Trusk'our

Those seem kind of like the same answer Though, I'm thinking it would be cool to find a way to not make a monster even though you're using human attributes. Then you could use copper Hemalurgy to enhance your mind.

Yeah, a better Hemalurgist (the one charging and placing the spikes) would be the one with more skill and knowledge rather than having more raw power (which, funnily enough, does add some skill and inherent understanding) as in Awakening. Oooof. Yeah, human attributes in Hemalurgy will mess you up pretty quickly Yup, he can feel it, but doesn't seem to mind it too much (he does mention to Marsh that he's considered removing it, but hasn't seemed to have put a lot of effort into it, suggesting it isn't a big burden)

I think that it depends on what angle you push on them; if you have two pieces of metal on opposite sides of you, you can use them to leverage each other, use their weight to help push off the other one. However, your own weight and Allomantic power will still matter; you can't knock down two skyscrapers by pushing on both while in between them both. I don't know if you can push with the same strength against multiple pieces of metal at once, but I don't think that you can get energy for free- the Cosmere follows the laws of conservation- so if you push on a dozen coins at once, you're total pushing power is likely going to be divvied up a bit (though the force of your weight won't, I believe).

I think that makes sense. I'd really like to see a viewpoint from a Steelrunner at some point in the future; then we could get a better idea of all its limitations and advantages.

Oh okay, good. I was somewhat worried that I had accidentally ruined the experience for you Yes, that would make sense, I suppose. So pain would probably be unavoidable to the donor at least, but at least it isn't death! Hmmm, true. I still think that there could be ways to increase the efficiency of Hemalurgy through practice though; a Hemalurgist with a better understanding and better Connection to the art of Hemalurgy would probably be better able to determine what to take off the donor's Spiritweb, and could take more or less if they desired. Ah, I had forgotten about Vin. That's definitely true; one spike doesn't cause serious problems for the one bearing it, it would seem. Hmmm. Yes, that would possibly be a problem. I wonder how bad it would be though. Would it be serious enough to cause noticeable problems, or would it be manageable enough to use this practice in good conscience? Yeah, that's true. From Wax and Wayne though, it doesn't seem to be a big deal as far as we seen in TLM.

I think that should Work. After all, Lift is able to transform body fat into Lifelight, so a Consumer Ferring turning body fat into Metalmind Investiture doesn't seem like too far of a stretch.

I suppose that could be the case. In all honesty, I was wondering why the bad guys weren't so overpowered when they could have just Compounded; turns out that they couldn't, which did solve the problem. It does make me wonder why the Set didn't choose to get any Steel Feruchemy. It's arguably the most powerful combat metal and Steelrunners can't be that rare if there was an add in TLM paper that prided itself on its Steelrunner carriers. Even without Compounding a determined Steelrunner Set member could save speed for a few months and be ready for a few minutes of 10-20 times their regular speed to knife Wax and Wayne in the back when they tried to defeat the Set. I still don't get why they didn't do that.

Have you read TLM yet? I don't mean to say that in an offensive manner, I just don't want to be spoiling the experience for you if you haven't yet. I doubt the Set cared all that much about the donor's health or happiness. Still, you may be right that non-lethal Hemalurgy requires the donor to feel pian in order to satisfy Ruin's Intent (lethal Hemalurgy has already been confirmed not to require the donor to feel pain- Marsh spiked a Smoker in HoA who was in a drunken stupor). If trauma is necessary and not simply a "helpful" action, it would definitely be harder to get willing donors, that's for sure (though I doubt it would be impossible to get wiling donors, just that you'd get a lot fewer, at least until the benefits of having extra Metalborn power start to show themselves). However... Warbreaker spoilers. I think that spikes have to cause some damage to the recipient as well, as piercing holes in the Spiritweb seems to be a necessary aspect of Hemalurgy; otherwise, I doubt the Spirtweb fragments in the spike and the recipient of the spike would interact enough despite Identity differences to allow for powers to be gained. You could minimize the damage perhaps, but not erase it.

Well, I suppose even if that isn't possible (which it still might) then you could use the Set's method of non-lethally removing the donor's power, then immediately give the spike back to them so that they'd have it until they die. I don't know that it's that necessary. The Set scientists said that trauma on the part of the donor is helpful, not that it was strictly necessary, so you likely could work around that with a skilled enough Hemalurgist. That's a fair point. Ruin's Intent will always cause some collateral damage when dealing with Hemalurgy. As a counterpoint, I feel it's worth mention that bearing a single Hemalurgic spike hasn't seemed to cause much of a problem unless direct Shardic intervention from Ruin comes into play; neither Spook, Wax, nor Wayne ever mentions their spikes as being terribly painful or cumbersome after the initial spiking. That's not denying that there would be some damage, it's just that from what examples we have it seems that it wouldn't be a big deal.

Well, cracking that problem would probably be a lot easier than figuring out a way to sidestep the flesh-warping aspect (I already have like three ideas on how to do it), so it's probably still worth considering.

I mean, you could store it for a while, then tap it at an accelerated rate to improve it and make it actually work properly. You probably don't need it 24/7, so this strategy could probably work.

Well, apparently humans have a vestigial ability to detect magnetic fields, so if you tapped it an accelerated rate you might be able to use it like an internal compass. Can humans sense magnetic fields?

I got to wondering (again) about my favorite Cosmere magic system and how to creatively improve its usage. What if you took an un-Invested spike and then charged it by piercing a Metalborn with it- but then left it in them with the Intent to have the spike grant them its power? Could you use this as a way to effectively charge a spike while the person was alive, but while doing minimal damage to them? Most of their Investiture is still there in the spike and could stay there until the person passed away from natural causes. Then you wouldn't have to worry about not getting the chance to charge a spike after someone passed away; the spike would already be Hemalurgically charged, thus preserving the power. Plus, you wouldn't feel the need to cut someone's life short by having them sacrifice themselves for "the greater good". If you want to add some Identity blanking to the mix, you might be able to make an even better deal for the donor. You could have the donor Blank their Identity whilst donating, then give the charged spike to another donor down the line; that way, the second donor gets to keep most of their original Investiture plus whatever is left from the original donor. The process could continue to stack up, increasing the total Investiture in the spike, thus increasing the benefit for the donors and making the process more appealing, which would make more people willing to donate. Assuming the process to program Hemalurgic spikes made from non-Metalborn becomes a reality in Scadrial's future, this process could be extended to all Scadriens, and could allow for every single human being on Scadrial to someday have access to the Metallic Arts due to the ability build up the power in the spikes, contrary to Allomancy's decreasing power. Depending on the effectiveness of Malwish Medallion tech, which TLM suggests is far more limited than previously assumed, this may be the way to comedize the Metallic Arts in Scadrial's future and make all of its people truly equal.

Interesting. I hadn't considered the trauma as being useful, but if what you're saying is true (which, after reflecting upon TLM seems accurate as far as I can tell), trying to non-lethally charge a Hemalurgic spike on someone under anesthesia could be fatal for the donor. Though, they did mention that trauma was useful, not that it was strictly necessary. Perhaps the skill of the Hemalurgist (the one doing the spiking) matters when trying to perform non-lethal Hemalurgic excision? So a skilled Hemalurgic "surgeon" might be able to non-lethally remove Spiritweb fragments from people without the need for trauma?

I think that you would still die unless you were a Kandra or a similar organism, since aluminum being used without the Intent to Hemalurgically extract anything from yourself would still prevent you from healing via Investiture until the spike were removed. So an aluminum spike through the eye would likely be a death sentence for most beings.... It would certainly confuse your opponent though. How does being tortured help you survive being Hemalurgically spiked? Not trying to argue or anything, I'm just curious.

Yeah, this is a big part of my hypothesis; you actually remove a part of your Spiritweb when you charge a Hemalurgic spike with your own Spiritweb, and you replace the lost portion that was previously of another Shard's Investiture with Ruin's in an attempt to do... something. Probably make yourself able to bear more Hemalurgic spikes? Or replace a Nalthian's initial Breath, allowing them to give it to someone else, thereby allowing Ruin-aligned Heighteings?

So.... suicide?

I don't think that's the case, as we've seen that Hemalrugic iron in Mistrwraiths grants a magical boost to strength, but I suppose we'll simply have to agree to disagree. True, but he won through surprise, speed, and honestly a lot of luck, which doesn't necessarily rule out a fresh Koloss being that strong.

I think that Koloss strength increases as they grow in size due to larger muscles. Each iron spike provides a magical boost to strength, just like the Kandra's Blessing of Potency. Any extra muscle mass they gain as they grow just adds on to it more. With that in mind, a newly made Koloss built with freshly charged spikes is probably going to be 4-4.5 times as strong as a regular human of the same build, though most Koloss likely have recycled spikes, making them somewhat weaker than that. I don't have a good way to determine the strength of older Koloss, unfortunately. If they're bigger than an adult silverback gorilla though, they'd easily be 10 times stronger than a human before you even count any magical enhancement.

If they weren't Inquisitor spikes, they would have to be old Koloss spikes, which most likely warp the individual using them into an inhuman creature. I think that Hemalurgic decay for Feruchemical powers would reduce the efficiency of tapping them, similar to the natural weakening of modern Feruchemy. So yeah, old Inquisitor spikes would be fun relics, maybe useful for a person tying to commune with Harmony, but not much else. Unless... RoW spoilers

I think that this is an interesting idea. We know that it is possible to store Bronzesense inside a Tinmind, so it's likely that you could store excess healing and possibly strength from pewter (though it may just make it easier to store at a higher percentage than normal). It would be really cool to see if you could store A-pewter's muscle enhancement without F-pewter's bulk, but we'd need to see this in books or get a good WoB for me to put my money on it. The quote was talking specifically about the Malwish Medallion tech, so it's possible that it is different than a normal Nicrosilmind. If a normal Nicrosilmind still acts "like a Coppermind" however, I would venture to say that Compounding would only copy the power, not increase the power you get from it (and tapping it faster wouldn't help either). Ah, so basically, you fill a Metalmind normally, but you convince the Investiture inside to act as it's Allomantic counterpart when tapped? I think that would be really neat, but you may require more than Intent, since when you store the metal it's Keyed to a specific use; you wouldn't be able to Feruchemicaly store in pewter and get Allomantic pewter than you could store strength and get health from it even if you had the proper Intent. More action would be required to reprogram it, though it might be possible with some work. I wonder if you were to Blank your Identity whilst storing you could leave the stored Investiture susceptible to manipulation. Then, you use a special method discovered in RoW... It's an educated guess, but I think that it may be possible to pull off. Interesting. So, if I have what you're saying correct, you mean to say that with the proper Intent you could burn a metal Allomantically and then store its Investiture Feruchemically? It's an interesting idea, but it may be a bit of a stretch; I think that more than Intent would be required to make such a power work, though using the method of tweaking I came up with in #3, maybe? I agree completely on the loyalty part; I don't think that Ruin would have wanted to bother keeping around Marsh longer than necessary since he resisted so much. Too much hassel. I think that the Inquisitors who had F-Atium spikes likely had them either because they were experimenting between the death of Rashek and the release of Ruin on Keeper powers (Rashek likely didn't want them to have too much Feruchemy for fear of them learning to Compound, so likely didn't tell them all of the Feruchemical powers), or than Ruin wanted a few of his more loyal Inquisitors to survive long enough to continue acting as his agents in the Cosmere after the fall of Scadrial. Could be that Ruin wanted them to be able to Reverse Compound Atium, but if #4 is true wouldn't they still use Atium up in the process? Overall, good post @Mistchemist16, nice work, nice discussion

Yup, that would put a damper on their relationship.

I think that pewter would probably help more than F-gold since it's unnaturally expanding your body's ability to deal with stress, including disease. But yeah, I think you're right on the part about gold; age-related illnesses probably wouldn't be able to be cured through it. Ooooh. I hadn't considered that spikes made pre-Catacendre would work at full capacity. I figured it was the people who would need it, but that would make a lot of sense since it would "remember" Ruin's Intent at the time.

Let's have a hypothetical scenario; two shady Hemalurgists in trench coats meet one another in a dark alleyway to buy/sell Hemalurgic spikes from one another. What spikes do you think would be most valuable to someone who knows what they do and why? Here's my idea (ranked lowest first, highest last). 1. Allomantic aluminum. Basically useless for nearly any situation. It depletes your metal stores and actively works against your best interests in most cases. 2. Allomantic gold. Unless you find a way to hack Hemalurgy in such a way as to allow Compounding, this power is not all that useful (except maybe for self-reflection). 3. Allomantic cadmium. Unless you have access to Malwish Primer Cubes, this isn't useful in most combat cases. Would potentially help skip time if you're impatient and don't have any concept of how to use time efficiently. 4. Feruchemical Bendalloy. Nice for long travels, but not useful for much else unless you're a Worldhopper (which I won't discuss here). 5. Feruchemical brass. Definitely useful for traveling to extreme locations and maintaining a comfortable temperature no matter the environment. Proper clothing and AC could help nearly as much in most cases though. 6. Feruchemical cadmium. Could allow for extended periods of time diving. Useful for that situation if you don't have scuba gear, or if you are a marine biologist and don't want to disturb the wildlife while you study it. 7. Feruchemical copper. Useful to a creative person for a hodge podge of mental tricks and can allow you to recall desired information if used correctly, but a notebook could probably do that nearly as well. 8. Feruchemical bronze. Could be useful to tap in many circumstances (adding some extra awake-ness when you need it) and would be a lifesaver if you're cramming for a test but storing limits its usefulness to a degree since you could use the time spent storing to do useful work. 9. Allomantic/Feruchemical electrum. Seeing into the future, if in a limited way, could be useful if someone practiced with it. Determination seems like it could be of general benefit to someone no matter the situation, though storing would be a pain. 10. Allomantic copper. Copper can help you hide from Seekers while still using your powers, but due to Hemalurgic decay it's less viable of an option unless you figure out how to put multiple Hemalurgic charges inside a spike or unless you take two or more spikes. 11. Feruchemical iron. could be useful if you are creative or could be combined with Allomantic pewter to add some combat ability. Combined with Allomantic steel it would allow for some truly impressive feats of destruction. 12. Allomantic tin. Useful to enhance senses and increase awareness of your surroundings. Night vision is definitely a plus as well. 13. Feruchemical tin. Similar to A-tin, it's very useful for increasing your awareness of your surroundings, but you have more control over it. Additionally, you can choose to store pain, which would be very useful in a fight or in any situation where you get injured. A lack of night vision is a bummer, but overall I still would prefer it to A-tin. 14. Allomantic nicrosil. Could be useful in a fight to remove an opponent's metal reserves (though that might prove more risky than A-chromium) or to boost an ally Metalborn. 15. Allomantic iron. Less useful than A-steel, but could be useful in a fight or if you want Metalsense. 16. Feruchemical pewter. Useful for combat, can help with physical labor, helps you win that arm wrestling match, and can give you an Olympian bod for when you go to the beach. 17. Allomantic brass/zinc. Can be nice for helping in all sorts of social situations, including convincing others to help you locate Metalborn. Not so useful if aluminum-lined hats ever become fashionable, however. 18. Feruchemical duralumin. Can be used to aid in making friends, reducing people's awareness of you (if you want to quietly slip away from an awkward social situation or are an introvert), can let to speak foreign languages while traveling, and probably has more useses that will be discovered in time. Hiding better would help an aspiring Hemalurgist steal more powers and being able to befriend people more easily would help find more/con more Metalborn. 19. Feruchemical zinc. While it doesn't actually boost your raw intellect (merely the speed at which you think and comprehend), and while storing would be a pain, tapping some F-zinc could help with all sorts of situations, be it from assessing a battlefield to coming up with a clever response in a verbal duel, this power has got your back. 20. Allomantic bronze. If you're a Hemalurgist who is morally questionable and plans to steal more Invested powers, this power is your best friend. There are other ways of locating Metalborn however, so this power doesn't rank higher than it already is. 21. Feruchemical chromium. Fortune sounds like a powerful ability to have, and seems like it could be useful for all manner of situations (I don't see a situation where not tapping Fortune would be beneficial), and it may even allow for precognitive abilities. However, not a lot is known about it right now, and the need to store hampers its usefulness a lot. 22. Allomantic steel. Lets you basically have a limited form of flight and telekinesis. Useful for combat, locomotion, some everyday tasks, and it's fun. Steelsight is another useful ability for a creative person. 23. Allomantic Bendalloy. As Wayne shows us, this power can be very useful to a creative person and has some obvious benefits for combat. 24. Allomantic chromium. Useful for fighting Metalborn, particularly if you're a Hemalurgist looking to incapacitate/capture Metalborn to steal powers from. Honestly not sure whether A-chromium or A-pewter is more useful for this kind of thing. 25. Allomantic pewter. Enhances a whole bunch of physical qualities. Extremely useful for a fight, Kinesthetic activities of any kind, and helps keep you alive and running through even terrible injuries that would normally incapacitate or kill you. 26. Allomantic duralumin. Very useful in combat when combined with other powers. You'd have to be careful with it, but it could allow for greater versatility and raw power with other abilities. 27. Feruchemical gold. Can save your life from all but the most destructive attacks (such as being vaporized by a nuke). Could be used by an ambitious individual to generate more Metalborn powers, though without Compounding this would likely be very restricted in its use. 28. Feruchemical steel. Amazingly useful for combat as well as useful for a number of mundane tasks. I'd think that this would be one of the most useful combat metals, particularly for a Hemalurgist who can zip to their opponent and spike their Metalborn power form them before they can even blink. 29. Feruchemical aluminum/nicrosil. By combining these powers through Hemalurgy, you could grant powers to others via Unsealed Metalmind, or potentially grant someone else the ability to store their powers and give them to you temporarily. F-aluminum may also be able to overcome the Identity contamination that Hemalurgy suffers from, which would allow for Compounding (assuming that it works)- which is amazingly powerful with the right power combo. So, what are everybody's else's ideas on this matter?

Lol, true (perhaps that's why they have such a problem with other Fabrials?) It even has plumbing for humans as part of it. Kind of makes you wonder how the Sibling feels about that.