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Passive investiture granted via Hemalurgy


Trusk'our

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Hemalurgy fascinates me, mostly because of the idea that you can use it to create all kinds of crazy things, but the weaknesses tacked on to having too may spikes means that realistically, you'd probably only want a few.

The coppermind says that a nicrosil spike will steal general investiture, like bio-chromatic breaths, not actual powers, like allomancy or surgebinding. My question is, what benefit is there to this? Would it act like just getting a bunch of breaths that you can't awaken with? or would it do something different?

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I wonder how many breaths worth of investiture you'd be able to fit inside a single spike. After all, awakened swords take at least 1000 breaths to awaken, so a similarly sized piece of metal should be able to hold a similar amount I'd guess. 

I suppose what I'm really asking is if you could gain biological immortality with just one single nicrocil spike.

On 10/18/2021 at 0:16 AM, Invocation said:

My personal idea, until proven otherwise, is that it'll be used for resonance-hunting. Tacking on extra passive Investiture should help shape certain resonances in a theoretically controllable manner. Some morally bankrupt person is going to use that, I'm almost sure of it.

Also, I just have to say, I really like this idea. I hadn't even thought of it, but it would make sense :)

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Okay, so my original idea was that you could use the same spike on multiple people and continue to fill it because it counts as a low investiture object according to this quote.

Quote

Questioner

I've got a list of various Cosmere bits of metal and I was wondering if you would rank them from like one to ten or just easy to difficult on how hard it would be to steelpush on them. So with one being just a regular coin, ten being like when the Lord Ruler was moving bits of glass on the floor, so like metal inside a person's body.

Brandon Sanderson

It depends on how strong the Investiture in them is.

Questioner

Is that gonna be the answer for all of these?

Brandon Sanderson

Probably!

Questioner

How about a spike charged with Hemalurgy?

Brandon Sanderson

A spike charged with Hemalurgy... that depends on...

Questioner

Not in a person.

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on how strong, yeah, a spike is moderately, (in the realm of these kinds of things) moderately easy to push on because a spike does not rip off very much Investiture. Only enough to short circuit the soul, and less it over time. I would put that at the bottom, with the top being very hard, to be one of the easier things.

Questioner

How about a metalmind that is full?

Brandon Sanderson

That is full? That is going to be middle of the realm of the, yeah. Generally easier than, for instance, a Shardblade which is going to be very hard.

However, this won't apparently be as easy as I originally imagined...

Quote

yulerule

Can you reuse a spike?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Uh, yes, technically, but not as easily as that question makes it sound.

yulerule

Can you re-use it if it's for the same exact thing or for a different thing? Will that change?

Brandon Sanderson

Spikes are going to get keyed by Identity--

yulerule

So you can't already spike that person. But if you spike and don't kill them can you spike the same person again?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah and if you can somehow strip the identity of the person or the spike-- So yes you can use them again but it comes into a sort of-- Like, you can't just take that spike and spike somebody else.

So, it sounds like when you spike away something from someone, it keys that spike to their Identity. While you can impale yourself or someone else with that same spike to grant them that power, you wouldn't, for instance, be able to remove your own power or attribute to add on to the previously existing hemalurgic charge due to conflicting Identity. 

However, if you could repeatedly take investiture from someone who could heal back that which was lost, you might be able to overcome this difficulty. If you could get the donors to blank their Identity before you took their investiture, you could also likely add up the total charge. 

Both of these options seem rather difficult to achieve, so I can see why the Lord Ruler's steel Inquisitors didn't just load up on power from a few spikes, even if my theory holds true. 

Thoughts anyone?

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