Hypothesized Table of Nicrosil Effects

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

In the past months I have seen people wonder about how nicrosil feruchemy works. Just today, this theory prompted me to compose this table.

So. How does nicrosil feruchemy work?

As I understand it, nicrosil feruchemy can store investiture that is actually part of the feruchemist. It cannot store any investiture that is merely passing through the user. It cannot effect investiture that they are channeling from an external source.

So far we have seen nicrosil work in Bands of Mourning. In Bands of Mourning, nicrosil exhibits the behavior I describe above.

Within allomancy, there are two distinct groupings of investiture. There is the investiture embedded in the allomancer's soul that grants them the ability to draw on preservation's power. And there is the investiture that the allomancer channels from preservation when they actually burn a metal. Nicrosil only stores the first kind.

So. I'm just going to suggest a table of exactly how nicrosil will interact with each magic system I have seen in the cosmere.

 

Scadrial

Allomancy- Stores how strong of an allomancer the user is. You can spend one hour getting half of much of an effect out of your pewter, then spend one hour getting 1.5x as much strength from burning pewter.

Feruchemy- Stores how efficient your feruchemy is. Feruchemy is not 100% efficient, particularly when you draw a lot on a given reserve. You can spend one hour with more loss-y feruchemy, then you can spend one hour with 1.5x less loss in your feruchemy. A nicrosil-boosted feruechemical power might also have higher yield when used in compounding.

Hemalurgy- If the hemalurgic spike grants a magic, nicrosil feruchemy treats the magic as if the user were naturally endowed with it. If the hemalurgic spike grants a non-magical attribute (like strength for koloss or sapience for kandra), nicrosil would probably be able to store this attribute. A soulbearer koloss, when storing power, would slowly grow smaller, weaker, and more intelligent as their body and mind adapts to the change in their soul. When not storing or tapping, they would slowly revert to their normal Koloss state. When tapping, they would slowly become bigger, stronger, and less intelligent than a normal Koloss.

Roshar

Surgebinding- A surgebinder would be able to store their nahel bond, not stormlight. A surgebinder could spend one hour consuming stormlight at 2x rate, and then spend one hour consuming stormlight at 2/3 rate. Of coarse, they wouldn't need to actually be consuming any stormlight while they stored power, which makes this a lot more useful.

Listener Forms- I suspect that a normal listener form would find nicrosil useless. A form of power, however, could probably store their symbiosis with Odium in the metalmind. This would mean a stormform might be able to spend one hour feeling weak and having trouble summoning lightning, and then spend one hour feeling stronger and being able to summon lightning more easily... I suspect that while they are storing, they would also feel less in Odium's control, and while they were tapping, they would feel more in Odium's control.

Voidbinding- We know absolutely nothing about voidbinding yet, so I really can't say.

Old Magic- We know absolutely nothing about the old magic yet, so I really can't say.

Nalthis

Awakening- For awakening I suspect you could actually just store breaths in the nicrosil mind. Pretty useless since you can store breaths in anything that isn't metal or stone. More useful if you have nicrosil compounding, however... Nicrosil compounding probably wouldn't increase the number of breaths you had access to, but would rather amplify the strength of each breath. This could still increase heightenings.

It is also possible but unlikely that nicrosil would only store the strength of the breaths, and not the number of breaths. In this case, storing or tapping wouldn't change your number of breaths, only how strong each one is while you store or tap. This could still decrease and increase your heightenings. The big difference here is, each breath would revert to their normal strength when you stop storing. You could actually spend one hour as a half-strength awakener, then spend one hour as a 1.5x strength awakener, unlike the scenario above.

Sel

AonDor- You could probably store your Elantrian status in the metalmind (AonDor is on a fundamental level nearly identical to allomancy in how it works). This means you could spend one hour during which time your Aons produce only half the effect they normally would, then spend one hour during which time your Aons would produce an exaggerated, 1.5x effect. Due to the fact that being an Elantrian also has physical effects, someone storing power might additionally transition part of the way to being a fallen Elantrian, and someone tapping power might additionally experience increased physical vitality.

Forgery- This one presents a unique question. The ability to forge is only based on knowledge, not on some unique investiture in the user's soul... And yet, presumably that is because everyone in that locality has the ability to forge written into their soul. So... Would nicrosil store the potency of your forgery? Or would it be able to store the effects of a soul-stamp? Would it be able to store both of these things? In any case, chances are nicrosil would allow you to manipulate how well a soul stamp sticks.

Dakhor- Dakhor seems to be somewhat similar to AonDor. The subject has a connection to Dominion, and thus they can draw power from Dominion to gain physical enhancement. Chances are, a Dakhor monk storing nicrosil would be able to spend an hour with half of their extra strength and speed, then an hour with 1.5x their additional magic-granted strength and speed. In the hour of storing, they are half as connected to Dominion and can only draw half as much energy from Dominion. In the hour of drawing, they are 1.5x as connected to Dominion and can draw 1.5x as much energy from Dominion.

 

 

EDIT: I would also like to make a second distinction here. We know that nicrosil only effects innate investiture. I would also like to suggest that nicrosil does not effect all types of innate investiture. For example, I do not believe that you could store the spark of life in a nicrosil mind. I must conclude that nicrosil tends towards storing specifically innate investiture that originates from an external source (IE a shard). If a shard's power is in no way involved in giving someone innate investiture, I do not believe that nicrosil feruchemy can store it.

Edited November 22, 2016 by Drake Marshall

[thegatorgirl00 she/her]

You didn't include Sand Mastery in this list. Have you not read White Sand Volume 1, @Drake Marshall?

Based oon what you posted and what we know of Sand Mastery, I would guess that Nicrosil would store a Sand Master's strength of Sand Mastery. So a Sand Master could control half the sand ribbons they normally could for one hour and then control 1.5X the number of sand ribbons they normally could for an hour. Which, imo, sounds like one of the more useful applications of Nicrosil. Not sure how slatrification or use of the body's own water would fit in, though. If a Sand Master could not slatrify, could they store enough investiture in a NIcrosilmind to slatrify? Or is that a separate part of the spirit web from controlling sand ribbons?

[Spoolofwhool]

1 minute ago, thegatorgirl00 said:

Based oon what you posted and what we know of Sand Mastery, I would guess that Nicrosil would store a Sand Master's strength of Sand Mastery. So a Sand Master could control half the sand ribbons they normally could for one hour and then control 1.5X the number of sand ribbons they normally could for an hour. Which, imo, sounds like one of the more useful applications of Nicrosil. Not sure how slatrification or use of the body's own water would fit in, though. If a Sand Master could not slatrify, could they store enough investiture in a NIcrosilmind to slatrify? Or is that a separate part of the spirit web from controlling sand ribbons?

It seems to be that control over sand ribbons and the ability to slatrify are separate aspects of sand mastery strength, since it was mentioned that there were Mastrells who couldn't slatrify, but could manipulate an exceptional number of sand ribbons at a given time.

1 hour ago, Drake Marshall said:

If the hemalurgic spike grants a non-magical attribute (like strength for koloss or sapience for kandra), nicrosil would probably be able to store this attribute.

I don't think this is the case. Hemalurgy binds the charge to your spiritweb, making it as if you had the specific piece of innate investiture. As such, since I think that Nicrosil can only store the ability to use a manifestation of investiture, you would only be able to store a hemalurgically-gained attribute if it is an ability to use a manifestation of investiture.

1 hour ago, Drake Marshall said:

It is also possible but unlikely that nicrosil would only store the strength of the breaths, and not the number of breaths. In this case, storing or tapping wouldn't change your number of breaths, only how strong each one is while you store or tap. This could still decrease and increase your heightenings. The big difference here is, each breath would revert to their normal strength when you stop storing. You could actually spend one hour as a half-strength awakener, then spend one hour as a 1.5x strength awakener, unlike the scenario above.

I don't think Nicrosil would store breath since it seems to store innate investiture only, as far as we've seen, and breath in kinetic investiture. I'm amplifying the effects of holding biochromatic breath feels more likely to me.

1 hour ago, Drake Marshall said:

Surgebinding- A surgebinder would be able to store their nahel bond, not stormlight. A surgebinder could spend one hour consuming stormlight at 2x rate, and then spend one hour consuming stormlight at 2/3 rate. Of coarse, they wouldn't need to actually be consuming any stormlight while they stored power, which makes this a lot more useful.

Might also grant an increased precision in the usage of surgebinding. Like breath, storing stormlight wouldn't make sense since it's kinetic investiture. I don't think it would be storing the nahel bond, but more likely the effect the nahel bond has on the surgebinding, the specific changes in the spiritweb. 

1 hour ago, Drake Marshall said:

Sel

Probably have the overall usage of being able to store the ability to use the appropriate regional ability that the person possessed. With an unkeyed metalmind, that power could then be given temporarily to someone outside of the region, though regional access to the Dor would still be an issue. Overall, could probably increase precision and strength of effects, such as forgeries holding longer despite irregularities between the forgery and the original.

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

1 hour ago, thegatorgirl00 said:

You didn't include Sand Mastery in this list. Have you not read White Sand Volume 1, @Drake Marshall?

Nope, I haven't. I intend to soon.

 

@Spoolofwhool you brought up a lot of things here and I will do my best to address all of it:

1 hour ago, Spoolofwhool said:

I don't think this is the case. Hemalurgy binds the charge to your spiritweb, making it as if you had the specific piece of innate investiture. As such, since I think that Nicrosil can only store the ability to use a manifestation of investiture, you would only be able to store a hemalurgically-gained attribute if it is an ability to use a manifestation of investiture.

I considered this, yes. My reason for concluding that nicrosil would actually effect the ability is that, when hemalurgy enters the picture, the changes to a koloss are a manifestation of investiture. It grafts something onto the soul as if it were always there, but it isn't a natural feature of the spiked individual's soul. It's presence is a result of magic.

1 hour ago, Spoolofwhool said:

I don't think Nicrosil would store breath since it seems to store innate investiture only, as far as we've seen, and breath in kinetic investiture. I'm amplifying the effects of holding biochromatic breath feels more likely to me.

Has Brandon confirmed that it is kinetic investiture? You are characterizing it as a type of kinetic investiture that stays put really well. I always thought of breath more of as a type of innate investiture that can be voluntarily transferred.

1 hour ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Might also grant an increased precision in the usage of surgebinding. Like breath, storing stormlight wouldn't make sense since it's kinetic investiture. I don't think it would be storing the nahel bond, but more likely the effect the nahel bond has on the surgebinding, the specific changes in the spiritweb.

Granted, for this one I more of just gave a one effect. There are possibly a large number of ways nicrosil would enhance surgebinding, for example it might also give an elsecaller heightened ability to shape shadesmar with their mind. It is similar to how hemalurgy might enhance the force of one person's steelpush, but the precision of another's. Hemalurgy enhances a power in different ways based on where you spike... For nicrosil, chances are it gives an all-around enhancement.

1 hour ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Probably have the overall usage of being able to store the ability to use the appropriate regional ability that the person possessed. With an unkeyed metalmind, that power could then be given temporarily to someone outside of the region, though regional access to the Dor would still be an issue. Overall, could probably increase precision and strength of effects, such as forgeries holding longer despite irregularities between the forgery and the original.

This is more or less what I concluded, for the three most prominent Sellish magics.

Edited November 22, 2016 by Drake Marshall

[Spoolofwhool]

34 minutes ago, Drake Marshall said:

I considered this, yes. My reason for concluding that nicrosil would actually effect the ability is that, when hemalurgy enters the picture, the changes to a koloss are a manifestation of investiture. It grafts something onto the soul as if it were always there, but it isn't a natural feature of the spiked individual's soul. It's presence is a result of magic.

I disagree, because as I said, it stores the ability to use a manifestation of investiture. Gaining an attribute from a manifestation of investiture doesn't matter unless it is for use a manifestation of investiture. Otherwise, you could say that any feruchemical attribute being tapped could be stored in nicrosil since at that point you would be gaining it as a result of a manifestation of investiture.

37 minutes ago, Drake Marshall said:

Has Brandon confirmed that it is kinetic investiture? You are characterizing it as a type of kinetic investiture that stays put really well. I always thought of breath more of as a type of innate investiture that can be voluntarily transferred.

The way I see it, kinetic investiture is what you use to power manifestations of investiture. Since breath can be used to power awakening, it would be characterized as kinetic investiture. Also, I think that innate investiture mainly refers to that which makes up the spiritweb, giving things like connection and the ability to use manifestations of investiture. People on Nalthis just have the phenomenon where a part of their innate investiture is kinetic investiture instead. 

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

2 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

I disagree, because as I said, it stores the ability to use a manifestation of investiture. Gaining an attribute from a manifestation of investiture doesn't matter unless it is for use a manifestation of investiture. Otherwise, you could say that any feruchemical attribute being tapped could be stored in nicrosil since at that point you would be gaining it as a result of a manifestation of investiture.

Hm... Maybe. I'm not sure I reach the same conclusion however. A hemalurgic spike alters the subject's innate investiture. You are right that the altered body of koloss is simply a manifestation... But it isn't a manifestation of kinetic investiture, it's actually a manifestation of a change to the subject's own soul. That is why I hypothesized that storing would not immediately alter a koloss' physical attributes, but their body would take a slight delay to catch up to the subject's changing soul.

2 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

The way I see it, kinetic investiture is what you use to power manifestations of investiture. Since breath can be used to power awakening, it would be characterized as kinetic investiture. Also, I think that innate investiture mainly refers to that which makes up the spiritweb, giving things like connection and the ability to use manifestations of investiture. People on Nalthis just have the phenomenon where a part of their innate investiture is kinetic investiture instead. 

That's exactly the problem. On Nalthis... The lines of kinetic and innate investiture blur. Is it kinetic investiture that acts like innate, or innate that acts like kinetic? We don't know.

[Spoolofwhool]

19 minutes ago, Drake Marshall said:

Hm... Maybe. I'm not sure I reach the same conclusion however. A hemalurgic spike alters the subject's innate investiture. You are right that the altered body of koloss is simply a manifestation... But it isn't a manifestation of kinetic investiture, it's actually a manifestation of a change to the subject's own soul. That is why I hypothesized that storing would not immediately alter a koloss' physical attributes, but their body would take a slight delay to catch up to the subject's changing soul.

Right, and I'm saying that you cannot store physical strength in a nicrosilmind at all, since that isn't what you store in nicrosil. I don't think you understood what I'm saying. I'm well aware that hemalurgy changes the innate investiture of the spiked person. What I was saying about kinetic investiture was that the hemalurgic charge stored in the metal is kinetic investiture. In any case, you haven't actually responded to my reasoning as to why hemalurgically-gained attributes can't be stored any more than regular ones, for attributes which are not related to the ability to use a manifestation of investiture.

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

16 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Right, and I'm saying that you cannot store physical strength in a nicrosilmind at all, since that isn't what you store in nicrosil. I don't think you understood what I'm saying. I'm well aware that hemalurgy changes the innate investiture of the spiked person. What I was saying about kinetic investiture was that the hemalurgic charge stored in the metal is kinetic investiture. In any case, you haven't actually responded to my reasoning as to why hemalurgically-gained attributes can't be stored any more than regular ones, for attributes which are not related to the ability to use a manifestation of investiture.

I do not believe that a hemalurgically granted power is kinetic. If you gain allomancy through a hemalurgic spike, that is clearly innate. I do not believe that physical or mental modifications should be any different.

Mind you, I'm not saying that you can store physical strength. Nicrosil stores capacity to use a power, not the actual power itself. It wouldn't store the actual strength of the koloss, it would store up the bit of their spirit which makes them a koloss. This, in practice, would let them spend time weak and then time strong. But what's actually going on behind the scenes is nothing like pewter feruchemy.

[Spoolofwhool]

14 minutes ago, Drake Marshall said:

I do not believe that a hemalurgically granted power is kinetic. If you gain allomancy through a hemalurgic spike, that is clearly innate. I do not believe that physical or mental modifications should be any different.

Mind you, I'm not saying that you can store physical strength. Nicrosil stores capacity to use a power, not the actual power itself. It wouldn't store the actual strength of the koloss, it would store up the bit of their spirit which makes them a koloss. This, in practice, would let them spend time weak and then time strong. But what's actually going on behind the scenes is nothing like pewter feruchemy.

I'm not saying that the hemalurgically granted power is kinetic. I'm saying that the hemalurgic charge, the piece of investiture contained within the metal, is kinetic investiture. Once the spike is embedded in someone, that charge causes the change in their innate investiture, leading to the addition of attributes, such as allomancy or physical strength. 

I see what you're saying there, but what's changing them into a koloss isn't the capacity to use a power. As far as I'm aware, what is changing them into Koloss is the excess physical strength causing instabilities in their spiritual aspect. Hemalurgy isn't directly causing the change, it's allowing the changes in innate investiture to happen, which cause that. If you could gain those same changes in innate investiture some other way, then I think someone would effectively be a koloss as well. For instance, using lerasium in the correct manner could cause that. It seems to me that you're misinterpreting how hemalugy works. It doesn't cause changes in people past removing and adding pieces of their spiritweb. Whatever changes as a result of those changes are realmatics. Therefore, what you're describing, the "force" that is driving them to become a koloss, is the laws of realmatics, not a manifestation of investiture. 

 

Note: Yes, I am aware that there is a flaw in my point of hemalurgy only about grafting investiture when we know it does provoke physical changes, such in the case of inquisitors and Zane. I think it can cause changes, but only enough changes to keep the spiked person alive. Stuff past that like chimeras and koloss aren't due to hemalurgy.

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

48 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Hemalurgy isn't directly causing the change, it's allowing the changes in innate investiture to happen, which cause that. If you could gain those same changes in innate investiture some other way, then I think someone would effectively be a koloss as well. For instance, using lerasium in the correct manner could cause that. It seems to me that you're misinterpreting how hemalugy works. It doesn't cause changes in people past removing and adding pieces of their spiritweb. Whatever changes as a result of those changes are realmatics.

That is... Precisely what I am trying to say.

Hemalurgy has three distinct parts.

First is the hemalurgic charge in the spike. Kinetic investiture.

Second is the addition to the spiked individual's spirit. Innate investiture.

Third is the physical or mental effects that may possibly occur as a result of the subject's altered spirit. This is a physical or cognitive manifestation of something in the spiritual realm. It is not investiture of any kind in of itself.

I am not talking about storing the hemalurgic charge. We both acknowledge that this is probably kinetic.

I am also not talking about storing those physical or mental effects that hemalurgy may indirectly cause. Those aren't even investiture, just an effect.

I'm talking about storing that change in innate investiture that a spike causes. I believe that if someone turned themself into a koloss with lerasium instead of hemalurgy, they could similarly store up the part of their spirit web that makes them a koloss.

Realmatically, the soul is the layout of a person's intrinsic investiture. This includes the spark of life, and any investiture that is actually part of them. Nicrosil feruchemically stores bits of the subject's soul. I suspect that it could not store the spark of life, but I suspect that it could store pretty much any other kind of investiture within a subject's spirit web. This includes the bit of investiture a spike might graft on a koloss' soul.

Edited November 22, 2016 by Drake Marshall

[Spoolofwhool]

15 minutes ago, Drake Marshall said:

Realmatically, the soul is the layout of a person's intrinsic investiture. This includes the spark of life, and any investiture that is actually part of them. Nicrosil feruchemically stores bits of the subject's soul. I suspect that it could not store the spark of life, but I suspect that it could store pretty much any other kind of investiture within a subject's spirit web. This includes the bit of investiture a spike might graft on a koloss' soul.

The problem with that is that if nicrosil can store any part of the spiritweb, then it is probably encompassing aluminium feruchemy as well, since identity is likely part of a spiritweb investiture due to be stealable by hemalurgy, along with connection. Since it doesn't make sense for nicrosil infringe on other feruchemical domains, since no other does, that over-generalization strikes me as extremely false. That's why I'm saying it can only store spiritweb components related to using a manifestation of investiture. Therefore, since becoming a koloss isn't related to using a manifestation of investiture, it doesn't make sense for you to be able to somehow store that into nicrosil.

Also, since physical strength is stealable through hemalurgy, and is therefore a part of the spiritweb, it would seem to be that all feruchemical enacts changes by changing the spiritweb, therefore, by your description of it, making nicrosil feruchemy able to store any attribute another metal could store. That's unlikely considering how well Sanderson plans and defines the limits of magical systems.

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

1 hour ago, Spoolofwhool said:

The problem with that is that if nicrosil can store any part of the spiritweb, then it is probably encompassing aluminium feruchemy as well, since identity is likely part of a spiritweb investiture due to be stealable by hemalurgy, along with connection. Since it doesn't make sense for nicrosil infringe on other feruchemical domains, since no other does, that over-generalization strikes me as extremely false. That's why I'm saying it can only store spiritweb components related to using a manifestation of investiture. Therefore, since becoming a koloss isn't related to using a manifestation of investiture, it doesn't make sense for you to be able to somehow store that into nicrosil.

Also, since physical strength is stealable through hemalurgy, and is therefore a part of the spiritweb, it would seem to be that all feruchemical enacts changes by changing the spiritweb, therefore, by your description of it, making nicrosil feruchemy able to store any attribute another metal could store. That's unlikely considering how well Sanderson plans and defines the limits of magical systems.

That's why I have a second criteria then just "anything part of the spirit web." Only specific parts of the spirit web work.

Anything that is naturally part of a person won't store. The spark of life, physical attributes, identity, connection, and age are all parts of the spirit web that are naturally present. You can't store them.

Bits of a spirt web, however, that actually ultimately originate from a shard... These I suspect should all be storable. Allomancy, while it is something you are born with, isn't a natural part of the spirit web, it came from preservation. A hemalurgically bestowed bit of someone's spirit... Isn't naturally part of them. Because of that, I suspect it can be stored away. I think nicrosil specializes in storing the bits of someone's soul that are extra.

[Spoolofwhool]

4 hours ago, Drake Marshall said:

That's why I have a second criteria then just "anything part of the spirit web." Only specific parts of the spirit web work.

Anything that is naturally part of a person won't store. The spark of life, physical attributes, identity, connection, and age are all parts of the spirit web that are naturally present. You can't store them.

Bits of a spirt web, however, that actually ultimately originate from a shard... These I suspect should all be storable. Allomancy, while it is something you are born with, isn't a natural part of the spirit web, it came from preservation. A hemalurgically bestowed bit of someone's spirit... Isn't naturally part of them. Because of that, I suspect it can be stored away. I think nicrosil specializes in storing the bits of someone's soul that are extra.

That makes sense to some degree. When you say "naturally part of a person", you are referring to original template of humans from Yolen? Not natural-born, like natural-born allomancers  or feruchemists, because then they couldn't store their powers in nicrosil. 

The question then is whether you could store a tapped attribute from another metalmind into nicrosil. That extra amount of attribute gained wouldn't be "natural" anymore than gaining extra attribute from hemalurgy. You could say that the tapped attribute having the same identity could keep it natural, but what if you're tapping a charge keyed to someone else's identity? Could you then store that attribute in nicrosil while tapping it since it wouldn't be natural to the person?

I agree that this is a pretty solid theory, but I still disagree with it. It makes nicrosil feruchemy too open-ended. As far as I can tell, feruchemy and allomancy are designed to fit within structure rules governing their use, with hemalurgy being the wildcard which messes with everything. From a standpoint of what we know from the story, it fits, from a standpoint of what we know of how Brandon has designed the other parts of feruchemy and how he designs magical systems, as well as his goals for Cosmere it doesn't make sense. Using hemalurgy as a method to make any attribute storable for nicrosil feruchemy is odd.

I don't think I'm going to say anything in this thread unless someone else weighs in.

Edited November 23, 2016 by Spoolofwhool

[cometaryorbit]

I think the investiture in a Hemalurgic Iron spike is stolen Innate Investiture, not Kinetic:

HOA Ch.38 Epigraph -

Quote

However, a Hemalurgic spike can also be created by killing a normal person, one who is neither an Allomancer nor a Feruchemist. In that case, the spike instead steals the very power of Preservation existing within the soul of the people. (The power that, in fact, gives all people sentience.)

A Hemalurgic spike can extract this power, then transfer it to another, granting them residual abilities similar to those of Allomancy. After all, Preservation's body—a tiny trace of which is carried by every human being—is the very same essence that fuels Allomancy.

And so, a kandra granted the Blessing of Potency is actually acquiring a bit of innate strength similar to that of burning pewter.

"power of Preservation existing within the soul of the people" seems to be pretty much the definition of Innate Investiture.

My guess therefore is that a Nicrosil Ferring with a Hemalurgic Iron spike could store the power of the spike - they wouldn't gain the strength while storing, but could gain increased strength later. Since the Bands of Mourning let Marasi and Wax use Allomantic and Feruchemical powers they have no natural ability in, I think even if the spike was removed after storing, the Ferring could still use the stored Hemalurgic Investiture.

--

I think the reason Nicrosil doesn't overlap into other Feruchemical powers is that not everything in the Spiritweb is Investiture. Connection, Identity, and Fortune are separate things, so even a generalized ability to store Investiture won't work for them.

[Spoolofwhool]

1 hour ago, cometaryorbit said:

I think the reason Nicrosil doesn't overlap into other Feruchemical powers is that not everything in the Spiritweb is Investiture. Connection, Identity, and Fortune are separate things, so even a generalized ability to store Investiture won't work for them.

Yet identity is stolen in some part through hemalurgy, indicating that it has ties to innate investiture. Also, I would argue that connection is part of the innate investiture. After all, if it weren't, then you wouldn't actually be able to steal allomantic powers, since what allomancy is is an increased connection to Preservation. Also, consider the fact that shardblades can be stolen using hemalurgy. That is likely a direct transfer of connection to the blade. Therefore, it would appear by all accounts that connection is part of the innate investiture. 

AU spoiler

Spoiler

Khriss describes hemalurgy as being able to create unintended connections to shards.

1 hour ago, cometaryorbit said:

 

I think the investiture in a Hemalurgic Iron spike is stolen Innate Investiture, not Kinetic:

HOA Ch.38 Epigraph -

 

Possibly. It definitely derives the investiture from innate investiture, but that doesn't mean it remains that way while it is transient in the spike.

1 hour ago, cometaryorbit said:

My guess therefore is that a Nicrosil Ferring with a Hemalurgic Iron spike could store the power of the spike - they wouldn't gain the strength while storing, but could gain increased strength later. Since the Bands of Mourning let Marasi and Wax use Allomantic and Feruchemical powers they have no natural ability in, I think even if the spike was removed after storing, the Ferring could still use the stored Hemalurgic Investiture.

As I said earlier, this wouldn't make any sense. What you're describing is basically "any hemalurgic attribute is a storable attribute for nicrosil". Considering hemalurgy is already a wildcard magic, to create another magic in close proximity which could easily become just as wildcard as a result of the hemalurgy would make for both lazy and dull writing, not to mention reduce the impact of hemalurgy. Yes, I'm arguing from a writing point, not just a mechanics point, but I think it is valid. We know that Brandon has a plan for hemalurgy to spread throughout the Cosmere and have vast impacts. 

Overall, I think you're wrong about part of the spiritual not being investiture. It seems to me that the spiritual realm is just investiture, with its different connections to the physical and cognitive realm of different entities and powers. Therefore, the spiritual aspect and spiritweb is investiture with the varying connections to form identity and the other spiritual attributes, along with the spiritual connections to other entities such as shards. The reason I think this is because, in effect, everything is made out of investiture, but in different forms. In the physical realm, investiture takes on physical characteristics of solids, gases and liquids, coming together to form objects and physical entities, with a specific case being the world Scadrial, but with everything originating due to some force or another. In the same vein, the cognitive aspect of everything is more investiture, caught in a more mutable shape than the physical, but less mutable and more localized form than the spiritual. This can explain how Nightblood works, returning the physically and cognitive bound investiture to the spiritual realm and undoing all connections of the spiritual aspect, thereby annihilating the entity, with the side effect of preventing the investiture from forming other connections. This creates the phenomenon of "corrupted investiture", which by current WoB, is fairly unusable. 

 

PS: This went on a bit longer than expected, and is very off-the-cuff. I may come back in the near future to fix some details or add some more when I actually have time to think about it.

[Djarskublar he/him]

A few points, Yolish folks likely have powers storable by nicrosil, for example the Yolish Lightweaving, so saying the blank 'Yolish person' is misleading and likely innacurate. Second, Identity and Connection are aspects of the spiritweb, and this we can agree on. That directly means they are part of your innate Investiture, since the spiritweb is you Spiritual aspect, and is composed of Investiture. Third, kinetic Investiture seems to dissipate even when not being used, so any Investiture that doesn't dissipate quickly is likely innate, with the possible exception of Breath.

On the subject of spikes, I am in the camp that the spike rips off a piece of innate Investiture and then attaches it on a spot on your web where it's compatible. The spike deteriorates because reasons, but that's something else. If it was kinetic like you think, and then changed their spiritweb, it would work differently. It would steal some Investiture that is now kinetic where it wasn't before, and then use that kinetic energy to shape your soul. This would certainly consume the charge of the spike, and then removing the spike would have no negative consequences besides having a hole in you. You wouldn't lose the power. This would suggest to me that you can store the power of a spike directly, since it must be innate Investiture. I am fairly certain of this, btw.

Take your Hemalurgic Strength spike, first off you could store the power of the spike. What effect this would have on the spike is still up in the air. When you tap it though, you don't gain strength, you gain Hemalurgic strength. It would act more like you had more spikes for that attribute stuck in you. Whatever twisting effects the Hemalurgy has on you would be amplified while tapping. While storing a Hemalurgic charge, my bet would be that Ruin would have a lesser influence on you. This is more speculative than the last paragraph.

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

35 minutes ago, Djarskublar said:

A few points, Yolish folks likely have powers storable by nicrosil, for example the Yolish Lightweaving, so saying the blank 'Yolish person' is misleading and likely innacurate. Second, Identity and Connection are aspects of the spiritweb, and this we can agree on. That directly means they are part of your innate Investiture, since the spiritweb is you Spiritual aspect, and is composed of Investiture. Third, kinetic Investiture seems to dissipate even when not being used, so any Investiture that doesn't dissipate quickly is likely innate, with the possible exception of Breath.

Perhaps I mispoke when implying that Yolish people should be the template for "basic human." Perhaps a more accurate template would be "Scadrian without powers."

In regard to innate investiture not dissipating... As a general rule we have observed that:

    -kinetic investiture is transferrable, dissipates, and you aren't born with it

    -innate investiture is not transferrable, does not dissipate, and you are born with it

We have some obvious exceptions to the above. First of all, hemalurgy can obviously transfer innate investiture. That doesn't really break our rules though, since the innate investiture isn't being transferred naturally, its being magically stolen and grafted onto another person.

Second of all, biochromatic breath doesn't fit cleanly into any of our categories. Is it kinetic investiture that acts a little bit like innate, or innate investiture that acts a little bit like kinetic? I don't think we can really know at this point. My gut feeling is that its innate, but like I just said, we really have no idea.

35 minutes ago, Djarskublar said:

On the subject of spikes, I am in the camp that the spike rips off a piece of innate Investiture and then attaches it on a spot on your web where it's compatible. The spike deteriorates because reasons, but that's something else. If it was kinetic like you think, and then changed their spiritweb, it would work differently. It would steal some Investiture that is now kinetic where it wasn't before, and then use that kinetic energy to shape your soul. This would certainly consume the charge of the spike, and then removing the spike would have no negative consequences besides having a hole in you. You wouldn't lose the power. This would suggest to me that you can store the power of a spike directly, since it must be innate Investiture. I am fairly certain of this, btw.

Take your Hemalurgic Strength spike, first off you could store the power of the spike. What effect this would have on the spike is still up in the air. When you tap it though, you don't gain strength, you gain Hemalurgic strength. It would act more like you had more spikes for that attribute stuck in you. Whatever twisting effects the Hemalurgy has on you would be amplified while tapping. While storing a Hemalurgic charge, my bet would be that Ruin would have a lesser influence on you. This is more speculative than the last paragraph.

This is 100% what I have been trying to describe with hemalurgy. I agree completely with this explanation and hope it might clarify what I have previously speculated about hemalurgy.

EDIT: Okay, one caveat to my agreement... I'm not sure that the charge within a hemalurgic spike is always innate. I suspect that once you imbue the spike with power but before you implant it into a subject, the charge is technically kinetic. But that once you implant it into a subject the charge is innate. This is because I define innate investiture as investiture that is literally part of a subject's soul, so when its in the spike but not attached to a host, its technically kinetic. But once the spike is inside of someone it becomes innate to them because its attached to their soul.

Edited November 29, 2016 by Drake Marshall

[Spoolofwhool]

1 hour ago, Drake Marshall said:

EDIT: Okay, one caveat to my agreement... I'm not sure that the charge within a hemalurgic spike is always innate. I suspect that once you imbue the spike with power but before you implant it into a subject, the charge is technically kinetic. But that once you implant it into a subject the charge is innate. This is because I define innate investiture as investiture that is literally part of a subject's soul, so when its in the spike but not attached to a host, its technically kinetic. But once the spike is inside of someone it becomes innate to them because its attached to their soul.

This is what I meant when I said the hemalurgic charge is kinetic.