Chromium Compounder

I had a big huge response to this, and then when I tried to post I found out my internet had gone down and I lost it. Grrr! Let me try to paraphrase it: After thinking about this some more I've decided that Feruchemy is more complicated than I used to think. There are at least three styles of Feruchemy storage. The normal method is quantitative. The most clear example of this is with Wayne storing his health in gold. He can control how fast to fill or tap his metal minds. If he wants to fill it fast he has to make himself very unhealthy, but if he can't afford to do that he can just give himself a mild cold. It won't fill the metalminds as fast, but it's better than nothing. Senses, speed, strength, and mental speed work the same. Wakefulness is a little different. You can't choose how fast to fill or tap it, only how long to do so. I would classify this as a boolean style of storage. The most interesting we've seen is memory. If I were to make storing memory work with the quantitative method it would be that while you were storing you would have trouble remembering things. It could be anything from bad remembering names and birthdays, to absentminded, to full on Alzheimer's. You wouldn't be storing specific memories, but the ability to remember. If you were tapping memory it would go in the opposite direction, taking you from normal to having a very good memory or all the way up to photographic memory. While this would be useful, it's not as powerful as the Memory abilities that Sazed uses. Sazed doesn't store memory so much as he stores memories. Not once does he talk about storing or tapping a piece of a memory. How would you even define such a thing? But with the normal Feruchemical abilities it's easy to see how he would store strength for ten minutes then only tap half of it to get just a little boost, saving the rest for later. That never happens with memory. In fact, it looks to me like time isn't involved with storing memories. You just focus on the memory you want to store, and then suddenly the entire memory is stored. The same goes for tapping memories. You find where you stored the memory, and then tap it to instantly remember the whole thing. Memories are stored in chunks, while most Feruchemy stores things like a fluid. I would call this an atomic style. Another big difference between the normal quantitative style of storing and the atomic style is that with the quantitative style you are only diminished while you are storing. Wax doesn't permanently store his weight in his metal minds. To stay light on his feet he has to be constantly storing. With memories though you store it and then it's gone until you tap it. So between storing and tapping you are diminished with memory, but with most attributes you're only diminished while storing. So, bringing the conversation back to the main topic, I think Investiture would use an atomic style, rather than a quantitative style. This would mean that you would just focus on the investiture you want to store, and then it would be gone into the Nicrosil until you choose to tap it. We don't know what would happen if someone were to do Copper Compounding, but I'm betting it would have to be quite different from the kinds of Compounding we see with quantitative style Feruchemy. It's possible that it would do nothing besides restore the memory. Or perhaps it would restore the memory but it would be supercharged (If anyone else reads Dresden Files, I'm thinking of powerful memories like Harry's memories from when he uses the Sight). Or perhaps it would do something completely unexpected, like opening a portal to Shadesmar. IDK. The point is that now after thinking about all this stuff, I think that storing Investiture in Nicrosil would work like storing memories, so there's no time involved, you're diminished between storing and tapping, and compounding it could have a number of possible effects that I don't feel confident I could predict until at the very least we know what would happen if someone were to do Copper Compounding. And now that I've spent so much time talking about Feruchemy, I think I'll try to avoid it for the remainder of my posts on this thread. Maybe I'll try to think of fun ways to combine Forgery with other Realmatic arts.

I don't think it would cease to be Breath when stored in Nicrosil. I'm saying Breath is already a type of investiture, and Nicrosil stores investiture. Just as Tin stores senses such as Sight, Smell, Hearing, and Touch, Nicrosil can store any type of investiture. Breath is investiture, so store it and then compound it. Actually, I was thinking about this some more. Feruchemy has a time component to everything that is stored. Five minutes at half your eyesight can then be drawn on for five minutes of 50% better eyesight, etc. How would the time component work for storing investiture?

While that could be fun, I think the point of the topic was more as a way of exploring the cosmere, rather than just to mix different magic systems. Part of what's great about Brandon's Cosmere books is that they're all in the same universe, and while we talk about different magic systems, it's all actually one magic system. Each 'magic system' would be better off being referred to as a magical art. There is only one magic system for all of the Cosmere, but it's manifest in a number of different ways through a handful of variables. I think this thread is more about looking at the interactions between magic systems or arts along the lines of Compounding, as well as how to effectively use multiple arts together (like how Wax uses Allomancy and Feruchemy sans Compounding). And with the stuff I posted earlier, about storing Breath in Nicrosil: One thing it looks like everyone missed was that I was talking about Feruchemically storing it, not simply storing it through Awakening. Nicrosil stores investiture, and Breath is investiture. I figured that would insure that it would qualify for Compounding. It's possible that Breath stored through Awakening in a metal would also get Compounded if the metal were burned, but that's just an extra bit to speculate about. To avoid that part I decided to use Feruchemical nicrosil.

Feruchemically storing your Breath Investiture in some Nicrosil, then Allomantically burning it. I'm guessing this would superpower the Breath, possibly even turning each Breath into a Divine Breath. EDIT: I bet Stormlight could be stored in Nicrosil as well, but compounding it would probably just give you a lot of it.

Interesting. I've always been of the impression that Atium is the way for Scadrians to enter Shadesmar, but you make some good points. I wonder what you would have to do differently while burning the Atium in order to enter Shadesmar. While I love the metallic arts, they seem far less robust than the magics of other worlds. I believe that's because Preservation and Ruin are both primarily physical, and while they rock at what they do, it does seem kind of unfair.

Fun ideas. I think the only time we've ever seen Zinc Feruchemy used was in WoA, and we didn't see it very good that time, but I've always pictured it more along the lines of bullet time. Your mind is racing so fast that it's like everything around you is going slow. You can't move your body any faster (unless you can also do Steel Feruchemy), but you've got lots of time to think about what to do. Zinc Compounding would be pretty powerful. If I could do it I think I'd try to keep the Feruchemy secret. The Allomancy is harder to hide, but you could be awesome by Compounding the Feruchemy without anyone knowing why.

Ah, the probably was your terminology. AonDor is the magic system. The symbols are Aons. You mean a carved Aon. Yes, teleporting a carved Aon to somewhere that AonDor can't be used would be useless.

Yeah, that does cover the same basic premise I was thinking of. I hadn't seen that one, and it didn't come up when I was searching before posting this. By the way, I'm of the opinion that the contents of a container aren't an integral part of the container itself, so forging it to be full wouldn't work.

I've been wondering for a while now what would happen if a forged item were to be broken, without breaking the seal. If the break were to break the seal, then I would assume that as soon as it does then the item were return to normal, plus whatever changes have happened to it since the seal was placed, which in this case includes the break. But what if the seal weren't to break. Shai mentions that if she were to be chained she could forge the chain to have a weak link. The chain is a whole object, so the seal would affect the whole chain. In that case the only change is the weak link, but what if instead you were to forge it to have thinner links. Instead of big fat quarter inch wide links, you forge it to have skinny little sixteenth inch links. Then you break the chain. This makes it so the chain is no longer whole, and at some point, probably fairly quickly, the chain is no longer going to see itself as a single entity. What would that do? I can imagine three possibilities. One is that the forgery will maintain the chain's cognitive or spiritual aspect, forcing it to continue to view itself as a single object, and thereby maintaining the change to the chain until the seal is broken. I don't think this one is very likely, but certainly possible. Second is that the pieces of the chain which are no longer part of the portion of the chain which still has the seal will revert to their natural form, while the portion with the seal will remain changed. I think this one is the most likely. The third option is that the chain is changed so much by the break that the seal is no longer able to work on the chain and the seal fades. At first I thought this quite likely, but then I thought about how the emperor's seal is able to handle him learning, growing, and changing in time. Yes, the seal has to be reapplied every day, but if those changes were to make it so the seal wouldn't work then there would be the risk of his personality changing to the point that one day the seal wouldn't take. So, I think seals are unaffected by what happens to the forged item or person after the seal is forged. Another way to put this is that Forgery rewrites the past, and the past is unaffected by the future.

What does that even mean? AonDor is the magic. It's immaterial.

Awaken a whoopie cushion to 'Breathe'.

Useless, but it wouldn't work. Bronze only lets you detect pulses from other people.

I think it would make more sense if the word unconsciously were replaced with instinctively. No one ever said you can't burn a metal without realizing it. They said you can't do it in your sleep (apart from pewter). Her body, or perhaps her spirit or her subconscious, knows what the metals are for, and she was using them with those purposes without realizing it. This would explain why it's said that under normal circumstances only pewter can be burned in your sleep. Your body or whatever knows that pewter will help you heal, so even if you're asleep it will use it to do so. Other metals are essentially useless when you're asleep, whether you're injured or not. Perhaps if you were exceedingly tired and you had brass you might soothe people around you to leave you alone while you were asleep, but that's pretty complicated and abstract. Burning pewter to heal is simple.

Using a Hemalurgic Spike to steal Feruchemical Nicrosil.

Storing Spiritual Connection in Duralumin to get some me time.

Brass Compounding to pop popcorn.

Doing something unconsciously (without consciously making the decision to do so and without knowing you are doing so) isn't the same as doing it while unconscious (asleep).

No problem. I'm not surprised it's been posited before. I rarely have time to search through older posts, and I haven't been in 17th shard that long.

I've always believed that given enough time she would have become as locked in as Leras was. I don't think the Ruin in her would have been able to stay and maintain her freedom for long. The main reason Harmony has as much freedom as he does is that he holds both shards, and I don't think even he is completely free.

In my recent rereading of Warbreaker I started thinking about how Awakening works and why it requires color. The color part always seemed weird to me, but I started thinking about it, and I think it's because all the magics of the Cosmere use something from each of the three realms in order to work. For Awakening the three things are Breath (Spiritual), Color (Physical), and Commands (Cognitive). That one's really clear to me now, but I'm still working out how the other magics we know of touch on the three realms. I'm going to try to work them out here. AonDor is I think another fairly simple one. Writing is inherently something of both physical and cognitive, so then all that's left is the spiritual. I think the spiritual part can be represented by the Shaod. The Elantrians themselves have been touched spiritually, giving them access to the last part required to make AonDor work. Forgery is similar. It still uses writing, but of course the Shaod isn't involved. Shai says that anyone can learn Forgery, though that might need to be qualified by place of birth or nationality. In any case, there doesn't seem to be any kind of spiritual change to a forger akin to the Shaod. So they must be getting the spiritual aspect from somewhere else. It could be argued that the spiritual comes from the fact that they're stamping the soul of the object, animal, or person they're forging and that is the spiritual aspect. That could be where they get it, but it could also be from the ink. Shai says it has to be organic, and animal ink is better than plant based ink. It's possible they're somehow drawing on the spiritual aspects of the organic ink. Either way, it's fairly clear that Forgery also uses all three realms. Dakhor and especially ChayShan I don't think we know enough about how they work for discussion, but Blood Sealing is very similar to Forgery and either the soul of the person being sealed or the soul of their blood would provide the spiritual aspect. That brings us to the Metallic Arts. Allomancy has a spiritual aspect similar to AonDor with the Shaod. Allomancers have to Snap, which requires that they have the sDNA for Allomancy, but similar to the Shaod, Snapping could be seen as being touched spiritually. The metal of course accounts for the physical, and the Allomancer's decision to burn it could account for the cognitive. For Feruchemy there doesn't seem to be anything akin to Snapping or the Shaod. Maybe there is something, but if there were I think we would have heard something about it by now. I don't think Feruchemy needs anything like Snapping though because the spiritual aspect comes from the Feruchemists themselves. Feruchemy requires metal (physical) and the conscious or subconscious (when storing wakefulness) decision of the Feruchemist to store or tap with the metal (cognitive), and the thing they're storing could be seen as primarily spiritual. That can be hard to see for some of the things they store, particularly strength as it physically changes their bodies, but I still think it's primarily spiritual. Hemalurgy of course is quite different from Allomancy and Feruchemy, but for this discussion it's fairly simple. The metal is the physical, the spiritual comes from the person killed to make it into a Spike. The cognitive is a little harder to see, but it's a little easier when you consider the Kandra. Kandra gain the ability to think and reason like a person no matter what blessing they receive. This tells me that all Hemalurgic Spikes also steal some cognitive ability from the person killed. That of course brings us to Roshar and its strange myriad of magics. There are four magics we know more about than any others on Roshar: Surgebinding, Soulcasting, Fabrials, and Shards. Surgebinding I believe the spiritual comes from the stormlight. The physical comes from breathing, and the cognitive comes from the surgebinder's mind doing the lashings. Spren and oaths most likely help the spiritual aspect. Soulcasting I'm not sure where the physical comes in, but the spiritual again is the stormlight and the cognitive comes from the truth revealed. Perhaps the physical comes from the gem, which is why different gem's are used for different essences, while the type of gem doesn't matter to surgebinding, as surgebinding's physical aspect is breathing. Also the fact that the cognitive is not really coming from the soulcaster, but from the truth revealed could be part of why it's hard to control the exact results of a soulcasting. The soulcaster can undoubtedly effect the soulcasting with their thoughts, but it's limited. Or maybe the cognitive does come from the soulcaster mentally directing the soulcasting whilst in shadesmar, and the truth revealed is akin to oaths for surgebinding. Fabrials are physical devices, but crafting them is a scientific endeavor (cognitive), and they too feed off stormlight (spiritual). Shardplate is like an insanely complicated and powerful Fabrial. There's probably more to it than that, but I don't think we know enough about them yet to discuss further. Shardblades are summoned mentally, and while they are physical they are also spiritual (as evidenced by how they react when cutting through living things). The old magic, the thrill, and any other things which have been hinted at I'm not going to bother with right now because we don't know enough. So, that's the idea that's been bouncing around my head the last couple days. Just thought I'd share. Feel free to rip it to shreds.

Pretty sure he was. I suppose Lerasium is another exception.

I'm pretty sure it specifically says that normally pewter is the only metal that can be burned when you're unconscious.

I like the idea, but I don't think there will be 16 more metals (unless you count alloys of the god metals). I do believe there will be more for us to learn about the metallic arts, but not new pure metals.

So you're saying there should be 16 pure metals and 16 alloys, instead of 8 and 8 like we have now.

I don't think this one would work. I think the only metal that can be burned while asleep (with the possible exception of savants) is pewter (the body instinctively will burn it when you're injured). The one about forging yourself into a coma could probably work though. Of course, it would only last for a day, so if you were REALLY tired, you could do this to get a full day's sleep. Not sure how restful coma sleep is though.