How Many Spikes to Become a Monster?

[Trusk'our]

A human needs four iron Hemalurgic spikes to be transformed into a Koloss- a Hemalurgic construct.

But what if only one spike is used? I know the Chimera use only one spike, but Tensoon mentions in SoS that it shouldn't be possible for such large changes to occur with only one spike, suggesting that one spike doesn't change a person nearly that much.

In addition, what if you did what the Koloss did and repurposed a Koloss spike for yourself, since it apparently allows for a greater amount of one's humanity to remain?

Quote

The Hero of Ages/Epigraphs - The Coppermind - 17th Shard I think that the koloss were more intelligent than we wanted to give them credit for being. For instance, originally, they used only spikes the Lord Ruler gave them to make new members. He would provide the metal and the unfortunate skaa captives, and the koloss would create new "recruits." At the Lord Ruler's death, then, the koloss should quickly have died out. This was how he had designed them. If they got free from his control, he expected them to kill themselves off and end their own rampage. However, they somehow made the deduction that spikes in the bodies of fallen koloss could be harvested, then reused. They then no longer required a fresh supply of spikes. I often wonder what effect the constant reuse of spikes had on their population. A spike can only hold so much of a Hemalurgic charge, so they could not create spikes that granted infinite strength, no matter how many people those spikes killed and drew power from. However, did the repeated reuse of spikes perhaps bring more humanity to the koloss they made?

Basically, I'm wondering if you could find a way to use one, maybe two Hemalurgic spikes that use human attributes rather than Invested powers and yet somehow retain your humanity (I'm most particularly interested in H-copper, as having 500 IQ seems pretty nice )?

[Quantus]

 

17 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

A human needs four iron Hemalurgic spikes to be transformed into a Koloss- a Hemalurgic construct.

But what if only one spike is used? I know the Chimera use only one spike, but Tensoon mentions in SoS that it shouldn't be possible for such large changes to occur with only one spike, suggesting that one spike doesn't change a person nearly that much.

Hemalurgy is all about ripping off a functional chunk of spiritweb circuitry and splicing it into your own.  And a single spike can hold up to a complete Spiritweb, though it cannot be charged twice so it cant really get more than that.  All the actual effects will depend entirely on what the chunk is ripped off and where you splice it in.  A koloss had four specific Physical spikes that caused a lot of physical changes, but Inquisitors could have a lot more and still be human-shaped. As far as I can tell, the dividing line between a Steel Inquisitor and just a Hemalurgist is that Inquisitors have enough Spikes to need a lynchpin Spike, and anything shy of that is still just a human hemalurgist.  

17 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

In addition, what if you did what the Koloss did and repurposed a Koloss spike for yourself, since it apparently allows for a greater amount of one's humanity to remain?

Im not quite sure what you are proposing?  The Koloss re-used the spikes right after battles to keep their numbers, but those spikes still loose power exponentially (half-life style) any time they are outside a person thanks to Hemalurgic decay. 

17 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Basically, I'm wondering if you could find a way to use one, maybe two Hemalurgic spikes that use human attributes rather than Invested powers and yet somehow retain your humanity (I'm most particularly interested in H-copper, as having 500 IQ seems pretty nice )?

Oh sure, in theory. The Lord Ruler didnt do it much that we saw, but per the published Hemalurgic chart, you could use copper to stack up your "Intelligence".  In theory it should be possible to do it without unwanted physical side-effects if that's your question, but that's where the nuance of Intent and Bind Points come in to play, and only bloody experimentation or crazy Spirit Realm shenanigans) will tell us the truth.  On the other hand, Two spikes could get you F-Zinc compounding which wouldnt have much of an upper limit compared to basic Intelligence theft.  

 

[cometaryorbit]

You can't get compounding from spikes any more, according to TLM. That worked in Era 1, but not now.

[Trusk'our]

59 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

You can't get compounding from spikes any more, according to TLM. That worked in Era 1, but not now.

Well, cracking that problem would probably be a lot easier than figuring out a way to sidestep the flesh-warping aspect (I already have like three ideas on how to do it), so it's probably still worth considering.

[therunner]

5 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Well, cracking that problem would probably be a lot easier than figuring out a way to sidestep the flesh-warping aspect (I already have like three ideas on how to do it), so it's probably still worth considering.

I think the Compounding with Hemalurgy will be extremely difficult to circumvent.
From Doylist perspective Brandon clearly made that change to do away with interaction that is incredibly overpowered by his standards, and would be very difficult to write around.

[Trusk'our]

4 hours ago, therunner said:

I think the Compounding with Hemalurgy will be extremely difficult to circumvent.
From Doylist perspective Brandon clearly made that change to do away with interaction that is incredibly overpowered by his standards, and would be very difficult to write around.

I suppose that could be the case. In all honesty, I was wondering why the bad guys weren't so overpowered when they could have just Compounded; turns out that they couldn't, which did solve the problem.

It does make me wonder why the Set didn't choose to get any Steel Feruchemy. It's arguably the most powerful combat metal and Steelrunners can't be that rare if there was an add in TLM paper that prided itself on its Steelrunner carriers. Even without Compounding a determined Steelrunner Set member could save speed for a few months and be ready for a few minutes of 10-20 times their regular speed to knife Wax and Wayne in the back when they tried to defeat the Set.

I still don't get why they didn't do that.

[therunner]

1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

It does make me wonder why the Set didn't choose to get any Steel Feruchemy. It's arguably the most powerful combat metal and Steelrunners can't be that rare if there was an add in TLM paper that prided itself on its Steelrunner carriers. Even without Compounding a determined Steelrunner Set member could save speed for a few months and be ready for a few minutes of 10-20 times their regular speed to knife Wax and Wayne in the back when they tried to defeat the Set.

I still don't get why they didn't do that.

Yeah, F-steel is another issue I think.
It is not like Brandon (or his team) is not aware of all the discussions, and just how heavily superspeed distorts power landscape.
Partially he solved that by making them relatively rare (remember that Mistings are 1:1000, Ferrings are less then that, and on top of that the power distribution is not 1:16, which would result at most a hundred steel runners across the entire Basin and all age groups). There was so few of them in Elendel that the victim in SoS was basically the only possible target.

So I think after giving us very small tastes, he is still figuring out how to approach it.
Previous F-steel POVs can be taken as also including F-zinc, and the other user was non-human, so he has space to operate in.

I know he won't balance Invested arts per se, but clearly he is trying to 'reign them in' so to speak, so that the solution to every problem is not 'Compounding' or 'F-steel', and question for every bad guy is not 'why don't they just use Compounding/F-steel'.

Edited April 18, 2023 by therunner

[Trusk'our]

5 hours ago, therunner said:

Yeah, F-steel is another issue I think.
It is not like Brandon (or his team) is not aware of all the discussions, and just how heavily superspeed distorts power landscape.
Partially he solved that by making them relatively rare (remember that Mistings are 1:1000, Ferrings are less then that, and on top of that the power distribution is not 1:16, which would result at most a hundred steel runners across the entire Basin and all age groups). There was so few of them in Elendel that the victim in SoS was basically the only possible target.

So I think after giving us very small tastes, he is still figuring out how to approach it.
Previous F-steel POVs can be taken as also including F-zinc, and the other user was non-human, so he has space to operate in.

I know he won't balance Invested arts per se, but clearly he is trying to 'reign them in' so to speak, so that the solution to every problem is not 'Compounding' or 'F-steel', and question for every bad guy is not 'why don't they just use Compounding/F-steel'.

I think that makes sense.

I'd really like to see a viewpoint from a Steelrunner at some point in the future; then we could get a better idea of all its limitations and advantages.

[therunner]

14 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

I'd really like to see a viewpoint from a Steelrunner at some point in the future; then we could get a better idea of all its limitations and advantages.

Yeah that would be great.

Or better yet, Cosmere encyclopedia with all the Invested arts, precise limitations and skills of users. And rates of Investiture use. (you know, nothing that should be too difficult to put together)

[alder24]

On 11.04.2023 at 11:12 PM, Trusk'our said:

Basically, I'm wondering if you could find a way to use one, maybe two Hemalurgic spikes that use human attributes rather than Invested powers and yet somehow retain your humanity (I'm most particularly interested in H-copper, as having 500 IQ seems pretty nice )?

Answering original question, yes and no. It depends only on what's in the spike, intent and where do you put that spike. There are ways to create monsters with a single spike (Chimaras), and there are likely ways to make monsters with human attributes in spikes with a single or double spike - if you know what you're doing. 

 

[Trusk'our]

Just now, alder24 said:

Answering original question, yes and no. It depends only on what's in the spike, intent and where do you put that spike. There are ways to create monsters with a single spike (Chimaras), and there are likely ways to make monsters with human attributes in spikes with a single or double spike - if you know what you're doing. 

 

Those seem kind of like the same answer 

Though, I'm thinking it would be cool to find a way to not make a monster even though you're using human attributes. Then you could use copper Hemalurgy to enhance your mind.

[alder24]

1 minute ago, Trusk'our said:

Those seem kind of like the same answer 

Though, I'm thinking it would be cool to find a way to not make a monster even though you're using human attributes. Then you could use copper Hemalurgy to enhance your mind.

Yes. I said that there are ways to make you into a monster with a single spike, but in many ways you don't end up as a monster. It depends on intent, and binding point. Not every time you use human attributes it turns you into a monster. Koloss and Chimaras are just the only examples. I don't think we saw for now Hemalurgy granting normal attributes instead of powers, without any nasty side effects. But it is possible to just give yourself an attribute and live normally. I bet there are ways to use the same spikes for making a Koloss on a person, without turning him into a Koloss, but giving him strength from those spikes - it's all about intent and binding points.

What about copper Hemalurgy? You want to spike yourself with multiple copper spikes? Giving yourself more mental attributes via multiple spikes won't offset the damage done by those spikes. They would drive you mad.

Spoiler

Miss_Silver

Is there a maximum number of spikes a person can have? Would having more spikes eventually cause issues, be it mental or physical limitations?

Also do the benefits from spikes have some form of diminishing returns, or could some one have like, 200 bronze spikes and be able to sense a person burning metal through copper from 50 miles away?

Brandon Sanderson

1) Yes, it would cause big issues.

2) #1 interferes greatly with what you would like to do here, but there are other ways of magnifying the powers to the extent you postulate.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 22, 2018)

 

[Trusk'our]

1 minute ago, alder24 said:

Yes. I said that there are ways to make you into a monster with a single spike, but in many ways you don't end up as a monster. It depends on intent, and binding point. Not every time you use human attributes it turns you into a monster. Koloss and Chimaras are just the only examples. I don't think we saw for now Hemalurgy granting normal attributes instead of powers, without any nasty side effects. But it is possible to just give yourself an attribute and live normally. I bet there are ways to use the same spikes for making a Koloss on a person, without turning him into a Koloss, but giving him strength from those spikes - it's all about intent and binding points.

Ah, thank you for clearing that up  

It would be pretty neat to figure out attribute spikes and how to use them properly.

2 minutes ago, alder24 said:

What about copper Hemalurgy? You want to spike yourself with multiple copper spikes? Giving yourself more mental attributes via multiple spikes won't offset the damage done by those spikes. They would drive you mad.

  Hide contents

Miss_Silver

Is there a maximum number of spikes a person can have? Would having more spikes eventually cause issues, be it mental or physical limitations?

Also do the benefits from spikes have some form of diminishing returns, or could some one have like, 200 bronze spikes and be able to sense a person burning metal through copper from 50 miles away?

Brandon Sanderson

1) Yes, it would cause big issues.

2) #1 interferes greatly with what you would like to do here, but there are other ways of magnifying the powers to the extent you postulate.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 22, 2018)

 

The end goal of copper spikes for me isn't to offset the Hemalurgic weakness they cause or negate the inherent damage associated bearing them; if that were the case, taking fewer spikes- or none at all- would be the best bet.

From the information I have, copper Hemalurgy seems to actually increase the fluid intelligence of the one bearing the spike(s) as well as granting them some other cognitive benefits (such as enhanced memory, the ability to focus better, and a resistance to- though not immunity- to madness).

Plus, I don't think you'd need a lot of spikes- just one or two that each have a large Invested charge in order to get the magical intelligence boost they provide.

[alder24]

4 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

The end goal of copper spikes for me isn't to offset the Hemalurgic weakness they cause or negate the inherent damage associated bearing them; if that were the case, taking fewer spikes- or none at all- would be the best bet.

From the information I have, copper Hemalurgy seems to actually increase the fluid intelligence of the one bearing the spike(s) as well as granting them some other cognitive benefits (such as enhanced memory, the ability to focus better, and a resistance to- though not immunity- to madness).

Plus, I don't think you'd need a lot of spikes- just one or two that each have a large Invested charge in order to get the magical intelligence boost they provide.

Then yes, you can just do it. But then we're going back to the other topic of yours - how much damage to a soul does a spike that holds 2 or more charges compared to a spike that holds only 1 charge  

[Trusk'our]

1 minute ago, alder24 said:

Then yes, you can just do it. But then we're going back to the other topic of yours - how much damage to a soul does a spike that holds 2 or more charges compared to a spike that holds only 1 charge  

Circles and circles my friend, all the way up until Brandon finally decides to tell us the answer 

[therunner]

As to whether single spike with attribute would result in monster, there are these two WoBs:

Quote

Questioner

Are Hemalurgic spikes fabrials? Is a body that has been spiked a fabrial? Are koloss and kandra also something similar?

Brandon Sanderson

No, actually.

Fabrial means specifically a bit of Investiture that has been trapped by a gemstone and then modified to do something else. Hemalurgy is its own thing--though there is a slight similarity. In most Hemalurgy, Investiture keyed to the Identity of someone (a bit of a soul) is ripped off, and then magically grafted onto someone else's soul. Not the same, though I can see the confusion.

Koloss and kandra are similar, though in this case, the soul is mostly just being distorted by using an Invested spike. In the cosmere, the body will attempt to match the soul, and so a twisted soul (Spiritual aspect of a person) can have profound effects on both mind and body.

FAQFriday 2017 (March 10, 2017)

So based on this one, spiking on more of some physical attribute would probably result in distortion of physical body (like we see with Koloss), spiking on mental attributes would possibly distort cognitive aspects (and perhaps physical one as well, even if less so).
 

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

The Mechanism of Hemalurgy

The Blessings and the workings of Hemalurgy gave me some trouble as I designed the second and third books of this series. On one hand, I liked the way Hemalurgy worked by stealing powers from Allomancers or Feruchemists and giving them to other people. However, if I was going to limit myself to sixteen metals and be able to steal both Allomancy and Feruchemy, that meant I needed a mechanism to determine which power got stolen. If, for instance, you drove a pewter spike into a person who was both an Allomancer and a Feruchemist, then how would that spike know which power to suck out and grant to the one who would gain it?

As I was toying with how this would work, I realized that I needed to work the kandra and the koloss into this as well. Only, it was ridiculous to assume that the Lord Ruler would kill Allomancers to make koloss. There weren't enough Allomancers, for one thing—plus it would be foolish to lose the power of an Allomancer to gain an inferior tool in a koloss.

So that meant koloss had to be made out of regular people, not Allomancers or Feruchemists. Suddenly I had another set of abilities that Hemalurgy had to be able to steal—the basic pieces of Preservation inside the souls of all men.

Hence the decision that where the spike was placed in the receiver, and how it was used to kill a person, influenced how the power was shaped. Now a pewter spike could steal any of a number of powers, based on how it was used. And regular people could be used instead of Allomancers—however, when that happened, the receiver was twisted much more than if an Allomantically charged spike or a Feruchemically charged spike was used.

My rationale for this is that if the spike is pulling out the pure power of Preservation—part of the power of all creation—and twisting it, it would change the body of the recipient greatly. Twisting them through use of the twisted power.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (Nov. 17, 2009)

And this one suggest that spikes possessing 'just' attributes cause more much more distortion than those bestowing Allomancy and Feruchemy (which are the ones all human characters have had so far).

[Underwater_Worldhopper]

"Suddenly I had another set of abilities that Hemalurgy had to be able to steal—the basic pieces of Preservation inside the souls of all men."

Does that mean you couldn't take out regular human attributes out of non-Scadrians, since other humans wouldn't be created by Preservation and thus they wouldn't have that particular peice of innate investiture?

[alder24]

55 minutes ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

"Suddenly I had another set of abilities that Hemalurgy had to be able to steal—the basic pieces of Preservation inside the souls of all men."

Does that mean you couldn't take out regular human attributes out of non-Scadrians, since other humans wouldn't be created by Preservation and thus they wouldn't have that particular peice of innate investiture?

They wouldn't have innate Investiture made out of Preservation, instead they would have it made out of other Shards. So you still can take out attributes from other people. But I don't know if Brandon is talking here about the extra fragment of Preservation (which gives Allomancy/Feruchemy), or the building investiture of humans on Scadrials, which is made out of both Preservation and Ruin, I think it's this second piece, because Brandon used the world "basic piece", not the extra piece.

What Hemalurgy does is it steals a piece of soul, and attaches it to someone else's soul. As long as you are spiking something with a soul and being alive, you can steal from them almost anything they have, attributes included. This is because the soul is investiture anywhere in the Cosmere, and Hemalurgy steals it. You can spike even animals.

In the case of extra fragment of Preservation, innate Investiture, in other places it looks like this, multi-Cosmere spoilers:

Spoiler

On Nalthins they would have it being made out of Endowment and in this case it's Breath and this is more than what Scadrians have. On Roshar it would be made out of Honor+Cultivation+Odium. But in a world where there is no Shard, like First of the Sun, people would have very little innate investiture, and you could consider them like some kind of standard, but they still have some. WoBs:

Spoiler

Questioner

On all the cosmere worlds, it seem as if-- do all the humans have what you call innate Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

Let's see...

*thinks*

I believe that they all do. I don't think that you've seen anyone without innate Investiture yet.

Questioner

Because when they don't have Breath anymore, they would get Drabs, and those don't have innate Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

They don't have innate Investiture. And on Scadrial they have the pieces of Ruin and Preservation in them. And they do have it on Roshar.

Questioner

Which Shard is that?

Brandon Sanderson

You'll have to read and find out. *gives card*

So yes, I don't think you've seen any worlds where they don't.

Words of Radiance San Francisco signing (March 6, 2014)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

In the last panel we talked a lot about people from different planets using magic systems on other planets, one of the things I've been thinking about, we've been thinking about, talking about Breath, and people being born with Breath, is that something specific to Nalthis or do, technically, other people on other planets have a Breath as well?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question and that is a Nalthian thing. Now, everyone in the cosmere to an extent has Investiture, the Nalthian Breath is part what everyone has and then a little extra, plus the ability to share it around. So a person who gives up their Breath on Nalthis is actually going below what a normal person has. But a normal person on Nalthis has more than somebody-- So if you were for instance to pick a world like Sixth of the Dusk, where there's not a Shard in residence, and you compared them to a Nalthian, Nalthian has an Investiture advantage over them. When they've given up their Breath, they have an Investiture disadvantage.

Bystander

So we're not Drabs?

Brandon Sanderson

So we're not Drabs. That's exactly it. We're not Drabs.

JordanCon 2016 (April 23, 2016)

 

 

[Underwater_Worldhopper]

That clears things up, thanks!