Trusk'our he/him Posted March 10, 2023 Posted March 10, 2023 (edited) I've been trying to connect the dots between Investiture efficiency and the "power" (total amount of Investiture wielded) of the practitioner. Knights Radiant become more efficient at using their Stormlight the further they progress in their oaths. As their Nahel Bond strengthens, they don't make more Stormlight- they just use what they have to achieve more results. And if I recall correctly from Warbreaker, Awakeners require fewer Breaths to Awaken something if they had more Breaths to begin with. All this made me start wondering if Allomancers with greater power are really drawing more Investiture from the spiritual realm per unit of metal burned as I had previously thought, or if they are just using the Investiture they get way more efficiently. These quotes also helped this thought process. Quote TWG Posts - Arcanum (coppermind.net) Brandon Sanderson The longest lasting of the Allomantic metals is actually copper, which is used by Smokers to hide Allomancy. Tin is second, however. Steel and Iron are actually rather quick, but since they're generally used in bursts, it's hard to notice. Both brass and zinc are medium, as is bronze. Pewter burns the fastest of the basic eight, though atium and gold both burn faster than it does. In my mind, it's related to how much 'work' the metal has to do. That's why pewter, steel, and iron burn so quickly. A lot of weight and power is getting thrown around, while copper only has to do something simple. However, I never really set any of these things hard-fast. And, only atium is really all that rare. Because of the value of the metals, the noble houses expended a lot of resources finding and exploiting mines to produce the metals. This resulted in a slightly higher value for most of them as opposed to our world, but not really noticeably so, because Allomancers really don't need that much metal. Even fast burning metals, like pewter, are generally only swallowed in very small amounts. (i.e. A small bit goes a long way.) Quote /r/books AMA 2015 (July 14, 2015) mooglefrooglian Does a more powerful Mistborn burn their metals more quickly, or do they use what they get more efficiently? Brandon Sanderson Metal burning speed is proportional to power withdrawn. Quote Warsaw signing (March 18, 2017) Oversleep (paraphrased) Allomantic strength. There are stronger Allomancers, they can burn metals faster, right? Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) Yes, they can also squeeze more power out of it. They can use it more efficiently. Oversleep (paraphrased) So there is some loss of power along the way? How do savants work into that? Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) Savants can use it way more efficiently. They are more Connected to the Shard. Closer to Spiritual Realm. For example, is a Lerasium-bead made Mistborn going to get as much Investiture from their metals as a Mistborn born five hundred years later (just get way more effect out of their Investiture)? It would stand to reason. After all, if Awakeners and Surgebinders get more efficient as their Connection and "power" grows, does a "stronger" Allomancer's increased Connection to Preservation just make them able to harness the set amount of Investiture gain from burning metals more efficient? It would also explain why TLR didn't make himself even more powerful Allomantically then he did, even though he had access to the Well of Ascension; perhaps he couldn't, because he already had the maximum effect, the maximum efficiency possible from his burned metals. If this is the case, then supercharged Allomancy (via Hemalurgy, Lerasium, or nicrosil Feruchemy), and potentially Compounding by extension, may be significantly more limited than I had previously assumed. Someone like TLR wouldn't likely be as Invested as I once thought either; their upper bounds of Invested-ness would be determined by how much Investiture can be drawn from a piece of metal rather than their Connection to Preservation. Although, if my previous assumptions made about the actual amount of Investiture in the Metallic arts hold sway, then a very small amount of Investiture used kinetically can have huge effects compared to static Investiture (similar to how real matter contains huge amounts of potential energy), but it would be brief in comparison (i.e., Heightenings and Hemalurgic spikes provide more or less permanent, though immediately small, amounts of continuous effect). (see post here The Amount of Investiture in the Metallic Arts) I could use some other people's thoughts on this matter, if you guys don't mind- basically, does a stronger Allomancer burning metals get more Investiture from that metal as well as becoming more efficient with said Investiture, or is the amount of Investiture gain via burning a metal set in stone regardless of the Allomancer's power, and they only become more efficient? Edited March 10, 2023 by Trusk'our
alder24 Posted March 10, 2023 Posted March 10, 2023 18 minutes ago, Trusk'our said: And if I recall correctly from Warbreaker, Awakeners require fewer Breaths to Awaken something if they had more Breaths to begin with. No, that's not the case. The number of Breaths needed for Awakening is tied to the material used (how close to life it is), it's shape, focus (human hair for example) and Command. The more complicated Command, the more Breaths it needs. Visualization of that Command is a very important thing, as with proper visualization, you can achieve more using simple Commands. What is increasing with the number of Breaths is instinctive understanding of simple Commands and its visualization (maxed out at 6th Heightening). Spoiler Brandon Sanderson Vasher Awakens the Straw Figure I love how intricate and delicate Vasher is in creating the straw figure. The little eyebrow is a nice touch, and forming the creature into the shape of a person has a nice resonance with our own world's superstitions. Voodoo dolls, for instance. This is very common in tribal magics and shamanistic rituals—something in the figure of a person, or the figure of the thing it's supposed to affect, is often seen as being more powerful or more desirable. The same is said for having a drop of blood or a tiny piece of skin, even a piece of hair. Those two things—making the doll in the shape of a man and using a bit of his own body as a focus—are supposed to create instant resonance in the magic for those reading it. I think it works, too. Unfortunately, there's a problem with this, much like with the colors above. In later chapters, the characters are generally powerful enough with the magic that they don't have to make things in human shape or use pieces of their own body as a focus. If I were to write a sequel to the book (and I just might—more on this later) I'd want to get back to these two aspects of the magic. Talk about them more, maybe have characters who have smaller quantities of Breath, and so need to use these tricks to make their Awakening more powerful. Anyway, this little scene threw all kinds of problems into the book. Later on, I had to decide if I wanted to force the characters to always make things into the shape of a person before Awakening them. That proved impossible, it was too limiting on the magic and interfered with action sequences. The same was true for using bits of their own flesh as focuses. It just didn't work. I toyed with cutting these things from the prologue. (Again, they are artifacts from the short story I wrote, back when Awakening wasn't fully developed yet.) However, I like the resonance they give, and think they add a lot of depth to the magic system. So I made them optional. They're things that you can do to make your Awakenings require fewer Breaths. That lets me have them for resonance, but not talk about them when I don't need them. I still worry that they set up false expectations for the magic, however. Warbreaker Annotations (July 8, 2010) 25 minutes ago, Trusk'our said: For example, is a Lerasium-bead made Mistborn going to get as much Investiture from their metals as a Mistborn born five hundred years later (just get way more effect out of their Investiture)? No, I don't think so. Elend draws more investiture from Preservation than Vin, and thus is more powerful. But their skill is also a factor. Vin, despite the fact that she draws less investment than Eland, is more skilled, and can use it more efficiently. Spoiler Questioner There is quantitative difference in Allomancy (e.g. Elend is stronger than Vin), there is skill difference (e.g. Breeze is better than Vin with zinc), but is there a qualitative difference too? Brandon Sanderson That’s the scale of what we call savant. Wax can do more with less. It’s not just skill, the burning for long, using for so long, will actually adapt your soul to the power. Questioner So can bronze savants pierce copperclouds? Brandon Sanderson Yes, a bronze savant should be able to pierce copperclouds. It depends on the strengths of the coppercloud and the strength of the savant, but yes. Questioner So Elend could theoretically learn to pierce copperclouds? Brandon Sanderson Weaker ones, yeah, totally. He can learn how to do it by brute force. Shadows of Self San Francisco signing (Oct. 9, 2015) 28 minutes ago, Trusk'our said: Knights Radiant become more efficient at using their Stormlight the further they progress in their oaths. As their Nahel Bond strengthens, they don't make more Stormlight- they just use what they have to achieve more results. So with this, I think that the reason Radiants are getting more efficient at using Stormlight when progressing in their Ideals has to do with the fact that their spren is getting closer to them, and possibly fits better within cracks in Radiant's soul, thus bringing Radiant closer to SR. But that is a speculative explanation. 31 minutes ago, Trusk'our said: does a "stronger" Allomancer's increased Connection to Preservation just make them able to harness the set amount of Investiture gain from burning metals more efficient? 34 minutes ago, Trusk'our said: I could use some other people's thoughts on this matter, if you guys don't mind- basically, does a stronger Allomancer burning metals get more Investiture from that metal as well as becoming more efficient with said Investiture, or is the amount of Investiture gain via burning a metal set in stone regardless of the Allomancer's power, and they only become more efficient? They are still getting the same amount of it, as this is determined by their Spiritual DNA. They are getting more efficient at using it, and can do more. 35 minutes ago, Trusk'our said: It would also explain why TLR didn't make himself even more powerful Allomantically then he did, even though he had access to the Well of Ascension; perhaps he couldn't, because he already had the maximum effect, the maximum efficiency possible from his burned metals. Yeah, there is likely a limit of how much you can draw from Preservation when burning metals. Rashek got to that limit by using the power of the Well, and was still considerably more powerful than Elend, as Lerasium granted powers doesn't reach that limit. Plus he was more skilled and was a savant in every metal, so he got to the top of all 3 scales.
cometaryorbit Posted March 10, 2023 Posted March 10, 2023 I think that a stronger Allomancer (Elend vs normal Mistborn) both has a higher peak burn rate and gets more Investiture per gram of metal burned. I don't think Elend can use that Investiture more efficiently - that's more what savantism gives (adapting your soul to the power) - or more skillfully (Vin is clearly more skilled than Elend). Burn rate is usually a pretty hard limit on Allomancy, but duralumin gets around that. I don't think duralumin increases a Mistborn's "Investiture per gram of metal burned" though. I do think Allomancy has a stable upper limit, though not an absolute upper limit*. Both Vin burning the Mists in HoA (before she fully Ascends) and use of the Bands in BoM cause Mist to leak from the body. I think above the stable level you're losing power. So maybe if TLR had made himself super absurdly strong with the Well he would have leaked mist until he dropped down to his observed stable power level? Maybe he even did do this? *well, it kind of does; when Vin burns the Mists fully, her body vaporizes and she becomes Preservation. Once she's a Shard she's not really meaningfully an Allomancer anymore. I'm not sure what would have happened if she'd taken in a body-vaporizing quantity of Mist while Preservation was still held by another Vessel: would she have died (and had the chance to become a Cognitive Shadow), or become an avatar of Preservation, or would her Mist intake have been limited below vaporization level?
cometaryorbit Posted March 10, 2023 Posted March 10, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, alder24 said: Rashek got to that limit by using the power of the Well, and was still considerably more powerful than Elend, as Lerasium granted powers doesn't reach that limit. Plus he was more skilled and was a savant in every metal, so he got to the top of all 3 scales. HoA epigraphs say his "essential Allomantic strength" was the same as a Lerasium Mistborn's. The fact that he got the power using the Well might be a retcon of that, but might not be; TLR may have used some other Compounding-related trick to increase his effective strength above that baseline (there is an old WoB suggesting this). I'm actually not sure Rashek was *that* much more powerful than Elend anyway. We never really see them do anything with Allomancy that's directly comparable! A few weeks ago when this came up on the 17S Discord I searched HoA for rioting/soothing/zinc/brass to see how many people Elend could affect, and it's quite unclear. He's either affecting everyone present (the small army at the beginning of the book, or Yomen's ball) with no sign of being near his limit (it's specifically pointed out in the ball that he's not near his limit - but Breeze would have been); or there's the large army scene (immediately before the Mists hit Demoux) where it isn't totally clear if he's affecting the *entire* army or just the formation he's standing next to. We know Elend could pierce copperclouds, he just never had a chance to demonstrate it on page. Rashek wasn't a savant in every metal. Even the old WoB says "or near-savant", and with the apparent reworking of savantism to focus more on consequences, I doubt he was a savant in all that many. Brass almost surely, since he seems to have had that on constantly; copper and bronze seems likely since those savantisms are so mild; he was likely an Atium-Compounding Savant since he needed that to live*; maybe a few other things. But I'm pretty sure he wasn't a tin savant, which has obvious effects, or an aluminum savant (why would he ever burn it?), or a savant in the metals that were inaccessible in the Final Empire (sure he knew they existed, but the industry didn't exist to produce them). *and the fact that he doesn't try to Ironpull his bracers back to him probably has to do with a savantism-disadvantage induced crash when he loses the bracers. Edited March 10, 2023 by cometaryorbit grammar
alder24 Posted March 10, 2023 Posted March 10, 2023 52 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said: I think that a stronger Allomancer (Elend vs normal Mistborn) both has a higher peak burn rate and gets more Investiture per gram of metal burned. I don't think Elend can use that Investiture more efficiently - that's more what savantism gives (adapting your soul to the power) - or more skillfully (Vin is clearly more skilled than Elend). Burn rate is usually a pretty hard limit on Allomancy, but duralumin gets around that. I don't think duralumin increases a Mistborn's "Investiture per gram of metal burned" though. What I think is happening with strenght of Allomancy, is that your soul has a hole in it, and it gets filled with connection to Preservation in SR (that Preservation's fragment in you). The size of that hole determinates how much power can you draw from Preservation. Burn rate is the same, but the amount of power given to Elend is greater than to Vin. So it's like a pipe, the wider the pipe the more you get from it. But there is a limit, as your soul would get to damaged so that "hole" can't get too big. Spoiler Brandon Sanderson Chapter Seventy The Reason for the Mistsickness So, it finally comes out. I wonder at this numbers plot, as I think many readers will glaze over it and ignore it. I think others will read into it and figure out what it means very quickly, then feel that the reveal here isn't much of a revelation. Hopefully I'll get a majority in the middle who read the clues, don't know what they mean, but are happily surprised when it comes together. That's a difficult line to walk sometimes. What is going on here is that the mists are awakening the Allomantic potential inside of people. It's very rough on a person for that to come out, and can cause death. Preservation set this all up before he gave his consciousness to imprison Ruin, so it's not a perfect system. It's like a machine left behind by its creator. The catalyst is the return of the power to the Well of Ascension. As soon as that power becomes full, it sets the mists to begin Snapping those who have the potential for Allomancy buried within them. Many of these people won't be very strong Allomancers. Their abilities were buried too deeply to have come out without the mists' intervention. Others will have a more typical level of power; they might have Snapped earlier, had they gone through enough anguish to bring the power out. My idea on this is that Allomantic potential is a little like a supersaturated solution. You can suspend a great deal of something like sugar in a liquid when it is hot, then cool it down and the sugar remains suspended. Drop one bit of sugar in there as a catalyst, however, and the rest will fall out as a precipitate. Allomancy is the same. It's in there, but it takes a reaction—in this case, physical anguish—to trigger it and bring it out. That's because the Allomantic power comes from the extra bit of Preservation inside of humans, that same extra bit that gives us free will. This bit is trapped between the opposing forces of Preservation and Ruin, and to come out and allow it the power to access metals and draw forth energy, it needs to fight its way through the piece of Ruin that is also there inside. As has been established, Ruin's control over creatures—and, indeed, an Allomancer's control over them—grows weaker when that creature is going through some extreme emotions. (Like the koloss blood frenzy.) This has to do with the relationship between the Cognitive Realm, the Physical Realm, and the Spiritual Realm—of which I don't have time to speak right now. Suffice it to say that there are people who have Snapped because of intense joy or other emotions. It just doesn't happen as frequently and is more difficult to control. The Hero of Ages Annotations (March 30, 2010) Spoiler Brandon Sanderson Chapter Thirty-Eight Preservation's Power All right, so maybe I lied about there only being three magic systems in this book. It comes down to how you term the powers of Preservation and Ruin, who kind of blanket the entire system. There are a lot of things going on here, and—well, the truth is I don't want to mention all of them, for fear of spoiling future books. However, I'll give you a few rules to apply. First, to these forces, energy and mass are the same thing. So, their power can take physical shape—as Preservation's did in the bead of metal Elend ate. Second, there is a bit of Preservation inside of all the people—and it's this that allows the people to perform Allomancy. It needs to be awakened and stirred to be of use, but when it is, a proper metal can draw forth more of Preservation's power. It's like the metal attunes the bit within the person, allowing it to act as a catalyst to grab more power. Allomancy is not fueled by metal; it is fueled by Preservation. The metal is the means by which a person can access that fuel, however. If there were another way to access it, then the metal wouldn't be needed. Preservation's touch on people differs. Some have more, some have less. This doesn't make them better or worse people—indeed, some most touched by Preservation have been among the worst people in the world. As Ruin later points out, there is a difference between being evil and being destructive. Regardless, if a person can get more Preservation into them, they become better Allomancers. Hence Elend becoming a Mistborn. Like all people, he had the potential within him—it was just too small of a potential to be awakened through normal means. That little jolt of Preservation's body, however, expanded and awakened his Allomancy. As a tidbit, that was a side effect of what that bead of metal did. It wasn't the main purpose of the bead, and if another Allomancer were to burn it, it would do something else. The Hero of Ages Annotations (Nov. 12, 2009) That's what I think is happening. That extra fragment of Preservation's power fills a hole in your soul, connecting you to Preservation. How big is that extra fragment determines how strong is that connection, and how much can you draw from Preservation. You can increase it by ingesting Lerasium. But there is an upper limit of how big that hole in your soul can be, without damaging you - and this is the limit of power you can gain from Preservation. 54 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said: I do think Allomancy has a stable upper limit, though not an absolute upper limit*. Both Vin burning the Mists in HoA (before she fully Ascends) and use of the Bands in BoM cause Mist to leak from the body. I think above the stable level you're losing power. So maybe if TLR had made himself super absurdly strong with the Well he would have leaked mist until he dropped down to his observed stable power level? Maybe he even did do this? I disagree. The limit is there, but Vin wasn't drawing from SR, she was drawing it from PR, where Mists were, and holding it in her body, like Stormlight, which caused her to leak Mists. The same with Bands. They didn't draw from Preservation and SR, they drew from within, circumventing the limitation. She's accessing the power in a different way, without the need for metals. Spoiler Kaimipono Allomancy is fueled by Preservation's body? How exactly does that work? And how does that interact with Atium—it's fueled by both gods' bodies? Brandon Sanderson The powers of Ruin and Preservation are Shards of Adonalsium, pieces of the power of creation itself. Allomancy, Hemalurgy, Feruchemy are manifestations of this power in mortal form, the ability to touch the powers of creation and use them. These metallic powers are how people's physical forms interpret the use of the Shard, though it's not the only possible way they could be interpreted or used. It's what the genetics and Realmatic interactions of Scadrial allow for, and has to do with the Spiritual, the Cognitive, and the Physical Realms. Condensed 'essence' of these godly powers can act as super-fuel for Allomancy, Feruchemy, or really any of the powers. The form of that super fuel is important. In liquid form it's most potent, in gas form it's able to fuel Allomancy as if working as a metal. In physical form it is rigid and does one specific thing. In the case of atium, it allows sight into the future. In the case of concentrated Preservation, it gives one a permanent connection to the mists and the powers of creation. (I.e., it makes them an Allomancer.) So when a person is burning metals, they aren't using Preservation's body as a fuel so to speak—though they are tapping into the powers of creation just slightly. When Vin burns the mists, however, she'd doing just that—using the essence of Preservation, the Shard of Adonalsium itself—to fuel Allomancy. Doing this, however, rips 'troughs' through her body. It's like forcing far too much pressure through a very small, fragile hose. That much power eventually vaporizes the corporeal host, which is acting as the block and forcing the power into a single type of conduit (Allomancy) and frees it to be more expansive. Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008) 1 hour ago, cometaryorbit said: *well, it kind of does; when Vin burns the Mists fully, her body vaporizes and she becomes Preservation. Once she's a Shard she's not really meaningfully an Allomancer anymore. I'm not sure what would have happened if she'd taken in a body-vaporizing quantity of Mist while Preservation was still held by another Vessel: would she have died (and had the chance to become a Cognitive Shadow), or become an avatar of Preservation, or would her Mist intake have been limited below vaporization level? I think that body vaporization was because she drew enough to forge a very strong connection to Preservation, and she Ascended. If Leres was still holding Preservation, she would at best Ascend in a way similar to Well (where I think she also transcended her physical body), if not, she would just be highly invested. 55 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said: HoA epigraphs say his "essential Allomantic strength" was the same as a Lerasium Mistborn's. The fact that he got the power using the Well might be a retcon of that, but might not be; TLR may have used some other Compounding-related trick to increase his effective strength above that baseline (there is an old WoB suggesting this). Yeah, there are contradicting WoBs on that, at one point Brandon thought he got powers from Lerasium, later he wasn't sure, and then he canonized that he got them from the Well. I think Rashek was still more powerful in terms of drawing from Preservation than Elend. Eland wasn't able to push on traces metals, push spikes (Bands can do that, Rashek pushed Vin's earring) not to mention smoothing the entire city population to the state of complete misery. While skill and savantism did increase his power, I do believe that he was still stronger than a Lerasium Mistborn. Maybe if the Lerasium bead was bigger, Elend could get as strong as Rashek. I wish we had a clear WoB on Rashek power compared to Elend. 1 hour ago, cometaryorbit said: But I'm pretty sure he wasn't a tin savant, which has obvious effects, He could be, it was said that he knew when people were lying, which he could do by listening to their heart beat in search of change. Could Spook do it? I don't remember. While there are nasty negative effects, he could minimize them by storing/tapping tin. 1 hour ago, cometaryorbit said: *and the fact that he doesn't try to Ironpull his bracers back to him probably has to do with a savantism-disadvantage induced crash when he loses the bracers. They were extremely invested, Vin did it only with the help of Mists, he didn't have that. I doubt he could do it anyway.
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