Trusk'our

So my brain spawned yet another way to hack magic systems together to make them even better Let's say that you use Forgery to overwrite a Koloss Spiritweb, saying that it never received its Hemalurgic spikes. I see a few possibilities if this were to be done: 1. the Koloss dies as they turn back into a human; their spikes no longer function well enough to prevent the wounds they inflict from killing their bearer. 2. the Koloss turns back into a human, but the Hemalurgic spikes resist and are rejected from the body (as the Koloss's body fights against their intrusion) if the Forgery takes; the changes made by the spike and the changes made by the stamp are too incompatible with one another to exist with any sense of stability. 3. the Koloss turned human retains their spikes without dying (the soul of the recipient adapts to their Investiture, similar to Feruchemy adapting the Feruchemist to deal with an unexpected influx of attributes), but the spikes remain completely dormant and don't give any additional benefits until the Forgery wears off. 4. same as #3, but the spikes continue to provide a magical boost to the former Koloss but don't warp them enough to turn them into a Hemalurigc construct- just enough to keep the person from being killed by the spikes. The reason I even argue that this could take place is because Returned can do something similar; they can suppress their Divine Breath but still retain some benefits from it, such as enhanced speed and strength, and their Lifesense doesn't disappear (see Zahel in WoR when Kalain wakes him up at night). Basically, you might be able to use Forgery hack Hemalurgy in such a way that you could give humans Kandra Blessings but without turning them into Hemalurgic constructs (Hemalurgic weakness likely would remain though; the cracks in the Spiritweb aren't removed as far as I can tell). Now, as I understand it this might require some "jerry-rigging" of sorts, but I believe that it might be possible given the examples above.

Sweet! I love it when a good WoB reliably proves a cool idea to work. Thanks @Quantus! It does make me wonder though; Bleeder wanted very desperately to remain free from Harmony's control, so much so that she was willing to remove one of her own spikes, and we see that Melaan had an aluminum skeleton, so why didn't Bleeder not get an aluminum skeleton to protect herself?

Could you find the WoB please? I don't mean to be skeptical (as aluminum bones providing Investiture protection would be awesome), but I was under the impression that aluminum simply didn't conduct Investiture, not that it created a field effect around it.

Kandra can do some pretty cool things with their shapeshifting. Canonically, they can: 1. Create nearly unbeatable disguises. 2. Increase muscle mass and density to make themselves inhumanly strong. 3. Regenerate from injuries by knitting their flesh back together. 4. Turn off their pain receptors. 5. Conceal weapons and tools inside their body. 6. Graft pieces of flesh onto others to patch up their wounds (they can also perform surgery using their abilities). 7. Pick locks by wriggling tendrils into the mechanisms. And here are some of my ideas on what else they could likely do: 1. Sculpt their body to aid their desired social interaction (i.e., making themselves more attractive to charm or seduce, or making themselves look horrific/monstrous to intimidate or frighten others). 2. Graft aluminum plates around their body to create a (nearly) Investiture-proof armor. 3. Absorb a ton of mass and become an absolute behemoth (to move large objects around easily or for combat). 4. Shrink into a diminutive form to sneak around (somewhat limited, since they need enough mass to support cognitive functions). What are some interesting ways that you guys can think of that a Kandra could use their Shapeshifting?

Correct. Breaths don't seem to be linear in how long they keep you alive; the more Breaths you collect, the more effective they become overall. Otherwise, you couldn't actually become ageless; you'd have to keep extending your life by collecting more Breaths, as each one would have a limit to how much longer they let you live.

That would be an awesome way to make a super-speed power not game breaking. Also, it is worth mentioning that there is a type of insect IRL that does basically just that; the tiger beetle. They can move so fast that their perception can't actually keep up, so they are effectively blind while they move at their top speeds. They solve that by moving in bursts, slowing down and speeding back up to see where they are going and attack their prey. I found this out on this video here, talking about the scientific realities of super speed (tiger beetle at 5:50). The rest of the video is pretty good too, and is probably worth watching to find out more about F-steel. Why You Don't Want Super Speed

Lol, anytime!

I think that it's more like most of the Feruchemical attributes work as the river/pool analogy, but copper, bendalloy, brass, and cadmium are the ones that draw directly from the reservoir (the PR and CR), because we see that they work differently. My favorite kind of question/hypothosis; one that involves Hemalurgy's mechanics Hemalurgy works by taking Spiritweb parts from one person and adding them to another Spiritweb. Take the Blessing of Potency, for example. The recipient becomes stronger because there is Static Investiture in the Hemalurgic spike (the Spiritweb fragment) drawing power from the spiritual realm and moving it into the recipient. In this way, it is a lot like most of the Feruchemical powers (with the exception of the four I already laid out); power comes directly from the SR and is fed into the Hemalurgist. More spikes (or really, more Spiritweb fragments) means more "water" in the "river" of Investiture that flows into the "lake", which is why Hemalurgy permanently adds a constant flow of power to the recipient while Feruchemical power is only temporary; Hemalurgy actually changes and adds to the Spiritweb of the practitioner (recipient of the charged spike) while Feruchemy just allows you to shift around what you already have. So basically, yes, you're right.

Hey, uh, just wanted to point out that your spoiler is inside a quote tag, not a spoiler.

We know that Rhythms, Tones of Shards, and Invested powers are all related to one another. So, I got wondering; could you take some Unkeyed Investiture, such as the Mists, some Stormlight, or something similar, and then use a Rhythm of an Invested power to program the Investiture to work for that specific power? Say you take some Stormlight, then give it the Rhythm that Feruchemical gold has; could you give that Investiture to a Bloodmaker to let them heal? Perhaps you could use this to fuel Feruchemy or another magic system, similar to Compounding. Another idea is if you could create anti-Rhythms (not Tones, but Rhythms) for specific Invested powers to disrupt any use of those powers nearby.

I was on another thread that was talking about Lerasium Hemalurgy and the topic came up on whether or not Feruchemy draws from all three realms of the Cosmere. I felt that it would be better to further discuss it on a new thread, as it seems big enough a question all on its own. As I understand it, Feruchemy typically draws from the spiritual realm, diverting the natural flow of Investiture of the Feruchemist's Spiritweb almost like a river that normally flows into a lake being diverted to fill a reservoir. This Investiture can be tapped from a Metalmind to temporarily increase the attribute that was stored earlier, and the Feruchemist returns to their natural state of being as soon as they cease to fill their Metalmind (the flow of Investiture no longer being diverted, and the "river" returning to fill the "lake"). However, not all Ferucehmical powers seem to follow this rule. F-copper allows for memories to be stored, but the Feruchemist doesn't "snap back" to their normal state after they stop filling the Metalmind- they have to tap it again to retrieve what was lost. The same rule applies to Feruchemical bendalloy, cadmium, and brass; attributes stored with those metals are completely lost until tapped. I believe that this is because they don't draw Investiture from the spiritual realm at all, but because they draw from the physical and cognitive realms; the attributes are converted into Investiture, stored inside Metalminds, and later converted back into their original form for use. In this case, it's less like a river having its flow diverted and more like a pool of water getting emptied into barrels for later use; the pool doesn't return to its original form or regain its water unless more water is actively brought into it through natural processes (such as eating to regain calories or your brain forming more memories) or unless the barrels have their water return to the original pool. I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on the matter so that I can determine if this idea of mine is accurate or not.

I don't think that I agree with that conclusion, but I understand where you're coming from. Glad I was able to speak coherently this time

I don't think that taking heat would work, since heat isn't something that is drawn from the SR, it's something that comes from the physical realm and therefore isn't something that Hemalurgy can grab. I agree with this. I don't think that the actual memories will be taken by Hemalurgy, as those are in the CR, not the SR, and memory counts as an attribute in the Hemalurgy table. Plus, Tensoon actually has mentioned in HoA that the Blessing of Potency (H-copper) has sharpened his memory. So your idea is correct. Apologies, I can get a little difficult to understand when I cram every thought of mine into a single post, and I have a tendency to explore the ideas in question as I write I think that it could work in a few ways, but my current view is that you could not really take all Feruchemical attributes. Hemalurgy is strictly SR based while Feruchemy has outliers in all three realms. Plus, we've seen a few examples of how Hemalurgic, Feruchemical, and Allomantic enhancments differ; they are similar in many ways, but there are unique bits to each system; i.e., F-copper removes memories and can restore them later, but H-copper simply enhances natural memory. A-pewter and H-iron are both magical enhancements to increase muscle power, but F-pewter actually increases muscle mass- but A-pewter also adds extra benefits while H-iron seems more limited in its scope (such as not providing significantly enhanced endurance). F-chromium (Fortune) and H-chromium (Destiny) seem to be related... but are somehow not the same. Basically, Feruchemical attributes aren't necessarily the same thing as Hemalurgic attributes, though they do share many similarities. Does that clear things up, or did I just manage to pile more fuel onto the bonfire of confusion?

Said like a true member of the 17th Shard!

Yeah, that's one of the reasons it can be so hard to accurately predict what can be done in the Cosmere; some things just won't make sense until they are written out in a book.

What about Marasi in BoM when she creates a sonic boom? I suppose that could merely relate to air pressure though, and we know that Feruchemical speed doesn't reduce one's interaction with friction from air resistance, so I guess that could explain it; even if your punches don't get tons of extra power, some side-effects of moving fast would still be present.

Mr. Suit mentions in BoM that you can have three Hemalurgic spikes before external forces can control you. We saw the Lord Ruler have barely any effect on Vin and Kelsier with Emotional Allomancy despite the fact he was significantly more powerful than them (Granted, that was a blanket Soothing). The same principle should apply to Steel Inquisitors, so even if some touch on their emotions seeped through Marsh's Coppercloud, I doubt that it would be enough to control him. Even with duralumin or nicrosil added to the mix, it may not be enough, at least not if they want to maintain control for very long, and the Allomancers in question would soon be having a very, very bad day.

I think that it's possible that while Feruchemical steel does improve your reaction time, it may not be as much as it speeds up your body's movement. Take Feruchemical iron: you get a little stronger when you tap a lot, or a little nimbler on your feet when you store your weight, but it isn't a one-to-one deal. And his response was So I personally think the explanation is either 'Brandon thought it would be cooler for shifting your weight to change your velocity, and forgot he had mentioned it a couple times' or 'this is Wax's twinborn perk'. I'm leaning towards the latter, since the person who writes the magic system summaries at the end of the book specifically interrogated Wax about the effects, and mentioned she specifically was interested in his very unusual power combination. As for the density thing, there is an explicit mention that you appear to get stronger when tapping, but only to the extent that you can still stand up and walk around - you still have more difficulty moving around overall. So (to pull out random numbers), if you're at 200% normal mass, you have 180% normal strength, and at 50% mass you have 60% normal strength. That means Wax habitually going around at 75% weight so he's 'light on his feet' makes sense - even if he's weaker overall, he's proportionally stronger. The way I personally think about things for bullets or whatever, anything 'inside' the body (where 'inside' is defined in the same way that pushing/pulling metal 'inside' the body uses it) interacts with your body as if it were normal. So tapping iron doesn't cause your ultra-massive blood to be impossible for your heart to pump, but it also doesn't prevent a bullet from passing through your flesh. That seems to be consistent with how it's portrayed in the books. Brandon Sanderson Just a note: in the quote of mine above, I was trying (I believe) to find a way for Wax to indicate that weight doesn't influence the rate at which he falls. IE, acceleration in regards to gravity. It's tough, and I made the call (perhaps incorrectly) not to use modern physics terminology in the W&W books. It has been very hard then to explain: 1). Wax changing his weight doesn't change the pull of gravity on him, or the rate at which he falls. 2) He DOES follow the laws of conservation of momentum. My talking around these things has let me to tie a few paragraphs in knots. Enough F-steel or perhaps some F-zinc added to the mix would grant a more perfect perception speed though. I also like this solution a bit since it would help to limit F-steel's overpowered nature just a little.

Shards can lie if they want. They are only unable to break formal oaths they've made (well, they can, but it hurts them and leaves them vulnerable to attack from other Shards). I'm still of the opinion that Lerasium is being created as a byproduct of Harmonium splitting and that Sazed just managed to get better at lying over the last three hundred and forty-eight years. The real question I'm wondering is; why does Sazed not want Lerasium to get out? Why doesn't he want Kelsier to get any?

Personally, I don't think that all Feruchemical attributes would be taken (and if they could it wouldn't be very effective; heat would disperse and return to normal quickly and calories and oxygen would do likewise). I think that since Hemalurgy only deals with the spiritual realm, only Feruchemical attributes that get their power by diverting the flow of Investiture from the spiritual realm would be taken- warmth, energy, breath all have their fuel come from diverting the flow of Investiture from the physical realm and memories come from the cognitive realm, so those likely wouldn't be taken. I imagine this is why when a Feruchemist fills Metalminds with these attributes they actually disappear entirely until tapped; they are less a natural state for the Feruchemist (such as how muscular they are) and more the state of their interaction with their environment. When attributes like strength and speed are stored though, the Feruchemist regains their normal state when they cease storing, even though they haven't yet drawn the lost attribute, as the flow of Investiture from the spiritual realm stops being diverted from the Feruchemist's own body. However, physical strength, speed, senses, health, mental strength/speed/efficiency, emotional endurance, weight, Fortune, Identity, Connection, and Innate Investiture would almost certainly all be taken (in fact, I believe that H-iron already takes speed as well as strength since we see in WoA and HoA that Koloss and Kandra with the Blessing of Potency are described as being "inhumanly fast"). Basically, any Feruchemical attribute that relies on a flow of Investiture from the spiritual realm to fuel it should work, as the source is ripped off and stapled onto the bearer of the Hemalurgic spikes. It may be worth noting though that Hemalurgic attributes and Feruchemical ones aren't one to one though (Hemalurgic strength is actually more similar to A-pewter than F-pewter, for example), so it's very possible (likely, even) be that a Lerasium spike isn't really like getting a constant shot of Feruchemical attributes, but something different entirely.

An interesting question. Now, my answers are definitely going to be a bit biased, since I'm a human being who has opinions and whatnot, but I'll share what who I think are the worst villains. 1. Straff Venture: The man is abusive towards women, abusive towards his son(s), murders those he dislikes on a whim, and is an egotistical bully who only seeks power and actively enjoys inflicting pain on others. 2. Sadeas: Similar to Straff, he seems mostly to only seek more power while trampling over the bodies of those he forces to do his bidding. He doesn't seem to take as much pleasure in causing pain (unless you count battle-lust... which I suppose you could, actually) as Straff though, so I don't think he's quite as bad. Barely. 3. Rashek: He was a hateful, petty man who imposed his own will on the world of Scadrial, and even hunted down murdered his own uncle when he refused to accept Rashek's gift of becoming a Kandra. Not to mention that he caused a millennium of anguish for the Skaa, created the Terris breeding program, created and used Koloss against those who defied him (made mostly of innocents), and built/enforced laws and societal norms that hurt everyone in the Final Empire. Now, I don't think that he was entirely evil, as he did try to save Scadrial and was corrupted by Ruin over centuries of time (he wasn't "all together in the head", so to speak, so I don't think that he's the most evil of Cosmere villians. But he was pretty bad), and I don't think that being mentally unhinged or damaged makes someone evil, even if their actions reflect some bad things. Buuuuut he was in control of himself at least a little (harder to judge this area), so he was still pretty bad, I think. 4. Taravangian: So far, we've seen him to some terrible things; unleashing the Assassin in White on Roshar, killing innocents to get visions of the future, and betraying other kingdoms for his own ends. Similar to the Lord Ruler though, I don't think that he is entirely a bad person. He has a good(ish) reason to do what he does; he wants to save his people. Now, that does not excuse him for his acts, and I might even consider him to be worse that Rashek in some ways (he has more control over himself and his actions), but at least he doesn't do evil for the mere pleasure of it like Straff, so I don't consider him to be as bad (I think; I'm kind of back and forth on this one). 5. Amaram: He betrayed those who saved him for his own benefit, killing Kaladin's remaining squad members and sending Kaladin himself into enslavement. He also worked to bring about the Desolations which caused terrible calamities to happen to all of Roshar. I don't really know how much I blame him for turning against Dalinar in the Battle of Theylena Field (think I butchered the spelling), as he was busy being possessed by a Voidspren, and then he ate Yelig'nar which also had a serious influence on his mind, I would think. I'm not in the business of calling someone evil if they are being strongly manipulated by or outright controlled by an external force or if their mind isn't sound at the time (hence Rashek not being considered worse in my opinion). Also, if I'm being honest, I kind of wished that Amaram was redeemed. I saw a part of myself in him with his devotion to his religion, and it hurt to see him become worse at the end of OB (it really felt out of the blue, and felt really poorly done in my opinion) and switch to Odium's side, even if he was currently being possessed by a Voidspren. I also want to point out that I don't think that his devotion to Vornism itself was bad; adhering to a religion most often is a good thing, he just decided to try and bring it back to its former glory by bringing back the Desolations, which was evil as he knowingly brought death and pain to Roshar in the process. That being said, I understand that he wasn't really a good man (I just wish he became one in the end), and his devotion to Vornism did cause him to seek the return of the Desolations, which was ultimately selfish and shortsighted, even if his religion itself wasn't evil. He's probably the only villain who exists who I ultimately wish wasn't a villain, or who at least was redeemed in the end. But I understand that this is due to my own bias, so please feel free to disagree with me in this matter.

Well...TLM spoilers. So yes, I could see a maniacal group that already had substantial resources and few moral qualms capturing and striping Nalthians of their Breaths. It would likely be harder to do than the first glance would make it seem though- a bunch of people just disappearing randomly will cause others with power, whether it be the government or disgruntled friends or family of the captured, to come and seek out the destruction of the human traffickers. Needless to say, it wouldn't likely end well for the group seeking to steal Breaths unless the group was very, very sneaky about it, and you'd need to capture hundreds to thousands of people before you started seeing real benefits from your evil deeds. And then you'd also have to consider that you can buy Breaths (at least in Hallendren), so unless the resources used to capture and enslave the Nalthians was significantly less than what you'd need to simply buy them (which I'm not sure is the case), it would be much less advantageous to kidnap people than to just go and buy some from willing individuals.

While that definitely remains a possibility, but considering his skill with steel Allomancy was enough to impress Wax, I doubt that such skill with bronze Allomancy would be too major a pointer to him being a natural Metalborn.

Ooooo. I often overlook the benefits of the Heightenings for Kandra since they already are basically ageless, but maybe they could custom build bodies to Awaken. Plus, the bodies might retain whatever skills the Kandra had, which makes them even better!