Ars Arcanum, Nachi (Fan-made Shardworld with spiral-based magic)

[Cocoa]

I've had an idea for a fan-made shardworld called Nachi (and more specifically the behavior of magic on it) bouncing around in my head for a while, and having finally finished reading through all the Cosmere works, I think I've got a rough enough grasp of how investiture works to put it down on paper. I wasn't entirely sure where to put something like this, but fan works seemed like a safe bet. Thoughts and constructive criticism welcome.

Though we haven't actually seen them yet in the books beyond a mention by Harmony, and as a result I can only make educated guesses about shardic Intent and the like, I decided that the shard investing Nachi would be Invention. Of all the shards, the idea of 'invention' really jumped out at me as matching the magic systems I was toying around with, and helped me finalize them further.

The general idea is that, like on Sel, investiture on Nachi is shaped my physical forms, more specifically spirals and helixes, which act as a sort of net for loose investiture. This leads to two distinct magic systems and some change.

And Some Change: General effects of spiral-concentrated investiture: The spiral patterns of clouds in motion has resulted in the weather on Nachi becoming invested, though the effect is far less pronounced than the Storms of Roshar. Likewise, lifeforms on Nachi are more invested and therefore slightly hardier than the Cosmere standard, on account of the double helix of their DNA acting like a sponge for investiture.

Another interesting effect is that, perhaps subconsciously, much of the architecture and even city planning on Nachi tends towards the inclusion of spiral patterns. Think the minaret of the Great Mosque of Samarra. As a result, cities often attract a very faint fog of gaseous investiture after storms pass through.

Magic System 1 - Snail Shells: Certain species of sea snails on Nachi have highly invested shells as a result of their spiral shapes. These invested shells act as a defense mechanism for the snails, since any animal that consumes and digests the shell will have their spiritweb heavily mutated, often with fatal results. These shells are often brightly colored to warn off predators. However, each type of these snails produces a distinct mutation and the extent of the mutations is determined in part by the amount of shell consumed, and so through careful experimentation, some of the peoples of Nachi have developed a kind of spritiual genetic engineering by carefully measuring and combining different kinds of powdered shells. The result is a wide variety of human offshoot species and specialized animals created by tinkering with spiritual DNA.

Magic System 2 - Metal Coils: Coiled metal also attracts investiture on Nachi. When two metal coils are inserted one inside of the other and rotated, the interaction between them causes a field of effect. The size of the field is determined by the mass of the inner coil, and the intensity of the effect is determined by the speed of rotation. As a result, Nachins often use wind or water mills to turn massive coils and produce these effects over a wide area.

The exact effects of the field is determined by the metals used for the coils. Much like in fabrials, the metals used have some rough parallels to those used in the Metallic Arts. The outer coil must be wound clockwise and be made of one of four "primer metals:" Steel, Brass, Nicrosil, or Bendalloy. The inner coil must be wound counter-clockwise and be made of either the same primer metal as the outer coil, or one of three other metals tied to it. The effects of various metal pairings are as follows:

• Primer: Steel
  • Iron: Increases pull of Nachi's gravity within the field
  • Steel: Decreases pull of Nachi's gravity within the field
  • Tin: Decreases the strength and energy of living organisms within the field
  • Pewter: Increases the strength and energy of living organisms within the field
• Primer: Brass
  • Zinc: Enhances creativity within the field
  • Brass: Dulls creativity within the field
  • Copper: Enhances intelligence (particularly thinking speed and recall ability) within the field
  • Bronze: Dulls intelligence within the field
• Primer: Nicrosil
  • Duralumin: Enhances empathy within the field (in actuality, this effect is misidentified, and it strengthens Connection within the field)
  • Aluminum: None, which is a source of constant befuddlement to Nachi scholars on account of it breaking the pattern. However, aluminum objects are unaffected by the interaction fields of metal coils
  • Chromium: Drains investiture within the field (note that since most Nachins are used to being naturally extra invested, they'll feel sick as a side effect while in the field and for a time after leaving it)
  • Nicrosil: Saturates the field with extra investiture
• Primer: Bendalloy
  • Gold (Undiscovered Interaction): Pulls the Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual realms slightly closer together. The effect is weak, but it can have interesting effects on other magic systems.
  • Electrum (Undiscovered interaction): Pushes the three realms slightly further apart.
  • Cadmium: Slows time within the field. This is less efficient but covers a wider area than an allomancy bubble.
  • Bendalloy: Speeds up time within the field. This is less efficient but covers a wider area than and allomancy bubble.

In terms of god metals, Invention's metal acts as a primer for other god metals, and the various interactions cause a range of esoteric effects.

Edited September 25, 2021 by Cocoa

[Benkinsky]

oh man, that sounds really cool. I like it a lot.

Spirals and Helixes are already really cool. The Idea of "metal fabrials" (cosmere scientists would probably hate me for this term) is also really cool, and I can imagine how giant versions of these would be applied. Specifically Brass-Brass and Brass-Bronze sound like something that a Lord Ruler type character would secretly set up.

Bendalloy-Cadmium and Bendalloy-Bendalloy immediately sound like something to be built on a giant scale for a freaky legendary city type thing. a "faster" city, or more places like it, would make Nachi really really good at developing tech and science. No wonder they nailed down spiritweb-poison-application to specifics if they have stuff like that available. Wonder how it would feel to be born and grow up in a place with upset time. But also, a "slower" city or fortress, been there 100 years ago and everyone only aged roughly (how much @Cocoa ?)

Of course, the Snail shells feels super cosmere and really cool. Could you also put the shells on things for effects, like Aons? How specific can you make spirals, or is just a 1-or-0 situation with a Spiral in general? And how long have these mutations been part of humankind there. Are there "subspecies", or creatures like Kolloss that were once enhanced humans and are now kind of their own thing?

 

additionally, the weather thing sounds super super cool. Makes we wonder what freaky stuff might happen when a Invested Storm passed over an area with Bendalloy-Gold.

one more question: Why specifically those four metals? number 2, number 2, numer 4 and number 4 of their quadrant. Or just scientific-progress reasons?

that said, Nachi is intriguing, sounds like it would make an amazing ally and partner for Scadrial.

 

[Cocoa]

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Wonder how it would feel to be born and grow up in a place with upset time. But also, a "slower" city or fortress, been there 100 years ago and everyone only aged roughly (how much @Cocoa ?)

A lot of it has to do with the speed at which the coils are being rotated. This is all some very loose thinking on my part, but I'd say that an entire city covered by double-bendalloy and powered by windmills (assuming the speed bubbles didn't mess up wind flow, which they probably would) would be getting something like 5-15 extra minutes on the hour, and bendalloy-cadmium would slow things by a bit more. So not a huge change in the short term, but it would add up.

Another cool application I've thought of is if you hooked a double-bendalloy generator up to the steam engine of a train, you could make it go faster. Probably not quite to the point of making steam-powered bullet trains, but still enough to be cool.

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Could you also put the shells on things for effects, like Aons?

Nope, the shells affect living things, and probably organic living things at that since it requires ingestion (sorry Nightblood, no snail powers for you).

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How specific can you make spirals, or is just a 1-or-0 situation with a Spiral in general?

I'd say just about anything on Nachi in the shape of a spiral or helix is going to attract some Investiture, but since a big part of my inspiration was how widespread the golden spiral is in the real world, maybe spirals will be more invested the closer to its proportions they are. Or maybe it's based on a different but still specific ratio.

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And how long have these mutations been part of humankind there.

My grasp on the greater Cosmere timeline and Nachi's theoretical place in it is shaky, so I'll just speak in relative terms and say that the snails being invested was originally an Adonalsium magic system, so their presence pre-dates the shattering. So you might have one or two mutant-types that date all the way back to tribal medicine men messing around with things, but most have sprung up sometime more recently after Invention moved in and the science of using the shells advanced further.

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Are there "subspecies", or creatures like Kolloss that were once enhanced humans and are now kind of their own thing?

Definitely like Koloss. Probably not anything quite as drastic as Kandra, since they were created by the direct intervention of someone wielding Shardic power, but the mutations induced by the shells are still fairly extensive even in non-lethal amounts.

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Makes we wonder what freaky stuff might happen when a Invested Storm passed over an area with Bendalloy-Gold.

Not entirely sure, but I do have a fun fact related to that point: theoretically, if you got a bendalloy-gold turbine spinning really, really fast, you'd create an artificial mini perpendicularity.

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Why specifically those four metals? number 2, number 2, numer 4 and number 4 of their quadrant. Or just scientific-progress reasons?

They're all external pushing metals.

Also something that I neglected to mention in the original post is that the turbines are Connected to Nachi and won't normally function off-world unless you hack them somehow. The shells will still induce mutations wherever, though.

[Benkinsky]

13 hours ago, Cocoa said:

a big part of my inspiration was how widespread the golden spiral is in the real world,

Oy! Gyro!

13 hours ago, Cocoa said:

So you might have one or two mutant-types that date all the way back to tribal medicine men messing around with things, but most have sprung up sometime more recently after Invention moved in and the science of using the shells advanced further.

that feels fitting and cool imho. Sounds like something that could've been around for ages and pretty much done its own thing, but it was there long enough that just by law of random chance there will have been some effects. Plus, we saw in Mistborn that you really don't need many "fantasy beings" to spice up a world. and then Invention coming along, accelerating things, sounds very cool.

 

13 hours ago, Cocoa said:

theoretically, if you got a bendalloy-gold turbine spinning really, really fast, you'd create an artificial mini perpendicularity.

turbine go weeeee

seriously though, hell yeah, I had hoped for something like that! sounds like a lot of work BUT also sounds like something that Invention's shardworld would sooner or later come up with and properly set up!

13 hours ago, Cocoa said:

Also something that I neglected to mention in the original post is that the turbines are Connected to Nachi and won't normally function off-world unless you hack them somehow. The shells will still induce mutations wherever, though.

that tracks. Turbines seem pretty specific, while the Shells are organic. Sounds like something we'd see in a collection like Mraize's

[Benkinsky]

Next thought, do you have imagination on how the landscape(s) look there? Giant spiral-constructions or cities that accidentally involve spirals sound pretty cool, but how populated is the planet as a whole, are there multiple continents, etc. Grim like Era 1 Scadrial or even Threnody, or more lush and vibrant like Nalthis and Roshar?

and: What kind of mutations and magics we talking? It sounds like Turbine/Coil Magic is "similar to Hemalurgy" in the way that you aren't born or gifted this ability, you just have to learn how to use it, and it sounds like something used in larger scales and not necessarily by individuals. The mutations sound like they'd create "mages", if Coils are used by "Articoilians" (borrowing from SA there). What kind of manifestations of mutated Spiritwebs are you thinking? Like Aviars, theoretically all over the place? More physical, more supernatural, etc?

[Cocoa]

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Next thought, do you have imagination on how the landscape(s) look there? Giant spiral-constructions or cities that accidentally involve spirals sound pretty cool, but how populated is the planet as a whole, are there multiple continents, etc. Grim like Era 1 Scadrial or even Threnody, or more lush and vibrant like Nalthis and Roshar?

I do, actually! I'm imagining the main continent as one continuous clockwise spiral that corkscrews around the planet from one pole to the other, mostly following a single large mountain range. And then scattered through the ocean you have non-continental islands, ranging in size from one or two as big as Greenland down to island chains like Hawaii. Side note: I'd imagine the sea snails are actually native to the waters surrounding some of these islands, meaning that the original mutants developed somewhat secluded from the rest of humanity, and that as the science of S-genetic engineering has developed it's relied on exports from these nations. Maybe that led to colonialism, but I'm having fun imagining a heist that took place at some point in Nachi's history that mirrors the smuggling of silk worm eggs into the Byzantine Empire.

Worldwide, I'd guess at a population of 3-5 billion. Since the lifeforms on Nachi are more invested than average, I'd say it's slightly easier for life to flourish than on Earth, and so it tends towards being lush and vibrant.

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It sounds like Turbine/Coil Magic is "similar to Hemalurgy" in the way that you aren't born or gifted this ability, you just have to learn how to use it, and it sounds like something used in larger scales and not necessarily by individuals. The mutations sound like they'd create "mages", if Coils are used by "Articoilians" (borrowing from SA there).

Mmmm, yes on the coils, no on the shells, because at their cores both systems are learned ones. Remember, Nachi's shard is Invention, and the use of Investiture reflects that. It's just a matter of mechanical engineering vs genetic engineering. Yes, the mutations are hereditary and therefore a form of inborn ability, but it's sort of the same as how the koloss-blooded are a product of Hemalurgy, not a core part of a system the same way Mistborn or Feruchemists are. In the case of shell magic, the learned component is in learning how to mix different shell powders to achieve a desired mutation, dosage, and predicting how a mutation will affect a certain species (i.e., the same exact mix given to a rat and given to a human will induce similar mutations, but the exact results can be quite different, and what would be lethal for one species might not be for another).

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What kind of mutations and magics we talking? [...] The mutations sound like they'd create "mages", if Coils are used by "Articoilians" (borrowing from SA there). [...] What kind of manifestations of mutated Spiritwebs are you thinking? Like Aviars, theoretically all over the place? More physical, more supernatural, etc?

You'd probably get the variety of Aviars, but talent-like abilities are gonna be rare. On the whole, mutations will tend predominately towards the physical, usually with some cognitive changes as a side effect. Maybe there's one or two types who can use something like weak emotional Allomancy. The creation of a mutant-type who can use Investiture in a whole new way would be a groundbreaking discovery that probably involves the very, very careful combination of dozens of different snail shell types. For perspective, it'd be basically the same as someone figuring out how to manufacture Lerasium on Scadrial; even if the amount you can make at a time is limited and the process highly complex, it's still gonna turn the planetary balance of power on its head.

Basically, think about Star Trek. Klingons are stronger and much, much tougher than the average human. Certain species are smarter than human (at least in a specialized area), or adapted to a whole different climate than ours, or have extra senses, or can eat things we'd consider poisonous (or vice-versa, are allergic to things we can tolerate just fine). Sure, there's god-like aliens here and there, like the Cosmere has Shards. But on the whole, your average alien isn't going to have exotic natural abilities that completely blow humanity out of the water. Even Vulcan telepathy is limited enough that they don't immediately ping as a 'mage' species compared to humans. It's the same with mutant-types on Nachi; they'll often be able to outstrip baseline humans in one area or another, but they'll never be able to outperform them so drastically that they'd render normal people obsolete.

While we're on the topic of mutations, I should probably mention how they're inherited. Basically, some of the mutations are incompatible with one another based on what areas of the SDNA are modified. People with similar mutations can reproduce with little to no problem. People with mutations can reproduce with baseline humans, but their odds of conceiving are reduced and grow lower the more drastic the mutations in question, and their children will usually inherit only some traits from their mutant parent (think about how the Herdazians and Horneaters have inherited some physical features from their SInger ancestors). The same fertility problem exists but is compounded for partners with dissimilar mutations, and their children have a chance of manifesting completely unexpected traits based on how the mutations play off each other.

[AonEne]

This is really neat, I like how you incorporated the mechanics we're aware of! I also love the name Nachi lol