Fabrials Of Other Investiture

[Sirscott13]

But it takes a lot of breath to awaken metal so does this mean that the nature of the two would clash?

[natc]

But it takes a lot of breath to awaken metal so does this mean that the nature of the two would clash?

You can put breath in anything AFAIK. It just won't awaken. It correlates to whether it used to be alive, so I'd guess the more "living" it was the easier to [re]animate.

I believe I've seen a quote somewhere that you can easily make use a statue as Lifeless if the statue was a soulcast human, so the material is actually irrelevant. Gotta find the quote now. . .

[Voidus]

You can put breath in anything AFAIK. It just won't awaken. It correlates to whether it used to be alive, so I'd guess the more "living" it was the easier to [re]animate.

I believe I've seen a quote somewhere that you can easily make use a statue as Lifeless if the statue was a soulcast human, so the material is actually irrelevant. Gotta find the quote now. . .

Which does beg the question of how hard it would be to awaken a Hemalurgic spike, possibly more difficult due to the Investitures clashing (Though Hemalurgic spikes are pretty low in terms of Investiture) but it could actually be easier since the spike contains a portion of Spirit-web it's closer to a human than regular metal is so it could be significantly easier to Awaken.

[Sirscott13]

If it were possible to steel breath, does that mean that you could steel other forms of body absorbed investiture. Like steeling stormlight off a surge binder

[laxrulz777]

Which does beg the question of how hard it would be to awaken a Hemalurgic spike, possibly more difficult due to the Investitures clashing (Though Hemalurgic spikes are pretty low in terms of Investiture) but it could actually be easier since the spike contains a portion of Spirit-web it's closer to a human than regular metal is so it could be significantly easier to Awaken.

I suspect that awakening a Hemallurgic spike would challenge our current top contender for "hardest thing to manipulate" which is Nightblood.

 

Hemalurgic spikes can steal nearly anything, although in this case it does go against the very essence of Endowments magic so it might not be able to but I still think it would.

IIRC, Hemallurgic spikes don't "steal" things quite as much as they can rewrite" your sDNA. To my knowledge, we don't have any living Hemallurgic victims to know if the ability is truly "stolen" or what (it might work this way... we just don't know).

 

So spiking Kaladin would give you his ability to surgebind (unclear if you'd be bound by the oaths as well?) but it wouldn't give you the stormlight he was currently holding. Things get "weirder" on Nalthis where the Breath you hold is a collection of the "Sparks of Life" from multiple people. It's not clear if you spiked Vasher would you get the ability to accumulate breaths or would you simply get most of Vasher's breaths?

[Voidus]

I suspect that awakening a Hemallurgic spike would challenge our current top contender for "hardest thing to manipulate" which is Nightblood.

 

IIRC, Hemallurgic spikes don't "steal" things quite as much as they can rewrite" your sDNA. To my knowledge, we don't have any living Hemallurgic victims to know if the ability is truly "stolen" or what (it might work this way... we just don't know).

 

So spiking Kaladin would give you his ability to surgebind (unclear if you'd be bound by the oaths as well?) but it wouldn't give you the stormlight he was currently holding. Things get "weirder" on Nalthis where the Breath you hold is a collection of the "Sparks of Life" from multiple people. It's not clear if you spiked Vasher would you get the ability to accumulate breaths or would you simply get most of Vasher's breaths?

Spikes aren't particularly invested though so it might not be much of a difference.

Kind of, they rip a piece of the targets spiritweb off and staple it onto yours.

Depends which bindpoints you hit on him I'd imagine, although given the ease with which Stormlight is gained, used and stolen I don't know that it really forms enough of a spiritual connection with the user to manifest as part of their spiritweb.

On Vasher again it would depend on which bindpoints you hit, like choosing which abilities you'd get from a Mistborn and intent has some role to play in Hemalurgy too so we're unsure how much it's affected by that. But given the inherent connection of Breaths to the spirit I imagine that it would quite likely be a spikable trait.

[Blaze1616]

IIRC, Hemallurgic spikes don't "steal" things quite as much as they can rewrite" your sDNA. To my knowledge, we don't have any living Hemallurgic victims to know if the ability is truly "stolen" or what (it might work this way... we just don't know).

 

So spiking Kaladin would give you his ability to surgebind (unclear if you'd be bound by the oaths as well?) but it wouldn't give you the stormlight he was currently holding. Things get "weirder" on Nalthis where the Breath you hold is a collection of the "Sparks of Life" from multiple people. It's not clear if you spiked Vasher would you get the ability to accumulate breaths or would you simply get most of Vasher's breaths?

 

Two small things. First, I'm pretty sure that Hemalurgy steals. It "rips off" a piece of your spirit web. That would imply it is no longer where it originally was (i.e. in you).

 

Second, Breath is not the Spark of Life. Breath is other innate investiture that non-Nalthians have packaged together with their Spark of Life. Nalthians have it separate though, and that is why a Drab can continue living after giving up their Breath.

[laxrulz777]

Two small things. First, I'm pretty sure that Hemalurgy steals. It "rips off" a piece of your spirit web. That would imply it is no longer where it originally was (i.e. in you).

 

I meant that we don't know this "canonically" yet. WoB keeps using "steal" and "take" but we might be limited by the English language on this one. If we think of your Spirit Web like Intellectual Property, "Steal" and "Take" dont necessarily mean that you're depriving the original person of the use of it. Simply that you're "ripping them off" as it were.

 

I wouldn't at all be suprised if it behaves the way we're all imagining it does (taking the power away from one person and giving a slightly weaker version of it to another) but it's not 100% certain (even the WoB has a fuzzy kind of canon to it).

 

Second, Breath is not the Spark of Life. Breath is other innate investiture that non-Nalthians have packaged together with their Spark of Life. Nalthians have it separate though, and that is why a Drab can continue living after giving up their Breath.

 

You're right. I misread this

 

Q:  Do all the humans have innate Investiture?

A:  I believe that they all do. I don't think that you've seen anyone without innate Investiture yet.  [Drabs] do not have innate Investiture. And on Scadrial they have the pieces of Ruin and Preservation in them.  And they do have it on Roshar.

 

and this

 

Q:  Does Nightblood rip souls out of bodies, by chance?

A:  Nightblood consumes Investiture, including the spark of life.

 

and sort of conflated them in my mind. The Spark of life (or possibly more properly the Spark of Sentience?) is a separate gift from the Shards. Breath is a different thing. Good call.

[Blaze1616]

The Spark of life (or possibly more properly the Spark of Sentience?) is a separate gift from the Shards. Breath is a different thing. Good call.

 

I do not believe that the Spark of Life is from the Shards. We know that life existed prior to the Shattering on non-Yolen planets via WoB. We also know that the power of the Shards is specifically the power of creation, not necessarily only life. A good question to ask Brandon would be "You've referenced the Spark of Life as Investiture when discussing Nightblood. Does Hoid have this Spark of Life?"

[laxrulz777]

I do not believe that the Spark of Life is from the Shards. We know that life existed prior to the Shattering on non-Yolen planets via WoB. We also know that the power of the Shards is specifically the power of creation, not necessarily only life. A good question to ask Brandon would be "You've referenced the Spark of Life as Investiture when discussing Nightblood. Does Hoid have this Spark of Life?"

I agree. I think there's something else out there with this. I THINK we also know that some of the planets that now have humans did NOT have life before (Scadrial is the one I'm thinking of specifically though there could be others). So is there a distinction between "pre-shattering" humans and "post-shattering / created" humans?

[Blaze1616]

I THINK we also know that some of the planets that now have humans did NOT have life before (Scadrial is the one I'm thinking of specifically though there could be others). So is there a distinction between "pre-shattering" humans and "post-shattering / created" humans?

You are correct. In addition to knowing some planets had pre-Shattering life, we know others didn't attain life until after. For Scadrial we know humans specifically did not exist until Leras and Ati strolled on over and set up shop. I'm not sure about other Scadrian life forms (flora and fauna and whatnot). As for distinctions? I'm not sure? Hoid is pre-Shattering, but he also has access to Yolen-Lightweaving, so we never really know if we're seeing "real" Hoid or not.

 

I think many of us Sharders have presumed that the Shards that created human life made humans in the Yolish-human image, which is why worldhopping does not cause the locals to scream "ALIENS!", because the humans look similar enough to not throw up flags. This was discussed rather recently in a topic started by Oudeis, I think. I'll try to find it and link it.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Blaze1616

[laxrulz777]

You are correct. In addition to knowing some planets had pre-Shattering life, we know others didn't attain life until after. For Scadrial we know humans specifically did not exist until Leras and Ati strolled on over and set up shop. I'm not sure about other Scadrian life forms (flora and fauna and whatnot). As for distinctions? I'm not sure? Hoid is pre-Shattering, but he also has access to Yolen-Lightweaving, so we never really know if we're seeing "real" Hoid or not.

 

I think many of us Sharders have presumed that the Shards that created human life made humans in the Yolish-human image, which is why worldhopping does not cause the locals to scream "ALIENS!", because the humans look similar enough to not throw up flags. This was discussed rather recently in a topic started by Oudeis, I think. I'll try to find it and link it.

We also have a wonderful magical system that seems to equate languages or otherwise allow the Worldhoppers to communicate easily with the locals. I'm perfectly willing to let that be hand-waved away but, given the thoroughness with which he writes, I suspect that Brandon will explain it at some point.

 

There were three sentient species on Yolen and he implies that any or all three of those species might be amongst tthe original shardholders. And now that I realize we've thoroughly and completely threadjacked the original question, I'll do my civic duty to return it to the topic:

 

I think we'll undoubtedly see Fabrials (either by that name or another one) in other settings. I strongly suspect they're the way we'll see space travel in the later books. Based on Brandon's love of science, the most obvious being a Fabrial that eliminates Gravitation on an object and a metal mind that reduces mass to zero. Now a nudge could accelerate the object infinitly and (with a little bit of physics hand waving) you could achieve FTL flight. That's really only one way to do it. The systems we've already seen all have methods (either alone or in tandem with other ones) that would allow this.

 

Maybe you can only get the mass of a ship down to zero through a metal mind so the ship has to have sentience so you need a breath invested ship. No one has ever asked if Nightblood could put one of his traits into a metal mind if he was hemallurgically spiked correctly... that would be an intriguing question.

[Blaze1616]

All right, I found the topic discussing the blending of Worldhopping. Turns out it was a small conversation in a larger topic, and it wasn't asked by Oudeis (though he did partake in the conversation). You can find the conversation starting here.

 

I apologize for partaking in this derailment. For my thoughts on fabrials of other investitures, see my earlier posts about Elantris's teleportation discs.

[laxrulz777]

For my thoughts on fabrials of other investitures, see my earlier posts about Elantris's teleportation discs.

I think that's a great example. I strongly suspect we'll see a lot of these. Whether they keep the name Fabrial or if that stays restricted to "Spren-tech" is an open ended question.