Mistborn Adventure Game is out! (Possible Spoilers)

[Rayonn]

Depending on where a Duralumin spike is driven in, it steals, stores, and transfers a single Feruchemical Power derived from any one of the four Enhancement Metals (e.g. the ability to store or tap identity, connection, fortune, or investiture). Each spike may store only one Power.

Because the abilities stored in Duralumin are so personal, these spikes can be very dangerous. A character receiving one may wind up permanently sharing his head with the spike's previous victim, or worse, find their own personality completely overridden.

This one seems a little more out there. I'd expect this more from stealing a human attribute. I don't immediately see why stealing a Feruchemical power--essentially hacking the Spiritweb--actually brings the other attributes of the person with it. I'll have to RAFO until that comes out in a book, or until I have more explanation.

I would imagine this could happen if you tapped someone else's aluminummind--perhaps that's what it's referring to?

EDIT: Ninja'd.

Edited December 17, 2011 by Rayonn

[Chaos]

I sense a double standard for double posting.

Thank you. As to luck, I was hoping there was a mechanism for how your luck expressed itself, as in: will storing luck make it more likely that a meteor hits your house, while tapping it makes you win the lottery? I guess there isn't definite info on stuff like that, though.

That's essentially how it works, yeah.

(And hey, my second post added things to the discussion That's allowed by the rules. Also, I'm totally rationalizing.)

You just store up enough of your identity that the metalmind no longer recognizes you as Person B anymore. It doesn't recognize you as a person at all, but you still are a Feruchemist and able to use metalminds, and perhaps that is how one uses someone else's metalmind.

I also have an idea about stealing spiritual powers and getting someone else's personality/voice/identity along with it. But it is late and I'm not sure I'd make enough sense for that one. Plus I need to know if Spiritweb was akin to Spiritual DNA, which I feel lIke I've heard before.

That's an interesting thought.

Yeah, I sort of interpreted the Spiritweb as a spatially-distributed spiritual DNA. Or, your own spiritual overlay, which is defined by spiritual DNA, much like our bodies are governed by regular DNA. But that's all super hypothetical. I would say there's definitely a relation there, though.

Except you can only do it with metalminds, not with Allomancy, as far as I can tell from the text.

EDIT: Yeah, as far as the Adventure Game text is concerned, it's strictly applied to Feruchemy. "In this way investiture is the most potent enhancement available in Feruchemy, a reserve of pure, universal power that can amplify nearly any Feruchemical effort."

Right, that was theoretical. I see no reason, though, that if Investiture is "generalized power", that one couldn't store the Allomantic effects in it. That'd of course require for you to be an Allomancer and a Feruchemist, but still, since both are "Investitures" and nicrosil can store Investitures, I'd say this is the best explanation for how the Lord Ruler enhanced his brass burning.

After all, the RPG implies that the Lord Ruler wanted to store the Well's power in nicrosilminds. If you can do that, you can sure as hell store some measly Allomancy. It's all generalized power, but you have to be the one to control it, I think.

We think he was Compounding his Age multiple times, using multiple metalminds via Nicrosil.

*Shrug* My interest on the subject, frankly, is practically nil at this time. Efficiency or not, Brandon said that the Lord Ruler eventually would've hit a limit of how much age he can actually store--it wouldn't be a big enough multiplier for him Compound back to the age he wanted. So it doesn't really matter at this point whether the Lord Ruler stored age, then stored it into nicrosil, etc.

Seems easy enough to explain: it's the Identity and Connection of the person killed to make the spike, not the users. Terrifyingly simple.

Hmm. It makes sense, I suppose. I'll need to meditate on that.

[Eric]

Right, that was theoretical. I see no reason, though, that if Investiture is "generalized power", that one couldn't store the Allomantic effects in it. That'd of course require for you to be an Allomancer and a Feruchemist, but still, since both are "Investitures" and nicrosil can store Investitures, I'd say this is the best explanation for how the Lord Ruler enhanced his brass burning.

After all, the RPG implies that the Lord Ruler wanted to store the Well's power in nicrosilminds. If you can do that, you can sure as hell store some measly Allomancy. It's all generalized power, but you have to be the one to control it, I think.

Except that it translates the power into general Investiture; it's not storing brass burning any more than it is wakefulness or weight. I think it's the boost from tapping that could later be applied to the Allomancy; the source seems pretty irrelevant to me. (My apologies if this is what you meant, I'm too tired to sleep.)

*Shrug* My interest on the subject, frankly, is practically nil at this time. Efficiency or not, Brandon said that the Lord Ruler eventually would've hit a limit of how much age he can actually store--it wouldn't be a big enough multiplier for him Compound back to the age he wanted. So it doesn't really matter at this point whether the Lord Ruler stored age, then stored it into nicrosil, etc.

True, I think those of us still considering it are mostly wondering how he made it as long as he did. Nicrosil seems to cover that base pretty well.

EDIT: One of the biggest things I'm not seeing us talk about is the Hemalurgic charge of a spike. Turns out the better the Allomancer or Feruchemist was with the ability, the better the stored ability. This will always be less than the victim's, and starts decaying... to a point. There is a minimum point that spikes don't decay past. This answers particular questions about the earrings (both Vin's and Wax's).

This might further explain something about the Lord Ruler. We know he had spikes, and we know that they don't enhance Feruchemy. So was he enhancing his Atium Allomancy with one of them? Seems likely. With the other, was he actually taking Keepers, making them store age for as long as possible, then spiking them to steal their metalminds and minimizing the time he spent aged? Always another secret indeed.

Edited December 17, 2011 by Eric

[Chaos]

No, I am still going off the idea that the Investitures are separate, I guess, description be damned. It still feels wrong that the Lord Ruler could store any attribute and use it for age. That does not feel right. If this were true there would not be an upper bound for the Lord Ruler's age trick, and I am fairly certain I heard at Alloy that he wouldn't be able to keep it up forever. Hell, just store weight forever and use that for age. Weight doesn't run out or get harder to store as you get older. So, it is possible this Investiture description is more for the game and not totally canonical.

[CrazyRioter]

well by the games description you need to have an equal amount of the attribute you plan to use actually stored, whether this is just for the sake of game-balance sanity or whether it's an actual canonical rule remains to be seen.

[Chaos]

Any nicrosilmind the Lord Ruler would have had, however, could be Compounded, so that really breaks that quick.

[Eric]

@Chaos: While your points are valid (especially the secondary canon status of the RPG in general), it's not a perfect system even assuming I'm correct in how I view it. Diminishing returns: two "charges" of weight become one of general investiture, which boosts when he taps age. He has to store age to have it to boost with Nicrosil in the first place, and he can't tap while storing. Eventually, I'd guess that gold and pewter wouldn't be enough to keep him alive at such an advanced age, though at what point that would be, I haven't any idea.

Edited December 17, 2011 by Eric

[name_here]

The primary issue I see with presuming he compounded age directly is that it would require he burn significant quantities of atium on a fairly regular basis. Which is a pretty neat trick when you realize there were six beads in the entirety of Kredik Shaw, all in his bracers. And he couldn't draw on the atium in the Kandra storehouse because his entire elaborate master plan required that it stayed there.

Compounding other storages gets around that problem, though. I doubt he compounded nicrosil itself, because it's got a milder version of the same problem, but he could get all the iron and brass he wanted, fill his nicrosilminds with those, transfer the result to his atiumminds, and tap them.

[Deus Ex Biotica]

@Chaos: While your points are valid (especially the secondary canon status of the RPG in general), it's not a perfect system even assuming I'm correct in how I view it. Diminishing returns: two "charges" of weight become one of general investiture, which boosts when he taps age. He has to store age to have it to boost with Nicrosil in the first place, and he can't tap while storing. Eventually, I'd guess that gold and pewter wouldn't be enough to keep him alive at such an advanced age, though at what point that would be, I haven't any idea.

But this raises an amusing question on its own. Can he burn things for Allomancy while filling Investure? If he can, then Bob's his uncle, since he can burn Metalminds for all the benefits of tapping, breaking the system even further. If he cannot, then there's nothing to save him, and he still dies the moment he returns to his full age.

I suppose it's possible that he could burn things for Allomancy, but would not get sneaky Feruchemy bonuses during that time, but that's still pretty dire: he can't get Health from gold, so all he'd have to save him is Pewter, pitted against 1,024+ years of age. That seems... a little unlikely, but possible, I suppose.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

[Lanscaper]

Quick thought, if you have two metalminds of the same metal, can you tap one, and fill the other simultaneously, since they are two discrete reservoirs? Or is this like transferring the charge from mind to another?

And if my ignorance has made me state something that has been addressed before, well my apologies for interrupting this thread.

Edited December 17, 2011 by Lanscaper

[Eric]

As long as it's not Nicrosil, I believe you can, yes. It would be effectively the same as transferring the storage as long as you are storing and tapping at the same rate.

[TheBobs]

For those that have purchased and seen it . . . would you recommend it to someone who probably won't ever play the game?

How long is the PDF, how much info? The description on the site implies it gives some more info on the Steel Ministry.

If there's a lot of 'cool' info I'd be more then willing to fork out the 15 bucks considering that I can pay more than that going out and watching a movie.

[KChan]

It's 563 pages and chock full of really awesome world elements. The Treatise Metallurgic, Inkthinker's beautiful art, predatory mistwraiths, and pirates in the Southern Islands? Yes, please! Not to mention, the Kelsier and Gemmel short story in the beginning is worth the 15 bucks on its own. It's definitely an awesome value, whether or not you'll get a chance to actually play the game.

[Kurkistan]

Are there any particularly fun annotations someone wants to share?

[KChan]

I really enjoyed his personal anecdotes about his own gaming experience, and his insights into character writing. Since the Mistborn RPG is largely story-driven, having a strong character is really important to the game, and you can get a lot of really good writing advice out of his annotations. He also gives us some great tidbits on the magic and the world that we don't really see in the books, like how there are rogue kandra. Really interesting stuff.

Also, for you crazy mathemeticians on the board, he admits to breaking some of the laws of physics.

[Eric]

For those that have purchased and seen it . . . would you recommend it to someone who probably won't ever play the game?

How long is the PDF, how much info? The description on the site implies it gives some more info on the Steel Ministry.

If there's a lot of 'cool' info I'd be more then willing to fork out the 15 bucks considering that I can pay more than that going out and watching a movie.

Honestly, I don't intend to play the game. Most of my gaming group are pretty unreliable for regular games because of our work schedules (and, right now, holidays). I bought it out of the sheer awesome of understanding a little bit more of the world and the magic.

As fully stocked as it is with pure awesome, I can't recommend it enough (especially for just $15).

[Chaos]

It is well worth the price. As Kerry said, the Kelsier short story is worth it alone.

Though if you want to game and just don't have reliable gaming groups, we are setting up some campaigns using these rules. So you will be able to game here at least.

[TheBobs]

It is well worth the price. As Kerry said, the Kelsier short story is worth it alone.

Though if you want to game and just don't have reliable gaming groups, we are setting up some campaigns using these rules. So you will be able to game here at least.

...

...

bought.

And I'd like to be in on the above if possible. If not, that's cool.

Reading the short story now, skimmed table of contents.

Worth the 15 dollars, easy.

Thanks guys.

[KChan]

You're very welcome! And you're absolutely welcome to participate. We'll have either one or two campaigns going at first, so there'll be plenty of chances to join up with a crew and play out some awesome adventures! What's really cool is that Brandon specifically says in his annotations that he also wanted the rules to work well in a forum setting. I'm really grateful for that, since it's hard for me to get with my face-to-face gaming group at all anymore.

[ReaderAt2046]

Aluminum is identity, and holy cra[.

Sorry, I meant how the Feruchemical aspect of those metals worked. Sorry for the lack of clarity.

Speaking of clarity, how exactly could storing or tapping your identity allow you to access someone else's metalminds?

If you are storing your own identity, you can change your identity to match that of whoever stored them, "tricking" the power into thinking it was yours.

[callumke]

If you are storing your own identity, you can change your identity to match that of whoever stored them, "tricking" the power into thinking it was yours.

But you can't change your identity, only store and retrieve it. You don't change in that process.

I think that, by two Feruchemists working together, then they could share metalminds.

If a Feruchemist stores her identity in an aluminiummind, and she stores other attributes simultaneously, then the stored other attributes do not have an identity attached, and so could be used by another Feruchemist.

At least that was how I interpreted it.

Edited December 19, 2011 by FireArcadia

[Kurkistan]

But you can't change your identity, only store and retrieve it. You don't change in that process.

I think that, by two Feruchemists working together, then they could share metalminds.

If a Feruchemista stores her identity in an aluminiummind, and she stores other attributes simultaneously, then the stored other attributes do not have an identity attached, and so could be used by another Feruchemist.

At least that was how I interpreted it.

Ah, I like that interpretation. Makes sense.

[Deus Ex Biotica]

Interestingly, that implies that if you fill Identity at 100%, any other Keeper could then use the Metalmind with that Identity at full effect, to use all your other Metalminds.

That said, I can see someone with no Identity tricking the system - just like burning your own Metals tricks the soul of Preservation into compounding. It depends on how Inditity works - if checks that you ARE the right person, or that you AREN'T anyone else. The latter is quite trickable.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

[Eric]

I only just realized this. As written, the RPG allows Kandra to gain Allomancy and Feruchemy from Hemalurgic spikes. I wouldn't take this as definitive, but it seems very telling.

[KChan]

Actually, they prevent that on page 102:

Your character’s choice of race is limited by the Powers he has:

• A character with no Powers may be a noble, skaa, or Terris.
  
• A character with Allomantic Powers must be either a noble or a skaa.
  
• A character with Feruchemical Powers must be Terris.
  
• A character with the Mimicry Power must be a kandra.