Trusk'our

If a singer's gemheart breaks, do they automatically change to slave form? Can their gemheart heal with time, or is it a permanent injury?

Ather of the Night spoiler:

I'm not sure that this is how Hemalurgy works. Feruchemical metalminds, I believe, would be less likely to cause infections in someone who was spiked by them, as they are invested, but they wouldn't likely be able to grant abilities to someone who was pierced by them, as that's not really what they do; Hemalurgy works by removing a functional piece of someone's spiritweb, and then allows you to graft it to someone else. Feruchemical objects store investiture, which when tapped enhances them in some way. I don't think that you could give most objects, even a Feruchemically charged one, a Hemalurgically charged spike and expect anything to happen, as I don't believe that they have enough of a spiritweb or Identity to interact with it in any meaningful way. I believe that there is a WoB saying that if an AI were to exist in the cosmere that it would be spike-able, so that leads me to conclude that maybe you could grant Hemalurgic spikes to awakened objects, but ones made of metal, like Nightblood, would bring a more practical issue in that they need to be pierced by the metal in order for their spiritweb to be effected, but that's probably going to be hard to work with for obvious reasons. This quote here pretty much says that memory isn't something that can be transferred Hemalurgically; perhaps it is too much of a cognitive quality and not enough spiritual. I do think that you could modify someone's bones to become stronger and have an increased density, but that would require expert skill and knowledge of Hemalurgy to work, and there would likely be some nasty side effects, such as other unwanted mutations.

I thought that Oldmother's more elderly appearance was simply due to the fact that she viewed herself as being more elderly, possibly because she was older when she returned.

I suppose that 'future sight' as an ability on it's own wouldn't count as what Taravangian was doing, really, even if he predicted the future using a combination of tools to do so. I would count 'future sight' as any kind of ability to accurately predict the future, whether it be Feruchemical chromium, allomantic electrum, Renarin's visions, or Sak's death prediction. Yeah, Tarivangian accurately predicted the future, even if he used indirect methods of doing so. But I'm not sure that I would count it as 'future sight' since he didn't personally see into the spiritual realm, but he did predict the future without needing it. I suppose a good way of putting the question to rest of whether he actually used future sight after a fashion would be if his own predictions tampered with others' abilities to predict the future, just as when anyone who uses future sight with interfere with anyone else trying to use it.

Well, they do have a higher degree of intelligence than other animals. Plus, you can communicate and make deals with some creatures telepathically, like when Dusk 'talked' with those mouse creatures (can't remember their actual name).

The Coppermind Wiki says that Feruchemical tin can be used to store more than the traditional five human senses. Theoretically, could you get a creature from Patji to store it's mind sense inside an unsealed tin mind, then tap it for yourself to get that sense? Could an aviar like Sak that could see into the future a little bit store that sense for later use inside a tin mind?

Heck, based on what we know about bonds, you could probably manipulate a knight radiant into making you their squire without them even being aware of it if you were to tap enough duralumin.

That would make sense if that were the case. I, personally, am quite exited to see what they really are when The Lost Metal finally comes out.

Also true. Huh, I guess they do have natural charisma after all

That's a way better explanation than what I gave.

When a large enough amount of investiture is within one location, a perpendicularity can form. Is the reason for the perpendicularity forming near Elantris because the city is basically a giant Aon that draws investiture to it?

Both stormlight and the mists of Scadrial are gaseous forms of investiture. How come radiants can absorb stormlight, but mistings and mistborn cant absorb the mists under normal circumstances?

Okay, so they don’t naturally have a charismatic personality or anything like that, but they do have a very, very powerful motivator for people to willingly follow them. They should be able to create unsealed metalminds for those who are exceptionally skilled and/or loyal to them. So if people in a society know that they will get magic powers if they follow their leader, and the only way to maintain that power (the metalminds will run out of charge eventually, after all) is to stay loyal and hone their skill with it, then the Fullborn should have a rather large retinue of willing followers.

I’m not 100% certain as to what they are and so I could be entirely wrong, but I’d venture to assume that they are merely unsealed metalminds that contain the necessary powers to compound, thus allowing one to use them to create more unsealed metalminds by manipulating Identity and Investiture Feruchemically. I would also not be surprised to find out that when the Sovereign gave these to the Southern Scadrians, he deliberately gave them multiple metalminds, but that each only had access to a few abilities in them, limiting their potential to create more powerful and dangerous medallions, similar to the Bands of Mourning.

If you had a lot of extra breaths to spend, could you awaken a feruchemist’s corpse with the command to fill a certain type of metalmind, and thereby replicate the powers of Feruchemy via Awakening? If this theory proved accurate, and you awakened a full Feruchemist’s corpse, could you selectively grant them the ability only to store certain attributes, so as to require fewer bio-chromatic breaths when awakening them?

Could you use Forgery on a Lifeless to change what command they had been given? Could you use Forgery on a Lifeless to change the moment in their past where they died, thereby making a fake copy of the individual as if they were alive?

I'd say probably not, as it shouldn't be in a position to pull off a piece of someone's spiritweb any longer. It would be a bit like if you were to awaken an object, then say "oh shoot, I actually wanted to use this other, way better command"; you wouldn't suddenly be able to do that after you had done the deed, unless you were to repeat the process. Now, I could be wrong, as Hemalurgy heavily involves the spiritual realm, and things like time and space get real wonky when that's involved, but I'd say it's not likely.

You mean if someone had Intent to perform Hemalurgy in the past, and then much later it was able to take effect? I'm not sure I understand your question.

Nightblood contains at least some portion of Ruin's Investiture, and based off it's color and command, I'd venture to say that it actually converts other forms of investiture into Ruin's investiture. But Nightblood can't hold all that investiture, so it leaks away...where? Back to the spiritual realm, where all investiture eventually goes. But if that happens, would that then make that extra Ruin-converted investiture eventually find it's way to the shard of Ruin itself? And by doing so, could that lead to an imbalance of Harmony's powers, thus starting to turn him into Discord? Maybe this is one of the big reasons why Sazed is now finding it harder and harder to act; his powers are now longer in balance.

Not to mention that powerful, immortal entities suddenly seem much more vulnerable when their ability to magically heal from any wound gets taken away

Hemalurgy requires Intent to be used, so it can't be used by someone accidentally. However, does it need to be your Intent? For example, you shoot a gun at a person, and it just so happens to pass through a Hemalurgically valid bind point, and the bullet is Hemalurgically viable. If some onlooker saw this happen, knew about Hemalurgy, and wanted the bullet to perform a Hemalurgic removal, would it happen?

I have to say, in my opinion, the Metallic arts are one of the best magic systems. I love how it's simple enough to comprehend, but has enough complexity that you can come up with lost of ways to use it. Just check out the Cosmere Q&A; you'll find quite a few ideas I and others have come up with that might change your mind But of course, I like the magic system mostly because I can try to expect what could be done, and what could happen, and how certain combinations of abilities can be exploited, which isn't everyone's cup of tea.

It sounds like it's been canonized as Feruchemy now. Also, based on this quote, the use of Fortune is almost certainly a future-sight type of ability rather than one that causes physical changes in the world around you.

I made a post recently about how it seems that shapeshifters in the Cosmere are able to change their age and appearance by having some kind of connection to the cognitive realm, and then by manipulating their cognitive aspect. So, could the reason why Lift was changed the way she was by the Nightwatcher be because that she now technically does have the ability to “stay the same”, but she simply doesn’t know how to use it?