Creating Easily Transferrable Powers

[Trusk'our he/him]

One of the interesting things about Investiture is that the Intent of what Investiture you are using matters. For example, you can only alter yourself so much with Awakening's standard system because Endowment's Intent permeates the Investiture you are using.

Quote

/r/books AMA 2015 - Arcanum (coppermind.net)

vandar10

Could someone with enough Breaths use part of them to heal himself without the help of a Returned?? Could the God King have healed himself without Lightsong with enough knowledge?

Brandon Sanderson

The nature of the Warbreaker magic is tied to the shard of Endowment, which is about giving. There are, therefore, things you cannot do for yourself.

RobotAztec

For healing can Big Breaths heal only one person at a time or can you heal a bunch of people at once?(as long as they are not yourself)?

Brandon Sanderson

Legends say you can heal many.

I think that if you could find a way to craft an Invested power from Endowment's Investiture then, you may be able to transfer it as you would BioChromatic-Breaths.

Here's a method that I thought of.

Step one: get an Unsealed Metalmind that provides the ability to use Feruchemical gold and aluminum (health and Identity) or a pair of Hemalurgic spikes that provide the same powers.

Step two: give the powers to a willing Nalthian who then stores a ton of health while blanking their Identity. NO COMPOUNDING. The health must come from the Nalthian's own Spiritweb.

Step three: excise the Invested power of another willing individual via Hemalurgy without killing them (probably an Allomancer or Ferring, though it may be that other Invested powers that are innately part of someone's Spiritweb could work).

Step four: have the donor tap the healing from the Unsealed metalmind (or Hemalurgic spikes) to replace the power. 

And at this point, it is important to know that when you heal a part of someone's Spiritweb, you actually graft an entirely new piece of Investiture on.

Quote

Firefight Chicago signing - Arcanum (coppermind.net)

Kurkistan

So you've said that healing is like the Spiritual wants to heal and then it filters through the Cognitive, but how's that work with healing wounds to the soul like Hemalurgy or Shardblades? What do you refer to to heal the soul at that point?

Brandon Sanderson

You need to make a patch on the soul with Investiture.

Kurkistan

So how's the Investiture know where to go, what to look like?

Brandon Sanderson

Well your soul is an ideal. So if you can get it up there, there are ways to do-- to recreate that with um... See I'm getting into stuff for later books.

Argent

No, that's okay.

Kurkistan

So when Hemalurgy rips something off the soul, is that the ideal soul or some sub-soul?

Brandon Sanderson

That is off of your soul, and it can be healed; but what it's going to be doing is creating a patch of new soul. So it will not be your original soul. Does that make sense?

Kurkistan

Okay, that- well, not completely, but I think that's your intention.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Bystander

If you do that, is that like Frankenstein's monster, or is it like a graft that's absorb--

Brandon Sanderson

Less horrifying- Less horrifying than Frankenstein's monster, but it is a graft that is like-- It is not your original soul.

Bystander

Yeah, but in modern medicine stuff like that is absorbed-

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, in this you will always have a scar on your soul that something else has patched over.

Kurkistan

So Kaladin shouldn't just keep getting his arm chopped?

Brandon Sanderson

*ignoring/not-hearing Kurkistan just now* But that is what happens with most forms of Investiture in the first place.

Quote

Goodreads: Ask the Author Q&A - Arcanum (coppermind.net)

Kurkistan

Could Miles heal back his Allomancy if it was spiked out of him?

Brandon Sanderson

No, he could not. He would no longer be an Allomancer. Also, he'd probably be dead.

Kurkistan

Thanks!

I'd thought maybe he could just do some super-tapping from his existing Health in his goldminds (since he'd still have his Feruchemy)...

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, I see what you're asking. Using Feruchemy to heal the removed portion of soul. That's actually plausible, not so different from healing other kinds of soul-wounds. If he survived, then yes, this actually might work. (That's why I get for reading the questions so quickly.)

And in this case, that Investiture came entirely from Endowment, as Nalthian's Spiritwebs are made up entirely of her essence. So now we have an Invested power made up entirely of Endowment's Investiture. 

This may mean that you could transfer it as you could normal Breaths, though you may have to Connect the donor to Nalthis in order to gain the ability to do so.

If this is the case, you could create very powerful individuals, but without the vulnerabilities and limitations of Hemalurgy- though the powers may be able to be drained by things like larken and chromium Mistings, but I'm not sure; this is entirely theoretical.

Let me guys know what you think!

[offer]

2 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

And in this case, that Investiture came entirely from Endowment, as Nalthian's Spiritwebs are made up entirely of her essence. So now we have an Invested power made up entirely of Endowment's Investiture. 

 

I don`t think Nalthian`s spiritweb are entirely endowment investiture (except for the breaths). We don`t see peoples in different worlds behave too much in accordance with the local shard`s intent so I assume the spiritweb have a base which is similar in all the cosmere.

[Trusk'our he/him]

54 minutes ago, offer said:

I don`t think Nalthian`s spiritweb are entirely endowment investiture (except for the breaths). We don`t see peoples in different worlds behave too much in accordance with the local shard`s intent so I assume the spiritweb have a base which is similar in all the cosmere.

Well, a normal Spiritweb is a very small amount of Investiture.

Even if their Spiritweb was made up entirely of one kind of Investiture, I don't think that that small of an amount would cause a human being to behave in a noticeably different manner.

Quote

Tor.com Q&A with Brandon Sanderson - Arcanum (coppermind.net)

Ghero6

In Vahr's case, did collecting Breath from other rebel-minded people strengthen his determination and resolve?

Brandon Sanderson

It would have had an influence on him, but you would need the numbers of Breaths that he had for any effect to manifest. It's basically a non-issue in the current book, but it could be an issue in some of the things that will happen in the next book.

It's worth mentioning that Vahr had achieved the fourth Heightening, which means that he had at least 1,000 BioChromatic Breaths.

[Stick The Savant]

On 2/9/2023 at 8:20 AM, Trusk'our said:

And in this case, that Investiture came entirely from Endowment, as Nalthian's Spiritwebs are made up entirely of her essence. So now we have an Invested power made up entirely of Endowment's Investiture. 

This may mean that you could transfer it as you could normal Breaths, though you may have to Connect the donor to Nalthis in order to gain the ability to do so.

If this is the case, you could create very powerful individuals, but without the vulnerabilities and limitations of Hemalurgy- though the powers may be able to be drained by things like larken and chromium Mistings, but I'm not sure; this is entirely theoretical.

Let me guys know what you think!

I'm not sure that you would be able to transfer the abilities simply based on the fact that the power is Endowment's investiture. we've seen that Zahel/Vasher is implicitly using Stormlight to remain alive by recharging his divine breath but it doesn't seem as though honor's intent is affecting him in a significant way (he doesn't need to swear oaths to access the investiture or anything like that).

could you also clarify how the power is passed, do you mean someone could pass the power to another person from the spike, or would you have to spike the person who would pass on the power?

Edited February 27, 2023 by Stick The Savant

[Trusk'our he/him]

14 minutes ago, Stick The Savant said:

could you also clarify how the power is passed, do you mean someone could pass the power to another person from the spike, or would you have to spike the person who would pass on the power?

I meant that it might be possible to create an Allomantic or Feruchemical power that could be voluntarily given away the same way that Bio-Chromatic Breaths are (whether Endowment's Intent would be enough to allow this is the real question).

If it required a Hemalurgic spike to pull out the newly created power and give it to someone else, it would probably be pointless to use Endowment's Investiture at all in this process.

[Treamayne]

Interesting idea. How do you plan to get the Endowment-Allomancy/Feruchemy out of the Spiritual Realm? Breaths can be transferred (at least in part) because they are Endowment's investiture in the Physical Realm. That's why the Breath of an old or sick person is weaker than a child or healthy person (and why they use Children to "feed" the Court of the Gods). It's also why colors are affected by the amount of Breath a person holds, and why the breath may "pulse" when somebody is dying (ref: Lemex).

While the Spiritweb may hold the characteristic that "you" are born Nalthian and therefore born with 1 Breath - the breaths themselves do not reside on the Spiritweb (which is also why it is so easy for Worldhoppers to gain and use Breaths).

[Trusk'our he/him]

3 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Interesting idea. How do you plan to get the Endowment-Allomancy/Feruchemy out of the Spiritual Realm? Breaths can be transferred (at least in part) because they are Endowment's investiture in the Physical Realm. That's why the Breath of an old or sick person is weaker than a child or healthy person (and why they use Children to "feed" the Court of the Gods). It's also why colors are affected by the amount of Breath a person holds, and why the breath may "pulse" when somebody is dying (ref: Lemex).

I don't know that them being in the spiritual realm would matter too much, since Divine Breaths are primarily in the spiritual rather than the physical realm and can be given away without trouble (the real problem would stem from whether being made of Endowment's Investiture would be enough to transfer them naturally or whether they would need to be "reprogrammed" in a way that Awakening's system is).

I always imagined the reason someone's Breath weakened when they were close to death was because it sticks to their being, their soul (even though they are physical they disappear with someone when they die), and is partially leaving the physical realm when the person does. Kind of like the Death Rattles or when Kel flared Malatium before he died; before death, you are closer to the spiritual realm, so your Breaths might be too.

3 hours ago, Treamayne said:

While the Spiritweb may hold the characteristic that "you" are born Nalthian and therefore born with 1 Breath - the breaths themselves do not reside on the Spiritweb (which is also why it is so easy for Worldhoppers to gain and use Breaths).

I hypothesize that the original Breath that Nalthians are born with are more spiritual than physical, which would explain why giving it away pulls off a little of their own Spark of Life and why Breaths have a tiny amount of the original person's "direction". When the give their Breath to someone else though, it becomes more physical, and so isn't as tied to their Spiritweb in the same way, so giving it away again doesn't affect it in the same way.

I understand that this is hypothetical only and am open to be disproven should anyone have sufficient evidence saying otherwise.