Stormborn & Mist-Fabrials

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

Okay, so hear me out.

Would fuelling Allomancy with Stormlight unveil new powers we've never seen before?

Here's my logic.

A fabrial uses a Spren (a fragment of Honor/Cultivation) as a key to determine what the Fabrial will do. That key is then refined by the metal used to make the cage of the fabrial. Then you power it with Stormlight to give the Spren fuel to power the Fabrial's effect.

So with that in mind, let's compare that to Allomancy. The metals are keys that refine what the "preservationspren" (big airquotes there) produces as an effect. Due to the Connection to the Allomancer, the effect is emitted from their location in the realms. Obviously the big difference here is scale. One spren is infinitely less powerful than the entire Shard of Preservation. But the general analogy holds, right? A piece of Investiture filtered by metal that consumes a fuel source to produce an effect.

So, then. If there was a Radiant who was also a Mistborn, and they sucked in Stormlight, could they then "burn" the Stormlight like how Vin consumes the Mists? Assuming that this is possible, what would the effect(s) be? Personally I think the Radiant Spren would be the determining factor here; Each one would act like a different "alloy" like the various Atium alloys, filtering the output. It might also be possible to still burn a metal while forcing Stormlight to come through, but that probably requires a LOT more hacking than just consuming Stormlight as a fuel like burning the mists.

Now back to Fabrials, speaking of the mists. If it were possible to contain the mists inside a gemstone, could you use that to power "allomantic fabrials" kind of like Ettmetal? Using different spren powered by the mists to create allomantic effects? Hmm...

Well I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this...

[Dancer]

I remember there being a WoB about gemstones being able to store the Mists but I can't find it. On another note I found a WoB that said you can power your Allomancy with Stormlight just like the Mists. He says nothing about it having strange effects. 

Quote

be used to fuel allomancy like the mist in the mistborn trilogy? Is stormlight therefore a manifestation of honour?

Brandon Sanderson

This is possible.

Edit: Here is the WoB I couldn't find.

 

OrangeJedi

Can you capture Preservation’s mist in a sphere?

Brandon Sanderson

This is plausible.

 

Edited October 1, 2020 by Dancer

[Honorless he/him]

Different magic systems can be powered by different magic fuels, we've gotten multiple confirmations of that from Brandon, like here:

Quote

Questioner

So assuming you have mentioned that it is technically possible to be able to use one magic system on another planet from a different one...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Is it possible to fuel that... Like, say could you fuel Awakening using Stormlight, or do you have to bring Breaths?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you could!

Questioner

Okay.

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. Now it's-- there are tricks to making it happen on each world. Some are easier than others, but yes you can.

Questioner

So could that allow a loophole to maybe... convert from one form of power to another? Or like from Stormlight to Breath?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. In fact, that's part of why Vasher--

Questioner

Vasher. I wondered that.

Brandon Sanderson

--is on Roshar, is because it's a lot easier to get Stormlight than Breath.

Calamity release party (Feb. 16, 2016)

so yeah using Honor's Investiture instead of Preservation's to fuel Allomancy should still be possible, though they'd need to figure out a way to filter the power through metals. I think this would be easier with mechanical Allomancy, like with Southern Scadrian technology: that the Shard often refers to using the term "medallions". No need to tinker with sDNA that way (as one's sDNA gives one access to a magic system)

Converting one form of Investiture to another is also possible

Quote

Ilkhan2016

Breath and Stormlight are both forms of Investiture. AFAIK you can power any of the magic systems from any form of Investiture. Zahel is on Roshar, I believe, primarily due to how easy Investiture (Stormlight) is to come across.

AFAIK the form of Investiture doesn't change anything about the abilities. For example, Szeth was sucked out of Stormlight when he drew Nightblood; and Azure used Stormlight to Awaken in Shadesmar.

/u/mistborn is that right?

Brandon Sanderson

A lot of this depends on the Investiture and the magic in question. Azure was legit using Breaths, for example--ones she'd brought with her. But Szeth was able to feed Stormlight to Nightblood, much as Vasher uses Stormlight to keep himself alive.

To Awaken with Stormlight, the easiest thing to do would be to first change Stormlight into Breaths--something that Azure doesn't know how to do. (Admittedly, Hoid doesn't either, so it's not like it's a simple thing to achieve.) You could also theoretically use some magical (or mechanical) means to power your Awakening with a different form of Investiture.

Extesian

This is very interesting. Is it possible then in the Cosmere for the 'intent' (spin or however described) of Investiture to be changed? And I mean within reasonable limits (not the powers of six shards or any of that). Can a Shard effectively grow in power in a place (e.g. toward an avatar) through another Shard's Investiture being changed (not just corrupted)? Or is it just making one type ('intent' - you should canonize a word for this :D) of Investiture mimic the properties of another?

Brandon Sanderson

Most of the ways of accomplishing what you're talking about would involve either 1) fooling/overwriting your spiritual makeup somehow. (This is what Hemalurgy does, for example.) 2) Refining the power somehow into a more pure form.

But there are a lot of variables. The way magic from Nalthis works, for example, the system is just looking for any available Investiture to power itself--and so basically anything will do, regardless of the source. This includes consuming your own soul, in some cases...

You'll see terminology coming along eventually that facilitates talking about all of this. I'm not yet decided on some of it.

Celestial_Blu3

How many Breaths does [Azure] have by her final appearance in OB?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO, I'm afraid.

General Reddit 2019 (April 25, 2019)

and accessing a different magic system or using a different form of Investiture to fuel the system you have access to should be easier via conversion: Brandon's talked about something akin to "Spiritual pathways" before, Investiture tends to flow a certain way in certain Shardworlds, and the interaction of these natural paths with a Shard gives rise to magic.

I don't think a new crossover magic system would come out of using either of these two methods.

As for Nahel Bond capable spren, they are not relevant to Allomancy. Allomantic power is Preservation's Investiture filtered via a person's Spiritweb and the metal being burned, with the latter being the coding deciding how the Investiture is used: iron pulls, steel pushes and so on. Nahel Bond spren grant Nahel Bonds. Those are two entirely different things. So I think what would happen if you tried to use spren  this way, is that it would simply not work, you could perhaps turn them into raw Honor or Cultivation or mixed Investiture that way but power neither Allomancy nor Surgebinding. The Nahel Bond seems to be essential to Surgebinding (via higher spren, no idea how it works with the Honorblades or back on Ashyn with the Dawnshards) plus this method of forced initiation into Surgebinding without any Oaths would also probably go against Honor's Intent. Besides, the Surges are fundamental forces on Roshar, you'd probably also need Connection to Roshar.

[Proletariat]

I think fuelling one of the arts with a different shard's mist/light doesn't necessarily have huge impacts on its own. Venli seems to see it as much of a muchness as to whether she draws on Voidlight or Stormlight, and Lift presumably is a little generator of 'Cultivationlight' which doesn't impact what surge she has. Nightblood also eats Stormlight and Breath indiscriminately. I suspect if you had a Mistborn holding an Honourblade, then they'd still have the allomancy and surges you'd expect. And the hacking to make personal inhalation easy is ginormous - most Rosharans cannot inhale Stormlight, and almost no Scadrians can inhale mist.

What's more significant for the ghostbloods and mixing and matching, I imagine, is if they can take expressions of investiture like god metals, 'light', or cognitive beings off world then incredible technology becomes possible and they would be able to control its development by having a monopoly on its fuel. The automated versions of the Metallic Arts, and the fabrials, can make for a potent mix meanwhile Awakening from Nalthis can make these mystical machines self-aware. 

I'm also wondering how influential Sja-Anat is in the questioning of mixing and matching investiture. If she can 'enlighten' the investiture inside a metal mind, or an awakened metal the way she can a spren then she can also completely change how these technologies work if she can get off world.