Scenarios for Forgery of Immediate Past

[Duxredux he/him]

So here's what I started with. I had to think a bit to deal with the necessary quarter-turn when using a Stamp or an Essence Mark.

You have a sledge hammer and a stamp. You tap a wall with the sledge hammer and then stamp the wall with something along the lines of "that person with a sledge hammer decided to take a full swing at me and knocked me in". Does it work? How permanent is it? Shai stamps a door and weakens it before kicking through it, but she doesn't stick around long enough for it.

Alternately, you are working on a demolition crew. you knock down one wall and then stamp the others with a stamp that goes along with "the demolition person started with me first and now I'm broken".

Next scenario:

You have a stamp made into basically a signet ring. The stamp rewrites the immediate history of "that person just punched me in the face hard enough that I was knocked out". You punch someone anywhere with skin contact and do the necessary stamp twist on contact. Does it work?

Next scenario:

You have a spear shaft with a stamp on the end of it. At home you have a regular, high quality spear. The stamp rewrites history with "that person didn't grab the stamp on the end of stick this morning, they grabbed the spear next to it instead and they just stabbed me and now I'm bleeding out".

Next scenario:

You are a battlefield armorer. You have a selection of more general purpose stamps for armor that rewrite history 5-30 minutes previously with things like "the soldier that was wearing me was smart enough to duck" or "today I was issued to someone on guard duty, not that poor sucker on the frontlines". Do they work and is this a good idea or a bad idea to repair armor, considering it will take even more damage to break the repair seal?

Next scenario:

An assassin has a single stamp. It rewrites history with "I just barely had a sudden stroke and I'm dying". Can it cause permanent death, if so, what would the autopsy show after the stamp degrades? What if the assassin breaks the seal after 5-10 minutes?

Thoughts? This might not be that important since Moonlight can make portable doors, but it's an alternate methodology and idea.

[Trusk'our he/him]

45 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

So here's what I started with. I had to think a bit to deal with the necessary quarter-turn when using a Stamp or an Essence Mark.

You have a sledge hammer and a stamp. You tap a wall with the sledge hammer and then stamp the wall with something along the lines of "that person with a sledge hammer decided to take a full swing at me and knocked me in". Does it work? How permanent is it? Shai stamps a door and weakens it before kicking through it, but she doesn't stick around long enough for it.

Alternately, you are working on a demolition crew. you knock down one wall and then stamp the others with a stamp that goes along with "the demolition person started with me first and now I'm broken".

I think that would be a very plausible stamp, and would take easily. One question to ask though; if the structure breaks as a result of a Forgery, can the item "fix" itself once it's happened? Because a wall that has crumbled into mush already probably would stay broken, even if the Forgery didn't stay due to it breaking (which would probably happen; there isn't enough of the wall left to maintain the Forgery, though it would probably stay broken).

So yes, I think that would absolutely work.

50 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

Next scenario:

You have a stamp made into basically a signet ring. The stamp rewrites the immediate history of "that person just punched me in the face hard enough that I was knocked out". You punch someone anywhere with skin contact and do the necessary stamp twist on contact. Does it work?

Huh. That's some outside the box thinking.

So, you want to use the ring to stamp someone you hit anywhere on their body so that it rewrites the hit to knock them out? I'd say... technically that could work, though in practical application it would be hard to achieve; you'd need to make universal stamp, which would likely be harder for a person than an object, and you'd need to get enough of their "history" to make the stamp stick (objects and entities wish to be seen as a whole, so you can't easily Forge just a part of them). You'd also need to be able to actually stamp them, which requires a solid contact with their skin.

But, if your goal is just to knock them out, perhaps you could make a universal stamp that would take just long enough to make what you want work (it you want to do less lingering damage to them, this may also be a way to achieve that).

55 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

Next scenario:

You have a spear shaft with a stamp on the end of it. At home you have a regular, high quality spear. The stamp rewrites history with "that person didn't grab the stamp on the end of stick this morning, they grabbed the spear next to it instead and they just stabbed me and now I'm bleeding out".

I'm... confused. So, you want to create a stamp-spear, and it rewrites your opponents history to say that the real spear you have at home was taken and stabbed through the person stamped? 

If so... yes? I think that would work. I'll admit, I think it's a little convoluted, but I certainly wouldn't see it coming, so your enemy probably wouldn't either.

1 hour ago, Duxredux said:

Next scenario:

You are a battlefield armorer. You have a selection of more general purpose stamps for armor that rewrite history 5-30 minutes previously with things like "the soldier that was wearing me was smart enough to duck" or "today I was issued to someone on guard duty, not that poor sucker on the frontlines". Do they work and is this a good idea or a bad idea to repair armor, considering it will take even more damage to break the repair seal?

I think that this one is even more likely than the previous two, especially if you have well-made universal stamps at your disposal. Too much extra damage after the Forgery took would break the seal though, causing the Forgery to fail and returning the armor to its original state. Could be useful for the army of MaiPon potentially.

Though, Forgeries do have a little "force" that protects them from physical harm. Maybe you could use a large stamp that covered a breastplate or other piece of armor to increase its total durability and soften blows against the wearer?

1 hour ago, Duxredux said:

Next scenario:

An assassin has a single stamp. It rewrites history with "I just barely had a sudden stroke and I'm dying". Can it cause permanent death, if so, what would the autopsy show after the stamp degrades? What if the assassin breaks the seal after 5-10 minutes?

Yes, we have a WoB stating that if a Forgery caused someone to die, they'd stay dead since either the Soul has passed on to the Beyond or because Forgery just doesn't naturally have enough Investiture to bring someone back from the Cognitive Realm.

Quote

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/117/#e1601

Questioner

So with Soulforging, are you able to Soulforge yourself so that you die?

Brandon Sanderson

Uh, can you Soulforge yourself to death? So, Soulforging that requires large state changes of Investiture and/or inputs of Investiture are very difficult. However, killing yourself is not that hard, but basically you could - so, Soulforging yourself so that you are already dead would a little bit harder, but Soulforging yourself would be, yeah.

Questioner

<background noise> and be able to check in the afterlife and then return--

Brandon Sanderson

No, because transfer of Investiture to and from the Beyond or even into the Cognitive Realm is going to require more investiture than a Forger pulls through, you can Forge yourself to death.

Questioner

So I can kill myself but I can’t come back.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. That would be one of those things where you kill yourself, your soul passes to the Beyond, your body when the Forgery is broken comes back, and just dead.

As for what the autopsy detects, I think that your corpse would return to its normal, "healthy" state, so it would look like your spirit just got ejected from your body with no physical damage done (which, kind of did happen, after a fashion).

Very interesting ideas. I enjoyed reading them quite a bit.

[Adonalsium Will Return He/him]

I’ve got an idea. What if, before a battle, healing stamps were passed out? True, they wouldn’t take for long, but long enough to get to a medic?

[earthexile]

On 12/10/2025 at 8:22 PM, Ookla the Returned said:

I’ve got an idea. What if, before a battle, healing stamps were passed out? True, they wouldn’t take for long, but long enough to get to a medic?

I don't know the system well enough to really say, but I wonder if "I have arrived at this point in the day without being dealt injury" is too general to be useful as a mass-produced battlefield medkit.

[Frustration]

16 minutes ago, earthexile said:

I don't know the system well enough to really say, but I wonder if "I have arrived at this point in the day without being dealt injury" is too general to be useful as a mass-produced battlefield medkit.

Well they have ones that can just make a door wherever, so I think that works just fine.

[Nitpicking]

20 hours ago, Frustration said:

Well they have ones that can just make a door wherever, so I think that works just fine.

Which time period are we talking? Wax and Wayne era, Shai does. I'm not sure (maybe I am just not remembering) whether she could do that in Emperor's Soul.

[Frustration]

On 12/21/2025 at 7:13 AM, Nitpicking said:

Which time period are we talking? Wax and Wayne era, Shai does. I'm not sure (maybe I am just not remembering) whether she could do that in Emperor's Soul.

TLM timeline.

[The Stick]

Another thing I was considering was the use of stamps for logistics. History shows well fed and rested armies typically do well. I wonder if you could stamp the soldiers with a stamp saying they had a full meal and had a night of good sleep before a battle. 

[Nitpicking]

7 hours ago, The Stick said:

Another thing I was considering was the use of stamps for logistics. History shows well fed and rested armies typically do well. I wonder if you could stamp the soldiers with a stamp saying they had a full meal and had a night of good sleep before a battle. 

Is that really easier than just having food and campsites? How many Forgers are you assuming the army has? Would it be better than Forgers who can make crops grow out of barren ground by Stamping the dirt with "This was a cultivated field"? The latter would be very close to how Soulcasters feed Rosharan armies.

[The Stick]

14 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

Is that really easier than just having food and campsites? How many Forgers are you assuming the army has? Would it be better than Forgers who can make crops grow out of barren ground by Stamping the dirt with "This was a cultivated field"? The latter would be very close to how Soulcasters feed Rosharan armies.

I feel like it is more plausible that the soldiers ate or slept as opposed to a cultivated field stamp. Assuming an army is always on the move with supply trains, I would say it is not very plausible for them to have planted fields. I would argue, assuming you have enough forgers, this would be an excellent supplement to regular logistics. I am obviously not suggesting that this replaces normal logistics. However, accounts of Hannibal and many generals of history say well supplied troops do well in battle. It wouldn't be a constant state, just a last minute addition before battles.

[Nitpicking]

I'm wondering about the logistics of making thousands of Soulstamps, though. One "This field was farmed by dedicated farmers until yesterday" stamp is just one stamp. You don't have to make individual stamps for every soldier. You can't reuse a Soulstamp, as far as I know.

Yes, as a matter of fact, I am trying to make Forgers into Elantrians, able to do anything they can "code" into a stamp.