Possible steps to become the most dangerous being in the cosmere

[Xiahida]

Basically, I want to see if we could plan out the steps to gain most Invested Arts in the Cosmere. This is under the assumption that you can get around the "trapped in your system" problem, which will be discussed here as well. Just a couple of guidelines:

1. No Dawnshards. You are still dangerous if you have them, but you can't kill a person (at least directly) and so I want to avoid it.

2. You are human and when you have 4 or more spikes you can be taken control of. There will be a limit of 3 because it is scarier when the person attacking you can't  be taken control of.

3. About the surges, both honorblades and spren bonds are free game.

Lets begin:

1. Be born a Feruchemist around the time of Rashek. Try to steal a bead of Lerasium, and start compounding age, until a more permanent solution is found.

2. Go to Roshar and bond at least an Inkspren or a Cryptic for soulcasting so you can compound without needing money for metals.

3. Go to Sel and use F-Duralumin to Connect to the land and become an Elantrian and a Forger (Can you soulcast stamps? As in can you soulcast them in a way that is more efficient than carving them?)

On to the Connection problem, how do you Worldhop while this Invested, or to get off Scadrial in the first place? Maybe storing your Connection to the planet or Identity as an inhabitant of that world.

[alder24]

1 hour ago, Xiahida said:

Basically, I want to see if we could plan out the steps to gain most Invested Arts in the Cosmere. This is under the assumption that you can get around the "trapped in your system" problem, which will be discussed here as well. Just a couple of guidelines:

1. No Dawnshards. You are still dangerous if you have them, but you can't kill a person (at least directly) and so I want to avoid it.

2. You are human and when you have 4 or more spikes you can be taken control of. There will be a limit of 3 because it is scarier when the person attacking you can't  be taken control of.

3. About the surges, both honorblades and spren bonds are free game.

I've got this idea for a while now:

1. Spike Dalinar and take his Connection to the Stormfather.
2. Spike the Stormfather and take his power of Bondsmithing.
3. Use Bondsmithing to steal powers from other Invested individuals - you can start by stealing spren bonds of all orders (I wonder if you might be able to directly steal powers from spren, like Hemalurgy can), then Metallic Arts, Elantrians and so on. Once you are a Bondsmith you can take almost everything (probably no Breaths but maybe a Divine Breath).
4. Use Bondsmithing to manipulate your Connection whenever it's necessary to allow you to worldhop.

Spoiler

Questioner (paraphrased)

If I wanted to Hemalurgically acquire a power from First of the Sun, which metal would the spike need to be?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

This is going to be pretty complicated, but several metals would work.

Questioner (paraphrased)

Would it involve Connection between the person being spiked and the bird?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Well it would be even harder than on Roshar, where you need to somehow spike the spren and also the Radiant. You would need to spike the bird and steal the power, but also spike the person and steal Connection.

GenCon 2017 (Aug. 17, 2017)

 

1 hour ago, Xiahida said:

2. Go to Roshar and bond at least an Inkspren or a Cryptic for soulcasting so you can compound without needing money for metals.

You can't Soulcast into Atium with the amount of investiture you have.

Spoiler

Haylo_Alex

You've said before that Soulcasting can't create atium or lerasium which makes sense since they're made of Investiture from other Shards. But could a Soulcaster, perhaps in the proximity of Dalinar's perpendicularity, provide enough Stormlight to Soulcast something into Honor's Godmetal (tanavastium)? What about Cultivation's metal, or an alloy of both, like Shardblade metal?

Brandon Sanderson

So, creating a God Metal is not something that's done easily in the Cosmere. HOWEVER, it is possible. You'd need a ton of Investiture, and being near Dalinar's perpendicularity is unlikely to be enough. I'd say Soulcasting, or something akin to it, has the means to do this if it could obtain the proper power charge.

Footnote: The questioner is mentioning this WoB.
General Reddit 2020 (Sept. 4, 2020)

 

1 hour ago, Xiahida said:

(Can you soulcast stamps? As in can you soulcast them in a way that is more efficient than carving them?)

I think so, it's stamping that makes them work as an invested art.

1 hour ago, Xiahida said:

On to the Connection problem, how do you Worldhop while this Invested, or to get off Scadrial in the first place? Maybe storing your Connection to the planet or Identity as an inhabitant of that world.

You don't have that problem on Scadrial. Being a Mistborn or even a Fullborn doesn't prevent you from Worldhopping. Kelsier can't because right now he is made out of Preservation's investiture, but you don't have that problem. You have however that problem once you bond a spren - your spren can't leave Roshar, as they are just like Kelsier. You might make spren worldhop with you by giving them F-duralumin medallion (which you can make) filled with blanked connection or connection to different planets or something like that. But you don't have that problem unless you become a Cognitive Shadow. 

Spoiler

Questioner

Do Splinters require proximity to their Shards?

Brandon Sanderson

Do they require it for what?

Questioner

Function--

Brandon Sanderson

Function. It's very hard for most Splinters to leave the realm where they were Splintered, but this gets into tricky stuff because the Shard mostly occupies the Spiritual Realm, but what do you mean by the Shard? Because the essence of the Shard is in the Physical Realm, it's all across the cosmere, and things like this. Usually once something is Splintered it is difficult for them to leave that area, so yes.

Questioner

And in the system--

Brandon Sanderson

You see it with the-- I would call most Cognitive Shadows a Splinter in some ways. And you see it when Kelsier tries to leave, right. And spren would have the same trouble, and seons would have the same trouble. But at the same time is that a proximity to the Shard? Kind of. Things get very wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey when you start dealing with the nature of the Spiritual Realm in the cosmere. 

Oathbringer Leeds signing (Dec. 1, 2017)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

Have we seen cameos of Heralds on other Shardworlds?

Brandon Sanderson

The Heralds are tied to the system by the magic that permeates them. They could not leave.

Questioner

I thought I saw someone but I guess not.

Brandon Sanderson

It’s part of the magic. Some would call them Cognitive Shadows, right? Whether they are or not. "Cognitive Shadow" is a very ambiguous term in the cosmere. It means, basically your soul-- It's the same thing with petrification, right? Investiture replaced your soul, and permeated your soul, and your soul continues to exist, but... you are usually Invested with something, that's tied, and you're basically like pure Investiture then. You're tied to the thing you're Connected to. Most of the things that you're gonna see with that, travelling is going to be very difficult, unless you know how to do it. You have seen people do it.

Questioner

Who?

Brandon Sanderson

Vasher

Brandon Sanderson

Vasher... You have seen people do it. But anyone who's got-- yeah.

Arcanum Unbounded Chicago signing (Dec. 6, 2016)

 

[NameIess]

4 hours ago, Xiahida said:

1. No Dawnshards. You are still dangerous if you have them, but you can't kill a person (at least directly) and so I want to avoid it.

Pretty sure it’s just Hoid’s Dawnshard that prevents killing. 

[Xiahida]

21 hours ago, alder24 said:

You can't Soulcast into Atium with the amount of investiture you have.

I meant you steal it from the Trust

[Trusk'our]

On 10/31/2023 at 3:31 PM, Xiahida said:

Basically, I want to see if we could plan out the steps to gain most Invested Arts in the Cosmere. This is under the assumption that you can get around the "trapped in your system" problem, which will be discussed here as well. Just a couple of guidelines:

1. No Dawnshards. You are still dangerous if you have them, but you can't kill a person (at least directly) and so I want to avoid it.

2. You are human and when you have 4 or more spikes you can be taken control of. There will be a limit of 3 because it is scarier when the person attacking you can't  be taken control of.

3. About the surges, both honorblades and spren bonds are free game.

1. Be born a regular joe schmo during era 2 Mistborn and stumble across knowledge of Hemalurgy through the Set, Sliverism (maybe; they do worship Ironeyes, after all), or some other way.

2. Use Hemalurgically granted F-aluminum and F-nicrosil plus one other power of your choice. Blank the Identity of the spikes and store the power of the third spike in a Nicrosilmind for later use. Repeat this process, trading out the third spike for other spikes with all the other Metalborn powers.

Now you effectively have a new version of the Bands of Mourning, possibly Keyed to your own personal Identity if F-aluminium lets you pick and choose with enough skill (so that nobody can just steal them from you).

3. Ditch the F-aluminum and F-nicrosil spikes; they were useful for making your Fullborn Metalminds, but now just take spike slots that can be used for other powers (okay, maybe hide them in an aluminum box for later use, just in case).

4. Travel to other planets in the Cosmere (doesn't really matter too much which ones. You'll be visiting all of them eventually) and continue to gather powers, adding them to your arsenal.

5. Make sure to keep your secret of gathering power away from rivals but dole out Unsealed Metalminds at your discretion to your most devote followers to become a leader of an Invested entourage. Build an army this way.

6. Use your army of Invested warriors to conquer and build a nation that can support you as their god-king, becoming a new Lord Ruler, and use the society to back you up with more resources.

Now you are Rashek, but better, with planetary conquering capabilities.

[.....]

Be born during era one on scadrial, be the Lord Rulers child because he did have children, go to roshar get Ishars honor blade, use bondsmithing To make yourself a permanent bondsmith like to make it a part of your spirit web without a spren, Use your bondsmithing to Make it so you are powered by Honor like the Heralds were, Go around the cosmere using bondsmithing to steal all the powers from everywhere, also gather the rest of the honor blades.

Edited November 10, 2023 by .....

[Authorspren]

Be a regular person, until you get taken by the Shaod. Now you have immortality and AonDor. Spend a few years mastering it so you know how to maintain your connection to the Dor while offworld. Spend more years mastering Aons.

Use Aon Tia to teleport to Roshar. Figure out how to transport Stormlight and spren offworld. Honorblades are more convenient than spren bonds; no inconvenient Oaths to mess you up. However, you will want to become an Elsecaller, as Elsecaller Oaths revolve around reaching full potential. Shouldn't be too hard for you. Also obtain at least the Bondsmith Honorblade.

Use Aon Tia to teleport to Scadrial. You'll want to locate the Bands of Mourning. Figure out how to charge them later, but obtain metals now. Then locate Marsh. Fight him, steal his atium, and leave the planet. Once safe on Nalthis, forge the atium into small earring style spikes.

Use your various abilities to sneak up on Susebron and spike him to gain all his breaths. Atium spikes are preferred because they steal and preserve a power the best. Then escape immediately to your lair.

Congratulations, you are now a 10th Heightening Awakener, Elantrian, Elsecaller (with Plate and Blade), unchained Bondsmith, Full Mistborn, Full Feruchemist, and have various other atium spikes for interchangeable powers as you see fit. 

[Sky Breaker]

I have two plans of attack assuming they have all the same information I have now 

1.  Be born an average shmoe on southern scadrial.

2. Become a member of the set and Embezzle as much bavidinium as possible 

3. split harmonium and burn as much lerasium as possible 

4. go to roshar and capture a swarm of hordlings. 

6. Use an atium spike to steal there ability to form a hive mind

7. spike yourself 

8. Go out and have some kids to expand the hivemind

9. go back to scadrial and start breading for twinborn abilities or go to nalthis and start collecting breaths

Or 

1. Or go become a midnight aether bound 

2. Go bond the night watcher,  kill ishar to take his honor blade, go become a gold compounder or, go become a connection compounder to become an elantrian (basically you want a near infinite amount of investiture)

3. Since you can use investiture to fuel  aether you now have a near infinite amount of agents to use and do what ever you want with. 

[Onironte]

1: Born in Taldain, a few centuries before White Sand events, and becoming a sand master. Later earn the favor of Autonomy and leave the system with a lot of Investiture, and a bit of Badvinium that I've acquired previously.

2: I travel to Scadrial to arrive just before Rashek at the Well of Ascension, take the power, and steal all Atium I can find (the Divine Metal, not the alloy that grows in Pits of Hathsin). Then, I consume a single bead of Lerasium and keep the other fifteen. I learn to create metal minds without sealing, make a couple of bracers like those of the Lord Ruler, and become an expert in hemalurgy (never trying it on myself). I go to Nalthis.

3: I arrive in Nalthis to witness the return of Vo, the First Returned. I act as an advisor and a loyal friend after his return, explaining everything about the Cosmere to him but not mentioning the Commands. When I gain his favor (with the help of Allomancy), I deceive him by saying that I can teach him how to do anything random he wants to know (having deduced in advance what things interest him) if he utters the Mandate "My life to yours, my Breath become yours." He gives me his divine breath and dies. I don’t need the weekly Breath to survive, so I spend some time just learning about Awakening. Over time, I establish a religion that worships me and obtain a ridiculously high amount of Divine Breaths and ordinary Breaths. I wait until the Five Scholars are born and learn what I have left to know after several hundred years in the Tenth Elevations. Meanwhile, I collect all the Edgium I can find in my free time. I temporarily leave Nalthis, now immortal and with the Tenth Heightening, (and only because there are no more Heightenings left...) and take with me the most devoted worshipper I can find.

4: I spend some time in Sel to become an Elantrian and then, become also Elantrian to Servant (I'm going to call my Nalthis worshipper that from now on). I choose a Skaze and a Seon to bond, but after making them worship me, I have Servant take care of them in my long absence (now Servant is Immortal) and lock them away until my return. Before leaving, I inform him about the Reod and how to fix it, but I order him not to tell anyone, only to use it for his own benefit.

5: Roshar is calling me, so I head there. I make sure Honor selects me as the Herald of Luck instead of Ishar, and when Odium kills Honor, I steal Jezrien's Honorblade (I don't want competition with Adhesion Surge). Previously, I've spoken with Re-Shephir and bonded a corrupted Brumaspren, thus protecting myself from Odium and Cultivation's foreknowledge (which they haven't acted on because they know I can create a Nightblood whenever I want and kill them in a direct confrontation). I use Adhesion to force a bond with the Stormfather, then bond the Sibling, and finally the Nightwatcher. I open the Perpendicularity of Honor and use Connection to bond Radiant spren of each class and later to make the bonds with each of my sprens one of total servitude and devotion to me. Who was missing? Oh, the Unmade. Well, more of the same, forced bonding, and then enslavement. I steal a bit of Raysium and look for two deadeyes, one cultivationspren and one honorspren (both pure divine metals).

6: I return to Sel and force a bond of servitude with the Skaze and Seon I left in charge of Servant. I Connect myself with the land to become a Forger. I take the opportunity to obtain all the divine metals of Devotion and Dominion that I can find.

7: I return to Nalthis to perpetuate my reign and become an expert in Awakening. I gradually optimize society so that the population forgets Awakening, and everyone's vocation is for me to take their breath (they pay me to free them from sin), the same applies to the Returned. To pass the time, I become an expert (even more so) in composition, both Allomantic and Hemalurgic, and use breaths along with the rest of my abilities to create weapons that can absorb Investiture at a distance, accumulate it, and then deliver it to me. Occasionally, I take a stroll on a planet I haven't been to before to obtain the Divine Metal of its Shard. When I have all the Divine Metals, I start alloying Lerasium with each other Divine Metals and burning it: I don’t know why right now, (its RAFO) but I think that would be quite cool.

 

[The H]

This is my proposed theory:

(Prerequisite: Learn how to use the same time dilation technique that Hoid uses)

1. Be born a full Twinborn (Mistborn + Full Feruchemist).

2. Swallow a bead of Lerasium to become a more powerful Allomancer.

3. Travel to Sel, and use Feruchemy to Connect yourself to the world, turning you into both an Elantrian, and a Forger somehow.

4. Make sure to bond a Seon while you're on Sel, making interplanetary communication far easier.

5.Travel to Roshar, and swallow the crystal of Yelig-Nar, granting at least 9 surges, possible all 10.

(Use Hoid's hacking of the magic systems to be able to leave the systems that might be difficult to leave)

The main things I haven't thought out yet are the difficultness of leaving the Selish system because of the dangerous conditions in it's Cognitive Realm, and how you are supposed to leave Roshar while bonded to Yelig-Nar.

For context, I have only read Stormlight and Elantris, and the rest is stuff I've accidently spoiled for myself through both my curiosity in the Coppermind, and in the forums.

Edited November 19, 2023 by The H

[SwordNimiForPresident]

Be an Elantrian....

Maybe go get Nightblood for cool points?

[The H]

7 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Be an Elantrian....

If an Elantrian was in close proximity to Elantris, they just might be able to overpower an incredibly powerful Steel Inquisitor such as (Mistborn Spoilers) 

Spoiler

Marsh.

However, they are (usually) unable to use AonDor when they are far from Elantris. I guess that puts them in a corner, where they can only 'be powerful' if the battleground is in Northeastern Arelon. How powerful a character is is in the eye of the beholder, it seems, as there isn't an objective definition for power. Is it skill, Investiture, abilities, or something entirely different?

14 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Maybe go get Nightblood for cool points?

An Elantrian with Nightblood... I'm truly terrified. Maybe NB should just stick to running for president

[SwordNimiForPresident]

22 minutes ago, The H said:

However, they are (usually) unable to use AonDor when they are far from Elantris.

I don't know if you have read The Lost Metal or Tress of the Emerald Sea, but they very solidly debunk this. Elantrians simply need to plan ahead and understand the local geography if they are traveling abroad.

As to their power level, they are unmatched by non Shard entities. The dragon in Tress was unwilling to put itself in conflict with an Elantrian even though, as we learn from Hoid, she is a particularly dumb one.

As for Nightblood, it would mostly just be for the cool factor. I'm sure and Elantrian could create an Aon that achieves the same effect without the need of actually hitting something with a sword.

Now that I think about it, I would probably make an awakened mistcloak to complete my ensemble. Though I could probably just lightweave one instead.

I think I might also travel around the Cosmere and capture other "powerful" Investiture users inside small metal spheres and then start a club with my fellow Elantrians where we get together battle our pets. I might also turn them into small furry creatures just to make it interesting.

Yea that settles it. Elantrian pokemon master is the most dangerous being in the Cosmere.

Edited January 2 by SwordNimiForPresident
grammar

[The H]

11 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Elantrian pokemon master is the most dangerous being in the Cosmere.

Certainly, but what team would they use?

(EDIT: Perhaps we should start a new thread as this is getting of track...)

Edited January 2 by The H

[+hwiles]

On 10/31/2023 at 3:31 PM, Ookla of Void said:

Basically, I want to see if we could plan out the steps to gain most Invested Arts in the Cosmere. This is under the assumption that you can get around the "trapped in your system" problem, which will be discussed here as well. Just a couple of guidelines:

1. No Dawnshards. You are still dangerous if you have them, but you can't kill a person (at least directly) and so I want to avoid it.

2. You are human and when you have 4 or more spikes you can be taken control of. There will be a limit of 3 because it is scarier when the person attacking you can't  be taken control of.

3. About the surges, both honorblades and spren bonds are free game.

Lets begin:

...

 

On to the Connection problem, how do you Worldhop while this Invested, or to get off Scadrial in the first place? Maybe storing your Connection to the planet or Identity as an inhabitant of that world.

First and foremost, optimize for inter-world mobility 100% since we're targeting access to the maximum number of unique powers.

What does this mean? It means, before all else, one must secure a reliable means of either interplanetary teleportation (not yet discovered anywhere as far as I'm aware), interstellar travel (which requires extremely advanced technology like the One's Above and, presumably, tremendous political power upfront), OR, a means to personally enter the cognitive realm which doesn't impede one's ability to leave their home planet.

So...who is the least invested worldhopper that we know of?

I would opine it to be Demoux, the Seer! Now, Demoux is technically a specially crafted form of misting created by Preservation, however...we do not have any indications that they are more heavily invested than any normal misting, so I'm going to open with an outright supposition that being born a misting technically gives one's soul the ability to hold itself together through the transition across a perpendicularity from the physical to cognitive realm so long as one knows what they're doing. This...might not be true and it's possible the 17th sharders gave him something extra to get him to interdimensional status, but if that's case it's happened completely off screen with very little in the way of hints, foreshadowing, or references.

So...

Step-1: be born a misting of any kind on Scadrial. A full mistborn or furechemist would be better, but let's not be greedy, that comes later. A ferring might also work, but we don't have any proof that I'm aware of. Let's avoid hemalurgy...too messy...

Step-2: transition to the cognitive realm via the pits or the well or one of Harmony's conduits and hitchhike your way to Sel.

Step-3: don't bother learning how to make soulstamps, that takes years of practice normally and we don't like that. Instead, recall that soulstamps work for anyone once they're created and last a long time if they are well made and plausible, and just commission a bunch for turning iron ingots into gold ingots. You may need to cash in your savings to cover the overhead for a cart and a couple horses for your first trade shipment, but the goal here is going to be to convert one ton of iron into one ton of gold for an approximately 1,000,000x value mutliplier and trade it back to scadrial on the Grey market. Given that knowledge of interworld travel is rare, this should give one access to darn near infinite "money" in relatively short order. Let's say you make 10 trips for approximately roughly half a billion dollars in equivalent US dollars. Look at you, your horses aren't even sweating pulling that sort of weight through empty thought-space!

Step-4: as a worldhopper, you are aware that money, while highly valued universally, is ultimately completely worthless. So, you elect to trade it for Breath on Nalthis, which is totally a thing people are just like...willing to do!

Step-5: you trade the gold coin, atium, trade goods, or misc. Luxury goods which you bartered for on scadrial using precious metals Forged from iron bars (this trade relationship isn't going to have to last long, don't worry about the lying and cheating too much!) To buy Breath from the biggest, poorest, bulkest sources that you can find on Nalthis. Let's assume that you're super generous, impatient, and paranoid. You'll probably just buy 50,000 breaths at a USD equivalent of approximately $10K cash per unit; this is more than enough to very seriously turn around the life of someone living below virtually any locally defined poverty line irl, so I would expect it to draw many volunteers very fast, which is very good because you need to get the heck out of Nalthis before any Returned God Kings decide that you might be too smart to be allowed to live. Congrats, you've reached the 10th heightening!

Step-6: you have very little connection to any particular world despite being one of the most highly invested beings to ever exist. Let's go to Roshar!

Step-7: you're on Roshar. Things are fine. You could bond with spren or two or three...but it would make leaving difficult and we're optimizing specifically for ease of mobility. Also it would subject you to binding oaths to external parties, so let's skip that nonsense. Instead, you're going to beg, borrow, steal, kill, or threaten people until you figure how to cleanly absorb and convert Stormlight into Breath Equivalent Units (BEU). You could also probably do this on whatever random asteroid the Sunlit Man took place on or any other similar source of "free" (natural) investiture; the goal here is just to lie low and drink enough BEUs to become immune to shardblades and, therefore, nearly impossible to kill without extremely convoluted shenanigans and conspiracy.

Step-8: so you're impossible to pierce with a shardblade, richer than Adonalsium, and biologically immortal huh? Well, I bet you might not be able to heal from decapitation! Let's fix that. Without a spren, you'll probably need to rely on feruchemic gold for instant regeneration against lethal damage. Let's just go ahead and say that you pay hitmen to hemalurgically harvest one each of the 32 metallic arts users and you give those spikes to a handful of uninvested friends so that y'all can experiment with creating medallions. It's still unclear if this would be enough by itself to get you your own bands of mourning, but even if it didn't, you'd be unkillable and have a squad of supercharged superheroes behind you.

Step-9: you have access to double steel for super speed, double copper for perfect recall, double zinc for constant hyper-genius awareness, and double bronze so you never need to rest. Go take every theoretical invesyiture course offered at whatever the biggest and most expensive university or society in silverlight is? The idea here is not to know everything, it's just to close any knowledge gaps in order to make sure that you're the most well educated person anywhere.

Step-10: honestly? At this point you could just start bullying heralds, stealing honorblades, or manipulating whole planets if you wanted to. Let's say you realize that you don't want any Shard looking over your shoulder so you just keep making circuits until you have enough investiture to ascend as the Cosmere's first totally artificial composite Shard! 

[alder24]

15 minutes ago, hwiles said:

I would opine it to be Demoux, the Seer! Now, Demoux is technically a specially crafted form of misting created by Preservation, however...we do not have any indications that they are more heavily invested than any normal misting, so I'm going to open with an outright supposition that being born a misting technically gives one's soul the ability to hold itself together through the transition across a perpendicularity from the physical to cognitive realm so long as one knows what they're doing. This...might not be true and it's possible the 17th sharders gave him something extra to get him to interdimensional status, but if that's case it's happened completely off screen with very little in the way of hints, foreshadowing, or references.

I don't really get what you're talking about. Everyone can use Perpendicularity to transfer between realms. You don't need anything to "hold your soul together" or anything like that. We've seen uninvested worldhoppers even - Felt, Iyatil or Kaise for example. Everyone can use Perpendicularity if you know how to do that - Adolin did that in OB. Marasi did that in TLM but only with her grenades. There are so many worldhopper merchants going around Cosmere, you've seen many of these in OB and RoW in Shadesmar. Those are ordinary people just going around planets and using Perpendicularities when needed. They don't need to be invested.

TLM ch 64:

Quote

The pool shrank further. Marasi thought—through the blasts of confidence Armal sent—that she could sense the troops on the other side getting agitated. Then she felt something different. Something emerging. They were coming through. She understood it in a flash—you had to want to come through the portal. To command it to let you through. They were beginning the process.
No you don’t, she thought. Then she dropped both her grenades, and used the same mental command to open the portal to them.

And just to be clear, Demoux is just an ordinary electrum Misting:

Spoiler

Xais56

Brandon has said that everyone ought to be able to burn Atium, like they can all burn Lerasium, and the fact that they can't was an oversight on his part that he would've done different in hindsight.

Maybe now he's had an in-universe reason to re-write the laws of allomancy it's back to his intended concept; Mistborn burn all 16 base metals, mistings burn one base metal, non-allomancers can only burn godmetal.

Peter Ahlstrom

My explanation for this is that Preservation somehow caused all naturally occurring atium to form as an alloy of atium and electrum. The atium Mistings were actually electrum Mistings.

Xais56

It's a very tidy solution, but it creates the maddening question of what does pure atium do?

Peter Ahlstrom

That answer has already been revealed canonically. RAFO.

Footnote: It has since been clarified that the effect was revealed on the Table of Allomantic Metals poster and seen at the end of The Hero of Ages.
General Reddit 2021 (Nov. 2, 2021)

 

25 minutes ago, hwiles said:

Step-3: don't bother learning how to make soulstamps, that takes years of practice normally and we don't like that.

You can't learn that unless you're native MaiPon.

Spoiler

[...]

Questioner

Is Forgery?

Brandon Sanderson

Forgery is a Selish magic system, so it is birth-based, tied to location.

Oathbringer Chicago signing (Nov. 21, 2017)

 

29 minutes ago, hwiles said:

TSM spoilers

Spoiler

Breath Equivalent Units (BEU). You could also probably do this on whatever random asteroid the Sunlit Man took place

The Sunlit Man spoilers are not allowed here  Spoiler:

Spoiler

BEU is just a unit of measurement. Stormlight is expressed in BEU, you probably want to convert Stormlight into Breaths.

 

31 minutes ago, hwiles said:

the goal here is just to lie low and drink enough BEUs to become immune to shardblades and, therefore, nearly impossible to kill without extremely convoluted shenanigans and conspiracy.

We don't know if that's possible.

Spoiler

Questioner

If something is heavily Invested, it's harder for a Shardblade to go through it, right?

Brandon Sanderson

Kind of. It depends on the kind of Investiture and things that are going on. But yes. If you want to block a Shardblade... Like a metalmind would be a good thing to use to fight a Shardblade.

Questioner

A person with a lot of Breath, like the God-King, would you be able to chop them with a Shardblade or no?

Brandon Sanderson

It's going to get very tricky on that, so I'll RAFO that for now. Let's just say that there are things. For instance, a Shardblade excising someone who's been Hemalurgically spiked is a theoretical possibility. 

Starsight Release Party (Nov. 26, 2019)

[+hwiles]

26 minutes ago, alder24 said:

I don't really get what you're talking about. Everyone can use Perpendicularity to transfer between realms. You don't need anything to "hold your soul together" or anything like that. We've seen uninvested worldhoppers even - Felt, Iyatil or Kaise for example. Everyone can use Perpendicularity if you know how to do that - Adolin did that in OB. Marasi did that in TLM but only with her grenades. There are so many worldhopper merchants going around Cosmere, you've seen many of these in OB and RoW in Shadesmar. Those are ordinary people just going around planets and using Perpendicularities when needed. They don't need to be invested.

TLM ch 64:

And just to be clear, Demoux is just an ordinary electrum Misting:

  Reveal hidden contents

Xais56

Brandon has said that everyone ought to be able to burn Atium, like they can all burn Lerasium, and the fact that they can't was an oversight on his part that he would've done different in hindsight.

Maybe now he's had an in-universe reason to re-write the laws of allomancy it's back to his intended concept; Mistborn burn all 16 base metals, mistings burn one base metal, non-allomancers can only burn godmetal.

Peter Ahlstrom

My explanation for this is that Preservation somehow caused all naturally occurring atium to form as an alloy of atium and electrum. The atium Mistings were actually electrum Mistings.

Xais56

It's a very tidy solution, but it creates the maddening question of what does pure atium do?

Peter Ahlstrom

That answer has already been revealed canonically. RAFO.

Footnote: It has since been clarified that the effect was revealed on the Table of Allomantic Metals poster and seen at the end of The Hero of Ages.
General Reddit 2021 (Nov. 2, 2021)

 

You can't learn that unless you're native MaiPon.

  Reveal hidden contents

[...]

Questioner

Is Forgery?

Brandon Sanderson

Forgery is a Selish magic system, so it is birth-based, tied to location.

Oathbringer Chicago signing (Nov. 21, 2017)

 

The Sunlit Man spoilers are not allowed here  Spoiler:

  Reveal hidden contents

BEU is just a unit of measurement. Stormlight is expressed in BEU, you probably want to convert Stormlight into Breaths.

 

We don't know if that's possible.

  Reveal hidden contents

Questioner

If something is heavily Invested, it's harder for a Shardblade to go through it, right?

Brandon Sanderson

Kind of. It depends on the kind of Investiture and things that are going on. But yes. If you want to block a Shardblade... Like a metalmind would be a good thing to use to fight a Shardblade.

Questioner

A person with a lot of Breath, like the God-King, would you be able to chop them with a Shardblade or no?

Brandon Sanderson

It's going to get very tricky on that, so I'll RAFO that for now. Let's just say that there are things. For instance, a Shardblade excising someone who's been Hemalurgically spiked is a theoretical possibility. 

Starsight Release Party (Nov. 26, 2019)

Whoops! I'm going to treat those slips as not spoilery enough to warrant a rewrite unless y'all really push, but point taken and appreciated. I still think most of the plan would work fine and...I agree, I'm overly conservative on the perpendicularity transition mechanics. I'm not certain I personally understand the metaphor 100% so I like to leave myself a few arms lengths of wiggleroom whenever the subject comes up. Not least of all being that I suspect that some of these hoppers got a LOT more help than others in making their first jump...lol

[alder24]

1 minute ago, hwiles said:

Whoops! I'm going to treat those slips as not spoilery enough to warrant a rewrite unless y'all really push, but point taken and appreciated.

You can just edit your post and put that part in a spoiler box. Use the 3 dots menu at the top right of your post to edit  

3 minutes ago, hwiles said:

I still think most of the plan would work fine

Yeah, sounds right. I was just nitpicky about details.

8 minutes ago, hwiles said:

I agree, I'm overly conservative on the perpendicularity transition mechanics. I'm not certain I personally understand the metaphor 100% so I like to leave myself a few arms lengths of wiggleroom whenever the subject comes up. Not least of all being that I suspect that some of these hoppers got a LOT more help than others in making their first jump...lol

Nah, everyone can use a perpendicularity. It's just a massive collection of investiture that pierces all realms allowing one to travel between them. Three realms there become one. You only need to know what to do - command it to let you through. There are even customs on Nalthis, this is that common.

Spoiler

Questioner

Hoid worldhops between places. How did he do it on Scadrial? With Ati's body?

Brandon Sanderson

So, there were two perpendicularities on Scadrial.

Questioner

I know he uses the pools, but how did he do it with Pits of Hathsin? There was no pool? The body was there...

Brandon Sanderson

So, it doesn't have to be going through the pool. What happens with a perpendicularity is, where there is a massive collection of Investiture, it pulls a conduit through. So, if you know what you're doing and where you are, you can get through that.

Questioner

So you don't have to use the pools, just where there's a huge concentration...

Brandon Sanderson

A huge concentration of Investiture will warp the realms.

Questioner

So can anyone worldhop that way, then? If they know what to do?

Brandon Sanderson

If they know what to do, in a perpendicularity, anyone should be able to get through there. But as proven with Raoden, if you don't know what it's supposed to do, nothing happens. He gets dumped int he pool, he thinks he's gonna die... nothing. So, it's more than just being there.

Questioner

That's how he went from the Physical to the Cognitive, so I was wondering how did he do that at the Pits of Hathsin, when there shouldn't be a pool there

Brandon Sanderson

Well, that is the equivalent.

Arcanum Unbounded release party (Nov. 22, 2016)

 

Spoiler

Lotus

If one was worldhopping to Nalthis, what type of customs would they have to go through?

Brandon Sanderson

*Laughs* Nalthis customs? There'll be some tariffs to pay depending on what's going on. It is kind of not that different from what you would imagine. What I have read about in sort of Renaissance times, like pay your fees and things like that. But there's not really something you have to worry about... quarantines because of the disease factor, it's just not on their radar for the reasons I've explained. They don't have to worry about that. Like, dangerous items, what sort of dangerous items are you talking about, right? I do think they try to prevent people with Breaths from leaving the planet, particularly lots of them. Getting off I would say is a little more tricky because they do not want the Breath bleed of Investiture leaving their planet, but I think you will find some notable examples of it happening, so. They are not impossible to dodge, those customs.

Footnote: The "reasons I've explained" that Brandon mentions is referring to this WoB.
YouTube Spoiler Stream 2 (June 3, 2021)

 

[KelsierFortnite]

I could go through a long plan of how to gain every invested art, but I think it would be easier to just speedrun the events of Hero of Ages and become Harmony.