Pechvarry

An interesting point. Hemalurgic spikes don't "exhaust" though, so there's nothing for aluminum to set to 0 or for duralumin to burn the entirety of. Self counterpoint: they do decay when out of the body, so it would be interesting if duralumin made spikes in you inert (which would be lethal rather frequently). I know, this doesn't happen, or else the entirety of books 2 and 3 would not make sense. But I'm still not convinced they couldn't be made to affect other sources of investiture within you.

Is there confirmation anywhere saying allomantic duralumin only affects your other allomancy abilities? Or is it possible it would affect other stuff (feruchemy would be the obvious alternative, but any form of investiture).

I think there would be a rubber band effect where you would fly after the bullet but it continues to get further away. As it loses energy, you would start gaining on it. You would need to "let go" just before this occurs. And wear an oven mitt. You'll likely collide with your molten bullet but it shouldn't be a devastating impact if you let go before it reversed directions.

Probably contact rules similar to football/rugby (LOTS of padding needed). This means a Steel Feruchemist or other similar "not big guy" would need to be built like a linebacker since he would need to be capable of taking a hit from a Thug. Other than that, amount of metals/stores shouldn't be regulated -- but "compounding" should result in time in the box. I imagine only a few beams along the top. Perhaps it'd be an open-air event with a minimal "frame" around it. Perhaps a 50 x 100 meter field with a beam cutting across the width every 20-25 meters. It could also have bars that slide along it or spin on an axis to make things interesting but that seems like overload. Finally, coinshots should always have a single padded metal object in their hand known as a "safety ball" or something. Pushing on anyone's safety ball is a serious penalty. The purpose is if you have no anchors to catch you, you can drop and push to save yourself from faceplanting at 91 mph. Naturally, this means you "touched ground" and are penalized accordingly. EDIT: to expand on the "ground team up top" -- perhaps there could be a wood scaffold with scaffold crew that wears no metal and is responsible for physically pushing metal chunks around up top. This adds a ridiculous layer of confusion and is far too dangerous for heavy amounts of physical contact. This makes counterplay options very limited. But if something were worked out that didn't take away from the rest of the sport, it would be a fantastic place for Steelrunners.

To the original topic of Combat Lurchers being insane: If you're Double Iron and have a gun, it seems you'd be able to fire a gun and immediately start storing as much weight as possible while pulling on the bullet. This sounds like a fantastic way to get around fast. It also seems like you'll only do it once. The safer (boring) version is to carry small metal shot-put type paper weights (probably a couple pounds each) and lug them in different directions immediately before tanking your weight and pulling yourself towards them.

At some point I imagined an indoor mash up between American football, basketball, and that Harry Potter sport I can't spell (quiditch?). On the field are people wearing full pads with metal in them. Along the high ceiling are metal beams. Lurchers and coinshots score points while remaining airborne. The groundteam must therefore be beefy and tough, and try to position themselves for the air team while disrupting the positions of the opposing ground team. Most notably with pewter (both types), but Fe- Speed and Fe- weight would both have their places.

This is pretty neat. One thing I can't latch onto is the "Earth/Fire/Air/Water" bit. I just don't think Big B would use the 4 Elements.

Honestly, I just think Hoid and Kelsier are too similar: Cocky showmen who thrive on getting the better of others.

I wonder if the placement of that quote was on purpose. I believe Shai is about to start explaining Realmatic Theory to Gaotona, there.

I'm quite sure the list in Elantris is not exhaustive. In fact, because each aon represents base words, and not letters, it's more like Kanji. That means it's possible to have several hundred, and likely 6,000.

I was taught that's consonance >.>

I feel compelled to mention that there's a very good reason to discuss The Stormlight Archives without referencing the greater Cossmere -- It seems like it's been stated many times that this will not be "The Cosmere Epic", and I've noticed that we tend to expect things ("3 of the 16 ruled, but now the broken one reigns") to refer to the Cosmere instead. It's an unavoidable issue of our groupthink. While we're certainly right in a lot of our gleanings, such as Galladon's presence, I think it blinds us to the "smaller" plot of the Stormlight Archives.

Doesn't need to be a literal copy of an honorblade. See my thread on my idea of nightblood being a man-made, inferior shard. Perhaps nightblood is to endowment (in a twisted way due awakening's ability to program new intents) as honorblades are to honor. Being made different, and powered different, doesn't need to matter.

New theory! Hoid is travelling through time and meddling with shardworlds, and even using limited prescience to find the best car insurance In the universe!

Doesn't the AoL Ars Arcanum say something about hemalurgy being of great interest to the rest of the Cosmere? Seems, to me, to imply it could work on anyone. Though I suppose it's likely it can only steal attributes and metal arts, it should be able to imbue anything with sDNA with whatever it has stored. So make a steel inquisitor out of an elantrian.

This thread has become... Tangential. But while luck is being discussed so heavily... What do we know about predestiny in the Cosmere? I seem to remember Brandon saying it's set in stone unless you can see it. What if Luck is just reforging your destiny, with you none the wiser? If certain individuals have higher priority destinies (vin), storing would lower that priority while tapping would raise it. This wouldn't tell us what kind of stuff it can do, just an idea of what is actually occurring.

Why not splinters of the heralds instead? The power no longer focused into singular beings, it spreads out into its own pseudo-ecology of the forgotten power of 9 heralds.

Right, and this goes back to my "reprogramming" concept. Splinters of Honor are still Honor. But splinters of Endowment, through the versatility of the Breath/Awakening system, seem to be given a whole new purpose. So I suppose beyond even Nightblood, the real question I should be asking is: are all awakenings (the Commands) microcosms of shardic intent?

Very good point, Vortaan. I'll have to think on this. Also, thank you for that quote, Voidus. Makes me feel like I have something here. Just not sure it's what I thought I had.

Unless it's why adonalsium's shattering is necessary. If you prescribe to the theory adonalsium became corrupt and, therefore shattered, perhaps it broke down into 16 base concepts, such that only those qualities which could achieve harmony with the others would come together to create utopia. Obviously, hatred doesn't play well with others, so the expectation would be exile to its own hateful existence. And of course, things have to go wrong if you want a good plot.

@windrunner: that's a good point. A binding, consensual contract written up like a dirty car lease. Though I was also thinking about the breaths of those struck, I guess the corrupted breath fumes are actually all that's left behind. The one thing it can't destroy. @Observer: I see where you're going and I think they're questions which need asked. I doubt duralumin level burning would make you a demigod (though the opposite has held true so far - TLR burned at that level because if his shardic influence). Likewise, stormlight appears to have a personal capacity. The only people capable of holding that much power are likely already divine. But we have the God-King as a feasible Breath example. He's not a splinter. But then, he's not your typical awakened object (more on this later). You're also implying that a splinter of Endowment should probably have an Intent derivative of the parent shard. Like, a splinter of Ruin might be called Rust. The distinction I want to make is that Breath is different. Vasher and Shashara reprogrammed a large quantity of splinters to a single purpose. This is (entirely in my opinion) due to just how open Endowment's magic system is. As a computer analogy, it gives so much of itself, it even hands out its admin password. People were created to be people, Returned were created to be Returned. When either type holds 10000 breaths, that doesn't change what they were created for. But a sword with thousands of Breaths, created with commands? The Intent is clear: Destroy Evil. And this is the stuff that makes me feel like Warbreaker is an underappreciated book from a Cosmere perspective.

The process of Awakening Nightblood wasn't very straightforward. Vasher's internal dialogue in the book mentions how he's nothing like what they expected. I want to propose 2 concepts: 1) Awakened objects gain their own "Heightenings" of a sort. In addition to the massive Breath requirements to Awaken a sword, simply having that much Breath in the same object provides additional boons just because of the power it's holding. Note that it's very likely the item would need to be "activated" for this to occur. Though it would be interesting to see what would happen if the God-King invested all of his breaths into a scarf with no Commands, I'm guessing it wouldn't exhibit any Heightenings without having a a command to Awaken. 2) The above effect is providing Investment, the power and form of a shard. As I can't help but notice a similarity between Awakened Commands and Shardic Intents, I propose that Nightblood could be a (limited and inferior) man-made Shard. It has an intelligence derived entirely by his Intent, requires a human to be at its fullest, continually attempts to sway its owner towards following its Intent. Why can Nightblood go against the Intent of Endowment's magic system and rip out Breaths? Because he's pushing his own Shardic influence, effectively warping the magic system into his own. As I said, it's a far cry from the real thing. But I wouldn't be surprised if he's effectively "the stuff" of Shards.

The "chunking" part was intended to be a bit tongue-in-cheek. I've forgotten far too much about mistborn. I'm asking what their status was: I think leras was dead, so his shard was mindlessly doing its intent. While ati's power was trapped but his mind was very capable. If a splintered Aona could provide so much magic still, just how close to shattered/splintered would the mistborn shards be considered? I would like to know if there's some critical difference. Posted from phone, forgive formatting.

This does not void Aethling's opinion. Certainly, Scadrial wasn't home to the first humans ever, but Adonalsium's shattering could've been an extremely hairy deal. For all we know, those who didn't have a shard died or ceased to exist or who knows what happens with a magical big bang? Perhaps Humanity v1.0 is extinct, but for those still holding shards. If this were the case, it would make sense that Preservation would attempt to preserve the species, thus risking his own eventual defeat to follow his nature and preserve humanity (in form, at least). The early days after the Shattering certainly hold a lot of mysteries. Perhaps the other shards were closer, back then, and began finding reasons to induct scadrians into their own realms. Perhaps the sDNA of those first humans were extremely strong, given the divine spark in them, and world-hopping became common, Seventeenth Shard was formed, etc.