Trusk'our

I recently found this quote, and I thought that it had some interesting ramifications. Wow. Has this been talked about before? This kind of seems like a big tidbit. Now we have some idea of how Hoid changes his age? Brandon Sanderson I haven't said if this is a method Hoid uses or not, but it's part of the reason the Lord Ruler turned to dust when he lost his metalminds. (His body tried to match the age his spirit said he was.) Phantine If they somehow killed the Lord Ruler in a conventional manner, would he still have turned to dust? Brandon Sanderson Yes. The metalminds would have stopped being tapped, and the spirit of the matter would probably still have had this strange effect. Not it didn't happen to the bodies of the shard vessels who died. Phantine Would koloss spikes turn off when they die too, so dead ones shrivel up like raisins? Brandon Sanderson Hemalurgy changes the spirit. So not necessarily. So, even if a Hemalurgic spike is removed from a person, the changes made to their Spiritweb (although without the added powers or attributes) will stay? I had previously assumed that a Steel Inquisitor, such as Marsh, could mostly change back to what they were before they grafted Hemalurgic spikes to themselves by tapping Feruchemical gold while removing their spikes one by one, slowly changing themselves back to a more human state. But if the changes to the Spiritweb remain, would their bodies still be messed up from holding their spikes? Similarly, if a Koloss were to obtain gold Feruchemy and were to store enough health, would they be able to remove the spikes that turned them into Koloss, use the stored health to stay alive, but still remain a Koloss because their Spiritweb's natural state is that of a Koloss and not a human anymore?

If a Spren, probably a Radiant Spren due to their intelligence, were to get ahold of an Unsealed Metalmind, could they tap it or store in it?

Pretty much. Kandra, Fused, Heralds, The Lord Ruler, Shards...yeah, lots of immortal things die on a regular basis, it would seem.

Like his lost flute? Cool theory by the way. I like it!

In The Bands of Mourning, we saw that a kandra can graft a portion of their own flesh onto a living person, allowing it to function as it normally would. What if a kandra decided to take their impersonation...further, than usual? Could a kandra eat the limb a person while they were knocked out, then replace it as a part that functions normally until the kandra decides to pop off and leave with the information they've gathered by eavesdropping on their host's life? Could they replace one or more internal organs of a living person, allowing the person to live normally until the kandra decides to "self-destruct" their host? Spooky stuff.

Interesting. I hadn't thought of that. If "blank Connection" wasn't something that you normally stored, and you instead stored away specific Connections, that could lead to some interesting possibilities. However, if you could store away Connections you already had, wouldn't someone like Kelsier be able to leave the planet they were tied to by storing away that Connection that bound them there? With that in mind, and considering that Kelsier likely has access to all the powers of the Metallic Arts, either by being a Fullborn or by simply using Unsealed Metalminds similar to the Bands of Mourning, I'm not sure that this is the case.

I guess it feels unusual because most of the attributes that you can tap with Feruchemy are not like copper; you temporarily store a certain amount of strength of a certain attribute which you later tap to enhance that same attribute temporarily, but copper stores a specific part of your self that is permanently separated from you until you tap it again. So, would someone storing in a Nicrosilmind permanently loose their power until it was tapped again, similar to how Feruchemical copper works?

Savantism will do that to you. So I suppose that makes sense that he wouldn't have thought to use his Allomantic powers if that was the case.

It may be possible to do this, because when the Lord Ruler lost his metalminds, he didn't use any of his other powers to quickly retrieve them and continue to tap his Atiumminds. Which is kind of weird to me, because even if he was rapidly aging, Allomantic pewter or iron could have been really useful in that situation. But he didn't use them, possibly indicating that he stored his Allomantic stores in those Metalminds as well, and he didn't have any metals to burn in his system once his bracers were pulled away from him. So, it could have been that there were other factors at play, but I think that it may be possible to do as you suggest.

When a Feruchemist taps their metalmind, I'm pretty sure that their weight doesn't change, even though their muscle mass does. When a Returned shrinks or grows, does their mass/weight stay the same?

Speed bubbles could be moved around by a savant, but I don't think that simply enhancing the power usage would allow you to move a speed bubble with you.

Ahhhhhhh. That makes sense, since they are paired metals. There was a post that I made the the Cosmere Q&A once that asked why Allomantic chromium doesn't just kill people by sapping away all their investiture. This is by far the best explanation that I've seen. Thank you

If a young child were to regularly tap an Unsealed Identitymind, would it leave a lasting effect on their physical and cognitive aspects? Could a society that wanted to cultivate a certain mindset use this method to artificially change their people to better fit their standards? If a Returned were to store their Identity in and Unsealed Aluminum/Goldmind, could someone who tapped both the Identity and health inside change their physique to better match that Returned?

When storing an attribute, a Feruchemist temporarily diverts the flow of investiture from their own soul into the Metalmind. Which means that the investiture that they store will have the Intent of whatever Shard that Feruchemist's Spiritweb is made of (I think). So, if a Feruchemist were to gain investiture from a different Shard, such as Bio-Chromatic Breaths, would the attributes they store have the Intent of the new investiture within their soul? Would a non-Scadrien, maybe a Rosharan, for example, store the investiture from the Shard of their own world if they had an Unsealed Metalmind? Would there be a difference in the function of the stored attributes if a different Shard's investiture were stored?

I had an idea. If you were to line an air tight enclosure with aluminum, maybe you could create a pocket that was essentially cut off from the rest of the Cosmere. You wouldn’t need to worry about Shardic influence so much, or about hostile investitures seeping in. Perhaps you could even trap certain types of investiture in with you, maybe even enough to fuel a self-sufficient ecosystem, provided there is enough investiture to be recycled and that the pocket is large enough. Certain forms of invested powers, like Allomancy, might not work so well though, as they would need to draw on investiture that likely wouldn't be accessible inside the pocket.

We see in The Hero of Ages that Vin has certain limitations on the amount of Koloss that she can control via Connection at any given time; the more she controls, the more pressure it puts on her. Could it be that ancient entities in the Cosmere can suffer from having too many Connections that pressure their Spiritweb, and that this leads to insanity if left unchecked? This is may partially be why the Fused and Heralds are having such a hard time, and why Kelsier really wants to capture and interrogate a Herald.

When someone burns Allomantic pewter, they get a handful of physical enhancements. The most notable of these being an increase in physical strength. Your strength is increased based on what your strength is without an enhancement; all your muscles are equally enhanced, so more muscle means more strength. But, wouldn’t you need more investiture, more energy, to enhance more total muscle mass? (By the way, this post is based on how I understand Allomantic pewter, and I could be wrong, so if I'm incorrect please don't hesitate to tell me.) Okay, let’s say there’s a Pewterarm who relies on their power too much and doesn’t work out. They can only bench press 100 lbs. without any enhancement, and they can bench press 200 lbs. while burning pewter without flaring. There’s another Pewterarm of equal Allomantic power who is a bodybuilder, and they can bench press 300 lbs. without any enhancement, and can then bench press 600 lbs. while burning pewter without flaring. Even though both Pewterarms are of equal Allomantic strength, one is clearly getting a far greater energy output from their Allomancy. So, what the heck is going on? Energy can’t just appear out of nowhere, so where is it coming from? Is a Pewterarm with bigger muscles simply more efficient than a Pewterarm with weaker muscles, similar to how Radiants who are of a higher oath are more investiture efficient than lower oath Radiants? Are the Pewterarms with bigger muscles somehow drawing in more investiture than other Pewterarms? I'm just a little confused as to how Pewterarms are doubling or tripling their strength seemingly without any extra investiture.

I’ve been thinking about Feruchemical duralumin and all the really interesting possible uses for it, which got me thinking; if a duralumin Ferring were to store all their ability to make Connections, would no one else’s ability to make Connections matter to them? Okay, let me go more in depth; let’s say that two duralumin Ferrings meet each other. One Ferring wants to make fast friends, so they tap their Duraluminmind. The other Ferring wants to stay away and remain unnoticed, so they fill their Duraluminmind. Now, the question; would there be no enhanced Connection made between the two Ferrings, even though one is tapping a lot of Connection, since the other isn’t able to make Connections at the moment? That would mean that Connection is a two-way phenomenon; you can only make a Connection with someone if they too can make a Connection with you. Would this mean that a Bondsmith wouldn’t be able to forge a Connection with a Ferring who was storing all of their ability to make Connection away? I’m kind of embarrassed that I didn’t think of Connection as a two-way phenomenon before, as it seems pretty obvious now that I really think about it. I might still be wrong with how this scenario would play out, though. How do you think this hypothetical situation with Connection would pan out?

Shards who are bound, such as Odium, only seem to be able to directly interact with those who they are Connected to. So, hypothetically, let’s say that Taravangian got ahold of an Unsealed Feruchemical Duraluminmind and used it to create a strong Connection between himself and Jasnah Kholin. Would he, after ascension, be able to use that Connection to directly meet and interact with Jasnah as he could Dalinar?

Let’s say a Bondsmith were to change the Connection of someone temporarily. Then that person conceived a child during that temporary period where their Connection was changed. Would the child inherit those artificial Connections, or at least what would normally be inherited from them, as if they were natural? Would they be permanent for the child?

In this WoB, we see that different Allomantic metals use different amounts of investiture based on the amount of “work” they do. so, assuming that every metal can store the same amount of investiture, would Metalminds that stored attributes that took more “work” to accomplish the same percentage of enhancements as other attributes be filled faster?

On Roshar, there is a higher-than-average concentration of Investiture due to the Hightstorms. What if someone were to make a large, air-tight aluminum-lined room, big enough to have people comfortably live in, and then take a large number of lit Spheres inside, letting the Investiture leak out? Would the people inside the room receive benefits similar to someone with a large quantity of Bio-Chromatic Breaths if there was enough free-floating Investiture concentrated in the area they lived? Would animals that lived there for a few generations gain higher cognition, eventually becoming sapient? Would humans born there have a higher Innate Investiture than humans born without such a high concentration of Investiture? If so, would this extra innate Investiture stay with them if they left the aluminum chamber?

Is it like Allomantic pewter, where it multiplies the muscle power of the person wearing it, making any muscle strength you already have be enhanced depending on your own innate strength, or is it just adding the same amount of strength to whomever wears it, no matter their own, natural muscle strength? Also, does Shardplate actually enhance the muscles of the wearer, or does the plate just move with the motions of the wearer, using its own strength?

If someone who didn’t already have any invested powers, such as Allomancy, were to have a large amount of innate investiture added to their Spiritweb (Awakeners don’t count by the way; their power doesn’t add to the actual Spiritweb, it sits primarily in the physical realm), would invested powers begin to develop, or would the extra investiture need to be deliberately "shaped" in order for powers to manifest?

In order to pick up a Shard once its previous owner has either been killed or has released it, you need be congruent enough with the power for it to let you pick it up. So, if a Rioter Misting or a Mistborn were to enhance your emotions while the Shard of Odium was without a vessel, would that be enough to trick it into letting you pick it up?