[OB] Hypothetical match-up: Szeth gains access to all 10 surges. Can he kill the Lord ruler?

[+Oltux72]

One more question specific to Szeth as he is a Skybreaker. The Lord Ruler is among other minor things, like a god, the embodiment of the law. Can a Skybreaker attack him?

[Wandering Investor]

3 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

One more question specific to Szeth as he is a Skybreaker. The Lord Ruler is among other minor things, like a god, the embodiment of the law. Can a Skybreaker attack him?

Yes, depending on a few factors, such as what oath they're at, and whether they regard TLR as a legitimate source of authority. With Szeth's most recent oath he is under no obligation to acknowledge TLR's authority. Other Skybreakers may take moral issue with it though.

[cometaryorbit]

On 6/28/2019 at 11:58 AM, Weltall said:

Letting himself get hit by a spear that he knows is just a normal weapon is one thing, letting himself get hit by something that he knows is unnatural is quite another. He may be arrogant but I don't think he's that arrogant.

So yeah, Rashek's got a couple approaches to determine that Szeth is (potentially at least) unusually dangerous so I think he'd be much more on his guard than he was with Vin.

 I agree he could determine that Nightblood was something special and, if he did, might take things more seriously. But I doubt he would have time to go through that thought process in the time it takes for Nightblood to hit him - he's gone a thousand years thinking that he's invincible. He's not going to be in a mindset that lends itself to quickly evaluating threats.

Note that TLR was told about the skaa rebellion by the prelans, and dismissed it - even though he was expecting Ruin to make some kind of move as the time of the Well's refilling approached.

(I don't think he even considered the possibility of losing his metalminds, or he would have implanted them internally with nothing visible sticking out - with Gold Compounding, plus maybe Electrum and/or Bronze to stay conscious, TLR could easily perform surgery on himself).

On 6/28/2019 at 6:29 AM, Oltux72 said:

TLR was in the habit of Seeking a lot. He would "hear" that Yelig-Nar is something odd.

I don't know... even if TLR knew how to Seek non-Allomancy Investiture (I don't think we can take that for granted, since the Inquisitors apparently couldn't Seek Feruchemy) I think it only detects active Kinetic Investiture. Szeth using Surges could be detected, but not Yelig-Nar just possessing Szeth.

Certainly, TLR fighting at maximum capability could defeat almost anything. But Nightblood is one of the few things that could potentially actually kill him without knowing his metalmind weakness (the other things I can think of are an extreme application of Leeching, maybe by a Mistborn who somehow learned about both Chromium and Duralumin, or total dismemberment/incineration/vaporization through immense physical force, which would in the process separate his brain from his metalminds and/or destroy the metalminds).

[Pathfinder]

15 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

 I don't know... even if TLR knew how to Seek non-Allomancy Investiture (I don't think we can take that for granted, since the Inquisitors apparently couldn't Seek Feruchemy) I think it only detects active Kinetic Investiture. Szeth using Surges could be detected, but not Yelig-Nar just possessing Szeth.

Bronze seeking can detect other investitures. It can detect feruchmey, but the feruchemist has to be tapping the stores at the time to be detected.

As to detecting Yelig-nar, if Szeth uses the powers Yelig-nar provides, I think it would be detected. 

[cometaryorbit]

On 7/1/2019 at 3:59 PM, Pathfinder said:

Bronze seeking can detect other investitures. It can detect feruchmey, but the feruchemist has to be tapping the stores at the time to be detected.

The power is potentially capable of it, but that doesn't mean anyone - even TLR - actually learned how.

 

Chaos (paraphrased)

We asked if it was possible to use bronze to Seek Feruchemy.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He said it could be possible. If it were to happen, it was very hard, because the Inquisitors would desperately like to be able to find Feruchemists that way, and it was implied they had not discovered this power. So, it is a freaking hard technique to learn, if possible at all.

Alloy of Law 17th Shard Q&A (Nov. 5, 2011)

[Pathfinder]

12 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

The power is potentially capable of it, but that doesn't mean anyone - even TLR - actually learned how.

 

Chaos (paraphrased)

We asked if it was possible to use bronze to Seek Feruchemy.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He said it could be possible. If it were to happen, it was very hard, because the Inquisitors would desperately like to be able to find Feruchemists that way, and it was implied they had not discovered this power. So, it is a freaking hard technique to learn, if possible at all.

Alloy of Law 17th Shard Q&A (Nov. 5, 2011)

Because as I said, the feruchemist has to be actively tapping the stores for it to be considered kinetic and be detected. It is very difficult to detect investiture that is stored. It is possible for a seeker, but extremely difficult. Here are four WoB:

 

Questioner

Does bronze detect Investiture or only Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

Investiture. It can be used for other things. But like most detection methods, it doesn't look for wells of power, it looks for power that's being used, generally. You get enough power together, and bronze will be able to find it no matter what.

 

 

AltF4WillHelp

Sorry if this has been asked before; I haven't been able to find a direct answer anywhere. It came up while playing the Mistborn Adventure Game (which has been very fun, btw!).

A Feruchemist can easily determine whether any metal is a metalmind, regardless of whether it's theirs, simply by touching it. And a Ferring can definitely determine the same, but for their own metal.

But, a question came up: can a Ferring also—perhaps with practice—tell whether any piece of metal has been stored in/is a metalmind? Would this be easier for certain kinds of Ferrings? (Ones that are more directly in tune with Investiture, perhaps?) And, if they can determine that a piece of metal is Invested, would they feel something similar to what Vin did when she was examining Sazed's metalmind? Would they be able to tell what the metal it is based on how that power feels? (That last bit might be infringing on what skilled/savant bronze Mistings might be able to do).

Brandon Sanderson

So, bronze Mistings are really good at reading investiture that is being used--it's harder to simply "detect investiture" as all things are made out of investiture in the cosmere. That said, I could see your game allowing this, as it's a natural extrapolation of the magic--and it could make for some good gameplay. Don't be afraid to extrapolate the magic for your own uses, even if it doesn't fall right in line with the way I do things.

 

 

zas678

Can you detect Feruchemy with bronze Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

It is actually possible but it's very difficult. There's a tweak that you need to do to make it work and I haven't talked about that yet. They do not know how to do it… on Scadrial. But you can theoretically detect all kinds of active Investiture. Investiture that's being used. Kinetic Investiture would be the way to call it.

 

 

Questioner

Is there a way to tell between different Investitures?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. 

Questioner

For each Shard.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, for each Shard? Each Shard-- Most of the magics have built into them that ability, but I wouldn't say that everyone does. I am trying to remember if they all do... I lot of them have a power that would allow you to do that, but I don't know if every one of them does.

Questioner

No, I mean that, in the ones that do have [this ability], they can tell the difference between each one.

Brandon Sanderson

If you were really good at burning bronze, you could use bronze to distinguish between different types of Investiture from different planets even. And that sort of skill does exist in other magic systems.

Argent

Is it like a wavelength kind of thing?

Brandon Sanderson

Yea, that's exactly what it is.

[cometaryorbit]

It's the " There's a tweak that you need to do to make it work and I haven't talked about that yet. They do not know how to do it… on Scadrial. " bit I'm talking about.

If it's not Kinetic, bronze can't detect it no matter what. If it is Kinetic, but not Allomancy, it's theoretically detectable by bronze... but no one knows how. Marsh burning bronze wouldn't be able to detect Sazed tapping metalminds in the same room.

[Karger]

3 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

If it's not Kinetic, bronze can't detect it no matter what

 

23 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

You get enough power together, and bronze will be able to find it no matter what.

 

 

[Pathfinder]

7 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

It's the " There's a tweak that you need to do to make it work and I haven't talked about that yet. They do not know how to do it… on Scadrial. " bit I'm talking about.

If it's not Kinetic, bronze can't detect it no matter what. If it is Kinetic, but not Allomancy, it's theoretically detectable by bronze... but no one knows how. Marsh burning bronze wouldn't be able to detect Sazed tapping metalminds in the same room.

Based on the WoB, it is kinetic the moment it is being tapped because it is being actively used. If that doesn't work for you, then I guess we agree to disagree