cometaryorbit

Is it this?

Yeah, it seems that Shardblades are basically godmetal. I'm thinking Autonomy might have created a Splinter or Splinters to become godmetal on Scadrial. I don't think he/she could Invest the planet directly... Preservation's remnant couldn't leave Scadrial, so could Autonomy leave Taldain?

Good point, fixed (though I don't think that terminology would mean anything to someone who didn't already know it all... (Mistborn spoilers)

I don't think just as a response confirms TLR had an extra head left over. I don't think so. Sure, the mind can function without the brain (Cognitive Shadows can think) but by that point you're dead. A Cognitive Shadow can't tap the body's metalminds. We know that TLR survived some kind of decapitation, but not the details. A sword is narrower than a neck, so it could have healed up behind the blade - no complete disconnection. But if that's a problem - just hack off his arms with a koloss blade (Vin could wield one with pewter). The metalminds will no longer be connected.

But not continuously throughout that time - only when the Well refilled. Mist snapping happened in Alendi's time and after TLR's death, but not during the Lord Ruler's reign in between. But Mist snapping hasn't happened in over three centuries - so if that were the only source there would be no Mistings in the South in Wax's time rather than very few. True. That may well be the reason... but it does seem that at least now Mistings can 'just pop up'.

Oh, yes, I just meant that the process and effects were similar (direct Shardic power draw for physical improvements). I do think they were far more powerful than any non-Shard we've seen except possibly the Lord Ruler, (Mistborn Original Trilogy spoilers) Yeah, massive physical obliteration - IIRC a thunderclast's hand is as big as a person and made of stone, so probably weighs something like half a ton or a ton. Getting hit with that propelled by probably supernatural strength... that's pretty extreme. If normal Pewter burning doubles your strength, maybe it doubles the impacts you can take too... but I don't think even 20x normal resilience would protect you from that. So I think the Heralds could be well beyond even a Lerasium-powered Pewter burner and still be killed by thunderclast fists (or chasmfiend bites or other giant Roshar monsters). And they wouldn't be truly invulnerable to "Investiture" attacks since they wouldn't have infinite Investiture. But they might as well be to your average Mistborn or Knight Radiant. Nightblood should still work though.

I don't think we definitely know that... it's said that "Allomancy came with the Mists" yes, but it might just have been really really rare before. The Southern Scadrians seem to have had some allomancers in their population, and there's a WoB saying that without lerasium-burning ancestors Mistings would be very rare ... but not totally absent. I don't know if the Skaa are totally the same thing since TLR messed with their genes. Anyway nobody would know if one or two fluke allomancers popped up... they'd just be assumed to have noble blood somewhere in their ancestry. Oh, I never saw that WoB. Interesting... so it is possible without Hemalurgy.

Not if it hit the right part of the brain. If he can't form the thought / send the command to his metalminds to do the healing, he dies. I agree hitting the brain just anywhere wouldn't work, which is why it might require accuracy implausible even for pewter-dexterity. Sure... but he would still have to survive long enough to reach a new source of gold. If attacked outside his palace, that might not be trivial. He's going to have to burn health at a totally ridiculous rate, since he can't heal the actual wound - he'll have to constantly heal his whole body dying from lack of blood flow. That's probably way harder than healing being stabbed through the heart or near-decapitation, which are "once and done". Right, I forgot you could do that - I was thinking he would just get the allomantic effect of gold if he's not a gold Feruchemist anymore. I don't think that can be done. If it ever got totally separated (no chance to "regrow behind the blade") he would be dead since there'd be no connection from brain to metalminds to 'tell them to heal'. Do we know that Leeching takes time? It's likely instantaneous like aluminum, or at least momentary like duralumin - and I don't think duralumin burns longer if you have more metal, just gives more power in that moment. Can you Leech away Feruchemical charge anyway? I was just talking about reducing him to the status of a full Feruchemist, at which point he could be beaten.

Rather than using molten aluminum, just get a Thug to shoot an aluminum arrowhead through his brain. Much less quantity of aluminum required, and while it would still be hard to do, shooting an arrow when TLR is surrounded by tens of thousands of people would be a lot subtler. The question is whether the added strength and dexterity granted by pewter allomancy are enough to reliably get the arrow through the skull and into the critical part of the brain with the first shot... you'd only get one. Another version, to avoid the problem of piercing bone with a relatively soft metal, would be to go for the heart with an aluminum-headed arrow designed to have the head break off (or even better, break into multiple pieces) when TLR tries to pull it out. The question is if he has enough Gold available to survive long enough to get the pieces removed... Another possibility, given that TLR was sloppy enough to let himself be stabbed in the big battle in the square, would be to use a Pewter spearhead to spike out his feruchemical gold power. While this would render TLR killable, the person who actually did the stabbing almost certainly wouldn't survive. Another problem is that he might just grab the spear and stick it into the right bindpoint to get the power back. So you'd probably want to have a team of Lurchers ready to grab the spearhead & pull it out of his reach (you'd need a team because TLR is much stronger than any one normal allomancer). Then you could either have a Thug or Mistborn burn it away or have one of your team spike themselves with it. EDIT: More speculatively, you might be able to kill him with a sufficiently big koloss blade, if you could separate his head from his metalminds completely. Normal decapitation wouldn't work, since the neck would just heal up behind the sword, but if the blade were wider than the neck... maybe? If we're opening this up to options not available in Era 1 Mistborn (given the mention of a Warbreaker element above), then: - Hit him with Leeching (Chromium Allomancy). All the charged Gold in his stomach vanishes, so he's limited to the charge in his actual metalminds. Then kill him with repeated massive physical trauma (probably requires relatively high tech weapons given his other defensive abilities - sufficiently large bombs plus a fusillade of machine gun fire should work, but the Leecher wouldn't survive either.) - Lash him upward so hard that he never falls back down (not sure if this is possible with practically achievable quantities of Stormlight). That at least removes him as a threat, and should be fatal eventually, as he'd have to compound Gold to avoid dying in vacuum, and in vacuum he can't get more gold, so will run out and die.

Yeah, that's not the most combat-centric power set. So clearly he had some way to beat Windrunners, Skybreakers, or Dustbringers in a fight. In the Powers of the Heralds threads, it's been suggested that they could draw near-infinite Stormlight straight from Honor to get incredible physical abilities (Mistborn Original Trilogy spoilers) If they were hyper-Invested, things like Lashings wouldn't work against them; they might even be able to block Shardblades and Voidbringer magical attacks like Stormform lightning.

Well, before Lerasium there were only Mistings like Alendi, sure. But I don't think that means it's the more "natural" form - it's just a matter of the amount of power available. Probably, more specifically, the amount of Connection to Preservation, thus amount of power drawn through the connection. Lerasium is just a way to edit your Spiritweb, making your Connection high enough to become Mistborn rather than Misting, which doesn't happen by inheritance/birth unless you have Lerasium-powered ancestors. (And not the only way - apparently Rashek rewrote his Spiritweb with the Well's power rather than a Lerasium bead.) I thought a Lerasium alloy still couldn't give you two powers? So if Breeze ate Lerasium-Steel he'd become a Coinshot but stop being a Soother? But that might just be MAG information, don't know if there's a 100% canon source... Hemalurgy can do whatever, sure, but I'm talking about natural Snapping in this theory. (And I'm counting Lerasium as basically 'natural' here as it's still within Preservation's magic system. Hemalurgy is using another magic system to break/change the rules, just as Compounding is.)

I think because the 'critical thresholds' are very close together (which would make sense, since particular powers don't seem to run in families, though Allomancy in general does). Someone might have a minuscule bit more potential in one Allomantic metal than the others, so if they Snap and the power-quantity is small, it can all flow through that "conduit". But if there's even a bit of "buildup" of power, everything Snaps open at once. And maybe a natural double-Misting or triple-Misting isn't inherently impossible, just so unlikely as to never happen in practice.

Logistics are really important in warfare. And Roshar was very technologically primitive back then; the Heralds often had to teach humanity how to make bronze. So the only way to get decent logistics would have been magic. IMO the roles would have been something like this: Windrunners - leaders and defensive warriors, protecting the refuges of non-Radiant humanity Skybreakers - soldiers and military police Dustbringers - primary offensive force Edgedancers - combat medics Truthwatchers - information/intelligence and medical Lightweavers - logistics & morale Elsecallers - logistics & transportation, Spren-realm diplomats Willshapers - transportation Stonewards - defensive warriors Bondsmiths - uniting humanity against the threat

(Why spoilers? This is Cosmere Theories...) The difference IMO is that Nale is attacking Surgebinders who don't know much about their powers yet and don't know any other Surgebinders. Ym and Lift in WOR were pretty early on the path and thus not very powerful; no Shardblade. So it entirely makes sense that a very experienced Herald with Surgebinding and a Shardblade could defeat inexperienced people with Surgebinding but no Shardblade, one on one. I don't think Nale, as we see him in the current era, could reliably beat two Surgebinders with Shardblades, even relatively inexperienced ones, though. (Post-WOR Kaladin and Shallan would have a better than even chance, IMO. Even Kaladin alone might have a decent chance, despite the huge gap in experience, since Nale's current Honorblade has a less combat-oriented set of powers than Kaladin has.) Four or five would just crush him unless he has massive unrevealed powers. And I don't think Ishar could have reasonably expected to catch every Surgebinder in the world alone, in an era when the powers were established and known ... nor even to win every one-on-one fight against those with better combat powers than him - Windrunners, Skybreakers, Dustbringers.

OK, this power is a bit weird. Apparently sand mastery works through lichen or something in the sand that feeds on sunlight (recharging it between uses) and water from the Sand Master (at the time of Sand Mastery being used). This lets the Sand Master manipulate the white sand physically. So far this seems like a very biological, ecological, "cycle of nature" kind of magic system. But then there's Slatrification. Really powerful sand masters can turn white sand into water. How does that work? Does the lichen die upon transformation? I suppose that in itself wouldn't be problematic, since as a living thing presumably it can multiply and spread back into areas it's been killed out of. But... does the water ever turn back to sand? If not, will the Dayside eventually run out of white sand, or sink into the ocean as its land is slowly transformed into water?

I favor the theory (not mine originally) that T is essentially Cultivation's representative / agent / champion. I don't think he is directly the equivalent of a Herald though - they seem to have been pretty crazy powerful before they turned their backs on the Oathpact: Ishar apparently thought he could kill all the mortal Surgebinders combined if they didn't agree to his rules. That might be just a difference of Cultivation's methods vs Honor's though - maybe Cultivation is subtler, sees ways to get things done without massive expenditure of power.

Every Scadrian, being of Preservation and Ruin, has some tiny theoretical latent potential ("seeds") in the Metallic Arts: But for most people, this is never enough to actually manifest (except possibly if the Mists get involved). For those whose potential is strong enough, though, Snapping is possible. I'd suggest that every Scadrian specifically has some degree of Allomantic potential in each metal. Usually, when someone Snaps, damage to their soul creates a "crack" allowing the power of Preservation to flow through - turning the latent potential into an actual ability. Thus, probably, a person has (by random chance - there are Allomantic bloodlines, but there don't seem to be specific lines of Coinshots or Thugs or Soothers) one metal's potential just slightly stronger than the others. At the moment of Snapping, that "point in the spiritweb" hits its critical threshold and activates first - and all the power flows through it, so none of the other metals' points activate. It's like pouring water into a cup with a hole in the bottom, so it flows out as quickly as in. In very rare cases, though, there's just so much Preservation coming through that that first point can't use it up, can't keep up with the inflow. In that case it's like using a garden hose to fill a cup with a pinhole in the bottom - the water can't get out fast enough, and just sloshes around. Then all the metals' points are pushed past the critical threshold, and they all activate practically simultaneously - and the person becomes a full Mistborn. (Savantism, then, is the widening of that "pinhole" by pushing too much water - Preservation power/Investiture - through it.) Originally, it seems that Feruchemy always came with the full set of metals. This makes sense, since Feruchemy doesn't draw on an external source of power and doesn't involve a Snapping event. But in Era 2, the spiritual DNA has mixed, and the Feruchemy access mechanism has gotten "stuck to" and largely overridden by the Allomancy one, creating Ferrings.

Yes, because time and space don't really apply in the Spiritual. Atium allows the user to see the immediate future by a glimpse just barely into the Spiritual; when Elend burned Duralumin and Atium in HoA, he got a much more extensive view of the Spiritual. Similarly, Shards can see possible futures - "like a shattering mirror" or something - in the Spiritual (where they primarily exist). Well, he'd definitely see some degree of his own future just by burning Electrum. I don't think the moment of death thing would matter much here, because that's likely an "atium lets you see the Spiritual" type effect, but who knows - we really don't know the mechanics of either electrum or malatium. Electrum plus Duralumin is also unknown. In fact, IIRC we haven't seen duralumin burned with any of the "real" (IE not atium) temporal metals. Gold and electrum are really unexplored...

IMO, something like that would be what you get from Cultivation plus Ruin (who by WOB would be very compatible Shards). Odium IMO is less a 'natural force' Shard like Ruin, Preservation, and Cultivation and more a 'social/antisocial concept' Shard like Honor, Devotion, and Dominion. Cultivation plus Odium would be... ...yes, this exactly. The Shard of grudges, generational feuds, the cycle of violence. Honor plus Odium, IMO, would be something like 'Conquest', 'Battle-glory'. Courage taken to a destructive extreme, first to the exclusion of all other virtues, and then warped into being defined solely by killing your enemies. A war god, but the bloody murderous Greek Ares, not the civilized Roman Mars.

I don't know if splintering really works that way, but I agree that Honor wouldn't/couldn't do that... if he thought of what he was doing that way. But Shards can get 'warped', and we don't know how the Heralds and KR were set up way back when. If the early KR, or the leaders of humanity united under the Heralds, swore some oath intending to bind their descendants too, I could see Honor (who apparently is all about oaths) believing KR of that era, or all humans, were still bound by it despite a hundred-plus generations passing. I don't think the Shards were directly involved in creating the KRs - Syl makes it sound like that was the spren's idea. (Though given that spren are basically pieces of the Shards... I'm not sure how distinct honorspren were from Honor when Honor was a live unSplintered entity.)

That might be like Vin burning mists, directly drawing on the Shardic power of Honor. That was suggested on the powers of the Heralds thread, to explain how they could be so absurdly powerful that Ishi thought he could destroy all the KR singlehandedly if he had to.

That's how I read it. Nazh talks about becoming a Cognitive Shadow as an important rite, which implies it's something that's well-known enough to become part of the culture (not something only worldhoppers know about). The Stormfather and Kelsier seem to be extreme exceptions on their worlds; Cognitive Shadows aren't known things there. So I think Cognitive Shadows were always way more easily created on Threnody, and only the "contagious/hyperaggressive" aspect is new. Do we have any idea when Nazh left Threnody beyond "before Mistborn Era 1" though? Given that worldhoppers don't seem to die of old age, I'm not sure we can rule out his memories of Threnody being of a very early period.

Do we know that? I interpreted it as Threnody being weird about cognitive shadows because of the way the planet was created, like Roshar's original pre-Shattering spren, and the Evil being 'Shardic weirdness' (corrupted bits of Ambition).

Yes, exactly. If Odium had to do something else to get their power in the cognitive realm, then that can't be the mechanism of Splintering. Which leaves the mystery of why spren are cognitive entities. Maybe a spren isn't really a "pure" piece of Investiture but is Investiture stuck to the cognitive aspect of something? That would explain why human perception affects them...

Odium intentionally formed the Dor? That's big news (and pretty much kills my theory about the nature of Splintering and the Shattering of Adonalsium...)