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This idea came to me as I was listening to Swedish war metal on my way home from work. Is it hemalurgically possible to steal abilities from someone who had not yet had the chance to use/manifest them... such as a baby? In a similar vein, could you spike a pregnant woman through her stomach and (with enough precision) transfer her abilities directly to her baby? What would spiking a person that young even do to them? If both the woman and the baby had abilities and you spiked the woman, whose abilities would you get? How far from the baby do you have to spike to make sure you get the woman’s... you know what, I didn’t mean to get this close to political debate. Sorry.

WoB tells us that it would be possible to Replicate Singer Forms with Hemalurgy. As far as I know, we don't knwo details for how exactly that would work, but it would still be fun to speculate, wouldn't it? So, to maybe spark some fun debate and conversation: Let's say our Hemalurgist (as in, someone with the knowledge of Hemalurgy, wherever they originate from) is aware that it might be advisable to spike just one Singer rather than going around becoming a living embodiment of the song of forms. Question 1: What forms would be attractive? Especially, what particular forms would be attractive to particular worldhoppers? Warform sounds like the simple attractive one, in my opinion, especially for someone who is already a Pewterarm. But maybe an Elantrian would prefer Scholarform? Do you think a Seeker (Bronze) who spikes a Singer with a Form of Power could hear Odium's Rythms too, or would they need a Voidspren for that too? Could any other kind of Cosmere Magic make stormform's lightning abilities more reliable? Maybe a Coinshot would be able to shoot a piece of conductive metal behind you, then use that to direct the Lightning in that direction? This is the wildest and most destructive use I've come up with so far. Certainly, Envoyform is very useful if you plan to travel the Cosmere a lot. Question 2: Or even if you decide to spike not the form, but the ability to grow a Gemheart - what Spren would be nice to take with you, if you managed to attract one? Anyway, that's just my thoughts. I'd love to hear thoughts from other people on this! (Note: I haven't quite finished RoW yet, so spoiler tags would still be appreciated)

Ah, it's been a while since I've posted a topic. Hope you all didn't miss me. So, we know that Kandra spikes are unique to them and that they can't accept another Kandra's spikes. This is probably because of Identity, similar to how metalminds only work with their user. However, we see Bleeder use two new spikes that were not her original, made out of trellium, a god metal. So how is she able to do this, despite the problem with identity? I have two theories. 1. Trellium is an alloy of a Shard's god metal and whatever Paalms original spike was. This would explain why Paalm has two that she uses despite having access to more (Which she uses to create chimeras), and why they are still useable for her. (The metal most likely being copper, as Paalm was third generation, and from Tensoon, it appears the third generation was created with blessings of presence, which needed copper spikes (This is also based on my assumption that generations were made with one type of spike.)) OR 2. Trellium's special ability has to do with identity, allowing bleeder to use it despite not being keyed to her identity, like that of an unkeyed metalmind. Seeing as every godmetal seems to have one unique capability (lerasium creates mistborn, atium is the best metal for hemalurgy, acting as a wild card, tavatsium is incredibly hard and can cut your soul, etc.) this would not be hard to believe, and would also fit in with all the identity and connection shenanigans going on in Mistborn Era 2 magic system.

I'm on a reread of Wax and Wayne, and in bands of mourning it is mentioned that kandra spikes can't be transferred between kandra as it causes a lot of pain, but in era 1 TenSoon kills OreSeur and uses his spikes, swapping out with his own at will. Why is he able to do this? The only thing I can think of is since OreSeur "dies" the spikes are no longer attuned to him, but I'm not sure that's really how that works.

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

So, the lifeless in warbreaker are obviously very effective soldiers, but could you enhance them with hemalurgy? Since hemalurgy essentially uses the spike to staple a patch of soul onto another, would the same be able to happen to a lifeless since their soul is seemingly so temporary (being simply another's breath)? Further, could you spike a lifeless for their ability to not need food or sustenance? Thanks in advance.

Mraize's collection has been an interesting topic of debate. We all know that they're items from around the Cosmere, generally relevant to their planet's magic systems. Most of them are pretty obvious; the pale sand is from Taldain, the flower is a Tear of Edgli from Nalthis. There are however a few that we do not fully understand; the pink crystal, the lock of hair, and most notably here, the hairpins. General consensus is that the hairpins are Hemalurgic spikes from Scadrial. The fact that they are described as "hairpins", however, is unusual. A think hairpin would likely have a diameter of perhaps two centimeters, and not much longer than twenty centimeters. Far smaller than you would expect an Inquisitor spike to be. Being in Mraize's collection, it is unlikely that they're just random spikes off-world, and it is even more unlikely that Mraize created them for enhancement, otherwise they would be stored in blood to preserve their charge. They must be from Scadrial, and they must have some sort of special significance there. So what are they? A Kandra Blessing. Let's look at that description again.

Why are there no new kandra being created in Scadrials second age? (I am explicitly not talking about the trell version.) I can think of 4 possibilities, which all have some interesting implications: 1 Moral prohibition. Harmony or the kandra themselves are aggressively not cool with making more blessings. 2 Lack of knowledge. The process of making blessings is tricky in some way, and Harmony has decided not to share the method. 3 Lack of juveniles. The mist wraiths are gone and the living kandra do not know how to do, or are incapable of, the biological side of reproduction. 4 This entire question is wrong. There are new kandra being made and we do not know about it yet. Comments in shadows of self make me think it is primarily the first, but there are enough ways around that that I wonder if the others also come in to play. My personal favorite hypothetical plot involves a radical branch of the path deciding that there is no better way to end their lives than giving themselves to create a new faceless immortal. It has all sorts of fun implications. From members choosing the person with whom to blend their soul, to the new kandra receiving the bones of their "parents" To questions about inheriting personality or other traits. Any other theories?

So, this has probably been discussed before, but have we considered the possibility that Hemalurgy is not a Metallic Art? We've only seen Hemalurgy used to steal pieces of Preservation in the form of allomantic abilities and things like strength and emotional fortitude for the blessings, as well as Feruchemy, which would be a blend of the power of Ruin and Preservation. What if we've only seen metal spikes because we've only seen it interact with magic systems which use metal as a focus? Could you use gemstone spikes to steal Surgebinding abilities? Since Feruchemy is part Ruin and is a Metallic Art, it would make sense for the full-Ruin magic system to be one as well, but I wanted to make sure we'd considered the possibility that there was an error in our already fairly limited understanding of Hemalurgy.

Is it definitely the case that hemalurgy can only be used on animals/people? What would stealing an entire world's spiritual signature look like? Would it change the type of magic there For example, as a thought experiment: If a huge spaceship fired a hemalurgic spike through Roshar and into Scadrial, would it change Scadrial's spiritual signature?

Spoiler from the first Mistborn trilogy. We know that Alendi was the (maybe) first try of Ruin to free himself. Alendi was a Seeker (Bronze Misting) when the Allomancy was much rare and weak. So we could assume that Alendi was a Seeker much weak than Marsh. Vin was a powerfull Allomancer (compared to the allomancer of her age) and she need a Hemalurgic Spike to detect the Well of Ascension pulses (Spike made from a probably powerfull seeker misting). We know Alendi had at least one "prophesied spike" (I don't have the English version of the book then I am not sure of the original worlds) but it is not to much (for me) a spike made from his era misting to reach his goal. Then how much additional power (and Spikes) Alendi needed for his quest ? You see other ways from him (and Ruin) to complete the journey ?

MARU NUI ()What happens when you burn a Hemalurgic spike? BRANDON SANDERSON ()Burning a Hemalurgic spike would have the effect of splicing your spiritual DNA to that of the person's that is in the spike, which would have some very strange consequences.
 So... Solid Lerasium is kind of like a spike, maybe? Splicing some of Leras' DNA into your own, making you able to recognize his investiture and be able to use allomancy? I mean, obviously the little round beads aren't actually spikes, but they could be sharing a similar property.