Trusk'our

Ooooo...I like that idea. Unless they're attacking Sazed, of course; he's the best shard that we've seen, in my opinion.

Ah, that would make a lot of sense.

That doesn't explain why he would need mortals to do his dirty work for him, as they certainly wouldn't be able to hurt a shard badly enough to become a major advantage for him. I don't count the use of Nightblood because he didn't know of its existence until very recently.

Hmmm. Hadn't thought of that. But it would make sense, since they're technically not humans, who are breeding with humans, so the end result very well could be sterile.

Why would a Shard such as Ruin or Odium need humans, singers, or other beings working for them? Wouldn't that just take up precious investiture that could be used by the shard to defeat their opposing shard? If Odium really wanted to be the only shard out there, as seems to be his goal, why doesn't he just target the other shards, kill them, and ignore the mortals who really can't do much to him if he chooses not to interact with them?

When you awaken a type two invested entity (clothes, rope, or the like), it doesn’t have enough of a mind or Identity of their own to count as a “living” thing. However, Lifeless seem to have some awareness of what’s going on, as per WoB, and they also can understand more complex commands than a type two entity can. Because of this, I believe that they develop an Identity of their own, which prevents the breaths used to awaken them from being retrieved.

Here's another few possibilities for perpendicularity use. Could you get some kind of Connection to a shard by soaking yourself in the power for long enough? Could you, for instance, gain access to a small portion of investiture by bathing in Patji’s perpendicularity? If sitting in a perpendicularity isn’t enough, could you tap Feruchemical duralumin whilst doing so to create the Connection?

Since chromium Allomancers leech away a person’s investiture, why don’t they accidentally (or purposefully) leech away a person’s innate investiture, or, more importantly, their spark of life? Does Allomantic chromium not affect investiture within the spiritual realm? Does it just not affect investiture that has an Identity?

I figured out how Feruchemical duralumin works. Okay, so it looks like when you store Feruchemical duralumin, you store the natural ability to make Connections, rather than preexisting Connections. In the BoM, it hints to this, In addition, there is a WoB that states that Feruchemical duralumin can’t be used to help you get off world, which makes sense, or else Kelsier wouldn’t be having such trouble with this issue. This is honestly a little bit disappointing to me, as I had come up with lots of ways that manipulating Connections you already had might work. However, a Bondsmith like Dalinar probably could achieve these effects though, so maybe I’ve just been looking into the wrong powers. (Also, sorry Honorless if this seems like I just copied my response off of yours; I spent too much of an embarrassingly long time coming up with it on my own to cut it out I felt. But I guess it just goes to show how great minds do think alike after all )

What is part of your cognitive aspect vs your spiritual aspect. It’s pretty easy (I would assume) to tell what is part of your physical aspect. But what about the other two? Based on this WoB, memory must be almost entirely cognitive, and not spiritual in its nature. Your spiritweb contains your Connections, as well as you Identity, and your ideal self. So, what else does your cognitive aspect hold?

What is the difference between holding investiture in the physical realm and having it in you spiritweb? Would there be much of a difference if you could hold Bio-Chromatic Breaths in your spiritweb rather than in the physical realm, aside from them becoming stealable via Hemalurgy? Would your descendants be affected if this were the case? Would you start to develop invested powers rather than just gaining the heightenings?

Reasons why you would want to hold general investiture. 1 Increase in general health and lifespan. 2 Gaining a resistance to other forms of investiture. 3 Increase your awareness to hues of color and sounds. 4 Increase your awareness of other sources of investiture. 5 Possibly create a resonance if you either have or somehow gain access to an invested power. 6 Increase your chance of continuing to exist as a cognitive shadow after you die. Did I miss anything?

When shards like Odium visit mortals, they seem to need a certain strength of Connection to do so, as we see with Dalinar, Moash, and Taravangian in RoW. But could the reverse be done? Could a mortal who had the ability to manipulate Connection be able to visit a shard in their own realm by manipulating Connection? If a Feruchemist could store the Connection associated with Odium, while hiding themselves from Odium’s future sight via chromium, could they visit Odium and attack him with Nightblood, killing him? This seems like the kind of scheme a certain Scadrian would plan

Based on the technological development that is going throughout the Cosmere, does it seem likely that the Taldainians will create a dyson sphere at some point, allowing them to get as much investiture as they want?

I meant more along the lines of the lifeless being able to fill metalminds, possibly while being able to blank their Identity, possible filling them with nicrosil investiture as well, so that you, as their awakener, could benefit from it.

My thoughts exactly, as Forgery doesn't use much investiture itself, so it can only realistically be used for relatively low investiture endeavors.

I actually don't like Sel's magic very much. Well, not Elantrian magic, anyway. It just feels too much like a "Well, I can do basically anything, but I choose not to for plot purposes and stuff", like how pretty much every standard fantasy wizard works. But I suppose that's just my personal preference.

First, awaken a body to create a Lifeless. Second, Feruchemically store the memories, Identity, and a good portion of health in an unsealed metalmind. Third, have the newly awakened Lifeless tap the metalmind, giving it a foundation for it's new Identity, as well as granting it the ability to physically shape itself into what it's Identity now is. Does this sound doable?

I used to think that Awakening could do just about anything without needing other magic systems for hacks if used with the right command and with enough skill (i.e. using breaths to enhance body or mind by investing them with a command, editing your own spiritweb, copying other invested arts' abilities, or creating powerful invested objects like Nightblood by simply investing enough breath into their creation). However, this quote changes things... Apparently, you can only work with the intrinsic properties of something that you awaken, which greatly limits your abilities. Not only that, but since Awakening follows Endowment's Intent of giving things away, you are somewhat limited in how much you can modify yourself (I know there's a quote somewhere, but I couldn't find it). I'm actually pretty glad about this, as it helps balance a magic system that once felt like it would outshine the others. Nightblood, however, is a special case, since it quite clearly has some magical abilities that normal swords don't have. My theory on this is that a hack between Hemalurgy and Awakening was used in order to make it work, as if you were to awaken something that already had magical properties, you should be able to manipulate them further with Awakening. I feel that my assumption that a Hemalurgic charge being involved with Nightblood's creation is supported by this quote here. Not only that, but Nightblood is black, and the color black is associated with Ruin's investiture. Although, I suppose that Nightblood could have simply absorbed investiture from a Hemalurgic spike after killing a Hemalurgist at some point, or that some other weird investiture mechanic is going on that we simply don't know much about yet.

In the Hallendren court of Gods, the Returned seem to be able to get away with a lot of things without punishment, because it would be rather difficult for the priests to justify disciplining them, I would imagine. But what if they did something truly horrible? Killing a normal human being would be bad enough, but with their station, they could likely still get away with it. But killing one of their fellow Returned? What would the priests do in such a situation?

When someone summons a shardblade, their eyes lighten in color. Is this because they receive a small boost of investiture after summoning it? In addition, this can be passed on to the shard-holder's children, which indicates that there is some kind of change to their spiritual DNA. Would this be similar to how a lerasium mistborn's children will have a stronger Connection to Preservation?

You can outsource some of your memories to your breaths if you hold any. Similarly, you can store your extra memories inside a coppermind via Feruchemy. However, breaths are pretty hard to remover from you, while your copperminds can be physically removed without too much effort. Plus, based on what we see with Hoid in RoW, it would seem that you still have your memories while they're held by breaths, while with copperminds you actually forget what is stored in them until you tap them again. So, are breaths better than copperminds?

When you are in the cognitive realm, can you use emotional Allomancy on people in the physical realm? Are there other things that can be done in the cognitive realm with emotional Allomancy, such a "physically" manipulating someone else currently existing there too?

So, I'm a bit confused as to how this actually works, but I can think of multiple ways it could work; 1. When you store Connection, you store all of your Connections equally. When you tap the metalmind, you tap all of the stored Connections equally. 2. When you store Connection, you may choose to store specific Connections, leaving others untouched if you desire, similar to storing memories in a coppermind or senses in a tinmind. When you tap the metalmind, you may choose to tap only specific Connections, making only those stronger. 3. When you store Connection, you store the ability to create new Connections and to strengthen pre-existing ones. When you tap the metalmind, you can create new Connections much more quickly, and make them much stronger than you normally can. So, which of these sounds most like what Feruchemical Duralumin actually does, or are none of them correct?

How do Connections naturally form? Is it just through interaction? Does the amount of time spent with a person or object increase your Connection to that thing? For example, lets say I'm a soldier and have two swords. The first sword I use all the time and take extra good care of because it was given to me as a gift by my friend before I left for war. The second was given to me as part of my standard equipment for being a soldier, but I hardly ever use it, and only spend minimal time upkeeping it, just enough to keep my superiors off my back. So would the first sword have a stronger Connection to me because I interact with it more, and because it has greater emotional value to me? We see in RoW that Odium grows stronger in Connection to multiple people (i.e., Taravangian, Moash, and Dalinar), even though not all of them exemplify his Intent. Is this because they interact more, and because Odium spares more of his attention for them?