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What are these and how can they grant Hoid immortality?

With Radiants and Fused being able to breath in Invested Light, Bloodmakers tapping Goldminds, Elantrians accessing the Dor, and Awakeners strait up being immune to toxins, poisons don't seem to be as effective on the really powerful Invested magic users. However, I was thinking, if someone wanted to assassinate a being of similar stature to the Lord Ruler, or perhaps a very pesky Radiant or Fused, could someone instill some Bio-Chromatic Breaths in a poison to be used on them? We know that Investiture resists Investiture, and since you can put Breaths in basically any non-Invested object, even if you can't necessarily Awaken it, maybe you could create an Invested toxin capable of killing even the mightiest of magic-users. In all honesty, this probably wouldn't be that world changing though, assuming that it's possible. Not every magic user is immune to poison, and there are probably easier ways to disable or kill powerful magic users with healing properties, such as Hemalurgy, aluminum weapons, and Shardblades. But even so, Invested poison would be interesting to see.

Can you awaken/lifeless your own body parts if they are a shard wound? Are there any benifits to this that would lead to a scrivener's bone style group?

It seems like breaths are the easiest magic system to forge. Can they be forged, how difficult a forgery would it be, and how much fuel would it require? Is a single breath powered by the stamp, is it linear?

When compounding breaths with necrosil, do you get breaths that are 10* stronger, or do you get 10* the number of breaths? If you just my life to yours to a metal that you burn, does the other happen?

So I had a thought. Could someone that has reached the second or third heightening (the one that grants perfect pitch) out sing the Singers and possibly control all the lights? If so could someone like Vasher or Hoid possibly give breaths to Nivani, Jasnah, or Shallan in order to help them either more efficiently use Stormlight or steal the void light from the singers without Aluminum?

Would Perfect Pitch allow an Awakener to recognize the Pure Tone of a Shard which they had never heard before, and/or gain intuitive knowledge of the method of construction and effects of the Tone?

Could you somehow unkey breaths? So if you put 50 breaths into an object could they somehow become unkeyed so that any person could pick them up? Edit: I just realized we've seen something like this in Rhythm of War. Taravodium steals or at least destroys some of Hoid's Breath. Thinking of this reminded me of when we saw Vasher tell a girl the Command to give away part of a Breath (Warbreaker). So since we know it is possible, the only question would be how? What could this Command be?

No idea if it's already been asked and I can only think of one known case where this possible, but do we think it would be possible to suppress the aura granted from holding breaths by burning Copper? I think Copper has been described as somehow changing something internally that makes it so you no longer give out Allomantic pulses, and I wondered if that would reduce the aura that you personally show without necessarily removing the benefits of the Heightening you've obtained. If this is possible, is there a limit to how much burning Copper can mask a Breath aura? I wouldn't be surprised if you could mask the first few Heightenings, but I'd be really surprised if it worked on the 10th. I'm looking at Hoid who we know had the 2nd Heightening and is a Mistborn, but I'm not sure if we've seen color distortion around him. I know the Returned can suppress their divine Breath, but I'm not sure if we've seen this done with standard Breaths. In fact a case against being able to do it with standard Breaths, we've seen Vasher routinely storing his excess Breaths in his clothing to remove his aura. Thoughts?

So we know that all the scadrians are born with a connection to preservation and ruin (Harmony now), with metal born having a stronger connection. So what would happen if 2 metal born went to Nalthis and have a child, would that child still have that connection to Harmony? Could they be metal born? Would they be born with a breath because of where they are born or would no connection be formed with endowment? Would a child of two people from Nalthis born off world be born without breath? What about someone born in space, would they be born with no connection at all? This follows up to the next question of whether the nightwatcher didn't come to worldhoppers because they lack a connection to cultivation?

Humans have 3 color receptors, shrimp have 16(heh heh) color receptors. If a shrimp was somehow given 600 breathes to achieve the Third Hieghtening (perfect color recogniton) what would the shrimp expirience? Would he understand only the colors humans can see, would it extend to all of them? Would the shrimp need to be sentient for the breathes to affect him let alone for him to process the information? Would the shrimp gain sentience due to the amount of investiture pumped into it's soul?

The purpose of this topic is to project the most extreme abilities of any investiture in the cosmere based on the currently referenceable material. Ideas which can be logically defended are welcome regardless how outrageous. As promised a coinshot laser would likely be produced by a Steel twinborn compounder after the discovery of heavy metals and at least some experiments in nuclear science on Scadrial. This individual would likely be able to detonate nuclear explosions using metal pushing and heavy metals and would need the speed of a steelrunner to avoid serious injury. Using metal pushing they could likely push small particles of radioacive metal forming a type of laser or electromagnetic particle beam at high velocity. Due to a strong spiritual affinity with steel because of being a steel twin it might be possible that they could store steel pushes and speed in a metal mind for use feruchemically yielding steel pushes and speed to exceed duralumin assisted allomancy. The nuclear particle beam could be used on its own or in concert with radioactive spheres in battle situations to inflict massive damage. The nuclear laser could be used to split atoms in a plutonium, uranium or like metal to create atomic or nuclear explosions. Due to the ability to create steel bubbles they could also probably shield themselves from the radiation of nuclear material on or near them. With fine enough control they could also perform nuclear laser surgery. They could be outfitted in steel biomechanical armor that could act as a metal mind for both their allomantic and feruchemical abilities. What do you think of this idea or what extreme use of investiture do you envision?

If you want 10th Heightening, just go on a killing spree. Use a Hemalurgic spike, store in blood between kills, and just gather enough breaths.

SUMMARY BUSINESS PLAN (As Founder Brandon Sanderson Predicts Endowment Wants) Presented to the Nalthis Breath Council by the Confused Consulting Group Introduction Thank you, Nalthis Breath Council (NBC), for this opportunity to present to you CCG’s ideas on how best to monetize Breaths. Nalthians are wise to have created this elected council to unify their interests in an organized Breath Market. The Breath market now is highly fragmented and dis-integrated. CCG believes all Nalthians will benefit from the enhanced value an organized market will bring them. Our proposed Business Plan focuses on the cosmere-wide sale of Breaths. We think now is the time to implement this plan while most Breaths remain on Nalthis. Our advice is to make NBC the sole cosmere source for buying and selling Breaths – a real-world monopolistic cartel like “earth’s OPEC.” (“OPEC” is a group mentioned in the famous fantasy novel Twentieth Century Earth). This Business Plan shows how NBC can accomplish that goal. Breath Benefits That Affect Value Breaths may be the cosmere’s most valuable freely-transferable asset – same-sized quanta of Endowment’s Investiture. Each Breath enhances its holder’s lifeforce. Breaths come only from Nalthis but can be transferred to anyone anywhere. New supply is limited to Nalthian births. Nalthians must give their Breaths willingly. That lessens the risk of Breath theft. Breaths enable their holder to animate (Awaken) objects. 2,000 Breaths make their holder functionally immortal. 50,000 Breaths make their holder the equivalent of a Hallendren God King. NBC Breath Exchange We recommend you form the NBC Breath Exchange to let the market price Breaths rather than set an arbitrary price. The Exchange should be the sole cosmere market for Breaths. The NBC should require buyers and sellers to conduct all Breath transfers through the Exchange. The NBC may choose to exempt intra-family transfers, inheritances, and at-the-moment-of-death transfers. NBC should ban all private Breath sales that fall outside these exemptions. The Breath Black Market To ensure the Exchange works as intended, the NBC must take steps to eliminate smuggling and the black market in Breaths. Currently, the Tears of Edgli are the only way to enter Nalthis, but future technologies may change that. We recommend for now NBC monitor visitor traffic through the Tears. Each person must leave Nalthis with the same number of Breaths they held on entry or account for the discrepancy with NBC-certified papers. We recommend you station strong Awakeners at the Tears to count the Breaths and enforce anti-smuggling laws. We urge the NBC to capture the bandit and murderer Vasher and his cohort the former Princess Vivenna of Idris. This notorious pair has eluded all previous efforts to find and restrain them. Together they hold many thousands of Breaths. They are criminals, but our concern is the potential market disruption if they choose to dump their Breaths onto the market. NBC Revenue Streams CCG foresees NBC generating revenue from commissions and other fees on each Breath transfer. CCG anticipates NBC’s efforts will have increased Breath value enough that buyers and sellers won’t mind paying these commissions and fees. Spinoff Business Revenues CCG recommends NBC expand its business model to augment its Breath marketing business and generate substantial additional revenues. Some examples: Breath storage devices. CCG anticipates NBC will hold very large Breath reserves. It may be unfeasible for NBC officials to hold and carry these Breaths personally. These Breaths don’t belong to them in any event. If something unexpectedly happens to an NBC Breath holder, NBC could lose those Breaths. Developing Breath storage technology mitigates this risk. Such technology should allow for multiple NBC officials to retrieve these Breaths, perhaps through an Awakening password created and shared by the person who stores the Breaths. Awakening Training. NBC should sell Awakening training services to Breath purchasers. Breath Financing. As Breaths increase in value, individuals may lack sufficient capital to purchase them. We recommend NBC form the NBC Investment Bank to develop financing options for individual purchases. These options may include purchases on margin, installment contracts, and other payment plans. Security Consulting. NBC has unique expertise it could package and market to Breath holders to ensure Breath safety and security. Exclusive Transportation Rights. NBC should retain the right to transport Breaths to the buyer. While this is a sensible security feature, NBC’s transportation monopoly provides it an additional, independent revenue stream. Other Issues Private Equity Breath Purchases We anticipate promoters will form business entities to consolidate Breath investor capital. These private equity firms could accumulate huge numbers of Breaths. These firms’ buy/sell strategies could adversely affect market efficiencies or otherwise compete with NBC’s financing business. To avoid this, we recommend NBC bar corporate ownership of Breaths or limit the number of Breaths such entities can own. Ethical Issues Some may question the propriety of establishing an organized market in human souls. They may see Breath transfers as immoral, taking part of a human life, or even soul slavery. CCG recommends NBC develop strategies to combat these perceptions including in-school education programs and massive advertising campaigns. The latter might highlight the enormous financial benefits that enhanced Breath values yield to Nalthian society. Legal Issues As the price for Breaths increases, Nalthians may choose to have more children and harvest their Breaths. This will lead to more drabs in society. From their Breath sale, each drab should have enough wealth not to burden society, but the NBC should monitor this situation closely. If necessary, the NBC should enact laws that prescribe the minimum age a person may sell their Breaths; ensure payment benefits the child and not the parent; and otherwise preclude child abuse through Breath deprivation. Effect of Mass Murder, War, and Other Catastrophes Some unscrupulous investors may try to inflate Breath values through the mass murder of Nalthians. The villains Vasher and Vivenna use this tactic with the Awakened sword Nightblood. Terrorist attacks can occur too swiftly to collect the Breaths of the murdered Nalthians. Nightblood reportedly destroys every part of those it kills including their Breaths. War, disease, and natural disasters can also materially reduce the Breath supply. We recommend the NBC maintain a large Breath reserve at all times. If any of these events occur, the NBC can stabilize pricing by putting part of the reserved Breaths back on the market. (In the fantasy novel Twentieth Century Earth, a fictional country called the U.S.A. kept a strategic carbon-based fuel reserve to guard against OPEC disruption of the fuel supply.) Conclusion NBC contacted us when founder Brandon Sanderson concluded Endowment wishes to encourage the growth of the Nalthian Breath market. We believe this NBC Business Plan offers the best means of accomplishing that goal with the least friction to the existing Breath market. CCG designed the NBC Business Plan to maximize NBC revenues. We did so on the assumption NBC will re-distribute the bulk of its operating profits to native Nalthians. Getting buy-in from native Nalthians through this unity of interest is essential for the Plan’s ultimate success.

I've been relistening to Warbreaker and at 8 hours and 16 minute it mentions that if Vasher had more breaths he could have seen the "lichen" on the grass. I can't find if it has been discussed, any idea if it's the same lichen as mentioned in White Sands that fuels their sand Mastery?

I’m just curious, do we know if Awakeners are still able to recall their Breaths even if they invest all of them into an object? Or would they have to keep at least one? If the former, then I can’t help but wonder why the Returned would have to essentially parasitize people to stay alive; couldn’t an Awakener with, say, 1000 Breaths just transfer 999 of them into some inanimate object like Vivenna did, gift the last one to the Returned to keep them alive, and then just reabsorb the remaining 999, then rinse and repeat every week? That would seem like a fairly obvious loophole if it’s possible.

Keepers on Ashyn would be incredibly powerful. So we know that on ashyn, magic is disease based. The example Brandon gave is that while you have the common cold, you can fly. Now who do we know that can control when they are sick? I think it can generally be agreed upon that for most metals, tapping is better than storing, right? You would rather be fast than slow, healthy than sick, quick of thought than slow, and so on. Unless you are on Ashyn that is. What we know of Ashton is that it is incredibly hot, you get powers from being sick, and people live in the sky. If I were a Feruchemist, I would gladly spend a year or two absolutely miserable in exchange for immortality and an incredibly wealthy and comfortable life. Allow me to explain. So our keeper heads to ashyn, with plenty of extra metalminds of all of the different metals, he finds a nice place to stay, perhaps someone to help take care of him, and he spends the next year or so absolutely miserable. He stores everything. Being in a floating city, its better to weigh less, he needs to store heat, storing senses to keep him from suffering, but most importantly, strength age and health. He needs to be as frail as physically possible. The idea is to get as sick as possible, and store all of those newly gained powers in unkeyed nicrosilminds. So you can see where this is going, he lies in bed for a year and fills all of his metalminds as well as collected tons of powers in his nicrosilminds. Even though he is intentionally close to death this whole time, he is never in danger as if he ever needs it, he can just stop storing and tap a little health to completely recover. Now our keeper, after all this time pumping stuff into his metalminds, can sell his unkeyed nicrosilminds filled with powers, which are vastly more efficient than when normal people get them. For example, if someone has a cold for 3 days, they have the ability to fly for 72 hours, which is being wasted whenever they aren't flying. After 72 hours, the power is gone and the whole time you had it, you were sick. When you use a nicrosilmind though, you can fly for 72 hours, and whenever you aren't flying, you just stop tapping. Say you fly for one hour a day, you fly for 3 days with the cold, so 3 hours. However if you fly with the nicrosilmind, you can fly for 72 hours or 72 days. Far more efficient. So back to our keeper, everyone on this planet can use these powers with the right sickness requirements, so as cool as it is, its nothing special. However... Over on Nalthis, nobody has ever had these powers that you can offer them, and everybody is born with something to offer to you. I bet you could get breaths incredibly easy if you talk to wealthy people with lots of breaths and offer them new magical powers with incredible length of use, remember that our keeper spent a year, or as long as he wants, collecting these powers as well as his own feruchemical powers. Assuming he sells everything he has been collecting in exchange for a massive wealth of breaths, he could gain immortality, awakening, and live a comfortable, powerful, and wealthy life wherever he wants. If he chooses to go back to ashyn and stores a few more powers, he can basically use whatever powers he wants wherever and whenever he wants, on top of his breaths and Feruchemy. Slightly overpowered and awesome if you ask me. I doubt it would happen in Canon, but I would love to see it so much. Tell me what you guys think.

So, I've got a question, or an idea. Or both. So, you know fabrials, right? The SA contraptions that trap spren inside gems to do things? Well, you may or may not know that they also require metal to function properly. Every fabrial we've seen onscreen has not been without a metal casing, and so it can be assumed fabrials require metal, along with the following evidence: 1. Shallan only realizes the Oathgate is a fabrial from the metal: 2. Also, this quote from Navani's notebook: So, we've cemented you need metal for fabrials to work. So that brings up a question for me: What happens if you use Invested metal? Now, I like fabrials, but I'm far from being an expert, so I'm turning to you guys. I doubt a piece of iron feruchemically charged would have the same effect as a normal piece of iron, as we can see that the feruchemy actually changes the structure of the metal, allowing for its allomantic use to be different. The fact that an Invested and non-Invested metal makes a difference in Allomancy makes me believe it would create another difference in Fabrials. Maybe, since metalminds for Allomancy causes the feruchemical effect, perhaps using a metalmind for a fabrial would produce similar feruchemical effect. Again, this question also regards metals which have been charged with hemalurgy, as they would be Invested, and it makes me think what a fabrial with a hemalurgically charged base would be like. Also, although it would be inconvenient, it's also worth thinking of awakened metals. Used as a base for a fabrial, would the metal produce a different effect? Would the awakening of the metal affect the spren inside? All questions to ponder. So what you guys think? Is there any way some obscure form of fabrial theory can solve this conundrum?

So, I’ve finished the stormlight Archives and 3/4’s of Warbreaker and I really feel like LightSong is...... WHIT! anyone else think this or have any theories? Edit: Nevermind!!!! He’s not.

If you were to have the Seventh Heightening (Invested Breath Recognition) would you be able to tell if something was lashed, or someone was burning metals, etc.? Basically, is the Seventh Heightening almost like burning bronze?

So quick question, are people to transfer limited numbers of breaths (i.e. Not all of there breaths) to another person? And if so what are the words they have to say? Admittedly I haven't read Warbreaker in a while so can't remember if this is ever addressed Thanks

Just finished up Warbreaker (had a lot of fun reading it). There was a lot about the magic system that was left unexplained, which I feel was intentional on Brandon's part and I completely understand. However, I was a little bit confused about how Vasher, a Returned, is ever at heightenings below the fifth, when he himself says that all Returned start at the fifth heightening by virtue of their single divine breaths. For example, in the epilogue, he and Vivenna are said to both be at the Second Heightening. Any help would be appreciated!

A friend of mine recently ordered a personalized copy of Warbreaker from Brandon's site with the following question: Simply, yes, an Awakener can give Breaths to Nightblood, but Nightblood cannot use those Breaths to Awaken.

I just read Warbreaker and noticed these flowers being mentioned and times saying how they dyed so perfectly. Then I was rereading some q and a with Brandon where someone asked if Biochromatic breaths could be stored in the earth from a dead body that lost it, and he said it is possible with the same thing as harvesting the nature of preservation and ruin. Which on Scadrial took the form of metal. So with these flowers clearly having some sort of more then natural investiture maybe they can be somehow used to gain breaths? is this maybe how Vasher has stayed alive? Utilising the Breaths stored in the earth such as these flowers that they only use as dyes? This is my first post but just wanted some opinions.

Wiith a close read or WoR I noticed something very interesting. In chapter 59 whiile tuning his instrument, he speaks to himself, noting how much easier this is with perfect pitch. Being a total Brandon Sanderson follower it immediately clicked that this is one of the benefits gained from awakening as noted in the Ars Arcanum of Warbreaker. This most likely means that he gained this by acquiring breaths, at least 200 since that is the requisite amount of breaths for the second level of awakening, which grants perfect pitch. This makes an interesting question, why would Hoid take these and how will he use them? We know of his fascination with magic, he did in all likelihood since there is a reference to Token in the WoR arcanum. Combined with the theory that he has a bead of lerasium, this is intriguing why he is gaining elements from all magic systems. What is his purpose?