Allomancy and Soulstamps

[Quiver he/him]

So... tossing this out to you guys. Do we have any information on how allomancy and forgery can interact with one another?

 

Now, granted... I'm not sure if it would even be possible to soul stamp a metal. It might be that the size and intricacy of a soulstamp is such that an forger couldn't stamp it on something small enough to swallow, in which case.. well, I guess that answers that question.

 

But could you stamp a metal to alter it's purity? Or -if an allomancer could ingest and burn a soul stamp- do we have any indications as to what would happen as a result of that?

[Bugsy he/him]

Actually, come to think of it, what would happen if you stamped a bar of metal and then ground some of it off, leaving the stamp intact. Would the shreddings still stay in the state they were when attached to the bar? And if so, would this metal be burnable?

[KidWayne he/him]

Interesting (potential) way to get some basically non-existent atium, wouldn't you say?

You're more or less suggesting soul stamps as the functional equivalent of alchemy in the Cosmere. It would certainly help bring down the cost (or at least increase the supply) of some rare metals if you could just soul stamp some pig iron to produce bendalloy, aluminum, etc.

EDIT: You know what, this is already possible with soul casting. It's also probably easier to accomplish with soul casting since there's no danger of soul casted metal reverting to its previous form.

However, we are consistently told that investiture interferes with investiture, so this probably wouldn't work. There is a possibility that it would though, since metals aren't actually invested; they're simply keys that unlock the innate investiture of the allomancer. So, the question becomes, "Are soul stamped objects invested? If so, would a soul stamped metal interfere with an allomancer's innate investiture?"

I like the theory, there are a lot of interesting possibilities for this. My question would be how breath interacts with soul stamps. Could a skilled Forger create another Nightblood by stamping a soul onto a sword? Could you "free" Nightblood by soul stamping its soul onto a human? What would happen if you soul stamped a lifeless into the form of a sword? Can you stamp a soul (i.e. sentience) onto a lifeless (e.g. one of Kalad's Phantoms)? Can you stamp a soul onto an object as a short cut to creating a sentient object? These are fun things to consider.

Edited April 26, 2016 by KidWayne

[Landis963 he/him]

Godmetals are invested. It's how atium differs from, say, lead. Soulcasting can't produce them (Via WoB).

[Straw he/him]

I wonder if a soulstamp could grant someone powers...

[Samaldin he/him]

I wonder if a soulstamp could grant someone powers...

My guess would be it could grant you a different power but not an entirerly new one. So you could change one kind of misting to another kind, or make a misting out of a mistborn (making a mistborn out of a misting should be possible but extremly difficult). But you can´t soulstamp a misting into a surgebinder and vice versa

Edited April 26, 2016 by Samaldin

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

It is in fact possible to soulstamp a person so they have the relevant 'areas' in their spiritweb to be an allomancer, but they still wouldn't be able to use allomancy. (There's at least one WoB on this, but I can't be bothered to look for it right now)

I believe this is because Forgery can't create the Connection (note the capital C) to Preservation required to draw the power for allomancy.

So a Forged allomancer would technically have the abilities (pewter, steel, bendalloy, etc.) but they wouldn't be able to fuel said abilities.

If you soulstamp a Thug into a Slider, the spiritweb would change, and the Connection to Preservation would already exist, so that person would become able to burn bendalloy. (The question here is whether they'd still be able to burn pewter, that depends on exactly how Forgery changes the spiritweb, is it additive or, uhm... 'replacive')

 

Now let's say that you've soulstamped a non-allomancer into a Coinshot. If they also have the ability to draw in Stormlight for example (they might be a Radiant's squire) , in theory they should be able to somehow use that Stormlight to fuel their Forged allomancy.

 

I like the theory, there are a lot of interesting possibilities for this. My question would be how breath interacts with soul stamps. Could a skilled Forger create another Nightblood by stamping a soul onto a sword? Could you "free" Nightblood by soul stamping its soul onto a human? What would happen if you soul stamped a lifeless into the form of a sword? Can you stamp a soul (i.e. sentience) onto a lifeless (e.g. one of Kalad's Phantoms)? Can you stamp a soul onto an object as a short cut to creating a sentient object? These are fun things to consider.

 

Yeah... all of those are basically impossible.

First, Forgery can't transplant souls.

Changing a humanoid (lifeless) into a sword (or any object) is too implausible, the stamp wouldn't work.

Stamping a lifeless so they'd have a soul... might actually be possible, but I doubt it would work on Kalad's Phantoms, maybe on a standard lifeless.

Stamping a soul onto an object is even more impossible than transplanting them with Forgery, souls are basically investiture, and it is simply not possible to create (or destroy) investiture.

 

Something I do believe is possible in making Forgey interact with Breath is to change the command of an Awakened object, or stamp an object that contains Breath but has no command so that it does have a command, though because of investiture interfering with other investiture this would likely be prohibitively difficult.

[KidWayne he/him]

@ EagleOfTheForestPath

I love the nonchalant attitude with which you destroyed my little fantasy world there (seriously, no sarcasm involved). "Yeah... all of those are basically impossible" made me laugh.

I know that you can't actually transplant souls with Forgery; you can only create replicas of them. What I question is what the limits are to the implausibility constraint. Obviously, Nightblood or a spren wouldn't think it was odd for a person to become a sword. So, how implausible is it really?

[natc]

. . . no they'd definitely find it odd. Humans don't do that.

[Vissy]

Soulstamping works by changing the past of the object or person (so it changes their spirit web), so you can only make them into something that could have been possible to happen. The more unlikely the transformation, the harder it is to accomplish. For a human to somehow turn into a sword, you'd need a gigantic miracle to occur. Something extremely strange, convoluted and Investiture-heavy that probably involved a whole murder of Hemalurgy and Awakening, too. So yeah, it's pretty much impossible.

Edited May 1, 2016 by Varangian