Pet Miswraith

[Dallan]

My Mistborn character, Cxxn (pronounced Sickson) has a Mistwraith. It's important because a lot of his childhood memories are of his dog, Rafael, and he can only really access them through his dog. However, his dog died in the mists 5 years ago and that's when he snapped. (He burns copper, but thats not super important right now). Much like how amnesia works, he has trauma, sort of like PTSD, and only remembers his childhood when he is reminded of his dog. (This is exaggerated, he doesn't really have a magical connection to it, more like a sentiment) the thing is, he sees his dog again. Thinking it's a kandra, he pulls out his knife, ready to defend himself. But the puppy's skin retracts, and he sees that it is a Mistwraith. However it is no normal mistwraith. It is sentient, but not fully sentient. 

 

Hemalurgic spikes decay and lose some of their power when out of a body, keep that in mind

 

the mistwraith, which took over the body of the dog shortly after it died (Five years ago), had just recently picked up a mysterious blessing spike.(Yes, just laying around in the mists.) But no normal blessing spike. It was laying around, and was decaying. However, the Mistwraith was brought into self awareness, and was able to find it's first corpse, Rafael, the dog. He took form of it, and stuck with that set of bones. He follows my character, Cxxn, around. 

 

And yes, his name is Wraithael (lol)

 

He is basically a half kandra, half mistwraith. 

 

Tell me Brandon, does this work?

[alder24]

20 minutes ago, Dallan said:

My Mistborn character, Cxxn (pronounced Sickson) has a Mistwraith. It's important because a lot of his childhood memories are of his dog, Rafael, and he can only really access them through his dog. However, his dog died in the mists 5 years ago and that's when he snapped. (He burns copper, but thats not super important right now). Much like how amnesia works, he has trauma, sort of like PTSD, and only remembers his childhood when he is reminded of his dog. (This is exaggerated, he doesn't really have a magical connection to it, more like a sentiment) the thing is, he sees his dog again. Thinking it's a kandra, he pulls out his knife, ready to defend himself. But the puppy's skin retracts, and he sees that it is a Mistwraith. However it is no normal mistwraith. It is sentient, but not fully sentient. 

 

Hemalurgic spikes decay and lose some of their power when out of a body, keep that in mind

 

the mistwraith, which took over the body of the dog shortly after it died (Five years ago), had just recently picked up a mysterious blessing spike.(Yes, just laying around in the mists.) But no normal blessing spike. It was laying around, and was decaying. However, the Mistwraith was brought into self awareness, and was able to find it's first corpse, Rafael, the dog. He took form of it, and stuck with that set of bones. He follows my character, Cxxn, around. 

 

And yes, his name is Wraithael (lol)

 

He is basically a half kandra, half mistwraith. 

 

Tell me Brandon, does this work?

Hello, welcome to the Shard. Well, this is not a place where Brandon will answer you, but I can try as a fan. Firstly it's morally questionable to hold a Mistwraith as a pet.  They are like mentally-stunted people. You can train them and achieve what you want (with no full sentience) without any need for a spike and that would cause you no problems, which I will talk about soon. Here is WoB for you (Words of Brandon):

Spoiler

NinjaMeTimbers

How intelligent is a mistwraith? Could you raise and train mistwraiths like dogs or horses, controlling what forms they take by the bones you give them? Would you be able to train yourself a horsewraith steed by giving it only the bones of a horse?

Brandon Sanderson

This is feasible. One thing to keep in mind is that mistwraiths are people who have a blockage between the Physical and the Cognitive Realm, messing with their ability to think. Think of them as mentally-stunted people. There's enough there to train, but then you have to dig into the ethics of it...

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 27, 2012)

 

We've already seen what's happening to a Kandra/Mistwraith with one spike. Have you read Mistborn Era 2? If yes look in the spoiler box below:

Spoiler

They go insane. Both Paalm, and more importantly ReLuur, and the examples of this. 

SoS ch 7:

Quote

Unfortunately, she has removed one of her Blessings—one of the two spikes that kandra must keep inside themselves to retain their cognition. I would forcibly control her if I could, but one spike does not pierce the soul sufficiently for me to get in.
“Cognition,” Wax said. “Two spikes are required for the kandra to be able to think. But she is going around with only one. Which means…?”
Insanity, Harmony said

BoM ch 3:

Quote

“We can’t get any straight answers out of him,” VenDell said. “A kandra with a missing spike … well, they aren’t quite sane any longer. As you well know.”
[...]
“Wait, wait,” Marasi said. “Why not give him another spike? You’ve got enough of them lying around to make earrings, like the one you gave Waxillium.”
The two kandra looked at her as if she were mad, but Wax couldn’t see why. He thought the question was an excellent one.
“You are misunderstanding the nature of these spikes,” VenDell all but sputtered. “First, we do not have kandra Blessings ‘lying around.’ The earrings you mention are crafted from old Inquisitor spikes, and have barely any potency to them. One might have been good enough for Lord Waxillium’s little stunt six months ago, but they would hardly be enough to restore a kandra.”
“Yeah,” MeLaan said. “If that worked, we’d have already used all those spikes to make new children. We can’t; a kandra Blessing must be created very specifically.”
“We did try something akin to what you suggest,” VenDell admitted. “TenSoon … relinquished one of his own spikes to give our fallen brother a few moments of lucidity. It was very painful for TenSoon, and—unfortunately —accomplished nothing. ReLuur only screamed, begging for his spike. He spat out TenSoon’s a moment later. Trying to use someone else’s spikes when you don’t have your own already can provoke radical changes in personality, memory, and temperament.”
“Lessie,” Wax said, voice hoarse. “She … she changed spikes frequently.”
“And each was a spike created specifically for her,” VenDell said. “Not one that had been used by another kandra. And besides, would you call her particularly stable, Lord Waxillium? You must trust us on this; we have done what we can. Here, at least."

Picking up a random Blessing from the ground would not work. A Mistwraith has to have spikes made specifically for them, not attuned to the Identity of another Kandra. A Mistwraith would just push it out of his body or else face insanity. A regular Hemalurgic spike isn't Kandra Blessing, it wouldn't give a Mistwraith any cognition. Even if you consider Hemalurgic decay, the Identity issue will still remain. It can't be a random Blessing of another Kandra. Moreover Hemalurgic decay is mostly a problem in the beginning of spike's existence. That's when it decays the most. Later on it's not that big of a deal, it decays only a little bit. We see this with Vin's spike, it was years outside of her body before TFE and yet it was still potent enough to make her A-bronze almost twice as powerful. Hemalurgic decay would still not fix the problem of Identity of this spike, identity won't disappear. WoB:

Spoiler

Questioner

Hemalurgy spikes lose power after they are taken out of a body, right?  So why did Vin’s spike still give her power after being so long out of her ear?

Brandon Sanderson

They decay, but it's not a really fast decay. And it also kind of works like a half-life thing. Does that make sense?  So you get an initial just "that's bad" but that had happened to hers long ago when she had taken it out for the first time, right? And then over time, like if that had sat out for hundreds of years you're going to end up with something like
[Era 2 spoilers]:

Spoiler

Wax's earring

that's like-- it gives a bit, but it barely gives anything. But as long as you're kind of keeping it in and out you're going to be a lot better off.

Shadows of Self release party (Oct. 5, 2015)

 

What I would do is change your story a little bit and get rid of the spike as that wouldn't work as you want it to. I would make this Mistwraith to escape a noble, who tries to train Mistwraiths, and thus this one has learned how to keep only one form, like Kandra. He found the dog's body and took up its form, met your character and has followed him ever since. No spikes needed, just smarter than average, trained Mistwraith.

52 minutes ago, Dallan said:

Thinking it's a kandra, he pulls out his knife, ready to defend himself.

When is this happening? Era 1 or Era 2? Because in Era 1 people don't know Kandra exist, those who know them know also that they can't kill or harm, in Era 2 they all know Kandra can't harm. Mistwraiths are feared a bit.

[Elite01]

Cool idea to have a pet mistwraith. I agree with some of the logistical things alder24 mentioned. With that being said I think its a creative idea. Let's ignore morals and logistics for a second. If you had a trained mistwraith dog or horse what cool things could you have it do? Obviously hiding metals like Oresour does, and certain stealth abilities but could they do anything else? 

A mistwraith wouldn't have any concerns about killing because it wouldn't know about the contract so it would be more willing to help out in combat situations I would think.