JustQuestin2004

So I've been wondering something while re-reading TLM. What happens to Hemalurgic Spikes after they're brought back from the Set? Are they just locked up in a Constable evidence locker while having their charge slowly drain away? Do the Kandra confiscate them to keep the secret of Hemalurgy? Do the Ghostbloods nab them while no one is looking? I'm just curious since after Wax and Co got finished ripping the Set a new one, what happens to all those dozens of precious, power granting, Non-Trellium spikes?

Maybe there aren't any new one's because they haven't been born yet.

Taln's Blade was with him on Braize for 4500~ years. It came back with him a bit before the end of TWoKbut was replaced with a regular Shardblade before he reached Kholinar. Warbreaker happens a few hundred years before TWoK. So unless the 5 Scholars were willing and/or able to get to Braize and steal the Honorblade in question, then Nightblood isn't Taln's Blade. Nightblood was Awakened with just 1000 Breaths by Shashara, who was at least at the 9th Heightening, but was able to become more Invested as it killed people and sucked their souls, which is why it's so Invested.

So TLM has now shown that there is now a cap on how many Hemalurgic Spikes a person can have before they just stop gaining any powers from them. So how high is the cap? I've seen people claim that four Spikes is the limit but that's the Hemalurgic Control limit and I've never seen a hard number written down anywhere in the book or in WOB's. My own best guess is somewhere between 4 and 11.

One little thing, he never experienced any of the same effects as Rysn got from just holding a Dawnshard, through it amplifying her own Innate Investiture I believe. Kelsier never got that, he never got any Heightening effects which are a confirmed universal effect of Dawnshards. Here's a WOB It also never amplified his Allomancy, which would have been very useful to prevent his own death and such. So no, Kelser is and was never a Dawnshard, but he could still potentially pick one up in the future.

One thing to note is that Hemalurgic Decay may be the result of Innate Investiture within a Spike turning into a form of Kinetic Investiture, likely Ruin's version of Stormlight perhaps? The only reason it isn't visible is because not enough Investiture is leaking from the spike all at once, but perhaps if it were somehow collected then it would be. So I think that if this was possible, the Kinetic Investiture would leak out of a Spike much faster due to it already being Kinetic rather than Innate.

Makes me real glad that Ruin died, since he could have easily destroyed most of the Cosmere by just making Scadrial's sun go supernova if he had won.

The main question is going to depend on whether there are spaceships or not. If there are then you'd have an immense advantage of anyone who doesn't. Then you just have to advance their weaponry and destroy anyone else who also possesses space ships. If there are no spaceships, then you are almost completely out of luck due to needing to use Shadesmar to Worldhop, with Perpendicularities being the ultimate chokepoints. An army of Chasmfiends ain't gonna fit all at once, even at all maybe depending on the size. You'd need to find another way to transition between Realms, either by following Autonomy's idea and just make your own secret Perpendicularity on the planet you want to invade, or try to find Invested Arts that enable autonomous Realmatic Transition like the Surge of Transportation or AonDor. My idea would be going to Roshar, try to find a Willshaper or Elsecaller, spike them and their Spren for Transportation, you can bring a Spike off planet unlike a Spren, try to find a way to compound the Surge with F-Nicrosil and spread it among the army along with either A-Duralumin or A-Nicrosil to enable a Supercharged Elscalling to instantly teleport many people across Realms. That takes care of the travelling problem at least. Depending on how F-Nicrosil works.

Fair enough, it's a trade-off between mental protection and literally being smarter. I guess you could just use both, TenSoon had the Blessing of Presence and Potency, which evened out his mental resistance so you could still even it out with like two Copper Spikes and one Zinc I suppose?

I don't think it's been said for some strange reason but Zinc spikes steal 'Emotional Fortitude', which I think allows one to resist thew Flaw better than with Copper spikes and enhanced 'Mental Fortitude' since the Flaw is based on the principles of Emotional Allomancy, manipulating the hemalurgist's emotions to trick the mind into doing what the Controller wants. So by that logic, Zinc spikes would work better than Copper ones. Though they don't come with any other benefits like increased intelligence.

H-Copper sounds pretty busted on paper, 'Steals intelligence, memories and mental fortitude' honestly sounds amazing, who wouldn't want to be smarter. Though this would likely have some downsides even with less than 4 spikes, like splicing bits of the 'donor's' personality with your own, leading to some disassociation issues down the line. We probably don't see this with the Blessing of Prescence because the Spikes basically give the Kandra a personality in the first place. Plus they're shapeshifters so any physical deformities aren't as permanent as they are for Koloss. H-Zinc's main function would be to make yourself more resistant to being controlled, maybe even let you never go insane from trauma or something. So not terrible but I think aluminum would be a better use, letting you use other spikes without taking up a 'slot' now that there's a cap for Spikes. Spiritual Hemalurgic metals would also have their uses, H-Aluminum would be an effective weapon against Invested opponents, H-Duralumin would help you take Connections, which could help with languages or even certain magic systems, plus stealing Identity which could let you bypass certain stuff in a really bloody way. Then with H-Nicrosil you could try to fill up a few spikes with as many 'donor's' Innate Investiture as possible and potentially acquire some form of Heightening? Then there's H-Chromium and Destiny which we don't know crud about.

I been thinking of new Hemalurgic Constructs based on the other 'Human' Hemalurgic metals. Mostly just for fun. Their all assumed to be made with 4 Spikes like a Koloss. So here's my ideas. Tin 'Koloss' would probably have super deformed sensory organs, like long gross tongue to smell the air, huge bulbous eyes that they have trouble blinking with, stupidly large ears, a really big nose that droops downwards or something. Probably something going on with their skin for their sense of touch. Just overall even less pleasant to look at than an older Koloss. They could even act like Clickers from The Last of Us, having a bit of echolocation. They'd make excellent scouts or lookouts, as good as a Tin Savant. Probably in constant pain from sensory overload, like if Spook's Savantism was just always on. Yeah it'd suck to be turned into this one. I think I'd rather be turned into a Koloss than this thing. Copper 'Koloss' could have really large heads, with their skull extended like a Xenomorph's, since I think they'd have at least some deformation as a Hemalurgic Construct, mental or not I feel like every 'human' attribute Construct needs to be visually distinctive like Koloss. They'd definitely have far greater intelligence than most, with the IQ of other people literally stapled onto theirs. Maybe they could even think multiple trains of thought at once. They'd definitely be crazy due to mental damage or something, possibly having dissociation issues due to having the memories or bits of the personalities of 4 other people stabbed into one poor sod's skull. Zinc 'Koloss' would probably have it the easiest, maybe not having too many deformations along with by far the greatest resistance to external manipulation of any Hemalurgic Construct. Could probably be sociopath's due to having too much 'Emotional Fortitude'. Maybe it even affects their hormones and makes them shorter? I dunno but it'd be weird if this was the odd one out and not have any visual distinguishing features. They'd really good at keeping a cool head even in the most high-pressure scenarios, wouldn't really be good at anything in particular though. Not that I can think of. Then there's the possibility of mixing the spikes used, like using 2 Iron and 2 Tin Spikes. You'd have someone with half the strength, size and endurance of a Koloss as well as greatly enhanced senses, a terrifying stalker that could follow you for miles and miles. I don't think that the Spiritual Hemalurgic Metals could let you make a Koloss variation, since Aluminum does effectively nothing for this purpose, Duralumin would help with languages and such and Nicrosil wouldn't be able to steal all that much due to people only having so much Innate Investiture to take. Chromium's effect isn't even certain besides maybe stealing 'Destiny'. Doesn't sound like the right 'material' to make a Koloss out of. Power spikes would only create Steel Inquisitors. Atium spikes are just wildcards for powers but Lerasium would be both a huge waste but also kind of interesting to see.You could literally take 4 people's strength, senses, etc and stuff them into one person to make an 'All your powers combined' Koloss that is as strong as a normal Koloss, as perceptive as a Tineye, is incredibly resistant to emotional allomancy and the 'Flaw' as well as being much smarter. Though you'd probably have huge deformations from all 4 types, maybe some would balance out though? So yeah, that's what I got for that, any thoughts or ideas?

So I'm a little confused about the exact details of Gifting. I know that it allows an Epic to grant weakened versions of their powers to non-Epics. I know that giving more power lets the Epic not get corrupted. But one thing I don't think was brought up was if the Gifters actually lose potency in their powers when they Gift it to others? Because that was never really made clear to me.

So something that happens near the end of TSM is that Nomad is accepted by the Beaconites as one of their own, thus being 'Invited' and becoming as Connected to Canticle as he is to Roshar. Having 'Two Homeworlds' and gaining the 'Heat-Leech Touch' that all Canticilians have. He also gets named as Zellion. The only other time we've seen this is with Hoid when he became an Elantrian in Tress. So I've had an idea, Invitation isn't something that works for just anyone, you need to have held a Dawnshard for it to work. As holding a Dawnshard permanently Connects you to the entire Cosmere, which is what allows Nomad to Skip, but I also think that his experiences and the Connections he forms with the people cause his pre-existing Connection to Canticle to grow, so when he is Invited he effectively becomes a child of Canticle.

General consensus is maybe but isn't quite so simple. Tress spoilers As for gaining a Breath? Probably no, it'd be like trying to gain Allomancy with Duralumin, it wouldn't work and you either need to be born with it or have one given to you. As for Hemalurgy? Yeah it'd have implications, it'd be one of the Spikes needed to steal an Elantrian's 'elantrianness', you'd need one spike for the powers and another for the Connection. So you could also steal other Selish Arts this way.

Ehh, I kind of liked it better before, now it's all weird when before it was all perfectly structured. More solid looking you say, now it looks cloudy and stuff.

I've been thinking about doing a story about this, it'd be an SI being dropped onto Braize and becoming the first human Fused. Plus being the only Fused to use Adhesion. He'd lose his original name and would be called Abarran the Binded One. I have a bunch of ideas for this story, which I titled The Warlight Chronicles. It'd start in the present day-ish before TWOK but would frequently flash back to the ancient times when Abarran was forced to fight in the later Desolations. And I have more to say about it but now I realize that I actually do want to write this story out and post it one day so I'll stop here before I give any spoilers.

I think Mercy's Magic System would have to be similar to Breath, in the fact that you wouldn't be able to do some things directly for yourself, like how Returned can't heal themselves or how you can't steal Breath. After all, mercy can also only be given. It'd be a magic system that relies on other people.

We know that Tin Allomancers can see through the Mist better than they should due to Allomancy and the Mists both being of Preservation, so I'm wondering if Tin Feruchemists could do the same thing to Harmony's Mists in Era 2 due to Feruchemy and the new Mists both being of Harmony?

I had an idea for a world called Vathen. It'd be a world covered in enormous trees and forests With two main ecosystems, the tops of the trees where there's light and big flying bugs, and the Forest Floor which is in near-perpetual darkness with lots of bioluminescence, with the apex predator species being a giant glowing spider-centipede thing. The magic would be based around 'Florans', magic edible fruits that grant temporary abilities. There would be 7 main species of plants, with the rarer the plant being stronger due to concentrated Investiture. It'd be like Devil Fruits from One Piece in that there are only a certain number of the plants, they just 'reincarnate' when they're eaten. 3 types would be found in the forest floor, one which grants bioluminescence. 3 types would be found on the top of the trees, one would grant near-weightlessness. Humans would live with two different civilizations living on the ground or on top of the trees, they wouldn't like each other very much. Anyway a change would occur on Vathen when Harmony, or Discord by this point, pulls a Preservation on Odium, rippng off a chunk of his Investture and hiding it on Vathen, placing 2 Splinters, one of Preservation and one of Ruin, of his own there to keep the Odium Splinter from attacking the locals. Eventually the Odium splinter would seep into Vathen, creating new corrupted Florans that would cause chaos as animals and humans consume them and go crazy. And that's pretty much all I've got for it off the top of my head, I won't be writing a story about it since it won't make sense for Discord and Odium to crash and I'm not super thrilled by the Magic System, if I did try to make a story I'd probably change the magic and have it delve into Biofabrication, which I grew interested in when I was also writing the idea for this world.

Ha! True. I was cheering on Adolin when he did the one thing political-schemer type antagonists never expect, for someone to just off 'em.

Taravangian, through the old saying, 'To test a man's character, give him power'. Taravangian became a god, the god of the Voidbringers, the force that threatens all of Roshar. If he was truly the kind man he had others perceive him as, he would have simply done nothing, to protect all of Roshar maye even the Cosmere, all he'd need to do was nothing. But as the other saying says 'Absolute power corrupts absolutely' and Taravangian was immediately corrupted by the power he now wields, corrupted by his own sense of morality, that no costs are too high so long as it leads to 'betterment'. That he and he alone can and should use his godlike powers to mold the worlds as he sees fit, with not even a moment of self-doubt. He's not a monster, though he does and condones monstrous actions, he's both infinitely worse and better than a monster, he's human. A human playing with power beyond comprehension who believes that he's doing the right thing.

I've been wondering about a few WOBs and the nature of Metalminds/Spikes as containers of Investiture. We know that if you stored into an Ironmind and alloyed it into steel, you wouldn't be able to access the Physical Weight stored within. Same thing with Spikes. But what if you didn't alloy them? What if you just merged two Ironminds/Spikes into one? For Feruchemy you'd likely just get a Metalmind that two different Feruchemists can access without blanking Identity beforehand. But what about Hemalurgy? If you merged two charged Iron Spikes together, would you get a stronger spike that counts as a single spike or as two spikes?

Honestly I think they'd be doing it regardless of Odium being free, their home is under siege by the Fused due to the Perpendicularity after all.

So the confirmed sides in this war are Scadrial and Roshar but I think by Era 4 there will be a third side consisting of an alliance composed of Non-Shard worlds like First of the Sun who want to stop being exploited by the Primary Systems. SotD2 Spoilers I think that Nomad might be the one that causes this alliance to exist, with Canticle just being the first. They were exploited by the Scadrians for years for no real reason aside from 'why not?', with the Scadrians intentionally hiding the method of recharging Sunstones and supporting the Cinder King and his tyranny because he was 'mildly convenient'. UTol apparently becomes known to the Cosmere and we know that's Zellion's next stop after TSM. So I think Era 4 will be about the Non-Shardworlds getting fed up and telling Scadrial and Roshar to stuff it and leave them alone. While mixing their magic systems together, could you imagine a Sunlit Aviar?