Which Compounding Twinborn would you LEAST like to be?

Ninth of the Night · May 6

For me either Iron or Brass would be my least favorite to Compound. Not many situations where weighing a ton would be beneficial. While Brass seems like the only one that could actively be detrimental to your health, burning alive would be no fun at all! Although I would certainly love to have access to a Brassmind, no need for A/C and never need to worry about overheating. I just would very rarely feel the need to Compound it.

So I would still prefer to be a Brass Twinborn overall, more useful than double Iron, but as far as Compounding goes it's probably the worst for me.

Quantus · May 6

Investiture on the logic that For Mr Earthling me would not have any other powers to Store so there wouldnt be much benefit for either version (the allomantic or the feruchemcial).

If it were inside the Cosmere, Brass is probably the most disposable.

Tamriel Wolfsbaine · May 6

I love iron feruchemy. If I had to take iron allomancy it would mean nearly nothing at all. Hands in the air for iron compounding energy generation possibilities? Maybe?

Cadmium is my least favorite allomantic metal and I dont do anything that really takes my breath away anyways. So I will say cadmium. @Quantus has a good argument for nicrosil being garbo for a non cosmere native haha.

Heilven · May 7

I have to go with brass here because infinite heat certainly doesn't seem useful, unless your body is protected from overheating or something like that. Nicrosil is a safe bet too though, in a vacuum it is pretty useless. Everything else I can come up with a good use for, but unless there's an extra plus with double brass.

JustQuestin2004 · May 7

Honestly most types of compounding have their usefulness, because you gain allomancy and end-positive Feruchemy. I can see people saying that C-Brass sucks but I think it's alright.

The one I'd least like to be is C-Aluminum. The Allomancy is pretty much useless unless you're aware of some niche use of 'purifying the spirit' or whatever. The Feruchemy also sucks because a WOB has stated that some types of compounding are less useful than others after it was brought up.

Compounding you're own Identity doesn't seem like it has much use since simply storing it all away is more useful but only if you have a way to leverage that, which would require other powers. So it seems to be the only type of Compounding that cannot actually let you accomplish anything entirely on its own.

UltimateArchivist · May 7

I choose Copper. I can see the merit of remembering things, but how would you even compound it? Would you learn new things? I don't see how that would be possible.

@JustQuestin2004Has a good point as well, though.

Trusk'our · May 7

Hmm, an interesting question.

I'll go with aluminum, since I don't actually think you can Compound with it; aluminum doesn't conduct Investiture, which leads me to believe that if it's used in Feruchemy you can blank your Identity, but can't actually Store it for later use, meaning you can't Compound.

@Quantus, as an argument for Nicrosil Compounding, I think it's possible to exploit raw Investiture usage by Storing A-nicrosil's potency while not Burning it, then Tapping it while Compounding to exponentially increase the Investiture gained. That Investiture doesn't do much on its own, but being 1,000 times as Invested as the standard Misting (even if only briefly) has to bring some benefit. Maybe slight Spiritweb expansion?

Duralumin Compounding could be fun too, as you may be able to use A-duralumin use mixed with Compounding Connection to instantly metabolize all your metal, making it another way to exponentially increase Compounding's Investiture output. Also not entirely sure what massive influxes of Investiture/Connection would be useful for, but more Investiture generally = more good.

Quantus · May 7

3 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

@Quantus, as an argument for Nicrosil Compounding, I think it's possible to exploit raw Investiture usage by Storing A-nicrosil's potency while not Burning it, then Tapping it while Compounding to exponentially increase the Investiture gained. That Investiture doesn't do much on its own, but being 1,000 times as Invested as the standard Misting (even if only briefly) has to bring some benefit. Maybe slight Spiritweb expansion?

I think what you are describing is Burning Investiture with the specific goal of developing Savantism, but per the retcon WOB that should always have a downside.

Trusk'our · May 7

1 hour ago, Quantus said:

I think what you are describing is Burning Investiture with the specific goal of developing Savantism, but per the retcon WOB that should always have a downside.

Not quite. I was thinking more along the lines of using Nicrosil Feruchemy to Store your Nicrosil Allomancy, then Tapping Nicrosil Allomancy when Compounding to get a huge burst in Compounding potential.

Quantus · May 7

2 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Not quite. I was thinking more along the lines of using Nicrosil Feruchemy to Store your Nicrosil Allomancy, then Tapping Nicrosil Allomancy when Compounding to get a huge burst in Compounding potential.

Hmmm, I think see two possible problems with that.

If we assume Nicrosil mistings work more or less like Nicrosil Medallions, then they get Stored and Retrieved as a single whole (like memories in Copper) rather than Tapping to get some numeric boost. So Compounding may or may not magnify the Stored Power in any way.

But assuming you can Compound it in some way to get a Power increase, what exacting is getting increased? The only Power you'd ever be able to Compound is the ability to Store Powers itself, and multiplying that offers no (obvious?) benefit. Even with a quantitative Compounding effect, Nicrosil is only useful in a world where Other powers are around to be gathered and stored. But without anything like that it's as useful as Duralumin-Gnat, technically a Power and an Investiture use, but without any actual benefit (beyond the ability to eat & destroy samples of a particular metal).

alder24 · May 7

4 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

@Quantus, as an argument for Nicrosil Compounding, I think it's possible to exploit raw Investiture usage by Storing A-nicrosil's potency while not Burning it, then Tapping it while Compounding to exponentially increase the Investiture gained. That Investiture doesn't do much on its own, but being 1,000 times as Invested as the standard Misting (even if only briefly) has to bring some benefit. Maybe slight Spiritweb expansion?

7 minutes ago, Quantus said:

But assuming you can Compound it in some way to get a Power increase, what exacting is getting increased? The only Power you'd ever be able to Compound is the ability to Store Powers itself, and multiplying that offers no (obvious?) benefit. Even with a quantitative Compounding effect, Nicrosil is only useful in a world where Other powers are around to be gathered and stored. But without anything like that it's as useful as Duralumin-Gnat, technically a Power and an Investiture use, but without any actual benefit (beyond the ability to eat & destroy samples of a particular metal).

Good idea. You just get more invested. You are increasing the innate investiture of your soul and that has massive consequences. You will be harder to affect with Allomancy in general and Warbreaker spoilers:

Spoiler

you can become a Returned without any Breaths, just by the sheer quantity of your innate investiture you can get the same effects as Heightenings give. That's a much better way of achieving agelessness than F-Atium.

I agree with @Trusk'our that F-aluminum just blanks your identity, you don't store it at all. But without knowing for sure, I will go with Cadmium. Compounding breath isn't that useful in your day to day life.

Trusk'our · May 7

17 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Good idea.

Thanks! That means a lot coming from you, friend

Quantus · May 7

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Good idea. You just get more invested. You are increasing the innate investiture of your soul and that has massive consequences. You will be harder to affect with Allomancy in general and Warbreaker spoilers:

Hide contents

you can become a Returned without any Breaths, just by the sheer quantity of your innate investiture you can get the same effects as Heightenings give. That's a much better way of achieving agelessness than F-Atium.

I agree with @Trusk'our that F-aluminum just blanks your identity, you don't store it at all. But without knowing for sure, I will go with Cadmium. Compounding breath isn't that useful in your day to day life.

Allomancy doesn't store any Investiture in the misting themselves so at most they'd only gain those additional benefits while actively burning. That path leads to Savantism fairly quickly.

alder24 · May 8

13 hours ago, Quantus said:

Allomancy doesn't store any Investiture in the misting themselves so at most they'd only gain those additional benefits while actively burning. That path leads to Savantism fairly quickly.

Not via Allomancy, but with Feruchemy. F-nicrosil stores innate investiture, you only are using Allomancy for compounding to create huge storages of innate investiture, then you just tap that nicrosilmind.

Quantus · May 8

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Not via Allomancy, but with Feruchemy. F-nicrosil stores innate investiture, you only are using Allomancy for compounding to create huge storages of innate investiture, then you just tap that nicrosilmind.

H-Nicrosil is the one that interacts with general Investiture directly. F-Nicrosil stores the ability to Use a particular investiture (or granted abilities from them, in one WOB's wording? I think that implies the granted effects of Heightenings the the sensory stuff would be on the table) and the only two abilities you'd have to store are F-Nicrosil or A-Nicrosil. So (assuming Nicrosil compounding gives a multiplying effect) Compounding A-Nicrosil would give you a temporary equivalent of eating a whole Pile of Lerasium/Nicrosil Alloy, or the really the effect of tapping that one metal from the Bands: You'd become the most powerful Nicroburst in the world but you'd still only be abnormally Invested while actively Burning per the rules allomancy. Or you'd multiply the ability to use only Nicrosil for Feruchemy and I dont see what benefit that might have at all, though Im curious to hear ideas.

Trusk'our · May 8

1 hour ago, Quantus said:

Or you'd multiply the ability to use only Nicrosil for Feruchemy and I dont see what benefit that might have at all, though Im curious to hear ideas.

If you Store and/or Compound F-Nicrosil's power and Tap it, you probably gain more efficiency when Tapping other powers with F-Nicrosil, as weaker Feruchemy has been compared to a leaky pipe by Brandon, and net neutral systems need to draw slight amounts of Investiture from the SR for conversion.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/2/#e171

Questioner

So for the Old Magic, in this classification system of end-positive, end-neutral, and end-negative, where would that fall under?

Brandon Sanderson

So, almost every magic in the cosmere is end-positive, almost every magic is relying upon an external source of Investiture to power it. So that phrasing is mostly more relevant to Scadrial than anywhere else, because that concept is how I'm dealing with things like the laws of thermodynamics, and even what they call end-neutral is relying a little bit on the power of Investiture to facilitate. So even an end-neutral magic system as they define it on Scadrial is actually not end-neutral. What you get put in you get out, but the power is facilitating that transfer… So that phrasing is kind of a... Take that as a science on.. Scadrial that does not extrapolate well, and may not even be 100% accurate.

Moderator

That would have been a great thing to know before we did the cosmere magic panel. *laughter*

Brandon Sanderson

I look at it as, is an Investiture externally powering the magic, and if you look at Allomancy, yes it is. You are drawing that power out. Feruchemy, you are putting Investiture in from your own body, it's your energy transferring to Investiture, which is being stored, which you are then drawing out, and things like that. But that changing forms is facilitated by the magic. Whereas you're stealing stuff with-- So you could look, for instance at the magic on Nalthis, you could look at that one as being-- as kind of working as end-negative, meaning "I am taking it away from someone else", or end-positive depending on if you're the one receiving it or not. So again, it's a phrasing that can be useful as a tool but doesn't scale well to the other magics.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/10/#e6560

Kurkistan

How exactly does Hemalurgic decay work for Feruchemy? Is it like a leaky tube or something, or…?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah… yeah.

Kurkistan

So they try to store 10 units of health and only 9 gets through, or…?

Brandon Sanderson

Hemalurgic decay meaning someone who has been spiked is less powerful? That Hemalurgic decay, or the Hemalurgic decay when a Hemalurgic spike is left outside of blood?

Kurkistan

Less powerful. So like the Inquisitors are less powerful Feruchemists so they had to spend longer storing: so why did they have to spend longer storing?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah they lose a little bit, it’s a leaky… You’re there, exactly. It just doesn’t quite… it’s not as efficient: it’s an efficiency thing.

1 hour ago, Quantus said:

H-Nicrosil is the one that interacts with general Investiture directly. F-Nicrosil stores the ability to Use a particular investiture (or granted abilities from them, in one WOB's wording? I think that implies the granted effects of Heightenings the the sensory stuff would be on the table) and the only two abilities you'd have to store are F-Nicrosil or A-Nicrosil. So (assuming Nicrosil compounding gives a multiplying effect) Compounding A-Nicrosil would give you a temporary equivalent of eating a whole Pile of Lerasium/Nicrosil Alloy, or the really the effect of tapping that one metal from the Bands: You'd become the most powerful Nicroburst in the world but you'd still only be abnormally Invested while actively Burning per the rules allomancy.

This is true. You would not gain any permanent Investiture via this method, but temporary increases in Investiture (which all Tapped attributes consist of) may prove useful for resistance against other Investiture.

Mostly, I'd just be interested in seeing what happens when you supercharged one or both of these powers, as they may work a little differently based on their core mechanics, kind of like how A-steel begins to affect fundamental electromagnetic forces instead of just metals when taken to the extreme.

Edited May 8 by Trusk'our
Found the WoBs

Quantus · May 8

10 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

If you Store and/or Compound F-Nicrosil's power and Tap it, you probably gain more efficiency when Tapping other powers with F-Nicrosil, as weaker Feruchemy has been compared to a leaky pipe by Brandon, and net neutral systems need to draw slight amounts of Investiture from the SR for conversion.

This is true. You would not gain any permanent Investiture via this method, but temporary increases in Investiture (which all Tapped attributes consist of) may prove useful for resistance against other Investiture.

Mostly, I'd just be interested in seeing what happens when you supercharged one or both of these powers, as they may work a little differently based on their core mechanics, kind of like how A-steel begins to affect fundamental electromagnetic forces instead of just metals when taken to the extreme.

Agreed, that's where it'll get weird and interesting. And the flip side is that this could threaten Savantism for both the Allomantic and the Feruchemcial abilities, but it hard to image what form of warping and consequence that might impose.

+robardin · May 8

We don't really know what some of the attributes are like to tap, Feruchemically, at least not yet (like Fortune, Determination, or even what would would mean to Compound memories in a coppermind).

But of the attributes we can see getting tapped from a metalmind so far, and considering "what if I had a nigh-infinite, net positive leveraged way of gaining that attribute for later use", they all seem pretty useful IRL.

The least useful to me would be "determination", I think, because we haven't seen what it would really change about a person. If it is what it seems like it would be - like, holding fast against something like torture, temptation, etc., - then I have to say, I'm either fortunate or determinate enough on my own never to have really regretted failing to do something due to lack of determination.

As for Compounding weight with iron, that seems obviously useful. We've seen how Wax uses it to help with his Steelpushing, but the same thing would apply in everyday life. Not only would FILLING an ironmind be useful to make yourself lighter, being able to tap an ironmind to make yourself heavier or MUCH heavier would be extremely useful in many physical situations (wrestling being an obvious scenario) where your body weight as a counterweight is important.

Like, being able to push something heavy isn't about "strength" so much as having as much or more weight as the object being pushed. The idea that someone huge and muscled will push, say, a refrigerator easier, lies mostly in the fact that someone huge and muscled is going to be a lot heavier than a normal person. (Whether they have the stamina to push it for a long time, or to do it again and again, is a different story.)

Edited May 8 by robardin

Quantus · May 8

1 hour ago, robardin said:

The least useful to me would be "determination", I think, because we haven't seen what it would really change about a person. If it is what it seems like it would be - like, holding fast against something like torture, temptation, etc., - then I have to say, I'm either fortunate or determinate enough on my own never to have really regretted failing to do something due to lack of determination.

The description we've been given is that it's a slider between Depression and Mania, which is definately niche but wildly helpful to anyone who struggles with either or both of of those. On the other hand I saw a pretty interesting theory that it's actually Storing specific "Intents" as if they were Connections, and that the Depression/Mania effect is just what happens when the Ferring isnt specific and just stored unFocused Intent.

But otherwise I agree, it's really only useful to a specific subset of folks that want control over that specific think. Heat for example is only really an issue if you want to spend a lot of time outdoors in hostile climates. Breath is nice to be unstranglable I guess, and it would be a lot of fun to live underwater (or ignore all air polution), but for a normal lifestyle it's not that great. I generally put Wakefulness there too, though with Compounding you can actually stay awake forever, so that's roughly 1/3 more waking lifetime.

+robardin · May 8

38 minutes ago, Quantus said:

The description we've been given is that it's a slider between Depression and Mania, which is definately niche but wildly helpful to anyone who struggles with either or both of of those. On the other hand I saw a pretty interesting theory that it's actually Storing specific "Intents" as if they were Connections, and that the Depression/Mania effect is just what happens when the Ferring isnt specific and just stored unFocused Intent.

But otherwise I agree, it's really only useful to a specific subset of folks that want control over that specific think. Heat for example is only really an issue if you want to spend a lot of time outdoors in hostile climates. Breath is nice to be unstranglable I guess, and it would be a lot of fun to live underwater (or ignore all air polution), but for a normal lifestyle it's not that great. I generally put Wakefulness there too, though with Compounding you can actually stay awake forever, so that's roughly 1/3 more waking lifetime.

Huh, I wouldn't have thought of depression as "lack of determination" but I guess that does put a different context to it that I was thinking it would be!

As for Compounding brass, it wouldn't be day-to-day useful like some of the others, but it would be very useful to have a lot of it pre-stored due to Compounding (and not chilling yourself for long periods of time) for when you DO find it necessary or convenient to tap a brassmind.

It wouldn't have to be a "lot of time outdoors", either, or even some "crash landed in the mountains / swimming away from the Titanic in arctic waters" hypothermia scenario - just your typical "person who wears a sweater in the office with the thermostat set to 68F" would probably tap it here and there without even thinking about it much.

The tie-breaker, though, would be in how useful the normal Allomantic power for the metal would be, without using it to Compound for the Feruchemical attribute. In which case, being a Soother would be very useful in daily life, but being an Oracle who can see their own future by upwards of 30 seconds ahead could be even more useful, if you're a pro athlete.

Imagine that, a baseball batter who somehow always avoids swinging at the wipeout slider, or knows exactly where the next pitch will be coming in! (Unless the pitcher is also burning electrum, LOL!)

Edited May 8 by robardin

QuantumAce · May 8

On 5/6/2024 at 12:22 PM, Ninth of the Night said:

While Brass seems like the only one that could actively be detrimental to your health, burning alive would be no fun at all! Although I would certainly love to have access to a Brassmind, no need for A/C and never need to worry about overheating. I just would very rarely feel the need to Compound it.

So I would still prefer to be a Brass Twinborn overall, more useful than double Iron, but as far as Compounding goes it's probably the worst for me.

I would end up constantly flipping between tapping and storing as a fidget, and there is a 100% chance I would accidentally self immolate within a week.

+robardin · May 8

21 minutes ago, QuantumAce said:

I would end up constantly flipping between tapping and storing as a fidget, and there is a 100% chance I would accidentally self immolate within a week.

I didn't think a brass Compounder would be like the Human Torch, but that could be interesting. If Cosmere-derived magic-physics were similar to that in the Marvel Universe, then if you could pull off the Human Torch Effect, you could fly around, too!

Human Torch (Character) - Comic Vine

And waitaminute... Compounding is like squaring a Metalborn power... And four squared is... SIXTEEN, hot diggity dog!

alder24 · May 8

5 hours ago, Quantus said:

F-Nicrosil stores the ability to Use a particular investiture

Yes and that's innate investiture. Metallic arts come from Preservation's fragment and that's innate investiture. By compounding and later tapping your metalmind you will increase your innate investiture, become more invested and that gives you similar effects to Heightenings in general. And while compounding your Allomantic or Feruchemical powers would make you stronger in those arts, I don't care about it, I only care about how invested will your Preservation's fragment become by tapping all what you've compounded and what passive effects of being that invested you will get.

To everybody who doesn't see many uses for heat and F-brass. Feruchemy protects you from some harmful effects of using your powers. Everything that's below the melting point of brass (930 degree C) is a free real estate for you (technically you can also store in liquid metals but it would affect investiture in some way). For people who work with metal it would be a really useful thing. You can literally fuse pieces of aluminum together by melting them in your hands. You can boil water for tea or coffee with no effort - you'll never get wet in rain with F-brass. You can shape plastic like clay with your bare hands. I think it would be fun to have such power - but your wardrobe won't be happy, you either work naked or get used to burning clothes.

Ninth of the Night · May 8

2 hours ago, Quantus said:

The description we've been given is that it's a slider between Depression and Mania, which is definately niche but wildly helpful to anyone who struggles with either or both of of those

That's me! Compounding Determination would be a huge help personally as I often struggle with motivation.

Breath would also be neat if only so I could scuba dive as much as I wanted without ever needing an air tank. Although I'd still probably have to worry about underwater pressure unless Cadmium somehow protects against that as well?

Also thinking more about it, if I WAS in fact a Brass Twinborn, I would certainly use the Compounding to explore Arctic biomes. Probably just live there permanently.

As for Copper, maybe you could store a memory then Compound it to Spiritually relive the experience instead of just recalling it to your mind. Perhaps even the whole day that the memory comes from? I dunno, but as someone with a terrible memory I could see it being very useful regardless.

Infinite Wakefulness doesn't actually seem very fun, I enjoy sleeping too much. It would be nice to have a Bronzemind so I can tap it in the morning to instantly get rid of the chronic grogginess. However I doubt I would ever really need to Compound it. So I think I'm changing my answer to Bronze.

I considered leaving Nicrosil and Aluminum off the poll since we don't know much about how Compounding them would work, or even if it could. But ultimately I decided to include them and see what others might think of their capabilities. And honestly if you were a Nicrosil Twinborn there's no reason you couldn't find another form of Investiture to store if innate Investiture isn't enough (which I believe it would be). As for Aluminum, if it's possible to Compound then you could probably change your identity whenever you wanted. Like Wayne, but much easier!

+robardin · May 8

30 minutes ago, Ninth of the Night said:

Infinite Wakefulness doesn't actually seem very fun, I enjoy sleeping too much. It would be nice to have a Bronzemind so I can tap it in the morning to instantly get rid of the chronic grogginess. However I doubt I would ever really need to Compound it. So I think I'm changing my answer to Bronze.

Well, you would want to Compound it at least a little bit, just so you wouldn't have to compensate for putting wakefulness into the bronzemind by spending time being drowsy.

The downside to that would be that the normal Allomantic power for bronze would not be very useful IRL; not much point in being a Seeker unless other Allomancers (or magic users) were walking around. (Hmm, maybe that's the pitch, then - if you AREN'T a Seeker, how would you KNOW there weren't other Investiture users walking around all of a sudden?)

As for enjoying sleeping - is that when you're a Viking? - I have a headcanon theory that that's why TLR got more and more cruel, uncaring, and jaded/tired/bored seeming as his life extended longer and longer. Once he was past a normal Investure-extended lifespan of say 120 years, tops (with infinite A-pewter and F-gold), Rashek had to continuously tap his atiumminds for youth, and I think we have it established that you can't unconsciously tap or fill a metalmind.

So TLR could never sleep, he had to keep on keepin' on with the never-ending tapping and occasional compounding and filling of those atiumminds. And possibly electrumminds to keep the Determination up to bother doing so.

And never sleeping can do weird things to your mind, even with infinite goldmind tapping, which doesn't seem to address mental health as that is literally cognitive.

Which Compounding Twinborn would you LEAST like to be?