Thor

It could be that the PBA feels that using his/her power directly is intervening but helping out some poor scrubs find their way in the Universe (and asking them to run some side jobs on the way) isn't. Think Sazed in AoL: he won't overtly help you (smashing Miles into pulp) but he will give you hints/ideas and the occasionally physical help, either by doing it himself or sending a messenger.

Spoiled the op for length. Glad to see you liked the book so much. Keep going, it shouldn't disappoint. As for Renoux, I think the Inquisitors found him by tracking Vin. The Inquisitor who fights Kelsier (Bendal) is in charge of the team that is tracking her down and I think it is implied that the prisoner caravan is placed as an ambush for Kelsier and/or Vin. While leaving her stuff out in the open probably wasn't the smartest idea, put yourself in Kar's, um, shoes. (I don't think the Inquisitors actually wear shoes, but I could be mistaken.) She has been depleted of her powers, is a small girl, is locked in a steel cage with a, supposedly, docile Terrisman steward and he is about to take control of the Ministry, which the Inquisitors (and he is their leader during the time of TFE) have been working towards for over two hundred years. As for the Lord Ruler (this is mentioned, in part, during the epilogue; Sazed explains his immortality. The rest requires the knowledge that Sazed explains, combined with some Keeper stuff that is introduced in much greater detail in book 2): his incredible resistance to being killed is slightly separate from his immortality: if the fight had taken place 975 years earlier, removing his bracers would have barely mattered, and he would have ripped the city apart.

Kind of. Afaik to burn a metal Allomantically it must be in your stomach. The metals that are embeded in him are all metalminds full of Health. When he doesn't need to worry about fighting he can store Health in small beads of gold, swallow them and then burn them for a ten to one return and refill his horde of metalminds with the excess. During a fight, he probably has a few gold metalmind beads swallowed so if he gets really injured (gunshot to the head) he can burn the metalmind for a really quick surge of Health, in addition to his ~30 gold metalminds. TLR stored the excess Age in his bracers and tapped Age from them continuously for a few days before retiring to his study. Why he does this is up for debate as he shouldn't have to force himself to be older to store up Age, like a regular Feruchemist. It has been theorized that he takes off the bracers, which are Hemalurgic spikes, to escape from Ruin for a few hours, keeping himself alive through the bracers, just through physical touch, not as spikes (or another source of Age, he could be burning Atium metalminds constantly during the time he is in the building within a building.) Would using Duralumin on a metalmind give truly ridiculous results? As in, so much Physical Speed (Steel Feruchemy) that you could move at a reasonable fraction of the speed of light? That is scary...

I have a twisted version of this. 'Tis not much fun. Another one that I just thought of: Internal Compass: I almost always know what direction I am facing; even if I am in a completely unfamiliar area I can point out which direction is North. It is quite helpful when backpacking.

The 5 for Yolen (which is the planet where Dragonsteel and Liar take place) is by process of elimination, seven shardworlds (of which we know the exact number of shards on 6 planets) and a total of 16 Adonalsium Shards. Afaik, Liar may or may not take place before the Shattering and the main Dragonsteel storyline most likely takes place afterwards. While it is a pretty cool idea, and I like it quite a bit, if you are going to have each of the Expanses and Nexi be a world, then you should probably add the Seas. (Remember that when Shallan went to Shadesmar she popped out in one of the Seas so it may be that Roshar is a Sea. ) This would yield a total of 10 worlds (which may not all be in the Physical realm): 3 from the Seas, 3 from the Nexi and 4 from the Expanses (thanks for finding that Windrunner, I remembered hearing that too, but couldn't find it in the short time I looked.) Alternatively, the three seas are some sort of afterlife or waystation and there are only seven worlds. With "Expanse of the Densities" (What does that even mean?!? A large area of density... ) being a world we know then it is probably one of the worlds mentioned in the four published novels (do you happen to have the source for that quote? I remember seeing it, but it would help narrow the guesses down if we knew the context.) So that gives us Sel, Scadrial, Nalthis and Roshar as possible locations for the "Expanse of the Densities." If it was told to a more knowledgeable person (with respect to the unpublished works) then it might be a lot harder... Wild speculation away!!: World: Location on Shadesmar: Wishy-washy Reasoning Scadrial: Expanse of the Vapors/Densities: Both Shards manifest themselves as vapors (mist, smoke). / Doesn't really fit with Sel, Nalthis, or Roshar, meaning it must go here (for Densities.) Then again, it doesn't really go with anything that I can think of... Roshar: Expanse of the Broken Sky/Sea of Lost Lights/Nexus of Truth: For some reason Broken Sky seems to fit Roshar. I can't quite pin down why, though. Broken Sky could also refer to the Silence Divine planet. / The Sea of Lost Lights is in reference to Shallan's experience in Shadesmar: a sea of beads and floating lights. I don't know if that is just due to the soulcasting or if the SoLL is the location of Roshar on Shadesmar. / Truth is fairly important to the magic systems that we have seen on Roshar. (Being true to the Ideals of the KR and revealing a truth to fuel soulcasting.) Sel: Nexus of Imagination: Seems to fit pretty well with the magic system. Nalthis: Nexus of Transition/Sea of Souls: Not too sure on this one, though BioChroma and awakening means that people's Breath is moving around all the time. / With the moving of Breath, there are a lot of "souls" being moved around. Taldain: Don't know enough... Silence Divine Planet: As Taldain... (If Silence Divine/Taldain is the book with the pain/affliction based magic system then I could see the Sea of Regret being there.) Yolen: Nexus of Transition/Nexus of Truth: Again, not too sure, but Yolen seems to be the originator for all of the silly messes that are going on in the Cosmere and whatever happened here caused a lot of transition. / The first novel that takes place on Yolen is "Liar," after all.

Makes sense to me, though I suspect the Third Mistborn trilogy may have a large amount of crossover, especially if space travel has been around for a while before the trilogy begins. Thanks for posting that Cosmere arc list, Chaos! It will be nice for an extended chronology. Do you happen to know where the other books fit? Warbreaker is before SA and concurrent with Alloy, while Elantris is the earliest published work, but when does the main Dragonsteel series take place? So you are saying Shard Obsessed, is if you get a RAFO, you would like to know how long it will be until you can actually RAFO? Sounds good to me ()...though I don't know how Brandon would take it.

That was Sazed in an epigraph contemplating why there was a bead there. That was given by him as a possible explanation. Here is the relevant quote (I'm not sure what chapter it is from as I got it off the Wiki. It is definitely one of the earlier chapters though, somewhere around 6 or 7 maybe?) It is hard to draw conclusions based on that.

A little of both, as CrazyRioter said. Kelsier piggybacked on Preservation but he never had complete control over it and when it came time for Vin to take over, Kelsier willingly gave her what he had been using and abdicated his spot. Vin could have probably taken it away from Kelsier if he refused to give it up, as she was set up to be Preservation from birth. As for Honor, I agree with Green Hoodie Mistborn; that idea takes most of what I already thought and condensed it nicely.

Unfortunately, neither of them are alive during the events of any book other than TWoK, as Elantris takes place a while before the main events of TWoK, as well as Mistborn (the original trilogy and AoL) and Warbreaker. I do think that TWoK AA was written by Jasnah (or she at least, gathered the information) as it fits her writing style and personality.

I think Wayne is just very talented at imitation and acting, similar to many of the better actors of today. If he was in another time, he would do a very good job as an actor. Technically the mists act as a substitute for the metals and you can only draw in the mists if Preservation has chosen you. It becomes much easier if you attune yourself at the Well. (Before then, you could only draw so much of the mists in: Vin couldn't have become Preservation during her fight with TLR as she hadn't been attuned yet.) What bothers me more about Wayne is his confidence in fighting, even against a Pewter Savant! How he manages to do that is a better question imho. Bendalloy creates a time bubble and inside of it, everything runs at the same speed, which wouldn't give any advantage to Wayne. How he manages to draw even against a Pewter Savant with Koloss blood is beyond me. Maybe he is just that good with dueling canes? I think what you are saying is that the only way for a Kandra to be an Allomancer is through Hemalurgy, which makes sense to me, since Kandra don't have any of the genetic triggers for Allomancy (or Feruchemy, for that matter.)

The total number of beads that we have documented evidence for is 11 or 12 (10 for the first Allomancers and 1 for Elend. As the Lord Ruler may not be listed as part of the 10 original Allomancers, the number goes up to 12 if TLR is not counted among them. There may be 12 or 13 beads in total if one thinks that Hoid swiped a bead.) I would guess that the age of the Well is definitely more than 4000 years old and it is probably closer to 10000 years than 4000. (Stormlight Archive stuff: As the "Last" Desolation happened 4500 years before the events of TWoK, TWoK takes place 500 years after Elantris and there are at least 99 Desolations that happened before the breaking of the Oathpact suggests that the current state of affairs in the Cosmere has been going on for quite a while. I would hazard a guess of ~10000 years since the shattering of Adonalsium, based off of the SA evidence alone.)

Even large quantities of Allomantic/Feruchemical spikes don't change you mentally: Look at Marsh at the end of AoL: he seems to be much like his old self again. The spikes haven't changed him as a person, just physically (though there could be some DEEP mental, emotional and spiritual scaring.) I think the notion that Inquisitor's are bloodthirsty sadists comes from three factors: Ruin influencing them (by whispering in their minds, and later controlling them outright), lots of physical and mental anguish from the spikes and the lack of restrictions caused by becoming virtually invincible without any consequences for your actions. (The Inquisitors are outside of the law, so they can do whatever they want, as long as it doesn't upset TLR, who doesn't seem to care much.) And people who the Inquisitors choose to continue their species probably aren't the nicest folks who have ever lived.

Possibly? Does drawing power from a metalmind require a neural connection as opposed to only a physical connection to the metalmind? If tapping a metalmind only requires touch, then, yes, you could survive as long as the sword wasn't wider than your neck. It would look like a disgusting, bloody version of a zipper, but it would work (assuming you have enough Health.) If tapping a metalmind requires a neural connection then no: as soon as your spine is severed you couldn't tap any metalminds that were below the decapitation. I suppose you could survive it with a large metalmind on your head and use the "zipper" technique...

That makes some sense, though I don't particularly like the wording. Based off of this statement would it be fair to assume that, due to Hemalurgic decay, a single spiked Kandra wouldn't be completely sentient and have a weaker version of the attribute in the Blessing? They would still be more intelligent than a mistwraith but be unable to use higher "brain" functions? The two spikes would then be necessary for human-level sentience and the full power of the Blessing would only be shown at two spikes. But then the question arises: why not three spikes instead of two? Hmmm... I think that happyman's idea is probably correct. Simplicity is a good thing. I believe that Human attributes are required to form Kandra as they are not sentient to begin with. (Koloss become less sentient through Hemalurgy and it is by the same mechanism.) A Hemalurgic spike grants an attribute and twists the host. The more spikes the more twisting. Human attribute spikes twist the host more because they are stealing a bit of the piece of Preservation that is inside every human and then twisting that piece of Preservation. A Feruchemical/Allomantic spike steals the ability to use a metal in F/A which inherently carries with it a piece of Preservation, but this piece is much smaller than the piece that is inside of a human. (There is more of Preservation in a human than in the ability to use Feruchemy or Allomancy, would be an easier way of stating this.) A side effect of this difference is that adding Human attribute spikes warps the intelligence of a host much more than that of a Feruchemy or Allomantic spike, which do not warp the host very much unless they are being acted on by an external force (Ruin, for the most part). If there are many Feruchemical or Allomantic spikes than the warping is severe enough to cause actual changes in the host: e.g. inquisitors. Only one or two does not do much to a (relatively) stable person (Vin, Spook before Ruin corrupted him too much) but an unstable person goes off the deep end with a spike (Zane). Therefore a Kandra gains two pieces of Preservation through the spikes, which are warped to grant sentience and a power to the Kandra (the power is the Human strength, senses, etc. which are connected to the piece of Preservation. The spike you choose decides which power goes along with the piece of Preservation.) A Koloss gains four pieces of Preservation through spikes, and are twisted by Hemalurgy, which warp the host's sentience (because it was already there) and twist the body of the host. An Inquisitor gains around ten very very small pieces of Preservation that mostly manifest as Allomantic and Feruchemical powers. However, each of these pieces are warped by Hemalurgy and decrease the empathy and control the host has, along with increasing the host's bloodlust and cruelty. (Though not by much. Marsh is pretty close to being the same person he was before he was turned into an Inquisitor. I think that most Inquisitors become incredibly bloodthirsty and cruel due to manipulation by Ruin and the lack of consequences for following those actions. Most people who become Inquisitors probably aren't very nice to begin with, so the spikes draw out the problems inherent in the host.)

The stomach acid digesting (very slowly) the poisonous metals in Allomancy (the lead in Pewter, for instance, is one of a few very dangerous metals on the wheel) is very bad for you. The process of compounding would go like such: We will use Miles for an example. This would take place just after he realized what compounding could do. Store a small amount of Health in a metalmind and eat it. Burn said metalmind and store the 10*small amount in a larger metalmind. Burn the larger metalmind and store 100*small amount in a very large metalmind (or two smaller ones.) Burn the next metalmind and store the x10 amount. Rinse and repeat. There is a limit to how much of an Attribute you can store in a piece of metal and it is based off of the volume/mass of the metalmind (which, being related to each other due to mathematics and physics, can be used interchangeably in this discussion. However, they cannot have children together.) The shaving part is, afaik, correct, including the even distribution of power throughout the metal. When you split a metalmind in two then each half has the same amount of the attribute in it. (Also applies to Hemalurgy: when you split a spike in two, the attribute in the spike is split evenly between the two spikes, though I do not know if they would "leak" power faster this way.) Idea! Each metal has a certain "Attribute Density," which is defined as the amount of an attribute that is stored in a given volume of metal. There is a maximum Attribute Density for each metal, based on the Attribute you store in it. For an example: say Pewter has a maximum Attribute Density of "x" S/m^3 (Units are S for Strength, which is a measure of Strength storage, and m for meter.) The value of "x" is merely an arbitrary amount that denotes a certain amount of Strength. A cube of Pewter 1 m on each side could store up "x" amount of Strength and no more. Any attempt to store Strength in the block would fail and the Feruchemist would not get weaker (since the block is not be used to store.) If you split the cube into 8 .5 m cubes then each cube could store up to "x"/8 amount of Strength. If the block only had "x"/10 amount of Strength stored to begin with, then the split cubes would have x"/80 each. The value of "x" may be different for each metal because each metal's attribute is different, similar to the burning speeds of the Allomantic metals. Thus, you could store "more" Strength than Health in a similarly sized metalmind. ^ This. And you lose the physical connection to your Gold metalminds (assuming they aren't earrings) so you wouldn't be able to start regrowing your entire body rapidly enough. I suppose it could be possible to heal yourself as the axe passed through your head, resealing your neck when the metal has passed...that is gross. (The beheading also brings up a weird point: how do you tie up a full Feruchemist/Allomancer who can, presumably, kill millions of people by himself?) If you have enough Health stored on your head to regenerate your entire body then you are very paranoid about decapitation (and not so worried about neck problems...that is a lot of gold to be resting on or in your head. Do you know how much mass gold has!?! I weep for your chiropractor.) Chaos might also be saying that you couldn't regenerate your entire body without being able to compound a rather large metalmind (or have a piece of gold the size of a small dog filled with Health touching your head.) Eh, you could tap enough Health for your head to stay alive on its own, for a while. (Miles says that he really doesn't need to breathe or have his heart beat.)

If he is a Feruchemist/Allomancer/Twinborn then the Zinc Ferring idea fits best (being a Seer would work too, but he couldn't have any Atium) especially when combined with a previous knowledge of the couple's tactics (Wax says that they had used that tactic before, but with him being held hostage. Tan may have had knowledge of this event and done some planning based off it.) The extra mental speed would allow Tan to figure out where and when the bullet would strike based off the aiming of the gun. As soon as the gun was fired he could start to move her body into the way of the bullet, using more mental speed to adjust for wind resistance and Wax's Push. While being a Steel Ferring would give him enough Speed to move Lessie into the path of the bullet, Wax never mentions that he is a Steel Ferring (after studying reports on Tan, this would likely come up if Tan had used Speed) and doesn't notice an extreme speed boost when Tan moves Lessie. (Again, this may be due to shock.) However, it is fully possible that Tan is just a creepy non-magic user who is very well informed (see above) and knows enough about weaponry to react to the shot and move Lessie into the way of the blast.

Koloss aren't truly less sentient, just more basic. Koloss are spiked humans which are already sentient. The warping from the spikes causes them to lose the higher functions of their mind. Kandra are spiked mistwraiths which are originally not sentient and the warping grants them sentience. The base creature matters when using Hemalurgy. More on topic: it seems the number of spikes required for a Kandra is a minimum of two as Ten-Soon has 4 spikes at certain points in the books. Why that is I cannot fathom...though darniil's idea makes sense.

My guess would also be Spren (this is actually a question that on the Ultimate List of Questions thread) for being a Cognitive aspect with a shadow on the Physical. Humans are, presumably, Physical but with shadows on the Spiritual and Cognitive realms. Shards should be present on all three Realms and Seons/Skaze...Spiritual with Physical shadows? Idk. While not very specific, there is some information here. Thanks for getting it!

So if a Feruchemist was tapping and/or storing an attribute (and you knew what you were looking for) you could sense them and the faster the tapping and/or storing the easier it would be to sense? And if they weren't tappinp/storing you couldn't sense them (ala an Allomancer not burning any metal cannot be sensed by a Seeker.) On some level, yes, though you may need to be very strong and/or have a connection to the Shard itself to do so. Vin had a connection to both Preservation and Ruin through the mists (being chosen by Preservation to take over) and the Hemalugic spike and was able to sense the Well, Preservation, and Ruin with Bronze. Alendi could sense the Well and (if I remember correctly) Preservation (as the mist spirit) with Bronze (he was a Seeker) though I don't know if it is ever mentioned that he was spiked (or if he was strong enough on his own to sense it.)

Sigh. I knew I had gotten something wrong there...oh well! Breath can be consumed when performing magic (Lifeless are the main example, though Nightblood counts as well). I believe that having a larger amount of Breath doesn't truly grant new abilities, it merely enhances the abilities that a normal human on Nalthis already has (a person with one Breath can still Awaken, but there isn't much you can awaken with only one breath.) Examples of enhancement for each Heightening (the later ones are either decent or fail badly, though, if pushed, I expect Brandon could give us examples for each of these): Aura Recognition: You can see Breath auras normally but it is much easier with this. (Can drabs see Auras? I can't remember...) Perfect Pitch: Each Breath increases the ability to hear Perfect Pitch; this is the maximum. Perfect Color Recognition: As the Second Heightening but with color. Perfect Life Sense: Again, same as above. Agelessness: As PP/PCR/PLS but with respect to aging, disease, and poison. Instinctive Awakening: You have so much lifeforce that the lifeforce guides you? (Not too sure on this one.) Invested Breath Recognition: A super increased version of Breath auras: they do not need to be in a human to be sensed. Command Breaking: Commands can be broken by those of lower Heightenings but this is easier. Greater Awakening, Audible Command: This is similar to the standard Awakening just expanded to non-organic matter and you have so much Breath that it can "link" itself together to reach far objects(?). Color Distortion, Perfect Invocation, Mental Command: An extreme form of the Breath aura, extreme form of color as fuel, and extreme version of command giving (where you have so much Breath that speaking is unnecessary because the Breath is in tune with your body?) Having a greater connection to Preservation (via Lerasium, for instance) doesn't give you additional abilities (if you are already a Mistborn), you are just stronger with Allomancy. Same with following more ideals of the Knights Radiant (granting a greater connection with Honor): Kaladin doesn't gain any new abilities, his old ones just become stronger and more efficient. While Elantrians may either age very slowly or be immortal, Galladon's father's death does not support/undercut that at all. Galladon's father may have been 80 or 90 at the most when he died. It may be that he was overcome with grief and decided to go to the pool; Galladon mentions that his father "died about a year after I left." (Chapter 25) While Galladon says that Elantrians could die from things like heart attacks, we have no way of knowing if the heart attack was staged to allow an Elantrian to go to the pool or if they actually got heart attacks. Depending on what definition of immortality we are talking about, being able to die by any means does not make one mortal. I think immortality in this case is immunity to death by natural causes (age being the big one) not immunity to death by any means. Think Elves from Tolkien; they can die from wounds in battle and that is about it (and melodrama, but we won't go there). And a dagger in the back is not a "natural" cause, no matter what Drow say.

Makes sense to me. I like it. And, along that vein, the method of Allomantically burning a Feruchemical storage should be called "compounding," with the verbs/verb conjugations being based on "compounding." Ex: The Lord Ruler compounded Atium for functionally immortality. Being able to compound Pewter is what made George so strong. etc.

That is indeed the burning question: does tapping Wakefulness stave off fatigue (so when you stop tapping Wakefulness your body acts as if it has been awake all this time and you become VERY tired) or do you enter a "fatigue free zone" where your body is immune to fatigue (when you stop tapping Wakefulness, your body is as tired as it was when you started tapping.) If the former applies then the Atium problem will exist; the later yields no problem. Same with Cadmium and Bendalloy: if your body is "supplied" by the metalmind (food/liquid for Bendalloy and oxygen/air for Cadmium) and you are not racking up a "debt" (the metalmind is actually giving you energy/air/sleep rather than allowing you to ignore the need for energy/air/sleep), then you will not have this problem. I think that the latter idea makes more sense than the first, based off of the Ars Arcanum. (So, if you are tapping Bendalloy, do you still need to use the bathroom?) Atium may still have that restriction as it doesn't supply a substance, it just reverses time (in the case of getting younger.) The older you get, the more Age you need to tap to stall the aging process. If you are 50 and you want to be 20 then you need 30 years of Age being tapped continuously to appear that young. If you are 100 and you want to be 20 then you need 80 years of Age being tapped continuosly to appear that young. I think the next question that needs to be answered is: does your "base body" still age if you are continuously tapping age? TLR would seem to point that this is true, which would force him to be continuously tapping ~1000 years of age to stay youthful (around 25-30 years old is my guess) and that takes a lot of Atium... Immortality takes a lot of effort, with Atium compounding. Edit: Grammar...

I was actually thinking about the ramifications of "compounding." (I like that name, it makes sense. So far we have been going with "TLRs atium trick" for a name, which is clunky.) Some of which led me to create TLR Allomantic strength thread, others which I will say now. As an interesting note, the stronger the Allomancer, the larger the multiplier one should get from Feruchemical compounding. (A Feruchemist who eats a Lerasium bead should get much more power out of burning a metalmind than a mere Twinborn.) For each metal, the "benefits" are as follows: Pewter- Super Strength: Probably on the order of building thrower. Tin- Super Senses: Binocular vision, with truly ridiculous magnification, Super-sensitive touch, hearing, taste and smell (at or above Tin-Savant level.) Iron- Super Weight: Umm, you are very big boned. Very. Steel- Super Speed: Supersonic is probably easy. Brass- Super Heat: Brass may or may not be able to increase body temperature. If it actually increases body temperature, then you could have a Human Torch thing going on, though the host may not survive it. If not, then you will never be cold again. Ever. Zinc- Super Mental Speed: Calculating large equations in your head has never been easier. Bronze- Super Wakefulness: Who needs caffeine? You never need to sleep again. (Though it may run into a problem after a long time of no rest: the longer you stay awake, the more Wakefulness you may need to tap to stay awake.) Copper- Super Memories?: This is weird... Gold- Super Health: As has been mentioned, this makes the user close to unkillable. Electrum- Super Determination: Manic state extraordinaire, you never feel depressed and probably experience delusions of grandeur. Bendalloy- Super Sustenance: Never need to drink or eat again (may be under the same constraints as Bronze.) Cadmium- Super Breath: Who needs to breathe? (again, see Bronze) Alluminum- Super Identity: ...no clue... Duralumin- Super Connenction: You are everyone's best friend! Chromium- Super Luck: You are now Mat Cauthon. Nicrosil- Super Investiture: We don't really know what it does normally so we can't speculate on what would happen with a super boost. Atium- Super Age: We know what this does (see Bronze for possible limitations) Time for some fun: Situation: TLR has grown weary of his existence on Scadrial and decides to commit suicide. After debating over it for a few years, he decides to crush himself to death with Iron Feruchemy; a painful end to his miserable life. He decides to use all of the iron in Kredik Shaw as a metalmind to store enough Weight to kill himself, and then burning as many Iron metalminds as he can eat to increase the Weight by a large multiplier, while burning a Pewter metalmind to stay alive long enough to be tapping every ounce of Weight from Kredik Shaw at the same time. What TLR doesn't know is that the amount of Weight he plans on tapping will cause the density of his body to rise so high that it, combined with his size, will be smaller than the Schwarzschild radius for his body, turning his body into a black hole! Edit: Afaik, compounding only grants an increase in Feruchemy. The storage being burned is just metal (for Allomancy) and the increased Feruchemical effects are due to the stored attribute "going along for a ride."

The spelling would be Hemalurgically, based off of a similar word (Metallurgy, to be specific.) I don't think you could steal Breath with a spike. Hemalurgy steals the ability to use magic, not the focus for the magic (though you can use the spike itself as a focus, if you feel like it. Results may vary: Allomantically burning a spike that is in you causes...problems, but you can store and tap spikes as Feruchemical metalminds.) Example: A spike used to steal the abilities a Windrunner has should not give you the Windrunner's Stormlight, just the ability to use Stormlight. It is interesting to note that (if this idea is true) one could steal the ability to use BioChroma from anyone native to Nalthis, as anyone, afaik, can become an Awakener with enough Breath. Hmm, I don't think I completely convinced myself with that argument... Would stealing a Feruchemist's powers allow you access to their metalminds? If so, then my theory is invalid, because it relies on Hemalurgy's inability to steal foci. If a Feruchemical spike doesn't allow access to the previous owner's metalminds, then that would support my theory... Need moar data!! TLR's Atium trick is actually one of the harder ways to acquire immortality: you need Atium in large quantities if you plan on staying alive for a long time. From Nalthis, you need to reach the Fifth Heightening to become immortal (2000 breaths is a lot but it is doable with enough wealth) as long as you don't awaken very often/at all (every time you awaken you would drop below the Fifth Heightening, aging for as long as your breath was being stored.) Elantrians are possibly immortal and becoming an Elantrian requires being taken by the Shaod or, presumably, stealing it with Hemalurgy (which are both easier than obtaining large amounts of Atium or 2000 breaths.) And we have no idea if Hoid actually is immortal, though the data seems to support this overwhelmingly.

Wait, wuh? The differences in the AA are very large...the differences in writing style between the Warbreaker, Way of Kings and Alloy of Law AA are rather large...However, this is WoB...[On the part I bolded...I bet it is Chaos. Poor joke about 17th Shard.] Um...OK, I got a theory (Speculation Away!!): "Nazh" is the designated information gatherer for AoL and there are different DIGs for each location/time. The "author" is quoting (verbatim in many cases) what the DIG is sending to him/her. Therefore, the text we see is a compilation of notes and speculation given by the DIGs to a central member of the SS. We think there are different authors for each AA because the central member is abridging the data given to him/her. So the "authors" we thought up on this page are actually the DIGs (some of them may be unwilling DIGs and got their information stolen from them; most likely in the case of the first Mistborn trilogy.) The differences in writing style is too great for each AA to be the work of only one person (unless they have serious mental issues.) I think this system (while clunky) seems to fit with the data we have. Please shoot holes in it. As an aside, it makes me giggle that Brandon is frustrated that people are asking if the AA was written by members of the SS or Hoid when he drops "Cosmere" in the AA (maybe he was just getting tired of answering that question...)