Trusk'our

This is a bit of a weird one, as despite the fact that Surgebinding requires functional powers like Allomancy or Feruchemy does, I think a Surgebinding Nahel Bond is just an extra strong Connection (perhaps with an Identity overlap between Spiritwebs) between a person and a Radiant Spren, which effectively plugs the Spren's innate powers into the person. Stealing that Connection should swap the Spren's Bond to you instead, so yes, I think that Lerasium can steal a bond and its powers if I understand it correctly (though remember, the Spren still has autonomy over said bond and can break it as they choose, so spiking the powers out of the Spren will typically prove necessary to retain them).

Seems like that could be the case, which would probably lead to a simpler and more reliable (though potentially less efficient) way to steal Breath. What's most interesting to me is why (if he decides to stick with this and it's not just for the simplicity of explaining Innate Investiture to the questioner or he's too bogged down at the moment to go into the finer details of the magics) he's now decided to make Breaths Spiritual Realm based instead of Physical.

I think regular Bio-Chromatic Breaths are just a natural part of the system like how Allomantic potential is a natural side-effect of Preservation Investing Scadrial's humanity enough to gain sapience. Probably not smart to draw Endowment's attention to this practice, but I don't know that it's a guarantee to get obliterated. Divine Breaths though, yeah, you'd be toast. Or maybe Endowment would be sneakier and trick (or just force) the Hemalurgist into her direct plans. If you were spiking the Breath directly I think that this would happen, as we see Hemalurgic spikes Connect you to Ruin despite leeching other types of Investiture: Hemalurgy just seems to convert (though not corrupt in the Cosmere sense) Investiture to Ruin's Intent. Since you're attempting to "retrieve" the Breath in a similar manner to how an Awakener pulls it from Awakened objects, I don't think this hack is likely to do crazy things to the Breath itself. But, that's just my thought process. We don't know for sure how Identity contamination would play in this scenario, so it really could go either way. Currently, think that there might be some interference but like with tapping another's Metalmind I suspect it would work the majority of the time. A Divine Breath has exactly enough Investiture to bring you to the 5th Heightening. A Hemalurgist couldn't get enough from one Returned to gain true agelessness as Hemalurgic decay would weaken it somewhat. It would get them close though, and with other perks to boot. Though, again, Endowment's will is an issue for any murderers attempting hits on Returned. Thinking about the scenario more, if a Hemalurgist can take someone else's Breath via Identity theft, an Awakener could probably take the Breaths of Lifeless. This would almost certainly yield diminishing returns though, as I believe a portion of the Breath is converted into a functional Spiritweb for the Lifeless, reducing said Breath's potency upon retrieval.

Bio-Chromatic Breaths aren't likely to be a viable target for Hemalurgy given that they reside in the Physical Realm. However, what if a Hemalurgist instead used a duralumin spike to steal their victim's Identity instead? With a valid Identity to control the Breath, the Hemalurgist could then Command the Breath to move from the donor to the Hemalurgist (assuming the donor isn't already dead from the Spiritweb theft). There's some wackiness involved with what happens if you remove the Identity spike afterwards, but I see it going one of two ways: either Breath is keyed enough to the Hemalurgist's Identity now to function without the donor's Identity, or the Breath still requires more Identity to be Commanded and becomes locked in the Hemalurgist as a Heightening booster but nothing else. We know that a Hemalurgist can usually tap their Feruchemist victim's Metalminds as they have added Identity, but that two Hemalurgists cannot share a Metalmind made by one another even when sharing the same spike's Identity because their own added Identities muddy it too much. In essence, you can probably use an Investiture if you have the necessary Identity even if you yourself have some extra, but you can't necessarily use an Investiture with less of a matching Identity. So, probably the Hemalurgist still needs the spike to Awaken, unless of course the Hemalurgist blanks their Identity with another power before stowing away the Breath, removing the Identity spike, then drawing the blanked Breath back. Basically, I think that this is another hack by which a Hemalurgist could hope to realistically steal Breath. Thoughts?

Do you mean that you don't think you can regenerate after getting Hemalurgically robbed in a strictly non-lethal fashion like with the Set experiments, or do you mean that you think a lethally intended Hemalurgic spike should always insta-kill? For the former, we have WoBs that confirm that you can tap or burn health to regenerate the lost Spiritweb fragment. As for the latter, it's possible that a well-placed Hemalurgic theft could kill a person outright- you are ripping off a portion of their soul afterall. Stormlight spoilers: As such I think you could make a spike insta-kill with the correct placement or possibly Intent, but I suspect it's harder to do this simply based on how the magic works in practical ways. Of course, if an enraged Koloss split Miles in half with a giant sword while using Hemalurgic Intent to steal his soul. . . that might be too much to recover from without external aid. More Stormlight spoilers:

I would think that attempting to spike an Honorblade would be like spiking a Shardblade or a Radiant- you're taking the portion of the Spiritweb that is Connected to the external Investiture, letting you access it as if you were that person (summoning the Blade, utilizing Surges, etc). The reason you need to spike the Spren as well is because they have control over the bond and will almost certainly break it rather than tether themselves to the murderer of their knight. Since Honorblades aren't sapient (though they may be somewhat sentient), the second spike shouldn't be necessary. That said, if you're going to kill the previous Honorblade holder anyway, just taking and bonding the Blade without Hemalurgy really is the best way to go. The same goes for Deadblades- stealing the bond is just a less efficient (though more immediate) way to form the bond with a Shardblade. Possibly. It depends, I think, on whether it's the Oathpact's survival (even in its weakened state) that lets them survive, or if it's a matter of their nature as Cognitive Shadows and the Oathpact merely "feeds" them. I suspect the latter, in which case simply stealing their Connection/Oathpact probably isn't enough for a mortal to achieve immortality, especially since the benefits will mostly vanish after death when the spike's contents no longer are grafted to your Spiritweb. You might be able to staple the Herald's Oathpact to another Cognitive Shadow to sustain them though (such as a Returned). Though, Roshar's abundance of free Investiture also makes this largely redundant. Specifically for spiking a Shardic Vessel's Connection, yes, this should be within the realm of technical possibility, though I suspect the amount of Investiture storage space needed to hold that Connection will prove too large to reasonably steal with a Hemalurgic spike. You might be able to briefly disrupt the Vessel's power though, leaving them vulnerable to another Shard or Invested attack. Maybe even slap the Connection spike onto yourself and wrestle the Vessel for the pestle of power in the Shard, which might work similarly to Kelsier's orb trick (though it depends on how much Connection is stolen and transferred via Hemalurgy). Probably unwise, but maybe theoretically possible. It's not really know right now, though apparently the actual Investiture contained within a Shardic Vessel's Spiritweb isn't very much compared to the power of the Shard as a whole. But if I were to guess, Nightblood's Investiture level is the maximum an object of that mass can be endowed with, and Nightblood already seems to bend the rules by becoming supersaturated with Investiture. So, if we're talking the maximum theoretical power a large-ish spike can grant (assuming the donor possesses that much to steal in the first place), probably look to Nightblood for an example. If we're talking more practically sized spikes and Hemalurgic knowledge, I would guess probably between dozens to hundreds of BEUs (based on Set experiments and Sunheart Investiture levels). Ultimately, anything that is part of the spiritual Aspect, though the specifics can prove difficult and the physical/cognitive Aspects are off limits.

I'll try to keep my Ruin-induced madness to a minimum

I mean, I know a decent amount I'd say simply by virtue of how much I dwell on it and what scenarios it could be seen used effectively, but there's a lot I don't know yet. For example, I still don't fully understand Spiritwebs or the spiritual attributes of Hemalurgy and Feruchemy, I don't know for sure whether more spikes always equals the same exposure to the Flaw, I don't know to what extent attribute spikes can be imposed on humans while retaining their humanity, I don't know the BEU capacity of each spike size, power, or attribute, I don't know exactly why power spikes function so differently than attribute spikes, I don't know if Bindpoints in certain quadrants are truly interchangeable with each other, still don't know how Kandra Blessings are unique, etc. Basically, I have more questions than answers a lot of the time. We probably won't know these until Brandon puts them in a book, but I'm clearly not afraid to put out (sometimes half-baked) hypothesese to get input from others. Still learning more, but that's the fun part.

In my defense, I was trying to suggest things like one's liver, heart, muscles, stuff like that. Not. . . whatever this is

I. . . don't know. Wayne would probably approve though.

Kelsier, who is currently incapable of burning metals, is able to use Steelsight with his eye spike. His position is admittedly a bit weirder than Inquisitors (as a Cognitive Shadow and Sliver) but I think this still strongly suggests that eye spikes are able to inherently grant Steelsight without requiring the burning of metals. I agree. Honestly, I wonder if other senses or bodily functions can be tampered with as well, making them transform into more magical versions of their base form.

That's true. I do think it would be harder though, maybe requiring Savantism to pull off or at least a great deal of practice.

I believe Marsh states the primary reason Inquisitors have larger spikes is specifically for intimidation (in HoA). I don't think it's a stretch to assume this would be done for eye spikes as well. Plus, there are some serious advantages to eye spikes: you can see in complete darkness and you can't be blinded in a traditional manner. That said, as I've thought on linchpin spikes more, I think having eye spikes forces you to have a linchpin in the back around the base of the neck to coordinate the eye spikes with the ones on the lower body. This placement makes it easier to remove that linchpin and kill them should they become to rebellious.

Hemalurgy's one of my favorites too, only tied with Feruchemy.

That's certainly possible. Thinking about it more, perhaps even likely. Perhaps Ruin whispered the initial knowledge of "hey, there's a magic known as 'Hemalurgy' that you can use to make servants and control them" and then Rashek experimented a little with the Well and made them more independently. This could be a similar situation to another Todium needing to know what to search for, but could relatively easily unlock Hemalurgy's knowledge:

That's fair, and truly we don't know for certain yet. It could go either way. Now, I suppose Savantism's side effects could be an explanation for rapid aging should it occur as well- your Spiritweb negatively adapting itself to a different flow of time. It would certainly make for a powerful discouragement of Compounding steel.

There is some temporal effect while tapping physical speed, but it's slight. I don't think drastically shortening one's lifespan is something it would normally do.

Existence is good, generally speaking. Welcome to the Shard! Which magic system is your favorite and why?

Respectable choices. My favorites are definitely the Metallic Arts, mostly Hemalurgy and Feruchemy, followed up by Allomancy. I just love all of the ways you can mix and match, hack things together in unexpected ways and think of the mechanics.

Ah, excellent. Which magic system(s) is your favorite, and why?

Feed the pumpkin Atium to Compound so it can stick around till next Halloween

Awesome! Welcome to the Shard friend! What books from the Cosmere have you read thus far?

Welcome to the Shard! Yes, indeed, adding Firesoul Feruchemy to a steel Compounder would be quite potent. You may want to introduce yourself on the introduction Forum to let us get to know you better

Technically, those original Mistwraiths would have died out relatively quickly unless transformed into Kandra, as Mistwraiths' natural lifespan is only about 50 years. This is possible, but I believe most if not all of Rashek's knowledge over Hemalurgy came from Ruin's whispers, not directly from Preservation's expansion of the mind. As such, the Koloss, Kandra, and Inquisitors were probably tailored suit TLR's needs, yes, but only so that they would ultimately be exploitable to Ruin's own benefit. This would make sense for Ruin, as instead of just giving Rashek the knowledge of making a fully fledged Kandra from a human, he gave a deliberately unfinished blueprint so that they would have an exploit for his influence. I think that there is an added influence to Hemalurgic constructs from Ruin specifically, as they not only have cracks in the Spiritweb, but are Connected to that Shard's Intent. Other Shards' influence would be milder, at least without additional Connection, I think. Honestly, I've wondered a ton about what specifically makes Kandra so special: they can shapeshift into almost any biological form, are nearly ageless despite not being super Invested, and they have an uncanny level of vulnerability to the Flaw despite their high intelligence. My current best guess is that Kandra have flexible Spiritwebs, maybe having a special shapeshifting "attribute" in their Spiritual Aspect. It seems less likely to be physical to me, as Kandra are likely able to mimic DNA (and while the most recent WoB on the matter says they can have children with humans, they would be a hybrid of some kind, perhaps in a similar fashion to how Allomantic and Feruchemical sDNA is transferable regardless of the Kandra's new physical DNA's structure). This "shapeshifting attribute" would mimic what Hemalurgy does to transform others, but is innately part of Mistwraiths. This might also play into why they can't replicate bones, teeth, hair, or nails as it isn't a matter of physical chemistry, but some kind of spiritual ideal they can't change. As for why Kandra are so vulnerable to the Flaw, I think it might be that their Spiritwebs, being so flexible, are also easier to mess with due to that lessened rigidity. These are all hypothetical though, so take them with a pinch of copper. I think this is fairly plausible. As long as you can find a way to breech that blockage, you're good. More likely I think they'll just find a way to manufacture Hemalurgic spikes in a cleaner fashion, but other alternatives should be possible, I believe. Very interesting ideas Dux, thanks for sharing!

Yeah, that's probably true. It would make for a cool scene, where a person is supposed to die but they cheat and come back anyway, but it's rather unlikely, I'll admit.