Trusk'our

In The Hero of Ages, we see Vin use Allomantic electrum, but she comments on how it doesn’t really affect the fight except to counter Atium. Not only did electrum not “affect the battle much”, neither Vin nor Elend uses it outside of combat. Is Allomantic Electrum just not very useful? What’s more, wouldn’t it not truly counter another form of future-sight unless you could actually use it to reliably change your decisions by seeing the future?

I don’t immediately think of combat applications when I think of Awakening. The system doesn’t seem to have been made with that in mind. However, certain creative individuals could come up with some powerful ways to use it, I would think. Here are some of my ideas, along with some that we’ve already seen be used. 1. Awakened clothing – gives added strength and protections. 2. Awakened ropes and pieces of cloth – can grab, restrain, and/or suffocate your opponents. 3. Awakened corpses – these can fight for you as extra allies, and they can receive more complicated commands than your standard Awakened object. 4. Awakened human-like objects, such as sets of clothing or manikins (specifically not corpses; these aren’t Lifeless) – they can fight for you as if you had allies, then you can retrieve the Breaths after the fight. 5. Large Awakened ropes, cloths, or other items – can be used as catapults, or to grab and constrict/hurl enemies. 6. Bootleg Shardplate (gotta love that name ) – by awakening your clothes (like in idea 1) while wearing regular plate armor, you get all the advantages of plate armor plus a great deal of strength for crushing blows and added mobility because you can now carry the added weight much more easily. 7. Awakened ropes/cloths (now with blades!) – by attaching blades to the end of these, you can make automatic stabbing and slashing constructs. 8. Awakened poisoned needle – similar to idea 7, but much smaller and easier to conceal; can be hidden up your sleeve (literally) to be used in a pinch if someone gets in close and grapples you. 9. Awakened mistcloak – really cool looking, plus, because of its many appendages, it could grab multiple enemies or deflect several attacks directed at you simultaneously. Would be extra effective in bootleg Shardplate, as your added weight would make you a better anchor than your enemies (reminds me a little of steel or iron Allomancy, ironically). 10. Self-Awakening – honestly not sure how this could be useful for combat, but I felt I should mention it Anyway, just in case it reminds someone who is more creative than me of its existence, so that they can apply it somehow. I’m not sure I can come up with anything else. Ideas, anyone?

The Bands of Mourning themselves weren't invested enough to be shardblade-level invested, and they were cram packed with investiture. My guess is that you cannot actually invest a normal piece of metal with enough investiture to make it a shardblade, at least not on the level of a Rosharan shardblade, which is made of a godmetal, and as such it is pure, condensed investiture. Nightblood has more investiture than a Rosharan shardblade, but it's constantly leaking that investiture since it's holding more than it can actually can keep. Plus, simply holding a lot of investiture inside a sword-shaped piece of metal probably won't make it a true shardblade. The investiture needs to be "programmed" to do what a shardblade does.

I found this WoB that says that kandra can leave Scadrial. Since kandra need Hemalurgic spikes to maintain sapience, I think it is safe to assume that someone pierced by Hemalurgic spikes can still worldhop, despite the spikes containing investiture. So I would also venture to guess that Marsh can worldhop too

Is there a way to stabilize your spiritweb to make it less damaged by Hemalurgic use? The kandra blessings of Presence and Stability both make the kandra less susceptible to being controlled, but since they are imparted via Hemalurgy itself, it also causes more holes to be made in their spiritweb than before. Could there be some way to stabilize, heal, or somehow reinforce your spiritweb to make it less susceptible to being controlled via the holes left by the use of Hemalurgy, that doesn't involve using more Hemalurgic spikes?

Which is better for detecting investiture? A Seeker burning bronze, or an Awakener holding Breaths?

True. There are probably easier methods of assasination, but it just struck me as so...well...stupid of queen Fen to personally write via spanreed to the Alethi if she was truly so worried about them being hostile. There are probably other factors I'm not considering here, but I'm not sure what they are yet.

As far as I can tell, Azure's blade doesn't actively try to devour her soul, so I'd say it's construction is a step in the right direction from Nightblood.

True, that could be the case. It would explain why he'd want them doing that type of stuff for him.

My favorite magic system? They're all good! But, if you insist... Hemalurgy. Definitely Hemalurgy. The many, many potential applications for Hemalurgy combined with the fact that despite it being extremely versatile, it's simple enough for me to understand, and it has enough of a rules set that you can't just say "well, I'm goanna cast a spell, and that will fix EVERYTHING...unless it's inconvenient for the plot, in which case, I won't do it. Could, but won't" (you can probably tell I'm not overly fond of Elantrians for this reason). Not only that, it's a magic system for those who study and understand the mechanics of the magic (NO, I still don't like Elantrian magic), and could potentially be used by anyone with the right knowledge. Plus, finding ways to work around the costs it brings (i.e. needing to kill someone to gain the powers, damaging the spiritweb of the recipient of the spikes, etc.) is an interesting challenge, and one that is achievable, I would think.

They likely were made of an assortment of metals, since all his other Feruchemical storages seemed to vanish as soon as they were pulled away from him. One of the metals used in their creation could have been nicrosil.

Hoid's own Yolish version of Lightweaving seems to also be "broken", but he fixed it by gaining access to the Rosharan varient. Could it be that Microkinesis could also be fixed if once were to gain access to it's Rosharan varient?

True, as it would seem. Azure's blade is proof that this is possible. Makes me wonder though; what make the two swords different? A different command? Perhaps they were created using different hacks of magic systems (assuming that you need a hack to make them, which very likely is the case)?

Nightblood is a shardblade, but in a similar way to how Rosharan Lightweaving and Yolish Lightweaving are the same; they have the same name and share many similar principles, but they use different sources of investiture, and are at least somewhat different in how they function. I'm also pretty sure that Nightblood does not actually have a supernaturally sharp edge, but you'd never be able to tell because it vaporizes and consumes everything it touches that isn't aluminum. Which would explain why it's not super dangerous compared to a normal sword when satiated; it can't absorb more investiture, so it can't obliterate you. Probably.

Plus, if the Taldain-ians (don't know what else to call them, unfortunately) want to some day travel between worlds and take that investiture with them, they'll need some way to carry a lot of investiture over a long distance. A dyson sphere could help them gather enough concentrated investiture that they'd actually have a significant amount to take with them on a space ship.

yeah, I have.

Yeah, but in BoM one of the arguments made against the Bands of Mourning even being Unsealed Metalminds was why the Lord Ruler would have wanted such a thing. My post wasn't so much about it really being a relevant thing anymore, more a possibility that would have been fun to consider.

Suppose that's possibly true. Marsh always was the better brother, as it was said. But Kelsier still can't get off world currently, which limits my ability to believe that it's him doing it.

Now I,m imagining Lightsong sunbathing on the day side of Taldain

But that is only a temporary enhancement that likely cannot be passed down to future generations.

Naw, he doesn't even need to pirate Doctor Strange's cloak; he just needs to Awaken his mistcloak

I don't think that they'd even need to stab themselves, they'd just need to sit or stand in such a position that they could hold the reed where it would normally be for spanreed communication, then quickly stab in the direction of the seat they'd normally be sitting in to get the other person. Also, you could have someone with great arm strength stab with the reed...or just use shardplate

Well, I mean not Honor's perpendicularity. A different one, like the one on Patji.

During the time of the Final Empire, not all of the metals, or even all of the powers of the known metals, had been discovered yet. But now in Scadrial’s modern era such things have been discovered. So, would Marsh want to get his hands on these powers? For instance, if there was a Slider Misting who’s continued existence he. . . disagreed with, would he also be willing to use Hemalurgy to get their power as well? What about gaining access to other magic systems? Would he be bound to Scadrial like his brother, or like with Mistings and probably Ferrings, would he be free to leave? This WoB seems to say that Allomancy can be taken off world without too much difficulty, but what about Hemalurgy? In fact, there is a WoB that says that someone is going around the Cosmere and collecting magics via Hemalurgy. Could that be Marsh? So, I guess I've got a few questions here, really.

I believe that there is a WoB states that one of the reasons the Returned feed on the Breaths of children rather than older people is so that they have more vitality from that Breath (I couldn't find it, I'm sorry). Theoretically, could a Returned consume more investiture than was just necessary for their survival, and somehow be expanded in their power by doing so? I don’t mean by collecting more Breaths on top of their Divine Breath, but if they actually “ate” the extra investiture. Would this be similar to larkin, and how they seem to grow after consuming large quantities of investiture?