Kurkistan

The nice thing with compounding is that you barely have to store anything at all, initially. TLR spent time as an old dude for some reason, but we know that, normally, you can compound an attributes that you got initially from coumpounding. So you store 1% Health for 1 second and then compound that up to 10,000% Health for an hour with nothing beyond the initial 1% investment coming from the recipient. You could even cheat that by having, as Fungus said, the initial spike donor store a bit of Health in a metalmind before biting the bullet. I still think double is the way to go. You sacrifice two donors instead of one (only twice the pain for a lot of gain down the road); as for the recipient, it's my impression that spike-recipients' souls "heal" after they spike is removed (see: Spook). Even if not, double damage for being spiked will still be offset by the speed of healing and how many people a single set of spikes can help in a lot less time.

Easy fix. Double gold, compounding ftw!

Link: So some measure of personality is probably messed with.

Ah, I'd forgotten about that factoid. I suppose we already knew that "shardblade" was a general term, then.

An interesting idea, Reader.

According to my Classics-major friend, a favorable interpreation of Feles Regirent means "may the cats rule/reign." I don't know any Latin, so I'll just take that at face value. It may well be likely that animals can have their attributes taken, but it's not necessary. Human-attribute-stealing Hemalurgy takes "the basic pieces of Preservation inside the souls of all men...the spike is pulling out the pure power of Preservation—part of the power of all creation." Now we know that animals are equal parts Preservation and Ruin, which means that they do have the power of Preservation within them, but it might not be "sticking out" and/or "pure" like in humans. So an animal has a a spirit web, but it's not necessary that any part of that web is really a Hemalurgic hotspot. We also have that TLR went through the trouble of making human strength spikes for his koloss, which, ethical concerns aside, are probably harder to farm and might even have less "strength" in them than some animals. It might be that Preservation's power in humans is more fully accessible or some other concern stopped the use of animals, but it is a question to be answered. Once again, I think it likely that Hemalurgy can take from the spiritwebs of animals, but it's not a given thing.

What is your source for this one? Don't get me wrong: I think it's very likely, especially given the (presumably non-murdery) use of Hemalurgy pre-Ascension, but I haven't seen a source saying you can take attributes from animals as of yet. All we have so far, that I know of, is that you can give attributes to animals. Feles Regirent!

Oh Thought, how I now value the twisted paths of your mind! That might work, although I think it could also be squirreling the meaning a bit. Besides just preserving my own ego, I'm also tempted to accept your pretzel-brained solution because I really don't see any other interpretation that allows the books--and particularly that previous Brandon quote--to make sense in light of this new answer.

I would heavily suggest that you read every Cosmere book before even thinking of thinking of looking at those forums.

I would heavily suggest that you start a new thread before digging deeper. "Shardblades and Hemalurgic Decay" indeed.

So I guess that Splinters of either Dominion or Devotion (probably Dominion) are chilling about in the Cognitive Realm near Sel trying to eat people. That's good to know.

Nice work Lance. Okay, takeaway moments: 1) "Surging" efficiency being unrelated to storage intervals. I'll admit that one floored me when I first saw it, especially given how everything I've seen up to this point has seemed to indicate the opposite. This deserves some thought. 2) Shardblade vs. Honorblade. Interesting. So either all Shardblades are Honorblades or "Shardblade" is a relatively large category which contains many different types of Blade (Dawnshard, Honorblade, Odiumblade, etc.?) 3) Shadesmar-travel danger hinted at in WoK. That's new. Can anyone think of the hint off the top of their heads?

NO! Turns out that, somehow, that Brandon quote that I would have staked my entire fortune on my interpretation of does not mean what it means. New from Hal-Con: I had not expected this. I guess you can get away with a simpler model, Thought. (I still say it should be stored in the metalmind's Spiritual aspect, btw, it's just that I have about as much proof as your initial model did, instead of standing atop a mountain of awesome like before).

I think you're applying too much agency/completeness to Ati's personality within Ati!Ruin. It might be something more like how TLR was gradually corrupted, simply becoming a more "ruinous" person through and through, but I don't think that there is any "good" version of Ati rattling around in there with pure motivations trying to make things right. I can't find a source for the life of me, but I recall that the Intent of a Shard basically warps the mind of its holder completely, to the point where Brandon doesn't even like our term "Shardholder" because he doesn't see a real distinction. If I recall, the Shardholder has a small influence on how the intent is interpretted, but they're consciousness is largely subsumed in the overall Shardic intent. So it's more so Ati changing so that he wants to Ruin things than Ati trying to do something other than Ruining but causing Ruinous results because his mind is being messed with.

And on the note of ichor-alcohol apparently even making the creation of Lifeless easier, not just their maintenance, it could be that having "fluid" in the circulatory system increases the "humanness" of corpses as well as being a preservative.

That specific bit of intel was gleaned from the epigraphs of a section of The Way of Kings. Link to the full text of the epigraphs here. More like he doesn't have morality, I would say. It's just what he does. Grass grows, birds fly, sun shines, and Ruin, he Ruins people. He's . If you were from where he was from, you'd be storming dead! (Possibly on that last one, we're not sure what happened when Adonalsium shattered). No problem. Better to ask questions than not.

But I'm never wrong, so...

A bit late to the party, but I've decided to join your noble endeavor. I'm waiting on The Dragon Reborn to come into the library right now, but I'm a very fast reader, so anticipate being done by January.

Sure you want to know? Spoilers and whatnot. I'll appeal to Blue and Orange Morality on this one. Ruin is sentient, but he's akin to an intelligent AI who's ultimate purpose in life is to create paperclips.

Ati was tragically twisted by Ruin's Intent into being destructive. He was not the cause of that "evil," and his version of Ruin was probably one of the "nicer" ones you could have hoped for, since the shardholder does shape the Shard a bit. We know his nature from outside the books you've read, so you'll have to trust me on this. That's a summary done by one of us, and exaggerates/simplifies a bit. It's not exactly the firmest basis for spinning out a theory. Taking the quote at face value, Ruin has as much mercy as a storm or the law of entropy: he exists outside of the realm of morality, as a force of nature. He is "merciless" because he has no capacity for value-laden actions--is not capable of expressing mercy--not because he actively practices anti-mercy policies. Mercy: "Compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm." Ruin has no incentive to Preserve the life of something that he can destroy unless that preservation furthers some greater destruction (ala Inquisitors). As it is, Ruin's agents are somewhat sadistic because he has limited power, and is reduced to constructing a legion of Lego-killing Legos with only the most basic ability to influence their behavior when he is not directly controlling them. Ruin, then, taps into human evil as the easiest way to achieve his goals with limited power. Don't worry: You haven't managed to mortally offend me yet.

Just a note on Pathians: They're earrings (or at least Wax's) are made from melted down Inquisitor spikes.

The best thing about Lifeless is that they can be reprogrammed. You can give them a command phrase, order them to do A, then order them to stop doing A and do B, then give them a new command phrase and order them to do C. Having an actual brain might very well aid the Law of BioChromatic Parallelism, making a fleshy Lifeless essentially 1:1 with a normal human for Breath-ifying purposes, but it cannot be the direct reason for why Lifeless can be reprogrammed. Also, a lot of the Breath that went into the Phantoms was actually applied to making the stone movable.

No! Not agreement! Never agreement! *Looks desperately for place to disagree* Aha! Bones, are not, in fact, Lifeless. *Curses loudly and continues looking* Nevermind. Or they are, but they aren't. But they are. The Breath, apparently, doesn't stick to Awakened bones, but we know that "Lifeless" constructed out of bones can be given new orders and command phrases and the like. Besides everything we've been saying, this means that the "stickiness" of Lifeless is not necessarily tied to the ability to give them new Commands. That's an interesting tidbit I'd forgotten. Some quotes for fun: PDF 461: PDF 582: Interesting Brandon quote on the Phantoms. Apparently the extra Breath went into allowing the stone encasing the Lifeless to move. --- Argh! None of this is properly argumentative with Thought! How can I live knowing that we agreed on something!?

Denth's death scene (p. 569): Blushweaver died without any marked hair-changery. And Denth's body stayed exactly the same. Only his hair changed as he died. And it changed as a result of him "los[ing] control," with those changes specifically tied to his emotions. No other Returned are ever shown to have a "hair problem" akin to the Royal Locks. I suspect, then, that the Locks are a unique manifestation of the splinter of a Divine Breath in the royal family. I thought this was a rather obvious hint and wasn't aware that others didn't also think that Denth was a Royal. EDIT: EDIT 2: Also recall that changing your appearance consciously requires mental gymnastics, while unconscious changes are a result of unconscious (who could guess!) changes in how you view yourself. "As a Returned, your body changes based on how you see yourself." I doubt that Denth, either consciously or unconsciously, saw himself as someone with differently colored hair corresponding to his emotions while he died. -Sorry about the re-edit, lost my mind for a moment when I was doing all that quoting and forgot to actually finish my thought properly. Some facts on the Royal Locks for your perusal, tangentially related to the Denth question: Following what you said, "lineage" could mean conscious lineage, like how a lost heir raised by wolves wouldn't perceive himself as part of the Idrian royal lineage. EDIT 4: Though that probably isn't all, since then you'd think at least one jealous prince or something would just continue to think of himself as the king...

Interesting and plausible. It seems that TES really is "realmatics, the book." I think that it's how the individual sees themselves, since Denth had the Royal Locks despite being a few dozen generations behind on the inheritance of the throne. EDIT: Boom. A bit late (like half a year), but here's the answer. Source