cometaryorbit

That might explain why the Aviar magic is bond-based, which doesn't feel much like Autonomy: it's really a "natural" Adonalsium-era magic that Autonomy has only meddled with after the fact.

TLR definitely did know duralumin's existence/use, but I don't think he used it for his powerful Soothing, given how long it lasted. He seems to Soothe basically constantly, from how Vin talks about feeling suppressed emotions in his presence. TLR was at least Lerasium Mistborn strength to begin with + he was probably a Savant with Soothing + maybe the Well aligning him to Preservation/his Sliver status helped too? I am not sure TLR could use Nicrosil Compounding - he probably knew about all sixteen metals, but I don't think there was any Nicrosil available. (I wonder, though, if messing around with things like Identity and Connection Feruchemically could give you more efficiency/strength/whatever with Soothing?)

Yeah, it seems like breaking contact with the medallion removes the power without its being consciously "stored" again (unlike a coppermind). This might have something to do with how medallions let you 'tap' the nicrosilmind part of it without being an actual Nicrosil Ferring? Like the medallion kind of "shoves" the ability to use nicrosil into you, but only while in physical contact?

Wax can also see metal lines going to a Hemalurgic spike in Shadows of Self (though he notices they're weaker than usual). A Hemalurgic spike is probably less Invested than an entire human soul (since it holds just part of a spiritweb), so if Jasnah can Soulcast humans, she can probably Soulcast a spike.

Probably so. Also, the Bands - at the tapping rate Wax and Marasi use - seem way more powerful than even what TLR demonstrated. TLR moved far faster than Vin with flared pewter, but he doesn't cause a sonic boom like Marasi, and she's able to keep track of his movement. If TLR used his powers at that level, he'd probably have emitted mist too - but I'm not sure he could get to that power level without Nicrosil Compounding, which he probably didn't have access to (no nicrosil in Era 1). Elend used duralumin as a Lerasium Mistborn, and I don't think he emitted mist when he did so. I think the fact that Radiants "leak" Investiture normally, while the only times we see it on Scadrial are the Bands, dead Shard-vessels (Ati and Vin right before Sazed takes the power), and maybe Vin right during her taking up Preservation, is because Scadrial is relatively low-Investiture among major Shardworlds, whereas Roshar is very high Investiture. (The basic healing effect of holding Stormlight is about as good as a Gold Ferring with lots of healing stored up, and that's basically a side effect on Roshar, not related to the actual Surges.)

Oh, good point... certainly for the night vision. I am not sure whether the sound generation part of echolocation would be stealable as a sense, or only the passive hearing part? Maybe an electric eel's electricity-generation ability would have been a more appropriate analogy.

Yes, this definitely works and has been done (Stormlight Archive):

I believe he originally said it was partly magical (not so much the underlying issue but that its manifestation was shaped by Shallan's magical ability to do illusions), but post ROW said he decided it was better to write it as real life DID.

I am actually kind of baffled as to what Odium's intent actually means. Yeah, I know it's basically hatred, but... Odium is associated with "burning" imagery when perceived by Dalinar and Venli, and seems to be tied to conflict (in ROW it's said that the power wants conflict, even when Rayse doesn't want to be opposed); he also calls himself "Passion", which is apparently not really true, but it does seem a bit broader than hate, including other "aggressive" or "violent" emotions as well (at least in Dalinar's experience). On the other hand, Odium is also associated with the "Void" and emotional deadness ("take your pain"). These seem extremely opposite. So is Odium a dead, void-like, cold hatred/intent to harm others or a burning raging hatred/desire for conflict?

Maybe lerasium, which steals "all abilities", or (refined) atium ("any power"), combined with an unusual bind point? But I am not sure how broad that really is. Could you steal an owl's night vision or a bat's ability to echolocate? I think kandra shapeshifting is more like that than the gemheart thing, which is a kind of 'leakage' from the Spiritual?

Well, Bondsmith powers appear to be even more crazy, and there's several Orders we've seen basically nothing from ... I think Rosharan Investiture users get much more powerful overall than what we generally see on other Shardworlds. There's at least one WOB that they're not intended to be "balanced" against one another. And there are probably defenses against soulcasting as technology and understanding advance. Can you soulcast someone with aluminum in their clothing (same principle as aluminum-lined hats in Mistborn Era 2)? Being strongly enough Invested might be a defense in itself; so might Invested armor like Shardplate.

I am still not convinced that Soulcasting them would necessarily fail, especially if they weren't actively tapping a ton of something at the time... Scadrial is relatively low-Investiture, and Allomancers don't really hold much Investiture within themselves. It would be much less likely to work against TLR specifically, both because he's always tapping Atium, and also his status as a Sliver might protect him (in the same way that being a Sliver lets you choose to remain as a Cognitive Shadow). OTOH, his metalminds might be vulnerable (yeah, they're Invested, but maybe not that much on a Roshar scale).

The purpose of the Honorblades is a bit mysterious. The Stormfather calls a Honorblade 'the mark of an oath', but the Oathpact was about binding the Fused Cognitive Shadows on Braize - apparently the Heralds were 'dead'/Cognitive Shadows at that point, so could they even use the Honorblades when 'dead'?

That's an interesting thought. If what is stored isn't just "X amount of strength with Allomantic steel" (or whatever), it's a discrete "power to burn Allomantic steel at strength X", which does seem to be implied... then yeah.. what would compounding do? I mean, I guess it would create multiple discrete "copies" of that power, but would tapping them all at once give you multiple times the power, or would they just be redundant? The Bands do have Allomantic strength vastly beyond normal, though, so there must be some way to attain that.

That process makes sense, but "excise" means "cut out" so I figured the Excisors are hemalurgic spikes... probably granting f-Nicrosil, f-Aluminum, and maybe a-Nicrosil for compounding... which are used the same way as the Unsealed Metalminds granting those powers you suggest.

It's definitely not instant, as Vin's early use of it in Well of Ascension allows her to hear a couple heartbeats with super-flared tin. So maybe like two seconds? Though it probably varies based on the Allomancer's strength ... and maybe the quantity of metals it's burning off too?

I doubt he needed non-Scadrian magic. I think if he could find a way to "staple" his Cognitive Shadow via Hemalurgy to a mistwraith body holding his bones (making it a sort of weird kandra) that would be enough. The scars would remain, despite the mistwraith not having digested Kelsier's body, because Kelsier knows they should be there so can re-form them. (Plus if Kelsier got Feruchemy in the process, the nature of f-Gold healing would return him to his own image of himself... But I don't think that is actually needed to explain the scars being there, and it would be a bit weird to try to heal a biologically-kandra body towards a human image. Not sure how that would work.) Good point. Feruchemical spikes from the Inquisitors could have been used to start the process.

I doubt Syl becoming a Shard, I think Shards probably want a Physical being for a Vessel, but Kaladin is totally a possibility... Although Dalinar seems to be being set up for something like Ascension too.

I think the issue is that if it doesn't, kandra impersonation will be too easy to figure out in higher tech eras. But yeah, that suggests a lot of possibilities that are vastly beyond what we've seen kandra doing. Now maybe the "no bones" rule is some kind of Cognitive limitation, like cosmere healing has, and not actually part of their biology... but otherwise kandra shapeshifting seems to be a totally Physical/biological process. There are WOBs suggesting the details aren't really decided yet - e.g. whether a kandra in human form could reproduce using its mimicked human DNA.

I will have to find the quote I was thinking of... I am pretty sure he nearly gave up while mining in the Pits as well. He killed all the soldiers at the Pits and every nobleman for ten miles around - that's what I was referring to. He became numb after that, yeah, and didn't come up with the idea of overthrowing the Lord Ruler until those events, but I'm pretty sure that initial wave of killings was revenge - he could have escaped by killing a lot fewer people.

A multi-Vessel Shard might be a possibility, yeah... maybe some Spiritual Connection thing could be "fixed" so the Splinters of Honor once more become linked parts of one Shard, but keeping the individual consciousnesses of the honorspren and the Stormfather, etc. I wonder who (if anyone) would absorb the Highstorm the way (Mistborn: Hero of Ages spoilers)

Yeah, it's theoretically possible, but that could mean "if you Compounded nicrosil for years and had a metalmind the size of a building to store it all in". Dalinar is bonded to the largest Splinter of Honor, and he seems to be using a specific power to Unite the Realms. I think just passively creating a Perpendicularity would require a ridiculous amount of Investiture ... they generally seem to be the collecting power of a Shard - or, I guess, in Patji's case an Avatar? And Scadrial is relatively low-Investiture among the major Shardworlds... I think it would take a lot of Compounding to reach even the Investiture level of your average Radiant (Radiant healing seems comparable to what Miles has, and for the Radiants that's basically a side effect vs. his primary power in Miles' case).

Ah, ok. That makes more sense. I am still not totally sure that will work that way, though, depending on how Roshar's intellectual climate evolves. The question is whether Roshar's scholarly community will have the tools to understand and use bits of advanced knowledge they might get from worldhoppers. Once we get to full-on large-scale interplanetary trade, with "offshoring" of whole industries to other planets, that would be different, but even Sixth of the Dusk era seems to be pretty limited information flow.

Hmmm. Good point. That's interesting because the "blank Connection" in Bands of Mourning is about Connecting to a place not relationship with other people. I wonder if this is a difference between Southern medallion-tech and base use of Feruchemy, or something else?

I am not sure the caravans' life support, by Stormlight Archive era, necessarily has to be magical. It seems that cooling is enough to collect water in Shadesmar; by Stormlight era, especially if Taldain is no longer cut off, that might be done technologically. Food could be stored, maybe - I don't know how long the journeys are. Yes, that's how I read it too. Some Shards have a very obvious connection - e.g. for Surgebinding, Oaths are obviously of Honor, the personal growth aspect is less direct but still connects to Cultivation; Hemalurgy involves gaining power (with loss/entropy) by killing (destroying) others, which is obviously of Ruin - while others are more indirect. But I think the less direct ones are either because we don't know enough about the mechanism (how are people chosen by the Shaod? what determines Sand Mastery power?) or because the Shard's intent is "static" enough that the mechanism is not going to be super obvious (Preservation and possibly Autonomy).