Hemalurgy and Shards

[Kendelian]

How would hemalurgy interact with a Shard? Could you steal a part of the Shard’s power? And what if someone tries to become a Shard while they have spikes in their body?

[Koloss17]

23 minutes ago, Kendelian said:

How would hemalurgy interact with a Shard? Could you steal a part of the Shard’s power? And what if someone tries to become a Shard while they have spikes in their body?

Well, you would first need the vessel to manifest themselves physically. Which is completely possible, just not the type of thing they would make a habit of doing. 
 

After that, I think the main obstacle in spiking a shard would be the fact that they are about the most highly invested thing out there. And since investiture naturally resists the tampering of other investiture, as seen with metalminds being hard to pull or push, you would need to try really hard to make that work.

If you somehow got through all of that? I don’t really know. It depends if you are spiking them with the intention of stealing something or spiking them with the intention of giving them something.

[alder24]

32 minutes ago, Kendelian said:

How would hemalurgy interact with a Shard? Could you steal a part of the Shard’s power? And what if someone tries to become a Shard while they have spikes in their body?

You can't really spike a Shard, there is just too much investiture in a Shard, incomparable to a single spike.

Spoiler

Blightsong

Is it theoretically possible to Hemalurgically spike a Shard into someone else, and if so, what would be the outcome?

Brandon Sanderson

A full shard? Hemalurgy could not hold that much of an Invested charge... not... yeah, like a hemallurgic spike really couldn't hold that much. Not without something really weird happening, so.

OdysseyCon 2016 (April 8, 2016)

 

[Mistchemist16]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

You can't really spike a Shard, there is just too much investiture in a Shard, incomparable to a single spike.

  Reveal hidden contents

Blightsong

Is it theoretically possible to Hemalurgically spike a Shard into someone else, and if so, what would be the outcome?

Brandon Sanderson

A full shard? Hemalurgy could not hold that much of an Invested charge... not... yeah, like a hemallurgic spike really couldn't hold that much. Not without something really weird happening, so.

OdysseyCon 2016 (April 8, 2016)

 

Yeah. The only things we’ve seen that can meaningfully interact with a Shard’s full power are other Shards. You might be able to do stuff to the Vessel if they manifest, kinda like… (ROW)

Spoiler

Taravangian using Nightblood on Odium. Of course, Nightblood was already more powerful than most things and even it can’t devour a Shard. But there are parallels.

That being said, you might be able to spike a full power Shard if another Shard were helping you out. Part of me suspects that all Shards have a power similar to Soulcasting, just by having so much Investuture and influence in the Cognitive Realm. So maybe they could  turn most of their being into a massive spike and use it in the PR or CR, especially if it included Ruin. That would take a large bite out of the targeted Shard, and perhaps overwhelm it if the Hemalurgy Shard is stronger. But I doubt that mortal Hemalurgy can do anything meaningful to a Shard: only an exposed Vessel.

Edited April 20, 2023 by Mistchemist16

[alder24]

4 minutes ago, Mistchemist16 said:

Yeah. The only things we’ve seen that can meaningfully interact with a Shard’s full power are other Shards. You might be able to do stuff to the Vessel if they manifest, kinda like… (ROW)

You quoted, put a spoiler box instead 

4 minutes ago, Mistchemist16 said:

Part of me suspects that all Shards have a power similar to Soulcasting

Ruin and Preservation created Scadrial, so kind of, they can make stuff directly out of investiture. But I doubt even a massive spike could be used on a Shard.

Edited April 20, 2023 by alder24

[Trusk'our]

3 hours ago, Kendelian said:

How would hemalurgy interact with a Shard? Could you steal a part of the Shard’s power? And what if someone tries to become a Shard while they have spikes in their body?

As @alder24 mentioned, you simply wouldn't be able to hold an entire Shard inside a single spike. However, I believe that a large Hemalurgic spike may be one of the few weapons a mortal could wield that could seriously wound/kill a Shardic Vessel.

Use a sizable duralumin spike, lure the Vessel to you, stab them when they least expect it, tear a sizable chunk of their Connection to their Shard away, making them mortal again, then stab them again to finish the job.

Or, if that does not work (which, let's be honest, is probably going to be the case ) spike the stolen Shardic Connection into yourself. If you're lucky, the Vessel will be so shocked that a mere human managed to tear a freaking hole into their soul that it will give you an opportunity to turn the very Shard they wield against them. Plus, there is still a hole in their Soul... RoW spoilers

Spoiler

Odium mentions that having a "hole" in a Shardic Vessel's soul would leave them susceptible to another Shard, allowing the Vessel with a soul hole to be killed.

This would be particularly easy if the Shard in question is Odium or Ruin, as their Intent makes it easier to destroy other Shards, so you could more easily turn the Vessel's own power against them.

Now, I don't think that either of these strategies would be likely to work (original Vessel has stronger Connection to Shard, more experience wielding it, and there is just so much Investiture they can wield), but I think that they have a possibility of working for someone desperate.

As to having Hemalurgic spikes while you Ascend, I think that their influence would still be there (putting holes in your Spiritweb), but they would be more inconsequential; a Vessel's mind is so strong that a few holes aren't going to be a big deal unless another Vessel is trying to actively kill you. Spikes could almost certainly be removed by the Vessel if they wanted, however, as mortals can do the same.

[Quantus]

Sooo, if you managed to be in a place where a shard had a Body (like that Time in that Place with those Folks...) and you stabbed a Shard with a massive aluminum spike, would it shut down "All [their] Powers"?  Would it overload and collapse into a perpendicularity?  Would it be entirely unable to touch their still very much Inflated Spiritweb?

[Spearguy]

It may be possible to take something from the Vessel's original spirit web but it may not be possible to take anything from the Shard itself. 

The power of the Shard and the Shard's Vessel are two very distinct things, even when the Vessel would physically manifest the power of the Shard would not be all there, doing so would make generate a Perpendicularity.  

[Trusk'our]

43 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Sooo, if you managed to be in a place where a shard had a Body (like that Time in that Place with those Folks...) and you stabbed a Shard with a massive aluminum spike, would it shut down "All [their] Powers"?  Would it overload and collapse into a perpendicularity?  Would it be entirely unable to touch their still very much Inflated Spiritweb?

I think that an aluminum spike would just tear off a chunk of the Vessel's Spiritweb, possibly killing them? I doubt anything really weird would happen with the aluminum spike though, as it is stated to "destroy all powers"- I take that to mean that you can't take the powers and grant them to someone else because they are no longer in the spike; they immediately are ripped off the individual and shunted into the SR. 

That's what I think would happen based off my own interpretation of aluminum Hemalurgy's mechanics, but I could be wrong- we haven't seen any examples of it in any books yet.

As for any other form of Hemalurgy, I suspect that something similar to Nightblood would be created- a spike supersaturated with Investiture till it could no longer hold any. That power could be granted to anybody, and some crazy stuff might happen. You would probably create a demigod-level being, one step down from a Shardic Vessel (and if you specifically steal Connection from the Vessel, you might be able to hack the system and steal their Shardhood from them ).

RoW spoilers...

Spoiler

Based on that, I think that it is possible to kill a Vessel with Hemalurgy; we've seen Nightblood do something similar, after all. Though, the Vessel has a higher chance of surviving the spiking than Nightblood since Hemalurgy isn't meant to destroy the entire Spiritweb, just rip off selective parts.

Still, you might be able to make it work.

Since we have an example of Nightblood, I also think that it's unlikely that a Perpendicularity would form- there may not be a way to fit that much Investiture into a single piece of metal- unless you made a huge spike, I suppose, though wielding it would prove difficult.

 

44 minutes ago, Spearguy said:

It may be possible to take something from the Vessel's original spirit web but it may not be possible to take anything from the Shard itself. 

The power of the Shard and the Shard's Vessel are two very distinct things, even when the Vessel would physically manifest the power of the Shard would not be all there, doing so would make generate a Perpendicularity.  

That's true, I should have clarified my statements better.

However, the Vessel is the one that counts most I would think, since they are the one directing the power.

[therunner]

11 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

As @alder24 mentioned, you simply wouldn't be able to hold an entire Shard inside a single spike. However, I believe that a large Hemalurgic spike may be one of the few weapons a mortal could wield that could seriously wound/kill a Shardic Vessel.

Use a sizable duralumin spike, lure the Vessel to you, stab them when they least expect it, tear a sizable chunk of their Connection to their Shard away, making them mortal again, then stab them again to finish the job.

Or, if that does not work (which, let's be honest, is probably going to be the case ) spike the stolen Shardic Connection into yourself. If you're lucky, the Vessel will be so shocked that a mere human managed to tear a freaking hole into their soul that it will give you an opportunity to turn the very Shard they wield against them. Plus, there is still a hole in their Soul... RoW spoilers

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Odium mentions that having a "hole" in a Shardic Vessel's soul would leave them susceptible to another Shard, allowing the Vessel with a soul hole to be killed.

This would be particularly easy if the Shard in question is Odium or Ruin, as their Intent makes it easier to destroy other Shards, so you could more easily turn the Vessel's own power against them.

Now, I don't think that either of these strategies would be likely to work (original Vessel has stronger Connection to Shard, more experience wielding it, and there is just so much Investiture they can wield), but I think that they have a possibility of working for someone desperate.

As to having Hemalurgic spikes while you Ascend, I think that their influence would still be there (putting holes in your Spiritweb), but they would be more inconsequential; a Vessel's mind is so strong that a few holes aren't going to be a big deal unless another Vessel is trying to actively kill you. Spikes could almost certainly be removed by the Vessel if they wanted, however, as mortals can do the same.

I doubt that would be possible, if ordinary metal with proper intent could wound or kill Shardic vessel, why would

Spoiler

Cultivation/Endowment go through all the trouble with Nightblood?
Wouldn't it be far simpler to have Stupid Taravangian have regular piece of metal on hand, and engineer proper Intent?

Similarly, Vessels (and Hoid) fear Nightblood, but neither seems particularly afraid of Hemalurgy, so I strongly doubt that Hemalurgy could do any lasting damage to either.

When they are Vessel, their souls are merged with Shard, so spiking it out would be difficult (kinda like spiking Spren Bond).

Hemalurgy is still Invested art, so whatever happens through it is powered facilitated by Ruin/Harmony. So doing something with it that damages Vessel is doubtful, since it took the single most Invested object in Cosmere to do that.

[Trusk'our]

9 hours ago, therunner said:

I doubt that would be possible, if ordinary metal with proper intent could wound or kill Shardic vessel, why would

  Hide contents

Cultivation/Endowment go through all the trouble with Nightblood?
Wouldn't it be far simpler to have Stupid Taravangian have regular piece of metal on hand, and engineer proper Intent?

Similarly, Vessels (and Hoid) fear Nightblood, but neither seems particularly afraid of Hemalurgy, so I strongly doubt that Hemalurgy could do any lasting damage to either.

When they are Vessel, their souls are merged with Shard, so spiking it out would be difficult (kinda like spiking Spren Bond).

Hemalurgy is still Invested art, so whatever happens through it is powered facilitated by Ruin/Harmony. So doing something with it that damages Vessel is doubtful, since it took the single most Invested object in Cosmere to do that.

Yeah, I don't think what happened in RoW could have been so easily achieved through the Hemalurgy method- more RoW spoilers.

Spoiler

likely, if you know who had used a Hemalurgic spike instead of Nightblood, it most likely would have ripped off a lot of Investiture, but Rayse could have recovered and smote Taravangian down before anything more could be done. 

That said, I do stand by my previous idea that it would be possible to kill a Shard's Vessel by using Hemalurgy, though it would require one to be creative and very, very lucky- you'd need to do more than just stab the Vessel and expect them to die, you'd need to use the power of the spike against them somehow, and even then your chances aren't very high of surviving the encounter.

It does make me wonder though; how much "power" fuels Hemalurgy when you're ripping of chunks of Spiritweb? We have a more stable amount Nightblood- the Investiture it holds from its Awakening and what it's taken from slain opponents- but a Hemalurgic spike contains no power until it's charged with a person's Investiture.

My current thinking is that when you use Hemalurgy you draw directly from Shard of Ruin in the SR, side-stepping the need for Ruin's current Vessel to give permission, similar to Allomancy and Preservation.

If you draw only on a portion of Ruin proportional to the size of the spike you use, perhaps a larger spike would transfer more Investiture from the donor to the spike. In that case, spiking a Vessel likely would just not be very useful, at least to kill or maim them.

Or perhaps it only depends on how much Investiture the donor has- if you're drawing upon an amount of Ruin proportional to the amount of Investiture of your donor, you'd get all the targeted Investiture of donor torn out, regardless of the size of the spike (though, if you're using a small spike, most of the Investiture may be lost, similar to how Nightblood can't really hold all of its Investiture). If this turns out to be the case, I think that seriously harming a Shardic Vessel via Hemalurgy is a much more realistic course of action.

More RoW spoilers.

Spoiler

As for why Cultivation/Endowment used Nightblood over Hemalurgy, perhaps they don't know about Hemalurgy, or at least haven't thought of using it against Vessels? Or perhaps they aren't fond of letting the information get out that anyone with a chunk of completely normal metal could attack a Shard?

Also, Nightblood would still be way better if you just wanted to destroy a Vessel- Hemalurgy might be able to do it, but it'd be a lot more risky and would require more work on the assassin's part.

 

[therunner]

On 21/04/2023 at 6:34 PM, Trusk'our said:

Yeah, I don't think what happened in RoW could have been so easily achieved through the Hemalurgy method- more RoW spoilers.

  Reveal hidden contents

likely, if you know who had used a Hemalurgic spike instead of Nightblood, it most likely would have ripped off a lot of Investiture, but Rayse could have recovered and smote Taravangian down before anything more could be done. 

That said, I do stand by my previous idea that it would be possible to kill a Shard's Vessel by using Hemalurgy, though it would require one to be creative and very, very lucky- you'd need to do more than just stab the Vessel and expect them to die, you'd need to use the power of the spike against them somehow, and even then your chances aren't very high of surviving the encounter.

 

Remember, Hemalurgic spikes are relatively severely limited in how much Investiture they can hold, they are far less Invested then metalminds.
Single spike would not take much away from Vessel, certainly not enough to do any real damage.

On 21/04/2023 at 6:34 PM, Trusk'our said:

It does make me wonder though; how much "power" fuels Hemalurgy when you're ripping of chunks of Spiritweb? We have a more stable amount Nightblood- the Investiture it holds from its Awakening and what it's taken from slain opponents- but a Hemalurgic spike contains no power until it's charged with a person's Investiture.

That is indeed the question.
I think it is not much power, so Hemalurgy (without advanced hacks) will be on 'people' level only, not Shard level.

Part of the reasoning is that Hemalurgy can be used to do similar things to Bondsmithing, and that is intentionally heavily restricted art (both in-world, and by Brandon). So I doubt Hemalurgy, which can be practiced by anyone, will approach anywhere near that scale of power.

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My current thinking is that when you use Hemalurgy you draw directly from Shard of Ruin in the SR, side-stepping the need for Ruin's current Vessel to give permission, similar to Allomancy and Preservation.

Shards don't grant permission to access Invested art, if you fulfill the requirements (in this case metal + donor + Intent in line with Ruin) then you get power. Shard cannot prevent that.

On 21/04/2023 at 6:34 PM, Trusk'our said:

If you draw only on a portion of Ruin proportional to the size of the spike you use, perhaps a larger spike would transfer more Investiture from the donor to the spike. In that case, spiking a Vessel likely would just not be very useful, at least to kill or maim them.

If anything I think it is relatively fixed amount of power. You rip of chunk of spiritweb, and most time the chunks are relatively 'same sized', so more power is not necessarily required.

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Or perhaps it only depends on how much Investiture the donor has- if you're drawing upon an amount of Ruin proportional to the amount of Investiture of your donor, you'd get all the targeted Investiture of donor torn out, regardless of the size of the spike (though, if you're using a small spike, most of the Investiture may be lost, similar to how Nightblood can't really hold all of its Investiture). If this turns out to be the case, I think that seriously harming a Shardic Vessel via Hemalurgy is a much more realistic course of action.

Doubtful, in no Invested art do you get more Investiture available, simply because you want/need it to accomplish something.
Either amount of Investiture is fixed (Feruchemy, Allomancy, Forgery) or it uses external source (Awakening, Surgebinding). From what we know of Hemalurgy, it falls in the scope of fixed Investiture.

On 21/04/2023 at 6:34 PM, Trusk'our said:

More RoW spoilers.

  Reveal hidden contents

As for why Cultivation/Endowment used Nightblood over Hemalurgy, perhaps they don't know about Hemalurgy, or at least haven't thought of using it against Vessels? Or perhaps they aren't fond of letting the information get out that anyone with a chunk of completely normal metal could attack a Shard?

Also, Nightblood would still be way better if you just wanted to destroy a Vessel- Hemalurgy might be able to do it, but it'd be a lot more risky and would require more work on the assassin's part.

 

Spoiler

All Shards are (or should be) broadly aware of other Invested arts (since they can all grant all in principle). Additionally, other Shards visited Scadrial , so those would most likely know, and Silverlight (and other worldhoppers) are aware of so it stands to reason that nearly omniscient Shards would know of Hemalurgy.

Using Nightblood is actually more risky, since Vessels are clearly aware of it and fear it (including Rayse), it was only a lot of luck (and Renarin) that Rayse was unable to stop Taravangian.
On the other hand, hemalurgy requires ordinary piece of metal and Intent, so Rayse would have nothing to react to since all he would see is Stupid Taravangian with regular piece of metal, not unholy abomination that is Nightblood.

You could pass that information to Taravangian in such a way that he would realize metal can hurt Shards only shortly before meeting Rayse (which is basically what happened anyway), so that information is contained.

The simplest explanation for why Hemalurgy was not used for it, is simply that Hemalurgy cannot be used in such a way, the power disparity is simply too large.
 

At this stage, there are only two non-Shard entities that are confirmed to hold power on similar level, and can meaningfully interact with Shards/Vessels

Spoiler

Nightblood, in whose creation Shard was involved.
Dalinar, who is bonded to remnants of a Shard.

and in both cases Shards are directly Involved anyway.

Edited April 23, 2023 by therunner

[Trusk'our]

10 hours ago, therunner said:

Remember, Hemalurgic spikes are relatively severely limited in how much Investiture they can hold, they are far less Invested then metalminds.
Single spike would not take much away from Vessel, certainly not enough to do any real damage.

Personally, I think the reason Hemalurgic spikes have such a small amount of Investiture is because they don't have such highly Invested targets, just normal humans or Allomancers, which aren't counted as being "particularly Invested" when not burning metals.

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https://wob.coppermind.net/events/93/#e2675

Blightsong

Would it be harder for Jasnah to Soulcast a Knight Radiant?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Would it be harder for her to Soulcast a Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, Investiture resists Investiture. It's harder for her to even Soulcast a person than a rock, right?

Questioner

Is a Mistborn Invested?

Brandon Sanderson

The Mistborn, while they're burning the metal. They are not specifically Invested when they are not burning. When the Investiture becomes active, then yes. Before, no.

Blightsong

So Kelsier, he stayed around longer, not because he was Invested, but because he had the potential to use Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

Over time using the magic will Invest you, on Scadrial. Most of the power is not coming from, on Roshar the power isn't coming from the person either [he cut himself off, so I assume this is how it works on Scadrial even though he didn't finish his thought] so I'm going to have to back up on that one and say, yes, the Mistborn are as Invested as a Knight Radiant, because in both cases the majority, bulk, of the power is coming from somewhere else, but there is the Spiritweb. Investing the wrong term, but you have all these connections in the Spiritual Realm, so yanking you away from them, or rewriting them is harder.

Questioner

Would they be harder with more Stormlight or metals burning?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, yes. That would increase the difficulty ratio. For instance, wearing Shardplate is gonna be a great barrier, right, and things like that so yeah. The problem is like, Invested is the wrong term for that, their Spiritweb is connected in different ways.

And I think that you're right in that a spike just couldn't hold a charge big enough to account for a Vessel's power, but I don't necessarily think that rules out that some damage could be done with it. It's too early to tell if this is actually the case, however, or just my current thought process.

10 hours ago, therunner said:

That is indeed the question.
I think it is not much power, so Hemalurgy (without advanced hacks) will be on 'people' level only, not Shard level.

Part of the reasoning is that Hemalurgy can be used to do similar things to Bondsmithing, and that is intentionally heavily restricted art (both in-world, and by Brandon). So I doubt Hemalurgy, which can be practiced by anyone, will approach anywhere near that scale of power.

I don't know that Hemalurgy is ever really going to be on par with Unchained Bondsmithing; Bondsmithing has no "cost" involved from what I can tell, especially since you can just open a Perpendicularity with it to fuel your powers. Hemalurgy may be accessible to anyone with the proper knowledge, but it has multiple costs (some of them very high) and there are greater physical limitations in that there a limit to the number of spikes a practioner can bear at once.

So, from a meta perspective, I don't think restrictions on Hemalurgy's "level of power" are necessary, since it already has balancing factors.

That is personal opinion on my part, however.

[alder24]

1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

Personally, I think the reason Hemalurgic spikes have such a small amount of Investiture is because they don't have such highly Invested targets, just normal humans or Allomancers, which aren't counted as being "particularly Invested" when not burning metals.

Read this WoB a little further down  

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I'm going to have to back up on that one and say, yes, the Mistborn are as Invested as a Knight Radiant, because in both cases the majority, bulk, of the power is coming from somewhere else, but there is the Spiritweb. Investing the wrong term, but you have all these connections in the Spiritual Realm, so yanking you away from them, or rewriting them is harder.

Plus a single spike can likely hold more abilities than one, they just don't know about it and don't know how to do it. 

Spoiler

Aerlion

Is it possible to use Hemalurgic spikes to steal multiple attributes from the same person?

Brandon Sanderson

No. At least, this isn't thought to be possible

General Signed Books 2018 (March 20, 2018)

 

1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

And I think that you're right in that a spike just couldn't hold a charge big enough to account for a Vessel's power, but I don't necessarily think that rules out that some damage could be done with it. It's too early to tell if this is actually the case, however, or just my current thought process.

The problem I see is that Vessel's soul is vastly expanded by the power of the Shard and merged with it. It's not as simple as spiking Connection to that Shard from the Vessel, as all of him is Connected to the Shard. Vessel's soul is just far greater for any hemalurgic damage to matter to him. 

[Trusk'our]

40 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Read this WoB a little further down  

Plus a single spike can likely hold more abilities than one, they just don't know about it and don't know how to do it. 

Yes, I think that's a very real possibility. 

40 minutes ago, alder24 said:

The problem I see is that Vessel's soul is vastly expanded by the power of the Shard and merged with it. It's not as simple as spiking Connection to that Shard from the Vessel, as all of him is Connected to the Shard. Vessel's soul is just far greater for any hemalurgic damage to matter to him. 

Hmmm, yeah, that might prove to be a problem when trying to spike them.

Edited April 23, 2023 by Trusk'our