Magic being used off world

[Chromium Compounder]

It’s been a while since I’ve been on here, but I remember something about how the Magics are partially defined by the shards and partially by the shardworlds.  

On scadrial Magics are metal related, but the arts themselves are somewhat designed according to how ruin and preservation wanted them to be.  

On Nalthis the magic is all about giving, which seems like that comes from Endowment, but the color part I expect comes from Nalthis itself.

On Sel the Magics all seem like they have varying degrees of Devotions and Dominions intents, but the symbol based magic seems like it’s probably from the world itself.  (I think of Chay Shan as being akin to sign language.  That’s the only way I can get it to fit with the others.)

On Roshar it’s harder to define.  I’m pretty sure the oaths are because of Honor, which is why not all rosharan Magics use oaths.  It maybe that it’s hard to define because we haven’t seen enough of the other Magics to know what the common factor is.  Maybe light?

Anyway, my real question is does anything different need to be done to use a magic system off the world it originates from?  The only cases of it happening at all that we’ve seen have been from Hoid, and then not much and he never takes the time to explain.  I guess maybe the thing Kelsier got from the Ire could be another example, but there’s not much explanation there either.  

 

[+Invocation]

I mean you'd have some serious issues trying to use Selish magics off world, due to their connection with the lands they develop in, but that's a special case related to the current state of those two Shards, but for all the rest of them, there's no different process that we've seen because the Shards (mostly) transcend time and space so you can access their powers anywhere you want in the cosmere.

[Calderis]

Awakening can be used anywhere as long as you have breath. 

If you're a practitioner of the Metallic Arts and you have the right metal, location is irrelevant (this has much greater implications for Hemalurgy as there's no genetic component needed).

For Surgebinding it's a bit more complicated because you have to get your Spren off world which is hard, and either have perfect gemstones to contain stormlight or hack use of a different Investiture. 

The only magics that are truly location bound at this point are Sel's. Others vary in degree of difficulty, but are all workable. 

[+Oltux72]

1 hour ago, Chromium Compounder said:

On Roshar it’s harder to define.  I’m pretty sure the oaths are because of Honor, which is why not all rosharan Magics use oaths.  It maybe that it’s hard to define because we haven’t seen enough of the other Magics to know what the common factor is.  Maybe light?

Surgebinding from Honor came with his blades, which work without oaths. The Spren introduced them.
And only some spren. The Parshendi change forms without oaths. And you bond Yelig-Nar by a physical act.

1 hour ago, Chromium Compounder said:

Anyway, my real question is does anything different need to be done to use a magic system off the world it originates from?  The only cases of it happening at all that we’ve seen have been from Hoid, and then not much and he never takes the time to explain.  I guess maybe the thing Kelsier got from the Ire could be another example, but there’s not much explanation there either. 

Zahel. And Azure. Had his divine breath gone away, he would have dropped dead. Her artificial shard blade worked. Nightblood kept working.

[Chromium Compounder]

True, but those are all examples of things that were done in the past being taken to other worlds.  Zahel’s divine breath is just a thing that he has.  Nightblood still works yes, but could something like Nightblood be made on Roshar.

I’m not talking about a fabrial, or something constructed with Stormlight.  I mean, let’s say an awakener with a ton of breaths comes to Roshar and then tries to awaken something, would their breaths play by slightly different rules.  

Roshar is a difficult example because the commonality is complicated.  Let’s say an awakener goes to Sel and tries to awaken something with their breaths.  Would they need to write their command instead of speak it?  Could they do it without draining colors?  What about on Scadrial, would they need to involve metal somehow, even if they’re awakening cloth?

The only times we’ve seen someone actively using magic from another world it was Hoid, and it wasn’t very clear about what or how he was doing it.  When he met Shallan in her flashback he put metal in his drink, then apparently used it to power Yolish light weaving.  When he tells Kaladin and Shallan stories he was light weaving then as well, but we don’t see what’s going on very well.  We’ve never had something like this from a PoV character.  

[Fezzik]

10 minutes ago, Chromium Compounder said:

When he met Shallan in her flashback he put metal in his drink, then apparently used it to power Yolish light weaving.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/161-words-of-radiance-washington-dc-signing/#e6933

He used it to either soothe or riot. Hoid is a mistborn, so he could burn bronze and sense that shallan was a radiant. Where do you see lightweaving in that scene? All his behavior is explainable using his given powerset, so I guess I don't see where you are coming from.

[Bigmikey357]

Rosharan magic is relationship based. Symbiotic (Knights Radiant), Parasitic (Ashyn Surgebinding, Voidbinding), Cohorsive (fabrials), Transactional (Boon/Curse).

[Calderis]

Awakening using breath will function the same throughout the Cosmere. 

So will Surgebinding. So will allomancy. 

Things may change a bit when fueling a magic system with a different Investiture type (see the Fused in my opinion) but what Hoid is doing is not different because he's Hoid. He just has access to a lot of things. 

[dbulick]

16 hours ago, Calderis said:

Awakening using breath will function the same throughout the Cosmere. 

So will Surgebinding. So will allomancy. 

Things may change a bit when fueling a magic system with a different Investiture type (see the Fused in my opinion) but what Hoid is doing is not different because he's Hoid. He just has access to a lot of things. 

The issue with using surgebinding off Roshar is that it would be very hard to get your spren offworld.  Not sure if that would prevent the spren from coming through as a shardblade only, or if it would limit surgebinding in general.

[Inky]

Its possible to do but it's very hard. Any cognitive shadow (even with a body) has trouble getting off of their homeworld, but it's possible

[Weltall]

18 hours ago, Chromium Compounder said:

True, but those are all examples of things that were done in the past being taken to other worlds.  Zahel’s divine breath is just a thing that he has.  Nightblood still works yes, but could something like Nightblood be made on Roshar.

Yes, Brandon has repeatedly confirmed that magics work anywhere as long as you have the right components. It only gets weird with Selish magic (which is region-locked) and if you try to hack the magics together. Here's a very long (BioChroma-centric) WoB that spells it out very clearly. BioChroma's the easiest magic to use because Breath keys itself to your Identity so all you need is for someone who already has Breath to give some to you. The metallic arts are also really easy, if you satisfy the genetic requirements for allomancy or feruchemy you can use those magics anywhere as long as you have the right metal. It doesn't have to be metal from Scadrial or the planet you're currently on, the only thing that's important is the purity and for alloys, the ratios.

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Roshar is a difficult example because the commonality is complicated.  Let’s say an awakener goes to Sel and tries to awaken something with their breaths.  Would they need to write their command instead of speak it?  Could they do it without draining colors?  What about on Scadrial, would they need to involve metal somehow, even if they’re awakening cloth?

No, that's not how it works. See above.

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The only times we’ve seen someone actively using magic from another world it was Hoid, and it wasn’t very clear about what or how he was doing it.  When he met Shallan in her flashback he put metal in his drink, then apparently used it to power Yolish light weaving.  When he tells Kaladin and Shallan stories he was light weaving then as well, but we don’t see what’s going on very well.  We’ve never had something like this from a PoV character.  

Have you not read Oathbringer? He uses Awakening at the end and we see it work exactly like it does on Nalthis. The only thing not described is color-draining and we can assume that's just a narrative filter because Hoid's not really paying attention to it at the time. Also, 'Azure' uses Awakening earlier in the book.

[Calderis]

4 hours ago, Weltall said:

Have you not read Oathbringer? He uses Awakening at the end and we see it work exactly like it does on Nalthis. The only thing not described is color-draining and we can assume that's just a narrative filter because Hoid's not really paying attention to it at the time. Also, 'Azure' uses Awakening earlier in the book.

The color drain is present there as well. 

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The girl, maybe four years old, finally emerged from the shadows and ran to get the doll. Wit stood and dusted off his coat, which was now grey. 

 

[Weltall]

@Calderis I stand corrected. xD