Trusk'our

Fair point. Time for Sazed to Invest 15 more people to stop himself from himself. . . Actually, hasn't Marsh has been Invested in some way in the past to guide deceased people? Don't know by how much, but if it's a lot maybe if you want to bind Ruin use him instead? Maybe the two deathless bros stand together, one for each Shard. Yes, that's two, not a known number of power, but if each is alone in binding a single Shard and not Harmony as a whole then that might count as a plausible loophole.

Actually, isn't 1 a number of power? 1 Cosmere, 1 Adonalsium? That's one of the reasons Taln was allowed to stay in Damnation alone- they thought they could get away with doing so without completely compromising the Oathpact (though obviously that wasn't the real reason they did so). 16 would probably work better, yes, but it might not be too necessary to form a strong binding.

Didn't she say she thought she had a bit of them before bonding Pattern? (Coppermind says this happened in RoW chapter 115, though I would double check it if I had the book). Though, her bond wasn't severed cleanly because she didn't have the correct Intent to do so, or so Kalak said, if I recall. Though, if the person isn't a child without a full understanding, the bond will probably just be severed altogether and they'll lose those residual Surges.

I was thinking about making characters for the Cosmere rpg, one of which would have been a new Radiant, then ended up not putting in the long term effort of maintaining their oaths, eventually turning their Spren into a Deadeye. That got me thinking, are there any benefits former Radiants get to keep? Are there lingering negative effects (aside from overwhelming guilt and self loathing)? If I recall, didn't Shallan have access to her Resonance and some miniscule versions of her Surges because of her Deadeye Testiment? I would imagine a Radiant who healed from a serious injury or transitioned would get to keep their body, as it isn't tied to a continuous stream of Investiture. If their Spren died after the third ideal (but possibly didn't fully sever their bond) then they get a Deadeye Blade too. They probably still count as being Invested in some way, though only residually. Maybe more like Connections to the use of Investiture over time, I think. Anything else? Negative traits?

Wouldn't Preservation fit that role fairly well? Not necessarily the oath part, but shielding Scadrial from Ruin's Intent?

Forgery would also likely be very helpful for giving sapience and free will to a Lifeless. Note that it is not the original person being restored to life however. It's basically like a regular Lifeless, albeit with more complexity.

Please forgive my confusion, but I thought your point with me was that Allomancers with a higher base level of power, such as TLR and the ancient Lerasium Mistborn, only get more Investiture because they are metabolizing their metals quicker than other Allomancers could. I think it will work with some forms of Allomancy, but not all of them. Internal powers, like @NameIess said, should presumably be used up as quickly as they're being pulled out, so even though your metal reserves are being used up more quickly they're being balanced out. External Investiture uses, like Emotional Allomancy, should get an upgrade since you're throwing more power at someone who's not soaking up that Investiture at the same speed as you the Allomancer are. I would compare this to Speedbubbles. A Pewterarm gets no additional strength inside one, though from an outside perspective his metal is going to be used up far more quickly. After giving it some thought, I'm leaning in the direction of a slowed Steelrunner not slowing their other Investitures. Sounds like hypocrisy, I know, but storing speed Feruchemically is not truly the inverse of tapping it. You get a spiritual adaptation when tapping, which is how your perception speeds up to match. The inverse doesn't have that, and it's making me think you wouldn't be able to get the strength of a Pewterarm (or any other power) at max for much longer than if not storing speed.

Yup. It's also paraphrased, so I'm hesitant to put my whole heart into it. I feel like you might also be able to interpret the middle part that says there are Allomancers that can use it more efficiently as being the ones like Elend and not necessarily Savants like Spook, but I digress. Admittedly might be a hangover from the last time I was in a thread we teased this WoB to death. Anyway, with that said, burning your metals faster will get you more power squeezed into a shorter period of time- that's how Flaring (and seemingly the augmenting metals) works. I just don't believe burning metal faster the only way to increase your Allomantic power.

Personally, I doubt this. Rashek would have very quickly blasted through his metals with his ridiculous level of Allomancy if this was the case. Even Elend would surely have noticed something was off given that Allomancers can track their metal stores by mass with great accuracy. Instead I think greater Allomantic power just gives you more Investiture per unit of metal burned.

The Heralds had a strong Connection to Odium that Honor was able to take advantage of. This makes me wonder, Kelsier has directly held the Shard of Preservation before. Could his soul be leveraged to bind Preservation? For example, if Autonomy convinced him that Sazed was becoming to erratic, could she Invest him in such a way to to further cripple Sazed's influence? Or, if Kelsier took up a piece of Ruin Ishar style, could he shield himself from Harmony's direct action, both because of his alignment with Ruin (similar to how Mishram was safe-ish from Odium) and his old Connection to Preservation?

Nice. Glad I could be of assistance.

@NameIess already gave the answer, but to add on remember in Warbreaker when Vasher had to chuck Nightblood to the ground in order to avoid being consumed? Nightblood gouged the floor a little, but stopped soon after. It needs an active input of Investiture to continue destroying, and I doubt matter alone works well enough for that for it to be self-sustaining. Fortunately, I can actually quote this since it's free online:

Why not? They love helping out with stuff, and it's not like they were gonna use that excess Investiture anyway. . . Or this is a joke and I'm masking poorly again, lol.

Investiture is much more valuable during Retribution's reign over Roshar, even with the possibility of Warlight existing since he can revoke your access to it anytime he feels like it. Radiant powers would be far scarcer, even if you can separate Towerlight into Stormlight and Lifelight to carry out elsewhere. Nightblood might hold a solution, at least for itself and a few allied Surgebinders. The sword leaks Investiture whenever unsheathed (and quite possibly even when sheathed, since it came out of its food coma without needing to be drawn and Gemstones apparently can leak back into the SR even when coated by aluminum), which I think you could capture in a gemstone with the right tools, such as a tuning fork. That Investiture might be usable by Radiants or possibly Nightblood itself in a twisted form of self-cannibalization. True, you'd eventually begin to reduce your stores, but if Nightblood truly converts whatever Investiture it eats to be of itself and not whatever else it originally was of, then you just snatch some Warlight, feed Nightblood, then convert it to a form that Retribution cannot automatically stop since he's no longer Connected to it.

We've seen the Men of Gold and Red now, and I've been thinking on what they may be. I hypothesize that they are the Cognitive Shadows of Autonomy's best agents corrupted with her Investiture and brought back to do her dirty work. I'm thinking this because Mr. Suit was told would be allowed to "serve in another realm" right before being blown up. Would be pretty anticlimactic if he was just gone after that exchange and the creature was just clinically insane. The "Faceless Immortals" Suit mentions are in Autonomy's employ may simply be Men of Gold and Red stapled into bodies much like Fused, which would fit with this theme. Those that traveled via Perpendicularity may have the luxury of having their own bodies, or simply do so because they don't need to disguise themselves as regular people. It would also fit Bavadin's habit of trying to take over and utilize other Shards' magic systems if many of these servants (like Miles Dagouter) were made into ghosts, given new bodies, then unleashed to cause havoc as she willed. They might even have an additional, generic power that they share, since we have this WoB: Their red eyes could be from her corrupting their Spiritwebs to make them Shadows despite them having non-Autonomy aligned Investiture (or simply it's more forceful, changing their own natures a bit, maybe to make them more ruthless soldiers). As an aside, perhaps the reason Bavadin can't easily reel them in after setting them loose is because Autonomy inherently struggles with dominating people like Ruin would with his constructs. She did control a dying agent to speak to Wax, but it would be very different than someone actively fighting her control. And it would just be a fun and fitting Shardic limitation, in my opinion.

Most of the time when people are asked this question, they go for Feruchemy. I'd do that too, as there are too many practical applications and such greater control that I wouldn't pass it up.

Alright, giving my real answer for the topic now that I've mulled it over. I don't think I'd want to go the same route as Rashek. First of all, I'd want to use a smidge of the Well to speed up my mind to extreme rate, effectively giving me far more than a few hours to plan with the natural acceleration of my mind as an Ascended being- I'm presumably already familiar with zinc Feruchemy, so this should be easy to think of and do. Second, I use this extra time to peer into the Spiritual Realm and use that to determine if some of the options I think about are actually plausible. After those two bases are covered, I should learn that the Deepness doesn't require any additional help to stop. It should go away after the Well is drained (if I understand it correctly), which I'm already doing anyway. So, no burned ashland of a planet. Might be worth looking into whether I can pick up and absorb the Splinter of Ruin that Rashek would have made into Atium, as it might balance out the Preservation side of things and make me a mini-Harmony. Or, it might just give Ruin a foothold, in which case I abandon that idea and bury it a hundred miles underground where no human can possibly reach it and Ruin can only access it should he be freed. Next, take a few precautions to empower myself and fulfill Preservation's desire to have an Avatar guide Scadrial until the next thousand years pass- as I'd know properly by looking into the SR and Preservation's Shard. After turning myself into a super Mistborn and altering my Spiritual Aspect in a such a way that I'm effectively immortal (but not Investing myself so much that Preservation's Intent corrupts my ability to fight- unless I can take up that piece of Ruin's excess power, of course), I look to any other Invested opponents on the planet. Cruel as it may be, I may "curse" the Terris population with a bit of extra Investiture programmed to prevent them from accessing their Feruchemy if I should will it at any time, and their descendants with the same bit of Investiture (think of an Elantrian curse that can be toggled on or off at will), whether latent or not, but it can be removed or replaced by me as I wish (using my Identity and Connection as a Sliver of Preservation as the "key"). Then I can control any scary Feruchemists without stealing their humanity or future potential to be Feruchemists, maybe even just letting them be unless they directly try to murder me. Alendi has already taken control of the planet at this point, so I use the power to see how I can alter my appearance to mimic his as well as fill me in on many of the details of his life so that I can believably maintain some control until things stable out and can leave them to a more democratic lifestyle (cause I don't feel like being directly responsible for the world's civilization management and politics forever). Bit of an actual sacrifice, and I'll look for a way to drop the guise after a century or so when I also drop my rulership, but overall a lot better than needing to bribe kings to my side with Lerasium or murder them with armies of Koloss. Speaking of which, as cool as Mistborn, Koloss, Kandra, and Inquisitors are, I don't see a real need for them if I'm not going to be an ultra dictator for long- especially since that means there are no super-powered individuals to kill me in the future. Plus, that's just inhumane. Literally, in most of those cases. Once the world has stabilized into a more peaceful place and technology has advanced enough that people can hold such a large civilization together as a whole, and I've taught the population the true Terris prophecies, I leave my position and give it to someone responsible, encourage the people to think and act for themselves as Preservation's people, then work more independently with a smaller group I can watch over and trust on a personal level. Working more like Superman than Emperor King. And I guess I just keep doing that until the Well fills again and I either come up with a better plan for the next millennia or I hand over that power to a successor that I thoroughly trust.

I cannot ague with that

Could you reach out to Autonomy during your brief Ascension, then make a pact of some kind with her? She was willing to spare Scadrial if Telsin could control it, so it's not implausible you could go that route. According to Kelsier she's actually been willing to share technology with her followers, so advancing Scadrian civilization might actually be possible if you strike a bargen pre Era 1. Plus, if you can get her oath to help Preservation keep Ruin trapped or destroyed, you can tip the scales and won't have to worry about it ending that way. So essentially, do what he did, but better.

Yeah, I kinda figured as such, but it was too funny not to comment on.

Lol. I get the feeling you may be aligned very well with a certain Shard, just maybe not Preservation.

A lot of the magics in the Cosmere are pretty hard systems. Allomancy and Feruchemy, most Surgebinding, Sandmastery, and more. So I feel like it's pretty interesting when we get an example of a case of Investiture that's inherently looser with its borders. I love hard systems a whole lot, but having a looser range occasionally can lead to some fun stuff. Now, I want to clarify that these systems do still have some hard limits, so they're not truly "soft" systems. Shardic Intent, the level of Investiture available, and the physics of the Cosmere can still limit them. But other than that, it's really up to the user's knowledge, skill, and foresight in what can be done with it. Thus far, I believe we've seen: Shards/Vessels: the most obvious example, especially given their functionally infinite level of Investiture. They can do basically anything except reverse time, reverse true death, go against their Shard's Intent, or override an equal or greater source of power. Avatars: I'm assuming it depends on the level of Investiture they're granted, but from what I know it sounds like they're functionally the same as the Shards/Vessels except that they have a lot less raw power and they must abide by the true Vessel's demands. Dawnshards: don't know a whole lot about them yet, but I'm gonna throw my bet that they count as being relatively "soft" as well. The Nightwatcher: can grant grafts of Investiture that overwrite people's bodies, minds, and souls. Given the apparent lack of rules associated with this, I imagine a lot more could be done that what we've seen. Elantrians: technically they have a harder "soft" magic than most of these others (because they have to code out everything that must be done rather than just willing things to be a new way), but since they can replicate basically any other function of Investiture with a few exceptions I'd say their power counts as being pretty soft. Bondsmiths: pretty sure they can manipulate Connection in loose enough ways that if they know what they're doing that they could do basically anything they wanted, similar to Elantrians (within the pre-assigned rules for soft magic). Nightblood: with the sword being able to learn how to replicate the Surges after simply chatting with the Honorblades for a few days, I'm pretty confident that Nightblood can do so, so much more. Probably in a similar scale to the Nightwatcher, probably somewhat less Invested (and requiring as of present external sources of Investiture to fuel their abilities). A couple I think could use soft magic, but I'm hypothesizing on: Dragons: given that Dragons are known to grant boons and their huge levels of Investiture, I'm imagining that they can do stuff similar to the Nightwatcher (haven't read IotED yet, but if anyone wants to shoot me an example of such abilities in a spoiler box, I would not be too upset). Awakeners: given that Breaths area bit looser than most other magic systems in that you can Command them to do a whole bunch of different things, and its even given rise to the creation of Nightblood (albeit with some tampering from Endowment), I think if you were to become a really, really highly Invested Awakener that you could begin doing Avatar-level stuff. Aethers: We've seen basically nothing from these guys except some elemental growth, but if they're as Invested as the Godspren of Roshar or more, I think they might have some real potential for bending Investiture in all kinds of ways. Edit: oh, and of course Hemalurgy. How could I forget my sweet baby? You can rewrite a Spiritweb to be basically anything, so it's reasonable to conclude that it could change one to do a lot of other things.

I wonder, would repeated exposure just Invest it more, or would it also physically expand the Sunheart? Or, is it more explicitly tied to the physical body that was destroyed initially?

True, but doesn't Shallan conclude that her being pulled into Shadesmar more than normal when Soulcasting is a result of her double bond? (Not a perfect source, as characters in-world can be wrong, but it feels quite fitting). Definitely requires the Surge itself in that situation (I imagine something similar must have happened when Ivory first met Jasnah and pulled her into the CR, maybe using her as an unwitting conduit after beginning to form a pseudo bond). Hmm, I wonder if there was a large amount of Investiture present at the time. Say, if they were out in the Highstorm, would that thinning of the Realms be enough to let the stronger pull into the CR work? Similar process to a Perpendicularity there, just with a little help.

Lol, essentially yes. Does make me wonder. . . Since Copperminds cannot remove muscle memory from an individual, could you potentially strip away all their memories, use them as you wished by implanting new ones with a specific directive in mind- like assassination- then swap the memories out to keep them and their own side unaware of your tampering?