I'm making a new Metallic art, please help

[+Tekiny]

Hi! ^^

I'm currently planning for a TTRPG-Campaign where I plucked my favorite things from the Cosmere and smash them all together on an alternate earth. "What would have happened if humanity had discovered magic around the 1860's?" is the premise. And where there is an invested Art, there are Shards. 

In my setting, there are three shards on Earth, two of which have created Allomancy and Hemalurgy. The third one made "Aurospiry", the new metallic Art I'm inventing. As a result of the Allomancy shard splintering themself, Allomancy has mixed with the two other Magics to create Feruchemy and another, 5th magic system, which I won't get further into now. 

So, Aurospiry: Basically, people can "embed" part of their spiritweb into specific metals, which creates metals that have some kind of wacky effect based on what part of their spiritweb is being embedded. Sadly, this needs much investiture, so the rest of their spiritweb is converted; fueling the transfer in the process. Invested individuals can put more into an object because not as much of their soul needs to be converted. And the more invested a person is, the more will the object keep their personality. This is not a way of making full cognitive shadows, as only the personality is transferred on top of the magic effect, not their memories and such. What part of the soul can be transferred - and therefore also the effect - is determined by the kind of metal that is being used. 

That's the gist of it. I wanted the effects to be similar to the other metallic arts but when I tried, I ended up making a bunch of stuff that already could have been achieved way easier with Medallions. Like "Makes the Wearer stronger" and so on.  

So if you get any ideas what some metals could do, please share them, I'd be happy to read your replies 

Edit: Thought of some and I thought it might be useful to get a feeling of what I am looking for: 
 

Iron: Gains the ability to change its weight. 

Steel: Gains the ability to change its form. 

Gold: Can heal itself and other metal objects.

Electrum: Can show future possibilities on its surface

Tungsten (a custom addition to the table): shows simple ideas (as in pictures). If the bond's strong enough, these pictures can be projected outward as illusions

Narkital (a tungsten alloy I made up): Reacts to emotions in the vicinity

Aluminum: Inherits a perfect copy of the dead person, nothing else

Cadmium: Gives the wearer the ability to perfectly focus on one task.

Chromium: Strenghtens the wearer's gut instinct (as in it heightens their fortune).

Nicrosil: consumes sources of investiture it is touching to strenghten the wearer's invested arts

Tin: more or less gives heightenings proportional to the investiture originally put into it. But only up to the 4th.

 

Edited July 24, 2022 by Tekiny
Additional stuff

[Some Random Spren]

nicrosil - drains nearby sources of investiture to make nearby invested arts more powerful

[+Tekiny]

8 hours ago, Some Random Spren said:

nicrosil - drains nearby sources of investiture to make nearby invested arts more powerful

That's a cool idea! Thanks ^^

[Duxredux]

This seems like some blend between Feruchemy, Hemalurgy, and Awakening, in that it is permanent self-cannibalism that imbues a formerly inanimate object with power and a semblance of decision-making capabilities. 

First question, for the campaign that you are running, are the other players familiar with Mistborn and will they try to break the system based on knowledge from the books? In essence, do you feel you need to build the system to not break the world, or are you fine with TLR and Compounding level powerhouses running amok?

Second question, how does Autospiry impact the worldbuilding at this point? Is the campaign taking place in the 1860s when the magic was first discovered, or is this 160 years in the future in a contemporary setting? 

Third question, have you already figured out how Autospiry interacts with the other magic systems? For example, can a Feruchemist use a Autospiry metal as a metalmind? Does the Autospiry transformation need to be done through personal intent, or can you force someone to undergo the transformation (it doesn't seem like something many would do voluntarily)? If any Allomancers are still around, what happens if an Allomancer is currently burning metal and has a direct conduit to Investiture when they try to do the Autospiry transformation? What happens if someone tries to use an Autospiry metal for Hemalurgy, does the personality withing the metal start to overwrite the recipient of the spike? How easy are Autospiry metals to break? What happens if you cut one in half? If these are too many questions, feel free to skip them, but these were the first thoughts I had on how I might try to hack the system, and system hacks are kind of a thing in the Cosmere these days.

As for metals, here's a few ideas:

• Copper - Hides from Tin Autospiry users or similar detection methods, similar to becoming a Drab. Can be attached to a Metalborn, regular person, or magitech/fabrial type devices.
• Bronze - Geiger counter for Investiture?
• Pewter -
  • The metal itself becomes supernaturally durable, maybe in the same range as a Shardblade (kind of like the body's reinforcement that comes from burning Pewter). Effect is dependent on the Investiture of the original person and the size of the metal .
  • Alt: The metal can grow and shrink at will keeping the same general shape, the dimensions of the metal growing and shrinking at the same rate (think Feruchemical Pewter but applied to the metal). Density remains constant, and there is some reinforcement, but it can make a dangerous tool.
• Atium (Hemalurgy metal)
  • Accelerates aging of nearby objects. Really dangerous and highly corrosive.
  • With the right intent, becomes something that just will absorb souls, by basically locking on the Intent of Hemalurgy to tear out souls. Basically Nightblood in a can, use only if you want to watch the world burn
• Autospiry Godmetal ???  Kind of tricky with this one, since I'm not sure what the Intent of the Autospiry Shard is or what the overall concept is.
  • Grants a static boost of all of donor's natural attributes to the wearer? I'm thinking something similar to Kandra blessings but all the blessings.
  • Can temporarily copy other Autospiry metals.

 

[+Tekiny]

First of all: I really like the direction you're thinking in. Thanks for all the interesting questions, I had much fun thinking of an answer

3 hours ago, Duxredux said:

In essence, do you feel you need to build the system to not break the world, or are you fine with TLR and Compounding level powerhouses running amok?

No, they are not savy with the metallic arts, although I fear a few of them might break stuff once they are. I have decided that natural compounders are not possible because reasons  and they have just now seen a hemalurgically created compounder while still not knowing what Hemalurgy is.

 

3 hours ago, Duxredux said:

how does Autospiry impact the worldbuilding at this point?

Not much, although we are playing in the present. Since it's an invested art most people only get knowledge in their last moments of through slight nudging by Gratitude (its shard) if people die happily. That plus people need to be in reach of a viable metal. And even if people have met all of these requirements, they can't get many strong effects, since not many people die contently while burning metals. What little aurospiric effects are present today could also be attributed to Luck or better genetics, since they mostly are necklaces, braces and so on that are inherited from the people they were invested by. But in rural areas, there definitely are people who think their "good luck charm" is more than just that. 

4 hours ago, Duxredux said:

Feruchemist use a Autospiry metal as a metalmind?

Yes, but there would be complications. If the feruchemist had "bonded" the object, i.e had gotten access to its effect, investing it via feruchemy would slowly drain the storage while temporarily boosting the object's effect.

4 hours ago, Duxredux said:

Does the Autospiry transformation need to be done through personal intent, or can you force someone to undergo the transformation (it doesn't seem like something many would do voluntarily)?

Yes, there needs to be personal intent. That's part of the reason it is mostly unknown today. People don't learn of it naturally and the only people Gratitude is willing to give a hint are people in their last moments. Imagine this: You are slowly dying and suddenly you get the feeling that

a. these are your last breaths, you will be dead in a few moments

but b. you can still help your family by giving them a magical object. That's how I justify it as coming from a Shard named Gratitude: The people who are predominantly using it are people who are grateful for their life, their friends and their family and get a chance to pay it back in a way that doesn't really affect them.

4 hours ago, Duxredux said:

If any Allomancers are still around, what happens if an Allomancer is currently burning metal and has a direct conduit to Investiture when they try to do the Autospiry transformation?

I think I already mentioned this. If an invested person is performing Aurospiry, the resulting object will be more powerful since less of their spiritweb needed to be converted into raw investiture in the process. They can fuel the transfer at least partly via the Investiture they get by burning metals. 

4 hours ago, Duxredux said:

What happens if someone tries to use an Autospiry metal for Hemalurgy, does the personality withing the metal start to overwrite the recipient of the spike?

Didn't think of this, but I feel like it would be like with spren whose Radiant got their Bond spiked out of them: The Object turned spike can refuse the process (i.e break the bond) on its own if it is invested enough. Plus, I don't think you could use the object as a spike in the first place, since Aurospiry and Hemalurgy use different metals for different parts of the SW. Turning an object into a spike by spiking smth out of someone would likely not be of much use either, since the different identities inside the spike would clash.

4 hours ago, Duxredux said:

Copper - Hides from Tin Autospiry users or similar detection methods, similar to becoming a Drab. Can be attached to a Metalborn, regular person, or magitech/fabrial type devices

Yes. Just yes.

4 hours ago, Duxredux said:

Bronze - Geiger counter for Investiture?

Interesting idea, though I also have introduced white Sand, which more or less is exactly that, only on a smaller radius I imagine. Tried to think of a better one but failed.

4 hours ago, Duxredux said:

Pewter -

• The metal itself becomes supernaturally durable, maybe in the same range as a Shardblade (kind of like the body's reinforcement that comes from burning Pewter). Effect is dependent on the Investiture of the original person and the size of the metal

 

 

I have to say I like the first one more, though if I had a better effect of Iron and Steel, I'd choose the second one in a heartbeat. It feels like theireffects combined. So many interesting possibilities though!

4 hours ago, Duxredux said:

Atium (Hemalurgy metal)

• Accelerates aging of nearby objects. Really dangerous and highly corrosive.

 

Interesting idea. I could see the possibility of it being more specific the more invested it is. Like, if the lord Ruler had Invested it while tapping and burning everything at once, its user could be able to choose what/who ages and how quickly. I think you just gave me the perfect idea for a big bad!

4 hours ago, Duxredux said:

Autospiry Godmetal ???  Kind of tricky with this one, since I'm not sure what the Intent of the Autospiry Shard is or what the overall concept is.

• Grants a static boost of all of donor's natural attributes to the wearer? I'm thinking something similar to Kandra blessings but all the blessings.
• Can temporarily copy other Autospiry metals.

 

I could see it doing both. If someone invested it, it could work by slightly boosting aspects just like you said and also just granting the effects of an metal it was alloyed with without a person needing to die for it. 

[Some Random Spren]

On 27/07/2022 at 0:14 AM, Tekiny said:

Interesting idea, though I also have introduced white Sand, which more or less is exactly that, only on a smaller radius I imagine. Tried to think of a better one but failed.

not saying you should add it if you dont want to, but just so that you know some of the cosmere systems already have similar effects and can be hacked to mimic each other, so the potential of autospiry doing something doesn't have to be automatically dismissed just because there's something else in the cosmere that already does so

 

also ideas for other effects:

Aluminium and/or Chromium - negates investiture in a certain radius

possibly for Duralumin (because duralumin interacts with investiture), Raysium (because raysium conducts investiture) or Lerasium (gives powers) - The person making the autospiric device can pass their abilities (such as allomancy or feruchemy) onto the user of the autospiric device
(possible exceptions include surgebinding, and could possibly interact with forgery and hemalurgy interestingly)

[+Tekiny]

11 hours ago, Some Random Spren said:

some of the cosmere systems already have similar effects and can be hacked to mimic each other

Yeah, I know. I just want it to do something more than the sand, because I have made it pretty available to my players. But I like the thought of bronze not only detecting investiture but also being able to distinguish between different forms of Inv when in close proximity. That is something that is different enough to sand and bronze Allomancy (because it is easier to distinguish but also has a much smaller radius) that I like it. 

11 hours ago, Some Random Spren said:

Chromium - negates investiture in a certain radius

How about it negating one's access to foreign investiture? That wouldn't make it a CogShad-Killer but it would prevent the Use of allomancy and feruchemy. And compounding. That could come in handy.

11 hours ago, Some Random Spren said:

The person making the autospiric device can pass their abilities (such as allomancy or feruchemy) onto the user of the autospiric device

That would make it more or less a medallion with extra death. But if the User could copy someone's Connections to gain access to someone else's Invested art, that could be interesting. I know that I'm hovering on the edge of what Brandon would allow, but storm it, it's cool.