With the new WoS about tin compounding, do you have practicly X-ray vision?

[Sythrin]

(Don‘t know how to link certain Snaderson quotes)

Sanderson mentioned now that Tincompounders could see axioms(atoms) when they go compound. If we gomthis far. Can they even see certain particles beyond us and have practicly X-ray vision? Or maybe echo location as their sense for sound and vibration increases?

[Trusk'our he/him]

3 hours ago, Sythrin said:

(Don‘t know how to link certain Snaderson quotes)

Sanderson mentioned now that Tincompounders could see axioms(atoms) when they go compound. If we gomthis far. Can they even see certain particles beyond us and have practicly X-ray vision? Or maybe echo location as their sense for sound and vibration increases?

This one, right?

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/551-youtube-spoiler-stream-7/#e17124

Questioner

For a double tin Twinborn, what would compounding look like? Would they be able to see microscopically? Telescopically? Past the visual light spectrum? Would they be able to see or hear into the Cognitive or Spiritual Realms?

Brandon Sanderson

Seeing or hearing into the Cognitive or Spiritual Realms, probably not, because that's much more of a Seeker ability than it is a Tineye ability. But seeing microscopic and things like that is fully within... Like, they could probably even see the axi, which is their word for atoms. If you've read Dragonsteel Prime, you know that that's a magic system. And Tineyes could do that; compounding, yeah, if you did it right, you could do that.

I feel like this is just a very, very extended version of what humans already do with their sight. Other senses that a Compounder couldn't store initially (like sensing electricity or viewing other wavelengths of light) shouldn't be on the table as far as I'm aware. 

Edited January 14 by Trusk'our

[Sythrin]

3 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

I feel like this is just a very, very extended version of what humans already do with their sight. Other senses that a Compounder couldn't store initially (like sensing electricity or viewing other wavelengths of light) shouldn't be on the table as far as I'm aware.

But seeing atoms, is beyond sight.

Its not like with the best microscope you can zoom in. Light that interacts with atoms is beyond our visual spectrum. So Twinborn can actualy see more „light“

[Trusk'our he/him]

1 hour ago, Sythrin said:

But seeing atoms, is beyond sight.

Its not like with the best microscope you can zoom in. Light that interacts with atoms is beyond our visual spectrum. So Twinborn can actualy see more „light“

That's fair. Tin Allomancy especially has felt a bit extra "magical" to me- what with Spook being able to completely ignore cloth covering his eyes.

Maybe the Investiture is filling in the gaps a bit. That's all I can think of there.

 

I guess if you're a Savant and you have super-powered sight, maybe x-ray vision could be done. Maybe. 

You know what? It probably would work. It's cool enough Brandon would be likely to throw it in.

[Isilel]

6 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Seeing or hearing into the Cognitive or Spiritual Realms, probably not, because that's much more of a Seeker ability

 

This opens new perspectives for bronze compounders too, they should have a special insight into investiture science. I am still surprised and disappointed that apparently none of a Ghostbloods on Roshar was a Seeker, whether natural or hemalurgic. 

 

6 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Other senses that a Compounder couldn't store initially (like sensing electricity or viewing other wavelengths of light) shouldn't be on the table

 

IIRC, there is a WoB that if things like Steel Sight or Seeker sense were stored in an unkeyed Tin mind, a Tin Ferring could tap and use them. A compounder would just need  "seed" stocks, which they could then maintain and amplify. It wasn't explicitly mentioned, but I hope that the same applies to pewter "grace", i.e. sense of balance and timing. 

[Xanpheon]

 

5 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

 

I guess if you're a Savant and you have super-powered sight, maybe x-ray vision could be done. Maybe. 

 

You know what? It probably would work. It's cool enough Brandon would be likely to throw it in.

I think a potential way that this would be achieved more... realistically? Than X-ray vision (which would require a dense source of piercing radiation on the other side of whatever you're trying to see) would be infrared. Humans already have a reasonably accurate sense for temperature based on the skin, and infrared radiation is part of the visible spectrum. You're just using senses the human body has, just magnified and "tuned". 

Now, is this practical? Unlikely. A tineye would need to be a savant to remotely approach the level of intensifying necessary to be able to pull this off, and that's ignoring the fact that human L-cones tend to peak at around 560nm for the type of light they pick up the best - while infrared tends to hover around 800-900nm.

Then again, investiture is a hell of a drug - and I don't think it's beyond the range of possibility that a suitably skilled Tineye could enhance their sight to the point they could see the infrared spectrum and use that as a bootleg "x-ray vision".

Though, that does raise another question - we know that you can store different senses in a Tinmind. How far does the subdivision go? Smell and taste are inextricably linked but can be stored separately. Could you store your ability to see specific wavelengths of light? If so it would make this process significantly easier - because I imagine if you've pumped your vision to the extent where you're 50-60% out of your normal visible range of light, everything else might overwhelm the infrared. It's not even necessarily impractical - colours tend to be divided based on the cones, so you could filter based on cones.

That would be a weird Malwish medallion to create, but interesting.

[Sythrin]

11 minutes ago, Xanpheon said:

think a potential way that this would be achieved more... realistically? Than X-ray vision (which would require a dense source of piercing radiation on the other side of whatever you're trying to see) would be infrared. Humans already have a reasonably accurate sense for temperature based on the skin, and infrared radiation is part of the visible spectrum. You're just using senses the human body has, just magnified and "tuned". 

Is infrared not too big for atoms? To see atoms i think you need smaller light than even X-ray.

[Trusk'our he/him]

4 hours ago, Isilel said:

This opens new perspectives for bronze compounders too, they should have a special insight into investiture science. I am still surprised and disappointed that apparently none of a Ghostbloods on Roshar was a Seeker, whether natural or hemalurgic. 

Would being a Compounder have any affect on their ability to do that? Every example we've seen thus far shows it empowering their Feruchemy with their Allomancy, not the other way around. 

If anything, Savantism, Hemalurgy, Lerasium, or nicrosil/duralumin would probably do the trick better since they're known to strengthen Allomancy. 

[Xanpheon]

48 minutes ago, Sythrin said:

Is infrared not too big for atoms? To see atoms i think you need smaller light than even X-ray.

You do, but I was giving a more "practical" way to achieve a way to see through (in a sense) solid objects.

[DoctaDajman]

2 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Would being a Compounder have any affect on their ability to do that? Every example we've seen thus far shows it empowering their Feruchemy with their Allomancy, not the other way around. 

If anything, Savantism, Hemalurgy, Lerasium, or nicrosil/duralumin would probably do the trick better since they're known to strengthen Allomancy. 

 

7 hours ago, Isilel said:

 

This opens new perspectives for bronze compounders too, they should have a special insight into investiture science. I am still surprised and disappointed that apparently none of a Ghostbloods on Roshar was a Seeker, whether natural or hemalurgic. 

 

 

IIRC, there is a WoB that if things like Steel Sight or Seeker sense were stored in an unkeyed Tin mind, a Tin Ferring could tap and use them. A compounder would just need  "seed" stocks, which they could then maintain and amplify. It wasn't explicitly mentioned, but I hope that the same applies to pewter "grace", i.e. sense of balance and timing. 

So I first have to shoutout to @Koloss17 because of OG tin life mafia stuff. 

Compounding is for feruchemically stored attributes getting boosted with preservations investiture via allomantically burning a metalmind that has shared identity to the allomancer. 

Tin can absolutely store senses granted through other investiture sources. Lifesense can be stored, bronze sense, even seeing the Spiritual realm through some temporal metals like gold and electrum, and yes even the enhanced proprioception from pewter (although pewter is already enhancing proprioception which you already have so you could technically store that without a need for pewter and get pewter like results for that sense of balance and grace alone). 

If feruchemy is net neutral, a tin feruchemist who is also a seeker could burn their bronze and store that sense into a tin mind. Say 1 hours worth of bronze. Because they are now able to withdraw it in portions like any other feruchemy attribute they could compact that into 30 minutes for twice as strong of seeking. I suspect that would allow a normal bronze allomancer to be able to pierce copperclouds for that time (or further compact it if needed to be 4x normal bronze for 15 minutes). 

Now, say they are a tin compounder with a spike giving them bronze allomancy... or they steal a minutes worth of seeking stored into an unkeyed metalmind and store it into their own metalmind keying it to themselves... then that 1 minute burns down and turns into 10 which burns down and turns into 100 which burns down and turns into 1000 etc... until they run out of tin or have their metalmind too full. 

Tin metalminds only hold 1 sense each. So a labeling system would be super important but I believe that a tin compounder who gets ahold of even 1 minute of any of the magical senses could store it and compound it. It is the most basic of hacks and I dont really see anything to say no its not possible. 

A tin compounder could, with the right access to an unkeyed metalmind with the proper sense stored in it, run around with lifesense, bronze sense, massive proprioception, vision that pierces materials, the ability to see the spiritual projections of themselves or others, and likely the ability to hear rhythms. 

Will they have the metal capacity to use all of these? Perhaps not. We know that atium also makes it so that the user can utilize that info dump they are taking in. Storing atium shadows would leave you with all of the information days or months or years in the future, but the mind enhancing benefits to use that information would be gone and lost in past when you burned the metal and end up as a net waste.  

Likewise, higher proprioception may not be as beneficial to a non pewterarm without the strength and fast twitch muscle speed that comes with burning pewter. Imagine being Peter Parker and having the spider sense but none of the strength and speed boosts to utilize it. 

I dont see bronze as being an issue. I guess there is a way to be a bronze savant level seeker without every owning the ability to burn bronze. That is pretty dope. 

[Nitpicking]

On 1/14/2026 at 9:15 AM, Xanpheon said:

I think a potential way that this would be achieved more... realistically? Than X-ray vision (which would require a dense source of piercing radiation on the other side of whatever you're trying to see) would be infrared. Humans already have a reasonably accurate sense for temperature based on the skin, and infrared radiation is part of the visible spectrum. You're just using senses the human body has, just magnified and "tuned". 

By definition, infrared is beyond the visible spectrum. Specifically, the light waves are longer than any visible light, as opposed to ultraviolet light, where the waves are shorter than visible.

To visualize atoms you'd need immensely powerful gamma rays (much shorter than UV), but in fact we use electrons or non-radiation methods like the scanning tunneling microscope. Gamma rays that powerful spontaneously generate particle/antiparticle pairs and lose a lot of energy.