Feruchemical gold, medallions, and Ashyn's magic.

[Veden Truthwatcher she/her]

I was reading something in another thread about how unsealed gold metalminds would be very popular on Threnody, and I started thinking about how they would work on Ashyn. From what we know you have to get sick in order to have magic. It seems to me that an unsealed gold metalmind would come in very handy for those who want to get sick quickly. And it would be handy to have around when you are ready to be healthy again as well, since you've already stored your health.

[Quantus he/him]

That would be an interesting use, I like it!

 

Devil's Advocate Statement:  It's possible that the sort of spiritual bond that such things usually would need may prevent the Gold from affecting it.  The two mechanisms at play are the general case were Invested [anything] is more difficult to affect with other Investiture, so the Ashyn diseases might be resistant to magic healing. And separately (and far less confirmed/documented) is the fact that F-Gold can heal spiritual Damage but not the "damage" that is the initial Snapping, or else Gold would inherently remove Allomancy.  Also, and this is just my own theory, but I suspect the Ashyn disease magic is basically just a Nahel Bond with the single-cell equivalent of Spren.  

[Veden Truthwatcher she/her]

I was referring more to natural healing ability. In the excerpt that we got from Silence Divine, the main character noted that he had been getting too much sleep recently. That sounds like his natural health is the only thing keeping him healthy. (Or not, in this case.) Since F-Gold is just storage, you should still be able to use it for healing. Alternatively, get filled metalminds to hospitals or doctors. You may get superpowers when you're sick, but they won't do you much good if you're dead. Also, chronic illness healing! Lots of possibilities when you mix magic diseases and magic health storage.

[HSuperLee he/him]

It would actually be really interesting if f-gold wasn't as effective on the disease, but could treat it's symptoms. You could potentially have it where people are constantly balancing tapping and storing to keep their natural immune systems weak enough to not be able to beat the sickness, but they don't display any symptoms because the gold heals any damage the infection causes.

[Veden Truthwatcher she/her]

1 hour ago, HSuperLee said:

It would actually be really interesting if f-gold wasn't as effective on the disease, but could treat it's symptoms. You could potentially have it where people are constantly balancing tapping and storing to keep their natural immune systems weak enough to not be able to beat the sickness, but they don't display any symptoms because the gold heals any damage the infection causes.

That would be pretty cool. Although it would depend on what is being stored, healing ability or the immune system response. It can go either way when you are reading the books. F-gold became a lot more interesting after I learned how healing and the immune system actually work.

[HSuperLee he/him]

18 minutes ago, Ookla the Uninitiated said:

That would be pretty cool. Although it would depend on what is being stored, healing ability or the immune system response. It can go either way when you are reading the books. F-gold became a lot more interesting after I learned how healing and the immune system actually work.

I believe Sanderson has stated, and I'm going to paraphrase this and hope Calderis corrects me later, that f-gold really stores, "The body's ability to conform to it's spiritual ideal." Basically, gold isn't really health (just like chromium isn't really luck) but rather, it has the effect of improving health.

Edited December 12, 2018 by HSuperLee

[Calderis he/him]

23 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

I believe Sanderson has stated, and I'm going to paraphrase this and hope Calderis corrects me later, that f-gold really stores, "The body's ability to conform to it's spiritual ideal." Basically, gold isn't really health (just like chromium isn't really luck) but rather, it has the effect of improving health.

Pretty much. 

2 hours ago, HSuperLee said:

It would actually be really interesting if f-gold wasn't as effective on the disease, but could treat it's symptoms. You could potentially have it where people are constantly balancing tapping and storing to keep their natural immune systems weak enough to not be able to beat the sickness, but they don't display any symptoms because the gold heals any damage the infection causes.

This is basically already how gold treats normal disease. I'm tryi g and failing to find the quote... But Wayne's narrative at some point says that healing illness is difficult because if you stop to soon the sickness comes back.