Forgery Overwriting Hemalurgic Constructs

[Trusk'our he/him]

So my brain spawned yet another way to hack magic systems together to make them even better 

Let's say that you use Forgery to overwrite a Koloss Spiritweb, saying that it never received its Hemalurgic spikes.

I see a few possibilities if this were to be done:

1. the Koloss dies as they turn back into a human; their spikes no longer function well enough to prevent the wounds they inflict from killing their bearer.

2. the Koloss turns back into a human, but the Hemalurgic spikes resist and are rejected from the body (as the Koloss's body fights against their intrusion) if the Forgery takes; the changes made by the spike and the changes made by the stamp are too incompatible with one another to exist with any sense of stability.

3. the Koloss turned human retains their spikes without dying (the soul of the recipient adapts to their Investiture, similar to Feruchemy adapting the Feruchemist to deal with an unexpected influx of attributes), but the spikes remain completely dormant and don't give any additional benefits until the Forgery wears off.

4. same as #3, but the spikes continue to provide a magical boost to the former Koloss but don't warp them enough to turn them into a Hemalurigc construct- just enough to keep the person from being killed by the spikes. The reason I even argue that this could take place is because Returned can do something similar; they can suppress their Divine Breath but still retain some benefits from it, such as enhanced speed and strength, and their Lifesense doesn't disappear (see Zahel in WoR when Kalain wakes him up at night).

Basically, you might be able to use Forgery hack Hemalurgy in such a way that you could give humans Kandra Blessings but without turning them into Hemalurgic constructs (Hemalurgic weakness likely would remain though; the cracks in the Spiritweb aren't removed as far as I can tell).

Now, as I understand it this might require some "jerry-rigging" of sorts, but I believe that it might be possible given the examples above.

Quote

JordanCon 2014 (April 11, 2014)

Trae Cooper (paraphrased)

Suppose you had a Feruchemist that was also skilled in Forgery. If they Soulstamped themselves, would they normally be able to still use Feruchemy, and if they were able to use Feruchemy after a Soulstamp would they be able to access their own metalminds?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

You could do so, but it would require jerry-rigging in order to make it work, since the Soulstamp overwrites the current Spiritual aspect of a person. He then said that the accessing the metalminds would also require some amount of jerry-rigging. 

 

Edited March 30, 2023 by Trusk'our

[Quantus he/him]

8 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

So my brain spawned yet another way to hack magic systems together to make them even better 

Let's say that you use Forgery to overwrite a Koloss Spiritweb, saying that it never received its Hemalurgic spikes.

I see a few possibilities if this were to be done:

1. the Koloss dies as they turn back into a human; their spikes no longer function well enough to prevent the wounds they inflict from killing their bearer.

2. the Koloss turns back into a human, but the Hemalurgic spikes resist and are rejected from the body (as the Koloss's body fights against their intrusion) if the Forgery takes; the changes made by the spike and the changes made by the stamp are too incompatible with one another to exist with any sense of stability.

3. the Koloss turned human retains their spikes without dying (the soul of the recipient adapts to their Investiture, similar to Feruchemy adapting the Feruchemist to deal with an unexpected influx of attributes), but the spikes remain completely dormant and don't give any additional benefits until the Forgery wears off.

4. same as #3, but the spikes continue to provide a magical boost to the former Koloss but don't warp them enough to turn them into a Hemalurigc construct- just enough to keep the person from being killed by the spikes. The reason I even argue that this could take place is because Returned can do something similar; they can suppress their Divine Breath but still retain some benefits from it, such as enhanced speed and strength, and their Lifesense doesn't disappear (see Zahel in WoR when Kalain wakes him up at night).

Basically, you might be able to use Forgery hack Hemalurgy in such a way that you could give humans Kandra Blessings but without turning them into Hemalurgic constructs (Hemalurgic weakness likely would remain though; the cracks in the Spiritweb aren't removed as far as I can tell).

Now, as I understand it this might require some "jerry-rigging" of sorts, but I believe that it might be possible given the examples above.

 

Ooh, intriguing idea.  The fundamental premise will come down whether you can forge yourself once and effect all the spikes, or if they'd need their own Stamp.  I could see it going either way: either they merge Identity etc enough to be one being, or perhaps being Invested object interfacing Physical Realm Investiture with the Spiritual is enough to hold them separate. 

I dont think you'd be able to mimic the Kandra Blessings, specifically, because those are meant for and start with Mistwraiths rather than Humans. But you could probably stamp a Koloss into some sort of 4-spike Inquisitor, essentially leaving the spike alone and just Forging a different set of Bind Point locations.  

Another thing is that it might have behaved differently in Era1, when the Koloss where uniformly made from normal humans instead of being more genetically/sDNA pre-disposed to it thanks to Harmony's changes.  

[alder24]

Oh my. Hemalurgic spikes pierce a soul and fills that hole with someone else's piece of soul. Forgery creates a fake soul that is attached on top of the existing one. And investiture resists investiture. So based on that it's possible that the fake soul would also be pierced by spikes (or spikes investiture would repel Forgery investiture leaving holes in your fake soul, filled with hemalurgic pieces, giving you powers from spikes). But with enough investiture you would be able to create a strong fake soul that would cover those spikes fragments as well (but losing everything you gained from those spikes, however spikes still remain in the body). 

But if you want to hack Hemalurgy, you would need to apply Soulstamps to each individual spike, not to your whole soul. That's what I think. 

I guess with enough investiture you could revert Koloss back to human form, making them fully lose every gain from spikes (as long as Soulstamp is repeated periodically). But making his spikes into Kandra Blessings won't work as they are made for Mistwraiths therefore you would need to forge more than 1000 years of his history to make that work, and that kind of Soulstap is too unrealistic to hold at all. Not to mention Koloss has 4 spikes, Kandra only 2. And we don't even know if Kandra Blessings works on humans at all.

 

11 minutes ago, Quantus said:

The reason I even argue that this could take place is because Returned can do something similar; they can suppress their Divine Breath but still retain some benefits from it, such as enhanced speed and strength, and their Lifesense doesn't disappear (see Zahel in WoR when Kalain wakes him up at night).

Zahel still has normal Breaths on top of his Returned Breath. As long as he suppresses his Returned Breath, he has no Heightenings from it (maybe except 5th). I think that greater strength and speed is visible when they partially stop suppressing his Breath (like when rescuing the girl in Warbreaker), but I'm not sure on this one.

[Trusk'our he/him]

23 minutes ago, Quantus said:

I dont think you'd be able to mimic the Kandra Blessings, specifically, because those are meant for and start with Mistwraiths rather than Humans. But you could probably stamp a Koloss into some sort of 4-spike Inquisitor, essentially leaving the spike alone and just Forging a different set of Bind Point locations.  

Hmmmm. Might be another way to experiment with Hemalurgic Bindpoints using fewer individuals.

3 minutes ago, alder24 said:

I guess with enough investiture you could revert Koloss back to human form, making them fully lose every gain from spikes (as long as Soulstamp is repeated periodically). But making his spikes into Kandra Blessings won't work as they are made for Mistwraiths therefore you would need to forge more than 1000 years of his history to make that work, and that kind of Soulstap is too unrealistic to hold at all. Not to mention Koloss has 4 spikes, Kandra only 2. And we don't even know if Kandra Blessings works on humans at all.

I mean "Kandra Blessings" as in the spikes grant a magical boost to the recipient, not that they were necessarily created for a Kandra (sorry, I was being a bit confusing before).

Might be interesting to stamp the spikes as well though. I don't know why I hadn't considered it before, actually.

8 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Zahel still has normal Breaths on top of his Returned Breath. As long as he suppresses his Returned Breath, he has no Heightenings from it (maybe except 5th). I think that greater strength and speed is visible when they partially stop suppressing his Breath (like when rescuing the girl in Warbreaker), but I'm not sure on this one.

It's worth mentioning that Denth also has inhuman speed that we see on screen, but he doesn't partially change when he does so (when he shows off for the slumlord by defending himself from of their minions).

[Quantus he/him]

15 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Zahel still has normal Breaths on top of his Returned Breath. As long as he suppresses his Returned Breath, he has no Heightenings from it (maybe except 5th). I think that greater strength and speed is visible when they partially stop suppressing his Breath (like when rescuing the girl in Warbreaker), but I'm not sure on this one.

True, though it still provides him some benefits (per WoB he can get drunk but "probably not as much as he'd like).   And honestly, from the WOB in it, "Suppressing" his Divine Breath seems to have more to do with forcing a less useful Self-Image onto that doesnt get all the Perks, but Investiture-wise I think it's still present and active (for instances where raw Investment matters).  For normal Heightenings they hide by stuffing them in an object, but for the Returned whose shapeshifted perks seem to be an advanced version of the Royal Locks, I think he's just skilled enough to embrace a fully Non-Augmented form the way some Returned naturally make themselves Old.  

EDIT: Oh, not my quote.  Cool, I was a little confused

 

Quote

 

Brandon Sanderson

Vasher Explains Some Things, but Leaves Some Things Hidden

I'm worried about leaving Vivenna's two questions unanswered. One is pretty obvious—how Vasher can hide how he looks—but the other is unintuitive. I wish I could explain better in the book, as I said above, but I decided in the end to just leave it hanging. It's a bit of a violation of Sanderson's First Law, but not a big one. The reason I feel I can get away with it is because Vasher didn't use his nature as a Returned to solve any problems. It is more a flavoring for his character than it is important to him getting out of danger or fixing things. He could have done everything he needed to in this book without being Returned. So I feel it's okay not to explain why he can be Returned and not die when he gives away his Breaths.

Can Vivenna change her appearance more? She can indeed. She could actually stoke that fragment of a divine Breath inside of her and start glowing like a Returned. She can't change her physical features to look like someone else, but she can change her age, her height (within reason), and her body shape (to an extent). It takes practice.

And yes, the scraggly miscreant is how Vasher sees himself. Not noble and Returned, which is part of how he suppresses his divine Breath.

Events in the second book may change that.

Warbreaker Annotations (Aug. 1, 2011)

 

 

Quote

 

quantumshenanigans

We know that Returned generally can't be inebriated, but Vasher has learned to suppress some of his outwardly Returned-ish aspects. When we see Zahel with a bottle of wine in Stormlight, is it actually having an effect on him, or is he just doing it for the vibes?

Brandon Sanderson

He can get a little drunk. Maybe not as much as he would want to.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

 

 

Edited March 30, 2023 by Quantus

[Trusk'our he/him]

12 minutes ago, Quantus said:

True, though it still provides him some benefits (per WoB he can get drunk but "probably not as much as he'd like).   And honestly, from the WOB in it, "Suppressing" his Divine Breath seems to have more to do with forcing a less useful Self-Image onto that doesnt get all the Perks, but Investiture-wise I think it's still present and active (for instances where raw Investment matters).  For normal Heightenings they hide by stuffing them in an object, but for the Returned whose shapeshifted perks seem to be an advanced version of the Royal Locks, I think he's just skilled enough to embrace a fully Non-Augmented form the way some Returned naturally make themselves Old.  

Yup. Which falls in line pretty well with Hemalurgic spikes still providing some boosts, even if their primary physical-warping shenanigans get suppressed.

I wonder actually if this is similar to what Kandra do; their spikes would warp them, but since they can change their physical aspect as they like they suppress those warpings.

[alder24]

46 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

It's worth mentioning that Denth also has inhuman speed that we see on screen, but he doesn't partially change when he does so (when he shows off for the slumlord by defending himself from of their minions).

47 minutes ago, Quantus said:

True, though it still provides him some benefit

Ok, They can suppress their Divine Breath while maintaining some of the benefits coming form it. I forget about this part of it, and this WoB clarifies this:

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Denth's Speed

Yes, Denth is inhumanly fast. He's a Returned, after all, and has all of the physical enhancements that come with that. Even when he's chosen not to manifest most of them, he's still got an edge, just like Vasher does.

How do they hide that they're Returned? Well, it comes down to mastery of their ability to change their appearance. They can't shape-shift entirely; they can just alter some things about their appearance. They can change their weight, their hair color, and things like that at will. Vasher doesn't do this often, but Denth has been known to use it as a disguise. The problem, after you do this once and someone realizes it, your nature becomes very suspect.

They have learned to suppress their divine Breath. This allows them to hide, but they must be careful never to give away all of their Breath. Denth has been a Drab before—he's not completely lying—but never for longer than a few days. And his divine Breath is always there, suppressed. So he doesn't know what it's like to be a true Drab, which is why in this chapter he says he doesn't think it changes you that much. He's never felt it.

Warbreaker Annotations (Oct. 26, 2010)

 

But Divine Breath suppression doesn't work by creating a fake soul on top of an existing one. So I don't think that Hemalurgy would work that way, and be partially suppressed. Maybe with enough investment you could forge yourself to be spiked only by 2 spikes not 4, and thus still granting you additional strength of 2 man? But I think that everything related to the effects granted by a spike would have to be done by forging the spike directly.

 

54 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Hmmmm. Might be another way to experiment with Hemalurgic Bindpoints using fewer individuals.

Forging a binding point might be more difficult than it sounds. Yes, Kandra can move them around, but they have fluid, non-human bodies, you're not. In many cases (or all), binding points depend heavily on the organs and tissue spikes pierce. For example, you would have to Forge your body to grow your heart a few centimeters to the right instead, so a spike would be piercing a different binding point in your heart instead of the original one. In extreme situations you would need to forge your body to grow heart tissue in your arm or something like that. And a spike placed in a different binding point might not work anymore:

Spoiler

[...]

Questioner

And then when you place the spike on the recipient, if you like tore that spike out again and put it in someone else, you're not going to be able to get more than one power out of it?

Brandon Sanderson

No. No, and if you place the spike in the wrong place, then you're going to end up with interference and things like this where the spike might just not work the way you want it to. Taking a spike and putting it in the wrong place in someone is not going to make them have a different power, in other words.

Idaho Falls signing (Dec. 29, 2018)

 

[Trusk'our he/him]

42 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Forging a binding point might be more difficult than it sounds. Yes, Kandra can move them around, but they have fluid, non-human bodies, you're not. In many cases (or all), binding points depend heavily on the organs and tissue spikes pierce. For example, you would have to Forge your body to grow your heart a few centimeters to the right instead, so a spike would be piercing a different binding point in your heart instead of the original one. In extreme situations you would need to forge your body to grow heart tissue in your arm or something like that. And a spike placed in a different binding point might not work anymore:

I actually meant that you'd change where the spikes had been originally placed, not that you'd change where the Bindpoints themselves were.

42 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Ok, They can suppress their Divine Breath while maintaining some of the benefits coming form it.

But Divine Breath suppression doesn't work by creating a fake soul on top of an existing one. So I don't think that Hemalurgy would work that way, and be partially suppressed.

Alright, that's a fair conclusion.

I'd kind of like to see someone try this on screen though, or at least be able to ask Brandon about it. Then we'd know for certain how it would work, because I think it would be pretty neat to find a way to add Hemalurgic attributes to a human without turning them into an absolute monster.

Edited March 30, 2023 by Trusk'our

[alder24]

1 minute ago, Trusk'our said:

I actually meant that you'd change where the spikes had been originally placed, not that you'd change where your specific Bindpoints were.

That could be possible? I think. They're invested, so they would resist, but if enough investiture is applied to Forgery, it might work. But that would be weird.

[Trusk'our he/him]

Just now, alder24 said:

That could be possible? I think. They're invested, so they would resist, but if enough investiture is applied to Forgery, it might work. But that would be weird.

To be fair, most of the ideas I have would be "weird".

So this would be normal by comparison 

[alder24]

26 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

To be fair, most of the ideas I have would be "weird".

So this would be normal by comparison 

They make me think too much when I don't have the energy to think anymore!  

[Trusk'our he/him]

Had a new idea to add to this thread (but wasn't original enough to justify making a new one).

Flesh Forgery seems to specifically target the physical aspect, but not touch the spiritual or cognitive. I wonder if, instead of changing the past of the Koloss or Hemalurgic construct if you could record their body structure before they turned into a construct, make a Flesh Forgery stamp of it, then use it one them to overwrite their physical aspect to be their original human one.

It would be like a Lord Ruler type situation, with the body trying to move away from the natural spiritual aspect. Even if you needed a little extra boost of Investiture for your stamp to overpower the physical changes brought on by human attribute spikes, I think you could do it in order to gain the magical benefits of those spikes without the warping side-effects.

[alder24]

1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

Had a new idea to add to this thread (but wasn't original enough to justify making a new one).

Flesh Forgery seems to specifically target the physical aspect, but not touch the spiritual or cognitive. I wonder if, instead of changing the past of the Koloss or Hemalurgic construct if you could record their body structure before they turned into a construct, make a Flesh Forgery stamp of it, then use it one them to overwrite their physical aspect to be their original human one.

It would be like a Lord Ruler type situation, with the body trying to move away from the natural spiritual aspect. Even if you needed a little extra boost of Investiture for your stamp to overpower the physical changes brought on by human attribute spikes, I think you could do it in order to gain the magical benefits of those spikes without the warping side-effects.

Maybe? If flesh forgery affects only the body. But Koloss will look like a human but their mind won't be changed at all.