Theories on Investiture/Invested Arts 1: The Mechanics of Unsealed Metalminds

[DracoAdamantus he/him]

This originally began as part of a much, much longer theory, but the further I slowly descended into madness dug into what things we know for certain about the functions and manipulations of the spiritual aspects of investiture, the less satisfied I saw with what I came up with (it took far too many assumptions to make it all click together).

So instead, I have parsed it down to where the original theory began, exploring how the Malwish feruchemical medallions actually function. This will likely be the first theory of several as I untangle the mad web I have woven.

I have a feeling a lot of the actual mechanics will be explained in future Scadrial eras, and prove significant portions of this theory wrong. But I wanted to see what I could come up with based upon our current understanding of the mechanics of metallic arts and spiritual manipulation.

The big questions I set out to find an answer for here are:

• Mechanically, how do unsealed metalminds function?
• How can the nicrosilminds be tapped for an ability without being a nicrosil ferring?

What We Already Know
First, let’s go over some information we already know, or can infer from WoBs or from multiple clues placed together.

• The nicrosil portions of the medallions don’t run out over time, they work like copperminds (the investiture is tapped, then stored again). 
  Spoiler

  Quote

  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)

• It is possible for a full twinborn or even one mistborn and one seeker to make a medallion on their own, but it is easier with hemalurgy
  Spoiler

  Quote

  Mojonero

  Back before the Final Ascension, if you had a full Feruchemist and a Mistborn, both with access and knowledge of all 16 metals, could they make medallions without the use of Hemalurgy?

  Brandon Sanderson

  If they knew what to do maybe. Much easier with Hemalurgy - but it would be possible.

  Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021)

  This tells us that, since hemalurgy is helpful but not required, no part of the medallions are constructed from hemalurgic spikes.

• It is possible to make a medallion with 32 separate mistings and ferrings
  Spoiler

  Quote

  Yata

  If you have 32 Misting and Ferring, every kind possible, without using Hemalurgy, you can craft a medallion? Without the aftermath of the--

  Brandon Sanderson

  So could you craft a medallion... without-- oh. That should be possible, but this is one of the things where I have to dig out the notes and double-check myself. But this should be possible.

  Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017)

  This, as well as the previous WoB, tells us that the excisors more than likely just replicate the abilities of certain mistings & ferrings (which I assume to be done through some form of hemalurgy)

• Unsealed metalminds have an identity and sort of life-force of their own, which is what lets them be used while sleeping
  Spoiler

  Quote

  Raddatatta

  In Era 1, Sazed says the only thing you can Feruchemically store while sleeping is wakefulness, but in Era 2 they have the sky ships that require everyone to be storing weight to fly and they don't land while people sleep. Was Sazed just wrong, or is that a difference between normal Feruchemy and using the unsealed metalminds?

  Brandon Sanderson

  Unsealed metalminds, I am moving toward complete—you probably already guessed this—mechanical uses of Investiture, and this indeed is a step toward that. And so we are stepping toward having a little machine that gives you powers. That's what the world wants to try to find. And this is—this being mechanical—we'll just say that the medallions and the things that they're building have more of a life-force, more of an Identity of their own than a traditional metalmind does, even though they're unkeyed and all of this stuff.

  YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

  What I infer from this is that the metalminds can regulate the tapping/storage process on their own, as long as the user had the correct intent.

• Unsealed metalminds use a "connection hack" to trick the investiture into thinking you are able to use it
  Spoiler

  Quote

  controlled_slide

  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.

  controlled_slide

  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)

  This also implies that there is something special about the nicrosilminds in the medallions that functions differently from a regular nicrosilmind, aside from being identity-blanked

• Creating an unsealed metalmind requires feruchemical duralumin
  Spoiler

  Quote

  Questioner

  Does creating unsealed metalmind involve Feruchemical duralumin?

  Brandon Sanderson

  (hesitating)...Yes. I will write it all out for you eventually. I want to get at least one more book done, then you find out exactly why and how.

  Questioner

  Because I was pretty confused about the Investiture and Spiritweb...

  Brandon Sanderson

  Here is the reason I'm kind of hesitant of this, [why not you just RAFO this one right now], but it is not a RAFO, because it is like it's a secret. I want to write it out exactly how it happens, because I have it in my notes in bullet points and it's complicated, right? Cause I want some of the things in the magic system as be as complicated as for instance explaining how a computer works right now. You can do it, but you know...I want the magic to start getting that technical if that makes sense. When you say "involve", right, that's a big word. Why just don't you let me, after lost metal...if I haven't released it, you have permission to come to me and say: "Brandon, you said you would release this, you haven't yet [...]" and I will give to you the bullet point flowchart of how you build the unkeyed metalminds.

  Leipzig Book Fair (March 24, 2017)

  We can infer that the feruchemical duralumin is not actually incorporated into the medallion, as the first heating medallions were explicitly stated by Allik in BoM to utilize only Nicrosil and Brass.

  Sanderson's additional explanation makes me think that this is significantly more complicated than storing your connection, it's some sort of advanced connection manipulation.

With that all out of the way, now to get to the theory itself.

Mechanics of Unsealed Metalminds
The short and simple explanation is I believe that the actual powers granted by the medallions (that is, the ability to use a certain feruchemical power) are granted not like tapping a metalmind, but more like a spren granting surges. Even though Sanderson said it operates more like a coppermind, I believe this was in the sense that it is a distinct thing being used and put back, rather than a span of time that the attribute was stored for. But I do NOT think that the user of the metalmind is actually tapping the nicrosilmind and withdrawing the investiture, and thus would not need to be a nicrosil ferring to do so.

As for how that happens? I have a few ideas, though it gets a pretty complicated at best and downright convoluted at worst. 

Metalmind Identity
The most common assumption is that the nicrosilmind stores identity-blanked investiture, so anyone that can tap it (a nicrosil ferring) could utilize it. WoB also confirms that unsealed metalminds have an identity of their own. I believe that the process of creating an identity-blanked nicrosil metalmind, with the proper intent of creating an unsealed metalmind, does something similar to awakening. Operating off of the premise that investiture has a sort of baseline sentience, putting a large amount of investiture (brought on by compounding nicrosil) into a metalmind could cause it to gain a sort of consciousness. Not full sentience like Nightblood, or even a more animalistic intelligence like emotion spren, but just a basic awareness. More like a simple computer program than a thinking mind. Not much, but enough to have an identity of its own. The intent you use when you store that investiture leaves an imprint on it so to speak, and the result is stored investiture with two main intents to its identity: “I am a metalmind” and  “I want to be utilized”.

This awareness is what allows them to be tapped/filled while sleeping. Even when you aren't conscious, the metalmind is, and continues functioning based on the last intention you had with it before falling asleep (tapping, filling, or none). This "intention echo" (as I have come to call it) is vital to accessing the investiture. 

Accessing the Investiture
When it comes to accessing that investiture, I do not think that anyone is actually tapping the nicrosilminds to withdraw the investiture within. My two main arguments for this are:

1. Accessing the power in a medallion is automatic. Upon having the correct intent, you automatically gain the powers within. Additionally, releasing a medallion automatically stops access to those powers. If someone were tapping the investiture, they’d need to put it back into the medallion themselves, or they would likely be able to just withdraw the investiture and permanently have it.
2. When people use the medallions, they describe feeling the pool of the stored attribute, but never the pool of the stored investiture. When Wax realizes the coin is a metalmind at the end of BoM, what he feels is described in detail, and he does not feel the presence of a pool of investiture, tap it, then upon gaining the ability feel the pool of stored memories. He only feels the memories, and taps them.

But then how does a person get access to that investiture without tapping it? I believe that the connection manipulation at play can allow a person to access investiture that is still contained within the metalminds

There’s many different kinds of connection, and how exactly it functions remains incredibly ambiguous, but I think there are two specific connections at play here.

1. The connection between a feruchemist and their metalminds. This is what allows a feruchemist to store and tap attributes just from physical contact with their metalminds.
2. The connection between a Scadrian and their innate investiture (a sliver of Preservation), or even their connection to Preservation itself. This is what causes the spiritual DNA to read as Scadrian. I believe that, if stored while identity blanked, then anyone who accesses that connection would effectively read as having the spiritual DNA of a Scadrian.

I believe that even in medallions that do not specifically store connection for a given purpose (the translator medallions), there is still connection within them, in the same way that there would be connection between a regular metalmind and its creator. That is, not connection that can be tapped, but connection that takes place in all feruchemy. This is one place I think the excisors come into play. I believe that one of the functions of the excisors (I’ll go into more thoughts on them in a future post) is that during the filling of the nicrosilmind with identity-blanked investiture, they are used to sever that connection between the feruchemist and the metalmind, and between the Scadrian and the innate investiture itself. This leaves the feruchemist end of the connections “open”, with both the investiture and its connections still identity-blanked.

It could be possible that anyone holding onto the medallion would effectively “slot-in” to the open ends of the connections, connecting them to the investiture within. Because the investiture is identity blanked, it identifies anyone touching the metalmind as “their feruchemist”. So now, in this closed system, we have:

• A person
• A metalmind storing innate Scadrian investiture (the feruchemical power)
• The connection between a feruchemist and their metalminds
• The connection between a person and that Scadrian investiture

I believe that when these four factors are all together, the quasi-conscious investiture, having its own identity and intent, doesn't know whether it is stored in a metalmind or a person's spiritweb. All it knows is that it is connected to a person that (it believes) has the capability to use Scadrian investiture, and therefore allows the person to utilize them through the connection to the metalmind.

If it were a fully thinking entity, I assume the thought process would work something like this:

1. "I am a metalmind, and I'm connected to this person, so they must be my feruchemist"
2. "I am Scadrian investiture, and there's a connection to Scadrial in this person, so they must be capable of using me"
3. "I am connected to this person, and this person is connected to Scadrial, so I must be an ability that they possess"

This establishes how the "connection hack" tricks the investiture into believing that it is a part of the spiritweb of the user. But how can someone utilize the stored abilities if the innate investiture is not actually within them? Well, what's something we've seen investiture that has come alive have a tendency to do? Give abilities through a bond. I believe that a combination of the connection hack and the investiture's own identity allows that connection between a feruchemist and their metalminds to act as a bond of sorts, similar to a Nahel or Luhel bond, but its own distinct third type of bond. 

Earlier I described a sort of "intention echo", in which the investiture acts upon the user's last intent to allow the minds to be filled/tapped while unconscious. I believe the core of what makes that work is the investiture remaining stored within the metalmind. You are not actually directly tapping/storing an attribute, your intent to tap/store is felt by the investiture which then carries that action out, using the bond between the metalmind and its feruchemist to give/take attributes from the user.

Functionally, this is no different than if you possessed the ability itself, the only difference is that the investiture has its own identity and intent separate from your own, and will continually carry out its most recently received intent until either a new one is given or no longer finds itself connected to a feruchemist  (ie. when you break contact with the metalmind). This is what allows it to operate while sleeping, by being physically stored outside of your spiritweb, you are not actually the one doing the feruchemy, the investiture itself is, directed by your intent.

Closing Thoughts
So yeah, like I said, pretty complicated and possibly convoluted.  There's a lot of assumptions made, but I tried to stick as best as I could to our broad understanding of the various spiritual aspects at play. If the broad idea of this is correct, then we have an explanation for one of the big questions of the medallions. 

Let me know what you think! My next theory on this topic will likely be a next step on the medallions, regarding how they are created, and a few theories on both the properties of creation of the excisors.

Edited October 22, 2025 by DracoAdamantus
Formatting, Title

[BigBadBagsworth He/him/his]

My thoughts on seeing your description of a being of semi sentient investiture inhabiting a metalmind:

Also, something I’ve long wondered about. 
We know from the end of RoW that Nightblood can destroy connections, at least if they’re saturated in investiture, and that the connection from a feruchemist to a metalmind becomes saturated while they are tapping or filling said metalmind. Do you think you could use Nightblood to make an unkeyed metalmind this way? Would it be identical, similar, or vastly different?

[DracoAdamantus he/him]

On 10/16/2025 at 9:41 PM, BigBadBagsworth said:

We know from the end of RoW that Nightblood can destroy connections, at least if they’re saturated in investiture, and that the connection from a feruchemist to a metalmind becomes saturated while they are tapping or filling said metalmind.

Wait a second. Do you have sources for either of those things (more importantly the where it actually discusses a feruchemist's connection to metalminds)? That would be a significant piece of canon information for what I'm writing up, I've been mostly speculating on metalmind connection for this theory.

On 10/16/2025 at 9:41 PM, BigBadBagsworth said:

Do you think you could use Nightblood to make an unkeyed metalmind this way? Would it be identical, similar, or vastly different?

I would say it depends if Nightblood doesn't drink all the investiture in the time it takes to sever the connection. However I would say that if it works, it would be somewhere between slightly and vastly different, simply because Nightblood is a big question mark when it comes to a lot of investiture interactions, given how it has been evolving.

Edited October 20, 2025 by DracoAdamantus

[Trusk'our he/him]

On 10/16/2025 at 11:28 AM, DracoAdamantus said:

Accessing the Investiture
When it comes to accessing that investiture, I do not think that anyone is actually tapping the nicrosilminds to withdraw the investiture within. My two main arguments for this are:

1. Accessing the power in a medallion is automatic. Upon having the correct intent, you automatically gain the powers within. Additionally, releasing a medallion automatically stops access to those powers. If someone were tapping the investiture, they’d need to put it back into the medallion themselves, or they would likely be able to just withdraw the investiture and permanently have it.
2. When people use the medallions, they describe feeling the pool of the stored attribute, but never the pool of the stored investiture. When Wax realizes the coin is a metalmind at the end of BoM, what he feels is described in detail, and he does not feel the presence of a pool of investiture, tap it, then upon gaining the ability feel the pool of stored memories. He only feels the memories, and taps them.

But then how does a person get access to that investiture without tapping it? I believe that the connection manipulation at play can allow a person to access investiture that is still contained within the metalminds

There’s many different kinds of connection, and how exactly it functions remains incredibly ambiguous, but I think there are two specific connections at play here.

1. The connection between a feruchemist and their metalminds. This is what allows a feruchemist to store and tap attributes just from physical contact with their metalminds.
2. The connection between a Scadrian and their innate investiture (a sliver of Preservation), or even their connection to Preservation itself. This is what causes the spiritual DNA to read as Scadrian. I believe that, if stored while identity blanked, then anyone who accesses that connection would effectively read as having the spiritual DNA of a Scadrian.

. . .

This establishes how the "connection hack" tricks the investiture into believing that it is a part of the spiritweb of the user. But how can someone utilize the stored abilities if the innate investiture is not actually within them? Well, what's something we've seen investiture that has come alive have a tendency to do? Give abilities through a bond. I believe that a combination of the connection hack and the investiture's own identity allows that connection between a feruchemist and their metalminds to act as a bond of sorts, similar to a Nahel or Luhel bond, but its own distinct third type of bond. 

We have some confirmation via WoB that Unsealed Metalminds utilize a similar mechanic to that of the Honorblades, using a type of bond to grant access to the stores of attributes within. So your line of reasoning should be correct.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/331-orem-signing/#e9408

Questioner

Do Honorblades bestow their abilities similar to an Identity-free nicrosilmind with other Metalborn abilities?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, these are working on similar principles. Same principle, divergent applications by the magic system, but yeah, I would say, they come back to the same principles.

 

On 10/16/2025 at 11:28 AM, DracoAdamantus said:

Metalmind Identity
The most common assumption is that the nicrosilmind stores identity-blanked investiture, so anyone that can tap it (a nicrosil ferring) could utilize it. WoB also confirms that unsealed metalminds have an identity of their own. I believe that the process of creating an identity-blanked nicrosil metalmind, with the proper intent of creating an unsealed metalmind, does something similar to awakening. Operating off of the premise that investiture has a sort of baseline sentience, putting a large amount of investiture (brought on by compounding nicrosil) into a metalmind could cause it to gain a sort of consciousness. Not full sentience like Nightblood, or even a more animalistic intelligence like emotion spren, but just a basic awareness. More like a simple computer program than a thinking mind. Not much, but enough to have an identity of its own. The intent you use when you store that investiture leaves an imprint on it so to speak, and the result is stored investiture with two main intents to its identity: “I am a metalmind” and  “I want to be utilized”.

This awareness is what allows them to be tapped/filled while sleeping. Even when you aren't conscious, the metalmind is, and continues functioning based on the last intention you had with it before falling asleep (tapping, filling, or none). This "intention echo" (as I have come to call it) is vital to accessing the investiture. 

I believe this makes sense. I have my own thoughts on this area, which I'll post last.

I think it's also possible that the Unsealed Metalminds having an Identity of their own wouldn't necessarily interfere with their Unsealed status for letting people tap them- if a Metalmind is heavily Invested and left to its own devices long enough, it will develop its own Identity. However, even consisting of the Investiture of the Feruchemist its Identity appears to be separate from the Investiture that makes it up.

In other words, I think the Feruchemist could still tap that Investiture (which if it was initially blank means anyone with the relevant Feruchemical power could do so) even with that Investiture having a mind, autonomy, and new Identity of its own.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/368-skyward-san-diego-signing/#e11607

Questioner

If someone were to create a human shape, with full articulations, made out of the four Feruchemical Spiritual metals and copper and do like a full dump into them, would it be able to-- I mean, Investiture attains sapience on its own. And then with-- If those were mixed with the memories in the copper would it be able to effectively become an android of the person who created it?

Brandon Sanderson

So we got a couple of issues you have to overcome in creating this. Number one, the memories are not going to attune to the Investiture itself, they're going to be attuned to you. The Investiture as it attains sapience is gonna create its own Identity, which is then going to be a mismatch for those memories. So you would have to find a way to get those memories to work for that creation.

Questioner

It wouldn't tie with the Identity that was stored in the aluminum?

Brandon Sanderson

No, it would not... The other thing you were getting at there though, is that just Investing it alone, you would have to leave it alone for a long time, naturally, for it to start developing anything. And so we're looking at thousands of years, probably. There are ways to speed that process along, but just doing that and leaving it, it's gonna take a while.

 

On 10/16/2025 at 11:28 AM, DracoAdamantus said:

But then how does a person get access to that investiture without tapping it? I believe that the connection manipulation at play can allow a person to access investiture that is still contained within the metalminds

There’s many different kinds of connection, and how exactly it functions remains incredibly ambiguous, but I think there are two specific connections at play here.

1. The connection between a feruchemist and their metalminds. This is what allows a feruchemist to store and tap attributes just from physical contact with their metalminds.
2. The connection between a Scadrian and their innate investiture (a sliver of Preservation), or even their connection to Preservation itself. This is what causes the spiritual DNA to read as Scadrian. I believe that, if stored while identity blanked, then anyone who accesses that connection would effectively read as having the spiritual DNA of a Scadrian.

I believe that even in medallions that do not specifically store connection for a given purpose (the translator medallions), there is still connection within them, in the same way that there would be connection between a regular metalmind and its creator. That is, not connection that can be tapped, but connection that takes place in all feruchemy. This is one place I think the excisors come into play. I believe that one of the functions of the excisors (I’ll go into more thoughts on them in a future post) is that during the filling of the nicrosilmind with identity-blanked investiture, they are used to sever that connection between the feruchemist and the metalmind, and between the Scadrian and the innate investiture itself. This leaves the feruchemist end of the connections “open”, with both the investiture and its connections still identity-blanked.

It could be possible that anyone holding onto the medallion would effectively “slot-in” to the open ends of the connections, connecting them to the investiture within. Because the investiture is identity blanked, it identifies anyone touching the metalmind as “their feruchemist”. So now, in this closed system, we have:

• A person
• A metalmind storing innate Scadrian investiture (the feruchemical power)
• The connection between a feruchemist and their metalminds
• The connection between a person and that Scadrian investiture

My current thought on Medallions is that they probably require strong Connections forged during their creation so that the perception and Intent of their creator(s) can properly shape it.

Some Stormlight Archive spoilers: 

Spoiler

Spren respond to people's thoughts about them, which appears to hinge on Connection.

I think it's possible that when creating an Unsealed Metalmind that another Metalmind granting access to Feruchemical duralumin (i.e. what I suspect the Excisors to be, along with Feruchemical nicrosil and aluminum mashed into a single device) is used to Connect the Metalborn filling the Nicrosilmind to that Investiture. That added Connection would allow a stronger influence to be imprinted on it, perhaps helping shape it into a rudimentary Spren-ish being. A little bit like how a Radiant Spren can either use a single really strong Connection to a human or Singer to retain sapience in the Physical Realm, or they can rely on many smaller Connections that are formed by other people through thought and awareness alone.

Spoiler

Wind and Truth chapter 127 epigraph:

127

"I know that to this day, people are confused by how at the end, spren began arriving in the East without the need for bonds. Notum, now among the most famous of honorspren, is an example. The answer is simple, however. As the lands began to think of them, and remember them, they needed less the bond of a single person to give them purchase in the Physical Realm. For the thoughts of an entire people bolstered them."

 

I also think, after considering it some more, that the iterations of Unsealed Metalminds in Era 2 don't rely on their own ability to form a bond with the user, but rather the user's Connection is enough to hack the nicrosil portion along with the Metalmind's preset Intent.

Unsealed Metalminds can only be used when the user in question thinks about it- possibly forming a Connection through their awareness and perception, which is just enough to sense what's within and give the Metalmind a path to empower them. The Metalmind's nicrosil may still need to be pre-programed to an extent, using the aforementioned duralumin hack, but I think this may be all that's needed.

I do think later models may use a stronger bonding mechanism, perhaps utilizing their own internal functions to create a stronger bond.

[DracoAdamantus he/him]

21 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

I also think, after considering it some more, that the iterations of Unsealed Metalminds in Era 2 don't rely on their own ability to form a bond with the user, but rather the user's Connection is enough to hack the nicrosil portion along with the Metalmind's preset Intent.

Unsealed Metalminds can only be used when the user in question thinks about it- possibly forming a Connection through their awareness and perception, which is just enough to sense what's within and give the Metalmind a path to empower them. The Metalmind's nicrosil may still need to be pre-programed to an extent, using the aforementioned duralumin hack, but I think this may be all that's needed.

This is more or less what I was getting at, I think. The investiture doesn't have enough identity to actually think and make decisions, it's not consciously choosing to form a bond. It's more like a program. When a person has the correct intent, they "slot in" to those open connections, the investiture detects being part of a system where it is connected to (what it believes to be) a Scadrian feruchemist, allowing the person the connected person to direct the power.