Trusk'our

Welcome to the Shard! @Solio_ already asked which system was your favorite, but specifically in regard to the Metallic Arts, what aspects of each do you find most interesting?

Identity is an important concept for harnessing Investiture. A Feruchemist cannot tap another Feruchemist's Metalmind because they have different Identities. So, how is it that powers with Identities independent from a person can be used by them? Radiant Spren and Aviar have their own Identities, and Unsealed Metalminds have even more an Identity than regular Metalminds! (Hemalurgic spikes have an Identity too, but they're a whole separate beast) I think that there must be something more going on. We see that Ruin and Preservation, despite being held by different Vessels and having opposite Intents were capable of working together to create Scadrial. I believe that a similar phenomenon happened when Navani merged Stormlight and Voidlight to create Voidlight- by tweaking both of their Tones, their Identities, they were able to be alloyed into a form that could make them compatible. We even know Resonances are supposed to be an extrapolation of Shards blending together, just on an incredibly small scale. So, here's my hypothesis: when a Spren bonds a person or an Unsealed Metalmind is used, the Spiritweb of the person and the power being bonded both change slightly, just enough that they can use Connection to bridge souls and become a sort of chimeric entity. Just like the Tones of Stormlight and Voidlight needing to be tweaked to merge into Warlight. This may also be why there is an upper limit to the number of bonds you can have at any given time. If Resonances get washed out by too many interactions, then so would Identity alloying, assuming it uses similar underlying principles. While on the topic of Identity, I feel it wise to address the two other methods of cooperation. Breaths and natural powers from Allomancy and Feruchemy seem different. They aren't independent. They are more a part of you than a fully independent being or construct, less of an independent Identity (though Breaths carry "some things" with them and Metallic Arts I think may still have an Identity/Connection linked to their Shardic Intents and their specific powers). Hemalurgic spikes are a bit funkier. I think that they either work by bypassing Identity all together or maybe by breaking down/suppressing the bearer's Identity but not (usually) changing their own. Ruin is more yell than listen, more invasive than receptive. Not changing their own Identity could explain why spikes don't interfere with Unsealed Metalminds (Set members with three spikes still using weight medallions in BoM), why Resonances don't show up with them, and why Identity contamination prevents Compounding via Hemalurgy- if the spikes stick to affecting their host and not each other, they'd probably have a hard time forming Resonances and wouldn't suffer from interference like malleable, symbiotic bonds would. Basically, my thought is that most independent powers like Spren, Aviar, and Unsealed Metalminds work with you, Breaths and natural Metalborn powers work as a part of you, and spikes work on you.

Perfect! I too love to find Connections between the systems of Investiture, seeing how we can predict how a given power works and what could therefore be done with it. Which magic system do you find most intriguing when theorizing?

It's no problem. It's always a pleasure to have a new 17th Sharder, and honestly it's one of my favorite things to geek out and discuss the nitty-gritty of Cosmere mechanics. Indeed, Fabrials are pretty cool. WaT even introduces the concept of Intent being important to new Fabrials. Previously they were all mechanical in nature, though some perception mattered, like with Spanreeds. But having the ability to directly influence how the Fabrial performs based on thought alone is very intriguing. Reminds me think of Unsealed Metalminds. Yeah, it's a newer development that came around in TLM. Apparently, Sazed's disposition towards Preservation over Ruin has some consequence for Hemalurgy. It no longer leaks into Spiritwebs as easily and can be outright rejected if there's too much corruption. Hence the reason there's now a stricter limit on the number of Hemalurgic spikes a person can benefit from and their individual Identities (taken from the spikes' donors) now prevent Compounding. There are plenty of ideas on how to overcome this, but the most common is to either grant the donor access to aluminum Feruchemy to blank their Identity before excising the desired portion of their Spiritweb, or perhaps to just use a non-lethal duralumin spike to remove Identity before taking their other power(s). It's also worth noting that Breaths get notably weaker when the donor is dying. Trying to charge a spike with a dying person might suffer a similar fate, I think. But it's way more ethical to spike someone already on Ironeye's doorstep than to spike someone in the prime of their life, I feel. You're welcome! It was a blast for me to talk about the MoIs some more. Hope we can talk more again some time

It's alright, you don't have to put Cosmere spoilers in spoiler boxes on this forum, as it's designed for both WaT and Cosmere spoilery content. 1. Probably. Spren are attracted to and can only be trapped in certain types of gemstones, so having only certain Spren-related Investiture types being affected by gemstone type should matter. 2. It's kinda iffy. Identity contamination should be a serious issue, but the Set were working on combining Hemalurgic charges. I feel like it could be done in theory, but would require serious tweaking. 3. 1. Yes, it does matter where the donor is spiked, especially if multiple powers exist in their Spiritweb. 4. If you're using standard Hemalurgy and want to steal a Radiant's Surgebinding, you typically must spike both. It's usually power from the Spren, Connection from the Radiant. But multiple methods may work. If it's gemstone Hemalurgy, I don't know. We don't have a lot of info on it yet. 5-6. I strongly suspect that Moash's spikes are simply using trapped Voidspren stapled to his Spiritweb. Less directly a part of Ruin, more a Cosmere-wide phenomenon related to the concept of Spiritweb splicing.

He might be. He's currently lying to the Ghostbloods about his Allomancy being functional. Divine Breaths can't be given to another to function as it would for the Returned, which would have made me say no. But since I recently remembered that Invested healing is basically just Connection between the physical and spiritual aspects (and that Regrowth can Reconnect a recently killed person to their body), this might actually work.

Welcome to the Shard! Which of the three Metallic Arts is your favorite and why? What aspects of Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy do you find most interesting to read about?

Thanks! I'm leaning in that direction, though honestly being a Sliver of Preservation and literally being made up entirely of the Shard's Investiture by this point is probably an even bigger deal. Anything about the Bands is confusing. It feels like their reveal was really meant for Era 3, since we still know almost nothing about their history. But, I've kinda assumed Kelsier could use the Bands since he seems to be capable of using Unsealed Metalminds, but that they were taken and hidden or something by another person before he got his body back. Probably Spook. But I'd have to go back and look at the story given by the Southern Scadrians. I thought I remembered it not really lining up with this idea.

A big question since the release of TLM- why can't Kelsier use his Allomancy? It's been proposed that Kelsier's Allomancy inhibition could be a side effect of using a Mistwraith body, but I find this particularly unlikely, given that Kandra can use Lerasium and Bleeder shows us they can use Hemalurgy to gain powers. I also don't think it's because he's a Cognitive Shadow, as we see Returned, Fused, and Heralds all use MoIs without issue. Furthermore, I doubt it's because his flesh (may) be from a Mistwraith, as Fused are more than capable of using their Surges while possessing another Singer's body (with the process of taking Forms and possessing gemhearts being related to Hemalurgy even). I think, then, it's a matter of Hemalurgy. Or rather, Kelsier's unique interaction with Ruin's art. Hemalurgy can no longer be used to the same extent as it once was. Khriss believes it's due to the balance of souls in the Cosmere and Ruin's subservience to Preservation. Basically, my thinking is that Kel, being a Sliver/CS/Mistborn, is highly suffused with Preservation's essence. If a regular person cannot bear more than a handful of spikes before their souls reject additional powers, than Kelsier's soul may spit out Hemalurgic powers after far less corruption. What about his innate powers? What of Sazed's remarks on Lerasium being ineffective in his current state? I think this is facing a similar phenomenon. If Kelsier's Spiritweb partially rejects his spike, perhaps only the bare minimum functions can come of it- a warping of his eye bindpoint and just enough of a Connection to regain control over his bones that already have an established Connection, but not enough to metabolize metals. It honestly might not even graft anything to his Spiritweb, but may just be a sort of "pathway" between his spirit and body because of the hole it makes in his Spiritweb. Thoughts?

Sorry for the late response, I had extra responsibilities to take care of and forgot about this for a while. Spikes aren’t normally exerting an influence, true, but they should still have the components to do so. For example, when a Kandra bears the Blessing of Potency, they have no noticeable physical changes made to their bodies, yet they receive a boost to many if not all the attributes Allomantic pewter effects. If the only Investiture involved in this scenario is that of the spikes, how could this not be used as a fuel line for Feruchemy? The spike is providing power on its own, and as long as its preserved correctly I don't see a reason for it being incapable of filling a Metalmind. I'm not sure I follow. If Hemalurgic theft moves a functional power from a Metalborn to a spike and if a Soulbearer does the same but with their Metalmind, how come the spike's contents become an invalid source for a Nicrosilmind? I mean, Hemalurgy does twist what it takes, but the powers themselves still function identically from what we've seen. I don't understand why siphoning off the power to be used in a Metalmind would not work when the spike would have had a functional power on its own, as a natural Metalborn should have the same requirement. If I've misstated your thoughts, please correct me.

Those are fair points. Hemalurgy overwrites the Spiritweb into something new, so the ideal self is now something different from what you were before. However, the Cognitive Aspect still dictates a lot of stuff. It can even change anatomy that people were born with, like poor eyesight and epilepsy (Renarin), bodily deformities (Godeke), and even fully change biological sex (Ral-na). If it's possible to overwrite the spikes with health I don't think it would be easy. Probably on the same level as Kaladin regrowing his arm's functionality after being cut by Szeth, probably even harder because you're trying to change a pre-existing Investiture than just grafting on a new piece. So, what if in the proposed scenarios Renarin was juiced up by Dalinar's open Perpendicularity, or Miles was boosted by a Set Nicroburst? As I understand it, the more you're Invested (which I think extra health coded Investiture will help with), the more what you want to be comes into play than what's pre-determined.

May I pry deeper into this interest and ask why they're your favorites?

I feel like we need more information to say anything conclusively, but my Fortune tells me it probably doesn't work that way. I think the main culprit for diminishing returns may be because your Spiritweb's natural state fights against the influx of Investiture from the tapped Metalmind. Rashek needed more and more youth to combat age for this very reason. So perhaps this loss is only present in attributes hard-coded in your Spiritweb to begin with, and things like Allomantic Bronze don't have such a disadvantage. If this is the case, I don't think that upping the attribute with duralumin Allomancy is any different from standard tapping- you're still going to get a lot of power because it's compressed into a small window, but you'll end up losing a lot still.

Each Shard inherently has advantages and inhibitions in certain areas. Not only that, but I don't think intelligence/competence is a strictly linear concept. Taravangian is really smart in general and especially when it comes to manipulating people, but since he has little understanding of Honor he seriously risks offending a core aspect of his power. Bavadin has several orders of magnitude more experience and has agents on a whole slew of worlds already, but the Set's hierarchy has shown itself to be less stable (competing agents backstabbing one another if they can) because of how she likes to run things, and Taldain, despite its great technological headstart, has begun to stagnate because of her enforced isolation. Plus, her Intent forces her to respect individuals who fight against her as long as they're competent and have agency (like when she retreated from Scadrial). Sazed has three and a half centuries of experience holding multiple Shards with diametrically opposed Intents. This gives him insight into Tarabution's limits, I think, but even so Harmony is largely crippled as is- it doesn't matter if you have two cosmic forces at your fingertips if they're constantly locked in a death-roll. Cultivation is probably in a similar boat to Autonomy, as she has great experience and her Intent seems to allow good futuresight and growth. So, it really depends, I think. If Sazed can fully act as Discord I think he would have a good standing as top-axehound of the Cosmere through sheer Investiture (maybe having seeds of the Metallic Arts spreading as Scadrial industrializes them and takes to the stars), but someone else is always going to have a niche that they fit in a superior way. Autonomy has more widespread influence, Retribution better combat-oriented powers and servants, Cultivation more room for behind the scenes string pulling, etc.

I've been looking over the two big examples of Cognitive Shadows we know of- Returned and Heralds- and I'm finding a few trends with interesting implications. Most of this is taken through the lens of Shallan being the child of a CS like those with the Hallandren Royal Locks, but she has far more screen time than any true Herald and I think the correlations are still viable. Shallan is seen using Fortune along with her Resonance to draw possibilities of how people could have been or could still be. Returned have dreams that seem to draw on Fortune, showing the future. Shallan is shown manipulating her Identity enough to cancel Drhey's Lashing, and her multiple personalities have a "tenuous link" between Identity (probably another interaction like her Resonance and Fortune). Returned are able to change their appearance to a great degree, possibly by altering their Identities. (It's also worth noting that Shallan's mental health seems to affect her Identity shenanigans) Shallan seems to have extra Connection-related advantages, like emotionally moving people to be better versions of themselves (though this is supposed to be a Lightweaver thing anyway, so may not be too reliable). Returned use a similar Realmatic mechanism to Soothing (and I suspect Connecting), making children and animals happier and more trusting around them. (Returned can also accurately interpret abstract pieces of art made by those "channeling the [Iridescent] Tones" with Breath, which I think may be Connection related) Investiture wise, Vasher says those with the Royal Locks have an advantage when learning Awakening. I think Shallan's own high skill with Lightweaving may be augmented by her status as a Herald's child. Basically, it seems like Cognitive Shadows and half-Shadows have greater interaction/perks related to the Spiritual Realm. Identity, Connection, Fortune, and Investiture all seem either stronger or more mailable in some way for them. I feel like this makes some sense, as the natural Realmatic ties Cognitive Shadows had are replaced by strong Investiture, which is primarily Spiritual in nature. Though honestly, I would have figured that their abilities would have been more Cognitive Realm specific given the name, but the evidence I've found doesn't support that. It's also just weird to think about, that a half-Shadow has a Spiritweb shaped (same attributes for the most part) like any other person, but the one difference is their Realmatic Connections and Investiture, I think. It also might be worth thinking about spiritual Feruchemy more, as these might be examples of those very mechanics at play. Any contradicting opinions or additional supporting evidence?

Yeah, it's a pretty cool detail! This is something that they thought about, how Allomantic symbols might have actually been co-opted from Hemalurgic ones.

When a person uses Investiture to heal themselves, it typically works by aligning their physical body with their Spiritweb, filtered through their perception of self. It's even possible to repair the Spiritweb by grafting on new pieces, or to overwrite innate conditions like Renarin's poor eyesight. In fact, one could spike out a portion of their Spiritweb, then replace it with gold Feruchemy if they had enough Investiture. But, what if a person has something spliced into them via Hemalurgy and they try to heal it away? True, their Spiritweb has been altered now, but their perception does not necessarily fit with the change. So, say Renarin gets pinged by Mraize with a random spike in a scuffle, or Miles gets forcibly "adopted" by a group of aggressive Koloss. Could a supercharged healing overwrite the contents of the spikes themselves since they're contrary to the self-image of their bearers? It's entirely possible the spikes are simply pushed outside of the body, the warping is temporarily resisted until the health runs out, or maybe the foreign Spiritweb fragments are just straight up obliterated. But I think it would be particularly interesting if they got overwritten in the least energy consuming manner, leaving the spike bearer with subtle changes, but maybe still with some power from the spikes. Basically an add on to attributes (probably in a direct manner like the way Kandra benefit from Blessings, which wouldn't interfere so much with their perception), but stacking them in such a way that they don't necessarily corrupt what you are. Regardless, I doubt the cost would be particularly worth it (assuming overwriting Hemalurgic spikes' abilities with health works at all), as it would probably take a lot of health to do- but it might be a unique interaction, at least.

Sja-anat is capable of corrupting Spren, leaving Odium's touch on them. We see that a corrupted True Spren that is attacked by an Anti-Stormight weapon will remove the remaining Honor-aligned Investiture from them, but won't necessarily destroy them. With Hemalurgy it is said to "twist" the power it steals (especially attributes). I think that there is a parallel between the two. Perhaps the reason Hemalurgic spikes grant a Connection to Ruin is because at least part of the stolen Investiture they hold is replaced by/attuned to Ruin. What's more, Corrupted Spren change their appearance to reflect their new natures. Perhaps attributes (and to a lesser extent powers) granted by Hemalurgy are twisted in part because they're filtered through the lens of Ruin, the Shard of destructive change. So if you could change a spike's Investiture type, or even just tweak its Tone, maybe you could end up with a different result. For example, a Koloss who's spikes were re-aligned with Preservation might have few warping qualities at all, or a Koloss who's spikes are aligned with Endowment might be built more like an Olympian god than an ogre.

Personally, I think the "hema" portion came from the need for spikes to touch moving blood to graft a Spiritweb fragment, at least initially. But yeah, it's mostly a matter of semantics. I'd say that's a fair takeaway. When referring to Hemalurgy in the future of the Cosmere I kind of doubt other forms will come into play as much as Scadrial's own version- Ruin directly facilitates it as long as you have metal and Intent, while we don't know what requirements other manifestations may demand. Ruin may not even directly interact with them. I'd still refer to any Spiritweb splicing via bindpoints as Hemalurgy, as I think both phenomena are close enough in nature to be counted as the same "class" of MoI.

I believe that Moash's crystal eye spikes are a manifestation of Hemalurgy in the same way that there are Lightweaving magics separate from Surgebinding or Awakened objects Invested without a hint of Endowment's Breath. Many- I suspect most- MoIs piggyback off of pre existing Cosmere wide Realmatics, putting a new twist on them but maintaining the core components.

I think an aluminum bullet would get the job done more easily. I guess it depends on where you hit, as their Feruchemy could still keep them alive if not shot in the brain- aluminum would prevent healing in the local area as long as it's loged in place, but healing should keep the body alive regardless. Leeching might also work, but it would take time depending on their metal/Investiture stores: Nuking them is probably unavoidably lethal. We haven't seen what happens with a supercharged healing yet, but it would be hard to survive the force of nuclear bombardment.

It can be hazardous if not used carefully, but it would speed up the process to be nearly instantaneous. You could probably use a duralumin Allomancy-granting Hemalurgic spike or a Nicroburst to greatly speed up the rate of replenishing Metalminds for a Compounder. Hope this was helpful!

The color of the gemstones was that of Voidlight and Secretspren are a type of Voidspren that can detect kinetic Investiture. Extending that function to a person so they can see innert Investiture seemed most likely to me, perhaps like how Steelsight in Inquisitors is similar but not quite identical to standard Steel/Iron sight (though I'm also assuming Inquisitors use Allomantic iron or steel for eye spikes and not another physical Allomantic power).

Yes, it is still Hemalurgy, but seems to be using a more primal iteration than found on Scadrial. Spiritweb transformation via Investiture being spliced in the Physical Realm. We don't know much of what's going on with it right now, but I'm guessing Moash's spikes contain a type of Voidspren (either captured through standard means or pinned like the Spren Szeth found in Ishar's cave) that are then grafted to his Spiritweb. Basically, replacing human Spiritweb donors with captured Spren. But again, that's just a guess. We really aren't sure yet on what's truly going on there.

While a Connector Ferring would have a lot of versatility in what they can affect with their power, they certainly wouldn't be as versatile as a true Bondsmith. Or would they? (Insert Vsauce music) Ishar was able to Connect Windrunners to the ground in RoW, causing their Spiritwebs to view the ground as a part of their bodies, which then drained their Stormlight. If a double duralumin Twinborn Compounded Connection to someone else, perhaps they could count that person's Spiritweb as their own, and siphon off their Connection. The Twinborn could then Compound the new Connection as much as they pleased. Honestly, if this works, they could theoretically bond the Spiritwebs of other Feruchemists or Allomancers together, possibly sharing powers and attributes. Another weird phenomenon to think about- Navani was able to forge a Connection to a SR corpse through perception alone (which we see can even form mini-bonds with Spren to sustain their cognizance in the PR, as occurred with Notum). Couldn't a double duralumin Twinborn- or even just a regular Connector Ferring- store weak Connections from something they think about, later enhancing it as much as they choose? So okay, they probably still don't have the full abilities of a Radiant Bondsmith, but they might have a lot more potential than I previously assumed.