What can Investiture do?

[Cosmernaut]

So, I was trying to explain the basic Cosmere mechanics to someone trying to get into it and realized that I know surprisingly little about how investiture works. I read the wiki and I’m still unclear on a few things.

I know that investiture follows it’s own set of rules like it can’t be created or destroyed. It also permeates everything since everything sprang from Adonalsium in one way or another, and it can also give sentience. But it’s been referred to as the power of creation which hints a bit at its capabilities. My question is, can it do anything? Example: can it be manifested as, I don’t know, a unicorn with licorice hair if it was applied just so?

Can a Shard make any magic system it wants to? I know that what the Shard does with the investiture is partly motivated by it’s intent. So Honor would want to bind things; stuff like that is clear. But if a Shard wanted, could it use investiture and do something like invest a pen with small reality altering abilities or a monocle that can only blast rainbows at precisely 7 pm? Is the use of investiture NOT limited to what the Shard would want to do with it?

sorry if this is a naive question.

[Shqueeves]

Theoretically, somebody could Lightweave a unicorn with licorice hair. An Elantrian could, with practice, code basically anything that they felt like. Also, take a look at this WoB https://wob.coppermind.net/events/105/#e1189

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Odium's_Shard

Does the Spiritual power used in any given magic system come from the supporting Shard itself, or through it from the remains of Adonalsium and the Power of Creation?

Brandon Sanderson

From the Shard in most cases. But it's also often built into the world innately, and so the Shard (if someone is holding it) doesn't always have control over who can or cannot use the magic.

 

[MistLord]

I believe most manifestations of investiture (read: magic systems) are unintentional, a result of them unintentionally investing a planet (I think there's a WoB somewhere. Though Shards have been seen adjusting those 'ManiVests' (as I call them) to their own specific needs.

Mistborn trilogy and Alloy of Law spoilers

Spoiler

Sazed changed Allomancy so that you didn't need as high a level of trauma to Snap anymore, and restored that basic 16 allomantic metals

Way of Kings and Words of Radiance Spoilers

Spoiler

It's heavily implied Honor himself designed the Honorblades, thus being a clear magic system created by a Shard

 

Edited December 24, 2017 by MistLord
Clarified some facts

[+hwiles]

Recall: Investiture in the Cosmere is an alternate form of both matter and energy.  In general, yes, Investiture can do anything, become anything, or be used to alter anything in any way.  As you pointed out, this is actually a very unhelpful description.

What makes Investiture interesting is how it acts as a "fuel" for magic systems that are subject to discrete sets of rules.  You can read any Cosmere book and enjoy it without having an understanding of Investiture.  This is because it's the magic systems that are the Cosmere's main draw, a magic system merely being a precise individual mechanism by which Investiture can be utilized.

By way of real-world analogue, take energy for example: Few people study "energy" by itself.  The subject is simply too broad to be practical or meaningful.  What's generally more useful and interesting is studying energy's aspects, restrictions, or specific discrete uses, through fields like chemistry, biology, physics, engineering, electrodynamics, ect.  I feel like this is where you're getting lost in giving your high-level overview.  If you go into a Cosmere book and replace every use of the word Investiture with "Magical Energy" or "Mana" you won't have lost much.

[Cosmernaut]

@hwiles This is pretty helpful. Thank you. So, would it be correct to say that the potentiality of Investiture is essentially limitless so long as it falls within the parameters of the Cosmere's established laws? This was actually where my confusion was. In explaining what I could about the Cosmere, I was asked, "So can anyone with Adonalsium's power do whatever they want?" and found that I couldn't answer this.

[+ElephantEarwax]

Everything. That sums it up. Shards like Ruin and Preservation made a planet.

Edited December 14, 2017 by Ookla the Elephant

[Weltall]

1 hour ago, Cosmernaut said:

So, would it be correct to say that the potentiality of Investiture is essentially limitless so long as it falls within the parameters of the Cosmere's established laws? This was actually where my confusion was. In explaining what I could about the Cosmere, I was asked, "So can anyone with Adonalsium's power do whatever they want?" and found that I couldn't answer this.

Not just the Cosmere's established laws but the 'laws' of the individual magic systems. For example, under our current understanding of BioChroma you can't use that system to fly even though it's a power well within the capabilities of several other magic systems; It's just not something that that magic can do. However, that exact same system could be and was used to create Nightblood, in a conscious attempt to replicate a weapon intrinsic to a completely different magic system. The flip side is that there are applications of magic that do fundamentally the same thing even when they're present in different magic systems. For example Brandon has said that any illusion magic seen in the Cosmere is going to work a lot like Lightweaving from Stormlight Archive, and Hoid's ability to know where he needs to be uses the same underlying principle as Feruchemical Chromium, though he may not actually be using Feruchemy itself.

And as @MistLord said, the magic systems aren't consciously created by the Shards but are the result of an interaction between a number of factors including the (Spiritual) genetics of the inhabitants of a given planet, the nature of the Shard(s) Investing that planet and the nature of the planet itself. For example, there are ten Surges in Roshar's magics because that number is linked to the planet. The Shards can and do exert some control over the systems but they aren't consciously designing their associated magic systems.

Within all those limitations and various other intrinsic ones, Investiture's potential is effectively limitless. As far as your specific questions go, those should fall within the parameters of what Investiture can do, assuming you could find a magic system that does what you want. For example, a reality-altering pen would depend on what sort of alterations you're thinking of but all sorts of things are at least theoretically possible. Your rainbow-shooting monocle is fundamentally the equivalent of a technological application of Lightweaving (or a creative application of the Aons Ashe or Shao) so it's not too farferched to imagine a magic system capable of creating such a specific thing, or for a Shard to do so directly. It's what the Honorblades are, after all. I'm not sure why a Shard would want a timed rainbow monocle but who am I to fathom the workings of their infinite minds?

[+hwiles]

4 hours ago, Cosmernaut said:

@hwiles This is pretty helpful. Thank you. So, would it be correct to say that the potentiality of Investiture is essentially limitless so long as it falls within the parameters of the Cosmere's established laws? This was actually where my confusion was. In explaining what I could about the Cosmere, I was asked, "So can anyone with Adonalsium's power do whatever they want?" and found that I couldn't answer this.

Yeah I think you basically got it. Investiture is all powerful, but the way it's accessed is subject to misunderstanding, abuse, and exploitation. Therein lies the underlying theme of the Cosmere: "what would happen if men wielded the powers of God?" I think Sanderson has some essays on the topic somewhere on his website if you're interested in the finer philosophical structure of the Cosmere beyond the more simplified: "Investiture is mana which is used to fuel numerous different magic systems." That said, for the purpose of introducing someone to the Cosmere, I'm of the opinion that a simplified approach is best. As they say, less is more.

[Cosmernaut]

On 12/14/2017 at 1:29 PM, hwiles said:

Yeah I think you basically got it. Investiture is all powerful, but the way it's accessed is subject to misunderstanding, abuse, and exploitation. Therein lies the underlying theme of the Cosmere: "what would happen if men wielded the powers of God?" I think Sanderson has some essays on the topic somewhere on his website if you're interested in the finer philosophical structure of the Cosmere beyond the more simplified: "Investiture is mana which is used to fuel numerous different magic systems." That said, for the purpose of introducing someone to the Cosmere, I'm of the opinion that a simplified approach is best. As they say, less is more.

The approach started off simple, but... the person I was explaining things to is so inquisitive they may as well have hemalurgic spikes.

[The One Who Connects]

On 12/13/2017 at 6:47 PM, MistLord said:

Mistborn trilogy and Alloy of Law spoilers

  Hide contents

Sazed changed Allomancy so that you didn't need to Snap anymore,

No.

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FYODOR32768 (14 NOVEMBER 2011)

In Alloy of Law are people still Snapping?

BRANDON SANDERSON (14 NOVEMBER 2011)

He chose to alter the way Snapping works. It bothered him. It does happen, but differently.

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KCHAN

How does Snapping work after Harmony changed it? If you don't want to reveal it all right now, are there any hints you can give us?

BRANDON SANDERSON

He couldn't get rid of this entirely. I don't want to spoil things, but Snapping was built into Allomancy primarily because of larger-scale magical issues. This is getting deep into the issue, but it has to do with a person's spiritual makeup and a 'wounded' spirit being easier to fill with something else, kind of like a cut would let something into the bloodstream. he made this threshold on Scadrial much easier to obtain.

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QUESTION

The change in how the magic (on Scadrial) interact with each other, was that done by Harmony?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes it was. You will find a theme. The snapping in Mistborn is actually a repeated theme through a lot of the different magics. Um, but what I felt at the end of the day he would do something about it. So, even though that is part of the magic system, he changed that. The change to Feruchemy is more a matter of other factors such as the large amount of interbreeding that happened following...and things like that. And so a lot of people with Feruchemy sDNA mixing with people with people with Allomantic sDNA has affected the way the magics blend, so to speak. That's not done by Sazed. That's just kind of an effect.

[MistLord]

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

No.

Thanks for clarification.