Djarskublar

Of course SH is relevant... the entire thing is about a cognitive shadow. But I'm not sure what you are saying, so maybe clarify your stance? Since I don't want to clutter up the forum with yet another "what's the Evil?" thread, I will just post mine here to see what people think. I think that perhaps the ripped off chunks of power from Ambition eventually coalesced into the Physical Realm as a gas form of Investiture, and without a mind controlling it, it acted like Ruin's Deepness. In other words, the Evil is basically a mist that was killing people, so the people left. Just a wild guess, though, with no real support for it off the top of my head.

I've seen that, but I don't remember exact wording. Did Brandon say that it sucks for Jezrien? It bothers me that an Honorblade, which came about before squires were ever a thing, would grant a resonance related to them. That is effectively not granting one. Would Jezrien just get a different resonance, I guess I'm asking. Also for a real question. Say you are a Surgebinder. You have some resonance related to your order. Say you then get a spike for some Allomantic power. What happens to your resonance(s). Do you suddenly have 3-- one for each interaction, or do you still only have one that gets modified based on the new sum interraction? How many powers does it take to remove resonance? Clearly at most 16, but some specifics would be nice.

As long as it is a known issue, I guess I'm cool with it. Better over-reported, I guess, than under. I don't really need specifics. I NEED ACTION!!!1! XD But in all seriousness, you folks are busy, and this is pretty minor. It just pisses me off occasionally. It's not like the site is broken, there is just a poorly designed button on the loose. Upvotes aren't magically being converted into downvotes for no reason, after all.

I think the theory that you could burn your own spikes to buff your power is totally plausible, and most likely correct. On the other hand, I don't think it could enhance you further than the Well could. Just clarifying my stance here.

A well put point, but I see no reason why the Well would be unable to increase the 'size' of your soul. My best guess would be that you can only make and occasionally sever Connections in your soul (since that is all a soul really is anyway). This means that any alteration of the soul would be done by adding/removing Connections. Burning Lerasium increases your Connection to Preservation, so using the Well's power to make yourself into a ridiculously strong mistborn would essentially be done by adding a bunch of Connection to Preservation. Hence, using the Well for this would increase the size of your soul... sort of. Size isn't really a thing in the Spiritual Realm, after all.

Fair enough. Definitely jumping the gun then. It was still a cool idea, and I may look into it more. Thanks.

I have experienced this on multiple devices/browsers, so I don't think it is just me, to answer the obvious question first. The buttons that tabulate the various portions of the site (News, Forums, Shardcast, Gallery, Chat, WIki, Links) extend below where they appear to end, so when I click what should be the subforum chain right beneath it (usually to go back to, say, Cosmere Theories from a particular thread), it takes me to the Shardcast. It is much more common on mobile, where it is more difficult to avoid. I attached a screenshot of this. I put the cursor on where the red dot is in the screenshot, and as you can see, there is an orange bar under Shardcast, so if I clicked that, I would expect to go to 17th Shard Discussion, but would end up looking at the Shardcast. It's really annoying when I forget about it and just click it quickly. And yes, before anyone asks, I am putting the pixel that actually clicks on that spot, not the center of the cursor. I am at least that computer literate.

I haven't seen this one, could you link it? It sounds like maybe that filter is the Oathpact, and if it is, that could help explain why it bound Odium. It would filter (read: limit) the way his power works in the Rosharan system, and therefor trap him indirectly! I like this idea, but I'm clearly jumping the gun on this until I see exact wording.

To expand on @Spoolofwhool's fairly exhaustive explanation to make it easier to understand, there are some properties of Investiture that he didn't delineate that you perhaps don't know. Investiture usually comes 'tainted' by an Intent that derives from its Shard of origin. Stormlight comes from Honor, Cultivation, or some mix of the two, as well as some from when Adonalsium originally created the Storm and infused it, so Stormlight is pretty complex. Regardless of the exact mix, it has Intent aligning it with the Shard(s) it comes from, and the magic it normally powers follows that intent. Breath comes from Endowment, and that is why Breath cannot be taken, only freely given. This leads into the actual point: to convert Light into Breath, you don't just need to change its form and properties, you also need to change its inherent Intent, which is incredibly difficult to do, and there is only one thing in the canon at the moment that can do so. This isn't to say that it is impossible for anything else, it is just the only thing that can right now. That thing is Nightblood. When Nightblood rips the Breaths and then the very spark of life from a person, it is taking Endowment's Investiture. That shouldn't be possible normally, as I stated above, so it 'corrupts' the Investiture and changes its Intent. While this Investiture still exists somewhere, it is no longer accessible by Endowment, so it is effectively destroyed. To convert Light into Breath, you need to make something Honorable/Cultivating into something that Endows. That is much easier said than done. Basically, using Light to Awaken is somewhat similar to trying to use a windmill rather than a waterwheel for mechanical power. Doable, but requires some pretty complex hacks when you are talking about magic. On the other hand, actually converting Light to Breath is like trying to convert lead into gold. Also possible, but far, far more difficult.

While this does sound good, it doesn't make sense once you think about the quantity of power involved. Hemalurgy uses very little power, it just rips up souls, whereas the Well has a significant portion of the power of a Shard at its disposal. Your statement, devoid of that consideration, makes sense, but once you add in the power factor, I can't justify it. There are differences in power consumption between systems, and sometimes they are pretty significant. For example, Aons use a lot more Investiture than Forgeries do, but sometimes the results of Forging are more impressive even though it only uses maybe a tenth or a hundredth of the power (pure guesswork here, but not unreasonable). The difference with the example of Hemalurgy vs the Well is that the Well is so many orders of magnitude larger, that that consideration can't compensate anymore. Even if it isn't used efficiently, eventually sheer power overtakes precise efficient usage. And beyond that, using the Well isn't exactly inefficient, it just leaks really fast like Stormlight.

To clarify my points, and expound a bit on the PM I sent you, your theory is a valid one, for the most part, as long as you use a different interpretation of the WoBs that are basically standard. It just isn't correct because of those different interpretations. As I stated in my PM, and more to get it into the public thread so I don't sound quite as mean to everyone else than a real need to restate it, this is a self consistent theory and I like it. It just doesn't match the facts well. In that WoB, when he talks about the Powers of Creation, he just means the vast quantities of Investiture that Shards have access to and that mortals can tap into. He calls them this because it is easier to understand that way, not because they are separate things. As I have stated before, with a large enough volume of Investiture, the limits on what you can do with it disappear. As we see with Wax in Bands, once he tapped enough stuff, he could see that everything was made of the same stuff-- Investiture. It was heavily implied, or outright stated (I don't remember which for certain, but probably implied), that he could have used his steelpushes on anything at that point, even things that aren't metal. He hadn't quite removed the shackles of the mortal frame yet, but he was getting reasonably close, so the limits of the magic were being loosed. If he had access to several orders of magnitude more Investiture like, say, the Well of Ascension, he could have truly done anything. The difference is that with normal Allomancy, the power is filtered through the metal to get a specific effect. With enough Investiture, that aspect of mortal magic is entirely removed, and you can do anything, such as move planets in orbit or convert some of your Investiture into new matter. i suppose you could call this sort of thing Creation Magic, and it isn't a terrible name for it, but it is just using vast amounts of Investiture so that the normal restrictions on magic no longer apply. It isn't separate from Investiture. Emphasis added, of course. This is what I am talking about. So when Vin burned the mists, it was so much Investiture that it destroyed her body and caused her to Ascend to Preservation. Without the mortal frame restricting her, she could do basically anything with the huge amount of Investiture that composes a Shard. About the first part of the paragraph, when it says they tap the power of creation slightly, it just means they are channeling Investiture from the Shard of Preservation through themselves to get some effect. The question was about the bodies of Shards, and basically the question was 'do normal metals count as Shard bodies,' though that wasn't how it was worded at all. The answer was that normal metals aren't, even though the ones on Scadrial were created through Ruin's and Preservation's Investiture, but that Lerasium and Atium are parts of the bodies of them, just in solid form. There isn't really a difference in mechanics, though, they all just allow access to Preservation's power (Investiture).

What happens when a child stores age? Say a 5 yr old stores enough age that they would be 20, would their body shift to match it? When an adult stores age, their body changes somewhat to match their new age. So could you start storing when you are 5, and linearly decrease how much you are storing for the next 15 yrs until you are 20, and then start tapping incrementally more for the next ~15 (less from the power loss, but I'm ignoring that) so that you can actually be 20 for 30 years? I'm sure some women would kill for this, incidentally. Also, they ask for ID you until you look a certain age, so could a 5 yr old get away with buying beer by storing a TON of age?

Sounds good. I guess that works for me, then. I take it you liked the analogy, too.

Well, would TLR count as a Shadow? I don't think so. I guess they are independent, but frequently overlap. TLR was both after he died.

That was an excellent way to put it, Yata. Unsurprisingly, there are still some grammar errors, but as always, you get the point across more effectively than many people could despite that issue. Have an orange arrow. So your point on Returned... Does this mean they qualify as Slivers as well since they only go Beyond if they wish to, like Kelsier? Or is it mere coincidence that both types are able to stick around?

I dunno... I kinda doubt mere Hemalurgy could enhance him more than the Well. And beyond that, I imagine there would still be side effects, just not quite as drastic. Normally I would expect some dissociative identity stuff to happen, but in this case, it might just Connect him more with Ruin, among other smaller psychological effects. Edit: could the fantastic feats he mentions just be the kandra/koloss/inquisitors? Those are pretty amazing, and done with Hemalurgy. I don't remember the context well enough. Was it in relation to his mass soothings?

I'm late to this party, but I'm with 8bit here. I would like to add one WoB I obtained a few weeks ago, though it is lateish and I'm feeling ill, so I'll just summarize rather than dig it up. Me: Could you withdraw Breaths from an awakened object if the person who Awakened it had a blank Identity at the time he Awakened the thing. Brandon: (hems and haws) Me: What about both of them being blank? Brandon: (still pretty reluctant about answering something about Identity in an open Q&A) Yeah, that should work. (goes into a fairly long discussion that boils down to many powers would be accessible if one party is Identity blanked, and almost all can be used if both parties are blank. I assume that the exception would be Surgebinding because of bonds making things difficult) I think of Identity as a literal key. If power matches your Identity, it goes through the locks on your soul and the power reaches you. If the power is keyed to someone else, the power just runs up against a different lock and can't enter you, but you can still feel the power pushing up against you, like Vin does when she burns the metalmind. If you have no Identity on the power, it is like the power is a key with no teeth, a bare tiny cylinder of metal that will slot into most any lock. If you have no Identity, it is like your lock is just a massive circle, able to accept almost any shape with room to spare. There would only be a few keys or locks that would require both cases to be true, but they are possible. Also, sometimes spren just block the key anyway. So for this specific example, when you burn the unkeyed metalmind, you get a flow of power (that is compounded because the Allomancy is powering it, rather than just returning 1:1). This flow of power can enter you since the power has had the teeth of its key stripped off. I'm not 100% sure how to reconcile getting normal allomantic power from burning a metalmind that is keyed to someone else, but I would just guess that the power wants to enter you properly, so it bucks off the feruchemical filtering and gives you allomantic power. That is definitely something I would like to clarify with Brandon, since it looks like that part of the relevant WoB may have just been something added to an afterthought that isn't actually accurate. He has certainly misspoken in the past.

I know right! Firefight is totally just a gold Allomancer... Bringing up shadows of alternate selves. As for the invis illusion, I have seen this in other books, and it is always a nice touch. In one, a super speedster ran faster than light and everything went black, which, while cool, isn't what would happen, but it first introduced the idea to me. If you just moved faster than light, you would see something really distorted as your eyes move and mop up swathes of light, which would look really weird. Regardless, we are totally on the same page with this.

You can use a Shardblade as a Hemalurgic spike, it just doesn't let the power stick to it because of how Invested the Blade is. Because of that, I would say that this is semi-plausible. If you are using a living Blade and just stab a really thin version of your Blade in the right spot, I could see it working. It would basically be the same as Hemalurgy, though, you just don't end up with a charged piece of metal.

I think one possibility that hasn't been brought up is some sort of belief/faith variant. So far nobody has mentioned faith at all, though that would be something more directed towards the god than an attribute of the god. I absolutely disagree with Revolution as a shard since the violent overthrow is ridiculous as an attribute, and the sudden change aspect is pretty well covered by Cultivation. And if that doesn't cover it, there is likely some sort of knowledge/invention/reasoning Shard, and that could cover anything left over. Beyond that, the intent you describe would be hard to work into a story, I would think. In fact, I like the idea of a Shard of Reason or Logic. The entire planet it's on might end up like Azir, though. @ROSHtaFARian2.0, good job on that interpretation, I would say that most of it accurately presents things. I don't think it is enough to fully describe the relationships between Shards, and I would also say there is no evidence that the Shards have to be evenly split down the spectrum. I would bet, if anything, that most of them would fall pretty close to the center of the spectrum.

Re Re: Spelling Forwent is correct, I was merely citing the spellchecker as evidence. No hard feelings Armor for your armor... we put ceramic plates in our Kevlar vests to make them more resistant (at least, until the ceramic cracks up), so armor for your armor isn't TOO ludicrous of an idea. This is just like wearing a cloak of deflection in a game, it makes you less likely to be hit. This just gave me an idea-- a cloak of elvenkind mimic. Awaken what is effectively a gillie suit to make you even more chameleonish. Make it undulate according to the actual breeze like a plant, and if you could figure out some advanced magic to use on it, maybe an Aon of some sort or an illusion, you could make it actually color blend like a chameleon as well. With Stoneward abilities, you could potentially even change the properties of the suit to actually feel like a rock face or part of a tree etc. Illusion magic of some sort would go well with this, obviously. The above paragraph makes me wonder if true invisibility is a possibility for Lightweavers... I feel like I've seen a WoB about this, but I don't remember anything about it, so it probably isn't a real thing. If they just make an illusion that 'bends' light around them, or emits light to mimic the light entering the illusion from the opposite side (this would be a really complex illusion, I know), then the person or object would just... disappear. There would have to be some stipulation for your retina, though, so that you can still see, which could cause some problems.

I was just putting this out there since nobody else had made it explicit yet. Agreed that it is a moot point, he wouldn't have any trouble physically spiking himself, one way or another. He did have at least 20-50 years to figure things out right after he took the power, even if he didn't have the power of the Well any more, he still knew more and could have probably figured things out just like we have, only he gets to actually experiment to test his ideas rather than asking Brandon. We figured his out in, what? A decade or so, also what of the distractions other book's magic provide? He could have figured it out easily, he got compounding, after all.. With gold feruchemy, it would even be fairly safe. IDEA GET! Clinical trials where if it turns out to be bad for you, gold medallions fix the problem. Who needs ethics boards anyway?

Actually, the Awakened exoskeleton would still be extremely useful. Particularly if you make it right (well, that's obvious, but hey, there are different kinds of right). If its job is to reduce the number of impacts your Plate receives, you can make the Light in your Plate go farther. If your Awakened exoskeleton (hereafter known as Object) basically just catches arrows and deflects sword/hammer blows (and keeps pesky spearmen's throwing knives and spearheads out of your eyes), then it would still be incredibly useful. If you combine that with having some tassels designed for cutting things that get close to you, and some that remain as pure defense/flexible tassels, you would be a walking indestructible spinning saw. Even better if the Object is awakened to sentience so that it can warn you of approaching enemies and be proactive in what it does. I guess I am a big fan of really powerful awakened artifacts. I also have musings somewhere on making a type IV bioentity that also uses Hemalurgy (or medallions) and Aons to make it frankly ridiculous, so I have experience with crazy ideas like this. I think the word you were looking for is forwent. That doesn't get a red squiggly line for me. To actually contribute to the main body of the thread, potion making with just about anything else would be frankly stupidly good if potions work how I think they do. I think they work by imbuing the potion with power when brewed, so they can be consumed anywhere. As seen with the one potion we have gotten a look at, this can clearly emulate the effects of Forging, but probably without some of the limitations that Forging experiences. There would still be power barriers, but you could manipulate your soul to a great degree. And free willed soul manipulations are frankly better than anything else. I think I have in this thread or one like it that if you combo it up with A-Gold, you get really, really cool because apparently you can use gold to manipulate your cognitive self. With both of those out of the way, you can completely mold your self with only mere power restrictions. Combo this up with being a Returned, specifically with A-Gold, and you get just a bit cooler. You can use gold to change your mental self, and that change is more easily reflected in your physical self as a Returned. Plus Heightenings are always nice, and potions can probably supply the necessary Investiture to keep you alive.

I really like this idea. It is something I have had niggling the back of my head for a while, but I haven't put to words. You did so quite succinctly and accurately. Have an orange arrow. I'm with @The One Who Connects, though. TLR made himself really powerful with the Well, not with your hack. I still think your hack would work, though. It will likely have strange side effects, as Brandon implied, and you could probably use this method to gain basically any power that you can spike into a burnable, non-aluminum spike. The other interesting thing has to do with some of my theoretical ideas with Awakening intelligent objects, and this could be extremely helpful in crafting ridiculously powerful artifacts via Awakening/Hemalurgy. This is really getting the gears turning, man. And he didn't have to do this method himself, as a final thought. He could use some schmuck in his government to spike him, and then kill the poor fool afterwards. Dead men tell no tales, after all. He certainly wouldn't have a problem with doing so from a moral perspective.

Yes, but you have to plug into a power source to get things to happen. You can connect in the Spiritual Realm independent of anything in the Cognitive or Physical Realms. So you are mostly right, but there is that one clarification. You are Connecting to the Shard, but you already have a passive Connection that allows you to Connect in a way that lets you use the magic in a certain way.