Augmenting Powers Via Awakening

[Trusk'our he/him]

Awakening seems to be an extremely versatile manifestation of Investiture. I was wondering, if a skilled Awakener understood the mechanics of another magic system, could they command some Breaths to enhance another manifestation of Investiture?

For example, if an Awakener were to Awaken a Hemalurgic spike with the intent of having the Breaths mimicking and enhancing the spike's normal performance, could you get a Hemalurgic spike primarily powered by Bio-chromatic Breaths?

Could you take this one step further and Awaken an Allomancer who had blanked their Identity and use your Breaths to enhance the Connection that person had to Preservation, thus enhancing their Allomantic power?

[Dunkum he/him]

Bear in mind that awakening metal is already very hard, and awakening something that already carries some investiture is going to make things harder (though since a spike carries investiture from a human being, that might make the awakening easier too?  hard to guess how that specific bit would interact).  In theory I think if you had enough breaths and enough knowledge you could make this work, but as I said, the fact that the objects are already invested is going to make it harder, and there are almost certainly easier ways to do it

 

as to awakening someone else: we have only seen awakening used on a person directly once, and they had to do it to themselves. I doubt blanking Identity accomplishes anything in that scenario, but it may be possible for an allomancer who is given breaths to somehow use them as you suggest, though i don't know for sure.  the bits we have seen of using awakening on a living person involved altering/hiding memories which doesn't seem like it would do what you want directly or indirectly.

[Quantus he/him]

There are several WOB's that imply Breaths are some of the easiest to use to fuel other Abilities (depending on the ability).  But Fueling them is one thing, while Augmenting another magic with actual Awakening and making the two magics play nice together is a different thing entirely, and is going to be a lot more situational.  WOB also says breaths are some fo the most powerful balanced by a sharply limited supply method (ie one planet's birthrate).  

Breaths transfer easily and convert easily with pure Commands and Intent, and they can take on a target's existing Identity (though you might not be able to get the breath back, such as with Lifeless).  They can also house pure and more complex investiture constructs (like Memories) the way some Metalminds do.  

We know you could fuel Sand Mastery since White Sand is so easy to charge in the presence of any kinetic Investiture.  WOB says surges are really easy because of the way the Bond works, which I think works because both the Stormlight and the Breaths are physically Investing the Radiant. However, WOB says you cannot actually awaken with Stormlight and would need to first convert the Stormlight to breaths.

I personally think you could Command a Breath to Charge any other investiture storage device and it would conform to the existing Investiture Charge and power it up, which by the current Cosmere standard would be a very expensive exchange.   I think you could flush a breath to Command it grant an equivalent charge into Gem or to recharge an existing Metalmind or Hemalurgic Spike, Commanding the Breath to Convert itself into a different Investiture.  However I think it would rely on the existing Charge to be able to copy and augment, and would only be able to recahrge what it already did.  But I think Awakening's native problems with Investing metal would prevent you from actually making an Awakening-based effect or modification to stick, to to use Awakening to copy a spike whole, etc.  In the case of Hemalurgy I think it might be able to restore the charge lost to Hemalurgic Decay but I doubt you'd be able to remove the decay effect entirely or to make it any stronger than the initial donor/victim was (ie.  you could restore it to it's full initial charge but not make a strong misting from a weak one).  

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 11, 2022 by Quantus

[NameIess]

Here’s a WoB I found that said awakening a hemalurgic spike would have “crazy effects”

Quote

clyguy

Could you Awaken a Hemalurgic spike and put it in somebody, and would that have crazy effects?

Brandon Sanderson

That would have crazy effects. And it would be very hard.

Shadows of Self release party (Oct. 5, 2015)

Whether those crazy effects would involve making the person way more powerful, I don’t know.