Trusk'our

I'm a bit confused as to how this works; when an allomancer burns a metal, they pull some of Preservation's investiture from the spiritual realm, allowing them to do a thing with that investiture, and depending on the type of metal, the investiture grants a different effect. So, is it the investiture itself that is "programmed" while being drawn from the spiritual realm, giving it that effect, or is the spirit web of the allomancer doing the work of the caused effect, and the investiture merely fueling the work? For instance, let's say that the investiture that an allomancer gains from a burned metal is somehow removed from them, would the investiture still be programmed to the specific effect that the allomancer would have, or would it be fuel that is more or less up for grabs for any ability? A surgebinder holding stormlight can use that investiture to fuel any of their abilities, but an allomancer's investiture already does some specific effect based on the metal. So, even if an allomancer also somehow became a surgebinder, could they not use their allomancy to fuel their surgebinding because it is already programmed to have a different effect?

Great minds do think alike, after all.

It has been confirmed by Brandon Sanderson that you can steal a Returned’s Divine Breath by using hemalurgy. If someone could somehow steal a Divine Breath and give it to themselves, they could pretend to be a true Returned and get taken into Hallandren’s Court of Gods. They’d have access to an additional breath once each week, allowing them to get an addition 52 bio-chromatic breaths in total each year, since they don’t need to consume a breath each week to stay alive. They could also siphon off tons of money that Returned normally waste, using it to obtain more breaths if they have some lackies on the outside the Court that could go buy some for them. Not to mention the political power they’d wield, and the great comfort that they’d have just by being there a supposed Returned. In hindsight, though, this is a bad idea for two big reasons. One: You have to murder a person to get the Divine Breath. Which is bad. Two: Endowment personally dolls out each Divine Breath, so she’d probably notice if someone she hadn’t picked suddenly got one somehow. I can’t imagine that she’d be terribly pleased.

Okay, hypothetical situation here: a powerful entity threatens to obliterate you if you don’t somehow get them ten thousand bio-chromatic breaths. You are on the planet Nalthis, and you reliably have one year to obtain them by any means necessary, but it’s possible you could extend this time by showing promising results to the entity. You don’t start off with any special resources; you are just a normal person (don’t ask why this powerful entity is asking you, of all people to do this, it’s probably just a really dumb creature with way too much power). How do you get these breaths?

Is it only an aviar’s bonded companion that gets their power, like the spren of Roshar, or do the aviar benefit from their own talents as well? If someone could modify themselves somehow to be able to eat the same worms that provide the aviar with their talents, would the person also get those benefits, or would they need to bond with someone else to make it work?

Allomancers, surgebinders, and most other magic users need an influx of kinetic investiture in order to use their abilities, but it seems that aviar talents don’t. So, does this mean that Aviar grant their talents to people as a passive effect of having static investiture, similar to the heightenings of Nalthian awakeners?

I just realized this. A vessel’s Connection to the shard they control is what allows them use possess it. So, since a bondsmith can steal Connections from people, could they, if Odium met them in one of his visions, take his Connection to his shard, allowing them to ascend and become Odium themselves? Just makes you wonder a bit about how powerful a bondsmith might be when they use their powers correctly.

This guy. He's got the best idea yet of how the Fused should be handled in the Stormlight Archive series.

If an individual can obtain a piece of investiture that stays with them rather than being converted to kinetic investiture or leaking out, they gain certain benefits. We can see these benefits with those who hold a number of bio-chromatic breaths or a Dawnshard, but most other magic systems don’t allow the investiture to stay with the practitioner, which prevents them from gaining heightenings. However, a hemalurgic nicrocil spike can steal general investiture, granting it to someone. My question is if someone took, for example, stormlight held by a surgebinder, would this investiture leak out as it normally would, or, since the spike itself is holding it, would it stick to the person enough to grant them the heighteinings? Could a person even do this, since hemalurgy primarily steals from the spiritual realm? If this is the case, what kinds of investiture (other than Divine Breaths) would be viable for a nicrocil spike?

Alright, I know that this topic has been discussed and argued about a lot already, and the points that I’m about to bring up may have already been used, but I recently re-read Rhythm of War, and I think that I found some good points regarding this debate. In chapter 99, “Not Bound”, it is shown that Hoid (Wit) wrote up a contract to bind Odium in the contest of champions. Part of this contracts would protect Hoid from Odium’s attacks, as he would be counted as a liaison for Honor for the duration of the agreement. Hoid also mentions that he knows Rayse, and seems to very, very confident in his knowledge. In chapter 112, “Terms”, Odium surprise visits Dalinar to make final terms on the contest of champions. Dalinar shows the contract made by Hoid to Odium, but Odium doesn’t accept the terms set out on it. Instead, he and Dalinar come up with a different agreement together, one that, as it so happens, doesn’t protect Hoid. In this very chapter (page 1173), Dalinar thanks Renarin in his mind for making his future unknown to Odium, but this also reminds us, the readers, that Hoid can’t see what’s going to happen here either, due to Renarin’s interference. Later, in chapter 113, “Emotion”, Taravangian ends up replacing Rayse as the Vessel of Odium, but Taravangian’s future is also currently being protected by Renarin (and Odium himself, since he also has future sight), so Hoid wouldn’t be able to foresee this event either. Finally, in the Epilogue, “Dirty Tricks”, Hoid goes to meet Odium, who he still presumes to be Rayse, who he knows well and understands. Unfortunately, Hoid doesn’t know Taravangian nearly as well (if at all; I can’t remember them ever meeting before), and he doesn’t even know that Taravangian is the new Odium, after all. This lack of knowledge combined with the actual deal that was made between Dalinar and Odium left Hoid open to attack, allowing Odium to remove some of Hoid’s memories, hiding the truth that Rayse was replaced, and that someone who abilities were far more unknown was now holding the reigns. Now, to be fair, in chapter 99, one of the things that Hoid likes so much about Jasnah is that she’s paranoid, which likely reflects Hoid’s own paranoia. I would not put it past Hoid to have somehow made copies of his memories in case an event like the one between him and Taravangian ever occurred (perhaps using copper feruchemy compounding?), but I don’t see enough evidence for it currently to be thoroughly convinced either. Anyway, I enjoyed coming up with this explanation of what I think really happened, and I hope that you guys enjoyed it as well! (As a side note, this is the longest post I’ve ever made!)

Alright, let put this out here first; I know the steel inquisitors are NOT as powerful as the Fused, but I felt more suspense when reading about them in Mistborn than I felt reading about the Fused in Stormlight. I believe that the Steel Inquisitors are a better bunch of lackies than the Fused because there are fewer of them, which makes each and every one of them feel much more important. In addition, from a meta point of view, killing off a steel inquisitor is a bigger blow to the bad guys than killing a Fused, because killing a Fused in basically meaningless, which means that the author is okay with killing Fused whilly nilly (Kaladin does it ALL THE TIME), while inquisitor deaths feel hard to achieve comparatively speaking. It makes the Fused feel like a bunch of immortal punching bags that have no fulfilling purpose than to annoy the readers, seeing as how the characters can't beat them in combat. INQUISITORS though, those guys were tough for Vin and Elend to battle, but they ultimately were able to defeat them, which made a sort of "progress", so to speak. I suppose that this argument may just be my point of view however. What do you guys think?

One of the limitations of feruchemy is that you can only store a certain amount of an attribute inside a metalmind. This isn't usually an issue, because most feruchemists will never have enough investiture to run out of storage space. This might become an issue with compounding though. My theory is that you can actually fill a metalmind more than normal if you transfer a huge amount of attributes from a large metalmind to a much smaller metalmind. There would likely be a larger amount of the attribute lost, but if you're a compounder, this won't be an issue. We've seen something like this happen already with perfect gemstones left out in highstorms repeatedly (RoW), and that's basically what's happening with Nightblood, so I think that my theory seems possible.

Then how was Vin able to push on them after she pulled them out? Was she still drawing on the mists? I thought that she only did that for a moment, just long enough to pull out the bracers.

Something has been bothering me about the scene in The Final Empire where the Lord Ruler loses his metalminds. After Vin managed to rip them out and steel push them out the window, the Lord Ruler didn't use his own allomantic power to simply pull them back and restore his youth. Even though he was surprised, he was so used to using his allomantic powers that it feels far fetched that he wouldn't automatically use allomantic iron to retrieve them. I was under the impression that feruchemical nicrocil could only grant one the ability to store the ability to use a magical power. This would mean that the Lord Ruler would have had to have burned metals for allomantic power just as any other misting or mistborn would. So from this scene, I conclude that you can not only store the ability to use a specific power via feruchemical nicrocil, but you can also store the fuel necessary to use it as well. This would explain why the Lord Ruler couldn't just rely on his allomantic powers in the heat of the moment; it was more convenient to just store the fuel in his metalminds than to keep ingesting metals.

Of all the Cosmere's known magic users, I'm not really sure that anyone can compare to the fullborn (mistborn + full feruchemist) in terms of raw power. They can: 1. Get a nearly infinite supply of any feruchemical attribute that they want as long as they have the metals available, then tap them at pretty much any speed that they want. 2. Reverse compound somehow (probably feruchemical nicrocil at work here, but it has yet to be confirmed) to increase their allomantic powers to a ridiculous amount, pretty much as much as they want, similar to their feruchemical counterparts. 3. There isn't really a maximum limit to the amount of investiture that they can store, except maybe the amount of metalminds that they can carry, which is still a lot. It doesn't seem like fullborn have the traditional limitations that you'd expect to see on other metalborn, surgbinders, awakeners, or any other magic users really. How powerful are they, really, and what would it take to bring down a competent fullborn? (Mcguffins such as shards of Adonalsium or Dawn shards don't count, I'm referring to "normal" magic users)

The Hearalds have difficulty leaving Roshar, but they aren't slivers. Also, Vasher can leave Nalthis, but he is a cognitive shadow, so something is up with him.

So, I was wondering if there are any theories about how a heavily invested individual could leave their own planet. I know it probably has something to do with connection, but wouldn't Kelsier be able to store that in a metalmind and leave Scadrial if that were the case?

Already read it, actually, I know it's (SPOILERS) Zahel. I know that he can beat Kaladin in a fight if he's prepared, but I was wondering about other people's thoughts on his ability mostly.

Okay, so Vasher is probably one of my favorite characters, and I was thinking about making a book some day, and I kind of wanted to write a character a bit like him. So if Vasher were thrown into a dangerous situation, how well would he fair compaired to other characters of Sanderson's? Also, if he really wanted to, how dangerous could he be to a group of competent individuals, such as the Ghostbloods or the Knights Radient?

I've been trying to come up with a way to somehow "supercharge" a hemalurgic spike, but reusing them on multiple donors doesn't seem to be likely. It might be possible to reuse a spike on multiple donors if store their Identity, but that seems unlikely for multiple reasons. But what if you use feruchemy in a different way to enhance your hemalurgic gains? What if you tap, for example, the strength of ten men, then use hemalurgic iron take that enhanced attribute? Would you be able to get that attribute enhanced, or would only the regular, non enhanced piece of spiritweb stick to the spike?

Okay, so my original idea was that you could use the same spike on multiple people and continue to fill it because it counts as a low investiture object according to this quote. However, this won't apparently be as easy as I originally imagined... So, it sounds like when you spike away something from someone, it keys that spike to their Identity. While you can impale yourself or someone else with that same spike to grant them that power, you wouldn't, for instance, be able to remove your own power or attribute to add on to the previously existing hemalurgic charge due to conflicting Identity. However, if you could repeatedly take investiture from someone who could heal back that which was lost, you might be able to overcome this difficulty. If you could get the donors to blank their Identity before you took their investiture, you could also likely add up the total charge. Both of these options seem rather difficult to achieve, so I can see why the Lord Ruler's steel Inquisitors didn't just load up on power from a few spikes, even if my theory holds true. Thoughts anyone?

I know that awakening mostly is used to animate organic objects and corpses, but we can see from Nightblood's existence and Hoid's memories being stored in breath that more is obviously possible. So, what could awakening be used for? Ideas on how it could interact with other magic systems would also be good to know.

Another question about hemalurgy. Koloss have their physical aspect changed drastically by having four iron spikes placed in their body. However, hemalurgic iron steals physical strength, which, obviously, is a physical attribute. Would the mental and spiritual spikes change the recipient in their mental and spiritual aspects rather than their physical aspect? (Aside from shifting organs around to preserve their function)

So, I was wondering about what counts in terms of controlling hemalurgic constructs when I stumbled over this quote. "Oversleep What does count for Hemalurgic control? The total Hemalurgic charge or number of the spikes? If we let four spikes decay for a few years and then pierce a human with it, would that person be controllable? Does that work the same for all Hemalurgic constructs? Brandon Sanderson Good question to be asking, as there are spikes that come in sets that only count as a single one... I'd say you're getting close, but not quite there." To me, I think it's the actual number of spikes themselves piercing your soul's binding points. Koloss could still be controlled after much of their charge had been lost, and Harmony could still easily talk to Waxillium with a fraction of an old, worn out Inquisitor's spike. Does my theory seem to make sense, or is it incorrect? P.S. sorry, I don't know how to put the quote in a proper quote box.

Makes sense. Now what about the Lord Ruler?