstones on Roshar are grown by Cultivation - either in gemhearts or in the rock formations and they're Connected to Cultivation and no one thought that it might make a difference if you used a non-Rosharan gemstone? I don't know on this point. Spoiler for First of the Sun book 2: Lastly, Cognitive Shadows are beings made of Investiture that now need added Investiture to resist being pulled through the Spiritual Realm back to their Shard. Kelsier in particular may be an oddity because of his interaction with Preservation. tl;dr I think Unkeyed Investiture is just a matter of finding a valid vessel that will hold the Investiture more strongly than it is Connected to the Shard(s) associated with it, but not so strongly Connected that you can't easily retrieve it. The extent that the Investiture the Shard comes from is associated with a beings Identity might have something to do with this as well. What constitutes a valid vessel varies from type to type as well.

I had an idea before where you could give someone access to Feruchemical gold via Malwish Medallion tech who wasn't a Scadrien, say, a Nalthian, they could store health that would be composed of their Shard's Intent since their Spiritweb is composed of that Investiture. Then if a Misting were to have their power removed via Hemalurgy, they could use the Nalthian's health to grow back their power (assuming it's Identity-free). The resulting power would be composed of Endowment rather than Preservation, and could lead to some interesting ramifications. Now I wonder what would happen if someone did that, but used Hemalurgically Compounded health- health fueled directly by Ruin and its Investiture. The Misting's Spiritweb would be composed entirely (or at least almost entirely) of Ruin's Investiture. Would their descendants have Ruin-fueled Allomancy? Would the powers be skewed somewhat by the new Intent of power? What about their interaction with Hemalurgy? Could this perhaps be a way to overcome limit to the number of spikes a human can gain powers from, since the spikes wouldn't have any Preservation to bow before? What if you spiked a Nalthian's Breath from them and healed it back with Ruin's Investiture? Could they give that Breath to someone else, potentially creating Heighteings, only with Ruin's Investiture- which could lead to new insights to Hemalurgic practice due to inherent knowledge that comes with the Heightenings? So many more possibilities than I had originally thought.

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 Rhythms, Tones of Shards, and Invested powers are all related to one another. So, I got wondering; could you take some Unkeyed Investiture, such as the Mists, some Stormlight, or something similar, and then use a Rhythm of an Invested power to program the Investiture to work for that specific power? Say you take some Stormlight, then give it the Rhythm that Feruchemical gold has; could you give that Investiture to a Bloodmaker to let them heal? Perhaps you could use this to fuel Feruchemy or another magic system, similar to Compounding. Another idea is if you could create anti-Rhythms (not Tones, but Rhythms) for specific Invested powers to disrupt any use of those powers nearby.

Here's a hypothetical scenario: you're a Returned who is Cosmere aware, but has been kicked off of Nalthis. Permanently. How do you find Investiture to feed off of? And yes, Stormlight from Roshar is the easiest way, so let's say that you also somehow managed to get kicked off of Roshar by Cultivation as well. Does anyone have any ideas as to how they could obtain other sources of Investiture to feed off of? Here's a few of mine: 1. Go to Scadrial, learn about Hemalurgy and drop all your morals (or become a vigilante and only become morally grey- another word for dropping all your morals ). Proceed to Hemalurgically spike someone, then feed off the Investiture as it seeps out of the spike. Basically become a Cosmere vampire. 2. Go to Scadrial and convince the Malwish you are the Sovreign and get them to create Nicrosilmind Medallions to feed you as you please. 3. Go to Sel- don't get vaporized by the cognitive plasma-storm along the way- and find a Forger to rewrite your past to say you never died. Then consume the Investiture from the Forgery. Reapply Forgery as needed. 4. Go to Sel, find Elantris, beg a bit of AonDor from a charitable Elantrian and become their servant for the next two hundred years as they sustain you. 5. Go to Taldain...realize that all you need to do is sunbathe on Dayside. If that doesn't work, eat White Sand and hope for the best.

I've been trying to connect the dots between Investiture efficiency and the "power" (total amount of Investiture wielded) of the practitioner. Knights Radiant become more efficient at using their Stormlight the further they progress in their oaths. As their Nahel Bond strengthens, they don't make more Stormlight- they just use what they have to achieve more results. And if I recall correctly from Warbreaker, Awakeners require fewer Breaths to Awaken something if they had more Breaths to begin with. All this made me start wondering if Allomancers with greater power are really drawing more Investiture from the spiritual realm per unit of metal burned as I had previously thought, or if they are just using the Investiture they get way more efficiently. These quotes also helped this thought process. For example, is a Lerasium-bead made Mistborn going to get as much Investiture from their metals as a Mistborn born five hundred years later (just get way more effect out of their Investiture)? It would stand to reason. After all, if Awakeners and Surgebinders get more efficient as their Connection and "power" grows, does a "stronger" Allomancer's increased Connection to Preservation just make them able to harness the set amount of Investiture gain from burning metals more efficient? It would also explain why TLR didn't make himself even more powerful Allomantically then he did, even though he had access to the Well of Ascension; perhaps he couldn't, because he already had the maximum effect, the maximum efficiency possible from his burned metals. If this is the case, then supercharged Allomancy (via Hemalurgy, Lerasium, or nicrosil Feruchemy), and potentially Compounding by extension, may be significantly more limited than I had previously assumed. Someone like TLR wouldn't likely be as Invested as I once thought either; their upper bounds of Invested-ness would be determined by how much Investiture can be drawn from a piece of metal rather than their Connection to Preservation. Although, if my previous assumptions made about the actual amount of Investiture in the Metallic arts hold sway, then a very small amount of Investiture used kinetically can have huge effects compared to static Investiture (similar to how real matter contains huge amounts of potential energy), but it would be brief in comparison (i.e., Heightenings and Hemalurgic spikes provide more or less permanent, though immediately small, amounts of continuous effect). (see post here The Amount of Investiture in the Metallic Arts) I could use some other people's thoughts on this matter, if you guys don't mind- basically, does a stronger Allomancer burning metals get more Investiture from that metal as well as becoming more efficient with said Investiture, or is the amount of Investiture gain via burning a metal set in stone regardless of the Allomancer's power, and they only become more efficient?

All shards have an intent, but what does that intent allow/restrict the shard, and to what extent? In Rhythm of War, when Zahel talks to Kaladin after they fight in the Laundry section, Zahel says "The longer one exists, the more... consumed by a singular purpose, our minds bound and chained by our intent." This suggests that the restrictions get more hefty as a entity progresses through time, as we have seen a lot in the first trilogy of Mistborn. But how much do these restrict the entity? Well we know in the beginning, it still restricts some, as Vin finds out after becoming preservation. We see how odium is virtually incapable of other things besides his plan of hate, etc, and that he becomes obsessed with it, which I believe connects to his intent as well.

One of the interesting things about Investiture is that the Intent of what Investiture you are using matters. For example, you can only alter yourself so much with Awakening's standard system because Endowment's Intent permeates the Investiture you are using. I think that if you could find a way to craft an Invested power from Endowment's Investiture then, you may be able to transfer it as you would BioChromatic-Breaths. Here's a method that I thought of. Step one: get an Unsealed Metalmind that provides the ability to use Feruchemical gold and aluminum (health and Identity) or a pair of Hemalurgic spikes that provide the same powers. Step two: give the powers to a willing Nalthian who then stores a ton of health while blanking their Identity. NO COMPOUNDING. The health must come from the Nalthian's own Spiritweb. Step three: excise the Invested power of another willing individual via Hemalurgy without killing them (probably an Allomancer or Ferring, though it may be that other Invested powers that are innately part of someone's Spiritweb could work). Step four: have the donor tap the healing from the Unsealed metalmind (or Hemalurgic spikes) to replace the power. And at this point, it is important to know that when you heal a part of someone's Spiritweb, you actually graft an entirely new piece of Investiture on. And in this case, that Investiture came entirely from Endowment, as Nalthian's Spiritwebs are made up entirely of her essence. So now we have an Invested power made up entirely of Endowment's Investiture. This may mean that you could transfer it as you could normal Breaths, though you may have to Connect the donor to Nalthis in order to gain the ability to do so. If this is the case, you could create very powerful individuals, but without the vulnerabilities and limitations of Hemalurgy- though the powers may be able to be drained by things like larken and chromium Mistings, but I'm not sure; this is entirely theoretical. Let me guys know what you think!

In Shadows of Self, Wax manages to use Steelsight to pinpoint Tensoon's Hemalurgic spikes. But the spikes were Invested, and more importantly, inside Tensoon's body, and Wax isn't even a particularly powerful Coinshot! How did this happen?

Telsin was on her way to becoming a full Avatar of Autonomy, with the Shard’s power sustaining her life force and giving her insight to the future, expanding her cognitive ability. My question is thus: could Telsin be a cognitive shadow now? The way Kelsier became ? The way Rashek could have been had he so desired? Would she want that? Would she give up after her failure? Or would she be ornery enough to stick around?

Steelsight is seeing the 3rd state of matter. According to this WOB, there are 3 states of matter. Matter, Energy, and now Investiture. A third Axis. That’s what Steelsight sees. Everyone can see and touch matter. We can also see and interact with energy in the form of electricity and light (via photons). and some lucky few can see and interact with Investiture. People who can allomantically burn steel or iron can see some of this through the metal on Scadrial. The few people who have gained MASSIVE energy with their allomancy (Marasi and Wax with the Bands of Mourning, TLR, Vin when she inhaled all of the mist but before she truly Ascended); these people can start to see *everything* with Steelsight. They can see souls and people. They are seeing the pure Investiture in the world. Shards talk about how they are Invested in everything in their world. Woven into the very bones of their world. This is what these people are seeing. They are seeing the Investiture of Shards in the rocks, dirt, trees, and people around them. Not just metals, but all things. And naturally, Shards can all see pure Investiture as well, as a part of them *is* pure Investiture. This same phenomenon can also be attributed to these characters seeing into the Cognitive Realm. That works too. It's essentially the same. They see the pure energy of stuff along with/instead of seeing with their eyes. That is essentially what I understand "seeing into the Cognitive" to mean.

I recently read this quote. Does this mean that it could be possible for someone knowledgeable and very, very sneaky to edit a Shard Vessel's memories, causing them to do what an individual wanted, or is it referring to Hoid and Odium's confrontation only? Also, does "it's a lot easier to access that Investiture" refer to someone else accessing it, or the actual Invested individual? Because if it's talking about someone else accessing your memories, it's almost laughably easy for Scadrians to access Preservation's and Ruin's Investiture via the Mists or the Metallic Arts. Heck, Horor's Investiture is just as easy for Rosharans, as is Autonomy's for Taldainian's to access.

I recently re-read era 1 Mistborn when I noticed something interesting when Tensoon comments on the Blessing of Potency. He mentions it as "more than doubling" his strength, but not tripling. This actually sounds a lot like Allomantic Pewter's affects, with it roughly doubling one's strength when burned normally, and roughly tripling it when flared. Since we know that Hemalurgic spikes typically provide the Investiture from only one person, and that a Blessing requires two spikes, a Blessing provides nearly (Hemalurgic decay) the raw level of Investiture found in two regular humans. Using this principle, a Thug burning pewter would only count as being a few times as Invested as a normal human being, even when flaring his metal. And that's for one of the faster burning, and therefore more Investing, metals. Originally, I had just kind of head cannoned that Mistings were about as Invested as first Heightening Awakeners when burning metals (albeit with kinetic Investiture rather than static), with a slight variation based on what specific metal they burned. It now seems like I was totally out of the ball park: the Metallic arts do not have very much Investiture within the system compared to some others. Which we do have a WoB on, but I hadn't realized just how big the difference was until recently. This also means that quite a bit of stuff can be done with a comparatively small amount of Investiture to what I had once imagined (which I suppose makes sense. After all, you can more or less permanently Awaken a Lifeless with only a single Breath). This also means that a first Heightening Awakener is likely dozens of times as powerful (in terms of raw Investiture) than your run-of-the-mill Allomancer.

The Stormfather said that a Highstorm naturally cycles higher and lower in the sky and will at the highest point engulf the top of Urithiru. The last Highstorm we saw was at end of RoW, a few days before the end of the book yet before the 10-day countdown began, and Kaladin described it as being just below the rooftop. So in 10 days, the Highstorm will likely envelop the rooftop and make for a great battle scene! The timing of the contest is important, as the Stormfather may be able to extend time in Dalinar's last moments of the fight (if Dalinar does indeed serve as his own champion). He may ask for this if, say, he becomes severely wounded. It would be very interesting to see Dalinar take a pause in the fight and be able to think it through, and given the additional Investiture from the Tower (and potential Investiture from the Valley if the Highstorm lines up with both locations simultaneously— see linked topic below), then he'd have a lot of time to work with. The only problem is that Odium set the date and time of the contest, and he probably knows when the next storm will be, so does he want a Highstorm for the contest? If so, why? Perhaps Odium has done this so that he can command the Everstorm to meet with the Highstorm at this moment, causing a WoR-level phenomenon that we saw before. This is just speculation, so maybe we won't see any Highstorm, but we've seen either a Highstorm or the Everstorm used in the last battles since WoR, so it would only make sense for us to see them used again.

Hey all. Not new to the Cosmere but new to the forums. My wife and I recently reread rhythm of war. I had a though in anti investiture. We know it exists and has a rather explosive reaction to normal investiture. If we can assume investiture is from Adonalsium could we assume there is a being of anti investiture. Or am I missing a mechanic here (which I totally could be ). Or ateast the potential for their to be an anti shard?