Narcoleptic Axolotl

So. I was going through the "Hero of Ages" prophecy and I found the line, "That which has been sundered must again begin to find its whole." (here's a link: https://coppermind.net/wiki/Terris_Prophecies#Prophecy_quotes)

Now, supposedly the prophecy is only referring to Sazed, but let's think about it for a bit. "That which has been sundered . . ." (by the way, sundered is a synonym for split.) Well, Harmony wasn't sundered. Adonalsium was sundered. So presumably, this line should be referring to Adonalsium. Which means that "[Adonalsium] must again begin to find its whole." Whole??? Yeah, we saw Ruin and Preservation combine into Harmony. But Harmony isn't whole. Harmony is 1/8th of whole. 12.5%. Therefore, I predict that all the shards of Adonalsium will eventually be collected and fused back together. Seems like a cool way to end the story of the cosmere.

I went through the other lines from the prophecy, but those all talk about the Hero directly, and most of them do sound like they refer to Sazed. Although, wouldn't this be fun, what if Sazed isn't the Hero of Ages? He just fits the prophecy well enough that nobody's looking for the Hero anymore. They think it's him, Harmony. When really, it's somebody we haven't been introduced to yet so we can't compare them against the prophecy. I don't know. For now, I'll assume that Sazed is the Hero of Ages, but I am confident that Adonalsium will eventually become Adonalsium again. I mean, Odium already did a good portion of the work. How many shards has he splintered so far? It's at least, like, five. Somebody just needs to go collect the splinters. If Sazed did that, maybe his Intent would change enough to let him be more useful. Anyway, that's all I got.

3 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

The fingertips of the three men just brushed against each other and the world twisted about them. 
 

This is the true secret of tricksters. No rules may bind them, for rules they defy. It is the truth of their nature. Nothing is real and the world an illusion. It is only in illusion they can be bound and there is no illusion greater than story. And the web of stories is woven by the Spider, a trickster himself.

Some say the Spider is fond of his own, and that is why he lets them travel on his web. Others, less kind, say he enjoys the chaos. And still others claim that the nature of tricksters is such that he cannot stop them, for to try would only be encouragement.

In the end, does it matter?

Fingertips brush, the world twists, and three tricksters are woven into a story they were never meant to be a part of.

Finding himself in a dingy alley, facing a blank wall, holding a class list was really only to be expected, Kelsier decided. Being eleven wasn’t.

"So this is it."

Hearing the high, prepubescent voice that emanated from his own mouth, Xanatos stopped. He looked at his two companions, then down at himself. They had each been transformed into child versions of themselves, maybe eleven or so years old. This would take some getting used to.

"I admit, I hadn't considered this possibility." There was that child's voice again. "It looks like our first move is to go shopping. Anyone else need 'A History of Magic'?"

5 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Kelsier shook his head lightly. “Not at all. This is entirely for fun Kheldar. A vacation, if you will.

”Shall we?”

He laid one scarred hand, palm down, flat on the table, glancing expectantly over at the other two.

Xanatos re-stashed his notebook before laying his hand down on the table as well.

"I can't wait."

Mr. Cett's laboratory wasn't sophisticated enough to melt some of the more refractory allomantic metals, so he only bought those with lower melting points. This included zinc, tin, pewter, and cadmium. They cast four molds of each of the metals, plus one extra mold of pewter that Mr. Cett would keep for himself. As they worked, Lucas noticed Mr. Cett's demeanor change slightly. Explaining the precise percentages each metal had to have, it seemed to give him a certain enthusiasm. He would stir tin and lead dust in a crucible, moving with an energy that Lucas suspected had nothing to do with allomancy. Metallurgy . . . enlivened the man. Lucas was then struck with a thought. Telling Mr. Cett a random sob story about people he'd never met was not the way to get his help. He was a good man, but in his elder years he would be less inclined to philanthropy. No, these days he was more concerned with science. If sympathy couldn't get that old man away from his molds and crucibles, then perhaps curiosity would.

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Note: It seems that the "refractory metals" is a group of five* elements that have really high melting points and hardness. However, since after over 2 hours of research, I could not find an adjective that means 'with a high melting point' so I've co-opted the term "refractory" in order to make my sentence flow.

*While there is apparently some dispute over what the "refractory metals" are, these five are included in most groupings: tungsten, molybdenum, niobium, tantalum and rhenium.

On 1/5/2021 at 5:24 PM, Kingsdaughter613 said:

“Worst fears,” Kell said dryly. “Do we even have those?” He shook his head lightly, smirking. “Besides, I said I’m in, didn’t I? You don’t have to convince me, David. My crew can handle itself just fine without me for awhile. Would do them good.

”But what about you?” He added, pouring himself another glass. “Fox have any opinions on this escapade?”

"She thinks it's a wonderful opportunity. She won't be joining us though; we agreed that it would be impractical for a married couple to go to wizard highschool together." Xanatos paused. "Silk should be back from the bathroom by now."

2 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Kelsier grinned, something vicious in his smile. “I’d say your missing the point, David. If it gets me off Scadrial I’m in. Much as I love my homeworld, after 300 years a change of scenery is desperately needed.”

"You'll certainly get that. Earth-HP is home to men thousands of times bigger than you and I, and those aren't even the most formidable beasts around. Basilisks roam in dark caves and can kill a man with only their gaze. Dragons - winged, flaming monsters - inhabit the mountains. Of all the creatures that make this universe their home, I have got to say my favorite is the boggart. Get too close to one and you'll see visions of your worst fears coming to light. Sounds like a wonderful security system, does it not?"

2 minutes ago, Random Bystander said:

 

"Well, there are a few more artifacts of interest to us. Myths speak of an enchanted sword that grows more deadly with every kill. A black opal that brings back the dead. A magic wand that wields unlimited power. That's not even mentioning the abilities one could acquire there. Teleportation, invisibility, the power to become an animal, and more. Some of these are doubtless overexaggerated, but we both know that all stories are rooted in fact. What do you say?"

1 hour ago, Random Bystander said:

 

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oooOOOOoooh. Should we recruit the Weasley twins? They're genuinely competent wizards, and do have a great sense of humor.

3 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

...Unless bonding a Harmonyspear just gives you access to the Investiture needed to fuel it, or, maybe Harmony would have to make a Herald that's Connected like that and can consume the Mists themselves.

I don't think that would be necessary. Yes, the Heralds were directly powered by Honor, while the radiants have to save stormlight in gemstones, but we see mistborn drawing upon the mists, which we know is just gaseous manifestation of Preservation's power. The mistborn, which are equivalent to radiants, don't have a special connection to Preservation. Unless you count the fact that all of Scadrial is heavily Invested, since everything there, including (I believe) the planet itself was created by Ruin and Preservation. But in that case, everybody's invested, so you don't need to set aside a Herald because all people would already have the Connection they needed. That sounds kinda reasonable, but I'll assume that you only have to be metalborn to draw upon the mists.

I guess we shouldn't forget about the fact that you can't draw upon the mists if the mists aren't around. They rose every night in the time of the Final Empire, but after the Catacendre, they came randomly. So if Harmonyspears only grant ability to use metalborn powers, and you have to get the rest from the mists, then you should probably carry around extra metalminds or vials just in case.

Xanatos chuckled softly at his friend's joke, taking a sip of wine.

"That isn't the only fantastical artifact we'd be after. There are stories of a man with a magical eye that can see through anything. I want to steal it. If nothing else, it'll come in handy for our future robberies."

"Yes, thank you." Xanatos replied, opening the coffee table drawer and pulling out his notebook. He would never have kept such a notebook in his own universe; he knew firsthand that nothing was truly secure except that which one kept in one's own mind. Though even that could be violated using arcane and ancient practices.

He flipped to a list of the alternate universes he and his friends had access to. He scanned the page, pondering on which would be the most fun to infiltrate. His eyes rested on one titled "Earth-HP". The note scribbled beside it inspired Xanatos to speak up again.

"Kell, what do you think of Earth-HP? I think it would be a wonderful starting place. Supposedly, there's a wizard there who has managed to make the philosophers' stone."

The legend of the philosophers' stone claimed that it could turn any metal to pure gold by merely touching it. Intriguing, but this was not what interested Xanatos most about the stone, nor would it really be of much use to him. The stone was also said to produce the elixir of life, a serum that restored youth to any man who drank it. Xanatos was skeptical, but surely immortality, by any means, was worth looking into. He reached out to take the glass from Kelsier.

2 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

Honestly I should just accept that people are gonna do it and stop complaining.

Maybe.

2 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

Honestly I should just accept that people are gonna do it and stop complaining.

I believe Brandon has said that the surgepairs as we see them are "natural" pairs, that Adhesion and Gravitation (for example) are already paired up in the framework of Roshar's system, the attributes that lead to an Invested Art in the first place when a Shard settles in and Invests the planet. So Honor just cut along the lines that were laid out for him, and went with that for the Honorblades.

So I think each Harmonyblade/spear would give a person a metal and its alloy as powers.

Hmmm. So would that mean someone would, for example, become a compounder of both iron and steel? Or maybe just get the allomantic, or just the feruchemical powers of those metals. Let's assume the latter. That means, assuming there's only one Harmonyspear for each unique powerset, there would be eight allomancy spears and eight feruchemy spears. Sixteen. Very nice.

2 minutes ago, Halyo_Alex said:

Sigh.... Why does EVERYBODY misspell that.

Oops.

3 minutes ago, Halyo_Alex said:

I mean, the Honorblades can be summoned and dismissed even though they're basically pure Tanavastium. I wonder if Honor had to do something specific to them? Although, yeah, he must have; they all grant different Surge-pairs. So they're not just raw/shaped Tanavastium, they have something extra that Connects them to the Surges that can then be exploited by whoever's bonded to the Blade to then Surgebind.

Right. This also makes me consider, would the Harmonyspears grant all the powers, or just a few? I think it's safe to say that the surges are very similar to the mistborn/feruchemist powers, at least in that they can be sensed with A-bronze. So the fact that each Honorblade only grants 2 surges is probably significant. I mean, at the end of Oathbringer, we see Amaram using what appears to be all 9 voidbinding powers, although that's a little different in that he 'bonded' Yelig-nar, a living spren, rather than a blade of some kind. But still, that means someone could use more than 2 surges at once, so why limit the Heralds like that? Why not give all the Heralds all the powers? (Possibly just because the magic would be less interesting that way.) Maybe it was possible, but something about the nature of the Oathpact made it make more sense to have 10 heralds with 2 surges each.

On 12/29/2020 at 0:28 PM, Chinkoln said:

Well, there is a WoB out there saying that is he wanted to, Harmony could create lerasium and atium separate from one another. What he could do is make individual blades. A lerasium blade that grants Mistborn powers, and an atium blade that grants Feruchemical powers (I am aware that Ruin controlled Hemalurgy and not Feruchemy, but Atium needs to control something. If Feruchemy had its own metal, it would bring us back to the Ettmetal dilemma).

This is a pretty cool idea. I agree that Atium probably wouldn't grant Feruchemy. Maybe conjoin this theory with @The Titan God's, and say if more atium is present in the alloy, then it'll be a feruchemical harmonyspear, and if there's more lerasium then it's an allomantic one. 

On 12/29/2020 at 10:15 AM, Raphaborn said:

Well, it's true that Honorblades are made of Tanavastium, but that doesn't mean that to do something similar, Harmony would need Ettmetal. We already know that Nicrosilminds can be used to do something similar, after all, and we know that Harmony can fuel Allomancers and Feruchemists with Mists. So creating another version (or even an improved version) of the Bands would be quite simple.

You're right, the Bands do pretty much exactly what I'm proposing, and recreating those might be within Harmony's abilities. However, I'm saying he could maybe create something akin to the Honorblades, and presumably made out of Harmony's godmetal. Although, as Haylo_Alex points out,

On 12/29/2020 at 1:07 PM, Halyo_Alex said:

Not an Ettmetal weapon, but an alloy of Lerasium and Atium? (Leratium?)

I think Ettmetal explodes because each particle has the Intent of both Ruin and Preservation. Leratium would be a mix of particles with Ruin's intent and particles with preservation's intent, not both. Hence, no exploding.

And I mean, Spren Shardblades are alloys of Honor and Cultivation's Godmetals, if I'm not mistaken.

it might be more reasonable to make the harmonyspears out of an alloy of lerasium and atium. Also, that would probably not be so explosive. I think you have a really good point about fueling the power with the mists; I read on the Coppermind that the Heralds were "powered directly by Honor" which is about the equivalent of drawing upon the mists.

As a sidenote: I wonder if these theoretical 'harmonyspears' could be summoned or dismissed like the honorblades. Now, shardblades can be summoned and dismissed because they're spren, which reside mostly in the cognitive realm but can manifest in the physical realm through a bond with something that already lives there, usually a human. But we're not talking about regular shardblades. These are "pieces of [a Shard's] soul" (source) that grant the user direct access to the Shard's essence. To be honest, I'm not sure how different that is from a spren, but I doubt the Honorblades themselves were ever conscious to any degree. I guess I don't see why they couldn't be able to be summoned or dismissed. But I don't really have much evidence that they would be.

1 minute ago, Shard of Thought said:

 

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Cool.

1 minute ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

 

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Well, that's probably okay. I mean, I doubt Raven is using Hemalurgy for anything. By the way, is Raven still even our main villain?

24 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

 

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I'm sure he'll find out eventually. He just needs to get off his butt and join the rest of you! Unfortunately, he's happy where he is. That's why I wrote Lucas. >:)

The following morning, as Tomsel ate, he considered the boy's request. Just an idle thought, of course; Tomsel was no fighting man. Well, he'd tried sports in school - wrestling, boxing, even fencing - but he hadn't been good at any of them. Using pewter was against the rules in normal matches, and it seemed that all the competitors in the pewter leagues had dedicated their lives to their sports. He would likely find the same situation in the roughs. Who lived out there but career criminals? Tomsel wouldn't have a fighting chance against those kinds of men, not even with pewter. Besides, there were firearms nowadays that could deal just as much damage to a thug as any other man. Tomsel would be no use to the boy's family. They would just have to survive on their own.

Lucas sulked up the stairs to Mr. Cett's laboratory. Would it have been better to tell the truth? Probably not. If sympathy wouldn't get that old man away from his vials and stills, then nothing would. Pushing open the door to the laboratory's main room, Lucas looked around. There was Mr. Cett, standing behind his desk as if he hadn't moved since Lucas left the day before. He barely acknowledged Lucas, who washed his hands before donning his borrowed laboratory gloves and goggles; they would be casting allomantic beads today. Those, once cooled, would be covered with a thin wax coating to prevent them from tarnishing, then sold to a distributor who would put them in vials with whatever solution the consumers were likely to buy. (Some preferred the traditional alcohol solution, others who were buying in bulk tended to opt for water, and, interestingly, there seemed to be some market for cod liver oil.)

"Fetch the molds, boy." Mr. Cett's hoarse voice was impassive and calm. Their exchange of the day before was to have no lasting effect on their relationship, then. Lucas couldn't let himself be ignored like that. He needed this man's help. But now was not the time to press things.

"As you wish," the boy replied in a subservient tone. Good. Tomsel had worried the boy would resent him after what had happened yesterday. Truly, he did feel a little sorry for having sworn at the young man. It was just the request of a naive boy trying his best to take care of his family. How could Tomsel blame him?

I didn't want to start a new topic about this, but I scoured the forums, the coppermind, and even a few WoB's and I didn't find anything helpful. According to one small blip on the coppermind:

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The metals are usually ingested by drinking specifically prepared metal vials, which contain metal flakes suspended in an alcohol solution or other such liquid, e.g. cod oil.

That's very nice, but it makes no mention of dust or beads. I know just from memory that both of those were somewhat common ways to ingest metals. Kelsier and Vin take beads of pewter when they run to try to stop Yeden from getting the army slaughtered. Atium seems to only come in bead form, due to the nature of the pits, so I won't focus too much on that. (And I don't know where exactly the Lerasium beads came from, so I won't focus on that either.)

Then, we also hear about Spook swallowing tin dust in Urteau, and I'm pretty sure Breeze eats brass dust at some point.

Okay, that's not really why I'm here. What I really want to know is how big the beads are. At first, I imagined about the size of a blueberry, before I realized how hard that would be for many people to swallow whole. Now I'm imagining roughly pea-sized, although that might still make them hard to swallow if you're doing several at once. I suppose they could be tiny prills of metal. That would make sense, and be closer to the size of dust and flakes. But no, because when Zane give Vin a bead of what looks like atium, it turns out to be a bead of lead that was just coated with atium. So they can't be that small. And the beads of lerasium probably aren't quite that small either.

If we have to continue relying on conjecture alone, I will assume that either:

• beads of metal vary in size depending on what kind of metal they are, where you got them, etc.
• Or most beads are roughly pea-sized, maybe a little smaller.

I guess I'm kind of pitching this out there to see if anyone has some information I couldn't find. But, since many of the minds on here are more brilliant than I, feel free to theorize further on this ultimately inconsequential topic.

I think Mistborn could make an excellent video game. All of the (allomantic) powers are pretty close to powers we already see in video games. Steel and iron behave similarly to telekinesis spells, tin and bronze senses would be easy to reproduce, etc. Brass and Zinc are more useful outside of combat, but they could be programmed too.

Imagine trying to make a video game out of the ten surges, though. You'd have to bring up a GUI for every individual lashing. Soulcasting would have to be extremely simple, and tension . . . Well, I'm not much of a programmer, but I know it would be almost impossible.

1 hour ago, Lecky Twig said:

She must of been an emotional allomancer aswell, or at least . . .

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*must have been

EXT: Elendel, first octant. It's evening, and rain is falling lightly over the city.

Camera pans down to the third-story window of a red brick building. Inside is seen a man in his fifties, with trimmed white hair surrounding his bald scalp. He's standing, tinkering with an apparatus at his desk. As the camera zooms slowly in, he mumbles to himself.

". . . and that way, we won't have that problem anymore. . . . But then it'll get in the way of this."

Tomsel was so focused on his work that he didn't notice the boy step into the open doorway.

"Sir?"

Tomsel looked up. "What is it?" He noticed the hoarseness in his own voice. Yes, he was getting old. But he could still work. Pewter gave his fingers the dexterity of a man half his age, and his mind was as good as ever. If, sometimes, forgetful.

"I was wondering if . . . well, it's about my family."

"Don't worry, boy, I haven't forgotten. Just wait until the end of the week and I'll pay you the full amount." The boy, Lucas, had approached him several times about finances. His family, though poor, had sent him to Elendel University to study chemistry. He hadn't had enough for the full tuition though, so he'd looked for ways to earn money to continue his classes. When his professor found out, she introduced him to Tomsel, who had agreed to hire the boy for odd jobs around his laboratory. It helped to have a second pair of hands sometimes.

"Oh, it's . . . something else. Well, . . ." He was clearly very nervous, shifting his weight from one foot to the other in quick succession.

"Out with it, boy! You've clearly got something to say. Well, say it. I won't stand around waiting for the Survivor's own beard to grow."

"Um, alright. It's my father. He joined a mining crew for Lord Venture. But see, the thing is, um . . . Most of the other men in town joined the Lekal mining crew, and with all the tensions over this new aluminum mine, I'm worried my family won't be safe."

Tomsel thought for a moment. Out in the roughs, Lucas's father's actions might be seen as a sort of betrayal by the other men in town. They would feel as though he had put himself above them somehow, by supporting the opposition. Tomsel could understand the boy's worries. His family would no doubt be shunned, even harassed by the other townsfolk.

"Alright . . ." Tomsel prodded. When the boy didn't continue, Tomsel prodded further. "I still don't see what you want me to do about it."

"Well," The boy looked down. "You - you're a pewterarm. I thought, maybe you could come out and, um, protect my family while my father's away in the mines."

Tomsel sputtered. "P-protect??? Boy, I'm a rusting SCI-EN-TIST, not a mercenary! How could-  Why would you-  Rust and Ruin, boy!"

Lucas had reeled back at Tomsel's outburst, tenacity gone. Words sprung from his mouth in quick succession: "Well, um, thankyou for considering it mister Cett, sir, I hope I'm dismissed for the day." The boy retreated from the laboratory. Tomsel listened to the boy's footsteps pounding down the stairs, then reached for the mug on his desk. It was empty, unfortunately. He sighed, strolling in the direction of the kitchens, where he hoped to find a pot of hot tea.

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If you're wondering why I'm starting in Elendel, it's because I need to explain how a scientist got caught up in this mess and dragged all the way to the roughs.

I have two characters for now:

Spoiler

Tomsel Cett, distantly related to Edwarn Ladrian, but not well acquainted with him.

Appearance: He's 50, so he has white hair that surrounds his bald scalp, and a full beard, which he keeps neatly trimmed. He's not one of the most physically fit guys out there, but he's neither fat nor skinny. He enjoys wearing white or lightly-colored suits, with a striped shirt underneath. If he's working though, he'll probably wear something more sturdy that can be washed more often.

Powers: Thug

Occupation: successful metallurgist

Religion: Survivorist. He doesn't like the idea that Harmony is always watching everything, and also the teachings of the Church of the Survivor tend to be in line with his personal philosophies.

Spoiler

Lucas Venet

Appearance: 15-year-old boy with light brown hair and blue eyes. He wears what he can afford, which is equivalent to farmer's clothes. Imagine Frodo's outfit from Return of the King, but it actually fits. Something like that.

Powers: none

Occupation: Chemistry student

Religion: None, but he'll swear by the Survivor.

 

So on Roshar we have the ten surges. The Heralds were given special magic swords, later known as the Honorblades, which granted them access to these mystical powers. As a matter of fact, anyone who bonds one of these blades is granted access to its surges. We also know that spren saw this, and decided they could mimic it. If a spren bonds with a human, through a process known as the Nahel bond, they can grant said human access to the surges as well, and even manifest physically as a replica of one of these swords.

Jump cut to Scadrial, where we have a different kind of bond. But is it really so different after all? Sure, the powers are a little different, and you get them not by acting a certain way, but just by having the right amount of investiture in your bloodline. Remember though - something of the Nahel bond is hereditary too. No, not the powers, unfortunately, but there is a physiological difference between the offspring of a surgebinder and the offspring of anyone else. Their eyes.

Okay, so what exactly is @Narcoleptic Axolotl proposing here, (you might ask yourself)? Well, I'm glad you asked. . . . yourself. . . . Whatever. I think it's reasonable that Harmony could create weapons that would bestow upon the holder all the powers of a mistborn and full feruchemist. Not totally unlike what the Bands did. You would still need your own metals and metalminds, just like Szeth still needed his own stormlight. And, just like the honorblades, these 'harmonyblades' wouldn't allow for quite the level of efficiency that an invested person can operate with. That meaning, you would have to flare your metals higher to get the same strength a mistborn has. And, while it's not clear what a lack of efficiency in feruchemy would mean, you'd have that too.

Now, let's consider the last of the metallic arts. Hemalurgy. I don't think it makes any sense to think the harmonyblade would grant hemalurgic power, unless holding it made you perfectly aware of all the hemalurgic bind points. As useful as that might be, that's not the most interesting aspect of the harmonyblade with hemalurgy. We can assume that the honorblades, like shardblades, are made of Honor's godmetal, Tanavastium. (This WoB is a little confusing, but I've highlighted the part that matters.)

So presumably these harmonyblades (maybe harmony-spears, given the spear's significance in Scadrian history) would be made of Harmony's godmetal, Harmonium aka Ettmetal. So, hypothetical scenario, someone's using a harmonyspear and stabs a metalborn. What happens? What attribute is stolen? Surely not nothing. We know godmetals can steal attributes: (again, you need only read the highlighted part.)

Well, that's where I come up short. According to the coppermind, Harmonium is extremely reactive with water, and of course blood is like 98% water. (Disclaimer: don't know for sure about that and don't care.) So a spike made of harmonium would be pretty impractical. Maybe stabbing someone with your harmonyspear is a bad idea, because as soon as it pierces the skin, your spearhead starts exploding. Imagine that.

Maybe go with a warhammer then? Maybe don't use it as a weapon. After all, its most useful aspect is granting you all allomantic and feruchemical powers. With those, you almost don't need a sword. Just go with obsidian daggers or something, that's stylish in its own way.

Okay, that's all I got. Interesting stuff, right?

So, I was doing research for another theory and I ran across this WoB:

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DTF_20170515

Why refrigerate food when you can just stamp spoiled food so that it was stored properly before?

Aurora_Fatalis

You'll have to ask Brandon how that'd interact with gastric acid breaking down the stamp. Or how porous/loose material interacts with stamps in the first place.

Come to think of it... There's a WoB saying the Nightwatcher could change your species, but have a hard time making a spren bond to you. So... could the Nightwatcher turn you Scadrian and make you eligible for Allomantic powers? Or does the Nightwatcher's boons operate on soulstamp principles?

Hell, let's say you bought a vial of the wrong metal on your field trip to Sel. Could you pay a Forger to stamp the vial into being a vial of the right metal (it's believable that you would check before such an important trip) and then drink the metal contained in the vial to fuel your Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

All right, all right. Let's see... /u/Aurora_Fatalis, changing metals around with other forms of Investiture is generally going to work, according to how I view the magic right now. The power is there, you just need to align the matter the right way. So forging new metals: not too difficult. This is because Allomancy isn't actually using Investiture in the metals, but using it as a key to get power from somewhere else.

Forging a sword to be a Shardblade, however, would be very, very difficult for multiple reasons. The most obvious one is that the Investiture required would be enormous. A Shardblade is a highly-Invested object, with its own self-aware soul.

If you could overcome the initial resistance invested objects have to being influenced by other magics (something that Forgery is particularly good at doing anyway) you'd theoretically be able to change Shardblade/spren's personality like you could a person's.

Fooling the magic via Connection and Identity is not so hard, under the right circumstances, so making a Forger into an Elantrian (or an Allomancer) for a short time is plausible. Making yourself into a Radiant, however, would be more difficult--because the limitations placed on that magic have to do with persuading a sapient being you are worth the bond.

Aurora_Fatalis

How about regular food? If I stamp a pineapple pizza into a pepperoni pizza and eat it, what nutrients do I end up with?

Brandon Sanderson

The way I have it working now, I believe (though I'd have to do some double-checking, as it's been a while since I've been working on Sel) soulstamps are more fragile than things like Aons, and it would be very hard to eat something with one without breaking it. But assuming you could, you'd get nutrients from what it had become--but those would change back once the stamp broke or ran out.

It is possible to go so far down this rabbit hole, however, that the chemistry of Forging (like the physics of Allomancy) it just can't make sense any more. So be aware.

Oversleep

With things like Stamping metals for Allomancy, you have said that it'd be possible for short time, but then burning it would break the Seal and metal would revert back.

I guess it would be similar with food, right?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that's the big problem with Forging. Getting the stamp to stay in place once you start to change the object that has been stamped.

General Reddit 2018 (Aug. 27, 2018)

It got me thinking. Maybe you couldn't change a regular sword into a shardblade, because regular swords don't become shardblades. Shardblades are spren or tanavastium or something, and at no point in their past were they regular swords. But we do know an invested sword who was once a regular sword, namely Nightblood. Let's pretend the sword they invested when they made Nightblood was just sitting in a rack with a whole bunch of other swords, and they just grabbed one and shoved ten thousand breaths in it. Then, let's say someone collected the rest of the swords from that rack, maybe the rest of the swords in that room, and took them to a forger. Asked the forger to stamp each one of the extra swords so it became the awakened sword. Then handed out their new awakened swords to their personal guard, or an elite branch of their military.

I'm guessing such investiture-hacking is impossible for some reason, but it seems like such a cool way to get magic swords. And sure, maybe the stamp wouldn't stick for very long, but how long do you need to kill somebody? That sounds dark. Um, anyway, you could just stamp your sword before every fight, and destroy all the evil.

9 hours ago, The Titan God said:

Does the size of a metalmind affect how much of an attribute you can store?

Yes, the volume of the metal does affect the amount you can store in it. From the coppermind:

Quote

A larger piece of metal will be able to store more of an attribute . . .

Edit: if you want a direct WoB,

Quote

Questioner

I was wondering if the size of a piece of metal determines the amount of Feruchemical charge that can be stored in it.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

So how does that scale, like, in terms of the volume or mass of the metal or...

Brandon Sanderson

It-- So I've talked about this before, I'm trying to remember exactly what I've told people-- It does not scale as logically as you think it does. How about that? It's more like certain thresholds. You can have a-- You can store a Hemalurgic or Feruchemical charge even in very small pieces of metal, but larger pieces of metal will let you get more.

Questioner

So it's kind of like there are different classes of sizes?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, kind of like that.

JordanCon 2016 (April 23, 2016)