theory [White Sand] Investiture: Focus, Manifestations, and Catalysts

[Ari he/him]

I've tagged this White Sand spoilers as the graphic novel is still pretty new, but it's critical to the pattern that I've observed that has convinced me my previous thoughts on how investiture worked were insufficient. (I had been thinking I was missing an element due to Nalthis' magic already, but I didn't have a second example that made me absolutely certain)

We're probably all familiar with the term Focus. It's a necessary element for anyone to use Investiture to perform magic, and it's the part of the "spell" that determines how that power/magic manifests in the world. For Allomancy, that means metals determine which power you access. For AonDor, that's symbols.

We also know that shards manifest their power in solid, liquid, and gaseous forms. I started thinking about this in detail after reading Secret History and noting that in the Cognitive Realm there, everything manifested as mists. There is sometimes some overlap between these manifestations and focuses, so it's not a clean delination. I call these Manifestations of Investiture, or just Manifestation for short, and they represent a Shard's power/body. I would argue, for instance, that Atium is both a Focus and Manifestation at the same time, wheras the Scadrian mists and Well of Eternity are simply Manifestations. I had convinced myself that one of these manifestations would determine the appearance of a planet's cognitive aspect, as we had an ocean of sphere in Shadesmar, and a sea of mists in cognitive Scadrial. On reflection, it seems to be more that one part of the equation is heavily reflected in the cognitive seas, but I don't have enough data yet to make a reasonable hypothesis as to which one. It's especially confusing that spheres are used on Roshar, as gems actually seem to be the relevant part of the equation that sphere would resemble. This could be due to the cognitive seas simply being composed of whatever people most clearly associate with magic- in which case, we would probably expect seas of symbols in Sel, seas of Colour in Nalthis, and maybe seas of Sand or Sunlight on Taldain.

This system described Scadrial pretty well, and as it was the magic system we best understood, I was content with it, for a while. But it troubled me that while it arguably extended pretty well to Roshar, it has trouble decribing magic on Nalthis, which very clearly had three elements to it. A Command, which we knew via Word of Brandon is their focus, a variable number of Breaths, and of course, colour to drain. The Breaths seemed relatively obvious as a Manfestation of Endowment, as she literally grants Splinters of herself to the Returned that manifest as Divine Breaths. Arguably the colour could also be said to be a Manifestation if you believe that every bit of dye and paint in Hallandren was derived from Tears of Edgli, but I actually don't buy that argument, as we're explicitly told that those dyes are more effective for awakening, implying that mundane dyes and paints were often drained by Awakeners. I also felt skeptical that a magic system would require two manifestations at once, it seemed like I was missing a variable. I was stumped for a while, as I was convinced Manifestations were important, but that I was missing two crucial variables to the equation, one a third part that enabled magic, and one an element that determined where that third part of the equation was actually necessary, a multiplier of sorts to the constant of Colour on Nalthis.

And then we had the newsletter confirming how Sand Mastery works. (this is where the spoilers come in) Apparently there is a barely-visible algae within Taldain's sand, which when depleted of magic, appears black. The sand master dehydrates himself to drain magic from the algae, mastering the sand, and then after four hours of exposure to sunlight, the algae is replenished and good to go again. At first, I wasn't particularly excited by reading this. Sure, the algae is their focus, and it's recharged by the Sun, the manifestation of Autonomy's power. But today I realised I was missing something, and went back and compared Taldain's and Nalthis' magic.

So the drained colour, our final element of Awakening, was more of a catalyst than a necessary component of our magical equation. It can sometimes be done without, (as there is no obvious catalyst in Allomancy) but the stronger the catalyst, the stronger the magic, especially if your catalyst is also a Manifestation. In fact, this retroactively made sense of Atium being such a powerful metal too, as it was a focus and a manifestation of Ruin's power. Likewise, Water acted as a reserve of magic for Sand Mastery, although you also needed algae that had been charged with sunlight. Here we had a third element, and a consistent pattern of manifestation, focus, and catalyst that made sense.

So... under this Focus/Manifestation/Catalyst system, Scadrial is missing one element but definitely has a Metal focus and the Mists and Godmetals are Manifestations. Arguably, feruchemical attributes could be considered a catalyst on Scadrial, but that might be stretching. Nalthis has a Command focus, a Breath manifestation, and a Colour catalyst. And Roshar is a bit more difficult to determine, but probably fits in some combination of gems, stormlight, and oaths to that structure. I would guess that it would be an Oath focus, with Stormlight as a gaseous manifestation of Honour, and a Gem catalyst. (This would explain nicely why Stormlight adheres to cut gems so well but gems aren't actually required for most Surges, as it seems like the necessity of the Catalyst part of the magic seems to vary by world) Selish magic has the form of various engravings, dances, Aons, or soulstamps as their focus, and obviously the Dor is their manifestation. This leaves Soulstone as either a solid manifestation of Aona or Skai, and/or as a catalyst that's required for Forgery, but presumably not for the other Selish magic.

This pattern also seems to imply that more heavily invested worlds seem to have a more optional catalyst, as we know that the three worlds that don't have universally required catalysts (Sel, Roshar, and Scadrial) have a lot of loose investiture running around, or in the case of Scadrial, humans were artificially created by Shards investing themselves in the planet, saturating the whole thing with their power.

So, in summary, magic requires a focus, and in less heavily invested environments, a catalyst. A manifestation can also be a focus or catalyst, which seems to enhance the power of the interaction. It also seems that a manifestation can stand in for a focus altogether, in the case that the magic user is highly attuned to the relevant Shard, as Vin demonstrated in Hero of Ages, but that might be a special case for those who are being attuned as Vessels. Any thoughts?

Edited July 25, 2016 by Ari

[Landis963 he/him]

Please cite the WoBs (just a link to them would suffice at the bare minimum).  I do not recall seeing the quote specifically tying Nalthis' Focus to the Commands.

Neither Voidbinding nor artifabrication appear to require Oaths (otherwise Eshonai would have been required to speak an oath as she bonded the hatespren, or Navani an oath to trap a spren in a fabrial's gemstone), so Roshar's Focus cannot, therefore, be the Oath in the same way that Sel's Focus is the symbol, or Scadrial's the metal.  Furthermore, Shadows of Self Oak Brook Signing, question 14 states that "spren existed on Roshar before the Shattering" of Adonalsium.  It seems plausible, given that WoB, that Roshar's Focus is in fact the spren as opposed to the oath.  

Soulstone is not, necessarily, required for crafting soulstamps - Shai's dismissal of wood to the arbiters was due to it being harder to carve precisely than soulstone.  It very well may be a Manifestation of the Dor.  

I like the system, though, it makes thinking about this sort of minutiae much easier.  

Edited July 26, 2016 by Landis963
ambiguous phrasing caused by accidentally a word.

[Ari he/him]

On Awakening: Sure, I'm looking up a reference for the WoB on Commands being Awakening's focus. They definitely are, (once you understand how focus works on Scadrial it becomes very clear that the Command is the only element of Awakening that makes sense as the focus, because it's what determines what the Awakened object will do) but it's difficult to search as focus is a common word, and Command hasn't been tagged on theoryland for ANYTHING for some reason, so I'm hoping the relevant WoB is there and using the word "Nalthis" so I can search it rather than go diving into google. I know I've seen the WoB, and I've found a lot of references here from other people who've been around a long time saying the same thing, I just haven't found it yet. I might have to get back to you with it as the search is looking like it'll take hours.

So far, I found this one, which suggests that the reason for colour drain is copying a cognitive command into the object, (ie. investing it with a new personality) that Brandon thinks gets pretty close, so I could be wrong about the need for catalysts being related to the amount of loose investiture on the planet.

This one suggests some shared fundamentals between Awakening and Surgebinding, which I would think probably refers to Commands and Oaths having similar roles.

edit: The closest I've got so far to getting a confirmation is this one, where Chaos mentions Commands being the focus for Nalthis, and Brandon RAFOs him without correction. I think the WoB might actually be so ancient it's in the TWG archive at this point...

As for Manifestations of the Dor- I wouldn't be surprised if the Dor maybe had two or three sets of manifestations, being a combination of Aona and Skai's power, similar to how Sazed now has Atium, Lerasium, and Harmonium.

This is mainly a classification system for thinking about various aspects of investiture, and it could be very wrong still. Catalysts are the part I'm least sure about, especially why the need for them varies. It could simply be that catalysts are extra elements that are sometimes necessary for investing objects as part of magic.

On Selish catalysts: Remember, arguably anything used to carve a stamp is a catalyst, not just the soulstone, as unlike AonDor, you need an object to carve the focus into. This could support the idea that the real reason for a catalyst is investing in changing an object- that would explain Awakening, Soulcasting, and Forging all needing one, although it doesn't explain why arguably Sand Mastery has one, unless something different is going on altogether with Sand Mastery.

On Roshar's focus: I'm guessing with the oaths. I've vacillated a lot myself on what works here, but the oaths actually make a lot of sense. For Roshar, the focus needs to be what determines which order you join, and the nature of what oaths you make are a big part of what determine that. Some argue that it should be the Spren that's the focus, but that depends- we would expect the Spren to contain the focus at the core as part of their Splinter, like Seons do. If Roshar's focus is intangible, like an oath, that explains why there's nothing to see. And it also explains how Spren can die- if they bond with someone who breaks an oath while using their power, it cuts off access to their investiture through their splinter, as it has lost its focus, the same way Seons of Elantrians lost investiture to their focus when Elantris didn't have a valid Aon. Thus, fabrials automatically contain the focus because they trap a splinter, and the splinter has to have a focus to function, it's how they work.

Also, just because Spren pre-dated Honour does not mean that Roshar didn't have a focus before Honour came. We've had WoB that focuses are aspects of the planet a Shard has invested in as opposed to a function of the Shard, so if a Shard invested itself in two planets at once, it might result in two flavours of the same magic system that each have a different focus. In a similar vein, Seventh of Dusk's world probably has a focus despite not even having a shard on it. Arguably it's whatever worm those birds eat.

Edited July 25, 2016 by Ari

[Yata he/him]

Ari, I am working to the same problem for a while and I understand your point.

Later I will post a better answer to your post (I have no time now and I need a lot of time to write and check what I post) but I may say that I come to some conclusions similar to your own (also if in others parts I disagree with you).

I used of course different terms to what you called "Manifestation" (at first Essence to link it to the in-world knowledge and then Vector to actually describe the phenomen and avoid confusion with the Vorin's Essence). Of course there are better terms but I suggest you to change your "manifestation" because it has already a meaning in Cosmere's in-world knowledge... the "Manifestations of Investiture" are what we call "Magic Systems". It may cause some confusion (of course you don't have to use my term but just I think it's better to change it before the topic began to be too big to change it)

[Ari he/him]

5 minutes ago, Yata said:

Ari, I am working to the same problem for a while and I understand your point.

Later I will post a better answer to your post (I have no time now and I need a lot of time to write and check what I post) but I may say that I come to some conclusions similar to your own (also if in others parts I disagree with you).

I used of course different terms to what you called "Manifestation" (at first Essence to link it to the in-world knowledge and then Vector to actually describe the phenomen and avoid confusion with the Vorin's Essence). Of course there are better terms but I suggest you to change your "manifestation" because it has already a meaning in Cosmere's in-world knowledge... the "Manifestations of Investiture" are what we call "Magic Systems". It may cause some confusion (of course you don't have to use my term but just I think it's better to change it before the topic began to be too big to change it)

No, I'm specifically referring to physical manifestations of a shard's power as Manifestations with a capital letter. (so things like the Tears of Edgli, Atium, Lerasium, Harmonium, "Trellium", the Mists, and probably Stormlight, and maybe Soulstone- you could shortcut a bit and refer to "solid manifestations," "gaseous manifestations," and "liquid manifestations" under that terminology if you wanted to talk about them as a category) I didn't create a term for magic systems in my terminology, I'm perfectly happy with calling them Magic Systems.

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

You could argue that Scadrial is a special case, given how much of R/P/H's Investiture went into the creation of it and it's people, further arguing that the extra bit of Pres is a form of Manifestation, as burning the Focus acts as the Catalyst thus allowing them access to that extra bit.

In regards to Roshar's, don't forget that Oaths weren't always in place. The epigraph referring to Ishar imposing order on Surgebinders indicates that when the spren first copied the Heralds, the Focus is unclear. As for the Shadesmar spheres, I think the Focus may be bonds/binding things; fabrials bind spren, humans and listeners form a bond with a spren, spheres bind storm light if only temporarily

I wouldn't call the Tears themselves a Manifestation, as it is speculated on here that they're grown on or near Endowment's Shardpool

[Yata he/him]

There is a thing we have to remember.

We have a Wob (at least I find it again I will post here) that talk about the difference between Inner and external Magic System. How this two kinds of powers works differently and how other features of the magic system is forced by his "type"

EDIT:

Quote

If metals shape the Investiture in Allomancy, causing a Steelpush or whatever, how is it that the mists can be used to perform the same feat? What is 'shaping' the inhaled mists into a Steelpush, if there's no metal "nozzle" to do so

 

 

 

[–]mistborn[S] 6 punti 1 anno fa 

Consistently through the cosmere, once you have the power in hand and it has permeated you, will becomes your nozzle. This can be seen in Warbreaker, where the power has been distributed and inhabits the people. The nozzle idea is important for Magics that are drawing power externally, as it keeps the power from overwhelming and destroying you. (Which, basically, happened to Vin at the end of the Trilogy--she got consumed by the magic. She became something new, now, so it didn't KILL her. It destroyed what she was, transformed her into something else.)

So you see magics like on Sel and Scadrial where a specific nozzle is needed--as the power source is external, at least with Allomancy. Will and intent take a backseat, though still pop up on occasion. On Nalthis (and in a lesser way, Roshar) will and intent are more important, and what you are trying to do shapes the magic more directly.

A little direct manifestation in this is found in the subtle differences between Allomancy and Feruchemy. In Allomancy, when you enhance the senses, you just get a blast of power--and all senses are enhanced, whether you want them all or not. In Feruchemy, you can be more precise, and pick a specific sense to store. The power is internal here, and therefore more limited in how much you can draw--but you can also be more precise with its manipulation.

Note that Roshar Surgebinding is a special case, as the magical symbiosis there is stronger than it is on other worlds, as much of the magic involves bits of power who have become sapient.

 

Edited July 25, 2016 by Yata

[Argel he/him]

That's interesting. So does that mean theoretically someone could use breaths to in-effect perform Allomancy without the metals? And if so, what is "Allomancy"?  The effect?

[Yata he/him]

29 minutes ago, Argel said:

That's interesting. So does that mean theoretically someone could use breaths to in-effect perform Allomancy without the metals? And if so, what is "Allomancy"?  The effect?

I say (but it's not a very rigid definition) that:

Allomancy is the ability to generate effects (coded in your S-DNA) from raw Investiture (standardly Preservation power) using the appropriate metal as limitator of power.

 

Probably you may use every kind of raw investiture to make Allomancy works (I don't know why you want to do, but it's another problem)... But probably the tricks needed to performe some hack are not worthy the effort

Edited July 25, 2016 by Yata

[Ari he/him]

16 hours ago, AnanasSpren said:

You could argue that Scadrial is a special case, given how much of R/P/H's Investiture went into the creation of it and it's people, further arguing that the extra bit of Pres is a form of Manifestation, as burning the Focus acts as the Catalyst thus allowing them access to that extra bit.

In regards to Roshar's, don't forget that Oaths weren't always in place. The epigraph referring to Ishar imposing order on Surgebinders indicates that when the spren first copied the Heralds, the Focus is unclear. As for the Shadesmar spheres, I think the Focus may be bonds/binding things; fabrials bind spren, humans and listeners form a bond with a spren, spheres bind storm light if only temporarily

I wouldn't call the Tears themselves a Manifestation, as it is speculated on here that they're grown on or near Endowment's Shardpool

You don't think a flower growing from the banks of a Shardpool becomes something of a Manifestation itself by pulling that much liquid Endowment through its roots? Fair enough though, that particular example is certainly up for debate.

The precise status of anything as a Manifestation or a Catalyst or Focus isn't so much what I'm concerned about, it's whether the terms themselves are useful and make sense. We got focus from Brandon, so that's definitely part of what's going on. Manifestation is just intended to be a useful shortcut for objects that have a ton of a Shard's power in them.

What bothers me is whether there's one thing or multiple things going on with the elements of investiture that I've called catalysts. If there's just one thing going on, I suppose you could argue that Scadrial's metals are both catalyst and focus for Allomancy, assuming one's actually required. If there's multiple things going on, we've still got to figure out what.

As for the oaths not always being in place for Surgebinding: Indeed not. The specific oaths might not have been relevant at that stage. (I suspect Spren were still looking for certain kinds of people though) The question is how dramatically did they have to change Surgebinding to impose the oaths on it? If the answer in "only mildly," then Oaths might have always been the focus, they just added several to each order. If the answer is "a lot," then maybe that might present problems for oaths as a focus.

12 hours ago, Yata said:

There is a thing we have to remember.

We have a Wob (at least I find it again I will post here) that talk about the difference between Inner and external Magic System. How this two kinds of powers works differently and how other features of the magic system is forced by his "type"

EDIT:

 

Yeah, the WoB you're quoting is one of the classic ones talking about focuses.

It does seem like external magic systems don't need catalysts, until you look at forgery. External magic system using the Dor to change the cognitive history of objects and people. Still requires soulstamp to function.

It also talks about our special case where Vin burns the mists and uses her own will as a focus for which power she's going to access.

11 hours ago, Argel said:

That's interesting. So does that mean theoretically someone could use breaths to in-effect perform Allomancy without the metals? And if so, what is "Allomancy"?  The effect?

Uh, I'm pretty sure that ranges from incredibly difficult to impossible. Awakening certainly isn't going to be replicating Steelpulls or Ironpushes very easily, although it's possible you could self-awaken for some interesting mental effects, I don't even know if these would too closely mirror anything in Allomancy. The difference is with Awakening you're using a command, and sometimes, Breath and Colour, to copy focused thoughts into inanimate objects, or to modify your own mind, and the number of Breaths (investiture) stays constant, it's just moved around to various objects. When you burn an Allomantic metal however, the metal is gone, but you gain a constant stream of Investiture from Preservation for doing so, the exact type depending on which metal you burned. That said, you could do some things with Hemalurgy that made the Metallic Arts seem a little more like Awakening, but that's more a function of moving power around with Hemalurgy than anything else. The amount of spiritual hackery you'd need to do to have Awakening seem anything like Allomancy would be so intense, you'd be better off actually trying to get access to real Allomancy IMO.

[Argel he/him]

That WoB suggests it is theoretically possible to substitute breaths for metal. I'm trying to focus on if that is possible then for what makes Allomancy Allomancy?

[Rasarr she/her]

The shape of the spiritweb, I'd assume. Spiritweb is the lock, metal is the key, Breath is a skeleton key.

[Yata he/him]

1 hour ago, Argel said:

That WoB suggests it is theoretically possible to substitute breaths for metal. I'm trying to focus on if that is possible then for what makes Allomancy Allomancy?

Just a little clarification. The WoB suggests it's possible substitute (with some hack more or less complex) Breath for Mist (who they may already replace metal for skilled Allomancer)... It may seems a useless clarification but it's better to be clear

[Argel he/him]

4 hours ago, Rasarr said:

The shape of the spiritweb, I'd assume. Spiritweb is the lock, metal is the key, Breath is a skeleton key.

Ah! That makes sense!! Thanks!!

[Brgst13]

I would propose a different model,  what I think of as the wavelength modulation model.  In this model, each for of Investiture has a set wavelength similar to a color of light.  In order to use this Investiture, it must be passed through both the Spirit Web of an individual and some for of modulator that allows the wavelength to be "tuned" to accomplish ones goal.  On Scadrial, metals are the modulator.  Nalthis uses color, Tala in the sand  algae, and Roshan uses the spree (except for Honorblades, which themselves are the  modulator).  On Select the Investiture is modulated by shape, either through forging, drawing Aons, growing bone, or the dance of ChayShan (I hope I spelled that right).  This model holds as well for minor shardworlds, where on First of the Sun the modulator is the birds (parasites?).  Opinions or arguments?

[Ari he/him]

1 hour ago, Brgst13 said:

I would propose a different model,  what I think of as the wavelength modulation model.  In this model, each for of Investiture has a set wavelength similar to a color of light.  In order to use this Investiture, it must be passed through both the Spirit Web of an individual and some for of modulator that allows the wavelength to be "tuned" to accomplish ones goal.  On Scadrial, metals are the modulator.  Nalthis uses color, Tala in the sand  algae, and Roshan uses the spree (except for Honorblades, which themselves are the  modulator).  On Select the Investiture is modulated by shape, either through forging, drawing Aons, growing bone, or the dance of ChayShan (I hope I spelled that right).  This model holds as well for minor shardworlds, where on First of the Sun the modulator is the birds (parasites?).  Opinions or arguments?

Nalthis uses Commands for the same thing Scadrial uses Metals for, whatever you want to call it. (The way you can tell this is that the different commands determine what magical effect you get, the same way the different metals determine what type of Allomancy or Feruchemy you perform) The common term is a focus, but that doesn't really state anything about what a focus is. I'm actually pretty agnostic on that at this stage. Wavelengths of investiture is definitely one way to look at what's going on, although Brandon has previously referring to mixing different types of investiture, so that might make explaining things through a wavelength model a little more tricky.

Roshar is up for a lot of debate at this stage as to what goes where, with Focus being the most contentious issue. It's clear there is a different type of Spren for each order, but IMO they don't seem to be the overall focus of the magic system. (Especially because of the WoB about the Splinter that powers a Seon being the Aon in their centre- you would expect Spren to have a similar interaction with Roshar's focus, which means that you'd end up with a different Spren for each order no matter what the focus was) Oaths are merely my current best guess. I don't feel that Gems or Spheres really fit the bill at this stage, and other answers create more questions than they answer so far.

15 hours ago, Yata said:

Just a little clarification. The WoB suggests it's possible substitute (with some hack more or less complex) Breath for Mist (who they may already replace metal for skilled Allomancer)... It may seems a useless clarification but it's better to be clear

Oh Breaths doing the same thing Mists can do?

Well I suppose technically they're a very low-level manifestation, so you could hack the breaths to fuel Allomancy, although the amount of work you'd have to put in would far exceed just spiking yourself with an Allomantic power.

[Argel he/him]

5 hours ago, Ari said:

Brandon has previously referring to mixing different types of investiture

Not sure how this impacts the wavelength idea, but black is the color of mixed investiture.   Hmm, speaking of that, black was ruins color as well, and wouldn't black be the absence of light, so no wavelength? Wavelengths seem like an okay metaphor, but not sure if it really fits. 

 

[ROSHtaFARian2.0]

I can't find the WoB just at the moment, but I'm 99% positive Brandon has clarified at least once that metals are not actually the focus on Scadrial....but rather molecular patterns that make up the metals. So, if that's the case, then its actually these patterns that are the focus, and the metals themselves are the catalyst burned up in order to tap or access that focus.

Similarly, while this is purely my own speculation, I don't think the focus for Sel is actually shapes. I think its symbology. Shapes that MEAN something. The Aons are both language and art, but they're never just a collection of random lines, they're all symbols that every Elantrian knows the meaning of. The shape a Forger draws to seal a Soulstamp isn't just in the shape of their homeland, Mai Pon, its a depiction of their homeland....the shape only means something because the shape means their home. So I think on Sel, symbols are the focus of magic, and an individual's interpretation of those symbols, even if instinctive and unconscious, so quick it doesn't even register to them as part of the process...its their understanding of those symbols, transforming them in their mind from a collection of lines into a shape that means something to them, represents Identity or Connection...that's the catalyst on Sel.

[BeskarKomrk he/him]

11 hours ago, ROSHtaFARian2.0 said:

I can't find the WoB just at the moment, but I'm 99% positive Brandon has clarified at least once that metals are not actually the focus on Scadrial....but rather molecular patterns that make up the metals. So, if that's the case, then its actually these patterns that are the focus, and the metals themselves are the catalyst burned up in order to tap or access that focus.

I don't see a difference between the metals and their molecular patterns. The structure of the atoms and molecules is what defines a material; you can't have the structure without the physical material, and no sample of that material exists without that structure. If you want to claim that the metals are the catalyst for Scadrian magic, you can do that. But I don't think the metal/molecular pattern distinction adds anything to the argument. The metals are the focus. There's no reason why they can't be the catalyst as well.

[Blightsong he/him]

On July 25, 2016 at 9:49 AM, Yata said:

There is a thing we have to remember.

We have a Wob (at least I find it again I will post here) that talk about the difference between Inner and external Magic System. How this two kinds of powers works differently and how other features of the magic system is forced by his "type"

EDIT:

 

Extremely insteresting, Yata, that is one of the most interesting WoB I've seen in a while. I wonder if an Allomancer using breath to power Allomancy could gain the fine control over their power like what internal magics are capable of.

[Yata he/him]

8 minutes ago, Blightsong said:

Extremely insteresting, Yata, that is one of the most interesting WoB I've seen in a while. I wonder if an Allomancer using breath to power Allomancy could gain the fine control over their power like what internal magics are capable of.

I have no proofs but I suppose that an Allomancer fueled by Breath would work exactly like a Mist fueled Allomancer. After all you simply change where your Spiritual pipe take energy (yeah Spiritual Pipe is an horrible name, I know) without change the mechanics of Allomancy. But of course I may be wrong

But indeed it's a fascinating question.

Edited August 18, 2016 by Yata