Tattooing a soul stamp

[Atlas333]

Would tattooing a soul stamp have a different effect than just stamping someone? Really stamping is just a delivery method for getting an ink pattern onto a person's body. I see little reason why tattoo wouldn't be a viable alternative.

The bigger question is would this act differently than a normal stamp and if yes how so? I think there are a few ways this could go.

1. The crazy idea is that this would make a soulstamp permanent While this is unlikely as souls change and grow constantly I wonder if it would be like when you tie a young tree to a large pole. It doesn't prevent the tree from growing but it does influence how the tree grows.

2. This could potentially just make the soulstamp last slightly longer but then what happens to the tattoo when the forgery wears off? Would it disappear or just remain inactive?

3. There is the possibility that this just straight-up doesn't work. I could see an argument that a stamp is like a command and it's given all at once. A tattoo instead would take hours to complete; I wonder if that would make the command incomplete. It's also likely that the medium doesn't matter as much because soul stamping is more about stamping the soul than it is about stamping the body.

4. The final possibility is that this does make a soulstamp permanent but it's not worth it. Part of what makes Shai so effective is how she can adapt to any situation by using a different essence mark. If she was locked into one essence mark it would actually be a downgrade.

I would love to hear other's thoughts.

[momadrac they/them]

I think that there's probably something in place to stop this from becoming overpowered, but I think that tattooing a soulstamp would make it permanent because it makes the soul believe that it was always that way.

I think that it would not be desired for most as well, because the process is long and arduous, and you would need another person, as well as the problem if the tattooist makes a mistake, it is both on your skin for the longest time + it doesn't have the intended effect. 

+ You would have to be that person forever. 

[Nitpicking]

Tattoos are not permanent. They change over time, and can be removed (at its most drastic, by cutting away the skin, or tattooing over it.)

Just to be confusing: a Forger could soulstamp the person to change their past, so they were never tattooed. Or that they were. If you hack the magic system by Forging a person to already have a tattoo of the same stamp, would that make it semi-permanent?

 

("Hack the Magic System" TM and copyright Brandon Sanderson.)

[Treamayne]

On 9/19/2024 at 10:34 AM, Atlas333 said:

Would tattooing a soul stamp have a different effect than just stamping someone?

It is unlikely that a tattoo of a Soulstamp could function. With AonDor, you can make the Aon (solo or with Modifiers) out of any material and it will remain inert until an Elantrian activates it with Intent (like the Aon Ashe/Tia plates around Elantris). However, this is not true for Forgery, which requires the completed Stamp (or Linchpin Stamp to a completed work) to be Sealed with the Setting Mark and applied the entire design at once so that it can "sink" past the flesh to touch the Spiritweb and re-write the soul.

TES:

Spoiler

Day 12:

Quote

As always, the stamp sank slightly into the material. A soulstamp left a seal you could feel, regardless of the material. She twisted the stamp a half turn—this did not blur the ink, though she did not know why. One of her mentors had taught that it was because by this point the seal was touching the object’s soul and not its physical presence.

Day 30:

Quote

She engraved a series of quick marks on the back—the side opposite the elaborately carved front. The setting mark finished every soulstamp, indicating no more carving was to come. Shai had always fancied it to look like the shape of MaiPon, her homeland.

 

So, while it may be possible for an Elantrian to make Aon Tattoos function, A Soul Stamp would have to be a Brand of some kind (applying the entire Stamp) and that implement would have to have the correct Setting Marks on it. Unless we get a WoB otherwise, this does not seem possible based on current known information. 

WoB:

Spoiler

Questioner

If an Elantrian were to tattoo someone with an Aon with the intent of it working...

Brandon Sanderson

Could that work? Yes... you could make that work. There is some trouble with moving some Aons around, so it's gonna depend on how you're building and things, but you can make that work.

Tel Aviv Signing (Oct. 18, 2019)

Hope that helps