Compounding with AonDor instead of Allomancy

[Benkinsky Hazekiller]

Hello hello fellow wordlhoppers,

after some thought I want to return to my favourite cosmere idea:

Compounding with something else but Allomancy. The most likely candidate: AonDor.

(Mistborn spoilers)

Part 1: What is Compounding?

and how could it work with anything else but Allomancy.

Allomancy uses Metals as Keys to tell Preservation's Investiture flowing through them from the Spiritual Realm what form/effect to take. Iron tells it to pull, Steel to push etc.

Feruchemy uses Metals as Keys to tell the (scadrian) body's own Investiture what form/effect to save as.

A Compounder genetically has both the abilities to tap and save the same metal. If they activate a key (burn a metal) that is already a different key (already tells Investiture a specific form to take) the Investiture that the allomancer uses for allomancy (Preservation's) instead takes the form that the feruchemic key tells them.

Part 2.1: AonDor

with Compounding broken down like that, you might get where I'm going. What other kind of magic uses Keys: Selish magic. Specifically, AonDor.

In AonDor, the Aon acts as a Key to tell the Dor (Dominion and Devotion's combined Investiture) what form/effect to take. Aon Ehe tells it to be Fire, Aon Shao tells it to transform something, etc. These Aons can be modified to be Keys for extremely specific purposes.

Part 2.2: AonDor Compounding: Aon Deo

Aon Deo is the Aon for Metal. My theory: I believe Aon Deo could be specified enough that, if an AonDor user made a metalmind in the shape of that specific Aon or inscribed Aon Deo into a Metalmind, you could channel the Dor through the Metalmind, using the Dor to power your feruchemical release similarly to how Allomantic Compounding uses Perservation's Investiture.

What are the Implications of this:

1. If a person had both the ability to use a Metalmind and use AonDor, they could get massive amounts of certain feruchemical attributes without saving them beforehand by using Aon Deo to power them with Dor.

Part 2.3: Nicrosil

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A nicrosil Ferring is known as a Soulbearer. Nicrosil is used to store Investiture. This ability is not understood (even by those who utilize it). A Soulbearer storing Investiture stores their ability to use their Investiture. Therefore, a Soulbearer could store their ability to use Feruchemy and another person tapping it would be turned into a temporary Feruchemist who has the ability to fill a metalmind (assuming the nicrosilmind was unsealed) (...)

Quote

Compounding

A nicrosil Compounder would be able to use nicrosil to have a nearly infinite supply of stored Investiture.

 

Source: https://coppermind.net/wiki/Nicrosil

 

What are the implications of this:

2. An AonDor Nicrosil Compounder could store a tiny bit of Investiture in his AonDeo Nicrosilmind, then activate it with AonDor and get basically infinite Investiture.

3. THEY WOULDN'T EVEN HAVE TO BE A FERUCHEMIST. Originally, I thought that if a Terrisperson managed to move to Arelon they might have a tiny chance to birth a Ferring who gets chosed by the Sheod. But read this again:

Therefore, a Soulbearer could store their ability to use Feruchemy and another person tapping it would be turned into a temporary Feruchemist who has the ability to fill a metalmind (assuming the nicrosilmind was unsealed)

If an Elantrian got their hands on an unkeyed Nicrosilmind, that temporary window would be enough to use AonDor to power it. Once the AonDeo Nicrosilmind is Compounding, it wouldn't be used up like in Allomantic Compounding. The Elantrian would have infinite Investiture.

For Rosharans, this might seem arbitrary, but not for Elantrians. The Dor has local borders, it is difficult to use AonDor outside of Arelon, not even speaking of Sel. Using this Technique, Elantrians might be able to use AonDor outside of Sel.

Part 3: possible difficulties with Connection

Leaving Arelon might weaken the Connection to the land too much to use AonDor even with a source of Investiture.

Possible Solution:

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Tapping a duraluminmind would also allow someone to overcome the location restriction on Selish Invested Arts; for example, an Elantrian could use Aons at full power regardless of location, though there are also easier ways to achieve this.[13]

Compounding

A duralumin Compounder would be able to use duralumin to have a nearly infinite supply of Spiritual Connection.

 

Source; https://coppermind.net/wiki/Duralumin

Elantrians could canonically tap Duralumin to use AonDor outside of Arelon, maybe even Sel.

They don't even need to be a Ferring to do this. Anyone can canonically use a Nicrosilmind to temporarily become a Duralumin Ferring (see Bands of Mourning),

I theorize that an Elantrian could use AonDor to Compound, turning the temporary abilities provided by a Nicrosil- and Duraluminmind into permanent abilities.

This way, they could use AonDor without the Dor while also using the infinite Investiture provided by this trick to power their Duraluminmind to keep up their connection to Sel.

> Be Elantrian
> Aquire Nicrosilmind and Duraluminmind.
> Tap Nicrosilmind while in Arelon. Become temporary Ferring.
> Tap Duruminmind while in Arelon by activating your AonDor. Create infinite Investiture loop.
> Permanently have infinite Investiture to power both your AonDor and the necessary Connection supplement to power it outside of Sel.

 

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this theory and why you think it could or couldn't work!

[Dunkum Lord Prelan]

It might work, either as you describe, or with some tweaking.  if any system could make it work it would be AonDor, but I think you are overthinking this.  part of the reason compounding is so useful is that it allows allomancy's power source to fuel ferruchemy in a way that is end positive instead of end neutral.  But most of the reason this is useful is because Allomancy is limited in the scope of what it can do, and standard ferruchemy is limited in the power available to it, so mixing the two lets you overcome, to some extent, both of those issues, especially the latter.  AonDor doesn't actually have these issues.  If you wanted to use AonDor to produce a ton of health for instance, then you just need to know the right Aons, and the right sizes and such.  you don't need to funnel the AonDor's power through a metalmind, it can already do what you want on its own.  that's not to say there arent benefits to mixing Ferruchemy with AonDar, the connection thing you mention for instance, but it seems like in most cases it would probably be easier to just use the Aons to grant yourself whatever trait, and then store that power into the metalminds for later use unconstrained by location/connection.  e.g. use Aon whatever to generate a bunch of spiritual connection to Arelon, store that into the duraluminmind for later use.  no need to shape it or try to hack ferruchemy to use AonDor's power source directly.  Maybe you'd have to use your method to fill the nicrosilmind that would allow you to tap duralumin in the first place, but even that might be possible to accomplish with just Aons if you were clever enough - though in that one case it might be easier to hack an existing metalmind than to try to cobble together the power from scratch.

[Benkinsky Hazekiller]

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AonDor doesn't actually have these issues.  If you wanted to use AonDor to produce a ton of health for instance, then you just need to know the right Aons, and the right sizes and such. 

Fair point, definitely. AonDor is already super versatile in what it can do. Allomancy has "only" 16+ specific abilities, AonDor is basically omnipotent in applications. However, the connection and Investiture are issues that need to be overcome (one of which Brandon hinted is possible with less complicated means). Having an Investiture Battery with you is still super useful for any Selish Mage, especially Elantrians. Even if they get none of the other Feruchemical abilities, as you said, AonDor can do almost everything already.

The use I see is not really in gaining access to Feruchemical abilities like healing, speed for crossing distances, warmth) but those that enable AonDor outside of Sel (Connection, Investiture) or those that could support it (Copper for Remembering all those damnation Aons, Zinc for coming up with the perfect Aon really quickly when needed, stuff like that).

This theory started when I thought about the question "is Compounding only possible with Allomancy" and AonDor came out the most plausible, less about how useful it would realy be.

[Dunkum Lord Prelan]

Depending how it worked, that copper one could potentially be very useful, I suppose.  If filtering it through a coppermind allows you to extract a memory without degarding the original in the coppermind itself, for instance.  It depends of course, but my impression of AonDor is that an Aon written or formed from physical material is not expended when activated so pulling the investiture through a coppermind with specific memories stored in it could in theory do what is needed.

[Halyo_Alex Cryptic]

I think the big advantage of having a Compounding Aon setup is that you can engrave it on any metalmind you want and any Elantrian can activate it to... fill the metalmind? or would it start expelling the attribute out into the vicinity? I guess that's a part you could modify with Aons...

[Benkinsky Hazekiller]

If that really works, would that mean that Elantrians could make Copperminds to relay secret messages? Ones that only they could access?

I'm imagining the Ire depositing Copperminds with useful information at the borders of Subastrals, like Worldhoppers Guides to Roshar for Riino. If one of them changes planet, they could leave all that knowledge for another Ire. and unlike an unsealed Coppermind, they would be sure only other Elantrians could access it.