Forgery and soul cracks

[Oversleep]

So far, every end-postive magic needs a way to get into user's soul - usually by cracks - Allomancy, Surgebinding, Dor flows through Elantrians, while end-negative doesn't seem to need that: both Feruchemists and Awakeners already have the power, there is no outside source of it, so no cracks needed.

How does it work with Forgery? It surely is end-positive, as Dor is sustaining the transformation; but power does not flow through the user. What is happening here?

[Kurkistan he/him]

I don't believe that we've gotten any WoB on this.

If you want speculation: I'd wager that the forgery kind of goes on top of the soul rather than insinuating into it.

One comparison to look at is withering on Thronody—particularly if we're to accept the somewhat dubious "sure you can call it that (paraphrase)" description of it as "cancerous Forging". You clearly don't need to be soul-damaged already for a shade to affect you; the question then is whether the withering itself has to damage your soul before it can have any actual effect. I'd argue that it isn't initially damaging your soul in any permanent way, since quick application of silver yields a complete recovery. This suggests that either withering needs only minimal soul-damage (and uniquely heal-able soul damage at that) or no soul damage at all before it starts grayifying people: the later seems more reasonable. 

Edited July 3, 2016 by Kurkistan

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

There is a recent WoB about it being tricky using the end- terminology to classify other systems of magic. With regards to Selish magics, until we can be certain the Initiation procedure(s), I'd venture Forgery to be more end-neutral than positive. I think (although don't quote me), that it is also one of Sel's systems that uses the least amount of Investiture, so the person practicing may not actually need to have a heavily cracked spiritweb