Replacing Other Investiture With Ruin

[Trusk'our he/him]

I had an idea before where you could give someone access to Feruchemical gold via Malwish Medallion tech who wasn't a Scadrien, say, a Nalthian, they could store health that would be composed of their Shard's Intent since their Spiritweb is composed of that Investiture. Then if a Misting were to have their power removed via Hemalurgy, they could use the Nalthian's health to grow back their power (assuming it's Identity-free). The resulting power would be composed of Endowment rather than Preservation, and could lead to some interesting ramifications.

Now I wonder what would happen if someone did that, but used Hemalurgically Compounded health- health fueled directly by Ruin and its Investiture.

The Misting's Spiritweb would be composed entirely (or at least almost entirely) of Ruin's Investiture. Would their descendants have Ruin-fueled Allomancy? Would the powers be skewed somewhat by the new Intent of power?

What about their interaction with Hemalurgy? Could this perhaps be a way to overcome limit to the number of spikes a human can gain powers from, since the spikes wouldn't have any Preservation to bow before?

What if you spiked a Nalthian's Breath from them and healed it back with Ruin's Investiture? Could they give that Breath to someone else, potentially creating Heighteings, only with Ruin's Investiture- which could lead to new insights to Hemalurgic practice due to inherent knowledge that comes with the Heightenings?

So many more possibilities than I had originally thought.

[SpeakoftheDeval]

52 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Then if a Misting were to have their power removed via Hemalurgy, they could use the Nalthian's health to grow back their power (assuming it's Identity-free). 

I'm not sure this would work as Hemalurgy would probably involve ripping out the part of the spiritweb that codes for the power, and healing involves restoring the physical to what the spiritual says it should be. Without the spiritual code for the power, I don't think healing would be able to get it back.

[Tea Leaf]

55 minutes ago, SpeakoftheDeval said:

I'm not sure this would work as Hemalurgy would probably involve ripping out the part of the spiritweb that codes for the power, and healing involves restoring the physical to what the spiritual says it should be. Without the spiritual code for the power, I don't think healing would be able to get it back.

That may be true. But how about shardblades.
*Ahem* If you were to lose an arm to a shardblade then use the Nalthian gold to heal...

[Quantus he/him]

Im not sure I follow your full theory, but if it makes a difference you cannot Heal yourself with Breaths, as part of the fundamental nature of Endowment.  

 

 

Quote

 

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.

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

 

 

[Trusk'our he/him]

2 hours ago, SpeakoftheDeval said:

I'm not sure this would work as Hemalurgy would probably involve ripping out the part of the spiritweb that codes for the power, and healing involves restoring the physical to what the spiritual says it should be. Without the spiritual code for the power, I don't think healing would be able to get it back.

You can regrow lost portions of Spiritweb, including the parts that allow access to the Metallic arts so long as you have enough Feruchemical gold (provided via Medallion in this case).

Quote

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/406/#e14304

HazelCharm47

Let's say we have a hypothetical situation with Miles Hundredlives. In this scenario, he is wearing a gold metalmind filled to the brim with stored healing power. He is then spiked with a cadmium spike and loses his gold allomancy.

Now, if I recall from various WoBs, he would be able to heal using the gold metalmind and regain his gold allomancy. I could be misremembering and he cannot heal it, but I believe he would be able to since it is part of his Identity.

However, one question I have never seen the answer to is this: what happens to the ability in the spike? Is the allomantic ability still contained in the spike, leading to a duplicate? Or is the spike's ability lost? Or maybe I have this whole thing wrong and Miles could never have regained the ability in the first place.

If the ability duplicates (which I doubt), that could lead to some crazy things. Also, this applies to any Twinborn with gold Feruchemy, I just thought Miles was a good example I guess

Brandon Sanderson

I'd like to see the exact WoB's here to make sure I'm being consistent, as I don't know that I confirmed you could regain lost powers--only that you could heal from hemalurgic soul damage. Most likely, what you'd end up with is a person who has been healed and can remove the spike from their body without damage, and without needing it to hold their soul together--but who has lost the ability in the spike.

Regardless, though, what you want here (the mass production of spikes charged and even blanked) is possible with the right levels of investiture. It's an energy, like things in our world. The difficulty is finding out how to 1) get enough investiture and 2) key it to the right people and/or magic.

Hope that's a little more clear.

That said, a lot of times people just ask me if something is possible--and a lot of things are possible, but just very difficult. And with the right boost of investiture, in the right circumstances, it WOULD be possible to regrow lost (to spikes) powers. It's just highly unlikely.

I'm not sure if the questions people are asking me are ones I've qualified, or not, in these instances. Also, this is all something I'm playing with still behind the scenes as we enter the modern age of Mistborn.

HazelCharm47

As requested, here are the WoBs I believe are related. They might be obsolete, however. And I assume things will get changed a lot before Era 4, but hey, it's fun to ask anyways

WoB #1:

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/331/#e9434

This one states that as long as Miles still has his Identity, he would be able to use his Feruchemical metalminds after being spiked and would be able to heal.

WoB #2:

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/102/#e983

This one says that Miles would be able to heal his soul using Feruchemical healing and regain his gold Allomancy (assuming he survives the spiking). I think this is the most essential one!

WoB #3:

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/76/#e6335

This one is only somewhat related - implies that the Feruchemical and Allomantic powers are spiritually part of him.

WoB #4:

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/7/#e6435

Also tangentially related - damage to the soul from Hemalurgy can be healed (Although this might just be a Hoid thing). I guess the question could be expanded to include non-Feruchemical healing as a way to repair the soul after being spiked.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, I don't think any of those are specifically inaccurate. I just didn't quite understand what people were trying to get out of me. A lot of times, I don't know quite what people are trying to get out of me. I can see now they're trying to figure out.

I see now, and I appreciate you putting this all together for me so I can see what the fans are trying to figure out. So the answer is a cautious yes. The problem here is that he'd need to compound a TON of healing first--but yes, it would work. You could theoretically turn someone like Miles into an invested spike factory.

If he didn't have enough healing stored, though, he'd end up with a healed soul but a gap (like a scar on his soul) where his spiked-out abilities were. That could theoretically be healed with application of more investiture, depending on things like how he views himself, and if you could get the right type of investiture.

 

1 hour ago, Quantus said:

Im not sure I follow your full theory, but if it makes a difference you cannot Heal yourself with Breaths, as part of the fundamental nature of Endowment.  

Not quite the direction I meant to go in.

I mean that one tries to fuel Invested healing (Feruchemical gold) with another type of Investiture, specifically Ruin in this case.

Then you deliberately damage your Spiritweb by removing the bit of Preservation in it via Hemalurgy.

You then heal the damage with Feruchemical gold that is powered by Ruin's Investiture (provided by Compounding using Hemalurgic spikes after someone figured out how to Compound via Hemalurgy).

Your Spiritweb is now entirely made up of Ruin's Investiture because you used Ruin's Investiture to graft on a new piece of Spiritweb.

I don't know all the implications of this, but I listed a few in my original post.

Also, when the quote says you can't heal yourself with the magic in Warbreaker, I think that it means that Awakening specifically can't heal you, not Breaths, since you can fuel different magic systems with other Investitures. I could be wrong, however.

Hope that cleared things up a bit 

[alder24]

3 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

I had an idea before where you could give someone access to Feruchemical gold via Malwish Medallion tech who wasn't a Scadrien, say, a Nalthian, they could store health that would be composed of their Shard's Intent since their Spiritweb is composed of that Investiture. Then if a Misting were to have their power removed via Hemalurgy, they could use the Nalthian's health to grow back their power (assuming it's Identity-free). The resulting power would be composed of Endowment rather than Preservation, and could lead to some interesting ramifications.

Now I wonder what would happen if someone did that, but used Hemalurgically Compounded health- health fueled directly by Ruin and its Investiture.

The Misting's Spiritweb would be composed entirely (or at least almost entirely) of Ruin's Investiture. Would their descendants have Ruin-fueled Allomancy? Would the powers be skewed somewhat by the new Intent of power?

What about their interaction with Hemalurgy? Could this perhaps be a way to overcome limit to the number of spikes a human can gain powers from, since the spikes wouldn't have any Preservation to bow before?

What if you spiked a Nalthian's Breath from them and healed it back with Ruin's Investiture? Could they give that Breath to someone else, potentially creating Heighteings, only with Ruin's Investiture- which could lead to new insights to Hemalurgic practice due to inherent knowledge that comes with the Heightenings?

So many more possibilities than I had originally thought.

I think I get it. As far as we know, Nalthians weren't created by Endowment, so their investiture might be a mix of all 16 Shards, with special investment from Endowment in the form of Breath. Scadrial is the only unique place in Cosmere that was entirely created by Shards, with people being composed only by Ruin and Preservation's investiture. As far as we know of course.

I don't know if Hemalurgically obtained Allomancy is fueled by Ruin, I think it might be still fueled by Preservation as Allomancy is basically a Connection to Preservation, from which you draw a power, spikes just steal that connection and place it in someone else. Both Shards can fuel all metalic arts however, what you proposed could be true(Marsh was certainly fueled by Ruin directly during HoA final fight with Elend)

Spoiler

Czanos

Preservation can fuel Allomancy, (minus atium.) but can Ruin fuel Hemalurgy? (Or atium?) And could Sazed fuel all three Metallic Arts?

Brandon Sanderson

Both gods could, if they wanted, fuel all of the Metallic Arts. Preservation is stronger at fueling Allomancy, Ruin stronger at fueling Allomancy or Feruchemy when it has been given via a spike. Both are balanced when it comes to Feruchemy. But this rarely comes up in the books, as it required expending power in a way that the gods were hesitant to do.

Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008)

 

Spoiler

Chaos

Allomancy provides many very dramatic effects, which some have noted is not very much like Preservation. Could you walk me through how Allomancy is of Preservation, though it does dramatic, dynamic things?

Brandon Sanderson

One of the 'basics' of the magic in all of the worlds is that the energy of Shards can fuel all kinds of interactions, not just interactions based on their personality/role. I did this because otherwise, the Magics would all be extremely limited.

The 'role' of the Shard has to do with the WAY the magic is obtained, not what it can do. So, in Preservation's case, the magic is a gift--allowing a person to preserve their own strength, and rely upon the strength granted by the magic. While Hemalurgy has a huge cost, ending in net entropy.

/r/fantasy AMA 2011 (Aug. 31, 2011)

 

But what do you store when you're storing attributes in metalminds? Do you store parts of you spirit web? I don't think so, it doesn't make sense, as storing part of your soul would look more like memory storing - either you have it or not. What do you store then? I think you store your "body" parts - you take something from your body, and convert it to investiture, your body is then pulled like a spring away from your spiritual ideal, which bounces back when you stop storing. So what you are storing is your physical body converted into investiture not your soul. Things like soul related attributes might be working the same as memory by taking part of your spirit web permanently from you, either you have it, or not, there is no tapping 2x memory, no diminishing returns with that.

Does it matter here, to make that distinction? Yes, because that gives us a little wiggle room to say what type of investiture is being stored in metalminds. Because Feruchemy comes from both Ruin and Preservation I think that any type of body attribute would get converted to Ruin and Preservation's investiture even if the person storing it would be from Nalthis. Of course I find it entirely valid that he would store a mix of all 16 Shards with a bit more Endowment, and Feruchemy doesn't tune investiture coming in and out to Ruin and Preservation. Or healing might force investiture to abandon its tone and tune in to Shard's investiture that this missing piece of soul was composed of. 

If a spiked Mistborn heal with gold medallion with Nalthian health in it, not tuned to Ruin and Preservation's investiture, Mistborn's soul would be healed by that investiture. What would it do to his power? I don't know, but I don't think he would draw from Endowment when using healed power. The healing restored his connection to Preservation, it didn't create a connection to Endowment. This is still a connection to Preservation from which you draw power. There might be some interference because that connection is made of mostly Endowment's investiture, but Endowment is all about giving with no string attached, so this might not change anything. If that was Autonomy, her investiture might limit the amount of power coming from Preservation, as investiture would be repulsed by it, it would be still flowing, but that Mistborn would be weaker in that healed power. Or there might be no problems at all, because connection is restored and that's all what is needed for investiture to flow from Preservation.

Descendants of Mistborn whose soul was fully compowed of Ruin's investiture, would likely be born with normal souls, not Ruin souls.

But that's pure speculation. I don't know if we know now how healing works in the case you described. That's something that might be worth asking Brandon.

[Trusk'our he/him]

3 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Does it matter here, to make that distinction? Yes, because that gives us a little wiggle room to say what type of investiture is being stored in metalminds. Because Feruchemy comes from both Ruin and Preservation I think that any type of body attribute would get converted to Ruin and Preservation's investiture even if the person storing it would be from Nalthis. Of course I find it entirely valid that he would store a mix of all 16 Shards with a bit more Endowment, and Feruchemy doesn't tune investiture coming in and out to Ruin and Preservation. Or healing might force investiture to abandon its tone and tune in to Shard's investiture that this missing piece of soul was composed of. 

I think that since you fuel normal Feruchemy with the Investiture of the Feruchemist that if a non-Scadrien the attribute would be fueled by whatever Investiuture composed the Feruchemist's Spiritweb. 

Compounding is directly fueled by Preservation (maybe Ruin if done via Hemalurgy) though, so attributes gained via Compounding would be composed entirely by that Investiture.

7 minutes ago, alder24 said:

If a spiked Mistborn heal with gold medallion with Nalthian health in it, not tuned to Ruin and Preservation's investiture, Mistborn's soul would be healed by that investiture. What would it do to his power? I don't know, but I don't think he would draw from Endowment when using healed power. The healing restored his connection to Preservation, it didn't create a connection to Endowment. This is still a connection to Preservation from which you draw power. There might be some interference because that connection is made of mostly Endowment's investiture, but Endowment is all about giving with no string attached, so this might not change anything. If that was Autonomy, her investiture might limit the amount of power coming from Preservation, as investiture would be repulsed by it, it would be still flowing, but that Mistborn would be weaker in that healed power. Or there might be no problems at all, because connection is restored and that's all what is needed for investiture to flow from Preservation.

Hmmm. It would be interesting to see what using other Shard's Investiture's to replace Allomancy would do. 

My instincts say that the powers would work normally, though there might be some "flavor" differences (Allomancy normally creates a warm "burning" sensation, but perhaps if you managed to hook a Misting to Honor's Invesiture they would instead feel pushed to act?). After all, Hemalurgy seems to do something similar to this if I'm correct; a piece of Spiritweb gets torn off of someone else and then gets converted to Ruin's Intent. The newly charged spike powers the Hemalurgist in the same way the donor had the power work for them.

I do wonder about the Connection to Preservation being restored even if you heal through another Investiture though. I had assumed that since you used Investiture from another Shard that the Allomancer would have their Connection moved to that Shard (and that when they burned metals they would draw from that Shard instead of Preservation), but that is speculation only.

16 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Descendants of Mistborn whose soul was fully compowed of Ruin's investiture, would likely be born with normal souls, not Ruin souls.

Maybe, but I would guess that the Ruin Mistborn would have Spiritweb's composed of solely Ruin's Investiture (assuming they had children with another full Ruin individual) since that would be coded into their Spiritweb. I suppose it would depend on whether the individual's "code" for what Investiture their descendants had was the actual Investiture their Spiritweb was composed of or whether it is purely sDNA of some sort (it would also likely determine whether the Ruin Mistborn continued to draw from Preservation when burning metals or Ruin, actually).

18 minutes ago, alder24 said:

But that's pure speculation. I don't know if we know now how healing works in the case you described. That's something that might be worth asking Brandon.

Very true. It's pretty much all speculation at this time, but it's enjoyable to have conversations with other 17th Sharders and debate and have thought experiments anyway 

[Tea Leaf]

Okay I found a WoB that talks sorta about this, don't know how helpful it will be

Spoiler

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.

 

[Trusk'our he/him]

On 4/14/2023 at 11:06 AM, The Last Fæ said:

Okay I found a WoB that talks sorta about this, don't know how helpful it will be

  Hide contents

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.

 

Yeah, this is a big part of my hypothesis; you actually remove a part of your Spiritweb when you charge a Hemalurgic spike with your own Spiritweb, and you replace the lost portion that was previously of another Shard's Investiture with Ruin's in an attempt to do... something.

Probably make yourself able to bear more Hemalurgic spikes?

Or replace a Nalthian's initial Breath, allowing them to give it to someone else, thereby allowing Ruin-aligned Heighteings?

[cometaryorbit]

I wouldn't be surprised if medallion-granted f-Gold can't heal soul wounds like Hemalurgy and Shardblades inflict, for the same reason Honorblade-granted Stormlight healing can't ... the power from a "mechanical" source is less deeply part of you.

(Also, TLM implies that f-Gold medallions don't exist anyway, and Hemalurgic Compounding no longer works unless you got the spikes back in Era 1.)

Also, I don't personally think Hemalurgically Compounded attributes actually draw from Ruin; the Allomancy, even if granted by a spike, is still the same power and should draw from Preservation. However, I acknowledge there's a WoB that says so (Lift with Bendalloy), so I'm probably technically wrong with current canon. I really do think that was Brandon mis-speaking though.

I think Feruchemy (outside Nicrosil at least) converts attributes into Investiture, rather than storing Investiture the Feruchemist already has. So I think if you gave a Nalthian a F-Gold spike, the Health they stored would still be stored as Ruin+Preservation/Harmony "flavored" Investiture rather than Endowment "flavored". However, that's much more speculative.

I think you can replace a soul with a different "flavor" of Investiture, however. I think that's what happened to Telsin, and why she's left gray and dead when Autonomy retreats - there wasn't enough of her original Ruin+Preservation/Harmony soul left. I think the "soul fossilization" in becoming a Cognitive Shadow is the same thing ... the Heralds didn't originally have Honor souls, presumably.

[Trusk'our he/him]

On 4/18/2023 at 6:09 PM, cometaryorbit said:

I wouldn't be surprised if medallion-granted f-Gold can't heal soul wounds like Hemalurgy and Shardblades inflict, for the same reason Honorblade-granted Stormlight healing can't ... the power from a "mechanical" source is less deeply part of you.

That... makes a lot of sense, and would be another nice limitation to Medallion tech.

I think that this WoB backs this up as well; the more deeply tied to one's soul, the more effective the healing an Invested source provides. In other words, mechanical devices have a hard time if not straight up inability to heal soul wounds (though Regrowth used by a Radiant can be used on someone else to heal Shardblade wounds I think, so perhaps there it some more things going one there than needing the healing power to be an innate part of the person being healed).

Quote

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/116/#e4788

Brandon Sanderson

A full-blown Radiant can heal almost anything (cut from a Shardblade included) because of the way the magic works--their soul is literally bonded to Investiture, and it suffuses them in such a way that even the soul is very resilient to damage.

Honorblades are what you'd consider a "prototype" for what eventually happened with Shardblades. An Honorblade can be used by anyone, without need for oaths, which makes them very dangerous--but since the bond isn't as deep, they are far less efficient. They use more Stormlight, for example, and can't heal to the extent that a Radiant can.

So the difference is not in the device that did the damage, but in the method using to heal. Over the course of the first two book, the reader should be able to subtly pick out differences from what Szeth says is possible (in more than just healing) and what Kaladin experiences.

 

On 4/18/2023 at 6:09 PM, cometaryorbit said:

Also, I don't personally think Hemalurgically Compounded attributes actually draw from Ruin; the Allomancy, even if granted by a spike, is still the same power and should draw from Preservation. However, I acknowledge there's a WoB that says so (Lift with Bendalloy), so I'm probably technically wrong with current canon. I really do think that was Brandon mis-speaking though.

That's a fair takeaway, and you may be right about Brandon misspeaking.

I do currently think that if you use powers gained via Hemalurgy that you draw from Ruin, however. From a meta perspective, how else would one "get" the Shard's Investiture? It just doesn't make much sense to me, though admittedly that's just personal opinion, and aside from that one WoB with Lift we don't have any concrete proof of that actually being the case. So take the whole Ruin fueling all Hemalurgy (with the exception of Hemalugically gained Feruchemy) with a grain of salt, I'd say.

On 4/18/2023 at 6:09 PM, cometaryorbit said:

I think Feruchemy (outside Nicrosil at least) converts attributes into Investiture, rather than storing Investiture the Feruchemist already has. So I think if you gave a Nalthian a F-Gold spike, the Health they stored would still be stored as Ruin+Preservation/Harmony "flavored" Investiture rather than Endowment "flavored". However, that's much more speculative.

I think that it depends on the specific attributes you're looking at, but most I think work by using the Spiritweb of the Feruchemist to draw Investiture directly from the SR, which gets stored in Metalminds to be drawn from for later use, but a few attributes are different and directly convert matter or parts of the Cognitive aspect into Investiture for latter use (made a thread about Feruchemy drawing from all three Realms recently, as a matter of fact).

I still think that since you're drawing from the Feruchemist's Spiritweb (at least for most of the attributes) that the health stored by a Nalthian would be Endowment "flavored" but admittedly that speculation on my part, so it could be wrong.

On 4/18/2023 at 6:09 PM, cometaryorbit said:

I think you can replace a soul with a different "flavor" of Investiture, however. I think that's what happened to Telsin, and why she's left gray and dead when Autonomy retreats - there wasn't enough of her original Ruin+Preservation/Harmony soul left. I think the "soul fossilization" in becoming a Cognitive Shadow is the same thing ... the Heralds didn't originally have Honor souls, presumably.

Interesting. I like that idea and think that it has some real merit to it.

I wonder if Savants have something similar happen to them; their Spiritwebs get worn away and replaced by the Kinetic Investiture they constantly use, which does allow them to have a deeper tie to and control over their power, but if they ever stop using it, the Kinetic Investiture is no longer there to "fill in the gaps" so to speak, leaving them in a terrible condition, with only a worn out shadow of their original soul, their original self...

EDIT: Okay, I remembered seeing this quote about Scadriens having Ruin's Investiture inside them, which also meant that their Feruchemical attributes had some of Ruin's essence, which is why Ruin could manipulate Sazed's Coppermind contents while they were being transferred to his mind.

I think that this supports my idea of most Feruchemical powers drawing form the Feruchemist's natural Investiture, rather than attuning it to Ruin or Preservation.

Quote

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/31/#e9695

Questioner

In the Well of Ascension, Kwaan says that Ruin changed the words in the Feruchemists' metalminds. Ruin can't *inaudible* metal plates. I was wondering what the difference was?

Brandon Sanderson

Because they're in the person's head before they're going in the plates. And he can affect the power as it's transcribed between. Because the power is partially him, the Power of Creation of that world. So there is a bit of him inside of every person, and as the power is going from person into plate... It's kind of like how people can hack your phone through your wifi. Does that make sense? So, that's what's going on there.

 

Edited April 20, 2023 by Trusk'our