Trusk'our

Times too, apparently: And more potentially, as there is Connection to basically everything in the Cosmere (though we don't know to the extent that a Connector Ferring could store those Connnections of course, it just means that there is more that they could potentially do that we don't yet know of).

I would choose to be a Coinshot because they have such great mobility, and as Wax showed us there is a great deal of utility that a creative person can get out of it. Plus, it's cheap and wouldn't be difficult to obtain more of. As a Ferring, I'd choose duralumin out of the alloys, since Connection shenanigans are extremely interesting- there's so much we don't know about it yet, but even what we do know is really cool. As a Compounder, double duralumin, as you could use your Allomancy to enhance your Compounding in massive bursts, then store literal tons of metal worth of Connection inside a massive Metalmind. What it would do when you tap it all. . . I don't exactly know, but since duralumin isn't going to be that expensive in Scadrial's future you could store enough of it to puncture a hole in the Realms and create a Perpendicularity, or maybe learn to teleport (TLM suggests this is possible with a big enough conflux of Investiture). As I said, not fully certain of the consequences of Compounding so much Connection, but whatever it is, it should be really cool.

Oooh, clever. I like it. . . in a scholarly manner, that is.

I don't know that it would work as you suggest, though it's a pretty cool Idea. First, Identity contamination would prevent the spikes from merging properly, though that could potentially be fixed by blanking said Identity through some method. Second, which is far more difficult to change, is that Hemalurgy doesn't seem to retain the Intent of the Investiutre it takes (as far as I understand it currently)- it gets converted to Ruin's Intent, which would make it impossible to merge multiple Shard's Intent's through this method. Still, there may potentially a way to do something along the lines of what you suggest, and in fact, somebody's currently trying to get it to work it would seem. . . minor Cosmere spoilers But this is a bit of a hypothesis at this point, so maybe he's trying to do something different altogether. We just don't know for certain yet.

Rithmatist was a Cosmere work originally, but because it took place on a variation of Earth Brandon decided to remove it (that's why its magic system seems so much like a Cosmere one- it was): You're right, The Rithmatist does fit pretty well into the Cosmere as a whole, because it was originally in the Cosmere. It got removed when Brandon decided he no longer want any variation of Earth in it.

I found this quote, and I find the ramifications exciting: This explicitly states that conflict of Identity is what makes Investiture resist Investiture. Okay, well, that and the fact that if something is saturated with a lot of Investiture it would be harder to Invest it simply because there is no room left in it to take that Investiture, but the first point about Identity is huge. This actually explains why a Mistborn has no trouble using their powers all together; they all belong to the same Identity, so there is no conflict between them. This also would help explain why Radiants don't have difficulty using their Surges while wearing their own Plate, such as why a Windrunner can fly with their Plate on while their allies must doff it in order to be sent hurtling through the sky (as seen in Dalinar's visions). It also makes me wonder about some other things. For example, could a Twinborn with A-steel or iron more easily push or pull on their own Metalminds? Could they have a suit of armor made of Invested Metalminds and still Steelpush or Ironpull without too much interference (I know that those get weaker due to physical obstruction, but armor wouldn't be that thick)? Maybe they could use this method to have ammo to Steelpush that only they can affect with any decent ability (unless their opponent is a really powerful Allomancer). This also would make it easier to do things like Awaken Invested objects (such as Metalminds or Hemalurgic spikes).

Ah, I see. But yeah, he's probably not going to leave Scadrial unless he has a pretty compelling reason.

Yup. But then how would we have such interesting debates? Sadly, I have not received my copy of Yumi yet from the kick starter (and I have had a few things spoiled for me already- don't worry, this itself isn't one of them). But I respect you enough to take your word on the matter. I find myself disagreeing with this idea; a big part of Bio-Chromatic Breath is that it can Rekey itself to anybody's Identity- that's a fundamental part of it being of Endowment- and I see no reason why it wouldn't work for a Hemalurgic spike that had its own Identity. I understand that this is a purely hypothetical scenario at this point though, so further debate on this topic without more evidence would prove fruitless (unfortunately). If it turns out that the Identity of the Breaths cannot shift over to that of the spike's, you most likely would have the bearer of the spike only being able to access one of the powers at once, possibly with control randomly shifting from one power to the other- it sounds like something along these lines was what happened with the experimental Set spikes. Or, maybe neither would work and you'd have wasted one-thousand perfectly good Breaths Seems that Identity manipulation is key to lots of Investiture shenanigans. Actually, I found a quote that says a big part of the reason Investiture resists Investiture is because of conflicting Identity, which answers a whole lot of questions of mine: This really does mean that Blanking the Identity of a Hemalurgic spike would make it significantly easier to Awaken. Honestly, it means a lot more too, but I'll save that for its own thread.

I mean, Marsh himself isn't restricted from Worldhopping, so he wouldn't even need Kelsier's help to get off world if he didn't want it (WoB). I'm sorry to hear that. I'm going to be honest, I don't know that things are going to turn out wonderfully for Sazed; he's being corrupted by the powers he holds, and by all accounts Ati was a pretty good guy before taking up Ruin. But I don't know, perhaps Discord will break off of Harmony and become a Spren all on its own, leaving Sazed's Intent to be actually balanced, thus preventing him from going evil/crazy (personally, that's the scenario I'd like to see most). I think that things will turn out okay in the end though; that's sort of Brandon Sanderson's thing

It's funny- I think that I did a thread on this very topic awhile back. I guess great minds do think alike . The conclusion I got from basically everyone was that a Spanreen would make a poor weapon of choice for assassination; not only can you not see your target, but Spanreeds probably aren't that durable when trying to stab someone. Plus, the decay involved with distance means that the amount of strength you could put behind your attacks would be reduced. Personally, I still think that it would be possible, though from a practical standpoint I don't know how effective it would be. Maybe if you handed the Spanreed over to a Horneater bodybuilder it would prove more effective though

Ah, my apologies. Yes, that should work, though trying to control more appendages could prove challenging without some sort of cognitive enhancement.

True, plus, I suppose that even Allomancers have a difficult time affecting metal inside a relatively non-Invested person, so maybe even a low-level Invested item like a regular Hemalurgic spike would prove somewhat more stubborn a target for Awakening than I originally thought. I hope we see this in a book at some point so that we can know for certain! That could be the case. I guess it would depend on whether Awakening would be considered a more universal term, such as how there are multiple versions of Lightweaving throughout the Cosmere, or whether it would be something more specific, such as Steelpushing. I'm not sure that would be a huge problem; first of all, you can give Breaths to anyone, even without their consent (which ironically makes it the opposite of Hemalurgy in that regard), so giving the Breaths wouldn't be a problem. Additionally, I don't think that the Command would strictly be trying to change what's already in the spike, it would be copying and adding to the power already there. Though admittedly we have no real proof for the second point, so take it with a sizable grain of salt. I suppose if Identity became a serious problem you could Blank the spikes (F-aluminum when the donor was being spiked) to make this no longer an issue.

F-nicrosil has been hypothesized to just as you suggest; get enough of it, perhaps through Compounding, and you could gain access to enormous amounts of power through augmented Allomancy, such as being able to make all of your Steelpushes act as if under duralumin. However, it seems that the medallions themselves are somewhat more restrictive in what they can accomplish than natural nicrosil Feruchemy. It is also mentioned that the nicrosil medallions may act more like a Coppermind, so tapping more from them at a quicker rate may simply not enhance your power beyond its set amount. This could also apply to all nicrosil Feruchemy, but we don't have enough information right now to tell decisively (but most people are routing for nicrosil enhancing Allomancy, it would seem ). Hope that explains it well enough for you!

Awesome! Another fellow Mistborn fan! I hope to see your thoughts on my various hypotheses about Metalborn (mostly Hemalurgic) things!

Oh, I didn't say it would be easy, just that it could potentially work- you need to be the ninth Heightening (20,000 Breaths) just to Awaken uninvested non-organic materials. You'd definitely need more to Awaken a spike, though if I'm being honest I don't know that you'd need that many more Breaths compared to what the ninth Heightening already requires (Hemalurgic spikes are generally on the lower end of the Invested spectrum, after all); a few hundred to a few thousand extra wouldn't be much when compared to all the ones you'd have collected before. Though just getting the ninth Heightening would prove to be far beyond what the average person could ever hope to achieve, so I'd say it's still not exactly easy, just possible for organizations with lots of time, money, and the will to do so (I'm looking at you, Ghostbloods). Also, just want to mention that other Invested objects aren't always "Awakened"- they are Invested, but not usually to the same degree and they don't necessarily have a true Command or a strong sense of self as most Awakened objects do.

Well, my roll has officially been replaced I guess that does leave more time for me to study Hemalurgy though. . .

You mean, could the Awakener transfer their Breaths to their Spikes? Yes, almost certainly, though doing so would Key the Breaths to the Identity of the Spikes, preventing the Awakener from retrieving them. What could be really interesting to me is if you Awakened a Spike with the Command for the Breaths to copy and augment the previously existing power inside the spike, then implant the spike into yourself. It could be a way to supercharge the power contained, converting your Breaths to Allomantic (or any) power. So, use other spikes to Connect to parts of you so as to keep you alive as a Cognitive Shadow even it you're killed? Maybe, though I think it would be pretty hard to do- you'd need a lot of Connection to make the effects last. Might be cool to see if you could more strongly interact with and influence someone else who took up those spikes after you died due to the Connection though- you could be a ghost leading an underground organization that does your every whim. . . oh, wait, that slot's already been filled.

So, here's the thing. . . ToES spoilers So it's probably not possible to do for Kandra in their current state. Maybe they could use more Spikes to Connect multiple split off pieces of themselves though, similar to. . . SA spoilers- EDIT: time to continue the tradition of editing posts to add more ideas because I'm too impatient to wait for someone else to respond and prevent me from double-posting 31. A-copper plus A-bendalloy or F-steel; this one didn't feel like a "trick" at first, but it grew on me- mostly because of what it could allow the Kandra specifically to do. A Kandra that used Hemalurgy to gain Feruchemical steel or Allomantic bendalloy could swap their bodies really fast, so much so that if they move from one room to another, they could convince others they are actually multiple people (note: I don't mean the Kandra actually splits and turns into multiple people, just that from the perspective of everyone else they could seem like multiple people). In addition, when either A-bendalloy or F-steel (well, F-steel would be better in this case) is used, the speed of burning metals increases for the Kandra, allowing them to burn their copper more quickly, thus granting them a bigger, stronger Coppercloud to prevent even augmented Seekers from noticing the swap due to Allomancy or potentially Feruchemy. Plus, the augmented copper would help shield them from powerful emotional Allomancy trying to break into and control them. 32. Meat-ball; another trick that seems fairly simple, yet could be so useful all at once. Basically, the Kandra just adds a bunch of mass to themselves (using one of the Metallic Arts hacks mentioned in #18) to become a barricade or a wall for their allies- it's very difficult to shoot your targets when one of them morphs into a giant meat-slug and sits in the way. If the Kandra had enough of an internal or external structure, they could morph into a meat-ball that rolled down a hill to squish their enemies or provide a truly unique entrance to a barricaded area. 33. Meat-suit; the Kandra could pull a Venom and morph around an ally to act as a suit, (potentially with the human wearing an exoskeleton to provide extra structure for the Kandra). Why would they do this? Perhaps to provide protection to the human, such as the Kandra moving them underwater to sneak onto a ship (maybe even providing oxygen for them via gills and temporarily merging their bloodstreams?), or maybe to protect them from enemy fire. Maybe if the human was an Allomancer, such as a Coinshot, they could add new abilities to the Kandra's arsenal without the Kandra needing more spikes- though admittedly that wouldn't be a very effective method (especially since the Kandra's own body would interfere with Steelpushing). So, maybe it's not very useful to the Kandra themselves, but there could be a few instances where it could be beneficial to their allies. 34. Nano tentacles; Kandra can manipulate their body to work in very, very small ways. Perhaps a skilled Kandra could grow microscopic tendrils that could enter a sick human and gobble up whatever is infecting them (Kandra don't seem to get sick, so maybe they could share some of that immunity?). Kandra might also be able to use this method to work with nano-bots or the like, delicately modifying things at the cellular level. 35. Pathogen modification; based on #34, a Kandra could modify the very building blocks of life, potentially creating something like a modified virus to eradicate a specific type of creature. Would certainly be dangerous if it got out of hand though, especially if another Kandra like Bleeder came along. I'm sure that more things could be done with this trick, but I'm currently drawing a blank.

Good to meet you @PsionicsKnight! I hope you enjoy your time on the Shard!

Kandra: becomes the SWAT team. But in all seriousness, yeah, I'd like to see a highly skilled Kandra doing stuff like this as well. Hopefully MeLaan will be up to some cool shenanigans sooner or later and get a few upgrades while she's at it.

I wonder if you non-lethally spiked out a person's Innate Investiture if the damage would be sufficient to let Ruin in, or if more would need to be done. Perhaps if you did that and they had one or more spikes embedded in them? Or, maybe if you were a malevolent Hemalurgist that knew what they were doing they could use a specialized Command to do extra damage to the donor's Spiritweb deliberately to make them susceptible to being controlled? Evil, but maybe a villain would do it to get an army? Did a whole theory on this awhile back (Another look at Trellium Hemalurgy's mechanics). The main gist of it was that you could probably block any outside influence aside from Autonomy herself from getting inside your Spiritweb with Trellium Hemalurgy, so even very powerful emotional Allomancers probably wouldn't be able to do it. But we don't really know for certain.

As @alder24 mentioned, GodKing is less Invested that a Dawnshard, but more Invested than basically any other non-Shardic entity. The Heightenings do increase the rate of healing, though we don't know how much exactly- it's probably comparable to Allomantic pewter, where it will boost your natural healing but you won't regenerate lost limbs or anything. Additonally, Shardblade or Hemalurgic injuries almost certainly wouldn't heal as they are spiritual and not physical, so a boost to natural healing likely wouldn't work. Becoming Highly Invested would potentially help block a Shardblade attack in the first place though, due to more interference that the blade has to pass through. It almost certainly wouldn't stop the blade altogether, but it should help. Also, it might be possible to Awaken a Blade-deadened limb and restore it to functionality since it's still physically intact after having been killed. Might be some weird ramifications for that. Yes, Radiants, Metalborn, they have a mixing of the two, but primarily Kinetic Investiture is what they use. Awakening is almost entirely Innate, which is one of the things that makes it so unique; the only times I'm aware of Breaths not being considered Static Investiture is during the process of being transferred from one body to another (or to an object) or when a Divine Breath is being used to heal another. There probably would be an increase to the efficiency of the Pewterarm's Allomantic powers; all the Static Investiture they collected and pooled inside themselves would probably draw them closer to the Spiritual Realm, and as we see with Savants that is at least part of the reason they are so much more efficient with their Investiture usage than non-Savants (WoB). So yes, there would likely be some benefit to the Pewterarm's Allomantic abilities whilst holding enough Breaths, though the Awakening and other aspects of holding those Breaths would probably outweigh those benefits significantly. Think of it like a typical Resonance; cool to have and undoubtedly useful, but the actual powers that lead to it are way more useful in most cases. Also, the Pewterarm could probably learn to Command those Breaths to be used as Allomantic fuel. Expensive to be sure, but because you already have the power on you and don't have to draw it at a fixed rate from good ol' Pres, you could use it like Feruchemy and burn through it as fast as you wanted, allowing you to pull a maneuver like the ones in TLM with the Purified Dor (as a side note, we don't actually know how far a single Breath would go as Allomantic fuel- it could be a minute of normal burning or it could be an hour of flaring for all we know). If the Pewterarm doesn't feel like burning though a small town's economy in the span of a few minutes (okay, still don't actually know how far they'd go), they could instead burn their metals as normal and only use up a small amount of their Breaths on top of that to gain a smaller (though far more sustainable and efficient) edge. As Vasher proved in Warbreaker, losing a small fortune to perform a single life-saving feat is still worth it. I think that holding a lot of Breaths could potentially enhance other Invested powers and knowledge, though it wouldn't be very efficient; there would be not extra Connection granted by those Breaths to those systems, so innate knowledge probably wouldn't be happening. However, enough Investiture would start to expand your mind and draw you closer to the Spiritual Realm, which may be able to give you a universal edge when it comes to Investiture efficiency and learning how to use those powers. But if it does work that way, you'd need a lot- a LOT- of Breaths, likely far more than the GodKing himself- enough that you'd start to pseudo- ascend and become a sort of Cosmeric demigod. Actually, come to think of it, this may have basically been what Telsin did in TLM, though obviously with Autonomy's Shardic intervention instead of through Bio-Chromatic Breaths. These are my takes anyway.

I'm with @alder24 on this one; you couldn't Awaken a Regrowth Fabrial itself due to its highly Invested nature, but you could use Awakening in part to construct an autonomous construct that could heal you. Specifically, I think you could take a Nicrosilmind and Goldmind (or one that provides Regrowth instead and has Gemstone stores for Stormlight or such) combo and mix them together with the correct Command and create a device that could automatically heal you of your injures. I think that this could allow someone to survive injuries from a Shardblade to the spine, as we've already seen that Regrowth can do that; the only limitation normally is that you cannot heal yourself after receiving the blow, you need to have an external force do the healing immediately afterward to keep you alive. A device such as you suggest should be able to fit criteria. All in all, good idea @Tamriel Wolfsbaine Lol, true, but still a good limitation to have in a story (I know that you and @alder24 feel the same way too). Honestly, it's kind of needed as well; I love the concept of a magic system that allows its practitioners to gain more power over time- it means that there is always more for them to work towards and achieve. However, this can soon become quite problematic. They get too much power and everything becomes a non-issue for them and the story stops being interesting. I've seen this trope happen whenever a wizard can absorb others' powers (such as in "The Sorcerer's Apprentace" and In "What if: Doctor Strange Lost his Heart instead of his hands")- they get too much power and logically shouldn't be able to be beaten, but they still do anyway because the magic system doesn't have enough rules to keep anything in check and by then I've lost interest in the story and can't take the villain serous because I know that they're going to lose despite being virtually invincible. It's annoying. But Awakening doesn't have that problem because the things it increases for you aren't world-breaking things. You do become more powerful, and there's a lot that can be done with more Breaths, but you still have strong limitations, and you must be smart to achieve your end goals. Hemalurgy is in a similar boat I'd say; it allows for the practitioner to grow in power over time, always having more that they can achieve with smarts and hard work. And the powers it grants do stack in such a manner that they could become game breaking- someone with powers like the Lord Ruler would be nearly unstoppable if they put their mind to it. However, Hemalurgy balances this out by placing more strict costs and limitations in place, and it's tons of fun trying to wiggle around them and exploit loopholes to find ever-increasing paths to power through it. Plus, with Hemalurgy you know where you stand with your power level- you don't just "happen" to achieve an effect with a lesser amount of Investiture that should require a larger amount of it, so when you get more power it actually matters (unlike the aforementioned wizard scenarios) All in all, it's a total blast of a magic system for those reasons. Anyway, I'll stop fanboy-ing about the topic (for now ), but I guess that's one of the big reasons I'm a Hemalurgic enthusiast. . .

An interesting take on the matter. We can't be certain yet, but I doubt that what Ishar's currently doing with the Spren would do it; as you said, Spren only become Shardblades in the PR because of the nature of Investiture turning to metal when it turns solid. But because it's in the CR that can't happen because it's not physically manifesting, it's just a cognitive representation of the Spren. So, I don't know that it would work that way, but I think you are on the right train of thought. With the correct Connection shenanigans, you could probably achieve what you suggest, though what Ishar is currently doing I don't think would do it. In fact, since they already have a physical form, I doubt those Spren could become Shardblades at all; they already have a physical manifestation, preventing them from altering their state. You also might be able to summon a Shardbalde in the CR while near a Perpendicularity or use a hack of the Surge of Transportation (Elsecallers in particular may be able to do this by mastering their powers), as the Realms are closer together than normal. Good topic of discussion by the way, it was enjoyable

But if Radiants were that Invested they'd feel a lot younger and would be able to run around even while being quite old. I suppose it could just be harder to notice since it's a gradual increase in Investiture, but my guess is that the actual Investiture in their Spiritweb isn't nearly as large as what their Spren has or even a first Heightening Awakener. The difference between physicla and spiritual Investiture could be partially to blame, but I suspect that this is more likely. Additionally, do we know that Fused and Heralds are more Invested than Returned? Perhaps their levels of Innate Investiture are comparable, though Connection seems to be more important than raw Investiture for their survival; Fused feed directly off of Odium and the Heralds have the Oathpact. I don't know that massive quantities of Investiture would be necessary to have that Connection, though Returned do need lots of extra Investiture to do their thing and heal someone, so perhaps Returned are more Invested passively.