Uppers and Downers; Cosmere Edition

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

Investiture is great isn't it?  That rush of power when you take a deep breath of stormlight or start flaring the pewter in your gut.  You have the feeling of utter perfection when the colors around you become more vibrant and the tones of the wind start singing in harmony with eachother.  Drawing upon incredible stores of speed, strength, or even slowing down the world around you so you can just take a second to breath in life and process everything.  

Sadly, all ups come with downs.  

We have pewterdrags which I believe carry the most pronounced downers in the cosmere offering the very real possibility of dying after pushing your body beyond what it should do.  

We have drabs who suddenly are less than in every imaginable way.  

We have the feruchemist who needs to feel as though they are walking through sludge before they can feel the wind on their faces again. 

I even feel like I remember Kaladin feeling exhausted when he ran out of stormlight.  

 

I am curious about which of these uppers and downers are most detrimental in life or death situations.  

We have heard plenty of evidence for biochromatic highs getting people killed and we see the psychological hit a person takes when they become a drab after spending time at even the lower heightenings.  

Pewter I believe is the most dramatic of physical enhancement forms of investiture and it makes sense that with the ability to push your natural self to such extremes you also face the most dire of consequences when the flow of drug ... I mean investiture wears off.   

Stormlight would be the next choice, in my opinion, for physical enhancements and I believe it would fit for a user to need to overcome a momentary downer after spending too prolonged a time on it.  How detrimental that could be in battle??  Maybe not instant death as we see in the case of a pewterdrag being cut short... but certainly dangerous if there was no weaning period at all.  

Feruchemy I think is the lucky option in this group.  You spend all the down time before your need for a quick high and you can spread out the less than stages as you feel comfortable.  The upside is that you can draw on incredible amounts of power or you can draw on a small trickle of power to make your life a little easier for a moment.  The downside... its all coming from you.  No external source of investiture to aid you.  

Curious for other examples I have missed, as I overlook many, and also curious how much of a difference the limited power sources could make in life and death situations.  

Do you think it is specific only to large physically enhancing investiture?   Do you think the body simply forgets about its exhaustion while under those effects and it catches up to everyone once they are gone?  Or do you think the danger of this is really just a pewter specific thing because none of the other systems really highlight the downers as a significant threat?   

You have stormlight and pewter going into round 20/10 and both fighters would be beyond useless if not for their enhanced bodies.  They both get leeched at the same time.  Who would be left standing?  

 

[StanLemon]

A number of types of Savantisms have some pretty strong downs

[Frustration]

Probably awakening as even the high you get from breaths can kill you.