Why don't Leechers have a Death Touch?

[Trusk'our he/him]

Since chromium Allomancers leech away a person’s investiture, why don’t they accidentally (or purposefully) leech away a person’s innate investiture, or, more importantly, their spark of life? Does Allomantic chromium not affect investiture within the spiritual realm? Does it just not affect investiture that has an Identity?

[alder24]

Leecher can drain Breaths:

Spoiler

Podman36

How effective would a Leecher be at draining Breath?

Brandon Sanderson

They could be fairly effective.

Questioner

How significant would the difference be between Breath and Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

That, I'll RAFO for now, because we're actually getting the actual numbers. We have certain people working on a project for that.

Skyward release party (Nov. 6, 2018)

And they could leech from Lifeless:

Spoiler

Podman36

If [Leeching] would work with Breath, would it work with Lifeless? Could you Leech a Lifeless?

Brandon Sanderson

This is theoretically possible.

Skyward release party (Nov. 6, 2018)

But when leeching from Feruchemist, he needs to tap his metalminds first:

Spoiler

Questioner

Nicrosil and chromium, do those have any interaction with people using Feruchemy, or other Investiture in general? Leechers or Nicrobursts.

Brandon Sanderson

Could you use those on Feruchemists? You should be able to, yes.

Questioner

Would that only work while they're tapping it?

Brandon Sanderson

If it's active Investiture, probably yes. You'd probably need it to be kinetic Investiture in order for them to do anything about it.

Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021)

Those WoBs tell me that it has to be kinetic investiture (tapping metalminds) or innate to some degree (Breaths), static investiture (metalminds) can't be leeched. Divine Breath is tricky, as it's a soul of a Returned, and it's transferred into kinetic investiture when used (e.g. healing somebody), so I think only then it can be leeched.

Spoiler

Extesian

Can you give away a Divine Breath to another human? If so would they have the same powers as a Returned or would they just 'store' it like an inanimate object that Breath is stored in when not Awakened? Does a human require a 'crack' in their spirit web to receive a divine Breath?

Brandon Sanderson

So, a Divine Breath-- you're kind of going along the wrong direction on that line of reasoning. Divine Breaths cannot be transferred. When they are used they immediately become kinetic Investiture and are activated. This manifests normally as healing the person, both body, mind, and soul, but you can't give it up, transfer it in the same way you can regular Breaths.

Skype Q&A (Oct. 8, 2018)

 

Edited February 2, 2023 by alder24

[Frustration]

Leechers could in theory do this, they are just far too weak, so that would be the chromium equivelent to pushing on trace metals.

[Honorless he/him]

I think they just steal kinetic Investiture, Investiture that is actively maintaining an ability. Allomancy is a bit iffy in that it gives access to a store of energy corresponding to the metal swallowed (if they're a Mistborn, that is, otherwise a Misting's corresponding metal), and that Allomancers aren't necessarily always burning those stores but iirc, Leechers pull away not just metals their target is currently burning but their entire metal reserves. That can mean that either, having a metal reserve is itself an active effect, which is very possible, or that the power itself is built to not just swallow a person's spark of life, which is just as likely, as that goes with Preservation's Intent. If the former is true, hacking the ability to get a death touch may be easier and artificial Allomancy via Southern Scadrial tech might be capable of it in the future.

[NameIess]

Leechers don't eat souls. They eat the active investiture from people, such as stormlight, metals, or breaths. So they don't touch the spiritual aspect.

[Wits instant noodles he/him]

perhaps a very powerful chromium savant could in theory drain a Returned's divine breath if they rely wanted to  but only a Returned because a normal persons breath isn't actually being used for it to be drained.  

[SPECTRE120]

A chromium savant burning duralumin could probably kill people by touch

[IlstrawberrySeed]

On 2/2/2023 at 8:54 AM, alder24 said:

But when leeching from Feruchemist, he needs to tap his metalminds first:

Filling is also kinetic, so necrobursting someone filling could kill them.

Iron: probably not too damaging, depending on how secondary powers are handled in F-general.
Steel: Might cause a coma (in time), or might stop the heart.
Pewter: No strenght means you can't support yourself and you can't pump your heart. Your heart stops and you start to take a fall.
Tin: Not likely dangerous unless it permanently damages the organ, depending on sence. (Sence of time would be interesting to see used, but SoBalance is probably most deadly)
Necrosil: Might store their soul. If they unkey it, might allow for possession. Also might allow for cheaper Dakhor with compounding. (TLM Might help Kel get his powers back).
Aluminum: ????
Durilium: Nondetection above that of Death?
Chromium: No fortune may cause death, since For. is just seeing into the Spiritual a little, so may disconect your soul.
Gold: No health means no life
Electrum: No determination might stop heart
Bendalloy: No energy means no life
Cadmium: Death from complete suffocation
Atium-Electrum: What happens if you revert your atom's into the original energy/investiture from the begining of time?

Edited February 9, 2023 by IlstrawberrySeed

[Trusk'our he/him]

18 hours ago, IlstrawberrySeed said:

Filling is also kinetic, so necrobursting someone filling could kill them.

Oooooooh. Hadn't thought of that.

Though, I doubt that momentary lack of most Feruchemically viable attributes would prove fatal.

I think that strength could be fatal if your heart doesn't start up again automatically. 

No energy means death for certain.

Health would possibly kill you, but it might just mean that your immune system doesn't work for one brief moment, which likely wouldn't be that dangerous.

Whether cadmium kills you or not depends on whether you can store the oxygen that is already being used by you cells and how long it would take for you to breath in more.

Storing youth would probably kill you, as you might just turn into a pile of dust (does the dust turn back into your corpse afterward, since it's a temporary change? That would be weird).

Edited February 10, 2023 by Trusk'our

[alder24]

18 hours ago, IlstrawberrySeed said:

Filling is also kinetic, so necrobursting someone filling could kill them.

Tbf I don't even know what it means. Feruchemist during filling convert some attribute (not all) into investiture, so I don't think nicrobursting someone when filling a metalmind would devoid him of that attribute because it's not investiture yet. It can have no effect on Feruchemist during filling, because Feruchemist is limited by the time. It could work like you said as well, but I don't see it working that way.

[IlstrawberrySeed]

4 hours ago, alder24 said:

Tbf I don't even know what it means. Feruchemist during filling convert some attribute (not all) into investiture, so I don't think nicrobursting someone when filling a metalmind would devoid him of that attribute because it's not investiture yet. It can have no effect on Feruchemist during filling, because Feruchemist is limited by the time. It could work like you said as well, but I don't see it working that way.

There are a few ways to categorize investiture. One is kinetic vs static vs innate. Static investiture is investiture stored inside of objects (awakening, hemalurgy, and metalminds). Lifesence (once you can sense objects) detects static investiture, while bronze detects kinetic investiture. Necrosil and Chromium effect kinetic energy the best/quickest/most efficiently, while also being able to effect innate investiture, but not to effect static investiture. While stored investiture is static, it's kinetic while being moved to/from the storage. This is why A-C/A/N/D can effect feruchemists. Chromium while filling probably wouldn't do much, just cause the metalmind to empty or (more likely) halt their filling while being leeched. Necrosil either fills at 100+% and stops their filling, or (more likly) boosts their filling to 100+% while being necrobursted. They can stop their filling, but if their filling determination they won't, so to a multi-feruchemist (either a feruchemist instead of ferring or hemalurgy) filling something semi-deadly would be deadly.
@Trusk'our did I get the realmatics correct?

[Trusk'our he/him]

19 minutes ago, IlstrawberrySeed said:

There are a few ways to categorize investiture. One is kinetic vs static vs innate. Static investiture is investiture stored inside of objects (awakening, hemalurgy, and metalminds). Lifesence (once you can sense objects) detects static investiture, while bronze detects kinetic investiture. Necrosil and Chromium effect kinetic energy the best/quickest/most efficiently, while also being able to effect innate investiture, but not to effect static investiture. While stored investiture is static, it's kinetic while being moved to/from the storage. This is why A-C/A/N/D can effect feruchemists. Chromium while filling probably wouldn't do much, just cause the metalmind to empty or (more likely) halt their filling while being leeched. Necrosil either fills at 100+% and stops their filling, or (more likly) boosts their filling to 100+% while being necrobursted. They can stop their filling, but if their filling determination they won't, so to a multi-feruchemist (either a feruchemist instead of ferring or hemalurgy) filling something semi-deadly would be deadly.
@Trusk'our did I get the realmatics correct?

I believe that Innate Investiture is actually a form of Static Investiture, as it is not currently being used. It does open up a small "window" to the Spiritual Realm though which energy can come through (like Rosharan spheres), which is how Feruchemy works; diverting the flow of said energy.

I believe that the rest is accurate though.

4 hours ago, alder24 said:

Tbf I don't even know what it means. Feruchemist during filling convert some attribute (not all) into investiture, so I don't think nicrobursting someone when filling a metalmind would devoid him of that attribute because it's not investiture yet. It can have no effect on Feruchemist during filling, because Feruchemist is limited by the time. It could work like you said as well, but I don't see it working that way.

@alder24 brings up an interesting point: it may not be possible to affect all of a Feruchemist's attribute, as they aren't storing all of it.

That being said, I think that this WoB says that it is possible to use Allomantic chromium or nicrosil on a Feruchemist, so long as they are tapping it. However, I can really only see that doing anything if you can affect all of the Investiture inside the Metalmind, even that Investiture not currently being tapped. This suggests that you could use Allomantic nicrosil or chromium on a Feruchemist who is storing, even if they aren't storing all of their attribute.

Quote

Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 - Arcanum (coppermind.net)

Questioner

Nicrosil and chromium, do those have any interaction with people using Feruchemy, or other Investiture in general? Leechers or Nicrobursts.

Brandon Sanderson

Could you use those on Feruchemists? You should be able to, yes.

Questioner

Would that only work while they're tapping it?

Brandon Sanderson

If it's active Investiture, probably yes. You'd probably need it to be kinetic Investiture in order for them to do anything about it.

So, my money is on the process working, though I am open to new developments in this area as we haven't seen it happen yet in a book.

[alder24]

38 minutes ago, IlstrawberrySeed said:

There are a few ways to categorize investiture. One is kinetic vs static vs innate. Static investiture is investiture stored inside of objects (awakening, hemalurgy, and metalminds). Lifesence (once you can sense objects) detects static investiture, while bronze detects kinetic investiture. Necrosil and Chromium effect kinetic energy the best/quickest/most efficiently, while also being able to effect innate investiture, but not to effect static investiture. While stored investiture is static, it's kinetic while being moved to/from the storage. This is why A-C/A/N/D can effect feruchemists. Chromium while filling probably wouldn't do much, just cause the metalmind to empty or (more likely) halt their filling while being leeched. Necrosil either fills at 100+% and stops their filling, or (more likly) boosts their filling to 100+% while being necrobursted. They can stop their filling, but if their filling determination they won't, so to a multi-feruchemist (either a feruchemist instead of ferring or hemalurgy) filling something semi-deadly would be deadly.

You missed my point entirely. Feruchemist stores attributes in metalmind by converting physical things like strength into kinetic investiture, which later becomes static in metalminds. The problem is, there is nothing for nicrosil to boost. Feruchemist converts for example 50% of his strength in any given second into kinetic investiture that flows into metalmind. Rest of his strength isn’t investiture, it’s just strength, matter, physical things. It shouldn’t be affected by nicrosil. There isn't really any way to make storing process faster, as you're limited by your attributes, nor greater, as again, your attributes aren't investiture. 

 

6 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

I believe that Innate Investiture is actually a form of Static Investiture, as it is not currently being used. It does open up a small "window" to the Spiritual Realm though which energy can come through (like Rosharan spheres), which is how Feruchemy works; diverting the flow of said energy.

Innate is separate from static. It's an additional part of a soul given to you from birth, like Breaths or Preservation's fragments in Scadrians. People in every shard world have that, but they mostly can't use it. Only Naltians can as far as we know. But innate is always part of a soul.

13 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

That being said, I think that this WoB says that it is possible to use Allomantic chromium or nicrosil on a Feruchemist, so long as they are tapping it. However, I can really only see that doing anything if you can affect all of the Investiture inside the Metalmind, even that Investiture not currently being tapped. This suggests that you could use Allomantic nicrosil or chromium on a Feruchemist who is storing, even if they aren't storing all of their attribute.

It might be a way to get all your stored attributes without diminishing returns that makes you lost most of it. At least in this case metalmind stores investiture, even if static, so it might just pull all of it without feruchemist intent to do so, or if feruchemist wants to tap everything at once, nicrosil will pull it without losing it to diminishing returns. You for sure can use nicrosil or chromium when storing a metalmind, but what effect it would have is debatable, it doens't have to do much.