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Compounding a Breath


Oltux72

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it's not clear whether nicrosil works that way. the cases we've seen of it so far have people storing their allomantic or ferruchemical abilities, so it isn't clear that you could actually store a breath. that said, assuming it does work that way, i'd guess you'd get back a superbreath

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13 hours ago, Honorless said:

If Preservation / Harmony can just copy other Shard's Investiture, I'll eat my hat... I think. Actually, I'm not so sure anymore since I typed that. Hmm... 

Why wouldn't Preservation's investiture be able to be used to copy another Shard's magic system? Standard compounding already does this, fueling Feruchemical abilities with investiture that normally would be used for Allomancy.

I think that one of two things would happen if you tap the nicrosil mind that holds these copied breaths though; either they stick, or it still works, but only temporarily.

The former option is super duper busted in terms of cosmere balance. You'd have the ability to pull investiture from a shard, then never give it back, keeping it for yourself or the endless number of awakened objects you could create. Storms, you could start to mass produce Nightblood-esc weapons, since you'd have a basically unlimited number of breaths to use. You could make every single person on the planet ageless if you wanted, which would also have some serious consequences for "balance". Since the investiture could be stuck to you and never leave, and you can just keep adding to it, you could, potentially, ascend to become an avatar of Preservation, which should be possible, though I doubt you'd be able to take the entire Shard itself.

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Questioner

So Bavadin's avatars, right; Autonomy's avatars.

Brandon Sanderson

One of Bavadin's avatars. 

Questioner

Of those avatars, are some or all of them actual Splinters of Autonomy?

Brandon Sanderson

The terminology gets kind of sticky here. In Cosmere terms, some would say that counts as Splinters, some would say not. The avatars aren't necessarily aware but Bavadin always is. A lot of people in Cosmere would call that a Splinter. 

Questioner

My follow up to that would be, is it possible for a person to Ascend and become a Vessel of one of those Splinters?  

Brandon Sanderson

That is plausible. Yes. It could happen. It would be tough because they will have personalities of their own and so something would need to happen... but yeah.

 

Yeah...this is just too OP to honestly consider, in my opinion.

However, the second option seems more likely. If I'm correct, Endowment's investiture is inherently more "sticky", allowing it to stay with people who gather it the the form of bio-chromatic breaths. If Preservation's power was used to copy the abilities of breaths, you'd probably be able to store the investiture in metalminds, but as soon as you tapped them, they'd start leaking away from you, kind of like with surgebinders. So, you could probably gain access to the heightenings, but only as long as you use compounding to make more breaths to replace the ones you lose, and you could probably also awaken, but your awakened constructs would lose their charge over time, and would become mundane objects again.

But of course, this is all theory since we haven't seen any examples of it yet. But it's fun to guess anyway :) 

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1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

Why wouldn't Preservation's investiture be able to be used to copy another Shard's magic system? Standard compounding already does this, fueling Feruchemical abilities with investiture that normally would be used for Allomancy.

Compounding is a bit different, Feruchemy is also a Metallic Art Connected to Preservation

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11 hours ago, Honorless said:

Compounding is a bit different, Feruchemy is also a Metallic Art Connected to Preservation

True, but it's still copying another magic system. Plus, Feruchemy is normally powered by both Preservation and Ruin, which has a significantly different Intent, so you should be able to copy other magic systems potentially. 

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3 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

True, but it's still copying another magic system. Plus, Feruchemy is normally powered by both Preservation and Ruin, which has a significantly different Intent, so you should be able to copy other magic systems potentially. 

Feruchemy isn't normally powered by either of the Shards. Getting it powered by a Shard is what Compounding does. And Compounding is not copying another magic system - which is a magic system that is also connected to the same Shard and is native to the same Shardworld unlike BioChromatic Breaths and Awakening - it's hooking a powerline via a different magic system: it's using Allomantic power as fuel to boost the Feruchemical charge.

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Questioner

As far as the Lord Ruler goes, how did he use the Twinborn thing? Feruchemy and Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

What he had to figure out how to do is: Allomancy is powered by Spiritual power directly from the Shard of Adonalsium. Whereas Feruchemy is powered by your own Investiture and effort being transferred into the thing. What he needed to do was figure out a way to power Feruchemy with Allomantic power, right? You could have done the same thing by fueling it with the Dor, or with Stormlight, or another external. But he only had access to three magics. So what he had to do was figure out that.

So what he's doing is, he's basically taking metals, (since he's a Feruchemist and an allomancers), and he is burning metals that he has Invested himself, but then using... basically, switching it so he gets a burst of Allomantic power that is charged with a Feruchemical attribute. So it's powering Feruchemy with Allomancy by burning the metal that he himself has Invested.

Questioner

So he was essentially putting stuff into the metal?

Brandon Sanderson

Basically, priming the pump. He puts it in with Feruchemy. Then he burns it with Allomancy. But that fuels Feruchemy with Allomancy, which allows him to draw on the powers of the Shards, rather than himself. So it's not really a perpetual motion machine, because he's drawing the power from someone else. But it's external, which allows him to break the rules of Feruchemy.

The big question I have is: that works in the book, because you can dig into the technicalities of the book. But that's not gonna work in the movie, right? That explanation right there, that's so many levels over the heads of the audience. So I have to figure out a way to not break the cosmere magic, but make it simpler to understand in the movie. Which is the big headache in writing the screenplay. That's probably the biggest challenge in the screenplay is to figure out how to make that all work.

LTUE 2020 (Feb. 15, 2020)

 

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On 12/20/2021 at 1:35 PM, Honorless said:

Feruchemy isn't normally powered by either of the Shards. Getting it powered by a Shard is what Compounding does. And Compounding is not copying another magic system - which is a magic system that is also connected to the same Shard and is native to the same Shardworld unlike BioChromatic Breaths and Awakening - it's hooking a powerline via a different magic system: it's using Allomantic power as fuel to boost the Feruchemical charge.

 

Apologies. I meant that compounding copies the abilities of another magic system with Preservation's investiture rather than the investiture that the system normally uses. The abilities seemed unchanged to me, despite the fact that they were powered by an investiture that had a different Intent. Now, I know that Feruchemy is of both Ruin and Preservation, which might change things, but I still think that you could use compounding to potentially copy at least some other magic systems' abilities.

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1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

Apologies. I meant that compounding copies the abilities of another magic system with Preservation's investiture rather than the investiture that the system normally uses. The abilities seemed unchanged to me, despite the fact that they were powered by an investiture that had a different Intent. Now, I know that Feruchemy is of both Ruin and Preservation, which might change things, but I still think that you could use compounding to potentially copy at least some other magic systems' abilities.

It isn't copying any abilities though, just supercharging it.

Think of it this way: it was powered by petrol, now it's powered by diesel and it could handle both from the beginning

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21 minutes ago, Honorless said:

It isn't copying any abilities though, just supercharging it.

Think of it this way: it was powered by petrol, now it's powered by diesel and it could handle both from the beginning

But you'd still get basically the same effect, wouldn't you?

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