Nicrosil Compounding

[Emberofthediner]

Theoretically, since nicrosil ferrings can store investiture, could a compounder create more investiture? How would this apply to investiture types such as breath and stormlight?

 

[Treamayne]

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7 hours ago, Emberofthediner said:

Theoretically, since nicrosil ferrings can store investiture, could a compounder create more investiture? How would this apply to investiture types such as breath and stormlight?

We do not have those answers.  Most things about Nicrosil are RAFOed. The only things we know for-sure are:

• Fabrial (Medallion) Nicrosil stores and taps discrete chunks of Investiture (like a Coppermind and Memories)
• A Ferring's use of Nicrosil is similar, but not the same, as seen used in Medallions

Spoiler

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Necarion

Could a double-nicrosil Twinborn compound Breath or Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

Uh, you’re getting a RAFO card on that. You're getting SUCH a RAFO card on that!

Arcanum Unbounded San Francisco signing (Nov. 30, 2016)

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Pagerunner

When you tap the nicrosil portion of a medallion, will it run out over time? Or is it like a coppermind, where something discrete is taken, used, and returned?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question! Like a coppermind.

General Signed Books 2018 (Oct. 15, 2018)

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Questioner

So nicrosil.  Wax couldn’t use a blank gold metalmind because he’s not a gold ferring, why can he use a blank nicrosil metalmind?

Brandon Sanderson

So this will all come out eventually but the idea is there are certain ways to connect yourself to magic, to hack the magic and make it think you have the Spiritual DNA that you don’t actually have.  And this is one of the ways.

Questioner

So then the people who made this medallion have this thing that a regular nicrosil Ferring couldn’t--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, you’re picking up on it. We’ll dig deeper into it as the series progresses.

Calamity Seattle signing (Feb. 17, 2016)

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Calderis

Does the nicrosil portion of the medallions function identitically to how a Soulbearer Ferring would use Nicrosil? 

Brandon Sanderson

Not exactly. The medallion is a little more restrictive, for one thing.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 31, 2018)

 

 

If, instead, you want to theorycraft ideas, then I suggest using Cosmere Discussion as Q&A is a place for discrete questions, not theorycrafting and brainstorming. 

Hope that helps

[alder24]

9 hours ago, Emberofthediner said:

Theoretically, since nicrosil ferrings can store investiture, could a compounder create more investiture? How would this apply to investiture types such as breath and stormlight?

As Treamayne said, we don't know. What we know is that nicrosil stores Allomancy, Feruchemy, Surgebidning, Divine Breath (but regular Breaths were RAFO'd) etc - powers and innate investiture are confirmed, but raw kinetic investiture is not. Because of that I personally believe that you can't store raw investiture, you can't store Stormlight, you can't compound it. You can store your Allomantic strength just like you can store your speed in a steelmind and tap it later to become stronger. But that's what I believe would happen, we don't know if normal nicrosil works like a coppermind (Malwish Medallion) or like any other metalmind (like a steelmind).

Spoiler

kingbirdy (paraphrased)

Could Feruchemical nicrosil be used to store other Invested abilities, such as a Returned Breath or the abilities of the Knights Radiant?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, that's possible.

DragonCon 2016 (Sept. 4, 2016)

 

Spoiler

Oversleep

Could a Feruchemist hide from Lifesense by storing and which metals?

Brandon Sanderson

So Lifesense on Nalthis, someone storing, what now, Investiture? Could they hide from Lifesense? Um, yeah that would work.

Oversleep

And which metals would they need to store, Investiture, Connection…

Brandon Sanderson

That would probably be Investiture, that’s theoretically plausible, hiding your entire sense, a little bit easier with a copper cloud, which is how you would normally go about it, but you could make your Investiture vanish to the point that… yeah I think that’s theoretically possible.

Oversleep

So Lifesense works on Connection?

Brandon Sanderson

Lifesense works by sensing… life, so it’s not necessarily just Connection because you can go off-world from Nalthis and still sense the life to which you are not Connected.

Kraków signing (March 21, 2017)