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Convincing someone to give you breath.


Tamriel Wolfsbaine

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When faced with someone who really doesn't want to give over their breath what tools do you all think would work best for getting it?   

In the world we see torture used an awful lot to convince someone to give over their breath.  

If you were to take a single tool from another system to help you which do you think would have more of a benefit?  

Emotional allomancy or connection (feruchemical or as a bondsmith although I think feruchemical duralumin would be much easier to get to Nalthis).  I guess illusion magic or shape-shifting could help as well.  If there are other options I would definately be open to hearing them.  

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10 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

When faced with someone who really doesn't want to give over their breath what tools do you all think would work best for getting it?   

In the world we see torture used an awful lot to convince someone to give over their breath.  

If you were to take a single tool from another system to help you which do you think would have more of a benefit?  

Emotional allomancy or connection (feruchemical or as a bondsmith although I think feruchemical duralumin would be much easier to get to Nalthis).  I guess illusion magic or shape-shifting could help as well.  If there are other options I would definately be open to hearing them.  

If I was going to be evil? I'd pick hemalurgy. If I was not trying to be evil? I dunno. Maybe regrowth? I could perhaps heal their lack of breath.

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Basically anything that helps with manipulation or deception should work, if the person is conscious and able to give them at all, so Emotional allomancy, Connection manipulation, and Lightweaving in some combination. Or just convince them Im a god the way they did in Hallandren.

 

If they arent conscious or in control themselves: Hemalurgy could do it.  A Bondsmith could probably do it the same way Ishar made the ground soak up those radiant's stormlight.  If you can copy/mimic their Identity you could probably take it directly.  A Rasyium dagger could likely do it, but might not clear the Identity lock.  

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How many Breaths are we talking? 1 Breath? 1st or 2nd Heightening? The Breath of a Returned? The God King? Vasher? This changes both my options and what they would be giving up.

It'd be a dumb trade on my part, especially if I settled for 1 Breath, but I might be able to convince someone up to the 4th Heightening if I traded them a Lerasium bead. I probably couldn't convince 5th Heightening or above to a trade without some measure of duress unless I had something else that gave them limited immortality. Convincing Susebron with his tongue? Unless I personally had really powerful resources, I'd probably be hard pressed to make him do anything he didn't want (though it's true that for as Invested as he is, he's really fragile compared to a lot of magic users. Ironic that the magic based on life doesn't grant healing). Right out of Warbreaker, he's pretty trusting, but if he got good at sensing Investiture, he'd probably be really hard to manipulate or control with anything that is Investiture based. 

Vasher? Be better than him at fighting, and be ready to somehow book it while doing the Breath shakies when he dumps his excess in me.

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Warning the following is not for the faint of heart, proceed with caution.

Also spoilers for the cosmere

Spoiler

Each level is designed to get progressivly worse.

  1. Get hemalurgic spikes that contain the ability to feel pain and apply them to the victim. Basic physical torture etc
  2. Apply Painrails, and leave them on
  3. Use attractor fabrials set to blood to pull on blood vessels
  4. Play the Anti-endowment tone non stop
  5. Apply Spikes containing sight, then place full gems of stormlight over their eyes
  6. Use attractor fabrials set to bone to pull each individual bone away from the others, make sure that it's weak enough to never break them, but alway apply preasure
  7. Use constant duralumin filled rioting of fear and despiration
  8. Give them the gift of presence

I doubt even Taln could resist that for long.

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2 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Warning the following is not for the faint of heart, proceed with caution.

Also spoilers for the cosmere

  Reveal hidden contents

I mean, that works if you want to torture people. Probably be simpler to spike them a bunch them control them with allomancy.

3 minutes ago, Frustration said:

I doubt even Taln could resist that for long.

Very funny.

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19 hours ago, Nameless said:

If I was going to be evil? I'd pick hemalurgy. If I was not trying to be evil? I dunno. Maybe regrowth? I could perhaps heal their lack of breath.

Not sure if regrowth would work that way, since the Spiritual Ideal of a human is a human that lacks breath (otherwise Radiants would give themselves one breath accidentally, right?). So my guess would be that if you take a drab and apply regrowth to them, it won't literally do nothing (it probably would boost their innate investiture some), but I doubt it would re-give them the property of having a breath.

Edited by CryoZenith
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2 hours ago, CryoZenith said:

Not sure if regrowth would work that way, since the Spiritual Ideal of a human is a human that lacks breath (otherwise Radiants would give themselves one breath accidentally, right?). So my guess would be that if you take a drab and apply regrowth to them, it won't literally do nothing (it probably would boost their innate investiture some), but I doubt it would re-give them the property of having a breath.

Maybe not, but I could tell them it would give them a new breath.

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I don't know enough of how Breath interacts with the Spiritweb. I assume you could spike someone and get a piece of their Identity, but I'm not sure if you would get all or even most of the Breaths that they were holding. Once they die, the Breath would fade, so it seems like a rather lossy method. 

If those are limitations, then maybe F-Steel and in really rapid succession, kill them with a spike, spike myself with it, and then Command "Your Breath to Mine". If I got enough of their Spiritweb, and was fast enough I could pull any remaining Breaths from the body before they fade, maybe that could work?

Question, does anyone think the "spike them with a bunch of spikes until you can control them with emotional Allomancy" approach would run into any problems with the Command requirement of speaking in your native tongue? It might not have any issues, but it seems possible that not only Breaths but Commands have an Identity lock on them.

If I wanted to get someone else to help, I figure Hoid or Kelsier could scam my target out of the Breaths, but I doubt I would get any of those Breaths in the end.

Edited by Duxredux
clarity
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6 hours ago, Duxredux said:

I don't know enough of how Breath interacts with the Spiritweb. I assume you could spike someone and get a piece of their Identity, but I'm not sure if you would get all or even most of the Breaths that they were holding. Once they die, the Breath would fade, so it seems like a rather lossy method. 

If those are limitations, then maybe F-Steel and in really rapid succession, kill them with a spike, spike myself with it, and then Command "Your Breath to Mine". If I got enough of their Spiritweb, and was fast enough I could pull any remaining Breaths from the body before they fade, maybe that could work?

You could steal breaths with hemalurgy:

Spoiler

Pagerunner

The Hemalurgy table, you wrote down "atium steals any power, lerasium is all abilities, nicrosil is Investiture"; what's the difference between those three?

Hemalurgic atium, lerasium, and nicrosil. What's powers, abilities, and Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

People are Invested in ways that do not give them active powers. So for instance, everyone on Nalthis is Invested. Everyone in the cosmere is, really. You want to steal their Investiture, but they don't have a power. You're still ripping off a piece of their soul. So there is a distinction between the actual Investiture that's in a human being and a specific power that they have.

So that distinction is pretty easy. You can also, with Hemalurgy, steal specific things. You can steal just general Investiture. You can steal, if you want--this is where the kandra Blessings come from. You can instead steal specific things that are not like stealing Allomancy. Stealing, for instance, someone's mental acuity.

Pagerunner

So abilities is like the half that's all the strength, speed, all that kind of stuff? Those are abilities, versus the Metallic Arts are all powers?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Pagerunner

Then Investiture, is that offworld magics?

Brandon Sanderson

No, no, it's the raw power.

Pagerunner

Nicrosil is their soul?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. A piece of their soul, essentially.

Pagerunner

So how would you go about stealing an offworld power?

Brandon Sanderson

It's going to depend. A Breath, you would steal with nicrosil. It's general Investiture, is what you would probably going call that. You could forcibly remove someone's Breath from them. The ability to be a Sand Master you would steal with the power ability.

JordanCon 2021 (July 16, 2021)

 

6 hours ago, Duxredux said:

Question, does anyone think the "spike them with a bunch of spikes until you can control them with emotional Allomancy" approach would run into any problems with the Command requirement of speaking in your native tongue? It might not have any issues, but it seems possible that not only Breaths but Commands have an Identity lock on them.

It's possible that it might not work, but as it's a slightly more humane method than torture, I'd try it before that at least.

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Thanks for those, I sometime have trouble finding everything.

Uh... how is pounding metal spikes into someone with the express purpose of punching holes in their soul so you can take control of them not torture? Particularly as you have to have killed other people to get the spikes charged in the first place?

Edited by Duxredux
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On 3/11/2022 at 11:21 PM, Duxredux said:

Thanks for those, I sometime have trouble finding everything.

Uh... how is pounding metal spikes into someone with the express purpose of punching holes in their soul so you can take control of them not torture? Particularly as you have to have killed other people to get the spikes charged in the first place?

You can use animals to make spikes. And while spiking someone might be painful, they don't have to be very large, and it's better than options like painrials. More consistent too.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/21/2022 at 8:47 PM, Nameless said:

You can use animals to make spikes. And while spiking someone might be painful, they don't have to be very large, and it's better than options like painrials. More consistent too.

I wasn't really talking about the mechanical aspect of driving chunks of metal into someone as torture, I was looking more at the warping of the soul. We know that 3 spikes is what the Set determined they could use before opening themselves up to Harmony's influence. If we're talking normal Soothing or Rioting without Duralumin, that number starts increasing before you would be able to consistently take control of them. If we're talking 4+ spikes driven into someone, what is that going to do to their Spiritweb? Even if we use the known bind points that allow you to bestow Allomantic or Feruchemical abilities, if you use animals to make the spikes, will that warp the spiked soul making them less human? I expect there to be side effects to the Hemalurgy far beyond merely opening them up to Allomantic control. Then there's the violation of their free will by taking control of someone's body without their consent. That said, it's a probably a meaningless judgment call to say which is more inhumane, warping someone's soul to give you the ability to control their every action, or to bring out the thumbscrews and painrials until their will breaks. Both can pretty well wreck the victim physically or psychologically.

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  • 3 months later...

OK, so this is the Warbreaker forum, so my first answer will be limited to what we know from that work alone...

Passing Breath along requires Intent, not just speaking the words of the Command "My life to yours, my Breath become yours", so if the subject is initially unwilling, either bargaining  ("I'll make it worth your while...") or torture (physical or mental) is in order. Or deception. I wonder if hypnotism would work? 

People have already speculated on using Hemalurgy or Allomancy from Mistborn, but I'll still spoiler Stormlight-based magic suggestions:

Spoiler

Lightweaving - if you know the target would give the Breath to someone in a certain situation, e.g., Vivenna to Vasher in distress, ... make yourself look like Vasher in distress

Raysium dagger (with whatever gem corresponds to Breath as Investiture): the same dagger construction as can be used to suck Stormlight out of a Radiant, could probably be modified to suck Breath from an Awakener

 

Edited by robardin
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  • 4 weeks later...
On 3/10/2022 at 11:01 AM, Nameless said:

If I was going to be evil? I'd pick hemalurgy. If I was not trying to be evil? I dunno. Maybe regrowth? I could perhaps heal their lack of breath.

What if they were evil and you just needed a way to remove their power? I don't think that Hemalurgy would be evil in that case, especially since it leaves the option of healing them.

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2 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

What if they were evil and you just needed a way to remove their power? I don't think that Hemalurgy would be evil in that case, especially since it leaves the option of healing them.

Well, Hemalurgy is generally lethal, but yeah, it should be possible to non-lethally spike someone if you had access to Regrowth.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 8/25/2022 at 0:08 PM, Trusk'our said:

What if they were evil and you just needed a way to remove their power? I don't think that Hemalurgy would be evil in that case, especially since it leaves the option of healing them.

If the goal was just to strip or to drain someone of Breath rather than to steal it, there are a number of Cosmere ways of doing that that should be "investiture agnostic" (i.e., worked in Mistborn and Stormlight Archives, and WoBs suggest they'd work similarly for other Cosmere Investiture).

If the goal is to leave you with most or all of the Breath so taken and the ability to use it, that is a more difficult task.

For all the talk of Hemalurgy (which btw, means maybe this thread should be moved to the Cosmere Discussion from the Wabreaker forum, I don't think that works because that steals "abilities" not "investiture" (as a store).

We even have a WoB where Brandon says hemalurgy could not be used to steal the Divine Breath of a Returned, nor Peacegiver's Treasure from the God King:
 

Quote

Questioner

Question for you, regarding Nalthis.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Do priests use-- to extract the divine Breath and hoard.. Do they use a sharp object to get the divine Breath and hoard from the God King?

Brandon Sanderson

The divine Breath what?

Questioner

Divine Breath and hoard. Can you get it away from him by using a sharp pointy object?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, the-- like you're asking like--

Questioner

Hemalurgy as an option.

Brandon Sanderson

It is not, but that's a good question. That is a really good question. I'm surprised no one's asked me that before.

Ad Astra 2017 (May 5, 2017)

 

Though you could, if you wanted to, read his comment of "it is not" as referring to the means used by the Hallendren priests to "extract the Divine Breath and hoard" from the God King (the original question), versus "it is not [an option]" (the most recent refining comment from the questioner).

But that would be cheating, since clearly the questioner meant to ask "could hemalurgy be used for that purpose". We already know from the story itself, as told by Treledees right before he died protecting the God King from Lifeless, that the priests had a special Command and instructions on framing its Intent, ready to teach to every God King, to wordlessly pass on the Treasure without killing himself.

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