Aging

[Elendtheking]

Hello everyone. I came up with a new theory today:

holding investiture lets you slow down your aging.

I think that's true because of breaths(enough and your immortal) and elantrians (they live longer because they contain investiture). For an allomancer or a feruchemist, they would have to burn/tap constantly to produce this effect.

[Spoolofwhool]

It depends on the investiture. Not all investiture changes your spiritual age. I don't think allomancy does.

[Weltall]

Yeah, Breaths prolong life because it's a specific quirk of the magic system that they do so. To actually slow aging on Scadrial requires atium compounding or (sometimes) Hemalurgy, as WoB is that Inquisitors generally live longer, though not always. Bear in mind that this is a world that Khriss specifically points out is Investiture-rich and the guy who's probably held the most power other than the Shards themselves still needed compounding to attain a form of immortality. The only examples we have of extended lifespan on Roshar are from non-humans and the Heralds, who aren't exactly normal. Investiture is pretty common on that planet as well but nobody has mentioned that Surgebinders live longer.

So I don't think it's as simple as 'lots of Investiture=longer lifespan', you need a magic system that specifically allows for it, whether naturally or via a hack.

[Elendtheking]

12 hours ago, Weltall said:

Yeah, Breaths prolong life because it's a specific quirk of the magic system that they do so. To actually slow aging on Scadrial requires atium compounding or (sometimes) Hemalurgy, as WoB is that Inquisitors generally live longer, though not always. Bear in mind that this is a world that Khriss specifically points out is Investiture-rich and the guy who's probably held the most power other than the Shards themselves still needed compounding to attain a form of immortality. The only examples we have of extended lifespan on Roshar are from non-humans and the Heralds, who aren't exactly normal. Investiture is pretty common on that planet as well but nobody has mentioned that Surgebinders live longer.

So I don't think it's as simple as 'lots of Investiture=longer lifespan', you need a magic system that specifically allows for it, whether naturally or via a hack.

Thanks for the answer.

 

But with allomancy you're only truly invested when you burn your metals so it explains allomancers not being immortal.

As for inquisitors, they're constantly burning steel/iron to see so that might be why they live longer.

[Weltall]

Remember that not all Inquisitors live longer, some 'burn out' earlier than a normal human lifespan per Brandon. If constantly burning metals meant longer lifespans, someone would certainly have noticed that Seekers tended to have a longer average lifespan as we're told that they frequently become Savants without even realizing it.

Also, again, Rashek's entire problem was that his compounding was a stopgap measure. He 'knew' that he was 1000+ years old and needed to keep compounding to maintain his youth. We don't know how long he could have survived while doing this but we know there was an upper limit. And this is the guy who's a Sliver and was at or near Savant-hood in every metal. You pretty much can't get more Investiture-heavy than he was short of being an Elantrian or one of the God Kings of Hallandren and he didn't get any anti-aging benefits outside the hack of the magic system that he figured out. Ditto Miles whose nonstop gold compounding meant that he enjoyed excellent health but didn't keep him from getting old just like everyone else.