(Impractically) Enhanced Lifeless

[Halyo_Alex]

After taking the official quiz and cementing myself as a Lightshaper, it made me start thinking about the potential cosmere-wide uses of Soulcasting. Naturally, the Rosharan practice of Soulcasting deceased humans into stone reminded me of Kalad's Phantoms, and I started contemplating the potential enhancements that fine Soulcasting could impart to a Lifeless. By "fine", I mean, like, soulcasting JUST the skin into Steel, for example. Cut into it at the joints so that the awakened bones and muscles can still bend, but turn the skin into steel so that the Lifeless has a durable outer shell (sort of like Singer carapace, actually...).

And speaking of awakened muscles, how about Soulcasting those into Wood? Presumably a flexible kind, but one that's still durable or is difficult to rot. Speaking of rotting, let's also Soulcast the blood directly into Ichor-Alcohol.

Hmm... Maybe we can do something hacky if we Soulcast the nervous system and the brain into Copper. If we presume our corpse was someone capable of storing their Memories in an Unsealed Coppermind (perhaps via a Medallion prior to death), it could influence the personality of the Lifeless if we stored those Memories inside the copper mind (...ha) prior to Awakening the body. Of course, this would massively increase the Breath requirements if we wanted to Awaken the copper, since it's metal... This might not be worth the Investment.

So, scrap that last idea, unless you REALLY wanna make a pseudo-returned in a hacky manner. Hmm... Anything else? Perhaps if we could take it to Sel, we could have an Elantrian carve a series of Aons into the steel to enhance it further. But then it would be fairly restricted to Sel, so maybe not. Darn.

Hmm... what else?

[Karger]

You could forge some additional skill into the lifeless for more utility or better condition.  In fact I would not be surprised if era four involves lifeless armies downloading skills via machine made soulstamps(that sounds terrifying). 

Also do something with the bones.  Turn them to something more flexible with soulcasting?  In fact if you animate the lifeless and then just turn the bones to steal you could probably bypass a lot of the rules about animated inorganic material.

[GoWibble]

So, yeah, really impracticable. 

Soulcasting someone that was made into a lifeless with a Breath (and isn't ichor alcohol a req for just one Breath?) (so maybe a Lifeless made with many Breaths), especially certain parts of it (like the skin) are going to be so difficult. And how are you going to get Stormlight in a large amount to Nalthis (I guess that you could steal a few of the perfect gemstones)? 

[Emerald_Mage]

Maybe after you awaken it but before you turn the skin to steel you could spike it with F-copper and a duralumin spike? That combined with the copper stuff might be enough to make it act like a living person, make your pseudo-cognitive shadow more believable. (Kind of like what happened in the Emperor's Soul.)

[Halyo_Alex]

3 hours ago, Karger said:

You could forge some additional skill into the lifeless for more utility or better condition.  In fact I would not be surprised if era four involves lifeless armies downloading skills via machine made soulstamps(that sounds terrifying). 

That sounds like the kind of apocalyptic automation I'd expect.

3 hours ago, Karger said:

Also do something with the bones.  Turn them to something more flexible with soulcasting?  In fact if you animate the lifeless and then just turn the bones to steal you could probably bypass a lot of the rules about animated inorganic material.

The point of leaving the bones as-is was to keep Breath costs down, as they would be the main thing getting awakened, like a Kalad Phantom.

3 hours ago, GoWibble said:

So, yeah, really impracticable. 

Thought so.

3 hours ago, GoWibble said:

Soulcasting someone that was made into a lifeless with a Breath (and isn't ichor alcohol a req for just one Breath?) (so maybe a Lifeless made with many Breaths), especially certain parts of it (like the skin) are going to be so difficult.

Yeah... The hope was that, as i just mentioned, the bones and the muscles remaining organic is to keep the corpse lifelike while enhancing durability and longevity.

3 hours ago, GoWibble said:

And how are you going to get Stormlight in a large amount to Nalthis (I guess that you could steal a few of the perfect gemstones)? 

Don't take the Stormlight to Nalthis, take the Breath to Roshar.

2 hours ago, Emerald_Mage said:

Maybe after you awaken it but before you turn the skin to steel you could spike it with F-copper and a duralumin spike? That combined with the copper stuff might be enough to make it act like a living person, make your pseudo-cognitive shadow more believable. (Kind of like what happened in the Emperor's Soul.)

That could work. Or heck, just plain Copper spikes... If we can figure out some way of "compounding hemalurgy" to enhance the spike charge strength, we might only need one good one to make it near-sentient.

[Karger]

1 hour ago, Halyo_Alex said:

The point of leaving the bones as-is was to keep Breath costs down, as they would be the main thing getting awakened, like a Kalad Phantom.

Awakening just bones is impractical but no one on Nalthis to the best of our knowledge has tried removing/replacing them.  With the right command you could probably get it to work around the bones without expending aditional breath.

[GoWibble]

9 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

Don't take the Stormlight to Nalthis, take the Breath to Roshar.

And lug this weird being along for the ride. 

Can Drabs worldhop (practicably, without expending a more than 'normal' amount of Investiture)? I can't find any WoBs on it. 

[Halyo_Alex]

10 hours ago, GoWibble said:

And lug this weird being along for the ride. 

What do you mean? Awaken the corpse into a Lifeless on Roshar, after the Soulcastings.

10 hours ago, GoWibble said:

Can Drabs worldhop (practicably, without expending a more than 'normal' amount of Investiture)? I can't find any WoBs on it. 

I wouldn't see why not, Perpendicularities work by compressing the 3 Realms closer to each other, so even non-living stuff (other than Aluminum, probably, and definitely not Nightblood) would be fine to pass through to the CR and back.