Spoolofwhool

Yes. http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1178

Opposite doesn't mean they're incompatible. I was just referring to what their intents push them to do, where I presume Cultivation is about natural increase, while Ruin is about natural decrease.

Secret History

Hoid isn't tapping luck. His method of figuring out where and when to go just uses the same underlying mechanics as chromium feruchemy which is why Brandon answered that way.

You're assuming it's a nature of the gems to hold investiture and not a nature of stormlight to be held in gems. We don't know enough to say for certain, but judging by how most forms of investiture we've seen seem to be held by different vessels and react differently in the same type of vessels, it seems to me to be more a product of stormlight. I haven't seen anything which says otherwise.

That's an interesting thought. Its kind of funny if you think about it. Ruin and Cultivation, opposite intents, both creating systems which create loss. I don't think this is the case though since as your last line leads to, Cultivation would point towards creating a net gain, with a possible loss along the way, the same way that Ruin is about a net loss, with acceptable gains along the way. Overall, I would see that leading to an end-positive system, or end-neutral at best.

He used plural though.

What holds stormlight seems to be a product of stormlight, not the gems/vessels.

I read through all the annotations for WoA and HoA and didn't see anything about contraceptives. Nothing on Theoryland either. I did find this post which quotes Brandon saying there was birth control on Scadrial which is why Vin didn't get pregnant. However, there isn't a source listed and the WoB doesn't appear to be on Theoryland.

Yeah, you're right. He detected Kaladin approaching and based on his thoughts it was common enough that he would awake due to lighteyes approaching, so he can detect regular humans as well.

Becoming pregnant isn't a guarantee if both people are fertile. They could've had some rudimentary contraceptives. I doubt Elend was infertile because he was noble since at that point skaa and noble had mixed enough that they original differences genetics that TLR created no longer existed.

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1178

It's confirmed that Nale is using his original Honorblade; there's a WoB stating so.

16 + 5 x 16 = 96 We've also seen a metal descended from the mixture of Honor's and Cultivation's power (sprenblades) so that might be able to provide power as well. Additionally, Honorblades are probably just descended from Honor's power, so they could provide an additional power.

It's harder, not impossible. Spoilered for size. I'm of the opinion that you can sense people with lifesense when they're holding breath but not drabs because of affinity between the breaths, not because of a threshold. Can't say for certain until we see someone using lifesense to detect a regular human or not. In any case, my point was not regarding exactly how much investiture humans hold, but more along the lines that compared to other uses of investiture, they have a low amount. In addition, I would think that forging an extra connection to a shard, one which wouldn't normally exist, would take a fairly hefty amount of investiture. Finally, all the magics on Sel that we've seen are variations of the same magic, so I think they all operate under the same classification for the most part, either end-positive, end-neutral, or end-negative. Perhaps slight deviation to end-neutral since most of the ones we've seen are end-positive, but I cannot see one deviating all the way to ed-negative.

It does take a lot of investiture; the amount held in the bands of mourning, to make a metalmind fully resistant to allomancy. All other metalminds are not immune, just resistant (harder to push/pull). I'm not sure what you're trying to say with your first point. You're comparing two different systems which are performing different effects. Also, a nalthian with one breath is more invested than the standard human.

I don't think you can apply the intent to create a hemalurgic spike at range. Could not be the case since we haven't seen that many spikings, but I have the feeling you have to be holding the spike. Also, I'm not seeing why you would need this method. Why can't you just select the powers you want and spike the mistings/ferrings directly?

Yes, malatium is not one of the 16 base metals. The 16 metals are copper, bronze, iron, steel, zinc, brass, tin, pewter, cadmium, bendalloy, chromium, nicrosil, aluminum, duralumin, gold and electrum. This is also the case.

Not really. Humans don't carry much investiture normally, and aons are pretty investiture-heavy. Resisting would probably require a large amount of investiture, which would require a stronger connection to the Dor, requiring the innate investiture of 50 people to make.

The Heralds can't surgebind without their Honorblades.

I think the images can be different every time. Burning just shows you another possibility of who you could've been.

Yet this WoB seems to be directly saying that the origin of shades is not shard-based. I'm not disagreeing there isn't something goofy happening there because of Ambition, I just don't think the shades are it.

I'll point out that shades exist not due to a shard's power.

I don't think nicrosil stores kinetic investiture. We don't know enough to say for certain though. You could definitely store your ability to burn steel and compress that into a super-burn to achieve the effect you described though.

The general thought is that a Desolation occurs when a Herald breaks under torture. Taln is the most resilient Herald so it takes longer than other Heralds to break, so he hasn't started previous Desolations. It is faulty certain that the Desolations didn't have that long in-between them previously, probably not more than centuries. I'm not sure what part you're questioning with "are you sure about that?" So I can't answer that question.