alder24

They don't have it, or rather they don't use it. It's not a fossil fuel:

Inquisitors should NOT be able to live 200 years because even a Mistborn can't live that long. Inquisitors steal only a fraction of a full Mistborn power and it's investiture that extends your lifespan. The more invested you are, the longer you live, as seen with BioChromatic Heightenings, that's a rule that applies to every form of investiture. Every spike invests inquisitors but those spikes also suffer a Hemalurgic decay. A typical inquisitor has only 9-11 spikes and each of them decayed giving them less power than what a natural Metalborn can access. So Inquisitors don't have a full set of 16 powers and every power they have gives them less investiture than a normal Metalborn have. Inquisitors would be living a shorter life compared to a Mistborn, but both would be living longer than a normal Scadrian or a Misting/Ferring. But that's only for Seekers who were made into Inquisitors. A full Mistborn made into an Inquisitor would live longer than a natural Mistborn because he's invested not only with his 16 natural powers, but also with additional 9-11 powers stolen from others. Still, I doubt they could live up to 200 years (I can't find anything mentioning 200 years, but I think you confused Inquisitor's lifespan with some inquisitors reusing old spikes). We only know that Spook was living for more than 116 years (or so iirc) as he resigned when he was around 100 years old. But Spook, unlike inquisitors and Metalborns from Era 1, had access to A-cadmium which he could have used to further extend his life by skipping through time. However, unlike natural Metalborn, inquisitors break their own soul and mind, being under extreme pressure from the nature of Hemalurgy. This might cause the varying lifespan of inquisitors. Some more resilient would be able to withstand that pressure, some less fortunate would break under it, suffer mental instability which cracks their soul even more and cause more damage to them, causing them to die earlier despite their invested nature. That's what I think Brandon meant by "Some burn up quickly, and others are extended." And lastly Inquisitors aren't human anymore - they are a Hemalurgic construct. Who knows how that affects their lifespan.

Let's start by saying that the Lord Ruler was exaggerating and lying when he was talking about surviving beheading: But I don't think that means a gold compounder can't heal that. In Cosmere healing is done by the bigger portion of your body. In this case the headless body would be the main part of you, with your soul attached to it (not to your head), so you would regrow your head - if your body was still in contact with your goldminds. With enough healing attribute stored in your goldminds, you should be able to heal a beheading. But that would require a lot of healing, as you have to act very quickly and if you don't have enough healing, you will just die. And there are WoBs supporting that: To add more, your body has an intent on its own - to survive - and it will reach to any available source of healing even if your mind is unconscious. That’s why Vin or Elend were tapping pewter even when they were unconscious, their mind didn’t do that, it’s their body’s intent to survive that did that. The same would apply here as well, even without your head your body would be still trying to keep you alive just for a short while. If you have enough healing, you should be able to regrow your head - but again, that's my opinion on this topic.

That's true, in the same chapter Kar noted that the Mists are attracted by Vin's Allomancy: But as Treamayne pointed out, Mists were primarily repulsed by Kar's 11 spikes. Vin had only one spike that by the time of TFE was weakened by the Hemalurgic decay. It would still repulse Mists and indeed later Vin recognized that's happening, but the repulsion might not have been that strong as in the case of inquisitors and might have been mistaken as attraction at first by Vin as in both cases they swirl around them. Moreover with the WoA Vin began to notice the Mistspirit which was both Preservation and Ruin - she became paranoid and felt unsafe in Mists which might lead her to finally recognize that Mists were in fact repulsed by her, not attracted as she first thought. However this also might have been explained by the awakening of Mists. In TFE Mists were dormant and inactive, while after the Lord Ruler's death they became activated and started snapping people. This change of Mists might have changed the way they've reacted to Vin or caused them to be strongly even more repulsed by Hemalurgy. And Ruin also influenced Mists to make them more deadly - his touch might have been noticeable for Vin which gave her the impression that the Mists have changed. There is also Vin's special connection to Preservation and Mists that might have contributed to Mists behavior towards Vin. Either way you're right, they should be always repulsed by Vin's earring and that might have been the case, but the effect was so slight that Vin could have not noticed it before she began to fear them in WoA. HoA ch 15:

It's an interesting and plausible explanation. But I agree with NerdyAarakocra - it can only work on the Emerald Sea. I didn't find any quote saying that the core is empty, contrary, Xisis residence is at the bottom of a spore sea and Ulaam claims that he and Hoid can survive walking at the bottom of seas as well. The oceans clearly have a bottom. Tress ch 47: We have WoBs on this, but unfortunately Brandon doesn't have a scientifically grounded reason for it, he went with creating a cool fantasy world instead of basing everything in science. The seethe is only partially made by decomposition of all spores in the depths and it's involved in the water cycle as well. This means all spores have to decompose, releasing water which has to rise back into the atmosphere to replenish clouds - the water can't be trapped under the ocean infinitely fueling seethe. Your idea explains well how the seethe on the Emerald Sea is made - the activated Verdant spores that grew into vines decompose, which causes their sugar to break down into water, oxygen and carbon dioxide, which all rise up back to the surface, contributing to the water cycle and possibly fueling the decomposition of unactivated spores (as they also have to be broken down). But how this is happening with Crimson, Roseite or Midnight spores is unknown - I doubt we will get the explanation, especially that investiture is involved in this as well (spores and Aethers kind of are investiture just like god metals are).

If your self-perception influenced you enough to give you powers of someone else, it would work to take them away to align you back to your former self, who was without that power. I don't think I understand you here. Tapping connection to a specific power you want to graft won't change your spiritual or cognitive ideal saved in your spirit web. Tapping connection is still a temporary thing, you would have to imprint that into your soul and that's what Lerasium does (or a duralumin spike).

SA5:

SA5 spoilers:

That's what this topic is about, it's about a fan made invested art, so it's not pumping investiture into the body, it's doing something to the body. And while I agree that it's good to ask for specifics and mechanics of how it works, I can see that this idea isn't violating any rules of Cosmere and there are several other invested arts that do similar stuff. I don't want to sound mean towards you or anything, I personally am of the opinion that in this case it's enough if the end effect is in line with rules and how it works mechanically isn't important that much right now as you can get the same effect by using a different powers present in Cosmere. It's a magic thing. Just like Rashek's ageshifting, this is also a purely physical change. Can you name a biological being that can change their age at will? No. Is air made out of stone to allow it to be soulcast into stone? No. That's not the point. I think you're asking for too much realism forgetting it's a fantasy magic system. The point is that magic is forcing a change in the PR, while the CR and SR are untouched. Rashek changing his age is only changing his body to be 20 yo, his spirit web is still 1000 yo, just like his mind and perception of himself. In the same way changing fingernails into a diamond can be just a physical change, pushing your body against what's in your soul as long as you supply it with investiture. It doesn't matter if diamonds are a part of your body, investiture will manifest or Soulcast diamonds at demand. A human can walk into a highstorm and with right perception and just the ability to heal he can walk out as a Singer, with carapace, gemstones hearing Rhythms. Temporarily changing your body parts into some other material isn't that different, it just involves Soulcasting, which is a manifestation of a fundamental force of Cosmere. It's not about biology anymore, it's about magic and magic in Cosmere does stuff like was proposed. Your comparison to Herdazians can't be applied here as they are the result of biological evolution, this is purely a magical change. Rosharan native species with diamond gemhearts, dragons with Dragonsteel in their bodies... If I wanted to be nitpicky I would point out that carbon is the main ingredient of your body, making up around 20% of your mass. Well, I’m pointing this out so I’m nitpicky. Diamond is just carbon with a crystal structure. Metal is also a part of your body - hemoglobin contains iron and there are also many other metals present in your body. With that in mind Soulcasting isn't even needed, magic just has to rearrange the structure of atoms already present in your body to make diamond fingernails or metal hair. And just like in Feruchemy, the investiture will keep you alive and prevent any negative effects of this sudden but temporary rearrangement of atoms. As I said, there are several ways of achieving what was proposed, this is just one of them. That's how I see it. If the end effect is in line with what we see in Cosmere, then I have no problems with that, nor do I need a detailed explanation of how it works (for that it's better to wait until the entire system is figured out), as there are several ways to achieve that effect. You don't even have to physically turn things into diamond or fingernails, just by using Tension you can make your fingernails as hard as diamond and get the same effect. It doesn't really matter to me.

While we currently don't know any invested art that allows you to do what was proposed, all necessary components were already introduced in a few of them. Soulcasting and Hemalurgy allows you to change the soul itself, Forgery allows you to make a fake soul, Feruchemy temporarily changes your attributes. As long as you push investiture into the system, it will oppose your soul's attempts of snapping back to normal. I see no reason why there can't be an invested art that allows you to turn your fingernails into diamond or hair into metal - a purely physical change, there is no need to involve change of your spirit web. Cosmere already deals with things like that.

I see no problem with that at all. Forgery exists, this seems to work like Forgery - temporarily changing the material into something else, as long as investiture is given to it to fight the material's push to be brought back to normal. You can 100% change your fingernails into diamonds in Cosmere without needing to eat diamonds in the first place.

The Lifebrother is supposed to be a Vorin god, by Szeth's words. Vorinism worships only the Almighty and the Heralds, so it seems like this Lifebrother is meant to be one of the Heralds in the Vorin doctrine. A different name for one of them. And because it's a "brother" I doubt Vorinism would have twisted the gender of one of their Heralds so it has to be a man. However the context was that Taravangian was speaking Shin language, thus I think that the Lifebrother is actually a Shin name for one of the Herald (thus still being one of the gods of Vorinism) and the Lifebrother using others to spill the blood (he's not bloodthirsty, he's using others to kill) is a Shin description of that person. It seems like Taravangian is associating him with being lucky and the Herald of Luck is Ishar, who now is a madman using his Tukari followers to spill blood so he doesn't had to do it himself - something that Szeth as a Shin trained with Honorblades might be aware of. So if I were to guess who the Lifebrother is supposed to be, I would say he's Ishar, which would make sense if that name and character is meant to reappear as Szeth is going back to Shinovar, which now is under Ishar's control. WoK ch 71: I believe that Liss, the assassin hired by Jasnah, is Vedel. She is a total inversion of Vedel's healing attribute and is present at the night of Gavilar assassination, just like many other Heralds are. Also Vedel looks like Aleth and has dark long hair (OB endpaper) - just like Liss does (she looks Alethi enough that just changing her accent makes her a believable Alethi). WoR Prologue: And then there is this WoB, where Brandon is asked if Liss is Chana. The answer is of course RAFO, but just go to the Arcanum link and listen to the recording - that laughter tells a lot. Liss is definitely a Herald and only Vedel fits. We know Ash, we suspect who Chana is, Battar and Palliah are meant to be around Taravangian, so that leaves only Vedel as a viable option.

The last one was from April 26. You can find all new readings here: https://wob.coppermind.net/help/readings

If I understand you correctly, there are 5 powers in total, one main power and four secondary, but usually a "mage" usually can only access/learn only one secondary power, not all of them progressively? I do like this idea, I see a potential for it. Can they choose which branch to learn, or is this out of their control? As Treamayne said, this is a little bit stereotypical, classical but that's also a safe division - healing for women. There is nothing wrong with it, especially if done right but I see here a bit of wasted potential (if every woman starts with healing). Overall all of those powers seem to side with the Surge of Progression (with a bit of Tension as well). What if that's the main theme of female powers, where the main ability is focused on the general theme of Progression, each branch is a specialized Progression. I would make healing a secondary specialized branch and it would contrast the Strengthen branch nicely, which sounds like the Progression Fused and I would merged it with Growth as they seem very similar and compound well (I feel it would work better if you grew strong fingernails instead of just making them strong). That can be a theme of branches. One power heals, Strengthen/Growth one modifies physically the body, the Enhance and Empower can be kind of merged together to make it a kind of spiritual change, like A-pewter - they don't change you physically, they spiritually boost your physical attributes. The last new one might be a pair to healing, or the opposite of healing, but still being of Progression. I can't think of anything now, just like I can't think of the main ability - maybe the main one could be that you can weakly do all what every branch has to offer, but you have to choose and learn only one of them - then the rest is sealed off or you still can do some weak stuff with other powers but they are far beneath if you chose that branch. Don't take that as criticism, more like a brainstorming session from which you can draw new inspiration and change things if you want to. As for this, the role of the Shard is tied with how the invested art is obtained, not what it does, so technically speaking you can choose whoever you want, as long as you created an adequate way of gaining those powers. Seeing how the powers are divided into genders and they themselves are divided into branches, it sounds a little like Autonomy to me.

Those powers sound useful and interesting, but I don't think they would be possible for normal F-copper. But that's not a problem, there are copper god metal alloys that can work like that. A lot of them. Those would still be usable by every copper Ferring and they could get those different forms of manipulating memories outside of the normal use of F-copper.

I quoted this section. Those powers didn't come from the Nahel Bond. Or by the time of the Last Legion Singers had already forgotten about Dawnsinger's ability to sing and Stoneshape. It had been thousands of years of Desolations that were as brutal to Singers as they were to humans. And if in every Desolation humans were losing knowledge and technology, Singers suffered the same fate. That's true. Song of Secrets don't tell the full story, they are biased (most likely due to the passage of time, forgetting about the past, or the first Fused lied about the reasons for siding with Odium to gain support of other Dawnsingers). Dawnsingers did something that made Spren side with humans, they offended spren. Leshwi suggested that by saying to Venli that "they’ve forgiven us." That's why the Venli's conversation with stones is so important as in it they've confirmed that the Song of Secrets were correct and spren didn't bond Dawnsingers back then. The Nahel Bond is something new that follows an old pattern.

It takes a loooong time. Not a time you should be worried about. The more investiture there is, the closer it will become to a human level intelligence. But that still takes thousands of years to happen. Lerasium and Atium on Scadrial are part of Shards who both have a Vessel each - they had minds, they weren't left alone. They were physical bodies of existing Shards. Dor was specifically forced into CR to prevent it from gaining sentience. We only know from AU that the Selish land itself shows signs of gaining sentience, but what it means it's unknown. It might have been an Avatar that Autonomy manifested, similar to Patji on the First of the Sun. Here are WoBs I found about this topic for you:

It was just a Connection trick. Hoid wasn't there on Canticle. Aux set this up. TSM ch 10: WoBs you've mentioned. Hoid was not able to skip in the past, skipping started because of a certain event, it's unknown if Hoid can skip by the time TSM is happening.

Just to point out, Shardblades are not only alloys of two godmetals, they are alive and that's why you can't use them in Metallic Arts. They are no longer treated as metals when they are alive. Yup, just by looking at the title, I already had this WoB prepared for you

Hmm, I don't really see anything wrong with this, hypothetically speaking, but I don't think it would be that easy. When Wax tapped F-copper, he was living through Kelsier's memories, his thoughts and all of that. That might put you in the correct mental state to believe you had powers stolen from you, but with this comes also the belief that you are a totally different person and you might end up healing yourself to look like them. That's not ideal. And there is also the issue of identity - your soul knows that you never had any powers and your cognitive image of yourself is also written in your soul, next to your spiritual ideal. It would be really hard to separate that from you. Blanking Identity might help, but that won't remove those Ideals from your soul. So yes, I think you're onto something with this F-copper trick, but that might not be enough (or it might be too much), even with identity blanking. Something else might be needed. Unfortunately you probably still have to use Hemalurgy to get rid of those ideals from your spirit web first (fortunately for you).

Yes. It's not a spren, it's not alive, it's almost the same as Malwish medallions mechanically speaking, and those act as metalminds in addition to granting you powers. But you can't store in a Shardblade as it's already considered to be too full of investiture and it's alive, which interferes with Metallic Arts (and it’s an alloy of two god metals). Honorblades should work however as those aren't alive (they are self-aware, like medallions), they are Tanavastium in the purest form. In my opinion you don't even have to bond it to use it as a metalmind (because it's the purest form of a god metal), but it has to be in the physical form. You have to summon it, you have to touch the metal. Of course, to even use a god metal in Feruchemy, you have to first figure out what it does. Sazed was unable to figure out what Malatium does Feruchemically. It's not as easy as saying "I'm gonna store something in that piece of metal." You need to know what it does, what to expect, what will happen to you - that's the Intent. Every god metal have properties in all three Metallic Arts:

Correction 80. 300 Radiants from 2 orders abandoned their Oaths at the Feverstone Keep. WoK ch 52: 2000 Honorspren were killed during Recreance. That's the entire species of spren gone. Other spren were probably similarly numbered, but only Honorspren answered to the call in the fullest. So there still should be high thousands of deadeye spren all around Roshar. RoW ch 87: Yes, I've noticed that too and there are some WoBs on that, but they don't show the full picture. In my opinion two things have to happen to leave behind a Shardblade: You have to be at 3rd Oath to be able to summon the blade in the first place. Those of 1st and 2nd Ideal would not have left a Shardblade behind, just a deadeye spren in CR. You have to break your Oaths while having your spren in the form of a Shardblade. If you don't do that, the spren would be deadeyed in CR, they wouldn't have left behind a Shardblade. For example Syl wasn't left behind as a Shardblade when Kaladin almost broke his Oaths because he wasn't of 3rd Ideal, nor Testament was said to be left as a Shardblade in the garden because she wasn't summoned as a Shardblade at that time. The Feverstone Keep was probably a unique event, one of a kind. The Recreance took place over a few days, most Radiants and their spren independently came to the same conclusion and abandoned their Oaths - they would most likely do it in silence, alone, without summoning their blades, thus leaving behind only a dead spren in CR. That's my explanation why there aren't thousands of Shardblades laying around, just a few hundreds. But that still is a lot of missing Shardblades . Maya is a Cultivationspren, even if only Windrunners and Stonewards left their Shardblades in such numbers, there clearly were others that did the same - probably for the sake of humanity in the future, leaving them weapons to fight against Odium, just in case. Where are they? Yes, I agree that many are hidden in Shinovar - they have a tendency to collect fancy swords. They also invaded Roshar on several occasions using cavalry, Honorblades and Surges. They might have even used those invasions to cover up that they were collecting Shardblades. They certainly have a small cache of Shardblades by now. Skybreakers also have a few of them. But many blades were lost to weather, crem, or the ocean. Around half of them. Not a satisfying answer but that's a canon for now.

Yup, I would. Like I said, it's an interesting theory indeed, it might have worked like that if Rashek was using chromium. But just to be clear, rather than saying "kill yourself," the gut feeling would say him "meh, she isn't worth your attention."

Interesting theory. It's possible but I doubt that's what happened. Yes, Vin should not have been able to kill Rashek, and indeed on her own she was unable to - only due to direct intervention of the Mists, which were Preservation's essence, Vin could have killed Rashek, Without the Mists, Vin would have died. It was literally a deus ex machina. You can infinitely compound only if you have enough metal. You still need to burn metal to compound, you have to have a tone of Chromium to compound it a lot of Fortune - not a tiny bit. Chromium was an unknown metal back then, nobody knew it even existed, it was very rare. Rashek would be aware of it and its Metallic Arts properties from his Ascension, he might be able to even make some chromium with the power of the Well for himself, or knew where to find it, but he didn't have it on him when he died. Vin&co found Rashek's bracers and sold Atium from it. If his metalminds were containing unknown metals, Sazed and Vin would have immediately spotted them and become aware of the existence of another base metal. This didn't happen. This means that Rashek didn't have any chromium, or any other unknown metal on him and for a good reason, as Inquisitor's steel sight alone would be able to recognize the type of a metal by lines its creating - Rashek had to keep those metals in secret even from his Inquisitors. Rashek wasn't tapping Fortune from chromium when he died. Feruchemical chromium stores Fortune, which more or less works how you described it (as far as we know), but it doesn't take away your agency. You still have to decide on your own to move in the direction Fortune is pointing towards. It's more like a gut feeling, without knowing what's happening or why - you can ignore your instincts or follow them. You decide. Atium also involves Fortune. If Rashek were to burn it with duralumin, he would have the same effect as Elend at the end of HoA - he would peer directly into the Spiritual Realm and see all he wants. That's much more than chromium has to offer without trying to find any chromium and hiding it from everyone. My point is Rashek didn't need to use chromium as he could have been using Atium+duralumin to peer directly into the future - intent would likely matter and he might be able to see only what he's intent wants. That's why he might have missed the possibility of him being killed by Vin. I don't think Rashek's goal would have been to permanently stop Ruin. I think it would have been to remain in control. All of his actions during those 1000 years of his life were to ensure he had full control over everything that's happening in the Empire. He wasn't that selfless, he was a tyrant. Rashek was living for 1000 years in isolation and hearing constant noises from Ruin. He was tired, more than it's humanly possible. And bored. He wasn't mentally stable. He knew there is no person on Scadrial that can threaten his position, he was only afraid of a natural Fullborn being born, but his Terris breeding program assured him that he's in control. Rashek didn't expect Ruin to dethrone him with a Skaa rebellion. All of this contributed to his fate. His power meant nothing when he severely underestimated Vin and didn't take her seriously. Truthfully it's not his fault, he couldn't have predicted that Vin would draw the power from Mists directly, that Vin was touched and chosen by Preservation directly to become its Vessel. That was outside of his control. All of this compounded to his failure of killing Vin. WoA ch 3: WoBs: SA spoilers WoB: HoA epilogue epigraph:

Because he's bonded with a Shardblade - a deadeye spren - and spren don't like this idea at all. Syl has a very negative opinion about people carrying Shardblades, Stormfather told Dalinar that he has to abandon his Shardblade in order to bond him, Kaladin told Adolin that if he were to abandon Maya, he might attract a spren. Even Pattern doesn't like that. Adolin is carrying a corpse of their dead friend, of course spren would feel offended and avoid him. WoR ch 16: WoR ch 89: OB ch 18: RoW ch 12: