Trusk'our

Hello! Of all the Cosmere magic systems you've read about, which is your favorite (and what's your opinion on Hemalurgy specifically)?

It's interesting to see others' point of view on this and other topics. I know I tend toward mercy over justice in most cases, probably because I feel like if I do so then maybe mercy will be delt to me. I don't feel like a particularly good person, which is probably why I think this way. I think everyone does something similar: the things you experience that affect you directly are what shape how you think, feel, and act. As such, I can totally see why someone betrayed would be leaning more towards justice with Moash, but as I haven't gone through such an experience my mind doesn't truly comprehend that (though I like hearing what others say). I guess what I'm getting at is that I think the discussions between Moash's position primarily reflect how we think justice and mercy should be handled in real life, because that's what good stories do. Sometimes it gets hard to separate fiction from reality, which makes the debating all the more aggravating.

Melaan confirmed the possibility of Kandra shedding mass in SoS, such as by forcing it down a drain when creating a disguise. Otherwise they'd be too large each time they tried to mimic a human.

That's got to be my favorite too. It's simple enough to understand, but the potential for complexity is quite large. I've had loads of fun over the past few years coming up with ways to use Scadrial's magics, yet it always seems like there's another secret to uncover.

Awesome! Welcome to the Shard friend! Of all the Cosmere you've read, which magic system is your favorite to read about and why?

Why then did the noblemen of era 1 Mistborn severely beat each other to Snap? Physical trauma opens Spiritweb cracks, though that doesn't means those cracks have to be as significant as something like Hemalurgic spikes. I personally think Invested healing being able to seal Spiritweb cracks by repairing the physical or patching up the spiritual isn't unlikely, it seems more intuitive, as by fixing your injuries and realigning your physical aspect to the spiritual or even realigning the spiritual to match the cognitive you're removing the dissonance between aspects. You'd still be using Investiture to seal the cracks, just by restoring them to how your cognitive aspect views them rather than needing to change your cognition aspect to accept it over time. I don't know that I understand this proposition at the moment. May you please further explain why you think this is?

This is a pretty interesting ability. Oxygen, nutrients, and body heat could still be an issue with enough mass (though cadmium, Bendalloy, and brass can circumvent this if needed), but overall this would greatly increase the power and versatility of any Kandra's repertoire. Easy flight and buoyancy, added agility and speed, total allowed mass, extra muscle, it would all be very potent in the right circumstances. Skeletons getting the ability to reduce weight might be harder, but if you can get an airship to do it, figuring it out for a True Body shouldn't be too difficult.

Not totally sure, though he didn't want that information getting out, but Hoid fiddled with stuff as usual.

Probably subjective, yeah. The Spren is the one initiating the bond, so their will is what determines its success for the most part. I would say that Spren like Syl or Pattern would understand though and accept Marsh. Spren like the Stormfather or Sibling, probably not, though for different reasons.

Also, Wax tapped a Coppermind in BoM that seemed to hold a memory of Kel's, suggesting he can probably use those. I suppose it could have been a Kandra, but that feels a bit deliberately misleading to the readers. We know he was involved in their creation, but we don't know if he ever weilded them directly. Perhaps Spook actually made them with Kelsier's Sliverism-aided guidance.

Thanks! This one? It seems like a spike will aid in opening you up to other Investitures, probably because Hemalurgic spikes themselves aren’t Invested enough most of the time to completely fill the crack it makes, usually bearing just enough to hot wire the Spiritweb to other sources of power (like Allomancy drawing from the SR or Feruchemy diverting your own attributes). Specifically for bonding Spren, I think it's the Intent of giving yourself a Hemalurgic spike that's mostly going to matter: if you go all murder-hobo, very few Spren are gonna want to deal out a Nahel Bond to you. This is further supported by the fact that Marsh, despite his numerous spikes (22, last time I checked) can bond a Spren with only a little difficulty, but it seems that someone like a Returned would truly struggle due to their level of Investiture.

Cracks in the Spiritweb allow for Investiture to enter, which is of great importance to many Cosmere magics. What are the cracks though, mechanically speaking? We know that these "cracks" can occur when physical injury, mental stress, or insanity is felt by a person. Allomancers can Snap from beatings or even in some rare cases from powerful emotions (Emotional Allomancy can even induce Snapping). Those who suffer from madness in some form can be communicated with by Shards and Cognitive Shadows more easily (like in MSH). From this, I currently believe that these "cracks" are the dissonance between the physical, cognitive, and spiritual aspects of a person. When you get hurt, whether it be physical or mental, you create a disparity between your "perfect" spiritual self and who you are now, filtered through how you view yourself. This crack leaves the opportunity for growth, either until your learn to accept it as a part of who you are (which is why some injuries stick even with Invested healing), or in some cases allowing a change in your Spiritweb more directly through Investiture attaching to it. I actually find this rather beautiful as an allegory to how we learn and grow through our trials in real life, I have to say. Anyway, Hemalurgic spikes might aggravate these cracks more than normal because they need to create a dissonance between your physical and spiritual self to function, creating an artificial pathway to your Spiritweb through physical injury (and even continuously cause throbbing as a side-effect of cognitive injury in Inquisitors, likely due to the large number of spikes they bore). It could also be that Emotional Allomancy can control Hemalurgic constructs because the powerful emotions pressured on them briefly widens cracks in the Spiritweb made by their spikes, allowing for a bond to form between them. This dissonance between the three aspects and Investiture could also potentially explain why people with extra Investiture heal better, such as with the Heightenings: your Investiture seeks to fill the cracks, close the gaps in your self, which has the effect of physically healing and toughening you. Thoughts to expand or contradict this theory?

When you Awaken something, you are essentially giving it a "counterfeit soul". I wonder then, could Hemalurgic spikes Awaken something? Let's say you have a corpse and place Hemalurgic spikes in place to coordinate with one another as the natural Spiritweb would. Just to clarify, you're not stapling Spiritweb fragments onto a base Spiritweb, you're just trying to weave multiple Spiritweb fragments together in a body to make a fake soul, like a Lifeless. I personally see no reason why this couldn't be done (though it would probably be a terribly inefficent use of spikes for most intentions), though this is a simpler method of Awakening as you already have a vessel for the Investiture, complete with a record of the original Spiritweb to fill (which I think is what Awakening does with Lifeless). What about going a bit further? We know Awakened Metalminds will become a thing in Scadrial's future, indicating that it's quite possible to achieve. Maybe if you had a Metalmind you could splice a Hemalurgic spike's Spiritweb with it (maybe weld it on?), adding to its spiritual complexity to shortcut its Awakening process. I doubt this is strictly necessary, but for earlier Awakening of Metalminds it might prove a useful if gruesome tool.

There's also the possibility that Wax himself is the key to producing the Lerasium. We know he was specially chosen by Harmony to be his Sword, and was even able to breath in the Mists at times. I think it's plausible that Wax's unique Connection gave him some extra control over Harmony's essence, in this case Harmonium itself so it could be split more effectively with the right Intent. Or it could have been some other factor. There's too much we don't know to say for certain yet, but I'm currently betting on Wax's unique position being at least part of it.

True, that slipped my mind. They didn't seem to get Lerasium from the process though, only Atium. Wax's experiment seems to have been unique for whatever reason. Before I had thought Sazed was lying to Kel at the end, but now I'm thinking it's more of a half-truth: yes, Lerasium was produced, but only once and now it's gone. Atium residue is consistent though. I think this might be due to there being a higher concentration of Ruin in Harmony, which seeps into Harmonium. You blow it up and a small portion of Atium is left over because of the imbalance. Lerasium might have been available from Wax's experiment due to the Harmonium feeding on his Allomancy beforehand, tilting it towards Preservation more (or maybe because it's the Investiture of a Coinshot, pushing the pieces to separate more cleanly?), or perhaps because the Trellium held a certain Hemalurgic charge that changed the process. There's a lot that could have happened, but I don't think Lerasium has been cracked yet, as it feels like Telsin would have used it more otherwise, either on herself or her minions.

Maybe, but I'm hesitant to lean too far into this, as the Harmonium wasn't separated by Trellium, just blown up through its chemical reactivity. As such, I think it's unlikely that Lerasium and Atium were released into the ocean.

I think it's likely. We know that originally a key component to era 3's plot is a Mistborn serial killer (though a lot has changed around its premise, so admittedly this could change too). Steris wanted one more child in TLM and Wax had become Mistborn on top of his natural Allomantic potential by the end. It's not enough to boost him to obscene levels of Investiture, but I think it's quite probable that a Mistborn could be born from his line over the next couple of generations before his augmented potential waned. I do think that there are other options available for a Mistborn to show up though, such as the Malwish Consortium using the Bands to unlock new technology, Hemalurgy being advanced by the North's government (or some other individual or organization), or even Kelsier doing Bond shenanigans with a Ghostblood.

I do not believe feeding a Gemheart to a Mistwraith would provide a valid body for a Fused to possess: there is no spiritual transformation like with Singers, so they should be no more viable a vessel than a human. For example, a Kandra cannot bond Spren by virtue of ingesting a Greatshell, nor does having a set of bones give them a spiritual ideal. The same goes for Aviar powers. A Mistwraith/Kandra needs to do more than eat one to get their spiritual adaptations. I think if the Mistwraith were given a Gemstone/Gemheart and were given the proper Connection (probably by Hemalurgic spiking) they could form the bond with Lesser Spren though. I think this is theoretically possible with the right Spren to bridge the gap. After all, Singers' bonding to Lesser Spren is much like a more organic version of Hemalurgy, so with the correct Spren to plug in the transformation from Mistwraith to Kandra would probably be quite achievable. To further the parallels between Gemhearts and Hemalurgic spikes, I think we even see Cognitive Shadows (the Fused) use Gemhearts as an anchor to a body like how Kelsier uses a Hemalurgic spike. Breaking the Gemheart (as Kaladin did in OB) immediately kills the Fused, probably by severing that anchor. Though again, if trying to use Gemhearts as Kandra Blessings I think you're going to run into an issue with Connection, which will have to be resolved somehow.

Huh, it's been a while since I read WoK, apparently.

Didn't he use his secret hospitals to get info from the Death Rattles (provided by the Unmade Moelach), which come from the SR? Basically accessing Futuresight from secondhand knowledge, like Vin tracking Zane's movements with Atium to predict the future.

Welcome to the Shard! Of all the magic systems you've read about, which is your favorite and why?

We don't know a whole lot yet, but from what I can tell, most types of Connection can be stored via duralumin Feruchemy and some of those Connections can have an effect on Invested Arts. And as for different Duraluminminds being required for different Connections, possibly. It's debatable whether Bendalloyminds require a separation for liquids and nutrients, but we know for a fact that Copperminds do not have this limitation despite having many discrete pieces of Investiture. So it could go either way, but I'd probably err on the side of needing separate Duraluminminds for different Connections as being optional.

Thank you for sharing friend, I feel that this is a great addition and insight here. I still occasionally struggle with things even now (and based on my family history I might actually be on the spectrum, which would explain a few other problems I've been having), but it's nice to have the ability to share with others. I've actually known a few people who are severely dairy intolerant as well. The pain and discomfort it can cause is no joke, I can tell. How is your family doing now, if I may ask?

Hemalurgy is pretty versatile, but as far as I can tell it cannot just spike anything. It requires a valid Spiritweb, which seems to require at least an animal's or Spren's level of spiritual complexity. For example, plants, while alive, cannot be Hemalurgically spiked last Brandon was asked. This might be similar to how Emotional Allomancy requires a certain level of cognition to work properly, making most animals resistant.

Ah, I see. Well, we do know victims of Hemalurgic theft pass away to the Beyond more quickly, which at the very least makes it more difficult to survive such an encounter.