Screwing Over Moash's Spikes

[Trusk'our he/him]

Moash has what appears to be of exotic Hemalurgic spikes through his eyes, granting him Investiture-sight.

However, every instance of Hemalurgy we've seen creates cracks in the Spiritweb, allowing other things to wriggle in if they want. So, would Moash's spikes make him more vulnerable to certain things? If so, what stuff on Roshar might be able to exploit these cracks to their advantage- and his detriment?

 

If the spikes have to have some Connection to Ruin based off their nature (even if they do use non-Ruinous pieces of Investiture to function, as I suspect), could Harmony ever take a look at Moash in the potential conflict between him and Retribution and whisper thoughts into his head? There are other weird factors at play, such as distance and his Connection to another Shard (so at best it would probably just be little nudges), but still, might be possible.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/526-youtube-spoiler-stream-6/#e16371

Dimmadile

If a person used Hemalurgy with an Invested spike on another planet, could Harmony feel/control them?

Brandon Sanderson

This is theoretically possible, but it depends on if there’s a Shard in attendance on that planet and what kind of interference there would be. So, yeah, possible.

 

[DracoAdamantus he/him]

I've heard significant debate for both sides of the argument of if the spikes are technically hemalurgy or not. Even though hemalurgy can work on any world if you know of it and have the correct intent, the main point of contention is the fact it's still a metallic art, and Moash's spikes are crystal, not metal. I am of the opinion that they function on a hemalurgical premise, but are another "hack" of a magic system. Metals and gemstones have both been observed to be capable of storing investiture, and both have a crystalline structure to their atomic makeup (I have thoughts on how investiture storage works due to this, but that's for another post).

I think that they operate off of the hemalurgical premise of artificially attaching things to your spiritweb, but not using stolen attributes. I heard a theory some time ago that the spikes contained void spren.

That being said, even before the spikes that man almost certainly had a damaged spiritweb, and moreso now with the spikes. I think that he is more vulnerable to any myriad of invested beings. Most likely the Unmade. 

22 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

If the spikes have to have some Connection to Ruin based off their nature (even if they do use non-Ruinous pieces of Investiture to function, as I suspect), could Harmony ever take a look at Moash in the potential conflict between him and Retribution and whisper thoughts into his head?

I don't think connection to Ruin, or at least actively having a spike in you is strictly necessary, once there are cracks/holes in the spiritweb that path is open for things to slip in.

Paraphrasing from a comment on Reddit: In Secret History, Kelsier can send an entire vision at Spook (who had been spiked for a time but no longer had it at that moment), as long as Ruin isn't blocking the pathway. He can also communicate with someone mad by shouting at them in Cognitive Realm.

Having a spike certainly makes it easier though, and we see Bleeder communicate with Wax in Shadows of Self in the same way. So these two things together tell us:

1. A spike isn't necessary for a person to be whispered to through the cognitive/spiritual realm, they just need a damaged spiritweb.
2. Beings other than Ruin that can whisper thoughts into a damaged person's head.

[Stormtide_Leviathan]

On 10/27/2025 at 1:43 PM, DracoAdamantus said:

the main point of contention is the fact it's still a metallic art, and Moash's spikes are crystal, not metal

I'm not convinced this is as true as it seems. A big theme in mistborn is learning past misconceptions about the world, and the magic especially. I could believe that hemulurgy isn't, in fact, limited to metals, but scadrians who think of magic in association with metal have only learned about those applications. And it's always seemed odd to me that so many hemulurgic metals are used for "this specific subset of this specific magic system" when hemulurgy is meant to be a more universal system. If this is because there's a lot more to it than those 16 metals, using half of them on specific magic systems makes more sense

Edited October 30, 2025 by Stormtide_Leviathan

[BinarySecond]

4 hours ago, Stormtide_Leviathan said:

I'm not convinced this is as true as it seems. A big theme in mistborn is learning past misconceptions about the world, and the magic especially. I could believe that hemulurgy isn't, in fact, limited to metals, but scadrians who think of magic in association with metal have only learned about those applications. And it's always seemed odd to me that so many hemulurgic metals are used for "this specific subset of this specific magic system" when hemulurgy is meant to be a more universal system. If this is because there's a lot more two it than those 16 metals, using half of them on specific magic systems makes more sense

I think this is also compounded by the relevance of metals Cosmere wide. We've seen it with Fabrials, the metals function similarly with these devices as they do with a Mistborn, with Tress, with the Silver whips for shades. It seems like it's so often present in some form but it's not always necessary. Sel's Invested Arts appears to be pretty metal agnostic, as does Surgebinding.

The application of Hemalurgy staples a fragment of a donor spirit web onto a recipient spirit web. If a Spren not equivalent in some way to a fragment of spirit web it should be possible to attach it to someone else via an similar means (As opposed to a voluntary Nahel bond). I suspect that the gem spikes contain a spren similar to an Alerter but rather than detecting life it should detect investiture. I don't think we have a comprehensive list of what spren are used to create what effects.

The metals don't set the effects, they just apply a modifier to it. 

Edit: An additional thought you could probably create a spike that is also a Fabrial to turn your crystal spikes from "normal visions" into telescopic vision, or tuning like an analogue television.

Edited October 29, 2025 by BinarySecond
More thoughts

[DracoAdamantus he/him]

11 hours ago, Stormtide_Leviathan said:

I'm not convinced this is as true as it seems. A big theme in mistborn is learning past misconceptions about the world, and the magic especially. I could believe that hemulurgy isn't, in fact, limited to metals, but scadrians who think of magic in association with metal have only learned about those applications. 

I meant that it's a point of contention in the discussions I've seen, not for me personally. I did go on in the next few sentences to touch on the fact that metals and gemstones are both crystals, which I doubt is a coincidence. 

11 hours ago, Stormtide_Leviathan said:

And it's always seemed odd to me that so many hemulurgic metals are used for "this specific subset of this specific magic system" when hemulurgy is meant to be a more universal system. If this is because there's a lot more two it than those 16 metals, using half of them on specific magic systems makes more sense.

I don't think it's beyond reason for half of Hemalurgy to be tied significantly to the other metallic arts, as the interplay between Preservation and Ruin would likely cause their magic systems to become intertwined. Preservation and Ruin had to work together to create Scadrial, and to create their own humans. Plus, shards don't really have a direct hand in the creation of their magic systems, and the main thing the intent of the shard influences is how that system is accessed (https://coppermind.net/wiki/Initiation). Since Allomancy and Feruchemy are inborn abilities from spiritual genetics, it makes sense to me that a significant portion of Ruin's invested art would be tied to the people he helped create (as only Scadrians can be naturally born with Allomancy or Feruchemy).

 That being said, I also don't think those 8 metals are limited to just stealing Allomancy and Feruchemy, it's just much less intuitive. The catch being that each of those 8 metal can only steal a certain type of power based on its spiritual makeup, and we haven't seen any invested arts that would form that match yet.

Sanderson has always stated that there is something special about metal in general in the Cosmere. In Rosharan fabrial tech, metal is used extensively in directing and modifying the attributes of the spren trapped within a gemstone, with different metals having different effects. Different metals are also used in sprouting to regulate aether spore behaviors. From what we have seen, I think that each metal has a unique way it can shape and influence investiture, regardless of the investiture's form or source. However, just like in Feruchemy, only certain forms of investiture can be stored in certain metals. 

I think that any abilities that come from a permanent aspect of the spiritweb, rather than an external source through a bond, could be spiked out using one of the basic metals that removes Allomantic or Feruchemical abilities, instead of having to resort to Nicrosil, Lerasium, or Atium. Which metal it corresponds to depends on the "template" of that ability in the spiritweb.  As an example, maybe the reason only physical Allomantic powers are only stolen by steel is that all the physical Allomantic powers have a similar "template", a template that the specific crystalline structure of steel is able to hold. If you steel spiked someone with a different invested ability that had a similar template to physical Allomancy, you would be able to steal that ability. Unfortunately, we've never seen someone try to spike out a non-Scadrian ability from someone on-screen. 

---

Going back to the crystal spikes themselves, I was wrong in calling them a "hack" of the system. Thinking about it more, I would posit that they are utilizing hemalurgy, but not in the traditional sense of giving a stolen attribute. 

I view Hemalurgy as having three distinct applications:

1. Investing an uninvested spike by stealing attributes from another
2. Using invested spikes to attach stored attributes to another's spiritweb
3. Using invested spikes to modify a spiritweb in a way that it alters biology (Kandra, Koloss, and Chimeras)

Thinking on the nature of metal, and how it is used in fabrials: We established that specific metals store specific kinds of investiture, due to its spiritual blueprint. Specific gemstones hold specific types of spren, and there is no indication that metal can store spren/stormlight, or that gems (infused or not) can be used to alter a spren-gem's output. So even though it's clear that there are similarities between gemstones and metal throughout the Cosmere in their ability to store investiture, they aren't interchangable. 

My personal theory is that applications 2 and 3 of Hemalurgy can theoretically be used with any invested spike, regardless of the investiture inside or the spike's material (though obviously it must be a material that can hold that investiture). However, I also think that metal's property to shape and influence investiture is essential to the theft of attributes with hemalurgy.

TL;DR - Any already invested spike of crystalline material can be used to Hemalurgically modify a spiritweb, but only metal spikes are capable of Hemalurgically stealing from a spiritweb.

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6 hours ago, BinarySecond said:

Sel's Invested Arts appears to be pretty metal agnostic, as does Surgebinding.

Aside from aluminum, at least. Ralkalest (the unforgeable metal) is the name for aluminum in the Rose Empire, and Surgebinding does not work on aluminum. But aluminum is also the special case for pretty much all sources of investiture (I also have much longer observations on that I'm trying to compile).

Edited October 29, 2025 by DracoAdamantus

[BinarySecond]

On 10/29/2025 at 4:32 PM, DracoAdamantus said:

Aside from aluminum, at least. Ralkalest (the unforgeable metal) is the name for aluminum in the Rose Empire, and Surgebinding does not work on aluminum

Yes indeed, I should have been more specific as the usage of these arts do not have any metal required to put into practice (AFAIK). Surgebinding requires Investiture as fuel, and Sel arts require that appropriate symbology to access the Dor.

Aluminium is just one of those things. It's the ultimate sink for Investiture - Silver would probably affect both arts as well in some form - Waiting on Brandon to put some answers into text.