Another way too early Shattering question

[Unholy Truth]

So, on planets like Scadrial or Nalthis people are born a little piece of the corresponding shard. I believe we would just call them invested, but there may be a better term. My question is if there was anything like that before the shattering? Would people be born with a piece of Adnolasium? If so, then would that piece also shatter or would people like hoid or others from his time keep this part of their spirit web?

[alder24]

28 minutes ago, Unholy Truth said:

So, on planets like Scadrial or Nalthis people are born a little piece of the corresponding shard. I believe we would just call them invested, but there may be a better term. My question is if there was anything like that before the shattering? Would people be born with a piece of Adnolasium? If so, then would that piece also shatter or would people like hoid or others from his time keep this part of their spirit web?

The term for this piece of investiture is innate investiture, the people are invested. 

It's a good question. Because Adonalsium's investiture was everywhere in Cosmere, people would have innate investiture everywhere. In places where Adonalsium was more "present" (more invested) they would be more invested, in other minor worlds they would be less - on worlds like Roshar or Yolen they would probably have more than on other worlds. A WoB said that everyone in Cosmere is invested, another said that all investiture was associated with Shards during the Shattering, even in places where Shards haven't visited they are invested slightly - that means for me before the Shattering people were also invested. 

That piece would not be "Shattered." The Shattering means that Adonalsium was killed and his investiture was associated with 16 Shards that were created. So whatever existed before the Shattering was associated with new Shards but they weren't Shattered - like Spren on Roshar were made by Adonalsium, but post his death they were associated with mostly Cultivation (technically they were already associated with specific parts of Adonalsium personality). This investiture didn't go anywhere, it stayed with them.

Spoiler

Questioner

On all the cosmere worlds, it seem as if-- do all the humans have what you call innate Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

Let's see...

*thinks*

I believe that they all do. I don't think that you've seen anyone without innate Investiture yet.

Questioner

Because when they don't have Breath anymore, they would get Drabs, and those don't have innate Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

They don't have innate Investiture. And on Scadrial they have the pieces of Ruin and Preservation in them. And they do have it on Roshar.

Questioner

Which Shard is that?

Brandon Sanderson

You'll have to read and find out. *gives card*

So yes, I don't think you've seen any worlds where they don't.

Words of Radiance San Francisco signing (March 6, 2014)

 

Spoiler

leftinspace

I've picked up in bits in pieces that it's possible, for some people at least, to use the Shardpools to worldhop...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

leftinspace

Can non-Invested people do that, or do you have to have some form of Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

*hesitantly* Every individual is Invested to some extent...

leftinspace

Do you have to have any special Investiture above and beyond the normal spark of life?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm gonna go ahead and RAFO that.

Idaho Falls signing 2014 (Nov. 29, 2014)

 

Spoiler

Chaos

So, at the Forbidden Planet signing you said that when Adonalsium was Shattered, all Investiture in the cosmere was associated to one of the Shards... So, what happened with Adonalsium's spren on Roshar? Were those associated to Honor and Cultivation? What happened with them?

Brandon Sanderson

So they were very-- They were already associated to certain parts of Adonalsium and they went with those associations. There's a lot of Cultivation in all of the spren, particularly the natural spren.

Footnote: Chaos is referencing this exchange.
Salt Lake City signing (Dec. 16, 2017)

 

Spoiler

Overlord Jebus

Is all Investiture in the cosmere associated with a Shard?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, well, okay. So this is a complicated one. *pauses* So, Investiture predates the Shattering of Adonalsium, all Investiture was from Adonalsium, all Investiture got assigned to one of the 16 Shards when Adonalsium was Shattered. Some of the Investiture was not on Yolen but location is irrelevant. So Investiture is related to Shards even on planets where none of the Shards are inhabiting. 

Overlord Jebus

Are they aware of that Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

That's part of the whole seeing into the infinite, being beyond even the power of a Shard. So, technically you could make the argument that Harmony could feel the sense of Preservation on every world in the cosmere, right? Because the building blocks of all life and creation are these things.

Overlord Jebus

So the Shard of Preservation embodies all preservation in the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes but he just can't do that, right? Like, he's not infinite. The Vessels are not, even if their minds are enormously expanded by holding a Shard, they are not infinite. The Connection is all there in the Spiritual Realm.

Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017)

 

[Unholy Truth]

Thanks for the reply again alder, so then by that logic we can assume people before the shattering are still carrying an innate piece of Adnolsium ? I would then assume this is tied to how someone like Hoid can use different magics in different systems?

 

"The Shattering means that Adonalsium was killed and his investiture was associated with 16 Shards that were created."

Are you saying all the investiture at this time was the same? or like 16 different buckets and everyone got a little piece of each? I see where it says all investiture was assigned so it sounds to me that it was something like raw energy that was assigned a specific role?

[alder24]

4 minutes ago, Unholy Truth said:

Thanks for the reply again alder, so then by that logic we can assume people before the shattering are still carrying an innate piece of Adnolsium ?

Before the Shattering people had innate investiture of Adonalsium, after the Shattering this was associated with some of the 16 Shards - so they no longer have this "pure" Adonalsium piece in them, it's of Shards now. This works for Hoid too and everybody who lived through the Shattering and had Adonalsium's innate investiture.

4 minutes ago, Unholy Truth said:

I would then assume this is tied to how someone like Hoid can use different magics in different systems?

Not at all. Hoid can use different magic systems, because technically anybody can if they know how to do that. Anybody can burn Lerasium and become a Mistborn. Anybody can receive some Breaths and become an Awakener. Anybody can convince spren to bond with them and become a Radiant. You can even alloy Lerasium with Bavadinium to become a Sand Master. These powers are not mutually exclusive, you just have to put in a lot of work to get them all.

Those powers are not always bound to the system. Allomancy can be used anywhere, it draws directly from SP where distance doesn't matter. Awakening can be used anywhere because you have Breaths that can be carried anywhere. There is a problem with Surgebinding, you have a hard time bringing a spren out of Roshar, they are tied to the system just like Heralds are to it and can't leave - it's really hard to find a solution to this but there are some methods. That's probably the most restrictive power in terms of "using it outside its native planetary system."

Spoiler

Stormlightning

If Hoid was to get his hands on "bavadinium," could he alloy it with lerasium and get Sand Mastery?

Brandon Sanderson

This is theoretically possible.

FanX 2018 (Sept. 6, 2018)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

If Hoid was on Scadrial during the original Mistborn trilogy, and had a bead of lerasium, and took it and gained Allomantic powers, could he then go to Roshar during Stormlight and still have those Allomantic powers?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes… Most of the magics are not re-- area centric, though a few of them are.

Calamity Austin signing (Feb. 25, 2016)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

Mistborn travels to Roshar, what does he or she use to get Invested?

Brandon Sanderson

*pause* So. *pause* I think I've talked about this before on the 17th Shard, but I'm not 100% sure and so I don't want to anything right now, not knowing what I've said. But you can look it up. You can ask Peter. Hey Peter, have I talked about someone using-- Have I ever in an interview before talked about using metals... A Mistborn travels to Roshar and uses the metals there?

Peter Ahlstrom

I think that you have said that they could do it.

Brandon Sanderson

I said it.  Okay, so the thing about the metals you have to understand is the metals are a key, the metals are not magical themselves, except for specific ones. If I've already said that I can tell you, go to Roshar and you could use the metals that are there to power your Allomancy because the difference is in your soul and you're actually drawing directly from Preservation. Remember that on the Spiritual Realm, this is the big tidbit--they're listening. On the Spiritual Realm time, distance, and space are irrelevant. It's a place where time and space are compounded in one. So anything that exists on the Spiritual Realm, space doesn't matter for it.

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

 

Spoiler

Questioner

In Oathbringer we have an example of a different form of magic on Roshar, like when Hoid uses Breaths to perform...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, Hoid has used both Breaths and Allomancy on screen in the Stormlight books.

Questioner

Is this made possible through the Connection of Shadesmar and the Cognitive Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, you can bring almost all the magic to any other planet, no problem. The only one that there's a problem with is AonDor but that has specifically to do with the way the AonDor works.

Questioner

So hypothetically, could you see someone from Roshar become a Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

That would require Hemalurgy. Could happen. A lot of times, where you were born, with a lot of these magics, is having a big influence on your spiritual make up. But it would require Hemalurgy, or there are ways to get around it. You could become mechanically a Mistborn. That's probably not a phrase we want to canonize. You could use, for instance, some of the tools in Era 2.

Idaho Falls signing (July 21, 2018)

 

Spoiler

Badger1289

If Investiture can’t be moved beyond a certain point away from its world/solar system, how in the Cosmere did three Awakeners end up on Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

Investiture from different systems acts in different ways. Certain people have managed, for example, to get some kinds of Investiture to leave their home world through the use of a kind of magical pipeline. Breaths attach to the identity of the individual, and are fully given away--freely, which removes some of this Connection. It's a nature of Endowment that the gift is given without strings attached, so to speak. But while it's a renewable resource, it's a difficult one.

Roshar is extra "sticky" so to speak with Investiture. It's part of the nature of Honor, Cultivation, and oaths. So getting it off is a problem, though collecting it is not.

Echono

Wouldn't consuming it also be a problem? You need a direct or secondary Bond to take in Stormlight Investiture. It's not like metals or Breaths that anyone could absorb. Although a certain grouchy ardent might have found a way...

Brandon Sanderson

You are right in that Stormlight is more being seen as a power source, since certain systems in the cosmere can work on a variety of different kinds. Not just anyone could make use of it, at least not unless it is refined.

Rhythm of War Preview Q&As (Oct. 8, 2020)

 

10 minutes ago, Unholy Truth said:

"The Shattering means that Adonalsium was killed and his investiture was associated with 16 Shards that were created."

Are you saying all the investiture at this time was the same? or like 16 different buckets and everyone got a little piece of each? I see where it says all investiture was assigned so it sounds to me that it was something like raw energy that was assigned a specific role?

Before the Shattering all investiture was the same - that's what it sounds from WoBs. After it wasn't. Some could have been associated with 1/16 of every Shard equally, others could have been mostly associated with only one Shard - like Spren got mostly assigned to Cultivation. It probably depends on specific people and where in Cosmere they were.

Basically, Shard represents unique fundamental forces that all were aspects of Adonalsium. Before the Shattering some people were edging more towards one of those forces than others, so after the Shattering they were mostly associated with the corresponding Shard. For example Spren were very close to the growth aspect of Adonalsium, which became Cultivation after the Shattering, so they became of Cultivation.

Spoiler

Questioner

Shards. We started with fairly obvious ones, magic wise. Trying to keep this spoiler free, so: Ruin, Preservation, this kind of thing. Then we get the weird ones. Why do we have Shards that can only exist in the mind of a sentient creature? ...Like the concept of Honor can only be done when it's carried out, essentially, by a sentient creature.

Brandon Sanderson

So when I split Adonalsium I said, "I'm going to take aspects of Adonalsium's nature." And this involves personality to me. So the Shattering of Adonalsium was primal forces attached to certain aspects of personality. And so I view every one of them this way. And when I wrote Mistborn we had Ruin and Preservation. They are the primal forces of entropy and whatever you call the opposite, staying-the-same-ism-y. Like, you've got these two contrasts, between things changing and things not changing. And then humans do have a part, there's a personality. Ruin is a charged term for something that actually is the way that life exists. And Preservation is a charged term for stasis, for staying the same. And those are the personality aspects, and the way they are viewed by people and by the entity that was Adonalsium.

So I view this for all of them. Like, Honor is the sense of being bound by rules, even when those rules, you wouldn't have to be bound by. And there's this sense that that is noble, that's the honor aspect to it, but there's also something not honorable about Honor if taken from the other direction. So a lot of them do kind of have this both-- cultural component, I would say, that is trying to represent something that is also natural. And not all of them are gonna have a 100% balance between those two things, I would say, because there's only so many fundamental laws of the universe that I can ascribe personalities to in that way. 

So I find Honor very interesting, but I find Autonomy a very interesting one for the exact same reason. What does autonomy mean? We attach a lot to it, but what is the actual, if you get rid of the charged terms, what does it mean? And this is where you end up with things like Odium claiming "I am all emotion." Rather than-- But then there's a charged term for it that is associated with this Shard. I'm not going to tell you whether he's right or not, but he has an argument. 

Emerald City Comic Con 2018 (March 1, 2018)

 

[Unholy Truth]

Thank you, that last paragraph finally got it to click for me. So, is there any significance to this innate piece of investiture? 

With the Hoid thing I more so meant with how they don't conflict with each other, because normally Investiture would resist other Investiture, but it would seem that must not have always been case and was likely only post shattering is my read of it.

For example, you couldn't breathe in stormlight and then try to burn metals because of the investiture problem is my understanding of it.

Edited March 6, 2024 by Unholy Truth

[alder24]

13 hours ago, Unholy Truth said:

So, is there any significance to this innate piece of investiture? 

Generally speaking there is. Innate investiture makes people more healthy, more resilient to illnesses, and have a better mental health - everything that a Drab suffers from is improved with Innate investiture. Innate investiture manifests a bit differently on various planets - on Nalthis that's Breaths which allow Awakening, on Scadrial that's something that is a seed for Allomancy/Feruchemy. But on both Scadrial and Nalthis population is post-Shattering, those people weren't there when Adonalsium was Shattered, Scadrial didn't even exist. 

Spoiler

Luke Beartline

Along the lines of BioChromatic Breath being akin to a person's soul, how would a Shardblade react to someone who does not have any Breath, would it cut them like an inanimate object?

Brandon Sanderson

No. Remember, one of the things with Breath is I consider Breath to be a part of someone's soul, but it is the extra part that the Cosmere has that non-Cosmere doesn't have. I don't know how far I want to lean into this, but there is definitely a part of me that thinks that Drabs, people who have given up their breath on Nalthis, are just like people from our world. That's what they are, that if we went to the Cosmere we would all be Drabs. Even on planets that aren't Nalthis, where you can't take part of that and give it away and things like that, people are invested. They are invested generally more than here.

Why do I do this? There's a couple reasons. One, it's really convenient for some narrative reasons. A lot of books I'm writing are these kind of action-adventure stories, and can human beings actually take the punishment that is delivered, let's say to Adolin in the end of Oathbringer? *noncommital negative sounds* He doesn't come off well from that, but could a human being really take that? I go back and forth. Humans are capable of some pretty incredible feats, particularly with adrenaline driving them, but my kind of blanket answer is everyone in the Cosmere has got a bit more Investiture; everyone's got something like Breath. Nalthians have something kind of extra special because they can use it in different ways, but everybody's got something like that.

It's leading to the fact that for instance, I highlighted this in the books, this part is canon: There are things about Rosharans that make it so that a lot of diseases have trouble getting a foothold. You do not have the bubonic plague on Roshar. You could maybe say this is because they are not living in close enough proximity to mammals for diseases to hop species as happens on our planet, which is a pretty valid point. Things that affect a horse or a cow (a lot of different diseases from cows come to us), things that affect a cow are much more likely to be able to affect a human than something that affects a chull being able to affect a human. Totally valid, but I also think that there is something more going on here.

This allows me to do fantasy stories where... In Warbreaker we don't have to be worrying about the next outbreak of smallpox, which legitimately they probably would have to be worrying about. It means that, while this is kind of a trope that people, trope is the wrong term, but that people in the past did not have as bad as teeth as we assume that we do because they did not eat the levels of sugars and starches that we do. Investiture also in the Cosmere means that you're not going to... Dalinar probably would not have a full set of teeth, even without being punched in the face and stuff, if he were a human from Earth. But on Roshar he's got just a little bit extra vitality, a little bit extra something, just like everyone on the planet, that is making him a little tougher and making him a little more disease resistant and some of these things. It makes the stories more fun for me to tell and also gives us some suspension of disbelief on some of these things. You do not have to worry about smallpox outbreaks on most planets. You do have to worry about catching the curse of the Elantrian disease and being thrown into a prison city, but smallpox, not as big of a deal.

Adam

Yeah, but you don’t have to worry about that too much anymore.

Brandon Sanderson

No, but I'm saying you could have to worry about things like that. Magical diseases, totally on the board, but the big plague they're dealing with in Roshar is the common cold that got brought across by some of the members of Seventeenth Shard, and that's going to die out pretty quickly. They will get over it and their immune system is... The common cold has come over multiple times before for reasons like that, colds just from another planet. Roshar, they've got three Shards. Basically if you want something like this to happen you go to a planet that's not quite as highly Invested where they might have a few more diseases, you pick one up, you bring it, and it spreads a little bit but then it dies off. That sort of thing happens a lot in the Cosmere. You do not have to worry about during the space age that people are going to be bringing lots of diseases across planets.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 2 (June 3, 2021)

 

13 hours ago, Unholy Truth said:

With the Hoid thing I more so meant with how they don't conflict with each other, because normally Investiture would resist other Investiture, but it would seem that must not have always been case and was likely only post shattering is my read of it.

Investiture resist investiture means something a bit different. The more something is invested, the more it resists kinetic investiture primarily - for example a Shardplate can't be Lashed or Steelpushed because it's so invested.  Kinetic investiture is active investiture, investiture that is doing something, that is being used like Lashing, like Steelpush, or some Soulcasting and stuff like that. Investiture resist investiture also where there is identity mismatch.

But being highly invested doesn't prevent you from getting more invested abilities - a Cognitive Shadow like Herald can bond with a spren, Hoid can burn a Lerasium bead etc. Those things modify your Spirit Web directly, Connect you to things. Being a Radiant means having a Connection to a True Spren, being an Allomancer means having a Connection to Preservation and stuff like that. This is not resisted as far as we know, it doesn't change your Spirit Web, it adds something new to it - invests you more. 

13 hours ago, Unholy Truth said:

For example, you couldn't breathe in stormlight and then try to burn metals because of the investiture problem is my understanding of it.

Nope, you can hold Stormlight in your body and burn metals at the same time. Both investitures would be keyed to you specifically, there should be no conflict. You can potentially fuel Allomancy with Stormlight directly, but some other steps might be needed before that would be possible (we don't know yet). You've even seen examples like that in Mistborn series - Vin had her Hemalurgic spike giving her extra A-bronze and had no disruptions in burning other metals. Returned can feed on Stormlight instead of Breaths for another example. You can even Awaken with Stormlight but some conversions might be needed first too. And that would be the only conflict there is - you probably have to do something extra to fuel one magic system with a different type of investiture, like you have to first do something to Stormlight to use it for Allomancy, but you can have both and use both at the same time.

Spoiler

youshallnotpass

Can stormlight be used to fuel allomancy like the mist in the mistborn trilogy? Is stormlight therefore a manifestation of honour?

Brandon Sanderson

This is possible.

/r/books AMA 2015 (July 6, 2015)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

So you said that different Investitures from different worlds can fuel different Investitures, right? Would that mean that you could potentially use Stormlight for Allomancy and/or Feruchemy?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, a little harder with the Metallic Arts than, for instance, Nightblood is the easiest example. He can just feed on whatever Investiture is around.

Questioner

Could he feed on the Dor from...

Brandon Sanderson

He could totally feed on the Dor.

Questioner

Would you need to have a special sheath to do that or?

Brandon Sanderson

No, what you would have to do for him on Elantris is you would have to open some conduit to the Dor that's persistent, like a light or something, and he will suck through that, he would probably end up sucking the whole aon.

Questioner

City of Elantris itself?

Brandon Sanderson

City of Elantris itself would work, yeah, but you're gonna be in trouble if he sucks up the whole thing and destroys it, which is totally possible.

Barnes & Noble B-Fest 2016 (June 11, 2016)

 

Spoiler

Ilkhan2016

Breath and Stormlight are both forms of Investiture. AFAIK you can power any of the magic systems from any form of Investiture. Zahel is on Roshar, I believe, primarily due to how easy Investiture (Stormlight) is to come across.

AFAIK the form of Investiture doesn't change anything about the abilities. For example, Szeth was sucked out of Stormlight when he drew Nightblood; and Azure used Stormlight to Awaken in Shadesmar.

/u/mistborn is that right?

Brandon Sanderson

A lot of this depends on the Investiture and the magic in question. Azure was legit using Breaths, for example--ones she'd brought with her. But Szeth was able to feed Stormlight to Nightblood, much as Vasher uses Stormlight to keep himself alive.

To Awaken with Stormlight, the easiest thing to do would be to first change Stormlight into Breaths--something that Azure doesn't know how to do. (Admittedly, Hoid doesn't either, so it's not like it's a simple thing to achieve.) You could also theoretically use some magical (or mechanical) means to power your Awakening with a different form of Investiture.

Extesian

This is very interesting. Is it possible then in the Cosmere for the 'intent' (spin or however described) of Investiture to be changed? And I mean within reasonable limits (not the powers of six shards or any of that). Can a Shard effectively grow in power in a place (e.g. toward an avatar) through another Shard's Investiture being changed (not just corrupted)? Or is it just making one type ('intent' - you should canonize a word for this :D) of Investiture mimic the properties of another?

Brandon Sanderson

Most of the ways of accomplishing what you're talking about would involve either 1) fooling/overwriting your spiritual makeup somehow. (This is what Hemalurgy does, for example.) 2) Refining the power somehow into a more pure form.

But there are a lot of variables. The way magic from Nalthis works, for example, the system is just looking for any available Investiture to power itself--and so basically anything will do, regardless of the source. This includes consuming your own soul, in some cases...

You'll see terminology coming along eventually that facilitates talking about all of this. I'm not yet decided on some of it.

Celestial_Blu3

How many Breaths does [Azure] have by her final appearance in OB?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO, I'm afraid.

General Reddit 2019 (April 25, 2019)

 

[Unholy Truth]

46 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Generally speaking there is. Innate investiture makes people more healthy, more resilient to illnesses, and have a better mental health - everything that a Drab suffers from is improved with Innate investiture. Innate investiture manifests a bit differently on various planets - on Nalthis that's Breaths which allow Awakening, on Scadrial that's something that is a seed for Allomancy/Feruchemy. But on both Scadrial and Nalthis population is post-Shattering, those people weren't there when Adonalsium was Shattered, Scadrial didn't even exist. 

 

So, post shattering there was nothing unique about this specific piece of Innate investiture and it just got reassigned to one of the 16 shards? Is it really just different forms of breath? Feels like it should be more.

46 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Investiture resist investiture means something a bit different. The more something is invested, the more it resists kinetic investiture primarily - for example a Shardplate can't be Lashed or Steelpushed because it's so invested.  Kinetic investiture is active investiture, investiture that is doing something, that is being used like Lashing, like Steelpush, or some Soulcasting and stuff like that. Investiture resist investiture also where there is identity mismatch.

But being highly invested doesn't prevent you from getting more invested abilities - a Cognitive Shadow like Herald can bond with a spren, Hoid can burn a Lerasium bead etc. Those things modify your Spirit Web directly, Connect you to things. Being a Radiant means having a Connection to a True Spren, being an Allomancer means having a Connection to Preservation and stuff like that. This is not resisted as far as we know, it doesn't change your Spirit Web, it adds something new to it - invests you more. 

Is a herald active investiture because it is a cognitive shadow? or is it a separate thing? and if yes, would a herald have any problems burning a lerasium bead?

46 minutes ago, alder24 said:

 

Nope, you can hold Stormlight in your body and burn metals at the same time. Both investitures would be keyed to you specifically, there should be no conflict. You can potentially fuel Allomancy with Stormlight directly, but some other steps might be needed before that would be possible (we don't know yet). You've even seen examples like that in Mistborn series - Vin had her Hemalurgic spike giving her extra A-bronze and had no disruptions in burning other metals. Returned can feed on Stormlight instead of Breaths for another example. You can even Awaken with Stormlight but some conversions might be needed first too. And that would be the only conflict there is - you probably have to do something extra to fuel one magic system with a different type of investiture, like you have to first do something to Stormlight to use it for Allomancy, but you can have both and use both at the same time.

 

 

 

When you say both investitures would be keyed to me specifically that makes me think the spirit web is like decrypting the investiture, so it knows what to do with it? Does a person's spirit web from say Scadrial need any changes before being able to do this? Or is this just available to everyone in the cosmere?

[alder24]

8 minutes ago, Unholy Truth said:

So, post shattering there was nothing unique about this specific piece of Innate investiture and it just got reassigned to one of the 16 shards? Is it really just different forms of breath? Feels like it should be more.

I meant that it's possible that on some planet it could provide some invested art, but we don't know the specifics. Shattering would affect that invested art, but we don't know how. Breaths aren't of Adonalsium, they never were, they are of Endowment and people on Nalthis were most likely created by Endowment after the Shattering.

There is a type of Lightweaving from Yolen, you've seen Hoid using it telling his stories in WoK an WoR but we don't know how one can obtain it nor if it predates the Shattering. 

12 minutes ago, Unholy Truth said:

Is a herald active investiture because it is a cognitive shadow? or is it a separate thing? and if yes, would a herald have any problems burning a lerasium bead?

No, that's a separate thing, Herald IS a Cognitive Shadow. Innate investiture is a part of people's soul. Active/Kinetic investiture is something that is used - Allomantic bronze detect that, people burning metals are using kinetic investiture, Radiants using Stormlight for Surges too, Feruchemists tapping metalminds as well. That's kinetic investiture, investiture that is used as energy. 

Heralds should have no problems with burning Lerasium, Lerasium can be burnt by anyone. 

Innate investiture is a part of your soul, static investiture is for example Stormlight being held by Radiant in his body, kinetic investiture is using that Stormlight for Surges or healing. Kinetic investiture is investiture that is doing some work, static investiture is investiture that does nothing now, but can work work, innate investiture is investiture that is just in your soul - like Preservation's fragment. Herald would have a lot of innate investiture, Herald's soul is made out of investiture, but that investiture is in their soul, it's not static, or kinetic. Heralds need Stormlight to power their Surgebinding.

Spoiler

Questioner

I think there's a flaw in my understanding of Cognitive Shadows. I assume that... they would have more visibility into the Cognitive Realm, like a Herald would be able to see spren more easily, that kind of thing. Is that incorrect?

Brandon Sanderson

That is incorrect. A Cognitive Shadow simply means a copy of the Cognitive side made by a deep amount of Investiture. And everybody has a Cognitive side. Basically it's a fake soul. Or, fake is the wrong term. Fake is the wrong term. Even in-world they don't know if it's really them or not. It is Investiture has replaced the Investiture that is fleeing from them as they die, or enhancing it in some way to keep it around. So some Cognitive Shadows trapped on the Cognitive Realm are going to be-- have a lot of Cognitive-- I mean, they're there, right? But some Cognitive Shadows inhabiting a body in the same way that your mind inhabits your body, the way the cosmere works... So a Herald is going to feel like they are alive just like-- but their soul has been somehow transformed. It's not really transformed, it's been reproduced or copied by an injection of Investiture...

And I'll say for the purpose of the recordings, I haven't canonized any of that terminology that I just used about Cognitive Shadows. I'm just talking about it, I'm not necessarily saying that this is how you are supposed to refer to it. You can refer to it however you want. I've often used the metaphor of how fossils get made. When a fossil is made there is a pattern and it is slowly replaced with another substance that is stronger and more endurant, and has the shape of it, but is it still the bone? When you have a fossil bone is it the dinosaur bone? In most cases no, but yes. It's the ship of Theseus sort of thing again. Is this the bone or is it not? Is this the soul? Is this the person or is it not? That's the same sort of thing is happening with Cognitive Shadows. And it's happening on all three Realms to an extent, though of course the body is not. The body stays. It's happening on two Realms. It's happening Spiritually, mostly Cognitively.

Orem signing (March 10, 2018)

 

21 minutes ago, Unholy Truth said:

When you say both investitures would be keyed to me specifically that makes me think the spirit web is like decrypting the investiture, so it knows what to do with it? Does a person's spirit web from say Scadrial need any changes before being able to do this? Or is this just available to everyone in the cosmere?

Your spirit web is also keyed, and investiture you used has the same key as your spirit web. It's most visible with Breaths - when you have Breaths they are keyed to you, when you Awaken something, those Breaths are still keyed to you and only you can recover those Breaths. No one else can recover them because they have different identities, they can't Command Breaths that are keyed to you. 

A Rosharan doesn't have to do anything with his spirit web - once he burns Lerasium, which is something anyone can do, he can burn metals and gain Preservation's investiture.

We don't know how to mix investiture with different abilities - like how to use Stormlight to power Allomancy. It's possible, but you need to do something. We don't know yet what it is. We know things like this are happening already - Lift is using Lifelight to power her Radiant powers, Venli can use both Voidlight and Stormlight to do that. This might suggest that you need to have a strong Connection to both Shard or something like that - in that case being both Radiant and an Allomancer would be enough to use Stormlight to power Allomancy. But that's speculative. We've seen in TLM that pure, unkeyed Dor can power Allomancy and that might mean that if you fully unkey investiture (maybe even from its Shard), you can use it to power all abilities. 

But you can have both of those powers with no complication, if you find a way to obtain them. Nothing in your spirit  web would stop you from being both a Mistborn and a Radiant at the same time and using those powers at the same time. 

[Unholy Truth]

8 minutes ago, alder24 said:

I meant that it's possible that on some planet it could provide some invested art, but we don't know the specifics. Shattering would affect that invested art, but we don't know how. Breaths aren't of Adonalsium, they never were, they are of Endowment and people on Nalthis were most likely created by Endowment after the Shattering.

There is a type of Lightweaving from Yolen, you've seen Hoid using it telling his stories in WoK an WoR but we don't know how one can obtain it nor if it predates the Shattering. 

No, that's a separate thing, Herald IS a Cognitive Shadow. Innate investiture is a part of people's soul. Active/Kinetic investiture is something that is used - Allomantic bronze detect that, people burning metals are using kinetic investiture, Radiants using Stormlight for Surges too, Feruchemists tapping metalminds as well. That's kinetic investiture, investiture that is used as energy. 

Heralds should have no problems with burning Lerasium, Lerasium can be burnt by anyone. 

Innate investiture is a part of your soul, static investiture is for example Stormlight being held by Radiant in his body, kinetic investiture is using that Stormlight for Surges or healing. Kinetic investiture is investiture that is doing some work, static investiture is investiture that does nothing now, but can work work, innate investiture is investiture that is just in your soul - like Preservation's fragment. Herald would have a lot of innate investiture, Herald's soul is made out of investiture, but that investiture is in their soul, it's not static, or kinetic. Heralds need Stormlight to power their Surgebinding.

Assuming for a moment that Hoid's lightweaving from yolen does predate the shattering, based on what we discussed he wouldn't have needed to do any spirit web stuff to make this work on roshar?

The Herald stuff makes more sense to me now, thanks.

8 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Your spirit web is also keyed, and investiture you used has the same key as your spirit web. It's most visible with Breaths - when you have Breaths they are keyed to you, when you Awaken something, those Breaths are still keyed to you and only you can recover those Breaths. No one else can recover them because they have different identities, they can't Command Breaths that are keyed to you. 

A Rosharan doesn't have to do anything with his spirit web - once he burns Lerasium, which is something anyone can do, he can burn metals and gain Preservation's investiture.

We don't know how to mix investiture with different abilities - like how to use Stormlight to power Allomancy. It's possible, but you need to do something. We don't know yet what it is. We know things like this are happening already - Lift is using Lifelight to power her Radiant powers, Venli can use both Voidlight and Stormlight to do that. This might suggest that you need to have a strong Connection to both Shard or something like that - in that case being both Radiant and an Allomancer would be enough to use Stormlight to power Allomancy. But that's speculative. We've seen in TLM that pure, unkeyed Dor can power Allomancy and that might mean that if you fully unkey investiture (maybe even from its Shard), you can use it to power all abilities. 

But you can have both of those powers with no complication, if you find a way to obtain them. Nothing in your spirit  web would stop you from being both a Mistborn and a Radiant at the same time and using those powers at the same time. 

Why can a Rosharan "burn" anything? Is this something just fundamental to the god metals?

[alder24]

19 minutes ago, Unholy Truth said:

Assuming for a moment that Hoid's lightweaving from yolen does predate the shattering, based on what we discussed he wouldn't have needed to do any spirit web stuff to make this work on roshar?

Most likely not. The only type of magic that would have a big problem with using it off-world is Elantris - you need to hack it to make it work in other places, but not by messing with your own spirit web.

21 minutes ago, Unholy Truth said:

Why can a Rosharan "burn" anything? Is this something just fundamental to the god metals?

Yes. Lerasium is burnable by anyone. That's it. God metals are in general burnable by "anyone," but it's unclear if that means any Allomancer, or any person in Cosmere (I believe it's any Allomancer). But Lerasium can be burnt by anyone in Cosmere and that would make them a Mistborn. Those are fundamental properties of god metals, you don't need to be a Mistborn to burn them (that's the reason for Atium retcon, Atium in Era 1 was not a pure god metal, it was Atium-electrum alloy, otherwise it should be burnable by "anyone"). 

Spoiler

 

17th Shard

If a Mistborn burns lerasium, as in, not just ingests it, what effect would it grant Allomantically?

Brandon Sanderson

That is a RAFO. It would do something, but the thing you've gotta remember is that, when ingesting lerasium for the first time and gaining the powers, your body is actually burning it. Think of lerasium as a metal anyone can burn. Does that make sense? By burning it you gain access to those powers. It rewrites your spiritual DNA, and there are ways to do really cool things with lerasium that I don't see how anyone would know. Were most Mistborn to just burn it, it would rewrite their genetic code to increase their power as an Allomancer.

17th Shard Interview (Oct. 3, 2010)

 

Spoiler

LewsTherinTelescope

At the end of The Lost Metal, we learn that Marsh will be using atium from the ettmetal experiments to stay alive going forward. However, Peter recently revealed (and you confirmed) that the atium in Era 1 which stored youth was actually a mix of atium and electrum. How will this continue to work to keep him young?

Brandon Sanderson

They're going to have a different term for pure atium and for what has been known as atium--what they're making. It is not hard to get the right mix down for what he needs to stay alive. It is hard to make enough of it to keep him alive. Well, not hard, but definitely not scalable to more than one person, how about that. They are able to do it, you've just got to make an alloy.

I will apologize for this. This is a post-Era-1 retcon where I realized I need all the God Metals to do different things, and this is just one of the aspects that comes down. For those who don't know what's going on: I get done with Era 1, I start really working on the nature of metals in the cosmere. I'm like, "Ehhh... Atium really should be burnable by anybody. It's a God Metal. The way God Metals work is not in line with how I've made atium. So what they call atium has to have trace elements of something else, and then there's a pure form of atium out there that would be the true pure God Metal." That is one of those unfortunate retcons when you're doing all this continuity. And it works just fine in the books, because the way that atium is being made is a pretty complicated little process there in the Pits of Hathsin.

The question is the right question. Sazed is going to get out of this pure atium, which he is going to need to tweak before he gives it to Marsh. Whether Marsh knows he is getting a tweaked version or not is subject to your own interpretation.

For arcanist purposes, if you want to call the other one pure atium and the regular one just atium, I'd recommend something like that for your wikis and things like that.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

 

Spoiler

Radix2309

The Atium we experience in Era 1 is actually an alloy of Atium and Electrum called Nalatium. The stuff produced by the pits was naturally an alloy. 

Peter Ahlstrom

The name nalatium is not canon.

Tetrarchon

But what about alloys of lerasium with allomantic metals - can anyone still burn them to become a misting of that metal?

Peter Ahlstrom

Yes.

General Reddit 2022 (Oct. 18, 2022)

 

[Unholy Truth]

5 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Most likely not. The only type of magic that would have a big problem with using it off-world is Elantris - you need to hack it to make it work in other places, but not by messing with your own spirit web.

All clear, Thank you!

5 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Yes. Lerasium is burnable by anyone. That's it. God metals are in general burnable by "anyone," but it's unclear if that means any Allomancer, or any person in Cosmere (I believe it's any Allomancer). But Lerasium can be burnt by anyone in Cosmere and that would make them a Mistborn. Those are fundamental properties of god metals, you don't need to be a Mistborn to burn them (that's the reason for Atium retcon, Atium in Era 1 was not a pure god metal, it was Atium-electrum alloy, otherwise it should be burnable by "anyone"). 

 

 

 

I recently read up on atium ret con and see why it was done and wasn't really bothered by it. But someone burning Honor or cultivation's god metal may not necessarily become a surgebinder? The shard has control or at least influence in what the effect would be?

[alder24]

40 minutes ago, Unholy Truth said:

But someone burning Honor or cultivation's god metal may not necessarily become a surgebinder? The shard has control or at least influence in what the effect would be?

We don't know what burning those metals would do. Burning Atium grants you just a vision of the future, not any invested art. Judging by Harmonium's physical properties, it seems that a Shard has no control over what their god metal does - it just naturally manifests based on Shard's intent, their Vessel and their interactions with the planet they are invested it. 

[Unholy Truth]

11 minutes ago, alder24 said:

We don't know what burning those metals would do. Burning Atium grants you just a vision of the future, not any invested art. Judging by Harmonium's physical properties, it seems that a Shard has no control over what their god metal does - it just naturally manifests based on Shard's intent, their Vessel and their interactions with the planet they are invested it. 

Awesome thanks again for your thoughtful responses. I'm finishing up my first readthrough of cosmere and definitely wish I would have got to the party sooner. Till next time!