Using Feruchemical Storage as an Advantage

[Trusk'our]

I've more recently been trying to come up with ways to use flaws, limitations, and weaknesses in the Invested Arts as advantages instead of simply trying to remove them, such as by using Hemalurgic attribute warping advantageously instead of simply negating it.

I think that we've been overlooking the possibilities of Feruchemy's biggest limitation as a power in and of itself.

Let's say a Brute stores 5-10% (or more) of their total strength constantly, weakening themself. However, instead of just sitting around and waiting for the attribute to accumulate, they instead use natural strength training to help compensate for the loss in muscle mass, making their natural strength greater over time. They might not even need to perform rigorous training, as just going about their normal business would force them to use enough exertion to build muscles.

Any Feruchemist that tried this tactic for storing could learn to compensate for their attribute loss, training themselves to move with a little more speed when storing steel, training their neural connections to function more efficiently to compensate for less mental speed, or learning to be more consciously aware of their surroundings and personal state to help counteract having less Fortune. That kind of experience is hard to replicate any other way.

Plus, there may be another possibility, a way to obtain a sort of Reverse Savantism.

If a Feruchemist stores away an attribute that is possible to increase naturally with training (strength being the obvious one, though mental speed may also be possible depending on its mechanics), they could constantly siphon off the extra attribute gained from training to prevent their body or mind from realizing they've reached the maximum amount they should, so if they stop storing their natural attribute would suddenly be far greater than what would be within the bounds of what a human could naturally achieve (plus they have a lot of attribute to Tap and they have experience using a limited capacity to function well).

In other words, the Feruchemist's Spiritweb would be tricked into letting them train to grow an attribute to an extent far greater than what should be humanly possible, and when the Feruchemist stops storing the Spiritweb- and thus the body and mind- snap back to where they should be, making the Feruchemist inhumanly capable in the attribute they've honed.

This Reverse Savantism is obviously quite theoretical and could very well turn out to not work (the Spiritweb not being able to be tricked into letting the Feruchemist train to get inhumanly portioned attributes), but the other advantages could be well worth the great time and effort necessary to achieve them.

[therunner]

For some I think it possible, but not for all.

• Strength - clearly possible, basically magical version of training with weighted vest
• Speed - not trainable, you won't magically become faster because you are forced to be slower. When storing you are sluggish and moving itself is simply difficult.
• Weight - nothing to train, but storing itself can be advantageous
• Senses - kinda trainable? You won't get better senses, but you might learn to better discern unclear input

 

• Mental speed - I don't think this is trainable. You quite literally become dumber, take longer to process what is happening around, won't be able to think properly etc. You can try to compensate for some of it, but those skills won't be very advantageous, and they won't effect what you are storing.
• Warmth - not trainable, or at least storing won't have any effect on trying to learn techniques to control your autonomous nervous system
• Memories - not trainable
• Wakefulness - maybe, kinda?

 

• Investiture - nothing to train
• Connections - nothing to train, at most you might overtime learn to be more persuasive, but that depends on how Connection works exactly
• Identity - nothing to train
• Fortune - you won't train Fortune, you might learn to be always on-guard, but hypervigilance is not a good thing

 

• Breath - trainable
• Energy (Bendalloy) - not trainable?
• Determination - might be somewhat trainable? depends on how it works
• Health - might be 'trainable' in the sense that you get infected more easily? but you get infected even when heatlhy, you just don't notice because your immune system does what it is supposed to

 

So I think very few attributes can actually be trained, clear ones being Strength and Breath, followed by Determination. For few (Senses, Fortune, Mental speed maybe Connection) you might learn skills to compensate, but that wont' actually increase the baseline attribute.

On 11/23/2023 at 9:02 PM, Trusk'our said:

In other words, the Feruchemist's Spiritweb would be tricked into letting them train to grow an attribute to an extent far greater than what should be humanly possible, and when the Feruchemist stops storing the Spiritweb- and thus the body and mind- snap back to where they should be, making the Feruchemist inhumanly capable in the attribute they've honed.

I don't think that would work. Feruchemy seems to work by basically redirecting 'something' in your spiritweb, but your spiritweb is still your spiritual ideal.
You won't get beyond bounds of what human can do by doing this. I expect you will simply get diminishing returns when training, and eventually you will stop getting stronger as your spiritual ideal is now 'weaker'.

I.e. when not storing Strenght you can train, and achieve ability to do 200 Kg benchpress. This is your maximum, you won't get beyond that no matter how much you train further.
In a different world, you trained when storing Strength, but that means your maximum dropped to 180 kg (you were storing 10% of Strength). So you will never train to get beyond that, because that is your maximum you can achieve to align with your spiritual ideal (modified by Feruchemy).

Edited November 25, 2023 by therunner

[Trusk'our]

6 hours ago, therunner said:

So I think very few attributes can actually be trained, clear ones being Strength and Breath, followed by Determination. For few (Senses, Fortune, Mental speed maybe Connection) you might learn skills to compensate, but that wont' actually increase the baseline attribute.

Pretty much. I do think that mental speed could probably be increased though, as you could train you neurons through repetition to increase the number of myelin sheathes they have, making them communicate with each other more quickly and efficiently.

But yeah, the actual number of things you could train this way via Feruchemy is actually not that extensive. Could still be useful for those particular attributes though.

6 hours ago, therunner said:

I don't think that would work. Feruchemy seems to work by basically redirecting 'something' in your spiritweb, but your spiritweb is still your spiritual ideal.
You won't get beyond bounds of what human can do by doing this. I expect you will simply get diminishing returns when training, and eventually you will stop getting stronger as your spiritual ideal is now 'weaker'.

I.e. when not storing Strenght you can train, and achieve ability to do 200 Kg benchpress. This is your maximum, you won't get beyond that no matter how much you train further.
In a different world, you trained when storing Strength, but that means your maximum dropped to 180 kg (you were storing 10% of Strength). So you will never train to get beyond that, because that is your maximum you can achieve to align with your spiritual ideal (modified by Feruchemy).

There's a very good chance that hack won't work, I just thought it might be a vague possibility. But hey, we'll never know for certain until we get a WoB or an in book exploration.

[therunner]

2 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Pretty much. I do think that mental speed could probably be increased though, as you could train you neurons through repetition to increase the number of myelin sheathes they have, making them communicate with each other more quickly and efficiently.

That...is not how brain works. At least I never heard anything about that, if that worked you would see people get smarter/think faster which just does not happen.

2 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

But yeah, the actual number of things you could train this way via Feruchemy is actually not that extensive. Could still be useful for those particular attributes though.

True enough. I think especially storing Strength would be useful for Scadrians training to e.g fight on high-gravity worlds, to get used to how movement will be different.

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

4 hours ago, therunner said:

That...is not how brain works. At least I never heard anything about that, if that worked you would see people get smarter/think faster which just does not happen.

True enough. I think especially storing Strength would be useful for Scadrians training to e.g fight on high-gravity worlds, to get used to how movement will be different.

Just because I am genuinely curious, do we know of any high gravity worlds? I think between storing strength / weight and tapping it to train this way would be epic.  

Feruchemy also gets access to cadmium which is basically training via blood doping as well. 

Cosmere / SA spoilers

Spoiler

I know Roshar is like 70% of Scadrial gravity and I think I saw that Roshar O2 is like 30% of their air vs the 21% of Scadrial.  

In addition to every Scadrian being shorter on Roshar they would all be way stronger for their size as well as being hyper-oxygenated constantly which would be a huge boon in that fight.

In before "but magic swordz".  Poor Scad.  

 

[Trusk'our]

4 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Just because I am genuinely curious, do we know of any high gravity worlds? I think between storing strength / weight and tapping it to train this way would be epic.  

The only planet that comes to mind is Sel, which has a 1.2 Cosmere standard for gravity.

4 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Cosmere / SA spoilers

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I know Roshar is like 70% of Scadrial gravity and I think I saw that Roshar O2 is like 30% of their air vs the 21% of Scadrial.  

In addition to every Scadrian being shorter on Roshar they would all be way stronger for their size as well as being hyper-oxygenated constantly which would be a huge boon in that fight.

In before "but magic swordz".  Poor Scad.  

 

SA spoilers:

Spoiler

I can now imagine a supposed Shin Scadrien Worldhopper being bullied by some Rosharans at a pub, ending with a midget beating the snot out of a few Alethi "giants" 

As for "poor Scad", a gun beats a Shardblade in most circumstances; a Shardblade is primarily effective because of its reach and its ability to bypass nearly any physical protection. Guns shoot further, can pierce most shields/armors at a high enough caliber, and are much, much easier to obtain. Shardplate is a lot harder to beat, but as technology advances I doubt it's going to be as game changing as it once was.

I also find it worth mentioning that Scadrial's magic system, while not as powerful as the Rosharan naturally, is much easier to scale up (i.e. Hemalurgy, medallions, Harmonium technology) and with advancements in technology it's only going to get more impressive as time goes by.

 

[therunner]

6 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

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As for "poor Scad", a gun beats a Shardblade in most circumstances; a Shardblade is primarily effective because of its reach and its ability to bypass nearly any physical protection. Guns shoot further, can pierce most shields/armors at a high enough caliber, and are much, much easier to obtain. Shardplate is a lot harder to beat, but as technology advances I doubt it's going to be as game changing as it once was.

I also find it worth mentioning that Scadrial's magic system, while not as powerful as the Rosharan naturally, is much easier to scale up (i.e. Hemalurgy, medallions, Harmonium technology) and with advancements in technology it's only going to get more impressive as time goes by.

 

Spoiler

However, it's not like Roshar won't get guns, I expect basic non-gunpowder based guns (i.e. fabrials) will start appearing in not too far future.

And I would not say that Scadrian's system are easier to scale up.

• Medallions require 'excisors' and seem to be much more limited than first appear.
• Hemalurgy mutilates souls, so unless they learn how to make powers from Investiture (if possible) than it will never be a widespread ability.
• Harmonium technology requires God Metal, which is not something easily obtained on any other planet.
   

Comparatively, Rosharan fabrial technology requires gemstones, metals and spren. Then you can feed it any kind of Investiture and it works.
They can already create flying ships without needing Godmetal which is a good advantage.

Per Brandon Scadrial is the closest Earth analogue, and Roshar is the magi-tech land, so from that alone Rosharan magic tech will be much more widespread

 

[Duxredux]

So to reference the original post, this is something that definitely happens in world. If you recall, VenDell asked Wayne for his skeleton because Bloodmaker's bones develop unusual characteristics from their time spent storing health in a weakened state. There can definitely be Savant-style consequences for Feruchemical storage. In essence, if there's a logical effect on the body or mind it can have permanent effects outside of storage. Not all of them will be advantageous. I'll borrow @therunner's chart, and I agree that the baseline attribute is not necessarily something that will have positive trainable effects, but I'll cover some of the possible outcomes, both good and bad.

 

• Strength - clearly possible, basically magical version of training with weighted vest Agreed. There may be some side effects as you won't be training with the weight of the baseline muscle mass  though and you can totally get this to an unhealthy state. I knew a guy who was so built he literally couldn't walk through a door straight on, he always had to turn sideways. Train it too far and you'll need to walk around at a constant storage to not start have other problems. Overtime this will really let you store a ridiculous amount of strength and by then you could probably suplex a grizzly bear just stopping your storage let alone while tapping.
• Speed - not trainable, you won't magically become faster because you are forced to be slower. When storing you are sluggish and moving itself is simply difficult. Speed itself won't be trainable, but active speed storage may do unusual things to balance or muscular function. No idea if this would be advantageous or not, but trying to walk with exaggerated slowness requires a lot more balance and uses very different muscle groups. For example, trying to do really slow bench presses is way harder than normal speed ones. Maybe you can specifically train fast twitch muscles in a way that would difficult or impossible for someone not storing speed? How does weight lifting even work when storing speed? I'm not sure.
• Weight - nothing to train, but storing itself can be advantageous Wax becomes weaker when storing weight, so there may be similar advantages to storing strength. Perhaps Wax's musculature of a man 10-15 years younger is a side effect of his habitual weight storage making him proportionally weaker? Again, nothing here that will actively increase your ability to store weight, but it has other benefits like therunner says
• Senses - kinda trainable? You won't get better senses, but you might learn to better discern unclear input Tapping sight specifically makes you supernaturally farsighted while tapping makes you nearsighted. I'm extremely nearsighted and it helps for really close detail work when I take off my glasses. There may be a permanent effect to this distortion of the eye lens and I have no idea what that is. Same for the other senses as storage probably actually does effect the sensory apparatus and I'm not sure if those changes would be good or considered permanently damaging. A medical profession might be able to say what that would mean for a person.

 

• Mental speed - I don't think this is trainable. You quite literally become dumber, take longer to process what is happening around, won't be able to think properly etc. You can try to compensate for some of it, but those skills won't be very advantageous, and they won't effect what you are storing. Yeah, I have similar thoughts. There may be advantages to being forced to think of simpler solutions to solve problems because you literally can't think of more complex answers, but I'm not sure what else. Might depend on if there are physical changes to the brain and what those are.
• Warmth - not trainable, or at least storing won't have any effect on trying to learn techniques to control your autonomous nervous system Yeah, I don't know if there's any conscious advantages, but you might be able to condition yourself for colder temperatures. Could be useful if you know that you are going to a colder environment. 
• Memories - not trainable Oh, I don't know, there could be advantages. Not sure if a Keeper's incredible memory outside of their Coppermind is simply training or a byproduct of their constant storage and rememorization. Both Kwaan and Sazed had incredible memories, but I don't know if they are typical or outliers.
• Wakefulness - maybe, kinda? Yeah, I dunno either on this one. You might be able to train yourself to specific sleeping routine that will stick even when you aren't actively storing but I'm not sure if you'll get more wakefulness out of the bargain.

 

• Investiture - nothing to train Haven't ever seen the effects of active storage, can't say for sure. Sand Mastery comes to mind but I have no idea if there's an analog here. Might be mostly useless in isolation of other Invested abilities.
• Connections - nothing to train, at most you might overtime learn to be more persuasive, but that depends on how Connection works exactly Yeah, also inconclusive as we've never seen a viewpoint of someone actively storing this. It depends a lot on who and what get affected.
• Identity - nothing to train Honestly, I don't know if we've seen enough of Identity to know what really happens to someone who repeatedly sheds their Identity. Training might not be the right word and healthy probably isn't the right word either. It almost certainly would have some effect on who you are, but I don't know beyond that.
• Fortune - you won't train Fortune, you might learn to be always on-guard, but hypervigilance is not a good thing No idea if this actually changes something in the physical body or not. Again, never seen this actively stored on screen.

 

• Breath - trainable Agreed.
• Energy (Bendalloy) - not trainable? I'm not sure. You might be able to condition yourself to operate on lower food and fluids to try to get your resources to last longer, but that's more mental training than anything, like you might see for sailors lost at sea and forced to ration supplies. You absolutely can store to an unhealthy degree, but most probably wouldn't do that. Not sure how much better this would be just going whole hog during active storage though. I mean... you can probably train yourself for speed eating contests so I guess you can get faster at active storage...
• Determination - might be somewhat trainable? depends on how it works Agreed. Depends on how it works.
• Health - might be 'trainable' in the sense that you get infected more easily? but you get infected even when heatlhy, you just don't notice because your immune system does what it is supposed to This might be part of how Bloodmakers get an abnormally high pain tolerance with Miles completely losing his sense of pain. Not sure if that's from just repeated injury and healing or part of the active storage process. As previously noted, there is a side effect identifiable in their bones from the storage process, so maybe the body does reinforce itself or alter pain receptors?

 

There's definitely some benefits to looking specifically at long term or targeted active storage, but some of these could have some pretty unhealthy side effects too, like a certain Bloodmaker not being too concerned when someone threatens to shoot his fingers off.

  

On 11/25/2023 at 2:36 AM, therunner said:

I don't think that would work. Feruchemy seems to work by basically redirecting 'something' in your spiritweb, but your spiritweb is still your spiritual ideal.
You won't get beyond bounds of what human can do by doing this. I expect you will simply get diminishing returns when training, and eventually you will stop getting stronger as your spiritual ideal is now 'weaker'.

I.e. when not storing Strenght you can train, and achieve ability to do 200 Kg benchpress. This is your maximum, you won't get beyond that no matter how much you train further.
In a different world, you trained when storing Strength, but that means your maximum dropped to 180 kg (you were storing 10% of Strength). So you will never train to get beyond that, because that is your maximum you can achieve to align with your spiritual ideal (modified by Feruchemy).

The idea tracks for the body modifications, but I'm not sure how it extends to things like caloric and fluid intake. I could see it going either direction and Brandon either giving a limitation to make it not busted or let it go because many of these changes are not straight benefits and can have serious downsides anyway. The whole problem with Savantism is that it is actually changing and distorting the Spiritweb so you may not be snapping back to a typical Scadrian baseline.

Edited November 28, 2023 by Duxredux
added thought

[therunner]

9 hours ago, Duxredux said:

The idea tracks for the body modifications, but I'm not sure how it extends to things like caloric and fluid intake. I could see it going either direction and Brandon either giving a limitation to make it not busted or let it go because many of these changes are not straight benefits and can have serious downsides anyway. The whole problem with Savantism is that it is actually changing and distorting the Spiritweb so you may not be snapping back to a typical Scadrian baseline.

True. I do expect Brandon to come up with some limitations, that is his core tenet for magic systems.

But regarding Savantism, Feruchemical savantism most likely does not exist. So Spiritweb won't be distorted and should always snap back to Scadrian baseline. But Compounders can achieve such effects

Spoiler

Kurkistan

Is there such a thing as a Feruchemical savant?

Brandon Sanderson

I did not write Feruchemical savants into the original outline. Whether or not I will do them- it’s highly unlikely because it’s not there and Mistborn is getting trickier and trickier in that regard. But I didn’t write them in, so… that’s a “probably not”.

Calamity Chicago signing (Feb. 22, 2016)

Spoiler

Questioner

There are Allomantic savants, are there Feruchemical savants?

Brandon Sanderson

Much harder to do. My feeling on Feruchemical savants was because it was your own power in the first place, you can't steep in it so much in the way. But, if you can get someone else's power or if you are fueling your Feruchemy another way, you would become one. So, the Lord Ruler is a good example.

Questioner

Was Miles a...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. Miles would be the same sort of thing.

Questioner

Is that why he didn't die as quickly in the execution?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

So yeah. Normally no but if you can Compound you become... basically that is how I am explaining part of the Compounding abilities. 

Starsight Release Party (Nov. 26, 2019)

 

Edited November 29, 2023 by therunner

[Duxredux]

On 11/29/2023 at 2:08 AM, therunner said:

True. I do expect Brandon to come up with some limitations, that is his core tenet for magic systems.

But regarding Savantism, Feruchemical savantism most likely does not exist. So Spiritweb won't be distorted and should always snap back to Scadrian baseline. But Compounders can achieve such effects

  Reveal hidden contents

Kurkistan

Is there such a thing as a Feruchemical savant?

Brandon Sanderson

I did not write Feruchemical savants into the original outline. Whether or not I will do them- it’s highly unlikely because it’s not there and Mistborn is getting trickier and trickier in that regard. But I didn’t write them in, so… that’s a “probably not”.

Calamity Chicago signing (Feb. 22, 2016)

  Reveal hidden contents

Questioner

There are Allomantic savants, are there Feruchemical savants?

Brandon Sanderson

Much harder to do. My feeling on Feruchemical savants was because it was your own power in the first place, you can't steep in it so much in the way. But, if you can get someone else's power or if you are fueling your Feruchemy another way, you would become one. So, the Lord Ruler is a good example.

Questioner

Was Miles a...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. Miles would be the same sort of thing.

Questioner

Is that why he didn't die as quickly in the execution?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

So yeah. Normally no but if you can Compound you become... basically that is how I am explaining part of the Compounding abilities. 

Starsight Release Party (Nov. 26, 2019)

 

Nice catch. Savantism, might not be the right term, but if there was any Feruchemical ability that I would expect restore a Feruchemist to the original ideal, it would be healing - and that clearly is not the case even for an ability that could conceivably repair skeletal alterations. Perhaps there's a distinction between changes due to an excess of power distorting the soul (flaring, Compounding, to an greater extent Sliverism) and changes caused by a severe loss of Investiture from the soul, which as I think about it may be seen in non-lethal Hemalurgic donors. Non-lethally spike donors might end up looking a lot like a Feruchemist constantly storing an attribute depending on what what part of the soul gets punched out. Maybe a combination of various attributes depending on placement.

It may be worth asking if someone can have strength nonlethally spiked out of them and to what extent they would be able to exercise and develop their personal fitness to compensate - and then what would happen if the spike was returned to them. It's a similar question.

[.....]

On 11/25/2023 at 8:54 AM, Trusk'our said:

Pretty much. I do think that mental speed could probably be increased though, as you could train you neurons through repetition to increase the number of myelin sheathes they have, making them communicate with each other more quickly and efficiently.

 

Could a kandra maybe artificially do that and create pseudo F-zinc

[Trusk'our]

50 minutes ago, ..... said:

Could a kandra maybe artificially do that and create pseudo F-zinc

I'm not sure about that one.

They can't seem to directly edit their Cognitive Aspects like they can their Physical Aspects. If they want to edit that they'd probably need to resort to Feruchemy or Hemalurgy.