AbsentKeeper

I say that stormlight is the 'natural' form of investiture on Roshar, in the same way that breath is the natural form on Nalthis. Not raw investiture in the spiritual realm, as a Shard has it, but the natural form in the physical realm, you could say. There were spren and Parshendi on Roshar before Honor and Cultivation showed up there, so presumably there was also an invested storm, even if all stormlight comes from the Stormfather now, he's still just holding investiture and dumping it out through a natural process (a storm) so I don't see how that is outside the normal rules. A human surgebinder can also hold stormlight and breathe it out into the wind, just like the Stormfather does on a much larger scale

Ahh, I think I just misunderstood what you were saying. I was referring to a 'magic system' as any system at uses Investiture according to Realmatic rules. Really, the only use of Investiture that I don't consider a magic system is the direct power of Shards themselves, since they seem to be able to do pretty much whatever they want as long as another Shard isn't in the way. I wasn't implying that all the systems have to follow the same rules, that would make the cosmere a very boring place. Edit: This isn't really even a cosmere issue, but rather one from the fact that I've read a lot of non-Brandon, soft magic books. Because of this, 'magical phenomenon' has different connotations for me than 'magic system' does. More semantic issues, but I just think of the second as involving a lot more 'science'. These are the kind of misunderstandings that happen when I get on the Shard still half asleep

As for the Nightwatcher, personally I believe that she should be still be mostly constrained by the same Realmatic rules that govern magic when used by a human. The highstorm is essentially just the Stormfather leaking massive amounts of Investiture in the same form as it naturally occurs on Roshar (since it is confirmed that Stormlight predates the shattering) By my logic, the old magic should still have a focus, an original source (probably directly from Cultivation), and rules than govern what she can or can't do (curses are neurological). [Edit: I forgot a point: I don't know whether it would be different had Sazed given Vin Atium instead, that's why I didn't draw any hard conclusions from it. I do believe it's possible that it would make some kind of difference though, because of the fundamental difference between god metals fueling themselves, and regular metals pulling from Preservation.] @Agent34 If I'm missing the difference, please inform me, but I though the only difference between a magic system and an 'investiture based phenomenon' was human control. Shades on Threnody, for example, are a phenomenon because its naturally occurring, but they still have mostly the same rules.

I have to disagree with you here. The old magic may be strange and different from the other three Rosharan systems doesn't mean that it doesn't follow rules. What would be different about the old magic that makes it 'not a a magic system'? The only difference I can think of is that it doesn't require a stream of investiture, just a one time change, like Calderis said, but that is definitely still magic, and should still follow all the rules that the other systems have to. Edit: @Calderis a couple things that are worth noting, I think: When Vin tried to burn Sazed's metalmind, it was pewter, not a god metal. Also, I always found it strange that she sensed his power at all, even though she couldn't use it, since she was not a Feurchemist.

Well, part of my point was that a smith wouldn't have made it bigger only for that reason, if he knew what he was doing. More reach is only helpful if you need the range (like fighting chasmfiends), otherwise it makes a weapon awkward and unwieldy when used against a normal sized opponent. Basically, I'm saying that if he was made bigger just for a Returned, it was done by someone who didn't know how to design a sword.

I stand corrected. Now that you mention it, I do remember Brandon saying that you could do that. Edit: It has been implied that Marsh is still using Atium though. Maybe he is just helping Harmony burn up his excess Ruin. As for Cadmium, yeah you could do that, but I consider that more like forward time travel than immortality.

What other method of achieving immortality is there with the metallic arts? We know that gold compounding won't do it, because Miles talks about how aging is a shame. If there was another way within the metallic arts, TLR should have had access to it as well.

I just assumed it has something to do with practice and the massive power involved in holding a Shard. The Investiture of Ambition, for example, is shattered into thousands of separate cognitive shadows, and we know that Ambition still fled after loosing that much Investiture. All of that, shoved into one shadow, should still be capable of a lot of things. Also, I imagine the fact that he was a Shadow rather than a physical being probably contributed to how strongly he was controlled by his intent. Edit: Another thought, inspired by the thread about why Returned need breath: His shadow was probably reattached to his body, as evidenced by the fact that his body reforms from the mist and drops to the ground when Kelsier takes Preservation in SH.

This WoB suggests, to me, that Ruin actually killed the Shardholder Leras somehow, leaving his Cognitive shadow in control of the Shard. Edit: I'm not sure what implications that has as far as him dying slowly though. Perhaps it's because Ruin didn't know how to splinter a Shard, so he resorted to killing Leras, and then slowly deteriorating his shadow? Edit again: I just realized that if the OP's theory is true, Ruin could have chosen that method over direct shattering because of Preservation's influence, even if he did know how to shatter him outright, so most of that is irrelevant.

I always just assumed Leras's cognitive shadow only stayed around as long as it did because no one else took up the power of Preservation. Ruin, on the other hand, was taken up immediately after Ati's death. Also, Vin and Ati both died immediately during the conflict, when both Shards were taken right after. [Edit: I just mean that I don't think this is a good example though, I think the underlying idea that a Shard's intent effects how others act towards them, as well as how they act, is very good.] Everything else in your post is very possible and well thought out. It seems likely from the very limited information we have about different shards interacting. It's one of those things that makes you scratch your head and say "Why didn't I think of that?"

I'd love to visit some dangerous shardworlds, gotta get the full worldhopper experience Would you rather die and become a lifeless, or die and become a shade?

As someone who has made a few swords, this solution appeals to me. We don't know if Brandon means only the awakening or the whole creation process, when he says that Vasher and Shashara 'created' Nightblood. If they did actually forge the blade, or even provide the specifications, rather than just awakening any old sword, this could explain both why Nightblood is so large, and why he seems so heavy. I know that it's generally explained away that Nightblood is huge because he was made for a Returned, who are taller. Realistically, however, a larger sword wouldn't be the best way to take advantage of the increased speed and strength of a returned, and a proper swordsmith would know this. Denth provides a great example of this, with his exceptional speed and skill using a normal sized sword. Historically, you only want a bigger weapon if you need the advantage of reach. The weight would just be a similar lack of proper design, the shape and specifications set by someone who doesn't know how to balance a weapon, compounded by the fact that the weapon is already larger and more unwieldy than nessecary. I don't know how likely it is, but I'll take any chance to talk about sword design. Edit: I also doubt that Nightbloods weight has anything to do with mundane material. The only metal that fits the description (black and heavy) is tungsten, and it wouldn't have been available at the tech level in Warbreaker, let alone at the time of the five scholars, due to its rarity, extremely high melting point, and, most importantly, the fact that its extremely hard to work without fracturing it, even with modern diamond cutting tools. On top of all that, it's also much heavier than steel, not just slightly heavier, so an unsheathed tungsten Nightblood would weigh about 20-30 pounds. Edit again: And yes, I do think Brandon knows these things, as he talks about how Shardblades avoid the downfalls of huge, ornate fantasy weapons, because of thier intended use and light weight.

I wonder if spiking the beaver while it was still forming in the womb would allow the spiritweb to heal more thoroughly than that of a spiked adult beaver? Perhaps this would allow a more intuitive understanding of the abilities. And now we are.

Hmm they can search me all they want, but they won't find any spikes... *throws out cookies*

Emphasis mine. This is primarily the interpretation of Kriss's comments, and what we know about the old magic (and foci in general) that is interesting to me for the purposes of my theory (That the foci of Hemalurgy are bindpoints.) Many people are convinced (for good reasons) that there is only one focus per planet though, thus the heart of the argument As Calderis pointed out though, we really don't know enough about the old magic to say. I do think its possible that soulcasters bond directly with the user, as you and Calderis said. I can agree that its possible to store the human attributes that Hemalurgy can steal, because they are (presumably) the parts of the spiritweb that are infused with the innate Investiture that makes us function as sentient beings. I still say that it would probably be incredibly dangerous to even attempt though, and I don't know if it will ever be used in practice. For example, if you stored only a small percentage of your human strength, its possible that your heart wouldn't be strong enough to beat, or you might store too much human intelligence and memory and forget how to breathe. This might be a problem that we run into as nicrosil ferrings become more common, they might discover that they can do things that don't have the magical protections of storing strength in a pewtermind, for instance. Edit: Note that the above is based on the idea that when you store strength to the utmost of your ability in a normal pewtermind, your innate human strength is still there, and is what's keeping you from dying of heart failure/collapsing under your own weight/ect. I could be totally off with this assumption, but that's how it works in my head. Edit: I'm honestly a little lost on how we got to this topic. Did something about nicrosil go against my theory or are we just talking about all kinds of crazy stuff now? If so, I have an Excisor theory and a god command theory that have got to go somewhere

I agree with this interpretation, but I do have serious questions about what is actually coded into the soul. If we can use what Hemalurgy can steal as a benchmark, then that means the only things nicrosil can store (other than 'ability to use ____ magic') are the human attributes that make Kandra and Koloss... I don't know if it would be a good idea to store or tap very much of any of those, but it theoretically should be possible. *Half joking* Thoughts on nicrosil ferrings tapping thier human strength to temporarily become akin to less warped Koloss? Absolutely terrifying.

I guess I'm not really understanding what you're saying here. As far as I understand, your spiritweb is the only innate Investiture. The Investiture that comes from tapping a metalmind, or burning a metal are not 'in your soul' so you cannot store them in nicrosil, only the coded bits of spiritweb. I guess I want to know what else you think is hardcoded this way, other than the SDNA for various magic systems? Edit: A little bit of clarification, I thought that innate Investiture would be something you're born with, like the tiny bit of spiritweb that codes you for magic use, and that it wouldn't include any power actually drawn from somewhere, in the process of using magic.

If nicrosil stores any investiture, and the only reason it can store part of your spiritweb is because it's Investiture (rather than storing part of the spiritweb being its only ability, like I propose), then why do you also need a filled metalmind in order to use the power? Why can't both that Investiture and the coded spiritweb bit both be in the nicrosilmind? Why, also, does Allomancy gained via tapping nicrosil still require metals to pull investiture from Preservation? The second part is pretty much exactly what I believe, I just think that storing part of your spiritweb is all that nicrosil does. Otherwise, every other power is essentially useless.

I believe it's one of those weird ones, where either 'foci' or 'focuses' are both technically correct. Edit: Apparently its actually the difference between the noun form (the foci of Scadrial are...) and the verb form (the focuses were on politics and magic) The things you learn with a quick Google.

I know, I know, its still a long shot for me too, but it is the big caveat that makes a lot of these things not conflict with either system of looking at it. I feel like I have to pretend that there can be, for this theory to have any credence at all. If you do accept that one assumption, a lot of things start to line up just as well as they do in the old system, just not much better I totally agree with you here, and I know that Calderis does too. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on the discrepancies I pointed out in Roshars magics in an earlier post (I'll quote a bit of it in a second) Edit: Calderis already gave some fairly good possibilities about these on page 1, but more thoughts are always better. I think we decided that we don't have enough info yet.

I don't get what you're saying here? I'm not proposing that Trell created a whole new system after the fact, only that (if there are 2 focuses on Scadrial, both metal and bindpoints) that he should have gotten to add to both of them when he invested, not just one. 'Adding' to the system of bindpoints wouldn't require creating new ones, only shaping his investiture so that it fits a bindpoint that didn't do anything specific before. This is exactly what I'm saying about Preservation. It should be the same for Hemalurgy and Bindpoints, with the caveat that Hemalurgy already doesn't require specific SDNA, so it can be used by anyone. Again, I agree with this statement about Trell, with the caveat that, if there are two systems on the planet he invested, he should be able to add to both focuses. Im not saying they're all the same, I'm saying the opposite. Thats why it confuses me that one type of focus (one metal) is the method for stealing so many different kinds of investiture, but not all of them. If metal is the focus, each metal should be able to steal only one thing, or everything. It works with bindpoints, because all of the points we've seen used for stealing are in the heart, so the argument can be made that the heart is where all of the SDNA relating to magic use is stored, and the metal acts as a modifiers for what to pull out. As I understand it, mistings are the natural state of magic users on Scadrial, and the only reason there are Mistborn is because of Preservations direct influce, in the form of Lerasium. All Mistborn have had thier SDNA (or an ancestors) rewritten by Lerasium to contain all of the separate parts for each Allomantic power together. As for why there are bindpoints, I don't know that we can explain that any more than "why are there metals?" They just seem to be a natural occurrence in the Cosmere due to the interactions of the three realms. I don't quite understand this part? Are you saying that the variety of things stolen by hemalurgy is greater than the variety of the senses? Or that the difference between the senses is greater than I think? Or something about the variety of things storable by Feruchemy as a whole ?

I think this is mostly a semantic problem. The 'new' bindpoints don't have to be newly created when Trell arrived, they already existed, they just weren't useful for magic. Look at it this way, if the base metals already existed elsewhere before Preservation created Allomancy, then it can't be that every atom of metal in the cosmere was changed at that moment. To me, it makes more sense that it was Preservations Investiture that changed shape so that the already existing structure of metals would act as a gateway. The god metals are more confusing though, because they didn't exist anywhere in the cosmere before thier parent Shards created them. As for bind points for other investitures, as I said earlier, I hypothesize that there aren't specific bind points for off world systems, but rather that the nature of Hemalurgy (warping the spiritweb) allows you to put a charged spike somewhere 'close enough' that the power manages to get through. For example, the power of a shielding Aviar could potentially be placed in the bindpoint for copper Allomancy, and the investiture in the spike damages the spiritweb enough for the power to get through. Similarly, an Elantrian's functional immortality could be 'close enough' to the investiture used by Atium Feruchemy, and the telekinetic abilies of Sand Mastery could be similar to steel pushing. Perhaps the more the web needs to be warped, the more decay there is, or the more spikes are needed. I may have to concede on this point if I can't think of a better way to express my thoughts. The way I see it though, the 5 different senses aren't 5 separately keyed sources of investiture, they're only split up like that because that's the human perception of them. I don't think its possible to have a tin ferring who can only store eyesight, for instance, because they are all one power. Pewter and tin, however, are very differently keyed investitures, as shown by the fact that a misting can only ever naturally burn one type of metal. If the investiture sources were as similar as one 'type' of tinmind is to another, I would expect to see misting and ferrings each being able to access a whole quadrent of abilities. Nicrosil, I see as a completely different thing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but nicrosil doesn't actually store Investiture, it stores whatever ability to use investiture that is in your spiritweb. You still need metals to burn, or a metalmind to tap in order to actually make use of whatever you're tapping from a nicrosilmind, so it seems likely to me that what nicrosil actually stores is 'spiritual identity'. E.g. You store the part of your SDNA that makes you a feruchemist, not the actual investiture accessed by the powers. Edit: I just reread this and wanted to clarify because it sounds like I'm confusing aluminum and nicrosil, but I'm not. I think aluminum stores your cognitive identity, the part that identifies you as the Feruchemist that made the metalmind, and nicrosil stores your spiritual identity, the part that identifies you as a Feruchemist. Thus why the medallions need both, plus the proper metalmind.

I really like this theory, and I wish that I had something useful to add to it, but I don't at the moment. I'm going to have to think about this one.

I would think that you could, and that they would be able to instinctively use thier abilities to use basic Allomancy and Feruchemy, but I doubt you could teach the beaver to compound, unless maybe you supplied it with a pre-filled zinc mind, and then explained before it was tapped out. But then you have problems like where the beaver is going to get metals, whether it would have any inclination to rule, and how to handle the massive deforestation caused by a hungry beaver compounding zinc and steel. Also, you would have to spend years systematically murdering beavers in the hopes of discovering their Hemalurgic bindpoints.

If only I could write my thesis on Hemalurgy...