Cinderhearts & Spikes

[Trusk'our he/him]

Cinderhearts are kind of an interesting deal. They've been confirmed to use Hemalurgy in some way to work, appearing to be Hemalurgically Invested, then further Invested by Canticle's natural Investiture.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/551-youtube-spoiler-stream-7/#e17072

Seth

I notice a lot of similarities between the Charred and the Inquisitors. Loss of personality, corruption of Investiture, bloodlust, violent tendencies, etc. The Scadrian scientists were responsible for teaching the Cinder King how to create them, and they mentioned how you have to add a "special form of Investiture" to the sunhearts in order to result in a Charred warrior. My question is: is that "special Investiture" Hemalurgy or Connected to Ruin?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Good job.

<snipped for relevance>

They can then be pushed against a person, where they will bury into and consume the host's Identity, Connection, memories, and overall sense of self.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/522-dragonsteel-2023/#e16297

Questioner

Is there a relationship between cinderhearts and what happened to Amaram? And if so, what is it?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there is a relationship. It just kind of built on some basic, fundamental cosmere principles. This power feeding a little bit on even your own sense of Identity and Connection and things like this, as the power consumes it, and kind of starts to turn you into a spren a little bit, is what's happening there. Drawing it in. They're very similar mechanisms; it's not that they're related magically, like a lineage of magic sort of way. But on the same fundamental principle. And this is what lets the Unmade kind of just take over a person, quickly consume them, and then move on.

Most interesting to me though, is that the extra bit of Hemalurgically aligned power can be removed, allowing a Charred to regain a small measure of self-control (which appears to have largely been done by severing the Connection to the Cinder King) and if done in the early stages of a Charred's transformation will still work as a Cinderheart but drastically change the extent of the transformation.

For example, Rebeke's transformation into a Charred did not appear to damage her mind, personality, and did not burn away a large hole into her torso (at least not to the extent that the other Charred have had). She still appears to have full power from her Cinderheart though.

 

To me, I think this hints at some things I'd previously thought about Hemalurgy and opens a few more ideas.

 

This makes me think:

1. Hemalurgy doesn't require Ruinous Investiture to attach itself to a Spiritweb nor to continue its typical functions. If you could find some suitable Investiture and hold it in a vessel of some kind and use it to pierce the correct Bindpoint (such as Spren in gemstones, then implanted into one's eyes), I think the Investiture will do what Ruin's branch of Scadrian magic would do and allow access to that power.

2. Because the Cinderhearts did not suddenly become fatal after their Ruinous Investiture was removed, I believe that them becoming attached to the Spiritweb and reshaping the body to physically hold the vessel is not related to stealing the Investiture in the first place. In other words, I think that if you put some Breath into a spike and implanted it into the right Bindpoint (perhaps with added Intent, as it's possible this is the shortcut Hemalurgic Investiture plays after creating a spike through traditional means), the person could then access those Breaths.

3. The Cinderhearts appeared to mostly be powered by the raw Investiture found on Canticle and its sun. The amount of corrupting Investiture was very tiny, and did not appear to influence the overall power of a Charred once removed. I think that this half supports a long-standing theory of mine where Hemalurgy corrupts its stolen Investiture, but if Ruin's flavor is like what we see with Cinderhearts, it would be more likely to corrupt only a tiny portion of the stolen Spiritweb, but leave much or most of it the same as before.

This also makes me think that raw Investiture captured in a suitable vessel for Hemalurgy could be used to staple onto someone without a true Spiritweb fragment. A purified Cinderheart, as far as I can tell, does this. So, Gemstones filled with Light, spikes filled with Breath, and perhaps other physical items could be used form Hemalurgy, no donors required (you likely would only get the basic effects of being Invested however, such as holding Stormlight or Breaths. Not true powers like Allomancy or bigger reshaping of the Spiritweb like with Koloss). Heck, I'd be willing to bet this is what nicrosil Hemalurgy tries to do, though it's limited to living donors most of the time given Scadrial's limited available Investiture.

 

While I think these are all valid interpretations, I would like to leave a disclaimer that the systems found on Canticle and Scadrial, while similar in some ways, does not make them entirely parallel. It's very possible that more happens with Ruin's own evolution of Hemalurgy that would make these assumptions of mine invalid. Pending further evidence though, I think this is still a good place to look for what Hemalurgy in general could be like.

[PanLin they/he]

8 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

While I think these are all valid interpretations, I would like to leave a disclaimer that the systems found on Canticle and Scadrial, while similar in some ways, does not make them entirely parallel. It's very possible that more happens with Ruin's own evolution of Hemalurgy that would make these assumptions of mine invalid. Pending further evidence though, I think this is still a good place to look for what Hemalurgy in general could be like.

I think what's actually happening here (and your points above helped me nail down (excuse the pun) my thoughts), is that we were first exposed to this idea of stealing and attaching Spiritweb pieces via Ruin and Hemalurgy, so we're using that terminology to refer to everything related to it. It's like if someone learns the word 'cat', then sees a dog and thinks "fluffy, four legs, tail, must be a cat".

Spoilers for Emberdark:

Spoiler

I was first introduced to the ability to sense Investiture through A-Copper A-Bronze. When Dusk first sensed the pulses, my immediate reaction was "oh it's like he's burning copper bronze". I know it isn't Allomancy, but I keep thinking of Dusk as basically burning copper bronze because my perception has been coloured by reading about Allomancy first.

I think the same thing is happening here; stealing and implanting Spiritweb chunks isn't always Hemalurgy, but involving Ruin in the process makes it Hemalurgy.

(I keep using this example because it's so good at illustrating what I mean )

(edit: confused the mental metals again)

Also, Sunhearts seem to be this little spiritual battery that still contain someone's Spiritweb (or at least an Investiture-saturated copy of it, similar to Returned) in addition to the 200 BEUs they got obliterated with:

Spoiler

Questioner

If someone with Allomantic powers was turned into a sunheart, like from Sunlit Man, could their spiritweb then be accessed through a hemalurgic spike and still get those powers back out? And use it like a transfer process?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, that's totally possible.

Here's the thing: that process of distillation that's going on there is gonna mess with the spiritweb in ways that you probably… You couldn't take the layman, give them the spike, and have them get it to work, but it wouldn't… On the scale of how hard the questions you guys ask: this is more like a three in difficulty than a ten.

You just need magical WinZip.

Dragonsteel Nexus 2024 (Dec. 5, 2024)

Now, with my speculative hat on for a sec, my current theory is that Ruin (along with Odium, Whimsy and Mercy) are all fractured Intents of the same Dawnshard, one that is characterised by reducing Identity and increasing entropy.

Finally, my point: All Hemalurgy is Spiritweb theft and reattachment, but not all Spiritweb theft and reattachment is Hemalurgy. The Scadrians looked at the Sunhearts and taught the Cinder King the only way they knew how to mess with Spiritwebs like that, necessarily incorporating Ruin's Identity-eroding influence, and the only way something of Ruin can be attached to a Spiritweb is by brutally piercing it and damaging the host's Identity and Connection.

8 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Most interesting to me though, is that the extra bit of Hemalurgically aligned power can be removed, allowing a Charred to regain a small measure of self-control

This is interesting, too. It's like they used Ruin's power to invade Spiritwebs to sort of open a window, then discarded Ruin's bit entirely and just used the opening made by it to slot the cleanish Sunheart in.

8 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

(which appears to have largely been done by severing the Connection to the Cinder King)

I think I disagree with this bit though (but please correct me if I'm about to say something demonstrably false). We know that Hemalurgic spikes grant a Connection to Ruin, which is why Ruin could control the inquisitors and why Harmony can now control the kandra.

We also know that Rebeke could exert control over the Charred, but struggled to when going directly against the Cinder King's will. To me, this implies that both of them (and everyone with a Cinderheart) are actually connected to Ruin; Cinder King and Rebeke are simply strong enough to hijack that Connection to exert their will (especially without direct interference from Ruin/Harmony).

Based on the bit above about opening windows, I think they still have a Connection to Ruin (and therefore each other and the Charred) because it took his Invested Art to attach the Cinderhearts to them, but thanks to some of the heat being drained away, they escaped being so warped by Ruin's influence that they lost their Identity completely.

Basically, I think Rebeke was actually super Connected to Cinder King still; they were both just free enough of Ruin's Identity-damaging influence.

8 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

1. Hemalurgy doesn't require Ruinous Investiture to attach itself to a Spiritweb nor to continue its typical functions. If you could find some suitable Investiture and hold it in a vessel of some kind and use it to pierce the correct Bindpoint (such as Spren in gemstones, then implanted into one's eyes), I think the Investiture will do what Ruin's branch of Scadrian magic would do and allow access to that power.

I think Hemalurgy itself does require Ruin's Investiture, but there are ways (like you've said here) to attach chunks of Investiture/Identity/Connection to someone's Spiritweb without Ruin's destructive methods.

I also think Vyre's spikes are just straight up Hemalurgy, or at least close enough to it that Ruin's influence is involved; on my model (I know this is speculative), Odium and Ruin both naturally reduce Identity anyway, so Ruin's influence would be harder to spot here compared to how drastically his Investiture modifies Sunhearts.

8 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

2. Because the Cinderhearts did not suddenly become fatal after their Ruinous Investiture was removed, I believe that them becoming attached to the Spiritweb and reshaping the body to physically hold the vessel is not related to stealing the Investiture in the first place. In other words, I think that if you put some Breath into a spike and implanted it into the right Bindpoint (perhaps with added Intent, as it's possible this is the shortcut Hemalurgic Investiture plays after creating a spike through traditional means), the person could then access those Breaths.

Now that's an interesting one. I agree that extra Intent would be needed (which Hemalurgy seems to require by default), but Breaths are specifically willingly given. If you attach your own Breath to a spike or otherwise get permission, I think it would work (but at that point, it'd be easier to just give the Breath directly), but I wonder if you managed to take a Breath by force or remove it from an Awakened object, would that Breath just immediately leave the recipient as soon as you spiked them, and end up back from where it was taken? Or would the Hemalurgic Intent override the Biochromatic Intent?

But ultimately yes, I agree with the bit I've bolded. Two separate processes. With Hemalurgy, Ruin is involved in both of them, but with Cinderhearts, he's only involved with the implantation.

8 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

3. The Cinderhearts appeared to mostly be powered by the raw Investiture found on Canticle and its sun. The amount of corrupting Investiture was very tiny, and did not appear to influence the overall power of a Charred once removed. I think that this half supports a long-standing theory of mine where Hemalurgy corrupts its stolen Investiture, but if Ruin's flavor is like what we see with Cinderhearts, it would be more likely to corrupt only a tiny portion of the stolen Spiritweb, but leave much or most of it the same as before.

Yeah agreed, I think Ruin's corruption in this case affects the Intent and Identity of the Investiture, but not the power level.

8 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

This also makes me think that raw Investiture captured in a suitable vessel for Hemalurgy could be used to staple onto someone without a true Spiritweb fragment. A purified Cinderheart, as far as I can tell, does this. So, Gemstones filled with Light, spikes filled with Breath, and perhaps other physical items could be used form Hemalurgy, no donors required (you likely would only get the basic effects of being Invested however, such as holding Stormlight or Breaths. Not true powers like Allomancy or bigger reshaping of the Spiritweb like with Koloss). Heck, I'd be willing to bet this is what nicrosil Hemalurgy tries to do, though it's limited to living donors most of the time given Scadrial's limited available Investiture.

Ah, define 'true Spiritweb fragment'  I really think, in the future of the Cosmere, we'll start to see people getting more comfortable with understanding and modifying Spiritwebs. The ultimate end goal there would be the ability to just create, rewrite, and delete parts of someone's soul as if you're programming an operating system, but I don't know if that ability will ever be widely available to mortals.

But yeah, with enough understanding of Identity and Connection, maybe you could take a chunk of unkeyed Investiture and something to contain it (metal, crystal, whatever), then just write your own Spiritweb mod from scratch.

In this analogy, all Hemalurgy is doing is going "I know this section of code is sort of responsible for this effect, so I'm going to remove it and add it to my own project". It's inherently destructive, imprecise, and comes with trailing bits of the donor's Identity and Connection, but I really think there must be a way of copying the code onto a blank spike instead, and leaving the donor unharmed.

Edited March 3 by PanLin

[Qianweilian He/him]

4 minutes ago, PanLin said:

I was first introduced to the ability to sense Investiture through A-Copper

It's bronze. You're thinking of bronze.

[PanLin they/he]

Just now, Qianweilian said:

It's bronze. You're thinking of bronze.

Man, I get those two mixed up every damn time. Thanks for correcting me!

[Qianweilian He/him]

26 minutes ago, PanLin said:

Man, I get those two mixed up every damn time. Thanks for correcting me!

I find it easier to remember metals when I remember their misting name (e.g. coppercloud).

[Trusk'our he/him]

7 hours ago, PanLin said:

I think what's actually happening here (and your points above helped me nail down (excuse the pun) my thoughts), is that we were first exposed to this idea of stealing and attaching Spiritweb pieces via Ruin and Hemalurgy, so we're using that terminology to refer to everything related to it. It's like if someone learns the word 'cat', then sees a dog and thinks "fluffy, four legs, tail, must be a cat".

. . .

I think Hemalurgy itself does require Ruin's Investiture, but there are ways (like you've said here) to attach chunks of Investiture/Identity/Connection to someone's Spiritweb without Ruin's destructive methods.

I also think Vyre's spikes are just straight up Hemalurgy, or at least close enough to it that Ruin's influence is involved; on my model (I know this is speculative), Odium and Ruin both naturally reduce Identity anyway, so Ruin's influence would be harder to spot here compared to how drastically his Investiture modifies Sunhearts.

You are correct on Moahs- we have confirmation via WoB that his spikes are a form of Hemalurgy.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/551-youtube-spoiler-stream-7/#e17034

Questioner

Are Moash's crystal spikes a form of Hemalurgy?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes they are!

In fact, (and I've told you guys this before), there's a point in Way of Kings Prime where they are walking through some tunnels to escape from the city (and that city was a partial inspiration for Urithiru; it's what became Urithiru), and they look down a corridor, and behind that corridor is an Unmade spiked to the wall with crystal Hemalurgic spikes. But we don't go over there. It was a seed for book two, that didn't happen.

Crystal Hemalurgic spikes were in the cosmere from Way of Kings Prime.

The way I like to think of "Hemalurgy" is more like how I view Awakening now. I believe that Hemalurgy (the act of using a physical medium to staple pieces of Investiture to a living being, or potentially to steal pieces of Investiture from living beings) has general Cosmere-wide physics that can be exploited, of which I think that crystal spikes and Cinderhearts may be a part of. The term would be more overarching, with the OG Hemalurgy we typically think of being Ruin's special branch of the magic.

The Father Machine was Awakened, but it did not use Bio-Chroma to achieve this. I think it is a reasonable enough assumption that if another Shard or person wielding power wanted to put Investiture into a spike and implant it into a host that it would be a form of Hemalurgy, but probably not be Connected to the Shard of Ruin (though given Nightblood's and the Nightmares of Komashi's black-colored Investiture despite their other Shardic origins, I think the act of stealing Investiture from a Spiritweb may be intrinsically tied to Ruin, though as with the Cinderhearts you could probably purify them afterwards).

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/518-shardcast-interview/#e16178

Argent

Staying with Yumi, since we're asking the big questions here. I want to talk about the big machine, the father machine.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Argent

There are some really interesting what feel like intentional parallels between it and Nightblood.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Argent

There's smoke involved, there's eating of souls, there's a whole bunch of things. So what I do want to ask is: one, was the father machine Awakened using Breaths, using Nalthian Awakening? Or are you using Awakening as Lightweaving or Bondsmithing which is an overarching system in the Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

It's the second. This wouldn't exist in the pre-space-age as much; by space age there's a certain terminology that is going between... basically it's starting with the arcanists and moving to the general population. What certain themes in the Cosmere magics mean. And so when Hoid says "this is an Awakened machine" his audience understands what that means. It does not necessarily mean Breaths Awaken, but Breaths are one of the main ways that people see things be Awakened. You should be noticing those parallels, but that's a term that in the Cosmere is becoming genericized to mean un-living object being given some measure of sentience and even sapience by application of Investiture, Commands, and these sorts of things. By this point they've all interacted with various Awakened machines of sorts in the future Cosmere. They know what this means. They've talked to an Awakened computer.

<snipped for relevance>

 

7 hours ago, PanLin said:

Also, Sunhearts seem to be this little spiritual battery that still contain someone's Spiritweb (or at least an Investiture-saturated copy of it, similar to Returned) in addition to the 200 BEUs they got obliterated with:

True, that is an excellent point. If they're holding a piece of Spiritweb already then they may count as a functional spike already, and the raw Investiture is just piggybacking off the bindpoint. That definitely points against my 3rd idea, as their could still be a viable Spiritweb fragment inside the Cinderhearts even after being purified of Ruin's Investiture (though I think there's still some wiggle room).

Even with this being the case, you should still be able to staple raw Investiture to a Spiritweb, though you may need a small Spiritweb fragment to act as a bridge. Gemstones with Lesser Spren and then filled with Light, or spikes with Breath could probably still work as alternatives to Ruin's metallic spikes.

7 hours ago, PanLin said:

Ah, define 'true Spiritweb fragment'  I really think, in the future of the Cosmere, we'll start to see people getting more comfortable with understanding and modifying Spiritwebs. The ultimate end goal there would be the ability to just create, rewrite, and delete parts of someone's soul as if you're programming an operating system, but I don't know if that ability will ever be widely available to mortals.

A "true Spiritweb fragment" in my mind is a piece of Investiture that has been coded to function as part of a "living" organism, whether it be human, animal, Spren, or even Awakened construct. It cannot be free-floating Investiture that is just pulled in and used for fuel, such as Stormlight, Dor, or Mists.

And also, yeah, I think Spiritweb modification will become more common as the Cosmere progresses, though with the rise of mechanical forms of Investiture the demand may not be as high as I once envisioned. Why bother becoming a Mistborn when a machine could do all the risky tasks you'd be able to accomplish and do so with far greater efficiency? There's definitely a personal factor to consider, but for the average person with the money and connections to do so, I think they'd go for the mechanical option, because it's easier, less permanent, and requires less personal effort.

7 hours ago, PanLin said:

I think I disagree with this bit though (but please correct me if I'm about to say something demonstrably false). We know that Hemalurgic spikes grant a Connection to Ruin, which is why Ruin could control the inquisitors and why Harmony can now control the kandra.

We also know that Rebeke could exert control over the Charred, but struggled to when going directly against the Cinder King's will. To me, this implies that both of them (and everyone with a Cinderheart) are actually connected to Ruin; Cinder King and Rebeke are simply strong enough to hijack that Connection to exert their will (especially without direct interference from Ruin/Harmony).

Based on the bit above about opening windows, I think they still have a Connection to Ruin (and therefore each other and the Charred) because it took his Invested Art to attach the Cinderhearts to them, but thanks to some of the heat being drained away, they escaped being so warped by Ruin's influence that they lost their Identity completely.

Basically, I think Rebeke was actually super Connected to Cinder King still; they were both just free enough of Ruin's Identity-damaging influence.

Another very good point.

Yes, after further consideration with Rebeke's ability to remain Connected to the Cinderhearts, it was probably not Connection removal that freed Elegy from the Cinder King. Perhaps the removal of the Ruinous Investiture just kept her mind from being so vulnerable to the CK's influence, since she says "the voice" is gone from her mind after the Cinderheart's purification.

Basically, I agree with your conclusion in large part, though I think their remaining Connection is probably not to Ruin but just to the other Cinderhearts and their Investiture.

7 hours ago, PanLin said:

Now that's an interesting one. I agree that extra Intent would be needed (which Hemalurgy seems to require by default), but Breaths are specifically willingly given. If you attach your own Breath to a spike or otherwise get permission, I think it would work (but at that point, it'd be easier to just give the Breath directly), but I wonder if you managed to take a Breath by force or remove it from an Awakened object, would that Breath just immediately leave the recipient as soon as you spiked them, and end up back from where it was taken? Or would the Hemalurgic Intent override the Biochromatic Intent?

I think the Breath would still work in the Spike even if given to another, since Hemalurgy (at least Scadrial's brand) appears to bypass Identity to a degree.

The reason I keep going back to the Breath-in-a-spike deal really is because it ties to a previous idea of mine: the main cost of giving Breath to another is that you must now live without it, and be at a notably lower quality of life. But, if you could put the Breath in a vessel that would allow you to continue benefitting from it while you lived but held onto it after you died, then it could theoretically be retrieved and given to those you will for it (though the system is obviously not foolproof and the spike could be stolen if not handled properly).

7 hours ago, PanLin said:

This is interesting, too. It's like they used Ruin's power to invade Spiritwebs to sort of open a window, then discarded Ruin's bit entirely and just used the opening made by it to slot the cleanish Sunheart in.

To be fair, no true Sunheart has been attempted to be implanted into a person, the closest case being a Cinderheart that was purified during the process of being embedded into a host. So there is a real possibility that Ruinous power is still needed in some cases to make Hemalurgy viable, just not need to make it stick after the process is initiated.

You know, Hemalurgy only needs to draw blood initially when grafted onto a person. Vin's earring does not need to touch blood after the initial spiking and can be removed and replaced as desired without injury. I wonder, is this a similar case to the purified Cinderheart? Could a bindpoint touched by Hemalurgy remain as a pathway for other Investiture to creep in even after the spike has been removed?

My previous assessment of Spook's situation said no before on this idea, but as with Elegy having Ruinous Investiture removed doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't still some crack or Connection there, it just means at the least that there isn't the same weakness in the host as before.

 

All in all, these are very good points you make. I enjoyed reading them.

Edited March 3 by Trusk'our

[PanLin they/he]

18 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

The way I like to think of "Hemalurgy" is more like how I view Awakening now. I believe that Hemalurgy (the act of using a physical medium to staple pieces of Investiture to a living being, or potentially to steal pieces of Investiture from living beings) has general Cosmere-wide physics that can be exploited, of which I think that crystal spikes and Cinderhearts may be a part of. The term would be more overarching, with the OG Hemalurgy we typically think of being Ruin's special branch of the magic.

The Father Machine was Awakened, but it did not use Bio-Chroma to achieve this. I think it is a reasonable enough assumption that if another Shard or person wielding power wanted to put Investiture into a spike and implant it into a host that it would be a form of Hemalurgy, but probably not be Connected to the Shard of Ruin (though given Nightblood's and the Nightmares of Komashi's black-colored Investiture despite their other Shardic origins, I think the act of stealing Investiture from a Spiritweb may be intrinsically tied to Ruin, though as with the Cinderhearts you could probably purify them afterwards).

Ah ok fine, it sounds like we're just using slightly different terminology to describe the same concept then.

I essentially agree with you, but I still think the categorisation is off. The more we learn about Investiture and Invested Arts, the more it becomes apparent that they all basically work the same way, and the flavour of the different arts comes from the specific abilities / manifestations / initiations etc.

We don't have to align perfectly on this, I'm just going to lay out my perspective with a handy table (I love an excuse for a spreadsheet):

Spoiler

Art	Initiation	Ability	Traditional Fuel / Impetus	Command / Focus	Intent (not always conscious)
Biochromatic Breaths	Possess Breaths	Awakening	Endowment's Investiture directly	Awakening Command (usually spoken)	Animate something for a specific goal
Biochromatic Breaths	Possess Breaths	Memory storage	Endowment's Investiture directly	unknown	Store / retrieve specific memories
Feruchemy	Terris ancestry (potentially Connection to Scadrial?)	Memory storage	Negligble body energy to store / tap	Filling or tapping Coppermind while having spiritual access to copper Feruchemy	Store / retrieve specific memories
Allomancy	Contain piece of Preservation	Increase sensitivity of senses	Preservation's Investiture directly	Burning tin while having spiritual access to tin Allomancy	Increase sensitivity of senses
Hemalurgy	None	Spike Creation: Senses	Forcing a spike through someone	Pierce shoulders with a tin spike	Steal senses
Hemalurgy	Crack Spiritweb to allow for spike grafting	Access to stolen senses	Same as stolen ability	Be pierced with a tin spike	Access stolen senses
Hemalurgy	Crack Spiritweb to allow for spike grafting	Access to stolen Destiny	Same as stolen ability	Be pierced with a chromium spike	Access stolen Destiny
Knight Radiant	Chosen by spren	Lightweaving	Stormlight	Oaths	Manipulate light
Knight Radiant	Chosen by spren	Soulcasting	Stormlight	Oaths	Change material into a different one
Fabrials (I'm calling this Lifebinding)	None	Soulcasting	Stormlight	Gems and metals used in the Soulcaster Fabrial	Change material into the material defined by the Fabrial

I've grabbed a handful of non-exhaustive examples to illustrate my point: throughout the Invested Arts, there is a distinct difference between what the Art is and what the Art allows someone to do. Some effects are acheivable via multiple different Arts. For our examples in this thread:

• Biochromatic Breaths are the Invested Art of Endowment; people can Awaken while having nothing to do with Endowment
• Hemalurgy is the Invested Art of Ruin; people can create transferable Spiritweb chunks while having nothing to do with Ruin

There's also a difference between the Command/focus/filter for an Art and how it's traditionally fueled. Mistings can fuel their specific ability with unkeyed Investiture instead of Connecting to Preservation, Returned can live off Stormlight, etc.

From the WoB you quoted:

Spoiler

18 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

It's the second. This wouldn't exist in the pre-space-age as much; by space age there's a certain terminology that is going between... basically it's starting with the arcanists and moving to the general population. What certain themes in the Cosmere magics mean. And so when Hoid says "this is an Awakened machine" his audience understands what that means. It does not necessarily mean Breaths Awaken, but Breaths are one of the main ways that people see things be Awakened. You should be noticing those parallels, but that's a term that in the Cosmere is becoming genericized to mean un-living object being given some measure of sentience and even sapience by application of Investiture, Commands, and these sorts of things. By this point they've all interacted with various Awakened machines of sorts in the future Cosmere. They know what this means. They've talked to an Awakened computer.

 

Like, this explicitly states that Awakening isn't unique to Endowment's Invested Art.

But as I say, this mostly sounds like a semantic issue and that we agree on the core concepts.

18 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

True, that is an excellent point. If they're holding a piece of Spiritweb already then they may count as a functional spike already, and the raw Investiture is just piggybacking off the bindpoint. That definitely points against my 3rd idea, as their could still be a viable Spiritweb fragment inside the Cinderhearts even after being purified of Ruin's Investiture (though I think there's still some wiggle room).

Even with this being the case, you should still be able to staple raw Investiture to a Spiritweb, though you may need a small Spiritweb fragment to act as a bridge. Gemstones with Lesser Spren and then filled with Light, or spikes with Breath could probably still work as alternatives to Ruin's metallic spikes.

100% agreed. I think there must be a way of integrating stuff like that into someone's Spiritweb, it's just that the Scadrians only know how to do it violently using Hemalurgy. They corrupted the Sunheart in a way that would allow it to be forcefully shoved into someone's Spiritweb, which is the bit that involves Ruin's influence.

18 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Yes, after further consideration with Rebeke's ability to remain Connected to the Cinderhearts, it was probably not Connection removal that freed Elegy from the Cinder King. Perhaps the removal of the Ruinous Investiture just kept her mind from being so vulnerable to the CK's influence, since she says "the voice" is gone from her mind after the Cinderheart's purification.

Basically, I agree with your conclusion in large part, though I think their remaining Connection is probably not to Ruin but just to the other Cinderhearts and their Investiture.

On reflection, I think you're right on this point. The Cinderhearts themselves are all (I believe) from Threnodites so must carry an inherent Connection.

18 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

The reason I keep going back to the Breath-in-a-spike deal really is because it ties to a previous idea of mine: the main cost of giving Breath to another is that you must now live without it, and be at a notably lower quality of life. But, if you could put the Breath in a vessel that would allow you to continue benefitting from it while you lived but held onto it after you died, then it could theoretically be retrieved and given to those you will for it (though the system is obviously not foolproof and the spike could be stolen if not handled properly).

Oh that's a fun concept. Part of me wants to say that, surely if it were that easy, there would be factions on Nalthis doing this already. That said, they might just not have the knowledge / technology, or maybe messing with Breaths like that is sacrilegious to them. Obviously Breaths in an object inherently have a sort of Identity-coded lock on them, but Hemalurgic spikes shouldn't care about that.

This is one of those things that I feel like we just don't have the evidence to answer it directly, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. I wonder whether holding a Breath like that would feel any different to holding one normally.

Side note, I just went to do some research on this and the first result was a post by you from a few months back really living up to your 'Hemalurgy Enthusiast' title.

20 hours ago, Trusk&#x27;our said:

You know, Hemalurgy only needs to draw blood initially when grafted onto a person. Vin's earring does not need to touch blood after the initial spiking and can be removed and replaced as desired without injury. I wonder, is this a similar case to the purified Cinderheart? Could a bindpoint touched by Hemalurgy remain as a pathway for other Investiture to creep in even after the spike has been removed?

I think this was the conclusion I was getting at in a roundabout way. We know that Hemalurgic spikes cause permanent damage, so I would say that yes, the 'hole' it leaves would make it easier for other Investiture to get in. It may even be possible to make a very precise spike with the express purpose of cutting into a Spiritweb in a certain way that allows for a whole bunch of stuff to be grafted onto it.

[Trusk'our he/him]

7 hours ago, PanLin said:

Side note, I just went to do some research on this and the first result was a post by you from a few months back really living up to your 'Hemalurgy Enthusiast' title.

Oh yeah, I'm the Shard's (self-appointed and completely unlicensed) Hemalurgy specialist. If it has to do with Spikes, Ruin, or Spiritweb manipulation, you can count on me to be watching from the sidelines.

7 hours ago, PanLin said:

Oh that's a fun concept. Part of me wants to say that, surely if it were that easy, there would be factions on Nalthis doing this already. That said, they might just not have the knowledge / technology, or maybe messing with Breaths like that is sacrilegious to them. Obviously Breaths in an object inherently have a sort of Identity-coded lock on them, but Hemalurgic spikes shouldn't care about that.

This is one of those things that I feel like we just don't have the evidence to answer it directly, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. I wonder whether holding a Breath like that would feel any different to holding one normally.

I would assume that they simply wouldn't have the knowledge to do so normally (assuming it is possible). I mean, what Nalthian would think to put their Breath in a metal spike- something that should require the 9th Heightening to truly Awaken- and then stab themselves with it? Not only is it unintuitive, but it actively goes against all common sense and instinct.