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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.

Need to post my medallion theory before TLM disproves it... Unkeyed metalminds seem simple enough, though they'd generally need Hemalurgy to make since you need both f-Aluminum and another Feruchemical power - store Identity down to zero then store something else, it's unkeyed. But what's the extra step to make full-on unsealed metalminds/medallions that anyone can use? And what are excuses? Well, "excise" means "cut out" - which is what Hemalurgy does, cut out a bit of spiritweb and transplant it to someone else. So the excisors are probably Hemalurgic spikes - probably granting f-Nicrosil, a-Nicrosil, and f-Aluminum. The first person (say a Brass Ferring) takes the spikes, stores Brass Feruchemy into a nicrosilmind, and compounds Nicrosil to create "multiple copies" of the power. But one spiritweb probably can't really hold multiple copies of the same power, so they immediately store them into nicrosilminds (storing Identity in the process). These nicrosilminds become the first ring of the medallion. They then fill unkeyed brassminds which become the second ring. Then they pass the spikes and the nicrosilminds to someone else (say an Iron Ferring) who stores Iron Feruchemy in a separate nicrosilmind, eats it, compounds Nicrosil to create multiple copies of that power, and stores those copies in the first-ring nicrosilminds. Then the Iron Ferring fills unkeyed ironminds which become the third ring of the medallions. -- As for why anyone who's not a nicrosil ferring can use the medallions: I think they must "blank" or disConnect the Investiture somehow, kind of like how Allik describes "blank Connection" as reaching out to connect to something - the metalmind, not the person, is "doing the work" here. I wish I knew how they make "blank" Connection... Perhaps they need a f-Duralumin spike as well, and if you store Investiture at super-low Connection it becomes unsealed?

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?

I am rereading the Wax and Wayne series and find myself wondering what happens to a traditional metal mind that has already been Invested. What happens if another Feruchemist adds more Investitire? Does the metal bifurcate the stores to allow both Feruchemists access to their individual stores? Is it impossible to add to the exiting metalmind without first unsealing it? In the same vein, what happens to a metalmind, like the Bands of Mourning, if the Nicrosil is removed? Is it possible to do so? Or does the Investiture in the companion metalmind split or become inaccessible to all who try to use it?