Using soul stamps to grant other magical abilities.

[Feruchemist]

This may be an arbitrary or foolish question, but it has clung to my mind like a cremling to a body:

Could you use soul stamps to change investiture to make someone "remember" themselves as being a Feruchemist (or other magic-user)?  Of course, you would likely need to experience being a Feruchemist yourself (or alternatively record every aspect of being a Feruchemist/Allomancer/Surgebinder/etc) to craft such a stamp.

Is there a canon answer for my question?  If so, please tell me what it is!  I am always eager to learn more about the Cosmere.

[RShara]

No, probably not, because it would take so much investiture that it would be impractical, and the stamp probably couldn't channel that much. Also, it'd be really implausible that you were actually born on another planet, with a Connection to Ruin/Preservation/Harmony in just such a way that you were actually a Feruchemist.

 

[+Extesian]

A beautiful recent wob explains (in the context of forging someone to be elantrian or allomancer) that manipulating connection and identity isn't that hard. This is one of my favorite recent wobs as it changed from previous times the question has been asked. 

Quote

DTF_20170515

why refrigerate food when you can just stamp spoiled food so that it was stored properly before?

Aurora_Fatalis

You'll have to ask Brandon how that'd interact with gastric acid breaking down the stamp. Or how porous/loose material interacts with stamps in the first place.

Come to think of it... There's a WoB saying the Nightwatcher could change your species, but have a hard time making a spren bond to you. So... could the Nightwatcher turn you Scadrian and make you eligible for Allomantic powers? Or does the Nightwatcher's boons operate on Soul Stamp principles?

Hell, let's say you bought a vial of the wrong metal on your field trip to Sel. Could you pay a Forger to stamp the vial into being a vial of the right metal (it's believable that you would check before such an important trip) and then drink the metal contained in the vial to fuel your Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

All right, all right. Let's see... /u/Aurora_Fatalis, changing metals around with other forms of investiture is generally going to work, according to how I view the magic right now. The power is there, you just need to align the matter the right way. So forging new metals: not too difficult. This is because Allomancy isn't actually using investiture in the metals, but using it as a key to get power from somewhere else.

Forging a sword to be a Shardblade, however, would be very, very difficult for multiple reasons. The most obvious one is that the investiture required would be enormous. A Shardblade is a highly-invested object, with its own self-aware soul.

If you could overcome the initial resistance invested objects have to being influenced by other magics (something that forgery is particularly good at doing anyway) you'd theoretically be able to change Shardblade/spren's personality like you could a person's.

Fooling the magic via Connection and Identity is not so hard, under the right circumstances, so making a forger into an Elantrian (or an Allomancer) for a short time is plausible. Making yourself into a Radiant, however, would be more difficult--because the limitations placed on that magic have to do with persuading a sapient being you are worth the bond.

Aurora_Fatalis

How about regular food? If I stamp a pineapple pizza into a pepperoni pizza and eat it, what nutrients do I end up with?

Brandon Sanderson

The way I have it working now, I believe (though I'd have to do some double-checking, as it's been a while since I've been working on Sel) soulstamps are more fragile than things like Aons, and it would be very hard to eat something with one without breaking it. But assuming you could, you'd get nutrients from what it had become--but those would change back once the stamp broke or ran out.

It is possible to go so far down this rabbit hole, however, that the chemistry of Forging (like the physics of Allomancy) it just can't make sense any more. So be aware.

Oversleep42

With things like Stamping metals for Allomancy, you have said that it'd be possible for short time, but then burning it would break the Seal and metal would revert back.

I guess it would be similar with food, right?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that's the big problem with Forging. Getting the stamp to stay in place once you start to change the object that has been stamped.

source

Bear in mind though that this is all in the realm of plausibility, not an easy thing. And there are reasons forging yourself to become a feruchemist would be harder than an allomancer. And the implication is that its very time limited- probably better to do that to someone then spike out the ability 

Quote

Questioner

If you Stamp yourself, to have another, overwritten spiritweb, and you get Spiked-- *laughter* What would happen?

Brandon Sanderson

We actually worked this out. *laughter*

Questioner

Well, you'd die, or very close to it, but would it revert when the Stamp reverts?

Brandon Sanderson

So what’s probably going to happen here is that you’re going to rip off the Investiture you’ve put on your soul, and your own soul will have less damage. Now, the spike is only gonna get the-- the spike, you're like "What will it do?" It will do what you've been overwritten with, but again remember, becoming an Allomancer takes so much energy, and things like-- But it is theoretically possible in the cosmere to rewrite yourself "You're an allomancer", someone spikes you to get this. The Investiture doesn't care that it was fake on you, you have managed to get that Investiture to work. Uhh, this is really tough. And really, like, you need Connection, and you need, like, the right kind of Investiture, but then it rips off and yes you have made a spike that makes you an Allomancer, even though the person was a Forger. So yes, okay? But this is the kind of stuff that is like the thought experiments for physicists in the cosmere as opposed to, y'know--

source

(Yes i did a theory proposing this - 

 

Edited October 12, 2018 by Extesian

[Feruchemist]

Thank you for your detailed answer Extesian!