How to become ludicrously strong

[Frustration]

So, you can use Hemalurgy on animals

Spoiler

Vegasdev

Would Hemalurgy work on animals?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, it would. 

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/243/#e6095

 

 

So, you could steal like a chasmfiend's strength, and get the ability to throw people in Plate around for a single spike.

[therunner he/him]

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

So, you can use Hemalurgy on animals

  Reveal hidden contents

Vegasdev

Would Hemalurgy work on animals?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, it would. 

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/243/#e6095

 

 

So, you could steal like a chasmfiend's strength, and get the ability to throw people in Plate around for a single spike.

I think you would end up horribly mutilated by such spike. 
I mean the set Chimeras were awful dog things, and they only had one spike. I would expect that spiking in non-human sourced attributes would result in big changes, despite it being single spike.
 

While the attribute is still 'strength' the soul in the spike is still non-human, and I would expect that to have effect.

Hemalurgy really is lovely source of body horror is it not?

[alder24]

Every hemalurgic spike changes your soul and body. Using animal soul and attributes, and sticking it to yourself would likely result in severe unwanted effects. Moreover spikes can't fit everything in them, they have limits of how much hemalurgic charge they can fit. So you won't steal all Chasmfiend strength, because it won't fit in a single spike. Throwing people in plate around is not an ability, it is the effect of having that much strength. Not to mention how would you even spike Chasmfiend through his heart? There are meters of thick body and chitin there.

3 hours ago, therunner said:

I mean the set Chimeras were awful dog things, and they only had one spike. I would expect that spiking in non-human sourced attributes would result in big changes, despite it being single spike.

They probably used dogs to create them. After all they are called Chimeras.

[Frustration]

6 hours ago, therunner said:

I think you would end up horribly mutilated by such spike. 

Hemalurgy really is lovely source of body horror is it not?

 

3 hours ago, alder24 said:

Every hemalurgic spike changes your soul and body. Using animal soul and attributes, and sticking it to yourself would likely result in severe unwanted effects.

 

Oh you most definitely would, and I'm not at all suggesting that it's a good idea, just that it is an option for your aspiring hemalurgist.

3 hours ago, alder24 said:

Moreover spikes can't fit everything in them, they have limits of how much hemalurgic charge they can fit. So you won't steal all Chasmfiend strength, because it won't fit in a single spike.

Well, I don't know about that, how Investiture dense is physical strength, compared to invested abilities?

3 hours ago, alder24 said:

Not to mention how would you even spike Chasmfiend through his heart? There are meters of thick body and chitin there.

Very carefully.

[alder24]

49 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Well, I don't know about that, how Investiture dense is physical strength, compared to invested abilities?

Considering koloss has 4 small spikes, each holding the strength of one human, you would either need one huge spike, too big to fit in the human body, or several more.

49 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Very carefully.

While a chasmfiend is sharpening his teeth to eat you for dinner?

Edited February 25, 2023 by alder24

[Frustration]

3 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Considering koloss has 4 small spikes, each holding the strength of one human, you would either need one huge spike, too big to fit in the human body, or several more.

They don't know how to make spikes from multiple people, so one person's strength is all they can have.

4 minutes ago, alder24 said:

While a chasmfiend is sharpening his teeth to eat you for dinner?

As a chrysalis they can't hurt you, and they've basically given themselves anesthesia, so you can get straight to the surgery.

[alder24]

44 minutes ago, Frustration said:

As a chrysalis they can't hurt you, and they've basically given themselves anesthesia, so you can get straight to the surgery.

If chrysalis work the same way as butterflies, they turn themselves into goo and reassemble, so there is no physical strength for you to steal.

[Frustration]

23 minutes ago, alder24 said:

If chrysalis work the same way as butterflies, they turn themselves into goo and reassemble, so there is no physical strength for you to steal.

That sounds horrifying. It might still work, as they still have a heart at that point, and the strength is spiritual, but probably not.

Pumping it with several gallons of ketemine it is then.

[Trusk'our he/him]

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

Well, I don't know about that, how Investiture dense is physical strength, compared to invested abilities?

I actually have an idea about how much they have.

We see that the Blessing of Potency "more than doubles" one's physical strength (TenSoon's description in HoA). This makes sense, as it is powered by the Investiture of two human beings (two spikes), with a small amount of loss due to the Law of Hemalurgic Decay and possibly attribute compression, like we see in Feruchemy.

We know that Bio-Chromatic Breaths contain more Investiture than other Shardworlder's Innate Investiture (assuming that they aren't Invested in other ways, such as being a Knight Radiant or Metalborn).

Quote

/r/books AMA 2015 (June 8, 2015)

KingSloth

Doesn't all 'extra' investiture require a cracked soul? How are Nalthians born with extra breath, if so?

Brandon Sanderson

No. The Scadrians have extra investiture too, on a lesser scale.

Seeing as how you can store hundreds, sometimes even thousands of Bio-Chromatic Breaths inside mundane objects, you could likely fill a decently sized Hemalurgic spike (maybe like the Inquisitors, 12" roughly) with the Investiture of thousands of people (I'm not counting Nightblood, because that thing seems to go against the normal rules of Investiture compression). 

It is also worth noting...

TLM spoilers...

Spoiler

A thin, 4" long Trellium spike can contain the Investiture of twenty to thirty people inside (or maybe that's just how many required for it to begin manifesting Invested powers). So, a sewing needle could be used to hold quite a bit of whatever attribute, and that's not counting the fact that Trellium is a Godmetal, and therefore shouldn't be able to hold as large of an Invested charge.

Quote

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

Questioner 1

What would happen if you used lerasium as a spike for Hemalurgy?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh lerasium as a spike for Hemalurgy? Um lerasium as a spike for Hemalurgy--

Questioner 1

Would it work or would it just not work?

Brandon Sanderson

No I mean it would work--

Questioner 1

If you were to place a lerasium spike would you transform into a full Mistborn as opposed to--

Questioner 2

Well it can also steal powers, not just grant them, right?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, right. The thing about it is you're trying to Invest something that is already very Invested, which always has weird effects. So while you could do it, it would be a gross waste of the potential. It's like using a nuclear bomb as a paperweight. It is functional but--

Questioner 1

Does that mean it would be hard, for example, to make Nightblood stick something? Because--

Brandon Sanderson

Yes it would be very hard to make Nightblood stick to something. The amount of Investiture in Nightblood is--

Bystander

Astronomical?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Larger than most things you've seen. So Pushing on Nightblood, really hard.

 

This means that a medium-sized (6") Hemalurgic spike could possibly contain the Investiture of hundreds, if not thousands of individuals (though you would need to find a way to blank their Identity, or the Investiture doesn't work properly). now, you might not get the total increase of strength that you would get from that much Investiture, as it would need to be compressed into a much smaller space (similar to Feruchemy), but you could still squeeze a lot into a spike if you do it right.

As an aside, we also know that a standard Pewterarm is roughly twice as strong when burning pewter under normal conditions.

Quote

Calamity Philadelphia signing - Arcanum (coppermind.net)

Sandastron

I’m very curious about pewter. How much Feruchemical pewter, steel, and gold would you have to take in in order to be equal to burning pewter and flaring.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh…um, okay. So you wanna...ok, let’s back this up. So you wanna know feruchemically what would it take to match burning?

Sandastron

Yes.

Brandon Sanderson

Okay. So burning pewter, I kind of imagine...roughly doubling. Roughly.

Sandastron

Double your strength?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. But without the muscle mass change, it’s a magical boost. So because of that it has some pretty dramatic effects, like when Vin jumps and things like that.

Sandastron

So it’s only a double, so would flaring it bring it any higher?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. Flaring would go higher.

Sandastron

Would it be like triple?

Brandon Sanderson

Maybe like triple.

Sandastron

Maybe like tripling...that’s fascinating. So I always thought normal burning would triple it and flaring would quadruple.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah I always felt kind of double. You won’t see people burning pewter and lifting a car.

Sandastron

Right, exactly.

Brandon Sanderson

You see people burning pewter and delivering a really solid punch.

Sandastron

Gotcha, thank you. That is fascinating…and would it be about doubling speed and healing ability?

Brandon Sanderson

I haven’t worked out the numbers on that exactly. I have an instinct that says thatburning pewter, healing goes a bit faster but I have to look in the books and see what we’ve done in the past and then kind of canonize it.

If we compare a Pewterarm to the Blessing of Potency, a Pewterarm would probably only be as Invested as a few normal Scadrians under most conditions (and a Scadrian is less Invested than a Nalthian). I used to think that they were comparable to a first Heightening Awakener, but they might actually be orders of magnitude less Invested.

And it might be that since they are using kinetic Investiture instead of Static Investiture (which releases a small, passive amount of energy directly from the Spiritual Realm) that they require even less Investiture than the spikes to get their strength out of their powers.

I knew that we had been told that Scadrial was a "low Investiture world", but I hadn't really understood just how little Investiture they had until more recently.

Quote

DragonCon 2012 (Sept. 4, 2012)

Trae Cooper (paraphrased)

Why are Invested objects like metalminds and Hemalurgic spikes able to be Pushed and Pulled on, but Shardblades and Shardplate, which are also invested, are not susceptible to Pushing and Pulling?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

There were a few concepts that he outlined in answering this question.

1.) The ability to Push/Pull an Invested object is predicated to the amount/power of the Investiture.

2.) Further, Invested objects also gain resistance to pulling/pushing based on proximity to soul possibly via the soul. An example given is that a Hemalurgic spike touches the blood of the person, and from there is now part of both the Spiritual Realm and the Physical Realm. This provides what Brandon termed a kind of "soul interference," based on its proximity to the soul.

This further explains why Vin required more than normal power to Push/Pull the metalminds from the Lord Ruler, because of their proximity to his soul, via the Spiritual Realm.

3.) The amount of Investiture is relatively low on Scadrial, whereas worlds like Sel and Roshar are pushing around "high power" according to Brandon. I interpreted this to mean that Hemalurgic spikes and metalminds have low amounts of Investiture compared to Shardplate and Shardblades.

Brandon said that theoretically you can Push/Pull Shardblades and Shardplates but you would need to wield an incredible amount of power. One example he gave that could so such as a thing is that if you were a Mistborn wielding the full power of the Well of Ascension, you could Push/Pull Shardblades/Plate.

 

[Trusk'our he/him]

13 hours ago, Frustration said:

So, you can use Hemalurgy on animals

  Reveal hidden contents

Vegasdev

Would Hemalurgy work on animals?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, it would. 

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/243/#e6095

 

 

So, you could steal like a chasmfiend's strength, and get the ability to throw people in Plate around for a single spike.

Sounds fun, especially if you're a Kandra and don't feel the negative side-effects of Hemalurgically added human (or Chasmfiend) attributes 

You wouldn't have to deal with Identity contamination to get a super big Hemalurgic charge, since the power is only from one being, which is nice too.

Though, their bones probably don't get enhanced along with the rest of their body, so they would just snap like twigs whenever they stretched. 

[IlstrawberrySeed]

13 hours ago, Frustration said:

get the ability to throw people in Plate around for a single spike

Or you could spike a Kandra with an A-P trellium spike (savant) with enough mass to coat 4 tons of pewter, made entirely of the strongest mulles one can make, and tapping another 4 tons of fully invested pewter (also savant) from another trellium spike filled by a pewter compounder with F-Aluminum from hemalurgy, medalians, or being a halfborn.

1 minute ago, Trusk'our said:

Sounds fun, especially if you're a Kandra and don't feel the negative side-effects of ... their bones probably [not] get enhanced along with the rest of their body, [and] just snap[ing] like twigs whenever they stretched. 

Atribute hemalurgy is fun when a magical race and/or the donar is invested.

[Trusk'our he/him]

5 minutes ago, IlstrawberrySeed said:

Or you could spike a Kandra with an A-P trellium spike (savant) with enough mass to coat 4 tons of pewter, made entirely of the strongest mulles one can make, and tapping another 4 tons of fully invested pewter (also savant) from another trellium spike filled by a pewter compounder with F-Aluminum from hemalurgy, medalians, or being a halfborn.

You mean if the Kandra created tons of muscle mass for itself to Invest the spike (acting as the donor) or that the Kandra would make itself big enough to hold a four ton Hemalurgic spike (acting as recipient)?

[IlstrawberrySeed]

6 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

You mean if the Kandra created tons of muscle mass for itself to Invest the spike (acting as the donor) or that the Kandra would make itself big enough to hold a four ton Hemalurgic spike (acting as recipient)?

Donor, but burning 4 tons of pewter with necrosil and tapping large amounts of pewter as well.

[alder24]

5 minutes ago, IlstrawberrySeed said:

Donor, but burning 4 tons of pewter with necrosil and tapping large amounts of pewter as well.

Kandra can't grow that big to swallow 4 tons of metals

Spoiler

Questioner

What are the upper limits size-wise of what a kandra form can take? Could they say eat a chasmfiend?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, they would have trouble with the square-cube law, and a chasmfiend does not, because they have a symbiosis with natural spren, which keep them from crushing themselves. *scattered laughter* So a kandra would crush themselves if they tried to do that.

JordanCon 2016 (April 23, 2016)

 

[Trusk'our he/him]

4 minutes ago, IlstrawberrySeed said:

Donor, but burning 4 tons of pewter with necrosil and tapping large amounts of pewter as well.

I don't know if you can Hemalurgically excise the strength granted via Allomantic and Feruchemical pewter, as they seem to be only physical realm changes, not Spiritual ones. I think that if you used spiritual Feruchemy on yourself while being spiked (such as Feruchemically blanking your Identity) things would be different, but that's because they are actual changes to the spiritual aspect.

Still, a Kandra with literal mountains of muscle should be more than enough to fill a Hemalurgic spike if done correctly. You might need to grant them Feruchemical iron, brass, cadmium, and bendalloy to help them maintain that mass without dying though.

[IlstrawberrySeed]

5 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Kandra can't grow that big to swallow 4 tons of metals

  Hide contents

Questioner

What are the upper limits size-wise of what a kandra form can take? Could they say eat a chasmfiend?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, they would have trouble with the square-cube law, and a chasmfiend does not, because they have a symbiosis with natural spren, which keep them from crushing themselves. *scattered laughter* So a kandra would crush themselves if they tried to do that.

JordanCon 2016 (April 23, 2016)

 

They only need to contain it, so to have a 1" thick coating of kandra around a 4 (imperial) ton sphere of pewter, it would only take 1.3 times the mass of human.

15 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

I don't know if you can Hemalurgically excise the strength granted via Allomantic and Feruchemical pewter, as they seem to be only physical realm changes, not Spiritual ones. I think that if you used spiritual Feruchemy on yourself while being spiked (such as Feruchemically blanking your Identity) things would be different, but that's because they are actual changes to the spiritual aspect.

Still, a Kandra with literal mountains of muscle should be more than enough to fill a Hemalurgic spike if done correctly. You might need to grant them Feruchemical iron, brass, cadmium, and bendalloy to help them maintain that mass without dying though.

You can hemalurgically steal steelsight, even stealsight granted by alomantic hemalurgy, so I wouldn't know why not.

[Trusk'our he/him]

20 minutes ago, IlstrawberrySeed said:

They only need to contain it, so to have a 1" thick coating of kandra around a 4 (imperial) ton sphere of pewter, it would only take 1.3 times the mass of human.

Hah! A Kandra amoeba. 

 

21 minutes ago, IlstrawberrySeed said:

You can hemalurgically steal steelsight, even stealsight granted by alomantic hemalurgy, so I wouldn't know why not.

Steelsight is weird. I feel like when a Hemalurgic spike grants Steelsight, it's not really the same thing that you get from normally burning steel.

TLM spoilers...

Spoiler

Kelsier can't use his Allomancy, but he can use Steelsight through his Hemalurgic spike.

I feel like having Steelsight via Hemalurgic eye-spikes is more of a Realmatic side effect of using the eye as your bindpoint than actually being able to take those kinds of things Hemalurgically- you can't take Steelsight via Hemalurgy (though maybe Feruchemy could, since it can store Allomantic Bronze sense), but you can get Steelsight with Hemalurgy by putting the spike in the right place (the eye).

[IlstrawberrySeed]

3 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

I feel like having Steelsight via Hemalurgic eye-spikes is more of a Realmatic side effect of using the eye as your bindpoint than actually being able to take those kinds of things Hemalurgically- you can't take Steelsight via Hemalurgy (though maybe Feruchemy could, since it can store Allomantic Bronze sense), but you can get Steelsight with Hemalurgy by putting the spike in the right place (the eye).

The WoB I'm referencing specified a tin spike...

[Trusk'our he/him]

12 minutes ago, IlstrawberrySeed said:

The WoB I'm referencing specified a tin spike...

It might work. I don't know for certain, but my instinct says no.

I could be completely wrong though, as Feruchemy can store weird senses, including ones gained via Allomancy, so maybe Hemalurgic tin can too.

As a side note, and assuming it's possible, if you used a Hemalurgic tin spike to grant yourself Steelsight, but didn't use it in your eyesocket, would it mess with your regular vision? After all, you can't regulate Hemalurgically granted attributes unless you also have Feruchemy, so maybe you lose normal vision even without putting the spike in your eye?

Edited February 25, 2023 by Trusk'our