therunner

I don't think so. Coating surfaces in Full Lashing to prevent Fullborn from moving with F-Steel, or using Reverse Lashings to both pull pushed/pulled items off-course and to drag Fullborn towards them are both quite useful applications. Not to mention that you can just coat things with Reverse Lashings and throw them around to cause havoc while remaining unaffected. Leaving bottom of the foot free would leave to be noticed by Fullborn (what with them having F-zinc, F-tin, atium and F-steel).

Yeah, but then Windrunner cannot use Surges on anything but themselves.

As to whether single spike with attribute would result in monster, there are these two WoBs: So based on this one, spiking on more of some physical attribute would probably result in distortion of physical body (like we see with Koloss), spiking on mental attributes would possibly distort cognitive aspects (and perhaps physical one as well, even if less so). And this one suggest that spikes possessing 'just' attributes cause more much more distortion than those bestowing Allomancy and Feruchemy (which are the ones all human characters have had so far).

Yeah that would be great. Or better yet, Cosmere encyclopedia with all the Invested arts, precise limitations and skills of users. And rates of Investiture use. (you know, nothing that should be too difficult to put together)

It is better to be careful For Donor it is definitely an upgrade Certainly, we see that in Awakening, that with better Intent and Command you can do more with less. Similarly, the Set scientist do mention that speaking out Command helps with Investing of the spike, so there will be similarities there. Skilled Hemalurgist could probably gain more then 5% from single person, or they could more precisely take what they want. Ultimately, skill in Hemalurgy is truly about skill and knowledge, you need to know what to do to do it. Well, one spike with allomancy/feruchemy. The chimera from SoS did have one spike only (seemingly) and I would call looking like that serious problem

Yeah, F-steel is another issue I think. It is not like Brandon (or his team) is not aware of all the discussions, and just how heavily superspeed distorts power landscape. Partially he solved that by making them relatively rare (remember that Mistings are 1:1000, Ferrings are less then that, and on top of that the power distribution is not 1:16, which would result at most a hundred steel runners across the entire Basin and all age groups). There was so few of them in Elendel that the victim in SoS was basically the only possible target. So I think after giving us very small tastes, he is still figuring out how to approach it. Previous F-steel POVs can be taken as also including F-zinc, and the other user was non-human, so he has space to operate in. I know he won't balance Invested arts per se, but clearly he is trying to 'reign them in' so to speak, so that the solution to every problem is not 'Compounding' or 'F-steel', and question for every bad guy is not 'why don't they just use Compounding/F-steel'.

I did That is why I specifically mentioned that Set don't demonstrate extraction of complete power, only of 'spark'. Maybe you can trade death for pain, or the more suffering you bring worth the more potent the charge (i.e. less decayed power). Almost literally "No pain, no gain" Problem is that in Awakening Awakener provides the power to do Invested effect. But in Hemalurgy, all the power needed to rip of piece of soul and put in spike comes from Ruin. All the user bring in is Intent (and spike+victim). And that Intent must be in line with Ruin, at least to some extent I expect. There is no way to power Hemalurgy, like there is in Awakening. Oh, they do cause some damage and warping of form on all three realms. But the damage is comparatively slight. Vin had spike her entire life, and she was pretty ok.

I think the Compounding with Hemalurgy will be extremely difficult to circumvent. From Doylist perspective Brandon clearly made that change to do away with interaction that is incredibly overpowered by his standards, and would be very difficult to write around.

Sure that would be possible. Though we don't know if you can non-lethally extract full powers, not just 'spark of Preservation'. I doubt that. If they could simply sedate the people, or give them painkillers and the process would still work, there is no reason for the Set scientist not to do so. Subjects would be more cooperative that way even. Yeah, the Ruin part comes when spiking something out. Using Hemalurgic spike does not cause that many issues, as the body adjusts to spike.

I don't think spiking out a power, and spiking in a power can be done as one action. First you have to spike someone with Intent to spike the power out, and the spike someone in correct bind point with Intent to put power in. Not to mention that bind points to take power away might not be the same as the ones to put power in. Also, spiking out is invariably at the very least excruciatingly painful, further complicating things. Edit: And also Shard's Intent controls how their Invested art is accessed, i.e. Honor requires Bonds, Dor requires some combination of location (Dominion) and dedication to something (Devotion), Preservation takes nothing from the user (in Allomancy). In Hemalurgy, you must Ruin someone to get power. So I think trying to get around it and trying to not hurt someone (Preserve them so to speak) would just result in failure.

Yep. Good luck taking great care and putting yourself through excruciating pain to survive spiking and remain in control enough to not mess it up.

Hemalurgy does not care much what happens to donor (see all of them being dead). So if you stab yourself, you wound yourself quite seriously. Only for recipient does Hemalurgy help organism adjust to spike.

The second artwork has bit of an artistic license going on, since in the book, the entire sword including handle is described as just few inches taller than Vin. In the artwork, just blade itself is as large (a bit larger I think) than Vin, and with handle is a good 1,5-2 feet taller. So that artwork shows something Vin did not use, and is out of scale by ~25-30%. But if we take that sword and calculate weight we get: Blade is 5 feet ~ 150 cm long, wide ~ 25 cm, thickness is not visible, however even largest two-handed swords have at most 7.5 mm at the thickest part, so I think 1.5 cm for average thickness is basically reasonable maximum. (while they are blunt, they are still described as basically swords not rods or bars of iron so they cannot be that blunt). Such blade would weight 44 kg, add in at least 6 kg for pommel (which would still be insufficient to counter the blade weight, but the weapons are crude), it is far outside of ability of even Mistborn to wield. Even if Vin had somehow A-Pewter 2x as strong as anyone else (which she clearly does not, mostly benefiting from being lightweight) she would peak at 6x strength, which would let her at best wield 24 kg two handed sword (neglecting she is way too light to do that without messing up her own center of gravity). If we scale down the blade by ~25% in all dimensions, we get more reasonable estimate of 18.75 kg for the blade itself + shaft and pommel. Though that is still too much for Mistborn to wield TLDR: Artistic license, at least in the second image. Edit: That leaves basically two options: 1) Koloss blades don't scale with Koloss height, but at some points Koloss just wield the blades. 2) Rule of cool, and we should not think too much about it. Also, as far as I recall, the tallest Koloss were around 12 feet, not 13 feet. Edit: And per WoB (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/270/#e7711), Koloss are twisted because of the power in the spikes, which I think supports that the strength from the size is the spiked strenght showing itself.

Which assumes that large Koloss have strength from size + from spikes, not that size is due to spikes.

I know it is a lot, I did swordfighting Elend takes the 'sword' away from the Koloss he killed (5 feet tall Koloss), and while unable to swing it he can carry it. So I would expect it to be ~10 kg. Sazed could wield Koloss sword for hours before wasting his F-Pewter, and was mostly using Strength to enhance his blows. Yeah, but we know that Vin with Pewter wielded a sword like that, even if perhaps for shorter time than Koloss would. And if Koloss don't tire as easily (which when frenzied is probably the case) that would help as well. Also skill with pewter won't make you stronger. Vin is strong for Era 1 Mistborn, but I doubt she is 33% stronger, at most like ~10-15% (so noticable, but also within variance). They can eat dirt and such, that does not mean it is their primary source of sustenance (that would be humans, lifestock and cannibalism seemingly). The sword Vin has is just a bit longer than she is tall, handle included, and is given to her by one of the larger Koloss (so perhaps one ~6-7 feet tall). The sword is described as 'wedgelike', and Koloss swords in general are blunt. Handspan (10 cm) wide on average (double that close to handle, 0 at the point), with 1 cm thickness (2 cm is far too much) would result in sword that is ~100 cm long (blade) 10 cm wide 1 cm thick, for total weight of the blade (using 7.89 g/cm3) of 7.9 kg. Add in handle and it would be ~9 kg at most. At the point where Vin takes it from the Koloss she possibly does not have Pewter (she took control of Koloss after running out of all 'combat' metals). Edit: But when fighting she is burning Pewter. If the largest Koloss had blade that are 2 the size in all parts then those blades would be at most ~70 kg in total weight. Though there is little reason to double the thickness of the sword, so I would expect around 35 kg at most for the largest Koloss swords. Koloss use them more like warhammers/maces/clubs, and those could weight up to ~10 kg (in the extreme cases). So, they are a bit heavier then would be expected, but they are crudely made. So if they are around 40 kg at most, then that is within scope of the largest Koloss being about 4.5x as strong as human (their larger size would help them wield the weapons more easily as well, since the body would serve as counterweight).

Fair point. However, there is still the fact that Vin can use Koloss sword using just A-Pewter. Vin is a bit of an outlier, but not by great margin, so still small Koloss cannot be too much stronger than 3x strength.

I consider magic boost to be something like A-pewter, as in the muscles do more through Investiture. In Koloss it seems to me that their strength is proportional to their muscles, because as you mention smaller are weaker then larger ones. I don't think there is much that would point to Koloss being anywhere near 10x as strong as human. Vin can use a sword smaller Koloss use, just burning A-Pewter, and she is definitely not 4x as strong as human. So small Koloss must be weaker than 4x boost. Yeah, but going to kill with a knife something you know is at minimum 4x as strong as you (if not more) is frankly incredibly dumb. Why would Elend think he has any chance if that was true?

Mists covering the entire land of Final Empire every night vs a Storm covering several thousand km squared every ~10 days? It seems mists are at least similarly ubiquitous, just capturing them is more difficult, and to use them in Invested Arts requires possibly unusually strong Connection to Preservation. Godmetals, well there was also the Atium hoard, which was thousand years worth of Atium. (granted it was alloy) Well,R+P used most likely considerable amount of power to create the entire planet, and all the ecosystem on it from scratch. That would have used up quite a bit of power (since energy is conserved in cosmere) + Preservation then had to relinquish additional portion to grant humans sentiency. Comparatively, on Roshar the Investiture that makes up spren was Investiture of H+C (and maybe a bit of O) from start, so they started with some of the Investiture already Invested on Roshar. It it just in different form, not necessarily more of it. Everything points to Shards being equals in power, as in, exact equals. That is why Harmony being theoretically 2x as powerful concerns them so much.

I mean, the spikes don't steal anything 'magical' just the physical attribute of human strength. Their souls are basically human + bolted on 4x strength (as we see in CR in Secret History, when they revert to human after dying), no reason for magic boost. Elend fought a small Koloss (albeit in ambush) before becoming Mistborn, so I doubt that Koloss are 4-4.5x as strong the second they get made.

Not all of them, but single Inquisitor spike is enough metal as a small sword, so you could make a lot of small earrings out of them (Wax' is basically a stud). An earring like that can be 2-4 grams, so from a single spike you could make something like ~150-300 earrings. From all 20 Inquisitors that is at minimum (assuming just 10 spikes) 30000-60000 earrings. Not all, but still too much for no one to have noticed nothing. And not all of them are spikes, as you mention. Koloss were turned into a breeding species but still require spikes, so I would expect Harmony would want most of those spikes to go back to their hands. But non-zero, and theft is still possible issue if anyone realizes what they have on hands. Additionally, Spook would have to know Compounding is possible (which no one knew other than TLR and eventually Marsh), so either he for some reason kept F-Atium spike preserved long enough to use eventually, or he just got lucky.

Some Pathian earring are hemalurgic spikes (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/193/#e4156), and considering Harmonies distate, I would wager they could be reforged Inquisitor spikes, though Brandon has RAFOed whether atium spikes were part of earrings (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/361/#e11494). And unless properly stored, Hemalurgic decay would render them nearly impotent (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/69/#e6112).

I think Koloss are ~4-4.5x as strong as regular people, even when 12 feet tall. I see it like that the spikes give them the strength potential immediately, and they start 'growing' into that power, which is why they grow beyond human size. Notably their skin does not grow, and other organs have issues too, so perhaps it is primarily muscles and skeleton that grows, which would be related to strength. 12 feet tall human would be about 4x as strong as 6 feet tall human (since cross section of muscles would 4x), discounting for the extra bulk.

So, proposed 3 scenarios (please correct me if you intended them differently) Spikes made in Era 1 continue to function as previously and can provide H-Compounding. Immediately after Ruin was destroyed H-Compounding ceased to be possible, unless spikes were already in place. There was a window after Harmony Ascended where Hemalurgic compounding was still possible, however after certain (relatively short most likely) amount of time, H-compounding became impossible. Personally, I think 1. can be ruled out, otherwise this would have been noted (considering the amount of spikes left over). Inquisitor spikes were turned into Pathian earrings, and I doubt every Pathian earring would allow Compounding (though they could have been melted into big pile of alloyed metal). 2. I think is not the case, as most of the changes due to different person Ascending take time. Plus, as you mention, there is the issue of Marsh who seemingly had to get spike after Catecedre. 3. then seems like the left over option. But, we know that it was months before Spook was even approached by Kelsier to start looking into Hemalurgy, and hemalurgic decay would still be in effect, so any F-atium spike would be very weak (and there would have been no reason to store it in blood for months). So I don't think Spook had option to get F-Atium spike, even in that window.

I don't think that would be the case. Ars Arcanum talks about Ruin pushing more on fabric of fabrial, and pushing souls beyond what they could handle. So I see it that Hemalurgic constructs and people spiked prior to Catecedre would retain the 'empowered' version of Hemalurgy, but anyone spiked after, even with old spike, would not get those benefits since Ruin is no longer present to push on their soul.

Duralumin vs Aluminum is exactly the same thing as Nalatium vs Atium. Both are alloys vs pure metal, and in one case pure metal is definatly not pushable, yet alloy behaves as any other metal. In the other case, alloy behaves as any other metal, and godmetals should resist pushes/pulls, based on the fact that Investiture resists Investiture, and godmetals are pure Investiture. Both of those are Awakened blades, so they resist Shardblades not by virtue of being stronger material, but through being Invested enough to block Shardblade. It does raise question if you could brake Vivennas blade, by pushing on the flat. At that point Phendorana was nearly fully summoned, as Teft was on cusp of swearing 4th Ideal (or in the process of it). So she was manifested enough. Half-shards are not strong by virtue of just the Stormlight they hold, but through application of captured Nahel spren. Since person holding Stormlight does not resist anymore than person not holding Stormlight, infused diamond should behave exactly as regular diamond.