Can you soulcast into silver? And related soulcasting questions

[AltonicKeys he/him]

1. Silver being basically an investiture killer, is it something you can soulcast into? I get that it would be hard soulcasting silver into something else, but what about turning something into silver? Would it stop mid-transformation or something? I know aluminum can be created, but insulating is different from destroying.

2. If not soul casting, what about forgery? Could silver/aluminum hold the stamp at all after transforming?

3. How would soulcasting work in the spiritual realm? Not manifesting, but actively turning something into something else via the Transformation surge. Like, try turning one of those obsidian plants into bread. You don't really have a bead to communicate with, right?

4. Soulcasting is a very quick process, where spheres are drained fast enough to crack the gem. What if you limited the rate of Light being supplied? Would you see a boulder slowly dissolve into water? Or would the transformation just not work, like a reaction without enough heat?

[Trusk'our he/him]

2 hours ago, AltonicKeys said:

1. Silver being basically an investiture killer, is it something you can soulcast into? I get that it would be hard soulcasting silver into something else, but what about turning something into silver? Would it stop mid-transformation or something? I know aluminum can be created, but insulating is different from destroying.

2. If not soul casting, what about forgery? Could silver/aluminum hold the stamp at all after transforming?

Note that silver does not destroy Investiture, but merely disrupts it for a short time.

It's deadly to things like Shades, but Spren themselves would only be "killed" for a short time before reforming.

Spoiler

Dragonsteel 2023 - Arcanum

Questioner

Does silver break Connection or bonds? If silver does have this effect, does it get used in the creation of unkeyed metalminds?

Brandon Sanderson

These are good questions. Silver, as I have it right now, is not capable of that. What silver's doing is is disrupting. It's more like interference. You know how, in White Sand, people can have these columns of sand. If you swiped silver through that, they would fall; but then they would be able to do it again. It's this little nullification for a short time. It's very dangerous to things like shades, and stuff like that. It's more disruptive. If you hit a spren with this, it would be like hitting them with a Shardblade. They're gonna come back together. They're not dead; they're gonna reform eventually, and probably won't take too long. So it's not severing Connection; you're gonna need anti-Investiture to do really destructive stuff. But you can disrupt with some silver. It's specifically bad for Shades for reasons maybe I'll get into someday.

 

Edited May 14, 2025 by Trusk'our
Added the rest of the WoB.

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

1 hour ago, AltonicKeys said:

2. If not soul casting, what about forgery? Could silver/aluminum hold the stamp at all after transforming?

Aluminum is Ralkest (they are the same. Yes it is confusing)