Metals that are foci but do not channel Investiture (Spoiler for Shadows for Silence in the Forest of Hell)

[+Oltux72]

For an allomancer the metal the metal he burns determines what he can do with investiture and it provides a channel to gain investiture. The functions are separable. Compounding does exactly that.

So could there be metals that only give an ability, but no fuel? You would need to find another source of investiture to do something with them. Now usually this would only be idle speculation. But there is silver on Threnody. Apart from aluminium, that is the only time a regular metal is used in another system. Could what happens on Threnody be actually something akin to allomancy with silver acting as a focus and the substance of the shadow as a power source forcing the shade into selfdestruction?

Edited October 13, 2018 by Oltux72
Added requested Spoiler tag

[Yata]

I am not truly sure of what you wanted to propose.

In Allomancy, you have a SpiritWeb able to tap from Preservation using a subset of specific metals as gateway for the Preservation's power stream. The molecular structure of those metals shapes the raw Preservation's Investiture into one of the Allomantic Powers.

On Therenody, the local silver could interact with the local Cognitive Shadows knowed as Shades. They are hurt by it and the wounds they leave could be healed applying that silver on the damaged part.

Now, if I understood correctly your idea, you find some paralles between this two phenomens. And I could see your point in a loose way.

But as we known very few of the Therenody's phenomen it's hard to understand how much different they are, some critical differences are:

- Preservation is not involved

- The Silver is ruined but not destroyed, this imply an alteration of the metal rather than a "burning" in allomantic sense.

- The amount of silver required to interact with Shades doesn't seem constant. A relative high amount of Silver is required to heal someone from the Shades's corruction ability and to harm a shade (that in theory is just a tiny fraction of a Shade) and a relative small amount is required to hard or kill a Shard (that has a magnitude more investiture than the corruption in a mortal)... This suggest more a direct interaction between the metal and the Shade's Soul (like some items shown in other places) rather than a slow "burning" effect.

 

Ok now, what I didn't understand. Was your whole point about Allomancy or it was about a broader scope ?

PS: As this topic touchs both Mistborn and SfSitFoH some mod probably need to move it into the Cosmere Section or you have at least to modify the title to include the possibility of Spoiler from the other book

[TrдVψLшR 0115]

7 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

silver acting as a focus and the substance of the shadow as a power source forcing the shade into selfdestruction?

If that were the case it seems like there would be much more harm to the entire shade

[Scion of the Mists]

Metals do not act as fuel in Allomancy.  Allomancers draw Investiture directly from Preservation, so there is no "substance" required to power the abilities.  

[Spoolofwhool]

3 hours ago, Scion of the Mists said:

Metals do not act as fuel in Allomancy.  Allomancers draw Investiture directly from Preservation, so there is no "substance" required to power the abilities.  

Metals may not be the source of investiture, but they are integral in retrieving the power, so there is still some substance required for the abilities to be powered.

[Scion of the Mists]

2 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

3 hours ago, Scion of the Mists said:

Metals do not act as fuel in Allomancy.  Allomancers draw Investiture directly from Preservation, so there is no "substance" required to power the abilities.  

Metals may not be the source of investiture, but they are integral in retrieving the power, so there is still some substance required for the abilities to be powered.

I was referring to this part of the OP, which draws a pretty clear distinction between the metal focus and the power source:

On 10/13/2018 at 10:36 AM, Oltux72 said:

Could what happens on Threnody be actually something akin to allomancy with silver acting as a focus and the substance of the shadow as a power source forcing the shade into selfdestruction?

[Ripheus23]

6 hours ago, Scion of the Mists said:

Metals do not act as fuel in Allomancy.  Allomancers draw Investiture directly from Preservation, so there is no "substance" required to power the abilities.  

In the technical sense, that's true, but as far as the sense of "I'm runnin' outta this metal to burn" or "I've got a lot of this metal on me" goes...

Edited October 15, 2018 by Ripheus23

[Scion of the Mists]

6 minutes ago, Ripheus23 said:

In the technical sense, that's true, but as far as the sense of "I'm runnin' outta this metal to burn" or "I've got a lot of this metal on me" goes...

As I said above, in my response to @Spoolofwhool, I was using the distinction between "focus" and "substance" that @Oltux72 defined in the original post.  

[+Oltux72]

41 minutes ago, Ripheus23 said:

In the technical sense, that's true, but as far as the sense of "I'm runnin' outta this metal to burn" or "I've got a lot of this metal on me" goes...

This is a further similarity betwenn silver on Threnody and allomantic metals. Both are used up and changed (well, destroyed in the case of allomancy) by acting as a focus.

[Spoolofwhool]

6 hours ago, Scion of the Mists said:

I was referring to this part of the OP, which draws a pretty clear distinction between the metal focus and the power source:

In that context your statement was still incorrect because allomancy is fueling itself from the substance of Preservation's being like his idea had silver fueling from the investiture of a shade's being.

[Steel Inquisitive]

On 10/13/2018 at 6:36 AM, Oltux72 said:

For an allomancer the metal the metal he burns determines what he can do with investiture and it provides a channel to gain investiture. The functions are separable. Compounding does exactly that.

So could there be metals that only give an ability, but no fuel? You would need to find another source of investiture to do something with them. Now usually this would only be idle speculation. But there is silver on Threnody. Apart from aluminium, that is the only time a regular metal is used in another system. Could what happens on Threnody be actually something akin to allomancy with silver acting as a focus and the substance of the shadow as a power source forcing the shade into selfdestruction?

Bolded part blew my mind! That would be really cool. I think it could happen... Perhaps all metals actually give an ability but allowmancers simply can't know about them until they can get another shard involved.