Tamriel Wolfsbaine

Intent has always been something of a gray area for me. If Lifts intent were to use food to fuel allomancy through old magic would that then override Cultivations intent to allow her to use food to create lifelight to fuel surgebinding? We see that a shards intent is able to overrule the sword wielders intent to give Spook A-pewter. In the case of Lift we don't know enough about the old magic at all for this question. We know that food energy can be converted to lifelight. Could it be converted to become a catalyst for any system? Could Lift learn to awaken with oldmagic? I figure that Lift is more likely to use oldmagic to fuel other systems than being able to use breathes or metal to fuel her old magic. And at the end of the day even if she could intend to use old magic in ways X, Y and Z could Cultivation overturn that? I imagine it is possible for Cultivation to have overlooked the limits and, even after one instance of Lift "abusing" the old magic, decide to abolish it.

This would have been my question. Less of a question like "can lift use metals to fuel surgebinding?" I think the real question is this... Is old magic limited to only rosharan systems? Can lifts old magic fuel other powers from other systems if she were to gain allomancy? If Lift used lerasium would she be able to fuel allomancy with food through old magic?

This is a cool idea... that breath could actually be that the God metal is simply in a gaseous state at room temp... if you could freeze breath how cold might it need to be before it manifests as a solid?

100% agree that there is no good or evil shard in scadrial (perhaps the entire cosmere). There are shards who are going to aid the mortals on the planet and those who wont... but how much and which shards are working in the mortals interest is a bit of a moving scale. Sazed is doing the best he can see how.

For sure. It's just some thoughts I have had. Admittedly my bias pokes it's head out when it comes to the Kandra. I don't think Sazed went all bad and I actually really feel for him too. That dude stepped up to the plate for sure. I honestly don't think anyone in their right mind would willingly choose to become a shard... let alone be willing to take on two conflicting shards. Harmony definately is not the same Sazed we saw in era 1. He certainly isn't all bad... in fact I am sure the homie is doing the best that he can with what he was handed. I have also theorized that TLR was most likely near his breaking point and really welcomed his demise to Vins hands. Being immortal and surrounded by people who hate you (or simply don't believe in you in the case of a shard) must take its toll. I like the idea that the Kandra are willingly working with Harmony and that they are not being controlled in everything. But we can't forget that half of what Sazed is carrying literally took control over everything with a spike and tried to end the world with zero regard to what they were. As far as preservation goes... preservation is not necessarily a great thing. People try to preserve things at some ridiculous costs all the time... let's sacrifice all of our agriculture and double the price of food and leave shelves empty in the name of "preservation". The fact that all shards are so far to their sides is what makes the cosmere so dang good though. It isn't one God who has a good balance of everything. Instead its planets full of mortals trying to exist with gods over their planets that are totally radical (to the point of destruction) in whatever emotion or notion that shard is of. Just imagine when a shard dies it really has a huge effect on the mortals. I am a huge fan of cultivation from a progression point of view. I love how much better life can be with change but not all change is good for humanity and looking at the way shards work cultivation likely wouldn't care what the outcomes are just as long as change is happening.

I certainly think that if Rashek with the power from the well for a few minutes was able to change humans into mistwraiths then Sazed with the full power of 2 shards should be able to reverse it... or find a way to give all mistwraiths sentience at least? This honestly got me thinking... if a kandra were to be given a returned divine breath... would they heal back to a human or just a mistwraith? Would one of the first generation go back to being a feruchemist and being a mortal? I feel like we don't know enough of how and what made a mistwraith a mistwraith... do the mistwraiths made today through normal mistwraith breeding still have the makeup that the first mistwraiths did that ties them to the human family? Again I am sure that if Rashek had the power to make a mistwraith then it only makes sense for Harmony to have the power to switch it back.

I have read bands. Though, admittedly, I was extremely ill during the back half and don't remember all of it. I do wish Sazed was the same Sazed we knew... but 300 years of holding onto 2 shards who oppose eachother certainly can't be good for him. I remember his conversation with Wax and him giving Wax a choice but even in that moment the choice was "you can be done and all your friends are going to be tortured and killed but at least you won't have to suffer anymore... or you can keep working towards my goal and go be the sword I need." I think it is interesting how Vin had to come to terms with only being a knife. Poor Wax is going to have to come to terms with being the saber that Harmony gets to rattle. I am confused by that too though. Why choose Wax as your champion when Marsh is far more equipped to do it? I could be missing a lot here and I am open to my mind being changed (plus I am not all that committed to the idea that Harmony isn't such a great shard). I just don't get why harmony wouldn't free the kandra the way he did the kolos... I would love to see that answered in the next book. Maybe the kandra get to live their lives in large as they want. It doesn't change the fact that harmony chose to keep them on a leash and with a blink of the eye can take control of his spies. If the part of harmony that is ruin were to grow and start to take over the choice to keep the kandra in servitude could easily leave the kandra revisiting the idea of the need for "the resolution". The idea of freeing half of your slaves but keeping the second half is worse than just keeping them all. Harmony realized the kolos should be free, but chose to keep the kandra and their weakness. He came from a slave population... not as bad for them as for the skaa but still... how would we all as readers have taken it if he said skaa could be free but the Terris needed to stay in servitude of the nobility and if they didn't like it they could just kill themselves? I don't see a difference between that and what happened with the kolos and kandra. I am admittedly bias... the kandra are my favorite monsters of all time... the thought of playing as a kandra and the gods being and to snap their fingers and use you as a puppet spooks me out. I feel a far worse fate than being smited by a diety would be getting forced to do things I don't agree with.

It is just a system that is 95% gray area of RAFO... for the last 12 years!

I have a hard time with the idea that Harmony is big on free will... the entire kandra population and the fact that Marsh was allowed to continue on (and perhaps collect more spikes) makes me question Harmony and not trust him. Harmony being so benevolent that he fixed kolos allowing them to reproduce but then leaving the kandra as slaves... servitude to Harmony obviously doesn't fill the voids that comes with being immortal and this is evident in the fact that Kandra started dropping out their spikes and killing themselves... what a great shard to offer freedom to reproduce and be rid of the hemalurgic weakness to the monsters he fought against in the last battles but then keep the decendants from his ancestors in servitude of himself. I know Lessie wasn't in her right mind at the end of it all as Bleeder but Harmony getting into her mind was so bad she melted herself into a puddle of goo. (That is assuming he didn't forcer her to hit the self destruct button...) And Harmony is not against using people for his own means... He was looking for a sword was he not? Wax is just a tool for him to use just like Bleeder was just like all of the other Kandra are.

It is a crying shame that my favorite system doesn't even really have a place in the coming years... Poor Warbreaker fans who just want to see more awakening!

Double nicrosil would be a clear winner if you exist in a position to acquire either spikes or medallions. Once you get access to a power you can store it for a moment and then compound it infinitely. If medallion tech becomes a more common thing or if spikes make a resurgence it could be a big deal to have nicrosil as either power. I would say a soulbearer ferring would be the top of the list for natural born power in a world where spikes and medallions become more common place (I happen to think we shall get to see some nicrosil compounding shenanigans at least once with the Era 3 protagonist supposedly being a nicroburst). The baddies in era 2 are already bringing back hemalurgy and now medallions are entering play. You get a double nicrosil twinborn and some time with an aluminum medallion and you could potentially have a miniature bands of mourning factory. Imagine a set of soldiers each with a coins worth of metalminds loaded up with a limited times worth of fullborn power (minus nicrosil allomancy to prevent reloading of said metalminds). I totally see a genocide in the future against anyone with access to either allomantic or feruchemical nicrosil and a select few nicrosil medallions being closely guarded as a way to produce the WMDs of scadrial. All you would need is to load up your super soldier with a few spikes and then sooth or riot them into being under your control. (It makes you wonder why the lord ruler never gave out medallion tech even to his easily controlled armies). The discovery of medallions is terrifying and nicrosil users make it that much more terrifying. But back to the question of twinborn... even with how broken nicrosil could be... I would never want that kind of weight on my shoulders. I have to stick with A-Pewter and then either F-Zince, F-Gold, or my personal favorite, F-Iron. Jumping around like John Carter is still my go to for twinborn. Tap a boatload of weight and make a pewter enhanced jump then as soon as your feet leave the ground store as much weight as you can to launch into the air like a dang rocket. Before you land tap all of your weight again to decelerate yourself to a safe, survivable falling speed.

Or a soul caster who can simply convince your cognitive self to become smoke without you knowing she is doing it... well at least you don't know she is doing it until you suddenly are smoke and have no ability to think or feel anything anymore anyways.

Do you think a kandra tapping from a pewter metalmind would be limited in the same way as a human? Given kandra can alter their shape and size i would guess that while there may be some enlarging of the muscle mass it ought to be less of an impact and at the very least a kandra could, with time, adjust themselves to have less loss of mobility due to hypertrophy of the muscles.

I think F bendalloy with Lift's life light hack "old magic" would be brilliant when combined with any surge. Even if you ended up being surgeless and only having access to being able to store life light perfectly in a metalmind is insanely powerful. It heals you and perfects you elevating you to be your best self all the while allowing you to become the greatest professional eater out there. Faintly glowing with a green hue, eating an endless portion of hotdogs and knowing that it can all be used up as more "awesomeness" later.

If a leecher were to leech nightblood he would die. I want to expand on that thought and am curious where the bounds of leeching are set. How much does intent in the moment effect a leechers direction of what gets leeched. If a Returned were to get leeched I imagine it could be devastating to them. What if a Returned acquired A-Chromium though? Would they be able to safely leech others without leeching away their own divine breath? Kind of the same boat but what would happen if they ended up being able to burn aluminum? Would that destroy the divine breath? If a leecher was stuck in a puddle of stormlight and they burnt their metal, would it destroy the puddle by default or would they need to specifically focus on leeching from that space? The cube of harmonium seems ultra dangerous to cognitive shadows if it is charged with A-chromium or am I missing something about the nature of leeching?

If you gave a mistwraith a lerasium spike... would it only be half a blessing or would it provide half of the bonuses of all the blessings? Bleeder was going insane because she was only using 1 spike would a single lerasium spike be enough to create a stable kandra or do you think you would have to have another spike as well? A side question here is when Bleeder is shown to have used Trellium was it just the Trellium that kept Bleeder from being seen/ controlled by Harmony or was it the lack of another metal? Would a single spike of any other metal leave Bleeder vulnerable to Harmony or would it just allow him to track her more easily so he could continue hunting her down? I assume if you used lerasium as a blessing spike you would likely make a kandra even more vulnerable to Harmony than a normal kandra with any other set of spikes.

I was thinking about wolverines bone claws and I couldnt help but to think about awakening them. If you were to command them to "sever spirits" or something along the realm of "break that which would break you" how would they react? Since they were bones and a part of a person they should be far easier to awaken than metal... How much influence can the investiture have on an items structure. If you cram investiture into a bone and slap it with a shardblade would the shard blade have to hit it multiple times like plate to drain the investiture before getting through? Or even a wooden boken given the destroy evil command. Was it something special about the plain steel that allowed nightblood to be created? I know hemalurgy played a role in his creation but just a a spike in general or because he was a new alloy entirely? Do we have any WoB indicating if Vivenna needed to spike anyone for her blade or if the breaths alone gave it the properties of a shardblade? At first I was convinced that 9th heightening was a must to make a soul severing weapon that resists other soul severing weapons. However I feel, now, that you could end up with soul destroying weapons of other materials if the command and the mental imagery were correct. A sharpened bone would be easier to awaken even than a stick... How much does the original intent of an item effect its ability to be awakened and changed into something else? Awaken a femur telling it to "decimate that which you hit" while picturing the action of swinging it head first into something being destroyed... Awakening is just too open ended for my brain to imagine balance outside of the box that was created in Warbreaker.

Any ideas what sort of commands would produce a much more boring item? I felt the same way when thinking about bonding a spren... or hemalurgic spikes... I am not a huge fan of other things speaking directly into my mind at a whim. I think there is soooo much cooler stuff to awaken than just what we have seen (a glass eye that gives future sight would be so cool and totally worth giving up even a working eye for). I also have to ask... does Nightblood become more eager the more investiture he consumes? Could his creation have produced a much less talkative sword and as he feeds more he simply gets more excited about his next meal? A part of me almost feels bad for Nightblood. Having this task you need to accomplish but not having the ability to act in any way to accomplish it.

So in my efforts to brainstorm potential for awakened objects to replicate other magic systems it hit me that anything type 4 could just chatter in my ear. Say I awaken some armor, or a sword or an eyepatch (trying to get some atium action)... would all of these start talking to me constantly like nightblood does? Would each of the type 4 objects be able to communicate with eachother? If you had vivennas sword and nightblood both side by side how would they interact with each other? Would they send a person holding each mad? I already have this feeling that I would never be able to sleep if I were carrying nightblood around. What if I had 2 or 3 or even more awakened type 4 objects and they were always talking to me unaware of eachother... or worse I have to listen to multiple objects complain about my incompetence and plot my demise together?

I'm not saying that it is impossible. Just that we haven't seen it and it doesn't seem to line up with the WoBs available. But there are so many RAFO answers that it is still well in the realm of possibility. I would love to see more magics making bodies more durable. Heck I really want to see a kandra with an aluminum true body get hit by a shardblade if only to read the shock and thoughts of the shardbearer as their blade fuzzes and then suddenly gets stopped throwing off their entire attack. I think the out of the box thinking is great for the cosmere. Just trying to think through the WoBs we have and gather what info we do have.

It would be pretty awesome if it comes to work that way. However comparing it to gravitation when we have seen gravitation used on others besides themselves. Note this from the coppermind on gravitation. It specifically mentions gravitation being usable on other beings. I hear the evidence of "Stonesinew" I am not saying it is impossible however I don't see it being all that practical especially once one has access to their own plate. What is possible will be found out with the stonewards book and they are the order I am most intrigued by so I anxiously await that. Comparing gravitation, where we know it can effect other beings, and tensions / cohesion, where we have WoB saying it doesn't work on flesh, is really apples to oranges in the case. They are still both fruits but their similarities pretty well stop there. I would be stoked to see the opposite defense. Just turn into a blob of goo that the fullborn couldn't get ahold of to hurt anyway... you can't hurt water. Fullborn probably will have an easier time getting through stonesinew than killing a puddle with eyes.

So I pulled this from the coppermind website and the reference for it is some book signing at Orem. That was from cohesion however under tension it again references that anything holding stormlight is very difficult to effect. Aside from cohesion specifying "not human flesh" it must be noted that being filled with a magnitude of stormlight is a prerequisite of being able to use any surges in the first place. I 100% agree with this. Being an earth bender is better than being the dang juggernaut anyways... plus once you gain access to plate it would be horribly redundant to harden your skin inside of it.

I would love that to be a use for it. Do you think it would take more or less stormlight to harden ones own skin or to harden, to the same degree, clothing? I imagine both would make mobility pretty difficult indeed. It may be unlikely to help against someone moving quicker than your reflexes can help but it would be neat to be able to read about someone who sees a volley of arrows coming at them and decides to stand there and let them bounce off of them like superman. Edit: Beyond that if you could effect others the same way you could simply reach out and turn any foe into a hard plank for a moment and be able to plan your next move from there.

I have been questioning the limits of investiture to strengthen things for a while. I think surge binding your clothes into armor would be more practical than yourself??? Perhaps because investiture resists investiture and as a surgebinder you yourself are invested. Plus stormlight doesn't stick for long and I imagine it would take more and more stormlight to strengthen whatever you were trying to cause to be ridged. I would ask the same question about ropes and cloth that has been awakened. If you pump breaths into something and tell it to "lift things" and tied it to a 1400lb suit of shardplate. If that ropes tensile strength was only rated at 1200 lbs would it snap or would the investiture used to awaken it allow it to do its job? There are obvious differences in breath and stormlight but breath sticks really well and stormlight doesn't. Given that Vasher implies you can just pump something full of breath until it does what it is supposed to do I guess the same argument could be made with stormlight. Szeth keeps pumping more stormlight into the wall lashing until it finally breaks free. I assume you could do the same keeping something ridged with tension.

I guess my next question would be why not be able to compound A pewter... the whole process of feruchemy is that you store something and then use it later. Compounding is simply the act of burning a new alloy (that being the metalmind if you are able to burn the same metal it is alloyed out of being the original metal prestorage) and then gaining its benefits 10 fold. I think it makes far more sense from those rules that you could compound the strength from allomantic pewter just as easily as it would be to simply compound pewter... the trick would be getting the allomantic pewter stored in a new pewtermind that wasn't tainted by normal strength. If you gain x strength from pewter and store it into a metalmind without the allomantic strength you will always have the issue of growing so massive that you have an upper limit of strength to be gathered. However if you were to have a pure allomantic pewtermind then there shouldn't be any difference of compounding it and storing it into new pure metalminds... I do agree it would be harder for sure. If you gain 200% of your strength from Allomantic pewter and then you store 201% of your strength total you will have that 1% that would compound as well ending up with a duralumin fueled pewtermind burn potentially blowing you up so big that you can't move. Tapping the bands is all we saw. There are more limits on tapping the bands than on burning your metalminds. What we saw with Miles would suggest that if you burn 1 full metalmind you could/ should fill 10 new metalminds. Compounding is so potent because you theoretically only ever have to store a fraction of a seconds worth of an attribute and assuming you have access to the metal you can then turn that fraction of a moments worth of storage into an ever flowing source of whatever attribute it is that you stored. Theory: I believe that its possible Bleeder didn't even carry multiple spikes and that instead she was always a coinshot just burning her previously filled metalminds gaining 10x the speed they had been filled with. So long as they are keyed to either you or not keyed at all an allomancer could burn a metalmind without that feruchemical power. If Wax had swallowed the steel portion of the bands he would have had access to 10x the amount of speed that was previously stored in them... Even if that theory is disproved the fact stands that a fullborn would indeed be able to burn their own metalminds and so long as they have access to enough metal they would be able to advance just about to shardhood. That said there is obviously an upper limit for each metalminds tapping or else when the bands were first tapped they would have been instantly drained and some seriously planetary altering shenanigans would have ensued. But what we saw the bands do was only tapping as much as she could when Marasi grabbed the bands... if they were ingested and burnt without using another metalmind to store them it would have been more explosive. If they were ingested and burnt along with duralumin it could have been cosmere altering. (Again if you did not have a set up to further store all of that). Full born is simply the most imba being in the cosmere. Maybe there isn't as much investiture on Scadrial compared to Roshar but a fullborn with access to stores of metal turns an end neutral system into the highest possible end positive system in the cosmere. Their only limitation is the metals and the size of their stomach. How terrifying would it be to see a competitive eaters stomach crammed full of the bands of mourning and a chunk of allomantic duralumin.