Infiltrating the Hallandren Court of Gods

[Trusk'our]

                It has been confirmed by Brandon Sanderson that you can steal a Returned’s Divine Breath by using hemalurgy. If someone could somehow steal a Divine Breath and give it to themselves, they could pretend to be a true Returned and get taken into Hallandren’s Court of Gods.

                They’d have access to an additional breath once each week, allowing them to get an addition 52 bio-chromatic breaths in total each year, since they don’t need to consume a breath each week to stay alive. They could also siphon off tons of money that Returned normally waste, using it to obtain more breaths if they have some lackies on the outside the Court that could go buy some for them.

                Not to mention the political power they’d wield, and the great comfort that they’d have just by being there a supposed Returned.

                In hindsight, though, this is a bad idea for two big reasons.

                One: You have to murder a person to get the Divine Breath. Which is bad.

                Two: Endowment personally dolls out each Divine Breath, so she’d probably notice if someone she hadn’t picked suddenly got one somehow. I can’t imagine that she’d be terribly pleased.

[Honorless]

Yeah...

Quote

RandyD

Can a Shard just smite someone? Like, "Boom, you're dead," and they die?

Brandon Sanderson

So, Shards can do this, depending on where they are. For instance, Odium can't, but Endowment could.

Skyward Seattle signing (Nov. 10, 2018)

 

[Proletariat]

I think it could actually serve her purposes and someone who does it wouldn't get the freedom they expected. Like Returned are created to sacrifice themselves at key moments anyway, and stealing an entire splinter would surely steal the mission she's allocated as well given she could go right through the holes created by the hemalurgy to directly communicate with whoever it is now that they carry the splinter.

I reckon the bigger issue is you'd probably need a lot of atium to hold an entire divine breath, and I can't imagine being able to be discreet about a piercing the size of a football for e.g in your body or whatever and it seems like it'd be easy to be dislodged in a fight...

[Inquisitor #5]

14 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

If someone could somehow steal a Divine Breath and give it to themselves, they could pretend to be a true Returned and get taken into Hallandren’s Court of Gods.

Could they actually? Would having the divine Breath actually allow them to do the whole body manipulation thing?

If they were a person of normal stature and not like an image of a god, people might start having questions.

It would also be a bit weird, I think, that nobody seems to have been around for the supposed Return of this person.

I can also believe that something would be... weird... about their aura because of the Hemalurgy. Maybe distorting colours in a similar way to Nightblood. 

The divine Breath might also feel... off... to people with aura recognition, due to the Hemalurgic decay

The decay might also mean that you wouldn't get the whole Heightening package, probably only reaching Fourth, close to Fifth.

14 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

They’d have access to an additional breath once each week, allowing them to get an addition 52 bio-chromatic breaths in total each year, since they don’t need to consume a breath each week to stay alive.

I don't think we know how many weeks are in a Nalthian year, nor the length of a Nalthian year, but the week is eight days long, so we're not working with earth units here.

We actually don't know that a divine Breath would't eat a Breath each week if it was spiked into someone. If that is an inherent function of the Breath, rather than a function of keeping this corpse moving, then you should still need to feed it.

It might even need "food" more often, on account of the Hemalurgic decay.

People might also notice that the extra Breath just accumulates if it's not consumed, which would be very suspicious. 

14 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

They could also siphon off tons of money that Returned normally waste, using it to obtain more breaths if they have some lackies on the outside the Court that could go buy some for them.

I'm not sure the Returned have a budget, they are just given what they want. It would also be suspicious if one asked for money, as they'd have nowhere to spend it.

I also imagine that what enters and leaves the Court of Gods would be kept track of, to prevent unscrupulous priests from making a pretty penny fencing goods their god was done with.

With all the intriguing at the Court, it also wouldn't be that strange if a "Returned" getting extra Breath was found out pretty quickly.

And this whole scheme requires that their entire priesthood either be decieved or sworn to secrecy, beyond the ones in on the scheme.

14 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Not to mention the political power they’d wield, and the great comfort that they’d have just by being there a supposed Returned.

The political power would be dependent on their deific domain, they don't hold blanket influence.

There's also the question of: why does our (probable) worldhopper care about Hallandren politics?

They would have luxury, as long as they weren't found out, but it's also a gilded cage. No matter the outcome of this scheme, something's gonna happen. 

And the longer they stay in the Court of Gods, the more discontent people will be with them not giving up their Breath. And the longer they keep up their Breath accumulation scheme, the more likely they are to be found out.

 

There's also the possible issue of what exactly the divine Breath is. If the divine Breath is the Cognotive Shadow, then you have the problem of stapling another person to yourself, whatever that'd entail. One that probably isn't terribly happy with you, I might add.

Also what Honorless said.

Edit: also, the Court of Gods is the likeliest place to find a Returned to spike, so you'd need to get in there just to make the spike. After that everyone'd probably be on high alert because a Returned has either died (if you left the body) or gone missing (if you disposed of the body) and that's the situation you'd be entering the Court of Gods in.

 

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Edited November 16, 2021 by Inquisitor #5
Additional point

[+Harrycrapper]

2 hours ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

Edit: also, the Court of Gods is the likeliest place to find a Returned to spike, so you'd need to get in there just to make the spike. After that everyone'd probably be on high alert because a Returned has either died (if you left the body) or gone missing (if you disposed of the body) and that's the situation you'd be entering the Court of Gods in.

I'd say the best way to do this would be to post a Kandra in somewhere like Idris where they don't revere the Returned and just let them die when their week is up. The Kandra just needs to find the person and spike them. They won't be well guarded and the killer wouldn't be pursued like they would if they killed a Returned in Hallandren. Unfortunately, you'd still probably be going up against Endowment. Between Shardic futuresight(which she seems to be talented at compared to others like Honor), the straight up ability to smite you, and the fact that there's some sort of customs officials you have to get through on your way out of Nalthis, I'm not sure anyone is pulling this off that Endowment doesn't want to. 

[Inquisitor #5]

20 hours ago, Proletariat said:

I reckon the bigger issue is you'd probably need a lot of atium to hold an entire divine breath, and I can't imagine being able to be discreet about a piercing the size of a football for e.g in your body or whatever and it seems like it'd be easy to be dislodged in a fight...

Or you could, assuming that normal Breath and divine Breath have the same underlying nature, use a nicrosil spike.

Quote

Pagerunner

The Hemalurgy table, you wrote down "atium steals any power, lerasium is all abilities, nicrosil is Investiture"; what's the difference between those three?

Hemalurgic atium, lerasium, and nicrosil. What's powers, abilities, and Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

People are Invested in ways that do not give them active powers. So for instance, everyone on Nalthis is Invested. Everyone in the cosmere is, really. You want to steal their Investiture, but they don't have a power. You're still ripping off a piece of their soul. So there is a distinction between the actual Investiture that's in a human being and a specific power that they have.

So that distinction is pretty easy. You can also, with Hemalurgy, steal specific things. You can steal just general Investiture. You can steal, if you want--this is where the kandra Blessings come from. You can instead steal specific things that are not like stealing Allomancy. Stealing, for instance, someone's mental acuity.

Pagerunner

So abilities is like the half that's all the strength, speed, all that kind of stuff? Those are abilities, versus the Metallic Arts are all powers?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Pagerunner

Then Investiture, is that offworld magics?

Brandon Sanderson

No, no, it's the raw power.

Pagerunner

Nicrosil is their soul?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. A piece of their soul, essentially.

Pagerunner

So how would you go about stealing an offworld power?

Brandon Sanderson

It's going to depend. A Breath, you would steal with nicrosil. It's general Investiture, is what you would probably going call that. You could forcibly remove someone's Breath from them. The ability to be a Sand Master you would steal with the power ability.

JordanCon 2021 (July 16, 2021)

Nicrosil steals standard Breath.

Also, per the Hemalurgy chart, atium wouldn't actually work, as it only steals powers.

And given the size of the spike, Inquisitor spikes are hecka oversized, Vin's earring is enough to grant her extra bronze. Even then, it's not exactly clear what exactly would be happening to the spike here, is the Breath becoming Invested in the spike? Is it simply holding on to the Breath? 

Interestingly, if it's the first, you might not be able to give up a stolen Breath, seeing as Hemalurgic charge sticks to the spike, as seen with Vin's earring. Actually, that might be the case in either case. Or it depends on how the natures of Breath and Hemalurgy interact.

18 hours ago, Harrycrapper said:

I'd say the best way to do this would be to post a Kandra in somewhere like Idris where they don't revere the Returned and just let them die when their week is up.

Ah, yes, the "best" way to do murder.

But yeah, that'd be safer.

18 hours ago, Harrycrapper said:

They won't be well guarded and the killer wouldn't be pursued like they would if they killed a Returned in Hallandren.

I think you might still be wanted for murder, depending on if a Returned is seen as a living person during that week.

But yeah, far less of a hassle.

21 hours ago, Proletariat said:

I think it could actually serve her purposes and someone who does it wouldn't get the freedom they expected. Like Returned are created to sacrifice themselves at key moments anyway, and stealing an entire splinter would surely steal the mission she's allocated as well given she could go right through the holes created by the hemalurgy to directly communicate with whoever it is now that they carry the splinter.

 

18 hours ago, Harrycrapper said:

Unfortunately, you'd still probably be going up against Endowment. Between Shardic futuresight(which she seems to be talented at compared to others like Honor), the straight up ability to smite you, and the fact that there's some sort of customs officials you have to get through on your way out of Nalthis, I'm not sure anyone is pulling this off that Endowment doesn't want to. 

Yeah, I can see Endowment permitting it, but you may be in a lot of trouble if she doesn't.

I'm also unsure what exactly allows Endowment to smite someone, she presumably can't just reach out and kill anyone in the cosmere, though I can definitely see having a lot of her Investiture being something that'd let her smite you. If one subscribes to the idea that Nalthian humans were directly created by Endowment, it might be that one must be Nalthian, or that she could only take away her Investiture from an existing system. Though that seems to go against her Intent.

Also, to add to a point in my first post, I found this WoB:

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Haverworthy

Just had a question, when a Returned consumes a Breath, is it a property of their body that does so or the Divine Breath itself? It's been contentious in the community. If it's specifically just their body and a hemalurgist were to spike a Divine Breath as indicated was possible here*, would the hemalurgist not need to consume a weekly breath?

*https://wob.coppermind.net/events/364/#e11389

Brandon Sanderson

That's a very interesting question. The thing that requires the Returned to continue gaining investiture is their nature as cognitive shadows--they are dead, and in this case, need a power source to continue persisting in the physical realm. The Divine Breath is part of this. Imagine the Divine Breath as the thing that Infuses their soul, making it persist initially, and then and sticks it to the body. So if you stole it, but you yourself were not in need of being kept alive, I would say that you wouldn't need to be fed a new breath each week to maintain the Divine Breath.

General Reddit 2020 (Oct. 4, 2020)

So it seems that you would not need additional Breath.

 

 

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[+Harrycrapper]

1 hour ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

I'm also unsure what exactly allows Endowment to smite someone, she presumably can't just reach out and kill anyone in the cosmere, though I can definitely see having a lot of her Investiture being something that'd let her smite you. If one subscribes to the idea that Nalthian humans were directly created by Endowment, it might be that one must be Nalthian, or that she could only take away her Investiture from an existing system. Though that seems to go against her Intent.

I always figured it was because she's completely unopposed. Odium couldn't do that to just anyone because Cultivation could counter it much like Ruin was countering Vin's moves as Preservation. Harmony can't do it because of the nature of holding the two Shards he has makes it difficult to do much. But, Endowment is the sole Shard on Nalthis which I figure gives her more leeway in terms of what she can do, but obviously just on her planet, I don't think she can strike from afar. 

[Halyo_Alex]

3 hours ago, Harrycrapper said:

I don't think she can strike from afar. 

That's what Nightblood is for.

But to actually give my two cents on this whole discussion; I'd say it's reasonable to believe that 1. Endowment would be aware that our would-be hemalurgist is coming, given her aptitude for future sight, and 2. that she would probably disapprove of one of her special-made Returned getting killed off against their will and their Investiture harvested for selfish desires. So it seems probable that unless she makes a plan that works around a Returned getting spiked (which, yknow, is not impossible), you'd be smote pretty fast if you tried to do this.

Of course, I think it gets MUCH more interesting from a narrative perspective if she DID formulate a plan that's based on a Divine Breath becoming contained in a hemalurgic spike. What in the Cosmere could she want something like that for, in that case?

[+Harrycrapper]

19 minutes ago, Halyo_Alex said:

That's what Nightblood is for.

But to actually give my two cents on this whole discussion; I'd say it's reasonable to believe that 1. Endowment would be aware that our would-be hemalurgist is coming, given her aptitude for future sight, and 2. that she would probably disapprove of one of her special-made Returned getting killed off against their will and their Investiture harvested for selfish desires. So it seems probable that unless she makes a plan that works around a Returned getting spiked (which, yknow, is not impossible), you'd be smote pretty fast if you tried to do this.

Of course, I think it gets MUCH more interesting from a narrative perspective if she DID formulate a plan that's based on a Divine Breath becoming contained in a hemalurgic spike. What in the Cosmere could she want something like that for, in that case?

Yea that's basically my perspective as well, this would need to be Endowment sanctioned.