Hemalurgic Radiant Gone Rogue

[Trusk'our]

Normally, if a Hemalurgist wanted to access a Radiant's Surgebinding they would have to spike both the Radiant for their power and the Spren for their raw Investiture;

Spoiler

GenCon 2017 - Arcanum (coppermind.net)

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.

But what if it was the Radiant just stealing the necessary part of the Spren's Spritweb?

For example, you have someone who is becoming a Radiant start to Bond a Spren, but the Spren feels like the person isn't making the right choices and tells the Surgebinder that they're going to break the Bond for their own good. The Surgebinder decides to spike the Spren and take the chunk of their Spiritweb necessary to sustain the Bond and the powers it grants them.

Rather difficult to justify such an action on the Surgebinder's part (would make for a great villain origin though), but it seems like it should be possible to do with only one spike.

[alder24]

9 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Normally, if a Hemalurgist wanted to access a Radiant's Surgebinding they would have to spike both the Radiant for their power and the Spren for their raw Investiture

You're spiking Radiant for his Connection to spren, not power, and spren for his power that he grants Radiant, not raw investiture.

10 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

But what if it was the Radiant just stealing the necessary part of the Spren's Spritweb?

For example, you have someone who is becoming a Radiant start to Bond a Spren, but the Spren feels like the person isn't making the right choices and tells the Surgebinder that they're going to break the Bond for their own good. The Surgebinder decides to spike the Spren and take the chunk of their Spiritweb necessary to sustain the Bond and the powers it grants them.

Rather difficult to justify such an action on the Surgebinder's part (would make for a great villain origin though), but it seems like it should be possible to do with only one spike.

It would be extremely painful for a Radiant, but he would most likely gain the ability to use Surges without Spren supervision (just like Honorblades), without necessity to progress Oaths and also without Shards. However I still think that such action would break their bond and thus Radiant would be left without necessary Connection - he won't be able to use powers anyway.

[Quantus]

Similar question that sidesteps some of the problems with Spren and Bonds:  Is it possible to hemalurgically Steal the Powers that are granted by the Honorblades (which WOB says are similar to Medallions)?  It's a Bond, a Connection spike should do it, and it can't just Decide to end it afterward the way a sapient Spren could.    

[alder24]

7 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Similar question that sidesteps some of the problems with Spren and Bonds:  Is it possible to hemalurgically Steal the Powers that are granted by the Honorblades (which WOB says are similar to Medallions)?  It's a Bond, a Connection spike should do it, and it can't just Decide to end it afterward the way a sapient Spren could.    

I think it's the blade that grants the powers so you can't steal that from it, but you can steal a Honorblade from a person by stealing his connection to it. You can steal dead Shardblades this way, I see no reasons why you can't steal Honorblades as well.

Spoiler

Kurkistan

Can Hemalurgy be used to steal Shardblades directly, transferring ownership from the victim to the spike's recipient without a need for the recipient to physically take the Shardblade first?

Brandon Sanderson

A novel use of Hemalurgy which is not outside the sphere of its powers.

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 26, 2012)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

If you Hemalurgically steal a Shardblade, what <entropy takes place>?

Brandon Sanderson

Like, if you were going to steal someone's Connection to that Shardblade?

Questioner

The bond with the Shardblade.

Brandon Sanderson

The bond with the Shardblade?

Questioner

Would it take longer to summon?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, no, you just wouldn't summon it anymore, the person who got it Hemalurgically would summon it. That would be kind of a wasted use, to get a dead Shardblade. Lot easier ways to do that.

Questioner

I was just wondering if it would take longer to summon if somebody used Hemalurgy to steal it.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, yeah, there's a little bit of leak to it, so probably.

Questioner

It wouldn't make sense for it to be less sharp.

Brandon Sanderson

No.

Idaho Falls signing (July 21, 2018)

 

[Trusk'our]

12 hours ago, alder24 said:

You're spiking Radiant for his Connection to spren, not power, and spren for his power that he grants Radiant, not raw investiture.

Do we know that you're spiking the "power" from the Spren? The Connection and perhaps Identity of the Radiant makes total sense, but I don't know that we know for sure whether taking a Spren's Bond would actually require a power-stealing spike, a nicrosil spike, or something else.

I originally said taking the Spren's raw Investiture, but that was a bit misleading. I really meant to take some component of the Spren's Spiritweb that lets people gain Invested powers from it (sorry).

[alder24]

7 hours ago, Trusk&#x27;our said:

Do we know that you're spiking the "power" from the Spren? The Connection and perhaps Identity of the Radiant makes total sense, but I don't know that we know for sure whether taking a Spren's Bond would actually require a power-stealing spike, a nicrosil spike, or something else.

The very WoB you quoted confirms that. If you're not convinced, Aviar’s bond is Nahel Bond, so they work in the same way as Spren and Radiants. What you're stealing from Radians is their Connection to their Spren, which Spren can still break, that's why you need to steal the power form the Spren. Which metal would it be is hard to say - Spren have some limited access to Surges (we saw Syl using Adhesion in WoK), you probably need to use Atium to steal powers just like with Allomancy (despite that Allomancy is granted via Connection to Preservation, you're stealing powers as those powers are written into your sDNA). Atium is certainly the safest to use.

It's hard to spike a spren because you need to go into CR.

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)

 

Spoiler

Ethour

Would an Aviar be capable of a spren bond?

Brandon Sanderson

What they do is the same thing, by cosmere terms. It is not as powerful; because of that it is easier to shift between people. What you gain is not as strong, but you also gain flexibility. But it would be, cosmerologically, considered the same thing.

Skyward release party (Nov. 6, 2018)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

Can Hemalurgy be used to steal other...like, the Stormlight...

Brandon Sanderson

It could. It's very complicated, particularly with surgebinding, because the bond with the spren is a voluntary thing. So, you could steal the power, but you would also be stealing the sprenbond which the spren then has autonomy over. So, it might not turn out really well for you. It might not turn out well for anyone involved. Much easier to steal things where there isn't an autonomous being involved in your gaining of the magical powers.

Orem Signing (March 16, 2019)

 

Spoiler

James Powell

And were I minded to, could I kill Kaladin with a Hemalurgic spike and steal his Windrunning? (I don't want to kill Kaladin)

Brandon Sanderson

You can steal most things with Hemalugy, but Surgebindings are tricky because of the spren. Requires some non-standard workings.

General Twitter 2015 (Jan. 26, 2015)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

Supposing that a skilled Hemalurgist got hold of some a Shardblade or some Shardplate, how would he best use it assuming that the best way isn't to put it on and kill people with it.

Brandon Sanderson

That's probably the best way, to put it on and kill people with it. I'm not sure why a Hemalurgist would want one more than anyone else would because the metal is already Invested which means its not useful to him.

Questioner

So there is no way that he could use a Hemalurgic spike to take some power from the Spren that's crafting it.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, that's what you're saying. You want to grab something off the Spren? That's gonna be way harder than grabbing one that's not already made into something. So I don't see why he would want the Blade, just go grab it from them. Even then its going to be worse then, probably in most cases, a person. Maybe its possible that spiking yourself with a Spren would be valid, but you don't want to take it out of the Shardblade. That's gonna be harder, but you would probably have to go to the Cognitive either way to make it work, so yeah.

Shadows of Self Portland signing (Oct. 10, 2015)

 

[Trusk'our]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

The very WoB you quoted confirms that. If you're not convinced, Aviar’s bond is Nahel Bond, so they work in the same way as Spren and Radiants. What you're stealing from Radians is their Connection to their Spren, which Spren can still break, that's why you need to steal the power form the Spren. Which metal would it be is hard to say - Spren have some limited access to Surges (we saw Syl using Adhesion in WoK), you probably need to use Atium to steal powers just like with Allomancy (despite that Allomancy is granted via Connection to Preservation, you're stealing powers as those powers are written into your sDNA). Atium is certainly the safest to use.

Makes sense to me. Well, I'm convinced