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Region-Locked Magic


Kurkistan

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So let's talk about region-locking of magic on Sel and why Shai can get away with Forging outside of her native region.

Background:

We know that access the the Dor is "very regionally influenced." We know that Aonics are the only ones taken by the Shaod, but we also know that that is regional more so than any racial restriction, since the Aonics themselves migrated to Elantris.

As an aside, I would hazard that the Shaod itself is a consequence of Elantris the city (which was there before the Aonics): Elantris both powers Elantrians and causes them to be taken by the Shaod in the first place.

And now I go into crazyland.

Crazyland:

I hereby propose that the drawing of any "regional" symbol in a magic system is first and foremost a way to get around "region locking" for accessing the Dor. Therefore, Shai draws MaiPon as a "setting mark" on her soulstamp as way to bypass the normal restriction that the Dor can only be accessed for Forgery while in MaiPon. This indicates that Forgery can theoretically be done within Maipon without any need for a setting mark.

I would then suggest that all of the "region locked" magic system on Sel work this same way: they function perfectly fine within their home regions, but require the incorporation of some representation of that home region if they are to be used outside of it. Like using a proxy-server to watch Doctor Who without living in Britain.

So Dahkor monks have some representation of Fjorden engraved in their skin and ChayShan incorporates the region of Jindo into its movements.

Why Elantris (hopefully) Doesn't Totally Disprove This:

Things are complicated because Elantrians, essentially, have gamed the system to the maximum extent possible. My theory would simply be pure speculation without some non-Elantrian Selian magic system to study in detail, which TES has given us.

I suggest that the original builders of Elantris, be it Devotion or some now-gone people, built Elantris as a way to channel all of the "Dor access" of the entirety to Arelon into one location, and so strengthen that access. In a pre-Elantris Arelon, then, the drawing of Aons would be much more like Forging, and could be done by anyone, although perhaps not out of thin air.

Elantris, then, channels all of the power-access of Arelon into a concentrated source and, moreover, chooses only a few individuals to be able to wield that power, further concentrating it. Another leap I'll make is that Elantris also intentionally limits the "reach" of AonDor as a further means of concentrating its power. So Aons no longer represent Arelon, as far as the magic system is concerned, but instead represent Elantris itself, which in turn represents Arelon.

Therefor, the reason why Elantrians are become weaker when they go farther away from Elantris is because they are no longer just accessing an entire land (as normal Selian magic systems do), they instead are forced to go through a single conduit which may or may not have restrictions on sending its power far abroad. If Elantris did not exist, then anyone could use AonDor anywhere, just with much-reduced effects.

The weaksauce healing that Raoden did while under the Reod might actually be something like the default power level of AonDor (though perhaps weakend by the city siphoning and squandering a large amount of its power). Raoden's complicated, specific Aons worked okay, but a complete Elantris allows the crude, simple stuff to have so much power that they work as well.

Without Elantris, then, anyone would be able to use AonDor within Arelon without any need to draw the country itself, and anyone outside of Arelon would be able to use AonDor as long as they incorporated Arelon (Aon Aon) into their Aons.

Alternatively, it could just be a "distance=>less power" thing, but I think not, given the Dahkor's strength.

So, my first not-obvious theory from the new book. Have fun being mean to it. smile.gif

EDIT: Nevermind! So the truth is, apparently, exactly the opposite of what I say here. Assuming "interesting" means "yes," drawing Arelon as the base for a Forgery would allow it to work in Elantris, while keeping MaiPon as the base would make it stop working. Power-loss is all about distance from the source-country. Source.

Edited by Kurkistan
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The way I've always seen it is that Elantris is a power amplifier, and when outside its range AonDor goes back to working at its normal strength. In fact, Raoden notes that in Teod, AonDor was about the same strength as it was when Elantris wasn't working. I think that AonDor itself will work anywhere on Sel, but it's only strong in proximity to Elantris. I'm pretty sure Brandon has said somewhere that the Shaod must have existed before Elantris was constructed. You have be living near Arelon for that to happen, but I don't think the selection is caused by Elantris. It is however, probably the reason they constructed Elantris in Arelon. I also don't think AonDor itself would get any weaker than it was in Teod, as long you were still on Sel. Notably, the other magic systems don't seem to vary in strength due to location- the Dakhor aren't noted as being any weaker in Teod than they were in Arelon, despite being much further from Fjordel, and Shai doesn't seem to have any problems using Forgery outside her homeland. So I'm inclined to think that AonDor is only different because of the Elantris-amplifier-Aon. The way I saw it is that it's your place of birth that affects what your spiritual DNA is, which determines what magic system you'll be able to use to access the Dor.

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The way I've always seen it is that Elantris is a power amplifier, and when outside its range AonDor goes back to working at its normal strength. In fact, Raoden notes that in Teod, AonDor was about the same strength as it was when Elantris wasn't working. I think that AonDor itself will work anywhere on Sel, but it's only strong in proximity to Elantris. I'm pretty sure Brandon has said somewhere that the Shaod must have existed before Elantris was constructed. You have be living near Arelon for that to happen, but I don't think the selection is caused by Elantris.

That makes sense, then. Oops. I found the link for the Shaod. So Elantrians existed before Elantris, then.

EDIT: And most likely had a unique access to AonDor, as well. That's very odd.

OR, Devotion stepped in to create Elantrians who are particularly skilled at AonDor and/or can do it easily, but AonDor is still fundamentally doable by non-Elantrians in a world without Elantris (or maybe even with Elantris, but nobody tries).

It is however, probably the reason they constructed Elantris in Arelon. I also don't think AonDor itself would get any weaker than it was in Teod, as long you were still on Sel. Notably, the other magic systems don't seem to vary in strength due to location- the Dakhor aren't noted as being any weaker in Teod than they were in Arelon, despite being much further from Fjordel, and Shai doesn't seem to have any problems using Forgery outside her homeland. So I'm inclined to think that AonDor is only different because of the Elantris-amplifier-Aon. The way I saw it is that it's your place of birth that affects what your spiritual DNA is, which determines what magic system you'll be able to use to access the Dor.

I might agree with it just being individual sDNA, but then we have everyone and their dog being capable of Forging, despite the races of the empire (forget the name) appearing to be extremely distinct from the MaiPon, to the point of "otherising" them so much that the Jindo and MaiPon are seen as the same.

Edited by Kurkistan
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OR, Devotion stepped in to create Elantrians who are particularly skilled at AonDor and/or can do it easily, but AonDor is still fundamentally doable by non-Elantrians in a world without Elantris (or maybe even with Elantris, but nobody tries).

Sarene Tried to all those days in Elantris but couldn't access the dor with aons either.

I always thought the city's reason for being built was to make the Shaod more powerful but I don't know enough to back it up.

Edited by Windrunner
Please don't double post, you can simply use the edit button. Thanks! :)
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The relationship between Elantris and AonDor isn't very well understood by us right now. We originally thought that Elantris provided a simple boost in power to AonDor. Then at Alloy it was revealed that the Shaod is an effect of Elantris. So things aren't really clear right now.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The relationship between Elantris and AonDor isn't very well understood by us right now. We originally thought that Elantris provided a simple boost in power to AonDor. Then at Alloy it was revealed that the Shaod is an effect of Elantris. So things aren't really clear right now.

Is it possible that the "can draw Aons" part of the Shaod doesn't come from Elantris but the rest of it (glowing, enhanced body, long life, etc) does? That is, imagine that Elantris contains somewhere in its complex Aon coding a set of lines that basically say "Take everyone who can draw Aons and transform them in this manner". So when Raoden gained the power to draw Aons (which in my view is a function of his Devotion, not of Elantris), Elantris noticed that and tried to do the rest of the transformation.

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There's a more obvious answer.

"She remained in place, kneeling. That stamp seemed the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Her ancestors had worshipped rocks that fell from the sky at night. The souls of broken gods, those chunks had been called. Master craftsmen would carve them to bring out the shape."

A while ago Odium splintered Devotion and Dominion. Their physical forms, asteroids or moons above the planet, shattered and fell to the earth. These rocks had their magic power concentrated in them, as with Atium, and serve as fuel for the magic, massively amplifying the range you have for any magical act.

As we well know, random rumours that people have heard are always true, so Soulstone is definitely the soul of a broken God.

Edited by Nepene
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  • 2 weeks later...

Soulstone is easy to work with for making soulstamps, but there's no particular indication that it makes the stamps more powerful than an equally well-made stamp from another material. In fact, crystal is apparently superior but not as easy to work with.

Then again, Atium and Lerasium were massively powerful fuels for a system which depends heavily on specific types and compositions of metals. It's possible that a Mistborn could burn Soulstone to perform Forging by staring at things and thinking about how a Soulcaster could have used them in combat by turning them into fire instead. Or something equally outlandish.

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I'm thinking that we need to be asking the opposite question: not "why does Forging work everywhere?" but "why does AonDor get weaker?" Forging seems to work everywhere, but we also see Dhakor and (briefly) ChayShan working outside their native regions. I got the impression that the Elantrians' region-lock is the exception, rather than the rule.

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We don't think so. AonDor, as I'm sure you can see contains the prefix "Aon" which seems to be a part of the name Aona, who we know held Devotion. Also, if you look carefully, the Elantrians are all "Devoted" to something, Raoden to his people, Karata to her family, Galladon to his farm, Taan to his sculpting. This seems to imply that the Shaod takes those who are especially devoted to something, which again, makes it seem like Devotion is the Shard behind this magic. But then there's the confusing fact that four of the five manifestations of Investiture on Sel (and probably all five, we don't know about Bloodsealing yet) draw power from the Dor, who's nature is still unclear.

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Wind, on the flipside, you could also argue that religions are under Dominion too. There is a place where it is stated that the Shu religions all came from the same point. I don't think anyone would argue that Derethi priests are of Devotion. The most telling to me is that Sarene calls her god Domi. That sounds like a contracted form of Dominion more than it does as being related to Devotion. Not all of the meanings of Dominion are negative.

We know that the current residents near Elantris migrated there from elsewhere. They could have brought the Dominion based religion with them to an area that was under Devotion's influence.

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Well, I'm slightly confused why this is relevant, considering I was giving evidence for why AonDor seems to be of Devotion rather then Dominion, and not discussing religion at all really. Care to point out the connection I'm missing?

Also, these guys speak Aonic. (Or Arelish or whatever) Simply because a word from Sel sounds like a word from here doesn't mean that they two are connected at all. As a matter of fact, Domi comes from the Aon Omi, meaning love, which is certainly more in keeping with Devotion rather then Dominion.

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We don't think so. AonDor, as I'm sure you can see contains the prefix "Aon" which seems to be a part of the name Aona, who we know held Devotion. Also, if you look carefully, the Elantrians are all "Devoted" to something, Raoden to his people, Karata to her family, Galladon to his farm, Taan to his sculpting. This seems to imply that the Shaod takes those who are especially devoted to something, which again, makes it seem like Devotion is the Shard behind this magic. But then there's the confusing fact that four of the five manifestations of Investiture on Sel (and probably all five, we don't know about Bloodsealing yet) draw power from the Dor, who's nature is still unclear.

We do, actually. Bloodsealing is Forging. The Bloodsealer uses soulstamps carved from bone. (See the end of Day Three.)

I agree that Elantris simply strengthens AonDor within Arelon (as well as changes those who can use Aons through the Shaod).

AonDor came before Elantris and the Shaod--it pretty much had to. The original Elantrians must have built Elantris to strengthen AonDor, as well as strengthen those who can use AonDor physically through the Shaod.

Well, I'm slightly confused why this is relevant, considering I was giving evidence for why AonDor seems to be of Devotion rather then Dominion, and not discussing religion at all really. Care to point out the connection I'm missing?

Also, these guys speak Aonic. (Or Arelish or whatever) Simply because a word from Sel sounds like a word from here doesn't mean that they two are connected at all. As a matter of fact, Domi comes from the Aon Omi, meaning love, which is certainly more in keeping with Devotion rather then Dominion.

Well, you did just finish pointing out the connection between "Aon" and "Aona". Correlation, as you point out, isn't causation. Aon Omi could be named after Dominion, too, and I honestly don't see an issue with it. Shu-Dereth and Shu-Korath both come from Shu-Keseg, who preached unity--and Dominion is certainly connected with unity, as is Devotion. I imagine Shu-Keseg originally worshiped both Devotion and Dominion as their deity, though I doubt they were cosmere-aware enough to know the exact details (as both had likely been killed by Odium by that point). Dereth then took most of the teachings concerning Dominion as his focus, and Korath took Devotion's side instead. Without an actual connection, it is easy to imagine the teachings becoming corrupt enough that Korath believed "Domi" was the name of Devotion, and it ended up being the name for love in Aonic as a result. Of course, that is pure speculation, and it is more likely that it's a coincidence, but who knows?

Edited by lDanielHolm
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We do, actually. Bloodsealing is Forging. The Bloodsealer uses soulstamps carved from bone. (See the end of Day Three.)

Just a quick correction here, then I'll let you two get back to it.

You make the rather dubious assumption that Bloodsealing is a subset of Forging, rather than simply a related magic system.

Beyond their mutual need to impress symbols on objects in order to "magicize" them and (most likely) a similar 26-hour constraint on human-involved magic, the two systems are highly dissimilar.

First of all, Forgeries do not appear to maintain any connection to their creator, nor does their appear to be a way for a Forgeries creator (or anyone else, for that matter) to monitor a Forgery. The Bloodsealer uses his "door ward" to know when Shai crosses the threshold, and feels it when his skeleton-soldiers are destroyed by Shaizan.

Second, Forger's stamps do not, in fact, depend in any way upon the surface which they are carved on. Shai notes that soulstone is prized because of its ability to be cleanly carved and then hardened, not for any other properties. The only benefit of using "better" stamp material is to get a cleaner and longer-lasting stamp. You could probably carve a soul-changing stamp out of a bar of soap if you were careful with it. On the other hand (unless the Bloodsealer is just feeling morbid/theatrical that day), Bloodsealing appears to require bone-stamps.

Third, they work in fundamentally different ways. Forgery works by changing an objects history, with efficacy depending on the plausibility of that adjusted history. It doesn't give that object magical properties as far as the world is concerned, it simply transforms it (one time only) into a different version of itself.

Bloodsealing, on the other hand, establishes ongoing and controllable connections to people: from tracking someone by their blood to warding a door against them to animating (and controlling directly?) human skeletons. In no world could Forging convince a skeleton that it is, in fact, animate and at the control of its creator. The plausibility of such a proposition is nearly negative.

Fourth, Forging of any type seems to work for any organic-ink, though to varying degrees, while Bloodsealing requires blood specifically (and in doing so establishes non-Forge-y connections to the blood's "donor").

Because of these differences, but mostly because of the first and third ones, I contest that Bloodsealing is a unique brand of magic all its own, potentially related to but certainly not derived from Forging.

P.S. And I'm allowed to derail this thread because it's my thread, so hah! :P

Edited by Kurkistan
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Mmhmm, I actually put the question to Josh to ask Brandon about, so we'll see what the audio comes back with, when it's done. I'm fairly certain Forgery and Bloodsealing are not the same thing.

Well, you did just finish pointing out the connection between "Aon" and "Aona". Correlation, as you point out, isn't causation. Aon Omi could be named after Dominion, too, and I honestly don't see an issue with it. Shu-Dereth and Shu-Korath both come from Shu-Keseg, who preached unity--and Dominion is certainly connected with unity, as is Devotion. I imagine Shu-Keseg originally worshiped both Devotion and Dominion as their deity, though I doubt they were cosmere-aware enough to know the exact details (as both had likely been killed by Odium by that point). Dereth then took most of the teachings concerning Dominion as his focus, and Korath took Devotion's side instead. Without an actual connection, it is easy to imagine the teachings becoming corrupt enough that Korath believed "Domi" was the name of Devotion, and it ended up being the name for love in Aonic as a result. Of course, that is pure speculation, and it is more likely that it's a coincidence, but who knows?

Dude, what you say is true, but do you really think that "coincidentally" a magic system and the name of one of the Shardholders is the same? Skai already has his thing, in the form of the Skaze. Sure they could have mixed things up, but Ati and Leras still stuck as the names of things from their Shards. Sure, one Aon has a similar bit to part of a Shard's intent. You've neatly glossed over the fact that no one on Sel uses the word Dominion. It's in English, they speak an entirely different language. Aona and Aon are both cosmere words. Omi is cosmere and Dominion is not.

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Just a quick correction here, then I'll let you two get back to it.

You make the rather dubious assumption that Bloodsealing is a subset of Forging, rather than simply a related magic system.

What is the difference between it being "a subset of Forging" and it being "simply a related magic system"?

Yes, there are differences between what Shai does and what the Bloodsealer does, but there are various branches in Forging, including Soul Forging like Shai's Essence Marks, and what Gaotona calls Rememberers (that is, ordinary Forgeries). Resealing--or Flesh Forgery--is another--most telling, it's a type of Forging that Shai hasn't studied extensively (one of several, in fact).

Shai refers to it, in every instance she encounters it, as a form of Forging. She thinks of the skeletons as "Forgeries", even. She refers to the process of him taking her blood as "inking" his stamp. She compares Ashravan's need to be stamped every day with the Bloodsealer's need to stamp her door.

Lastly, she takes the Bloodsealer's blood and makes sure to tell him. How that act makes sense unless Bloodsealing is a subset of Forgery, I cannot even begin to fathom.

Since Shai seems to consider it a subset of Forging, I shall do the same.

You seem to have this odd idea that Forging cannot produce something magical, but I don't see why. If plausibility is the problem, there is still magic on Sel other than Forging.

Dude, what you say is true, but do you really think that "coincidentally" a magic system and the name of one of the Shardholders is the same? Skai already has his thing, in the form of the Skaze. Sure they could have mixed things up, but Ati and Leras still stuck as the names of things from their Shards. Sure, one Aon has a similar bit to part of a Shard's intent. You've neatly glossed over the fact that no one on Sel uses the word Dominion. It's in English, they speak an entirely different language. Aona and Aon are both cosmere words. Omi is cosmere and Dominion is not.

I don't do that glossing over intentionally, I simply didn't think of it. Of course you're right, though.

I certainly don't think the naming of AonDor is coincidental, I just thought it was odd that you protested a link between two words when you had just made the same link in a previous post. :P The protest that Dominion is English makes perfect sense, though.

Edited by lDanielHolm
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What is the difference between it being "a subset of Forging" and it being "simply a related magic system"?

A subset would be like how soul-Forging is basically the same process as Forging a rock, or Forging someone healthy, with the practices and knowledge of each subset of the broader "Forging" category being virtually identical. The only reason Shai can't Reseal is because she didn't put in the time to learn the human body well enough; similar to how her knowledge of painting, while necessary for Forging a painting, does not make "Paint-Forging" a different art (hur hur) altogether.

*Mistborn Spoilers*

"Simply a related magic system" means that there are fundamental differences on one or many levels, while some superficial similarities that are helpful for comparison and theorizing remain. The effects of Hemalurgically endowed Strength are comparable to Feruchemical Strength, and might even come about from a similar increase in some "strength" stat coming in from the Spiritual Realm or something when you get down to the basics, but the magic systems and their surface-level mechanisms are quite different.

For instance, I think it's fair to assume that 26 hours is the same limit on human-related magic for each system in TES. I don't think that it's fair to assume that stamp-material mattters in Forging because it matters in Bloodsealing, especially since we've seen evidence that this is a difference between them.

Now Feruchemical Pewter, on the other hand, is a subset of Feruchemy in general: it works by the same mechanisms and rules as all other parts of Feruchemy, with a few quirks to differentiate it but no fundamental difference between Pewter and any other Feruchemical power.

The two magic systems in TES are related in that they are both form-based, end-positive investitures whose forms are actualized through the "stamping" of symbols on objects, and in that they both most likely draw upon the Dor. All of the magic systems on Sel, in fact, are probably fairly closely related because of their singular power source and end-positive, form-based nature.

Yes, there are differences between what Shai does and what the Bloodsealer does, but there are various branches in Forging, including Soul Forging like Shai's Essence Marks, and what Gaotona calls Rememberers (that is, ordinary Forgeries). Resealing--or Flesh Forgery--is another--most telling, it's a type of Forging that Shai hasn't studied extensively (one of several, in fact).

Actually, "Resealing was one of the few branches of Forgery that Shai hadn't studied in depth" (sorry, can't get the page number on the eBook). Not "several." :P

I already addressed how these "different" Forgeries are rightly subsets of a broader "Forging" magic system when I addressed the difference between related and subsidiary magics. The problem is that, while all the branches of Forging proper that we've seen so far share far more similarities than they have differences, Bloodsealing is an extreme aberration off crying by itself several miles away while the "other" branches are just in different rooms of the same house.

Shai refers to it, in every instance she encounters it, as a form of Forging. She thinks of the skeletons as "Forgeries", even. She refers to the process of him taking her blood as "inking" his stamp. She compares Ashravan's need to be stamped every day with the Bloodsealer's need to stamp her door.

She's fallible. I see this more as a failure in the narrator than as a definite fact of worldbuilding. If you knew a great deal about your magic system, possibly didn't even know or credit the existence of completely different magic systems, and knew a bit about another magic system that shared some surface similarities with yours, then you would probably assume that they were the same system too.

EDIT:

I already mentioned the re-stamping similarity, mostly to note that it was just about the only real 1:1 similarity between the two systems. Moreover, the ultimate reason for the 26-hour limit is the changeability of individual humans, which could quite rightly be thought to affect multiple disparate magic systems.

Shai changes into a different person every day, to such an extent that her blood no longer adequately characterizes her for the ward's purposes. Blood tracking, presumably, works by establishing some connection between someone's blood and the individual it once belonged to, akin to Gaotona's Spiritual connection to Ashravan. If the person the blood is supposed to connect to changes (as all people do at all times), then the blood no longer points to anything, and so stops working. 26 hours, then, is simply the longest time that any feasible connection between a representation of a Spiritual aspect and the aspect itself can be maintained.

Lastly, she takes the Bloodsealer's blood and makes sure to tell him. How that act makes sense unless Bloodsealing is a subset of Forgery, I cannot even begin to fathom.

That's a threat that she has no capability or intention of following through on, based on her previous comments on the evils of Bloodsealing. But if everyone is under the misapprehension that the two arts are one, and the Bloodsealer is currently scared out of his sad little mind, then that threat might buy her a few hours head-start. She needs to stop the Bloodsealer from tracking her through her blood for the benefit of the Empire, but doesn't want to kill him.

Since Shai doesn't know how to Bloodseal even if she wanted too--and I'm operating under the assumption that the denizens of the Rose Empire are simply mistaken when they say that the two magics are the same--Shaizan taking the Bloodsealer's blood doesn't provide much evidence of anything.

Since Shai seems to consider it a subset of Forging, I shall do the same.

See my previous comment on fallibility/unreliable narration.

You seem to have this odd idea that Forging cannot produce something magical, but I don't see why. If plausibility is the problem, there is still magic on Sel other than Forging.

Please tell me how you would go about describing an alternate past for a skeleton such that that skeleton, instead of being an inanimate sack of bones, is instead an automaton of death obeying the whims of its creator. Because that's how Forging works. It's not "congratulations, you now have this attribute," it's "your past was different such that you are thus instead of so."

In order for Forging to animate those skeletons by accessing another magic system, such a magic system would need to exist. The only thing that could even come close would be Awakening. No dice there, though (and not only because of the whole "another planet" thing): when Shaizan found the Bloodsealer, his eyes were "glazed by the shock of having his creatures destroyed in rapid succession." And no "control" seal was in evidence. So it's most likely the case that the Bloodsealer had direct control of/connection to his skeletons. Awakening doesn't work like that.

EDIT: Yes, it could just be the normal "oh frell, my automatons of death just died in half a second" kind of shock, but I doubt it, and that still leaves how he tracked her by her blood in question. We also have that he was right there behind the skeletons hiding in a storage closet. That implies that proximity is necessary for his control of the skeletons, unlike with Lifeless.

Perhaps he needed to be there to guide them to Shai, and/or was simply overconfident, but it seems that any state of confidence would still have him standing off to the side in the corridor, either ready to collect/gloat over Shai's body or to run when his skeleton's engaged her, since his task of guiding them was done. Neither state of confidence results in hiding in a closet unless the Bloodsealer needed to go "out of body" to some degree in order to control his creations.

---

Beyond that, no magic system that we know of (and probably none on Sel, given how we've seen magic working there so far) allows "wards" or tracking of people through their blood.

Beyond that, I imagine that Forging anything so that it was profoundly affected by yet another magic system tends to strain credulity as far as the universe is concerned. The Bloodsealer would have had to construct a plausible narrative of an Awakener coming to Sel and giving command of a Lifeless (after putting in several exceptionally precious Breaths to Awaken it) to that same Bloodsealer.

It's the same for drawing upon another magic system for tracking Shai: he would have needed to construct a plausible narrative of yet another magic user--who is apparently harder to access for the Empire than a Bloodsealer, since they didn't just call on that other magic user in the first place--doing the magic for him. This all assuming that using magic to use other magic is even allowed under Forgery: it might be the case that no amount of the Dor can make someone into a Mistborn, for instance.

Edited by Kurkistan
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A subset would be like how soul-Forging is basically the same process as Forging a rock, or Forging someone healthy, with the practices and knowledge of each subset of the broader "Forging" category being virtually identical. The only reason Shai can't Reseal is because she didn't put in the time to learn the human body well enough; similar to how her knowledge of painting, while necessary for Forging a painting, does not make "Paint-Forging" a different art (hur hur) altogether.

*Mistborn Spoilers*

"Simply a related magic system" means that there are fundamental differences on one or many levels, while some superficial similarities that are helpful for comparison and theorizing remain. The effects of Hemalurgically endowed Strength are comparable to Feruchemical Strength, and might even come about from a similar increase in some "strength" stat coming in from the Spiritual Realm or something when you get down to the basics, but the magic systems and their surface-level mechanisms are quite different.

The Metallic Arts are much less related than what we have seen of Bloodsealing and Forging, so far. While they use the same medium (metal), they function in fundamentally different ways. They don't even use the medium in the same way. Forging and Bloodsealing have more or a link than they do in that respect, at least. Both use stamps, and both work essentially in the same way.

It is possible that Forging and Bloodsealing could be related in a similar manner to the Metallic Arts, but I honestly think we would have heard of it if they were.

Occam's razor applies, in my opinion.

For instance, I think it's fair to assume that 26 hours is the same limit on human-related magic for each system in TES. I don't think that it's fair to assume that stamp-material mattters in Forging because it matters in Bloodsealing, especially since we've seen evidence that this is a difference between them.

I'm sorry, but what are you talking about? We have seen no evidence whatsoever that the material for stamps matter any more in Bloodsealing than it does in Forging. What we have seen is a Bloodsealer using stamp carved from bone, with blood as the ink. Shai notes that fresh organic ink is necessary for Forging.

As for the tracking, we don't know how it works. It may be that other mediums than blood allow for tracking, but none are as efficient.

Now Feruchemical Pewter, on the other hand, is a subset of Feruchemy in general: it works by the same mechanisms and rules as all other parts of Feruchemy, with a few quirks to differentiate it but no fundamental difference between Pewter and any other Feruchemical power.

The two magic systems in TES are related in that they are both form-based, end-positive investitures whose forms are actualized through the "stamping" of symbols on objects, and in that they both most likely draw upon the Dor. All of the magic systems on Sel, in fact, are probably fairly closely related because of their singular power source and end-positive, form-based nature.

Again, I just want to apply Occam's razor.

Actually, "Resealing was one of the few branches of Forgery that Shai hadn't studied in depth" (sorry, can't get the page number on the eBook). Not "several." :P/>

I wasn't quoting, I was reciting from memory.

I already addressed how these "different" Forgeries are rightly subsets of a broader "Forging" magic system when I addressed the difference between related and subsidiary magics. The problem is that, while all the branches of Forging proper that we've seen so far share far more similarities than they have differences, Bloodsealing is an extreme aberration off crying by itself several miles away while the "other" branches are just in different rooms of the same house.

We don't even know whether we have the exact workings of the magic system.

She's fallible. I see this more as a failure in the narrator than as a definite fact of worldbuilding. If you knew a great deal about your magic system, possibly didn't even know or credit the existence of completely different magic systems, and knew a bit about another magic system that shared some surface similarities with yours, then you would probably assume that they were the same system too.

Of course she's fallible, but she is also our only authority on the subject. Until we are told differently, what she says is what we have to work with.

Really, in one breath, you assume that everything we've seen so far in TES is the full extent of Forging, then in the next you say that Shai--who gives us everything we know of Forging, is an unreliable narrator.

That's a threat that she has no capability or intention of following through on, based on her previous comments on the evils of Bloodsealing. But if everyone is under the misapprehension that the two arts are one, and the Bloodsealer is currently scared out of his sad little mind, then that threat might buy her a few hours head-start. She needs to stop the Bloodsealer from tracking her through her blood for the benefit of the Empire, but doesn't want to kill him.

Since Shai doesn't know how to Bloodseal even if she wanted too--and I'm operating under the assumption that the denizens of the Rose Empire are simply mistaken when they say that the two magics are the same--Shaizan taking the Bloodsealer's blood doesn't provide much evidence of anything.

My point is, for the threat to work, even if she has no capability or intention of following through on it, the Bloodsealer must see it as possible. In other words, he must consider her capable of Bloodsealing, at least in some respect. Otherwise, he would completely dismiss her claim.

I certainly consider that corroborative evidence, though not conclusive.

Please tell me how you would go about describing an alternate past for a skeleton such that that skeleton, instead of being an inanimate sack of bones, is instead an automaton of death obeying the whims of its creator. Because that's how Forging works. It's not "congratulations, you now have this attribute," it's "your past was different such that you are thus instead of so."

Sure. Here's my best guess at how it would work. Remember Shai's Forging of the wall in her room? Gaotona complains it is too implausible a Forging, and he doesn't understand how it would take. Shai explains that the wall wants to be painted, so it accepted a more implausible Forging. Add to that the glass window -- at first, none of the stamps hold. But when she realizes that it was once a glass mosaic, she Forges it into being beautifully restored by a master craftsman, and it takes immediately, because the window still sees itself as being beautiful.

A person's bones see themselves as part of a living being. They "want"--as much as the wall wants to be painted--to be "alive". The bones WERE at one point alive, which helps it hold, despite the implausibility of animated bones. Add to that the knowledge of a person's body that a Bloodsealer must know in order for his craft to work, which means intricate stamps (and thus likely more things that help hold them together).

I don't see why it wouldn't work, according to the rules of Forging that Shai explained.

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Because mobile living bone is not possible. You could forge bones into a living creature, maybe, but without the intervention of magic bones could not become mobile semi-living creatures. People paint walls, so stamping a wall into being painted is possible. Forging a skeletal would be like stamping airplane wreckage and flying it around without giving it engines. Forget the history, that's not the problem, the result simply is not possible absent calling in another magic system. Also, the blood ward on the room and the blood-tracking are not really like Forging at all except for requiring stamps and "ink". At most, Bloodsealing is Forging things into having been affected by another magic system, unless Shai is drastically wrong about the underpinnings of her own magic system, which is admittedly possible.

Shaizan threatened the Bloodsealer with a sample of his blood. She may have been bluffing, and furthermore the Shaizan stamp contains a history of becoming a fierce tribal warrior instead of learning Forging. The accuracy of the statement is questionable. Plus the blood would be unusable for Bloodsealing before he could repair his skeletals anyway. Shai was planning to get away clean while leaving behind the 26-hour old blood on the ward

Also, bloodsealing requires the subject's blood, and the skeletals need the skeletons to be "intact", but not necessarily comprised of bone. Specifically, the ribs had been repaired. People can live and move with missing ribs.

Oh, and Shai seems to be romanticizing the wall and window a bit. The stamps she made before noticing the stained glass would not have included it previously being a stained-glass window and hence not matched reality well enough. Likewise, the revised history for the wall to be painted was actually pretty simple and plausible; instead of a bedridden visitor painting the wall a floor up, he was put into the room and painted the wall in it instead.

Edited by name_here
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@name_here

Thanks for backing me up, good points.

The Metallic Arts are much less related than what we have seen of Bloodsealing and Forging, so far. While they use the same medium (metal), they function in fundamentally different ways. They don't even use the medium in the same way. Forging and Bloodsealing have more or a link than they do in that respect, at least. Both use stamps, and both work essentially in the same way.

It is possible that Forging and Bloodsealing could be related in a similar manner to the Metallic Arts, but I honestly think we would have heard of it if they were.

Occam's razor applies, in my opinion.

Forging and Bloodsealing do not work in essentially the same way. Forging changes something's past. End of story. That's how every branch of Forging that Shai does or explains in any detail actually works. Forging and Bloodsealing have similar surface mechanisms in the stamps (like Hemalurgy and Feruchemy have similar media), but not much else in common.

I like a good shave as much as the next guy, but what should we really be applying the razor to here? I'm suggesting that Shai is misinformed about the nature of Bloodsealing, which would obviously leave us a lack of mentions from her viewpoint about its true relationship with Forging. This is backed up by substantial evidence in-text of the two arts working in quite dissimilar ways.

You, on the other hand, are going just on Shai's assumption that Bloodsealing is a subset of Forging, and postulating a rather large number of completely unexplained aberrations from the norm in order to maintain this. Your hypothesis requires that Bloodsealing differ from all "other" branches of Forgery very significantly to an unknown degree and for little explained reason, while mine (that Bloodsealing is its own magic) simply assumes that Shai can be mistaken. If Shai hadn't come out and said that Bloodsealing was Forging, and you just held the two systems up next to each other, would you really say that they were one and the same?

I'm sorry, but what are you talking about? We have seen no evidence whatsoever that the material for stamps matter any more in Bloodsealing than it does in Forging. What we have seen is a Bloodsealer using stamp carved from bone, with blood as the ink. Shai notes that fresh organic ink is necessary for Forging.

As for the tracking, we don't know how it works. It may be that other mediums than blood allow for tracking, but none are as efficient.

Ah, my mistake. I had thought that the first post of yours that I quoted referred to bone-stamps mattering in Bloodsealing. Turns out that it didn't. Regardless, I think we have some evidence that bone-stamps do matter in Bloodsealing.

Once again, I allowed that the Bloodsealer might simply have been being theatrical in using bone stamps. But, then again, that's going a bit far. He doesn't seem to have any other real interest in theatricality and it would probably help his image (not to mention make for a better stamp, if he used soulstone instead) if he didn't walk around using body parts as tools. It's not a clear question, though, I'll admit. Cultural norms or theatricality could play their part.

Specifically, the blood that the Bloodsealer needs is Shai's. He then uses that blood in particular to ward against and track Shai. I suppose he could track a squid if you were quick about mixing the ink, but I doubt that Shai could manage it with Forging. Once again, I would like an explanation for how a magic system entirely concerned with changing an object's past could allow you to track anything.

EDIT: Ah, name_here covered that too.

Now Feruchemical Pewter, on the other hand, is a subset of Feruchemy in general: it works by the same mechanisms and rules as all other parts of Feruchemy, with a few quirks to differentiate it but no fundamental difference between Pewter and any other Feruchemical power.

The two magic systems in TES are related in that they are both form-based, end-positive investitures whose forms are actualized through the "stamping" of symbols on objects, and in that they both most likely draw upon the Dor. All of the magic systems on Sel, in fact, are probably fairly closely related because of their singular power source and end-positive, form-based nature.

Again, I just want to apply Occam's razor.

I don't think you necessarily disagree with anything I said there, actually. I'm describing how Forging and Bloodsealing are most definitely related. You can argue that they're related even more so than I describe, but what I said was the bare minimum.

I wasn't quoting, I was reciting from memory.

Sorry, that wasn't a real point. The ":P/>" was meant to indicate that I was kidding. :P/>

We don't even know whether we have the exact workings of the magic system.

Yes we do, to a refreshingly detailed degree. We probably know Forging better now than we know any but the Mistborn magics. We know from Shai, through demonstration and discussion, how all the Forgery that she understands works, from souls to bodies to pots. They change the past. We see it happen, we know it can and will fail if you don't have enough plausibly based on an understanding of the target's past. Bloodsealing is in crazy-land with people-tracking and razor-skeletons.

Of course she's fallible, but she is also our only authority on the subject. Until we are told differently, what she says is what we have to work with.

Really, in one breath, you assume that everything we've seen so far in TES is the full extent of Forging, then in the next you say that Shai--who gives us everything we know of Forging, is an unreliable narrator.

She's an authority on Forging (real Forging as I understand, just to be clear). Honestly, she reacts with the same superstition and dread towards Bloodsealing as others react to her own Forging--this is probably even an intentional parallel on Brandon's part, to show that Shai isn't just a perfectly enlightened individual in a sea of irrationality.

I'll trust Shai until what she says doesn't make sense. Things stop to make sense when she's dowsed through her blood and animate skeletons attack her. Her explanation and demonstration of how Forging works simply doesn't allow for such things. In one breath, I say that Shai is an expert on Forging, having spent her entire life learning it, and in the next I'll say that such focus can produce tunnel vision when it comes to categorizing what is, in fact, a different magic system entirely.

Shai hasn't told us everything about every branch of Forgery, but the kind of stuff that Bloodsealing does is pretty big. If Shai's description of Forgery is like her drawing a house: laying down the foundations, the number of windows, how to construct the roof--then not only has she failed to sketch out all the details of that house just yet, but she also forgot to mention another house that sits right next to it, and has a completely different architect. And has a lava moat.

My point is, for the threat to work, even if she has no capability or intention of following through on it, the Bloodsealer must see it as possible. In other words, he must consider her capable of Bloodsealing, at least in some respect. Otherwise, he would completely dismiss her claim.

I certainly consider that corroborative evidence, though not conclusive.

I can't just throw it out, but I consider it extremely plausible that we're just dealing with ignorance/intimidation in this. See name_here's post.

Sure. Here's my best guess at how it would work. Remember Shai's Forging of the wall in her room? Gaotona complains it is too implausible a Forging, and he doesn't understand how it would take. Shai explains that the wall wants to be painted, so it accepted a more implausible Forging. Add to that the glass window -- at first, none of the stamps hold. But when she realizes that it was once a glass mosaic, she Forges it into being beautifully restored by a master craftsman, and it takes immediately, because the window still sees itself as being beautiful.

A person's bones see themselves as part of a living being. They "want"--as much as the wall wants to be painted--to be "alive". The bones WERE at one point alive, which helps it hold, despite the implausibility of animated bones. Add to that the knowledge of a person's body that a Bloodsealer must know in order for his craft to work, which means intricate stamps (and thus likely more things that help hold them together).

I don't see why it wouldn't work, according to the rules of Forging that Shai explained.

See name_here, once again.

Edited by Kurkistan
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