Stealing a Shapeshifter's Shapeshifting

[Trusk'our]

It is possible to take a Listener's ability to grow a Gemheart, as per this WoB.

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Snipexe

Could you spike the ability to grow a gemheart out of a singer?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, I think you could. Yeah.

However, this isn't an invested power as far as I can tell, it's more of a natural ability to manipulate investiture, similar to the creatures found on Patji and their various cognitive specialties. I think that this would hint that it may be possible to take the shapeshifting ability from creatures such as Kandra or Saih Aimians. This could lead to some very interesting uses, I would think. 

It seems as though shapeshifters are largely immune to the flesh-shaping side effects of Hemalurgy, so you can give an artificial shapeshifter Hemalurgic spikes containing human attributes without turning them into mindless monstrosities. If you figure out how to fill Hemalurgic spikes with multiple charges, you could make someone superhuman as long as they have the spikes. Not to mention the fact that most shapeshifters (i.e. Kandra, Saih Aimians, and Dragons) are ageless, or at the very least age very slowly, which would be a nice benefit.

It does make me wonder which specific metal would take a shapeshifter's ability though, assuming that it is in fact possible. I would guess Hemalurgic duralumin, by taking their Connection, would allow you to rewrite your spiritweb to think that you were born a shapeshifter would be the best bet though.

[cometaryorbit]

Maybe lerasium, which steals "all abilities", or (refined) atium ("any power"), combined with an unusual bind point?

But I am not sure how broad that really is. Could you steal an owl's night vision or a bat's ability to echolocate? I think kandra shapeshifting is more like that than the gemheart thing, which is a kind of 'leakage' from the Spiritual?

[CryoZenith]

6 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Maybe lerasium, which steals "all abilities", or (refined) atium ("any power"), combined with an unusual bind point?

But I am not sure how broad that really is. Could you steal an owl's night vision or a bat's ability to echolocate? I think kandra shapeshifting is more like that than the gemheart thing, which is a kind of 'leakage' from the Spiritual?

I would guess that night vision and echolocation would just be stolen with a tin spike, and you wouldn't have to go through the complicated process of whatever shapeshifting or gemheart-growing require, since the former are specifically senses.

[cometaryorbit]

On 2/19/2022 at 5:31 AM, CryoZenith said:

I would guess that night vision and echolocation would just be stolen with a tin spike, and you wouldn't have to go through the complicated process of whatever shapeshifting or gemheart-growing require, since the former are specifically senses.

Oh, good point... certainly for the night vision. I am not sure whether the sound generation part of echolocation would be stealable as a sense, or only the passive hearing part?

Maybe an electric eel's electricity-generation ability would have been a more appropriate analogy.