drunkenbotanist

On 2/2/2024 at 2:48 PM, WandererNearby said:

This is explained by the Cinderking knowing how to recharge sunhearts or by the Beaconites using their sunhearts up faster. I can come up with some reasonable guesses based the second alone. Lets say that every sunheart starts out with 200 BEU's. Beaconite usage requires permanently staying aloft in a thunderstorm so it uses 1 per day for flight, heating, lighting, and etc.. Normal usage requires less heating for the ships and much less flight time so it only uses .25 per day. At those rates, a regular city would need to produce a new sunheart for every ship every 800 days and Beacon would need one every 200 days. Assuming 18 people per ship and the older person dies every time this would mean about 39-40 years of life on a regular ship and about 10 years of life on the Beaconite ship. The regular life would be possible. It isn't fun but it's possible especially when you consider that they're are invested so disease is less of a worry and they have access to a lot of modern conveniences like indoor plumbing and heat. 

The 200 number I believe comes from this quote

"Hmmm… Aux said. I’d guess around two hundred BEUs in this one. Far less than what powers a full ship."

But the quote makes clear that a fresh or whole sunheart contains more than 200 BEUs.

The story says that a sunheart can power a ship for months, but that the cinderking has prevented them from picking up sunhearts at dawn, so their supplies have been dwindling 

Not brought up here also is that this reading I think would have not have had the normal amounts of continuity edits that the books get, which could change very specific details

I imagined it either worked the same way shard plate did where it's still flexible and has distinct parts, but is airtight at all "seams". 

Smaller links between the links and smaller links between those links etc etc 

Or instead if being a chain like you think where it's {(}{)(}{)}

It's more like O-O-O-O where it's a solid piece

"Adonalsium-Will-Get-Us-Off-This-Rock"

9 hours ago, A Simple Pilgrim said:

Wasn't it stated somewhere that there were going to be 3 major empires in the space age: Scadrial, Roshar, and Sel?

He's mentioned that there are four main systems, scadrial, Roshar, sel, and taldain. And I think it was in the context of the four main groups in space age cosmere

It's also possible the device did the allomancy not her, like a special form of allomantic grenade.

I also it's because a ) Hoid is conservative with investiture and b ) he doesn't want to end up somewhere random

On 10/5/2023 at 9:40 AM, robardin said:

The incurring of weight without the corresponding "strength to move at a normal speed" isn't what struck me as the most surprising thing about the obviously Feruchemy based mechanism of the Scadrian manacle.

After all, he WAS able to stand up after being knocked down while wearing it, time and again; nothing was ever said before (I don't think) about tapping an ironmind for weight allowing for "normal speed of movement", only that one would still have the strength "to stand" (like when Sazed massively tapped his ironmind to hold fast a gate at Elendel against all the koloss straining to knock it down from the other side).

No, the big head-scratcher is that such a metalmind was able to "push" weight onto Nomad instead of giving him a reservoir of weight to tap (with Intent). And even without him knowing what it was (a necessary component to using an unsealed metalmind as of Wax and Wayne).

AFAIK, the only Investiture we've seen so far that could be "pushed" onto an unsuspecting or unwilling target is Breath, as in Warbreaker. Unless you count Marsh's forced conversion to being an Inquisitor, I suppose.

And even then, what was given in that way was Investiture that granted abilities, not an attribute or effect.

I wonder what other Feruchemical attributes so pushed might be considered an unwelcome burden? A tinmind that blinded or stunned someone with light or sound sensitivity?

Could you make a similar device to enable, and also to force someone to put up a very narrow cadmium slo-time bubble around themselves as a kind of imprisonment? LOL. I guess that'd have to come with some sneaky or forced pre-ingestion of cadmium.

This exactly

A goldmind like this creating awful vampire-like devices is pretty scary.

I noticed the same thing but interpreted the difference as it was because it was mechanical allomancy. It is semi -alive, and because of that either it's an issue of intent where that is what it is designed to do, and/or Sigzil doesn't get the benefits of feruchemy that help you withstand the effects with this type of device because the feruchemy isn't coming from him.

They tapped into the deep well of power always available to Threnodites: Misery and Puritan Angst

5 hours ago, therunner said:

True, but that is still 'just' a Dead Shardblade level. Living Shardblades are quite more versatile with their shapeshifting, especially if what we saw in Sunlit Man holds for other Radiants as well (e.g. provide Spren with enough Investiture and they can grow quite large).

And Nightblood is in league of its own, far beyond all other Shardblades. And that fact suggests that there is something more going on.

I just mean that Vivenna's blade is very dangerous and one could assume that having awakening that even reliably makes weapons as dangerous as a shard blade is scary and could maybe justify Vasher's actions even if Nightblood specifically is unique

Vivenna's weapon is still an extremely dangerous murder machine on the level of a dead shard blade 

So it only takes the scribes in Tashik to start selling luxury spanreads made of premium strong materials and now it's a guild of assassins

11 hours ago, Treamayne said:

This is the real "work" that Kalak's prelude does. It allows for the very first mention of the Heralds and Desolation to throw a red flag for the reader yelling "this does not match what I already know."

If there was any "mistake" in the beginning of WoK, it was leading off Ch 1 with Cenn's viewpoint. The result being that the first five "chapters" (PtoSA, P, CH 1,2,3) are all different viewpoints, leaving the reader confused as to which "story" matters and will be followed. Especially if they missed the Part One splash page that names the viewpoint characters for the section. In fact, when I recommend the book to friends, I make it a point to show them the splach page and the chapter headings and how they indicate viewpoint, so it makes the book easier to follow.

That said, even Cenn's viewpoint is important, since it sets up Kaladin's chapters to make you wonder how so much changed in eight months, as well as giving a frame of reference for that change.

 

I agree that there's a reason why most books don't have the 5 first chapters being difficult time periods, locations, and people, and I'm glad it's not common. But I do think it was necessary for the story Brandon wants to tell. I suspect that his team probably had this same argument with him

Human Shardipede incoming 

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And, unless drunkenbotanist is correct, an unchained Bondsmith ripping off a Connection from someone doesn't "invoke" Ruin. If he is, then any action involving forging a Bond would in fact invoke Honor. It does make for an interesting theory in and of itself, doesn't it?

I think you misread what I wrote. I maybe get why you interpreted it that way, but I think it's because you have some deep assumptions about how the magics are working that no one else does and you have only halfway spelled them out.

I actually firmly agree that Ishar's actions in no way invoke Ruin. Hemalurgy involves stealing chunks of souls in an organized magic system. 

It doesn't mean that all stealing of chunks of souls involves Ruin's magic system. Just as every bond formation or alteration of connection doesn't involve Honor's magic system/s. 

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Neither of the WoBs you cite say that compounding draws power from Preservation

Compounding causes allomancy to fuel feruchemical attributes. Instead of iron meaning "pull" when burned by an allomancer, feruchemical iron means "make heavier" or w/e. 

The form of the power changes. 

Allomancy is the source of the extra power -> Preservation is the source of the extra power.

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Overall, I must confess to not understanding your overall, fundamental issue with this. Way back at the start, you said that your objection was due to WoBs which flat-out disproved the notion that Hemalurgy was not a true invested art. But, from the ones that you've cited, nothing comes close to actual proof -- at best, you have convincing arguments that it's unlikely. It's enough to make me question exactly what your definition of invested art is. That is why I am extremely interested as to how you would classify those twenty items I listed so long ago.

The term "invested art" needs a hard concrete definition that contrasts it from other manifestations of cosmere magic only in the situation where your "leap" theory of "each shard can only provide 16 invested arts" is true.

But most confusingly

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I think the best way to identify the difference is this: Allomancy, and other invested arts, require a direct and physical Connection to the Shard (or Aether) behind it. In general, this means that the user is Invested by that Shard's Investiture. In Hemalurgy and Bonding, this is not the case -- they require a metaphorical Connection to the Shard.

I do not understand what is happening now. How can this be "the best way" to identify cosmere mechanics? "metaphorical Connection?"

We know what the requirement for Hemalurgy is: Intent. Intent is a mechanical part of invested arts/magic/whatever. Is intent your "metaphorical Connection? I don't see how this helps to describe anything because it just seems like it's conflating two things that are different: Intent and Connection. 

Hemalurgy requires intent, it requires metal, and it requires placement. 

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Questioner

Allomancy requires, you need to be either a Misting or a Mistborn to be able to do that. But Hemalurgy you just need to stab someone through the heart. So what would stop someone on Roshar from using Hemalurgy, because it's not Innate? Do you have to be in proximity to Ruin?

Brandon Sanderson

Intent is a big part of a lot of the magics, including Hemalurgy, meaning that you need to know what you're doing. Or somebody needs to-- There needs to be Intent involved in what's happening to you.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/96/#e3214

 

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But connection is investiture, if you're stealing connection, you ripping it off the soul, even with Bondsmithing. We kind of saw that with BAM and all Parsh - imprisoning her ripped connection from their souls. 

 

Oh, you're saying that during the spiking process, Ruin provides investiture to remove that piece of soul from the victim and attach it to the spike? The investiture Ruin provides is used only for cutting off and gluing pieces of souls, which are put into spikes. Make sense, it works like Feruchemy, where investiture from SR is provided to transform physical attributes into investiture, and back - but only for that. 

Yes exactly

3 hours ago, MistbornMathematician said:

I almost think it's kind of the opposite, in a way -- the ability to not use Investiture to do so does appear to be restricted to Hemalurgy. I find the best comparison here to be again Bonding, since you need no Investiture to Bond something, but every invested art that can force or mimic a Bond is more restricted and does indeed require Investiture to do so (except for Hemalurgy, you could say, but imo that doesn't technically force or mimic a Bond since it just moves it from one place to another without breaking it). 

Philosophically, I would say that there are these fundamental arcane systems to the Cosmere, each of which can be "hacked" by invested arts through use of Investiture, but can also be done entirely Investiture-free by using the proper Intent. I would wonder whether Yolish Lightweaving requires any internal Investiture, since if it doesn't (instead perhaps using ambient Investiture), it would be quite the striking vindication of the notion.

I basically disagree with everything you say here lol and think maybe you should make a post outlining what you want to say about Hemalurgy only first? And try to keep it separate from lerasium and things you're thinking about 16 types of powers? 

Allomancy and Hemalurgy work very similarly.

Allomancy: someone swallows specific metal. This combination of the metal used and the intent causes a bit of Preservation's power to be pulled from the spiritual realm to do a  specific thing, determined by intent and the metal used.

Hemalurgy: someone is stabbed with a bit of metal. The combination of where you stab the metal and what metal you use and the intent causes ~somehow (but specifically involving Ruin)~ a bit of the targets spiritweb to be ripped off. It does not mean that Ruin is investing either the victim or the stabber, but instead the magic of Hemalurgy takes place in the spiritual realm moving bits of souls around. 

(I'm just gonna as an aside say that while we don't have as much WOB on the mechanics of this, every bit of info we have says this act of slicing and dicing is Ruin's)

Now, in allomancy, Preservation's power doesn't care every time some rando swallows a quarter. To be noticed by the power, you have to have a little bit of Preservation's investiture in you. So allomancer's are a little more invested than a nonallomancer. 

In Hemalurgy, the intent to do hemalurgy when you are stabbing is sufficient to be noticed by the power. 

This difference isn't crazy to me. In awakening, all the power is given to people up front when they're born and Endowment isn't involved except to hand out more breaths. All the different shards have unique ways of obtaining access to their magics, and these are informed by the nature of the shard, per WOB.

Hemalurgy doesn't exist without Ruin. It can be used anywhere in the cosmere just like allomancy can, because the power can be accessed anywhere in the cosmere. It just doesn't require a hunk of Preservation's investiture up front to get any results. 

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Questioner

I'm trying to understand the relationship between Hemalurgy and the Shard Ruin. Most of the Invested Arts involve inputs of energy of the Shardic Investiture that corresponds to it. That doesn't seem to be the case for Feruchemy and Hemalurgy. So I'm wondering what the relationship is between the corresponding Shards and those two Metallic Arts.

 

Brandon Sanderson

There's a whole lot going on here, and I'm not sure how much I can get into right here. But one of the basic concepts I built for the cosmere, way back when, was that a lot of the different magics would be showing up in different systems. And there are certain underpinning fundamental rules. And this is why you'll see Lightweaving working the same way across three different magic systems; I think you've seen it in three different ones so far. Elsecalling's gonna work the same way. Hemalurgy is a thing that is, like, part of the nature of the cosmere, that the Shard simply knew and was able to tell people how to do

 

So is it of that Shard? Well, yes, because you would have to be following that Shard's Intent in order to use it. But it could be discovered on other planets, as well.

 

Questioner

And independent of Ruin's presence, really, except for as Ruin affects the cosmere as a whole?

 

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Exactly. You are correct.

 

Dragonsteel 2022 (Nov. 14, 2022) 

I take the above WOB that is pretty recent about Hemalurgy to mean that you can steal powers without involving Ruin, you can carve off bits of a soul and stick them other places. 

This is similar to how Connection and bonding doesn't always actually involve Honor, but Honor has a system based on bonds. You can bond things without it implicating Honor specifically.

But Ruin has a specific form of this called Hemalurgy that is Ruin's. Maybe it's the intent to destroy that is the specific part only, and maybe more likely (in my opinion) it's the whole specific system of bind points and intents and to a degree the effects of metals in Hemalurgy.

I don't know what this means necessarily for implications about your ideas about the effects of a lerasium + other god metal + other metal situation for powers...and I do think you're right and most people would agree that it seems like Lerasium is forming a connection to Preservation. 

Lerasium + Endowment metal seems like it could give you breaths...or even lets you use Preservation's power in a way identical to Breath's, but it makes sense to me that Lerasium + atium doesn't give you Hemalurgy not because Hemalurgy isn't Ruin's, but because using Hemalurgy doesn't require you to have pre-existing Ruin investiture. But canonically  feruchemy is the set of powers that involves them both.

But one other way to think about the Lerasium + Trellium giving you sand mastery...we don't know that the investiture giving the ability to use sand mastery would be come from autonomy, or even that it would last after you're finished burning the alloy do we? We know that metals burned by an allomancer tell Preservation's investiture what effects to cause. God metals in the Lerasium alloy situations could just be playing the same role. And in that scenario, I don't know if the 16 theoretical mashups of particular shard combination + extra metal means that there should be a 16 limit on shard magic systems. 

Because the numerology of specific shards we have in canon does already seem to be involved in that. 

Edit: clarification I think your point 2 is what I most disagree with tbh and I might be unique here, but.

"2. We know that Hemalurgy does not follow any of the patterns set out by the other known invested arts. Specifically, it does not involve any kind of Investiture on the part of the user and involves no Connection of any kind to any Shard."

I don't agree that Hemalurgy is all that unique as a [magic system, practice, invested art, w/e]. You obtain power in a way that aligns with the intent of Ruin. Ruin's investiture in the spiritual realm is what causes a chunk of a spiritweb to be ripped with the intent/key being metal stabbed into someone somewhere.

Related I also think that Hemalurgy is not the only way to steal powers. What Ishar almost did to Dalinar with his bond is similar in principle. By that I mean it would involve carving off a bit of Dalinar's spiritweb, the bond with the stormfather, and splicing it into Ishar's. That's hemalurgy to me in a similar way to Yolen and Roshar both having "lightweaving", but it isn't Hemalurgy in that you don't have to have intent aligned with ruin and stab specific metals into a person in a specific place.

Investiture can be used by any shard to make an illusion, can be used by any shard to make a gateway in the physical realm, those are called lightweaving, elsecalling. 

Ruin has a system that allows editing a spirit web, but the ability to use investiture to do so is not restricted to Ruin.

This seems like a lot of discussion over one observation/assumption

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the central idea here is that because Lerasium +metal creates 16 types of misting, that logic may apply to all other shard metals + alloy, and because of that each shard should have 16 different ~~magic systems~~ defined somehow.

And that assumptions assumptions later, hemalurgy isn't part of this system because really ruin's god metal alloy for 16 sets of powers creates feruchemy and ferrings.

Do I have that right? It just seems that the Lerasium + metal = misting idea is such a minor never to be seen idea existing only in WoB to extrapolate a deep underlying part of the cosmere from.

The idea that each shard should have 16 powers / "invested arts" they can grant doesn't have really have canon hints really unless you count feruchemy and then make more assumptions about voidbinding.

But even without the text explicitly supporting this fundamental cosmere principle nevertheless to be true it would have probably had to have been probably a fundamental characteristic from the early times if not beginning of Brandon's career.

You called it a wild conjecture in your post I know...I just wanted to make sure I understood what you were thinking before re-reading the 12 posts going back and forth about the definition of "invested art" which I feel like at the end of the day is meaningless.

Because your idea is "because of the 16 allomantic metals influencing how lerasium works, Lerasium + other god metal + other metal reflects that each shard can have 16 different outcomes/magic types." And therefore it doesn't really matter what term you use, because some things are going to count as the 16 manifestations per shard, and some won't regardless of what you call the two categories.

We know there were allomancers before lerasium, although they were weaker and different.

On 8/23/2023 at 5:31 PM, alder24 said:

That sounds weird, that tapping Harmonium would grant Feruchemy, but your logic fits the pattern. However would it be permanent Feruchemy or would it stop as soon as you stop tapping? Allomancy is granted because Lerasium itself is used to forge a connection between you and Preservation. You need to forge the same connection to both Ruin and Preservation to gain Feruchemy - you need investiture for it. If so, tapping Harmonium should "burn" it as it's used to create that connection. Sounds very weird to me, as that's not how Feruchemy works. I think it's more likely burning it like Lerasium would have a side effect of making you into a Feruchemist. 

Another WoB:

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Yoitsthew

Would a lerasium/atium alloy create a Feruchemist, rather than an atium misting?? What with the way that it’s an alloy of god metals, and the way that lerasium can be used to acquire other magics? As far as I know there is no lerasium left currently, so this one is also just for my curiosity!!

Brandon Sanderson

You can use the god metals from Scadrial to make a Feruchemist, but I have to RAFO the actual means.

General Reddit 2020 (Sept. 30, 2020)

 

But then if Harmonium makes people into Feruchemist, what made the first Feruchemist on Scadrial, when there was no Harmonium?

 

You can "report" the other topic as a double post:

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So the scariest to me thing about the father machine is how it slurped up an entire country worth of people and rendered their souls to black goo. There has to be some limiting principle on this, per the recent shardcast interview Brandon did (and probably meta reasons about preventing anyone from making whole-planet soul juice weapons).

The part I want to highlight is the possibility the father machine could do this because of the way Virtuosity's magic works.

I think the mechanism the father machine exploits is the way that Yoki-Hijo are made.

Yumi chapter 2:

Brandon said in 2021 that he was outlining a character chosen by society.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/472/#e14984

Yumi chapter 2

Somehow Yumi had to be given the ability to influence the hijo after she was chosen.

If the choosing of a new Yoki-Hijo involves investiture that comes from the people, some of the Virtuosity in all the people per WOB, then that could be the process that the father machine exploited. It took in energy from people because it was trying to become a Yoki-Hijo, or something like one.

I wonder if it was written before the father machine rock stacking bit had had some revising done? Or maybe the realization that because the rock stacking was all more or less an illusion, having a bunch of mechanics for it didn't make too much sense?

In the preview chapters, the rocks get stuck there and then slowly fall down as the binding wears off over years.

"Each bound spirit had reinforced her sculpture, the stones of which would now resist tipping as if they’d been glued in place. As the bond weakened, and the stones eventually started to drop over the years, the powers of the spirits would respond in kind. But in general, the more spirits you bound in a session, the longer all of them would last. What she’d done that day was unprecedented."

But this was removed from the final version. I've not seen anyone speculate about why, but surely it's a mechanics/continuity thing right? Because it was a nice detail.