Feruchemicalities and Radiantalities.

[Through the Living Wrath he/him]

Say you were an Aluminum Ferring. Forgot their name.

BUT

Invested healing (In this case twould be a edgedancer) works by Identity - if a wound is part of your Identity, then it doesn’t get healed.

BUT

Say you put all your identity in a metalmind.

I assume that the healing wouldn’t work.

But what about when you tapped it?

Or could you selectively store different aspects of your identity?

[Trusk'our he/him]

57 minutes ago, SpiritOfWrath said:

Say you were an Aluminum Ferring. Forgot their name.

BUT

Invested healing (In this case twould be a edgedancer) works by Identity - if a wound is part of your Identity, then it doesn’t get healed.

BUT

Say you put all your identity in a metalmind.

I assume that the healing wouldn’t work.

But what about when you tapped it?

Or could you selectively store different aspects of your identity?

Good questions. 

We don't know a lot about Trueselves or the extent of their power yet, but we do know that simply blanking Identity and healing won't typically change how the healing works, as self-perception will still be there.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/508-dragonsteel-2022/#e15854

Questioner

We know that magical healing has a lot to do with Identity, like Lopen and Rysn. Suppose someone was tapping Identity from an unkeyed metalmind, and then you tried to heal them with any kind of magical healing. What would happen?

Brandon Sanderson

Most likely, that person’s perspective of themself is going to filter that unkeyed metalmind, and so what’s going to happen is what would normally happen to that person. In most instances. There are ways to get around that, but the vast majority, that’s what you’re gonna see.

Questioner

And if they were storing Identity instead?

Brandon Sanderson

Then you’re gonna go back to their Cognitive picture of themselves, which is going to be what’s filtering this, how they see themselves. If you knock them unconscious, they can’t see themselves, you’re blanking them of Identity, and things like that. They still, basically, will have… it’s gonna be really hard to get that all separated. The mental picture of themselves still exists on the Spiritual Realm. Remember, Realmatics is based on Plato’s theories of the forms, but your perspective is what’s shaping that. So there’s still gonna be, like, on the Spiritual Realm, there’s gonna be some version of yourself that is deeply influenced by how you view yourself that is going to be what that Investiture is trying to match, it’s trying to bring your body into alignment with that. So you’ve gotta replace that thing if you want it to do something different. Which you can do with Hemalurgy.

As for storing only specific portions of Identity, maybe.

It probably depends on whether an Identity can be broken down into smaller, discrete Feruchemical attributes (like senses or Connections) and how skilled the Trueself is.

Personally, I'd guess that it is possible, but would take practice and a knowledge of what they were trying to do Realmatically. 

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

21 hours ago, SpiritOfWrath said:

Say you were an Aluminum Ferring. Forgot their name.

BUT

Invested healing (In this case twould be a edgedancer) works by Identity - if a wound is part of your Identity, then it doesn’t get healed.

BUT

Say you put all your identity in a metalmind.

I assume that the healing wouldn’t work.

But what about when you tapped it?

Or could you selectively store different aspects of your identity?

Well, we don't actually know if you can tap an aluminum metalmind. Cause its, ya know, aluminum. Also, I don't think aluminum can be unkeyed.

[Through the Living Wrath he/him]

13 minutes ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

Well, we don't actually know if you can tap an aluminum metalmind. Cause its, ya know, aluminum. Also, I don't think aluminum can be unkeyed.

It wouldn’t need to be unkeyed - and you can (prolly) tap/store, since Khriss has written about it.

If it were silver, which, to my understanding, breaks connections, that would prolly not work. But aluminum blocks the investiture.

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

57 minutes ago, SpiritOfWrath said:

It wouldn’t need to be unkeyed - and you can (prolly) tap/store, since Khriss has written about it.

If it were silver, which, to my understanding, breaks connections, that would prolly not work. But aluminum blocks the investiture.

I know you can store, otherwise how would you know it would be feruchemical, but I don't think you can tap, because the aluminum would block the feruchemical flow.

[Through the Living Wrath he/him]

Just now, CoderDrag0n8 said:

I know you can store, otherwise how would you know it would be feruchemical, but I don't think you can tap, because the aluminum would block the feruchemical flow.

No - I checked the coppermind. You can tap.

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

7 minutes ago, SpiritOfWrath said:

No - I checked the coppermind. You can tap.

Ah. Okay.

[Treamayne]

10 minutes ago, SpiritOfWrath said:

You can tap.

2 minutes ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

Ah. Okay.

Clarification - most fans beleive that it can be tapped. WoBs:

Spoiler

Quote

Calderis

Feruchemical aluminum stores and taps a marker that seems to suffuse all Investiture within a person, removing or strengthening Identity. Does Feruchemical duralumin work similarly? Does tapping connection while storing in a metalmind increase the connection of the Investiture stored?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO. Mostly because I've got a main character who's going to be doing this, I'm not going to spoil the fun or lock myself down yet.

Skype Q&A (Oct. 8, 2018)

Quote

Paleo

Does aluminum actually store Identity or is it more like a sink so you just dump it in and it poofs away.

Brandon Sanderson

I'll RAFO that for now. Sorry, I want to get into that eventually.

Prague Signing (Oct. 26, 2019)

 

People have asked questions assuming that a Trueself can tap, and Brandon has not corrected the assumption - but all answers have been RAFOs, so we do not have any actual evidence that an Aluminum Metalmind can be tapped. We expect these answers in Era 3. . .

Edited April 27, 2025 by Treamayne