Nicrosyl and Shardblade?

[67-Pagerunner]

What do you guys think would happen if a feruchemist uses Nicrosyl (Which stores Investiture) weilds a Shardblade because shardblades use investiture to become basically super-swords.

 

6 minutes ago, 67-Pagerunner said:

What do you guys think would happen if a feruchemist uses Nicrosyl (Which stores Investiture) weilds a Shardblade because shardblades use investiture to become basically super-swords.

 

 

6 minutes ago, 67-Pagerunner said:

What do you guys think would happen if a feruchemist uses Nicrosyl (Which stores Investiture) weilds a Shardblade because shardblades use investiture to become basically super-swords.

 

*Nicrosil

[Trusk'our he/him]

15 minutes ago, 67-Pagerunner said:

What do you guys think would happen if a feruchemist uses Nicrosyl (Which stores Investiture) weilds a Shardblade because shardblades use investiture to become basically super-swords.

*Nicrosil

Welcome to the Shard!

 

I don't think I've ever considered this before. 

Allomantic nicrosil only targets kinetic Investiture from what we've seen, so after the Blade is summoned I don't believe it would have an effect. 

However, Shardblades are kinetic during the act of summoning, so I think you might be able to summon a Deadeye Blade instantaneously with the application of duralumin or maybe nicrosil since you probably can count it as a separate being. 

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/120-warsaw-signing/#e7413

Rasarr

Could a Seeker detect a Shardbearer? For example, could Vin detect Adolin's Shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson

That detects Kinetic Investiture, Investiture that's being used actively, so in the summoning process, you'd probably get a blip on that, but not just looking at someone and seeing it.

Edit: whoops, you meant Feruchemical nicrosil, my bad.

I think you might be able to store some residual Investiture, the kind that lightens your eyes and is passed down to your offspring, but the bond itself is probably more duralumin Feruchemy territory. 

Edited February 9 by Trusk'our

[67-Pagerunner]

3 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Welcome to the Shard!

 

I don't think I've ever considered this before. 

Allomantic nicrosil only targets kinetic Investiture from what we've seen, so after the Blade is summoned I don't believe it would have an effect. 

However, Shardblades are kinetic during the act of summoning, so I think you might be able to summon a Deadeye Blade instantaneously with the application of duralumin or maybe nicrosil since you probably can count it as a separate being. 

  Reveal hidden contents

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/120-warsaw-signing/#e7413

Rasarr

Could a Seeker detect a Shardbearer? For example, could Vin detect Adolin's Shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson

That detects Kinetic Investiture, Investiture that's being used actively, so in the summoning process, you'd probably get a blip on that, but not just looking at someone and seeing it.

Edit: whoops, you meant Feruchemical nicrosil, my bad.

I think you might be able to store some residual Investiture, the kind that lightens your eyes and is passed down to your offspring, but the bond itself is probably more duralumin Feruchemy territory. 

What would happen if a duralumin sheild hit a shardblade?

 

What would happen if a duralumin sheild hit a shardblade

[Trusk'our he/him]

22 minutes ago, 67-Pagerunner said:

What would happen if a duralumin sheild hit a shardblade?

 

What would happen if a duralumin sheild hit a shardblade

Excellent question. 

Duralumin, despite being mostly comprised of aluminum, has a different spiritual set of properties. 

So, an aluminum shield would negate the vorpal edge of the Shardblade (though it can be cut through regular means if it's thin enough), but a duralumin shield should be cut as any other metal.

Edited February 10 by Trusk'our

[67-Pagerunner]

I thoght it could be turned into a super shardblade for a split second because duralumin enhanses investiture and power.

[Trusk'our he/him]

16 minutes ago, 67-Pagerunner said:

I thoght it could be turned into a super shardblade for a split second because duralumin enhanses investiture and power.

I don't think that metals on their own would have an impact on a Shardblade's function (aside from aluminum or highly Invested metals in blocking their magical edge). It would be simple enough that steel, bronze, copper, or other metals that come in close contact should have had a noticeable impact, but we don't hear of this.

I do think it would be possible in theory to create a Fabrial, possibly one that harnessed duralumin, to enhance a Blade, but we haven't seen direct evidence for such a contraption yet.

 

For broader back and forth discussions, I would recommend creating a thread in the Cosmere Discussion forum. Q&A is typically best for questions regarding Cosmere stuff that you would like a direct answer for.

No harm done or anything, it's just easier for everyone involved with that setup. 

Edited February 11 by Trusk'our

[buzzbuzz she/her]

On 2/10/2026 at 3:32 AM, Trusk'our said:

However, Shardblades are kinetic during the act of summoning, so I think you might be able to summon a Deadeye Blade instantaneously with the application of duralumin or maybe nicrosil since you probably can count it as a separate being. 

hi, i'm a bit unsure about the mechanics of shardblades, but a deadeye blade- does summoning it use stormlight? because iirc, a living blade needs investiture right? (from tsm)

[Trusk'our he/him]

32 minutes ago, buzzbuzz said:

hi, i'm a bit unsure about the mechanics of shardblades, but a deadeye blade- does summoning it use stormlight? because iirc, a living blade needs investiture right? (from tsm)

No, it should not require an external source of Investiture to summon a Shardblade, at least not normally. At the very least, there has never been mention that there is a Stormlight requirement to summon them. The Investiture for many net neutral Invested Arts (and I would absolutely consider Shardblades one, at least in regards to their own power) pulls a little from the Spiritual Realm to facilitate transfer between states.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/2-jordancon-2016/#e171

Questioner

So for the Old Magic, in this classification system of end-positive, end-neutral, and end-negative, where would that fall under?

Brandon Sanderson

So, almost every magic in the cosmere is end-positive, almost every magic is relying upon an external source of Investiture to power it. So that phrasing is mostly more relevant to Scadrial than anywhere else, because that concept is how I'm dealing with things like the laws of thermodynamics, and even what they call end-neutral is relying a little bit on the power of Investiture to facilitate. So even an end-neutral magic system as they define it on Scadrial is actually not end-neutral. What you get put in you get out, but the power is facilitating that transfer… So that phrasing is kind of a... Take that as a science on.. Scadrial that does not extrapolate well, and may not even be 100% accurate.

(Quote snipped for relevance)

Aux's position is fairly unique, so I wouldn't be surprised at all if whatever mechanic that was normally in place was destroyed and now he requires a small amount of Investiture to be summoned.

 

Also, welcome to the Shard!

Generally when asking questions in the Q&A it is most optimal to begin a new thread to ask a question for added streamlining (and so the answerer to the original question may get a mark if they give a correct answer so that the topic may be completed).

Edited February 17 by Trusk'our

[67-Pagerunner]

What about a nicrosyl sheild would that give the Shardblade access to investiture? Or the radiant themselves.

Because surges are basically Investiture in a different way.

 

[Trusk'our he/him]

20 minutes ago, 67-Pagerunner said:

What about a nicrosyl sheild would that give the Shardblade access to investiture? Or the radiant themselves.

Because surges are basically Investiture in a different way.

I don't think the metals on their own would change how the Shardblade manifests. 

Thinking on it further, Allomantic/Feruchemical metals do have an impact on Spren in gemstones though, so I think you could create a device that would use the Blade's Spren to manifest some new effect. It may take some work, likely more than just physically touching the metal to the Blade, but I don't think it would be terribly hard once people thought of it.

[67-Pagerunner]

What if you mad a Nicrosyl sheild that had Investiture stored without Identity then it would be easier to access the Investiture and it would be realeased. Couldn't the Radiant "suck" it up and use it as stormlight?

[Trusk'our he/him]

16 minutes ago, 67-Pagerunner said:

What if you mad a Nicrosyl sheild that had Investiture stored without Identity then it would be easier to access the Investiture and it would be realeased. Couldn't the Radiant "suck" it up and use it as stormlight?

That is an excellent question.

The Metallic Arts are more ridged in what they can do than Stormlight or Breaths- it's as if they have a kind of program encoded into them as they are drawn from the SR or a Spiritweb. Allomancy, for example, would require some extra fiddling to be fueled by Stormlight, and I find it likely that the reverse would be true.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/62-firefight-seattle-public-library-signing/#e3075

Questioner

Is Investiture universal? By that I mean, if an Allomancer got Stormlight somehow could they use that to fuel Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

That is always possible, so yes.  But in some case it requires some quote-unquote hacking, like an AC vs a DC current or we've got a 120 Volt and they've got 240. Does that make sense? It might require-- I guess hacking is the wrong term, adapters.

Feruchemy is likely in the same boat. I think that blanking Identity would technically make it easier for the Spren/Radiant to access that Investiture since it is no longer locked to the Feruchemist who made it, but Unkeying a Metalmind is not the only step that must be taken to utilize the Investiture within. Unsealing would be necessary, as you not only need the Investiture to fuel the process, but you need to be a Feruchemist to tap it (which the nicrosil portion does in an Unsealed Metalmind. However we do not have any confirmation that an Unkeyed Nicrosilmind equals an Unsealed Metalmind, if that makes any sense).

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/34-arcanum-unbounded-seattle-signing/#e5656

Brandon Sanderson

So one of the things people have been asking about a lot the nature of Identity and its uses for accessing other people's metalminds, and things like this right. And I hedged a little bit when somebody asked me... *inaudible*...send people into spirals of confusion, so I'm gonna clarify it for now. So, someone comes in and says, we need a blank metalmind, anybody can use that. I'm like, yes but, the reason that it's a hedge is that you need to actually be a Feruchemist to access it, right, you can't just hold the blank metalmind not being a Feruchemist, even though it's somebody else's Investiture that's been blanked, right. So people keep kind of missing this thing. I'm hedging in the sort of, you don't quite have it, I've kind of dodged it, but I worry that it's just going to be confusing.

So the issue is, you need two things from one of these. You need something that makes you a Feruchemist, and then you need a metalmind that somebody else has filled with blank Investiture. Now if you can get pure Investiture, that can be used by anybody, regardless, you need it in pure form though. There are some other tricks with this as well that don't make it...so anyway, you've got a couple of things that can go on.

So you've got a blank metalmind, right, with nothing. You need either Investiture, to be able...like you need to be the right type. There are ways to access that if you are completely blank also, if you were a blank slate, but that is still...kind of hard. It's even harder if you are blank, and the metalmind is not blank, but that's not what they're doing in Mistborn right now.

You are tapping Investiture, gaining the ability of Feruchemy and then you are drawing out a blank metalmind. That's the one you need to be...and everything else I'm hedging on intentionally, and I'm worried I hedged in a way that made it sound confusing. So you know now what they're doing. You know that there are other things possible. But I don't want you to think that you have the explanations for how all those things happen.

To recap my thoughts on this, I don't think that a Radiant or their Spren could access the Investiture within an Identity-blanked Nicrosilmind in the same way they can consume Stormlight. Stormlight has no known "code" hard written into it and (presumably) neither Radiant nor Spren are Feruchemists, nor do they even have a smaller Connection to the Shards that created the system of Feruchemy (looking at Venli using Voidlight to fuel her Radiant Surgebinding, it seems that a lesser but still strong Connection to a Shard that does not provide the power they're using can then allow uncoded forms of Investiture from the second Shard to be used as a fuel source. Put more simply, if you get a sufficient Connection to another, non-native Shard, you should be able to use their purer form of Investiture to power your parent Shard's abilities for yourself).

The Radiant should be able to use an Unsealed Metalmind for its intended purpose though, and I believe that the Spren themselves might even be able to.