cometaryorbit

I wondered about that same sentence... I am not sure if the Shaod itself was changed though. It seems more like the Shaod kept working but now linked people to a broken city of Elantris so they became zombie Elantrians not normal Elantrians.

I wonder if the redness from corruption means specifically conflicting or 'corrupted' Investiture in the Spiritual (the soul of a living person "fought against the rewriting"). I don't think it's about conflict of Shards since both soulstamps and Selish people's Innate Investiture should come from the same Shards (the Dor). So Lift using Lifelight doesn't turn her eyes red because the Lifelight isn't really integrated into her soul/Spiritual, it's created from food and used basically in the Physical. Nightblood smoke is not red because Breaths are largely in the Physical, they're eaten and "excreted" as smoke, but not integrated into Nightblood's "soul" or Spiritual Aspect. Glys and Fused's eyes would then be red even when not using powers because their own being is inherently corrupted Investiture, it's inherent to their Spiritual nature, not just the "fuel" (like Light or Breath) they use. Venli is weird, not sure which state (red or normal eyes) is "default".

Mostly I think "bearers of the final metal" means the "men of gold and red" have to be the Southerners rather than anything off-world. I agree Miles didn't know everything Suit knew, but he might well have known more than is public (possibly not intentionally on Suit's part). The broadsheets do show that there are rumors circulating about both mysterious visitors-from-elsewhere and harmonium. Given that, it might not have taken more than a stray comment overheard to figure out roughly what is going on from that. Anyone from beyond would fairly naturally be assumed to be more advanced & expansionist -- thus likely conquerors-- given that they found Elendel rather than the reverse. Miles wouldn't necessarily have known *much*, he might believe they were literally "visitors from other worlds". I am undecided on how closely involved Miles was with the actual magical/Shardic side of the Trell stuff. Was he just a somewhat unstable guy who took the religion as justification to do things he already kind of wanted to do but formerly had suppressed, or was he more directly influenced? If his dying words aren't supernatural I don't know that there's any evidence of direct influence (vs through the Set).

Likely through the Set. There's the "visitors from other worlds" and "having the has Sazed a metal" bits in the broadsheets, so rumors of these things seem to be around; the Set might well know more than was public. And the Set-captured ship in BoM wasn't the first to reach the North, perhaps there was an encounter with an earlier one that gave the Set a clue. Or, this might be some kind of "moment of death" Realmatic thing, where a Shard or Splinter can talk to or through him, like Preservation (who normally can't speak to humans) saying Survive to Kelsier in the Pits, and in Stormlight

I will try to find the quote about losing instincts.

A single point is zero dimensional, not one: one dimension is a line. I think the Spiritual Realm just doesn't have physical dimensions at all, they just don't apply: There's a WOB that the Spiritual Realm is not a place. I'm not even sure what's being discussed are Shades in the sense we see in Shadows of Silence - Nazh is from Threnody and says becoming a Cognitive Shadow is an important rite, with requirements and traditions, which certainly doesn't describe the contagious Shades we see (no rites or traditions, just being withered by a Shade makes you one). Secret History is far enough before Shadows of Silence that this might be Homeland Threnody.

I don't think "gold and red" color scheme is relevant to Trell's identity (or Trell at all). I think the "men of gold and red, bearers of the final metal" are the Southern Scadrians - the "final metal" is ettmetal, Miles says "you will be ruled by them" because they're more advanced and probably more military minded (they at least have large bombs, and live in an environment with multiple nations which Elendel has never had). The Southern airship crew in BoM were captured by the Set and don't seem to know of it prior, and the Set just treated them as victims rather than allies, so I don't think they have anything to do with the Set/Trell stuff. Red is often corrupted Investiture so I don't think the red haze in Wax's edge of death vision in BOM is a hint at which Shard is involved.

I thought the 1910 New York comparison was actually from Brandon, though I could be wrong. I think it's not just a mental shortcut, the Wild West / US city contrast is intentional. Alloy of Law was originally intended as a standalone, and puts a lot of emphasis on Wax's dual identity as a Roughs lawman and an Elendel lord and senator. We don't see a lot of the Outer Cities vs Elendel conflict stuff until later books, AOL is very much an Elendel vs Roughs/city vs frontier dichotomy. Plus the Western genre is very much a US thing.

Hmm I would have assumed it couldn't have been while he was actually in/using the Well, given that the Well's power seems to really dislike Hemalurgy- someone with a spike couldn't use it - so I would have figured making spikes with that power wouldn't work. He couldn't use it to kill (he tried it on Kwaan and failed). -- Good point that when he was done he wasn't isolated in the Terris Mountains anymore since he moved the Well, and presumably himself with it since he was in the Well cavern at the time. So he could have found people to make spikes from very quickly. That makes sense. -- The history of Hemalurgic constructs is weird. It kind of *sounds* like he made them in the Well, but that's not really possible due to lack of people to spike/inability to kill with Preservation's power. And the HOA epigraphs specifically say that each of the original Inquisitors had a healing spike pounded through a Feruchemist's heart, which rules out Rashek using the Well to manufacture spikes pre-charged without actual killing. (If that's possible, which seems unlikely given how much the Well dislikes Hemalurgy.) He must have *designed* them in the Well with expanded mind, but not actually created them until later. (The Inquisitors must have been much later, as there weren't any Feruchemists to steal from except Rashek himself and Kwaan- all the others were now mistwraiths or kandra. He must have waited generations to actually make those.)

I'm not sure I'm exactly making a point, beyond "this is weird". The first generation retain their human memories so it's nothing to do with the mistwraith -> kandra transition. But new kandra lose even fundamental instincts from being a mistwraith. Seems weird.

Something that occurred to me... Ruin is basically entropy. And while we think of entropy as 'disorder', a state of maximum entropy is also a state where change isn't possible since there is no energy gradient. Basically changelessness... sort of like stasis... sounds like Preservation taken to an extreme. There's also the quote from Secret History " Ruin is more than death and destruction... It is peace with these things" explaining why Sazed could take it up. Perhaps that's why these two Shards are so complementary. It bothered me at one point... if Preservation is stasis and Ruin is decay, why does their combination create? And wouldn't growth be a more appropriate opposite for decay than stasis? But perhaps entropy and stasis are only what they become divorced from context. Working together perhaps they're more like change and persistence?

Well technically the Mistwraith transformation itself wasn't Hemalurgic, it was the power of the Well (Preservation's) -- they were just designed to accept Hemalurgy. The part I wonder about is where the Blessings came from - could the Well's power create charged spikes of Ruin's magic system? If not, who did Rashek kill -- it had to be relatively quick to preserve their memories, surely? (I think someone's suggested Alendi's non-Terris companions, which seems reasonable, but the epigraphs kind of sound like it was just Alendi and the packmen.) But yeah Preservation isn't purely good, though Leras sounds like he was a good guy pre-mind-loss given his self-sacrificing plan. Preservation itself, without the filter of a fully cognizant Vessel, is more stasis. Not destructive like Ruin of course, but Fuzz/post-mind-loss Preservation was all cool with TLR's Final Empire.

Well there are only 4 Dawnshards so not every world with a perpendicularity can have one. IMO there need to be at least 2 historically in the Rosharan System given various quotes about Dawnshards plural in Stormlight (though possibly taken elsewhere since, or currently hidden on Braize or Ashyn, etc.) Scadrial seems to be created by paired Preservation + Ruin as kind of a "closed system" so I really doubt it had any, at least historically (off-world forces appear to now be intervening). Also if the Dawnshards were used to Shatter Adonalsium they likely originally were on Yolen, and Hoid probably got his there. One or more might still be there.

I think technically it's not the Divine Breath that needs to be fed Investiture, it's the Returned body. There's a WoB that a living human with a Hemalurgically stolen Divine Breath wouldn't need to do the same thing. The Divine Breath is one (normally*) inseparable chunk of Investiture, so without another source of fuel the Returned body consumes the Divine Breath all at once... and as the Divine Breath is what's keeping the soul/Cognitive Shadow around that's fatal. I think any external source of Investiture should work, if Vasher ate a bead of lerasium or got the Bands of Mourning or an Allomancy granting Hemalurgic spike he should be able to fuel himself from metals, if he were somehow taken by the Shaod he should be able to use the Dor, etc. But that power wouldn't be available for its actual Allomantic or AonDor effect. The details here are interesting though-- did Vasher have to do anything special to gain the ability to inhale Stormlight, or are Returned just inherently "Investiture eaters"? Would he be able to inhale Preservation's mist or absorb Taldain's sunlight? *though the Royal Locks are supposed to come from 'a fragment' of Divine Breath so there must be a way around that

Maybe mistwraiths aren't intelligent enough to form memories, but IDK... There is that MeLaan POV bit @robardin mentioned-- though maybe a post-kandra mistwraith is different, the intelligence doesn't go away immediately? But there's also a WOB that "there's enough there to train" but it's ethically questionable. That imo suggests at least reasonable animal level intelligence and dogs etc. definitely can form memories. They probably wouldn't be verbal or very clear memories, but losing even instincts seems weird. But Hemalurgy is weird... That same WoB also calls mistwraiths "mentally-stunted people" so I think the analogy with parshmen may not be that far off. Also, I think the damage to parshmen goes beyond "mentally slowed and fuzzed" -- they seem to have lost all motivation/will. Parshmen can speak but rarely do, never tried to flee or rebel against mistreatment (the idea that they are potentially dangerous is considered totally crazy) or even ask for better treatment, etc. I agree sapience is not lost exactly, but the damage seems more extensive than just IQ loss or "brain fuzz". They seem to be sapient but without will.

Or maybe possession of human bodies? Suit seems to imply the body is stolen from a beggar... but maybe this just means kandra style. A parallel to kandra or Kelsier's re-embodiment would fit better if Era 2 isn't meant to be too Cosmere focused... otoh the Lost Metal blurb implies worldhoppers are involved... This is weird either way because the very strong implication seems to be that Trell is either Autonomy or an avatar of Autonomy, but this looks more like a Roshar mechanic (Fused/Heralds), and Trell's original religion really looks like that of Roshar's Purelake. ... or maybe Svrakiss which are a feature in the Derethi religion on Sel. (...And there is an established Sel-Scadrial connection in Secret History....)

Ok, sure, I mostly meant that Trell won't be revealed to be Odium or (Stormlight spoilers) And since we're supposed to learn the identity of Trell in Lost Metal I think Trell has to be non-Rosharan.

I can't see that being the case for spoiler reasons - Lost Metal comes out before Stormlight 5, so whatever Trell is revealed to be, it can't be too telling for the ending of Stormlight 5. I agree everything seems to be pointing toward Autonomy, but if that's a red herring, I think the #2 possibility is Skaze -- we see a Sel/Dor connection in Secret History, and Sel mythology includes possession (Svrakiss).

Something weird that just occurred to me. There are a lot of cases in the cosmere of beings 'losing their minds' or sapience due to some Realmatic damage. Mistwraiths, parshmen, deadeyes, 'broken' Reod seons... It's clear in OB that restored singers remember their lives as parshmen, and in ROW Mayalaran's 'WE CHOSE' shows that deadeye spren retain memory when restored too. But mistwraiths don't keep anything when they become kandra... they even lose much of their instincts as mistwraiths and have to re-learn how to form bodies. Now maybe that's because they were born as mistwraiths (no prior memories)... but the modern parshmen were born as parshmen too, so...

It's worth noting that according to Bands of Mourning, storing Identity is used to create unkeyed metalminds (metalminds that anyone with the right Feruchemical power can access) - if you store all your Identity, any other metalmind you fill while Identity-less is unkeyed. This would of course require someone with feruchemical Aluminum and at least one other feruchemical power. The Set seems to achieve this through Hemalurgy.

The existence of large unclaimed areas, as @Treamayne points out, is really quite interesting. Now that's probably partly due to the pretty hostile-to-humans nature of far eastern Roshar - but still, these areas were part of the Silver Kingdoms and are actually *unclaimed* in modern Roshar, not just unsettled. (As opposed to say northern Canada and the interior outback of Australia, which were claimed pretty quickly when colonial powers arrived in the region, even though not really settled - some parts of arctic Canada away from the coast, eg the Barren Grounds, are still effectively unpopulated - but the land is certainly not unclaimed, and hasn't been for centuries.)

The kandra put the "we avoid Inquisitors" rule in their contracts because Inquisitors were Allomancers beforehand so some might have double power Soothing or Rioting and be able to control kandra... and the kandra wanted that to stay forgotten. Which doesn't rule out spotting kandra by iron/steelsight... if Inquisitors can see iron in blood they could surely see Hemalurgic spikes

Excluding Shards I think it has to be (now unbound by Honor) Surgebinding for the reasons @honorblades said. Hemalurgy and AonDor are more versatile but Surgebinding when unbound is implied to be a threat to whole worlds. Unchained Bondsmith powers are definitely crazy but some other Surges may have unexplored potential (for example Hoid hints to Jasnah there's a way to blow up whole armies, and Rayse/Odium thought other Shards would want to claim the 'greater power of the Surges').

I don't think there is a 100% canon answer (we have never even seen the 'standard' use of Chromium, only through Primer Cube in BoM) but given that the metal (excluding god metals) is not the power source in itself, it's just a key to the Allomancers spiritweb, and that Chromium is an Enhancement Metal (affects Allomancy) I think the metal would have to be available to an Allomancer (not just swallowed, piercings and such could be Leeched, per WOB, but inside the body in some sense).

Ohh, hmm, I was taking it as the actual heat/energy input that was fatal. But then I was seeing the Investiture as being something like a raw/ambient form like Mist/Stormlight or Taldain's sunlight, not actively "doing" anything unless it charges something else (Taldain sunlight charging lichen, Stormlight infusing gems).