Steel Inquisibirds

[BlueWildRye he/him]

I was with my chickens, and studying them even though I'm not a scientist at all, when I realized that if a chicken became a Steel Inquisitor, they would have one spike through both their eyes because their eyes face sideways. Or maybe there could be two spikes in their eyes? Now I'm trying to imagine a fully spiked chicken. What would they do with their powers? Probably burn Pewter to rise to the top of the pecking order?

[Koloss17 She/They]

Now we’re asking the real questions.

 

In all reality I suspect different animals have slightly different bind points, but the smaller you get, the more possible it is to drive a spike through multiple bind points. 
 

hmmmmm.

[BlueWildRye he/him]

I just realized that an Inquisibird chicken can use Steelpushing to finally fly like the rest of their bird relatives. Just saying, they'd probably be just as vicious, if not more so, than regular human Inquisitors. I mean, have you seen them? They're creatures of Ruin, through and through.

[Quantus he/him]

 

In all seriousness (or as much as I can muster on the Inquisibird Thread without giggling), the most likely spike in a Chicken would probably grant Aviar abilities, steal the aviar bond, or even grant aviar adjacent like A-Copper.  

One WOB says most Investiture in animals scales up to sapience before Powers start emerging.  Another says the Inquisitor's Lynchpin Spike is a coordinating thing and several different metals can work.  I suspect you'd want a Copper Spike to bring them closer to full sapience before they could take advantage of your more overt allomantic or feruchemical powers, but a Steel Compounding battle-chicken would be a force to be Feared.

[Through The Living Glass She/They]

My first thought when I got here:

Spoiler

The Lord Rooster

 

Edited May 29, 2024 by Through The Living Glass

[Koloss17 She/They]

9 hours ago, Quantus said:

 

In all seriousness (or as much as I can muster on the Inquisibird Thread without giggling), the most likely spike in a Chicken would probably grant Aviar abilities, steal the aviar bond, or even grant aviar adjacent like A-Copper.  

One WOB says most Investiture in animals scales up to sapience before Powers start emerging.  Another says the Inquisitor's Lynchpin Spike is a coordinating thing and several different metals can work.  I suspect you'd want a Copper Spike to bring them closer to full sapience before they could take advantage of your more overt allomantic or feruchemical powers, but a Steel Compounding battle-chicken would be a force to be Feared.

New Alleyverse idea just dropped.

[alder24]

On 5/29/2024 at 3:43 AM, BlueWildRye said:

I was with my chickens, and studying them even though I'm not a scientist at all, when I realized that if a chicken became a Steel Inquisitor, they would have one spike through both their eyes because their eyes face sideways. Or maybe there could be two spikes in their eyes? Now I'm trying to imagine a fully spiked chicken. What would they do with their powers? Probably burn Pewter to rise to the top of the pecking order?

While it's a hilarious and possible idea, for a chicken (or any animal) to use powers, you need sentience. A normal animal won't be capable of using invested arts like Allomancy, even if granted by Hemalurgy, if they themselves aren't sentient and have above animal level of intelligence. So a chicken with a spike through its eyes would be a case of extreme animal abuse, no fancy inquisitor would come out of it, unless you increase its intelligence first by for example a couple of H-copper spikes. 

Cosmere spoilers WoBs:

Spoiler

Questioner

Would a macaw be able to become a Radiant? Or do you need sentience?

Brandon Sanderson

You need sapience. A macaw could not become a Knight Radiant. A macaw could, theoretically, enter a symbiotic spren bond, which would have different effects. Like, Ryshadium or even most of the larger greatshells don't have sapience. But a lot of creatures on Roshar do have what I would term an in-between step between human-level intelligence and animal-level intelligence on Earth. Ryshadium are in this; chasmfiends, as well, are smarter than an animal can get on Earth.

Tor Instagram Livestream (Nov. 25, 2020)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

Is a chull able to receive some form of Investiture? ...I'm thinking of Scadrial... Would it have the presence of mind to be able to use the abilities?

Brandon Sanderson

Not as it is right now. But you can see in the way that Ryshadium are working that we have animals that are reaching beyond-animal intelligence. Aviar are the same way. And it is possible to assume that you could get to the point where you could use such powers. But none of them are there yet. But the Aviar kind of use their powers, so I guess some of them are. So, yes, I will say that's possible.

Skyward Seattle signing (Nov. 10, 2018)

 

[+robardin he/him]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

While it's a hilarious and possible idea, for a chicken (or any animal) to use powers, you need sentience. A normal animal won't be capable of using invested arts like Allomancy, even if granted by Hemalurgy, if they themselves aren't sentient and have above animal level of intelligence. So a chicken with a spike through its eyes would be a case of extreme animal abuse, no fancy inquisitor would come out of it, unless you increase its intelligence first by for example a couple of H-copper spikes. 

Well hold on a moment.

First, I assume we're talking about hemalurgic spikes harvested from human Metalborn. Does hemalurgy work across species? Since it works on the principle of "tearing off bits of the soul" to attach to another soul and all. Seems like it'd have to be "soul-compatible" to stick that way.

I could see maybe making a "kolossal" chicken out of four original chickens*, but using koloss spikes on a chicken, not so much?

But, if you were to decide yeah, you COULD stick an Inquisitor's spikes into a chicken to useful effect, even if that didn't mean the chicken were ABLE to Steelpush, etc., due to lack of sapience, would it at least serve as a kind of living repository to keep the spikes from decaying in power?

Like, say you're Kar the Inquisitor who just witnessed "poor Bendal" getting decapitated by Kelsier at the "Square of the Survivor". You rush in to extract some of his spikes for potential reuse, the hard-to-obtain ones for Feruchemy he happened to have for example; then realize in frustration that you didn't have the usual jar of fresh human blood as a preservative because nobody had expected Kelsier to actually WIN that fight, ...

...and then you spy the chicken clucking quietly in on a curb while the Lord Ruler appeared in his coach to quell the surge of exultant and rebellious skaa.

Hello!

[ *EDIT: I am now imagining a point in Scadrian history where Kolossal Fried Chicken is a fast-food chain with a secret process involving Awakened metalminds at the slaughterhouse. "Why buy a bucket of chicken parts, when you can buy a single ... KOLOSSAL CHICKEN!" ]

Edited May 30, 2024 by robardin

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

9 minutes ago, robardin said:

...

[ *EDIT: I am now imagining a point in Scadrian history where Kolossal Fried Chicken is a fast-food chain with a secret process involving Awakened metalminds at the slaughterhouse. "Why buy a bucket of chicken parts, when you can buy a single ... KOLOSSAL CHICKEN!" ]

Omg. Yes! The cosmere absolutely deserves KFC. If the first storefront isn't run by a white-hatted koloss-blooded tin-feruchemist I'll cry though.

[+robardin he/him]

1 minute ago, hwiles said:

Omg. Yes! The cosmere absolutely deserves KFC. If the first storefront isn't run by a white-hatted koloss-blooded tin-feruchemist I'll cry though.

I see what you are implying there. LOL

[alder24]

6 hours ago, robardin said:

Does hemalurgy work across species?

Kandra aren't human, it works well on them. Cosmere spoilers:

Spoiler

You can spike powers out of spren or Aviars and implant them onto you and it will produce the desirable effect. It works fine:

Spoiler

Questioner (paraphrased)

If I wanted to Hemalurgically acquire a power from First of the Sun, which metal would the spike need to be?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

This is going to be pretty complicated, but several metals would work.

Questioner (paraphrased)

Would it involve Connection between the person being spiked and the bird?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Well it would be even harder than on Roshar, where you need to somehow spike the spren and also the Radiant. You would need to spike the bird and steal the power, but also spike the person and steal Connection.

GenCon 2017 (Aug. 17, 2017)

 

 

6 hours ago, robardin said:

But, if you were to decide yeah, you COULD stick an Inquisitor's spikes into a chicken to useful effect, even if that didn't mean the chicken were ABLE to Steelpush, etc., due to lack of sapience, would it at least serve as a kind of living repository to keep the spikes from decaying in power?

There are much easier ways to achieve that, just stick it in a piece of steak. Post Catacendre Hemalurgic decay is a thing of a past.

Spoiler

LadyLameness

The Inquisitors keep spikes in jars to stop the Hemalurgic decay. Is that clotted blood? Like, does it just work with clotted blood?

Brandon Sanderson

It will. So what's going here is the spikes have to - this is a weird Cosmere thing - the spikes have to think they're in a body and you gotta trick them. You don't need to use blood but that's the easiest thing that they could do to make it work. You could also leave it in a piece of meat.

LadyLameness

You can put the stake in the steak!

Brandon Sanderson

You can put a stake in a steak. But there are plenty of ways to do this without doing that. But yes, it's pretty gross.

LadyLameness

Not that I think they have consciousness very much, but I imagine that they're a bit stupid if they think that clotted blood is the same as a human body.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. You're just tricking the stupid piece of metal that has a little bit of extra Investiture and has become slightly self-aware, and so it keeps its charge and doesn't... yeah. There are much better modern ways of doing this that have started to be used.

JordanCon 2021 (July 16, 2021)

 

Spoiler

Argent

The Lost Metal Ars Arcanum calls Hemalurgic decay a thing of the past. The term has been used to describe the loss of power in spikes outside of bodies, as well as the small amount of power that is lost at the moment a spike is created. Which one of those things no longer happens?

Brandon Sanderson

The first one, the decay of spikes outside of a body. They have figured out how to make that no longer a thing.

Argent

So it's still a thing that happens in the cosmere, they just know how to avoid that completely?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Shardcast Interview (July 30, 2023)

 

6 hours ago, robardin said:

Like, say you're Kar the Inquisitor who just witnessed "poor Bendal" getting decapitated by Kelsier at the "Square of the Survivor". You rush in to extract some of his spikes for potential reuse, the hard-to-obtain ones for Feruchemy he happened to have for example; then realize in frustration that you didn't have the usual jar of fresh human blood as a preservative because nobody had expected Kelsier to actually WIN that fight, ...

...and then you spy the chicken clucking quietly in on a curb while the Lord Ruler appeared in his coach to quell the surge of exultant and rebellious skaa.

Hello!

Poor chicken. It totally didn't have to join the brotherhood of Inquisitors as spikes left in a dead body will prevent a decay from happening anyway. It's a waste of good meat! There is no need for Kar to rush to extract Bendal's spikes. 

[BlueWildRye he/him]

Quote

 

Spoiler

Vin spun around as someone approached from behind. An inquisitor. The chicken stood imposingly, one spike going through both its eyes. Then it clucked once, and flung itself at her, burning 5 different metals at once.

-completely factual quote from Mistborn: Secret History 2

 

 

[+robardin he/him]

13 hours ago, alder24 said:

Poor chicken. It totally didn't have to join the brotherhood of Inquisitors as spikes left in a dead body will prevent a decay from happening anyway. It's a waste of good meat! There is no need for Kar to rush to extract Bendal's spikes. 

Haha. Well, apparently there was no steak handy either. I didn’t realize the spikes wouldn’t decay if simply left in the dead body, though!

[Shadow of Electrum he/him]

Imagine the Lord ruler wanted a more covert way to spy on the skaa and so decided to make a singular chicken into a full inquisitor. Now we have a fully sentient, full Mistborn chicken with Ruin's own bloodlust out there hunting for skaa mistings as a complete edge case character. Imagine the chicken shows up during the final fight with the Lord ruler when he starts to call the inquisitors into his throne room and it starts causing chaos with pewter boosted peck attacks.

(Hoping this doesn't count as thread necromancy but this is just a really funny thread)

[LightRinger he/him]

I wonder if Scadrians know about chickens, and how they can survive beheadings. Imagine an Inquisitorial chicken surviving a beheading

-I need to post a theory now, this got me thinking, continue-

and still killing everyone 

Edited June 21, 2024 by LightRinger

[Koloss17 She/They]

7 hours ago, LightRinger said:

I wonder if Scadrians know about chickens, and how they can survive beheadings. Imagine an Inquisitorial chicken surviving a beheading

Lord Ruler but a chicken. The AU where everyone’s a chicken is eating today.

[reisleK she/her]

On 5/29/2024 at 5:28 PM, Through The Living Glass said:

My first thought when I got here:

  Hide contents

The Lord Rooster

 

HAH I LOVE THIS

[Through The Living Glass She/They]

12 minutes ago, reisleK said:

HAH I LOVE THIS

Ahhhh thanks my guy 

[Lightning-jeh]

A steel inquisi-duck has entered the chat...

[momadrac they/them]

Hi so here's a theory (no idea if it can work or not)

But

What if there was a way you could hemalurgically take the intelligence/sapience from a human, give it to the chicken, then turn the chicken into a Steel Inquisabird? 

[Trusk'our he/him]

43 minutes ago, momadrac said:

Hi so here's a theory (no idea if it can work or not)

But

What if there was a way you could hemalurgically take the intelligence/sapience from a human, give it to the chicken, then turn the chicken into a Steel Inquisabird? 

This should be possible.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/105-17th-shard-forum-qa/#e1089

Satsuoni

Is it possible to give cats intelligence with Hemalurgy? Or transfer cat's identity to a human?

Brandon Sanderson

Hemalurgy can do some very, very odd things. And the endowment of intelligence is a common result of tinkering with Shard-based magic.

Note that Hemalurgy is ridiculously complex when dealing with actual biological attributes, so you could do it, but you'd need some way to get the knowledge of where and what spikes to use.

[momadrac they/them]

On 9/19/2025 at 8:16 PM, Trusk'our said:

This should be possible.

  Hide contents

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/105-17th-shard-forum-qa/#e1089

Satsuoni

Is it possible to give cats intelligence with Hemalurgy? Or transfer cat's identity to a human?

Brandon Sanderson

Hemalurgy can do some very, very odd things. And the endowment of intelligence is a common result of tinkering with Shard-based magic.

Note that Hemalurgy is ridiculously complex when dealing with actual biological attributes, so you could do it, but you'd need some way to get the knowledge of where and what spikes to use.

 

 

Spoiler

Unfortunately, I don't think anyone in the cosmere is as obsessed with Steel Inquisabirds as they could be...

 

Edited September 24, 2025 by momadrac

[BlueWildRye he/him]

10 minutes ago, momadrac said:

Unfortunately, I don't think anyone in the cosmere is as obsessed with Steel Inquisabirds as they could be...

Potential mild IOTE spoilers?

Spoiler

Well, the Scadrians certainly like birds... And hemalurgy...

Steel Inquisibirds in Mistborn Era 3 when???

Brandon needs to see this thread

[momadrac they/them]

12 minutes ago, BlueWildRye said:

Potential mild IOTE spoilers?

 

IOTE?

 

12 minutes ago, BlueWildRye said:

Brandon needs to see this thread

Hmmmmm yes absolutely 

[Treamayne]

40 minutes ago, momadrac said:

IOTE?

IE = IED = IotE = SP5 = Isles of the Emberdark 
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