Atlas333

It's always bothered me that silver doesn't have any allomantic affect considering how big a part it will play throughout the cosmere. While it won't ever happen I imagine it's effects would be like aluminum but much more destructive.

A silver misting would most likely be a gnat. If aluminum gets rid of your metal reserves I imagine silver would have to be more destructive: potentially removing your ability to burn metal for a short period of time. Truly the most gnat of all gnats.

Silver's alloy would be just a better leecher. Instead of removing metal reserves it would negate their ability to burn for a short period time. Given how powerful this could be I understand why this won't ever be a canon power. 

As for feruchemy and hemalurgy their effects could be anyone's guess.

So I was doing some research poking around the broadsheets and found this line that I'm surprised I haven't seen many people talking about. For context, this is the beginning line in a letter to Nicki Savage from her dead father.

Quote

"In this letter I am at long last able to disclose to you the secrets of the unknown constructs of antiquity."

From the coppermind supposedly, this is a reference to undiscovered race on Scadrial called the "kalkis" a race of "metallic beings."

https://coppermind.net/wiki/Kalkis

There are three ways I think this reference could be interpreted. 


1. Nonsense - Nicki's stories are somewhat embellished.

Quote

Oudeis

I loved Nazh's "cameo" in the [Nicki] Savage story of Bands of Mourning. I especially like the touch of the map with the ripped edge in the book. Did the events really happen in the book as she describes in her broadsheet piece, or was the actual meeting punched up a bit for drama?

Isaac Stewart

Thanks for your kind words on the [Nicki] Savage story. I hope we get to see her again. Since she's learning the art of storytelling from Allomancer Jak, I suspect her version of events was slightly embellished.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/269/#e7415

I don't think this is likely considering the broadsheets have been used in the past to foreshadow future events (Nicki's previous story foreshadowed the southern scadrians). This is also the most boring explanation so I hope it isn't true.

2. Golems or constructs - while "beings of metal" can mean a lot of things to me this sounds like golems or similarly animated creatures. Whether they're mechanical or magical is impossible to say but it does sound fitting for the planet with a metal magic system. A large part of the planet was uninhabitable during the final empire, perhaps these were the lord ruler's attempt to create something that could live in those extreme conditions. But how could these be created using the metallic arts? Hemalurgy is probably the most likely as it's the one we know the least about but there is plenty of room to speculate. I feel it's safe to say that what metals these golems are made out of would affect their abilities (if any)

3. Kandras - some kandras use metal to craft their true bodies.

Quote

 "Some kandra build bodies for combat purposes; these bodies can be made of metal to be stronger and heavier and can have sharp bones to use as knives." https://coppermind.net/wiki/Kandra

Could this be a more warlike off shoot of kandra?

Or is it some 4th option?

What do you guys think?

The Sunlit man is titled after a legend of the "Sunlit Ones" repeatedly referenced throughout the book that goes like this:

Quote

"Long ago, a people existed who could live in the sunlight. People who could take it into themselves, rather than being destroyed by it. People who could use it. They were able to stay in one place long enough to build a city beneath the ground. These are the Sunlit Ones - those who could survive the light."

My question is simple, do people think this is fact or fiction?

Personally, I want this to be true simply because it's the more interesting answer. Imagine how cool a civilization that could channel the sun's investiture would be. Additionally, Brandon seems to enjoy having the myths in his worlds be inspired by historical events (even if they're heavily distorted as I'm sure this one is).

However, it could also just be a myth given that's how it's portrayed in the book. As I reread the book I didn't find a single hint of the Sunlit Ones: no silhouettes in the maelstrom or mention by the Night Brigade (I would love to be corrected about this). 

This means they're either well hidden or nonexistent. I doubt we'll ever see Canticle again (or at the very least for a very long time) so I wanted to see what everyone else thought. Fact or fiction?

While we've still got a decent ways out I've very interested to see what Isaac does with Scadrial. My goal is to do two things: 1. Compile everything we know about the book so far and 2. Theorize what we might get to see.

Get ready for a lot of WoBs; I've bolded the relevant parts to hopefully make this massive post easier to navigate. Here's what we know:

1. The book will be set on Scadrial around era 2 featuring a character named Nicelle Sauvage (Aka Nicki Savage). She is a leecher and a noblewoman who has had contact with both Naz and Allomancer Jak.  https://coppermind.net/wiki/Nicelle_Sauvage

2. The blurb could be summarized as "A woman with a strange magical power journey to an island to find a mythical book that might raise the dead." This book has several interesting implications. It could be connected to threnody, hemalurgy or potentially even awakening (although I think hemalurgy is the most likely which I'll get into later)

Quote

Isaac Stewart

The TV Guide description of the book: An adventurous woman with erratic magical powers travels with an expedition to an island to find a legendary book with the power to raise an undead army.

This has been a lot of fun. Thanks to everyone for letting me be along for the ride!

Footnote: The story Isaac was working on at the time is the Nicki Savage novel.
General Reddit 2021 (Dec. 1, 2021)

3. The book was originally called boatload of mummies and was inspired by a lego set Isaac had as a kid where he used his surplus of mummy figures to crew a ship. This could be an event that happens in the book or just a point of inspiration. 

Quote

Isaac Stewart

I've had a bunch of stories in my head that I'd wanted to tell for a really long time, and I realize that a lot of the underpinnings of magic and things that are in my stories are similar, or maybe have been influenced by Brandon. Because at this point in my life, my fantasy writing is just influenced by what Brandon has already done because I'm just exposed to it all the time. So we started talking about the idea of porting some of the ideas that I had into Cosmere worlds. And one of these was Boatload of Mummies, which was actually inspired by a Lego set. I had this big giant ship that my brother and sister-in-law had given me one year for Christmas, and that sort of spurred me on to starting to get more Lego sets again, because I loved them when I was a child. But somehow, we also had all of these Egyptian Lego sets, and I had tons of mummies. And I'm like, "What am I gonna do with these mummies?" So I put them all on the boat, fighting the British Empire on this boat. And I'm like, "Huh, this is really interesting. I kinda want to see what that story is. It's kind of like Snakes on a Plane, but it's Mummies on a Boat." So that inspired that, and I started writing that set in our world. And I didn't get very far before I had to do other things; I usually am always working on a fiction project, and that's probably about the time that I was working on Jacob's Journal of Doom, and some of these other things. So I put it on the back burner. But Brandon and I decided that that story was a lot of fun, and how could that work in the Cosmere? And so we started brainstorming some ideas. We already had this character, Nicelle Sauvage (which Allomancer Jack calls Nicki Savage.) I already had this character that I had sort of started developing in the Mistborn world, and we'd seen her through the broadsheets. And so we thought, "What if she was the main character of Boatload of Mummies?" And then, where would this book be set time-wise, and what are the events, the Cosmere underpinnings that are going on there?

Isaac Stewart Interview (May 16, 2022)

4. The book will unsurprisingly feature mummies, but where are these mummies coming from? I doubt they're from the basin so maybe southern scadrial? 

Quote

Atfer I finished that [the White Sand omnibus], I'm like, "Okay, Boatload of Mummies. Let's do that, now." So that's where we're at right now. How do we make a mummy in the cosmere? That's a question, right? What are they doing, why are they there?H All these questions come together, and we're forming a story around that. I'm about 90,000 words into it. I massively overwrite, so it'll probably be a fairly long book that we'll then trim down to around 100,000 words. And then we'll see; we'll run it through betas, we'll run it through groups here at work. We'll see if it's something that's good enough to publish. I'm interested in seeing if I can whip it into shape.

Isaac Stewart Interview (May 16, 2022)

5. The plot can be described as beginning like king kong (just getting on a boat, no giant monkey most likely), continuing like death on the nile and finally is comparable to the mummy while also being like raiders of the lost ark. Interestingly he also cites Venom as a "healthy dose". Makes me wonder if Nicki will be teaming up with some kind of cognitive entity, potentially unwillingly.

Quote

Cheyenne Sedai

I'm really curious about Boatload of Mummies because Brandon did mention on his updates that you'd worked on it for NaNoWriMo for the past couple of years which is really cool. And the title is incredible. I don't know if that's gonna be the final title, but that's what it's always been referred to. How have you been doing with that?

Isaac Stewart

Thanks for asking us. It's a project that I love. So I finished it. Finished a draft in September of last year. It's rough. It's a really rough draft. There's a lot of things that I'm still working through. I'm trying to narrow down the shape of the plot in a way because there's a little bit of--it wasn't inspired necessarily by these things, but it was after the fact that I realized, "Oh, it's part this, part that." It's sort of begins King Kong, if you imagined getting people on a boat. And then it continues as Death on the Nile. Then you get to a portion on an island. And then it ends The Mummy. And throw in a healthy dose of Venom. So it's like, "Okay, am I doing too much here?" And that's kind of where I'm at. You know, is this even a thing? Have I thrown too much in? Is this too much of a storyline? And i don't think it is. It really is in the end kind of a Raiders of the Lost Arc sort of story. You could pull out those some of those same elements and say, "Raiders of the Lost Arc starts out King Kong." But the basic plot line is there. There's going to be scenes in the current draft that are basically finished. I don't think they're going to change too much from the version that it is right now to the end.

Miscellaneous 2023 (May 28, 2023)

6. The title might be changed to "The Book of Nails" implying hemalurgy will be a big focus. Interestingly, he says this could also be a series title if there is enough interest which implies the sequels would also be about this book and potentially hemalurgy.

Quote

Will it be called Boatload of Mummies? Probably not. I can't see that as a title of a Cosmere book, right? But we can affectionately call it Boatload of Mummies as long as we want. The working title is Book of Nails. And whether there's a series title or not, we'll have to figure that out if it's a story that people want to continue learning about.

Miscellaneous 2023 (May 28, 2023)

7. Naz could potentially be a major side character. It's been hinted at that we may get more on their relationship and how it's evolved.

Quote

heynoswearing

So Haunted Man is Nazh right?

Yoitsthew

That’s what I’m thinking so I hope one day we get some context as to how he went from an antagonist to someone [Nicelle Sauvage] is galavanting around with! Maybe when u/Izykstewart finishes Boatload of Mummies we’ll know a little bit more about the in between??

Isaac Stewart

Maybe someday there will be more context to that.

General Reddit 2022 (Sept. 28, 2022)

8. The first draft is currently at 118K words and sound like its in the revision stage as of December 2023. I don't know anything about how long it takes to produce a book so I can't even guess when we might get it but I would love to hear other people's predictions.

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

Part Seven: News from My Company

Isaac Stewart

Many of you have asked how the Nicki Savage novel has been coming along, so here’s an update. The first draft is finished, clocking in at 118k words, about the same length as Shadows of Self. It needs a lot of revision before I show it to Brandon—he and I have discussed the story, but he hasn’t seen the manuscript yet—so getting it ready for him to read is my next step. As we build out Dragonsteel’s Creative Development department, I foresee more time to work on the revision.

State of the Sanderson 2023 (Dec. 19, 2023)

I'm sure there are things I missed so let me know what you think.

Silver could potentially help, although I imagine it's more complicated than just ingesting silver. Maybe there's a way to ingest a small amount of silver to add a few years to your lifespan?

Quote

Argent

Can silver help a spore eater with their condition?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, it can stab them through the heart with a silver knife so they die. Much better ending. There is potentially an application of silver that could maybe help them, it would not be my first go to. Silver can be pretty destructive.

Shardcast Interview (July 30, 2023)

On 5/18/2024 at 9:38 PM, TheSurvivorofDeath said:

Seekerform: Granted by bonding a Secretspren, gives the singer the ability to sense both passive and kinetic investiture. Passive sensing manifests similar to lifesense while kinetic sensing manifests as rhythms like those from bronze allomancy, but for a wide range of magics. Also gives the singer sharper senses, especially sight and hearing.

I could honestly see this one happening.

Guide form: Granted by bonding a guidance spren. These parshendi have an extremely precise knowledge of where they are at all times and an incredible sense of direction (seems kind of weak for a regal form but that's kind of all guidance spren do).

Whither form: Granted by bonding a shade from threnody. Like shades these parshendi would have mostly white carapace that turns black when enraged (not sure how much the three rules would apply, definitely killing, maybe starting a fire, and probably not moving quickly) although they are much more in control they can lose that control if not careful. Additionally, they would be able to wither people much like a shade but not through touch; instead they can breath out voidlight in a form that whithers whoever touches it. 

16 hours ago, hwiles said:

It appears to be a cultural evolution, most likely related to their historical tendencies to, apparently VERY severely, manipulate, control, and exploit their people's Identity and Connection for survival (and eventually warfare, once survival was a given).

That actually makes a decent amount of sense. I was just curious if we had anything official, but this seems a good enough answer for now. Thank you

Do we know why the southern scadrians wear masks? Is it mostly a culture thing? Or is there another reason?

I'm curious because why would an entire culture to suddenly start wearing masks. Was it a thing before the Ice Death? Or did the Sovereign start it? Or does it benefit them some other way?

I haven't been able to find anything concrete but also don't have time reread the books. Anyone know?

18 hours ago, Elite01 said:

Captiveform- this is an interesting one but I see two versions 

Both sound cool, although I think option 2 is more consistent with what we’ve seen of the transformation, not even Odium can force an unwilling singer to become a fused (although there could be potential applications with hemalurgy I guess).

And I’m assuming this would be a form granted by captivity spren? I definitely think the more “negative” can be more of a challenge but this is a cool idea (although I don’t imagine the spren would be able to leave. Forms of power work a lot like fabrials which trap spren).

Cool idea, and could be a parallel to how the pursuer's teleportations can be tracked before they reappear. I don't Brandon would include a common power like teleportation without giving it some unique rules.

I've always wondered if there was a way for else caller to phase through walls or something similar. The thought comes from a Jasnah pov chapter after she escapes from the ship. 

Quote

Though she could peek into Shadesmar on her own - even slip on foot in, so to speak - entering fully required Ivory's help.  

https://reactormag.com/stormlight-archive-scene-after-words-of-radiance/

 Here, "one foot in" seems to be a different ability from seeing into the cognitive realm. It could potentially be like how spren are kind of ephemeral and can only slightly affect the physical realm but in reverse. Unfortunately, Jashah seems to rely more on soulcasting than she does elsecalling, so we don't have more information to go on.

Personally, I find the parshendi's forms of power incredibly fascinating. I don't want to spend too long getting into it but it sounds like there are most likely dozens of forms (maybe even hundreds), most we haven't seen.

Quote

ParshendiOfRhuidean
Is there a connection between the roles of a certain order of Knight Radiant and the singer form associated with their Platespren, such as artistic Lightweavers and artform both having creation spren?

Brandon Sanderson
Yes, there is a connection, a deliberate connection on my part there. It's hard to keep all of these things one-to-one because there are way more forms than there are orders of Knights Radiant and things like that, so don't read too far into it, but I do make those connections deliberately where I can.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/509/#e15945

Also, new forms can arise from "new spren" meaning there isn't a predetermined number of forms.

Quote

jurble
So there's speculation in this thread about whether the Singers have a Fishform relating to the Thrill getting tossed into the sea...
and that makes me wonder - are all Singer forms predetermined by whatever deity created them or evolution, or can new ones arise spontaneously when new spren are created?

Brandon Sanderson
New forms could exist.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/445/#e14296
 

Or, even more interestingly, different forms of investiture can grant forms

Quote

ArsenoPyrite
What might happen if you gave a parshman a breath (or breaths?) Would they develop a form for it, or might it generally help them think more clearly?

Brandon Sanderson
You're actually the first to ask this. And yes, it would work.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/100/#e3643

This isn't even mentioning void spren and corrupted spren. 

To me that means its virtually impossible to categorize every parshendi form. Instead, I wanted to see what other people could come up with and even suggest their own. Simply grab a spren we haven't seen a form for yet or a magic system and ask yourself how that might create a new form.

I'll post a few examples one a "form of power" granted by outside investiture and another common form granted by a spren.

Commander form: This form is granted when a parshendi receives enough breaths to achieve the first heightening. Beyond getting those benefits I would think they would get small benefits of the next two heightenings (not quite perfect pitch or color perception but better than your average person) as well as take on the appearance of the "ideal parshendi" like the returned but to a lesser extent. In addition, they would probably be slightly better at envisioning their commands. Finally, these parshendi would be more giving and kind, it's endowment's investiture after all. 

Feast form: This form is granted when a parshendi bonds an ale sprend. The benefits of this form is generally greater constitution in terms of what these parshendi can eat and drink. Additionally, this form makes parshendi more emotional and has a stronger "gut feeling" while also having a larger gut and more fat than typical forms. 

Have fun!

I'm not sure if this has been previously discussed but this line from oathbringer between Gavilar and Eshonai always intrigued me.

Quote

“I seek for an end to something that we never finished. My people were Radiant once, and your people—the parshmen—were vibrant. Who is served by this drab world where my people fight each other in endless squabbles, without light to guide them, and your people are as good as corpses?”

It's heavily implied that he's talking about reclaiming the powers of the knight radiants but he uses a different term for the parshmen - vibrant - but they sound equal in terms of power.

What were these "vibrant forms?" (For lack of a better term).

This could be referring to regal forms or the fused but I don't think that's it; I don't think we've heard vibrant used to describe either.

This is my theory: vibrant forms are what happens when a parshmen bonds a true spren in a highstorm (ie taking the spren into their gemheart). Presumably this would give unique forms (such as a "lightweaver form") that grants access to the same surges but wouldn't have oaths and therefore be slightly weaker. This could be how the dawnsingers had access to cohesion. 

Perhaps this is why the spren left the parshmen for the humans. Vibrant forms were stagnant and didn't allow the spren to experience the world (they would be trapped in a gem heart after all). But this isn't really the focus of this theory.

Cons to this theory: Venli

Venli is clearly bonded to a true spren but is probably not in a vibrant form. There are two potential explanations. 

1.  Venli's gemheart is occupied by a voidspren which determines her form (envoy form).

2. She's bonded to a Timbre through the nahel bond, not the biological bond that grants parshendi forms.

Pros to this theory:

Beyond the quote from gavilar we have this WoB.

Quote

Questioner
What would happen if a Parshendi were to attract a spren and bring it into the Highstorm? Like, an Honorspren of some sort?

Brandon Sanderson
Sapient spren have a choice of whether they get bonded or not, unless you entrap them some way. But simply attracting them...simply going into the Highstorm with one wouldn't work, what you said is 'attracted a spren', so, to answer that actually... The thing is, honorspren, all the spren of Honor and Cultivation, not honorspren capital, Honorspren or whatever... The spren that create the orders of the Knights Radiant have not, in the past, been attracted to Parshendi because of certain events in the past.

Questioner
*inaudible*

Brandon Sanderson
You'll have to Read and Find Out.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/34/#e5653

While this could be interpreted a few ways to me it sounds like a parshendi can bond a true spren in a high storm although it would have to be consensual. However, this bond could also be taken to mean a radiant bond but I personally doubt it.

Thoughts?

I love the thought experiment, but personally, I think it's more interesting to think of godspeed in terms of things that are incredibly important to a planet's culture. After all, a spren is heavily influenced by perception. If something is considered powerful than it's spren will be.

For example, as it was talked about before, I think that Scadrial's god spren would be the mist (maybe the "mist maiden" because it was described as appearing like Vin at times to wax). While this would be connected to Preservation it is primarily a manifestation of the planet's perception of the mists.

Similarly, the sun on Canticle would definitely have a spren. 

Beyond that, I don't know if there are any other major things that could spawn a spren. Elantris itself is a good pick and maybe a giant desert spren for Taldain? Maybe each sea on Lumar would have a spren? (maybe not a "godspren though).

What I mean by the title is that I'm starting to think that the disease-based magic on Ashyn is a combination of Odium and Cultivation's magic systems.

While we don't know a lot about Ashyn to say anything definitively about the planet, here are the facts as I see them:

1. Odium was connected to the Ashynites and came with them to Roshar,

2. Cultivation has some kind of connection to the Ashynite magic system. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/479/#e15171

3. Cultivation has been shown to work with Odium in recent events (i.e., the end of Rhythm of War).

So essentially, this would mean that the disease magic is a combination of Cultivation and Odium much like the Radiant Oaths are a combination of Cultivation and Honor. 

To me, this makes a lot of sense because I couldn't wrap my head around how one planet was connected to two shards unless they were in on it together (I suppose there is a chance that Cultivation's original magic was on Ashyn, and then Odium could have invaded potentially?? I'm not a fan of this as much because the destruction of the planet was of their own doing and not that of an invading force).

Additionally, it kind of fits with how the two shards would influence access to their magic. Diseases are something that can get worse (i.e., cultivate), but at the same time, they seem to be negatively influenced; what I mean is that I don't think cultivation's normal magic system would be so destructive which points to Odium's influence.

The application of this theory is twofold. 1. It helps us potentially understand more of the system's magic system and how the shards interact with each other. 2. Points to the conflict between the shards being more nuanced than Odium v Cultivation and Honor.

Thoughts?

12 minutes ago, alder24 said:

In TLM those people are members of Ghostbloods. I think it's very likely that those particular people are bonded with corrupted Highspren and might even be a splinter group of Nale's Skybreakers (or they were just old Ghostbloods members who finally got their corrupted Spren bond from Sja-Anat, as Mraize wants that badly). I don't think they are servants of Odium as there would be a conflict of interests between them and Kelsier. 

Shoot, that's a good point. I didn't even think about that. While I agree they probably aren't servants of Odium there could still be something said that the only radiants we see working with the Ghostbloods are Skybreakers rather than Windrunners. But as to why it's nearly impossible to say at this point. 

I think it's probably just convenience as you pointed out and most orders could stick to Roshar. Still excited to see what this all means. 

I've noticed a trend that post-Stormlight 5, we only really see Skybreakers and none of the other orders. 

Light spoilers for the unpublished Sixth of Dusk sequel and the Lost Metal

At first, I thought this was favoritism by Brandon. Or it could just be that for a quick cameo, Skybreakers are an easy order to make it clear to the reader what type of radiant they are. 

But then I got thinking. An era of radiants where only Skybreakers kept their oaths. Sounds a lot like the Recreance, doesn't it?

To me, this means that Odium wins in Stormlight 5 (not exactly a new idea), but then most of the other orders abandon their oaths rather than serve Odium or perhaps go into hiding or something similar. However, Skybreakers are more concerned with obeying authority than what is right or wrong. So, once again, they are the only order that keeps their oaths and continues to serve Odium and become the dominant order of Radiants.

While I think this theory is fairly solid, we only have a few examples, so it could just be a coincidence. Additionally, Hoid is shown to still have his oaths, and he doesn't serve Odium. He's a weird case, though, so I'm not accounting for him in this theory. Anyway, what do you guys think?

A- Nicrosil/F-Duralumin

(Allomancy- boost other's metals/Feruchemy- store and tap connections)

These two powers actually go decently well together. Both of these abilities are heavily reliant on others. Nicrosil makes you an asset to any team of allomancers and duralumin can help you strengthen your connection to those allomancers. While this probably doesn't have any crazy applications, it would useful when it came to settling disagreements between different members. This character could also be an effective "face" for this team handling the negotiating and other social obstacles they might encounter. 

I do want to briefly mention I have wondered if you could tap enough connection to bypass the physical contact requirement from nicrosil to use it from a distance. I think it should work; assuming that touching the allomancer is establishing a physical connection, who's to say a spiritual connection wouldn't work? However, we don't have any idea how much connection you would need to tap. For all we know, it might take a compounder to make this work. For that reason, that potential interaction isn't taken into account for my rating. 

Resonance: Still not confident enough to say, but if I had to guess, maybe their nicrosil would be more effective on people they have stronger connections to?

Rating: 7 Not bad, in my opinion. Even if the powers don't interact in any spectacular ways, these twinborn have quite a few ways to assist a team of allomancers. 

Name: Team player is safe, but I prefer Mediator (for settling disputes in the team) or, more likely, Coordinator because I could see this kind of twinborn being a leader but not the kind to be on the front lines. 

Hey, I hope it's all right that I post this here. I've worked on quite a bit of homebrew. I don't claim to be an expert on game design, but my goal was to better represent some aspects of the books than some of the current rules do. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YZwPBLoUU4IjxDY0Duq7C0rMcIvUs0tE/edit 

Here's a quick overview of what's available.

Rebalancing power levels (some of the less useful metals can be chosen at character creation without changing a character's power level)

Rules for Southern Scadrian characters

Additional networks

Metal reworks (to make some more like how they are in the books)

New abilities and stunts for a few metals

Exclusive abilities for twinborn with complimentary powers

Reworked savantism (the goal is to make it both powerful and costly)

If anyone has thoughts, I would be more than happy to hear them. 

I'm sure other people have their own methods for keeping track of what combos have been done already, but I just couldn't keep it all straight, so I went ahead and made this handy table.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_Xbhypr0ihq1A3rLzmvr0wcHL-TKnm81m6LIyK9lMqQ/edit#gid=0

It's color-coded to show which ones have been done already. I'll admit I took a few creative liberties with the names as I felt some fit better than others. 

Hopefully, this makes it easier for others to contribute to this thread without worrying about repeating previous combinations. I'll try and update it as new combos are posted. 

1 hour ago, Elite01 said:

That's a good question could an essence mark create investiture? If you used a stamp to get a lot of breaths and then gave those breaths to someone else would the breaths disappear when the stamp wears off? I almost want to say it wouldn't work. If I created an essence mark where I always wore a hat would it create that hat? I think it only changes things about you instead of giving you things but 

The short answer is that yes, forging can create any change in your spirit web. However, stuff like that is going to take a lot of investiture. I would say that breaths and surgebinding would be the easiest to replicate, considering those are things that aren't tied to your connection to the planet while allomancy and feruchemy would be significantly more difficult because you'd have to rewrite your past to being born on Scadrial. 

Quote

Aneesh

If there's a Forger like Shai who plausibly had an opportunity to ingest lerasium and become Mistborn, but she passed it up, could she create a stamp that makes her temporarily a Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

She would have to have access to enough Investiture to make that happen. The stamp saying, "Hey, I'm a Mistborn!" doesn't actually give her the Investiture to do that. She could rewrite her past so that she took that bead. She would not actually be able to use the power, until she got an infusion of Investiture, which could be done with a stamp in the right manner, but most of the time you're gonna have to have some external source. Basically you're gonna have to take a hit of Investiture, a large amount of it, and then use the stamp, and then it will feed on that to change you into basically any of the other magics.

Aneesh

Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

If you could get a hit of Stormlight, that'd work. The problem is, Stormlight's not easy to get off of Roshar, and it still is technically keyed. You could get it a lot more easily-- Stormlight would work fairly well, but what you really want is some pure, unkeyed Dor. That stuff, you could do all kinds of things with. But, you know, it's kinda dangerous. But that's the stuff you're gonna want, or something like unto it.

Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021)

The breaths thing is a bit more difficult. It works for hemalurgy so I would say it might work for breaths, but again, needs a ton of investiture. 

Quote

Questioner

If you Stamp yourself, to have another, overwritten spiritweb, and you get Spiked-- *laughter* What would happen?

Brandon Sanderson

We actually worked this out. *laughter*

Questioner

Well, you'd die, or very close to it, but would it revert when the Stamp reverts?

Brandon Sanderson

So what’s probably going to happen here is that you’re going to rip off the Investiture you’ve put on your soul, and your own soul will have less damage. Now, the spike is only gonna get the-- the spike, you're like "What will it do?" It will do what you've been overwritten with, but again remember, becoming an Allomancer takes so much energy, and things like-- But it is theoretically possible in the cosmere to rewrite yourself "You're an allomancer", someone spikes you to get this. The Investiture doesn't care that it was fake on you, you have managed to get that Investiture to work. Uhh, this is really tough. And really, like, you need Connection, and you need, like, the right kind of Investiture, but then it rips off and yes you have made a spike that makes you an Allomancer, even though the person was a Forger. So yes, okay? But this is the kind of stuff that is like the thought experiments for physicists in the cosmere as opposed to, y'know--

Arcanum Unbounded Chicago signing (Dec. 6, 2016)

On 9/30/2023 at 4:57 AM, alder24 said:

It doesn't run out, it behaves like a coppermind, and they don't run out of attributes.

While you're right that the nicrosil doesn't run out, the other attribute will. From what we've seen, it looks like a medallion only gives the ability to tap or store, not both. This means that once you've tapped all your heat, you can't refill it. I could see this easily being solved by selling filled metal minds for certain attributes that can be "refilled" into medallions (which I think sounds perfect for a setting that's more futuristic).

On 9/29/2023 at 10:46 PM, Trusk'our said:

So I think that both will become useful in their own respective ways; medallions will likely become a cheaper, more preferable and wider scale way of accessing the Metallic Arts, but Hemalurgy will always have some value if utilized correctly (though it's entirely possible that the taboos attached to it will mean only the desperate or power-hungry groups will ever use it).

Definitely agree, for some groups of people hemalurgy will always be preferred to medallions. 

I think this idea is incredibly interesting and definitely plausible. The difficulty is finding uses for it.

I don't see identity being a particularly useful attribute to spike unless you're trying to impersonate them maybe. Still, the side effects would probably be even worse than a normal spike, so probably not worth it. 

For Nicrosil, I don't think it works that way.

1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

Nicrosil: this is probably the biggest one there is. If you could augment your Allomancy with F-nicrosil and if you could spike that enhancement out, you could create spikes bearing tremendous power with relative ease. After all, storing, say, your A-pewter fully for a week and tapping it all in a brief moment while having it spiked out would create a Hemalurgic spike holding many, many times the standard power of a Pewterarm.

Quote

Pagerunner

When you tap the nicrosil portion of a medallion, will it run out over time? Or is it like a coppermind, where something discrete is taken, used, and returned?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question! Like a coppermind.

General Signed Books 2018 (Oct. 15, 2018)

Granted, this is talking about medallions, but I still think it applies. It sounds like once you store investiture, you lose it permanently until you tap it, just like with memories. That means nicrosil alone isn't enough to increase your powers. Because of that it's difficult to see how tapping nicrosil would change anything unless we're talking about medallions or something like that. 

Connection could be useful if you wanted to spike out a specific connection like a connection to the land to immediately learn a new language. This is the one that I see being the easiest and most valuable to use. 

Destiny is also interesting, but I agree it's tricky to predict. Unfortunately, there isn't much to say about this one. 

Still, very interesting theory. I'm excited to see where it goes. 

I just want to start by saying that this is an incredibly impressive theory, so much so that I can't wrap my head around all the details, so I'm just going to stick to what I do understand. 

My main suggestion is about Preservation's placement on the chart. I think your reasoning is very solid about it being in the temporal section, but something doesn't seem right to me that it isn't "exists, then exists." 

Additionally, there's this quote in Secret History when Sazed takes up the shards that could be seen as evidence that Preservation and Ruin aren't a push-pull pair. 

Quote

Kelsiere stood in awe of the way they combined. He'd always seen these powers as opposites, yet as they swirled around Sazed, it seemed they actually belonged to one another. 

Also, I've always thought that invention and ruin were opposites (create and destroy). I don't have much evidence for this, though. 

So, if I had to suggest changes, it would be to swap preservation with x and then swap x with invention if that makes sense. The only problem is that this probably messes up more than it "fixes." For example, this would mean that preservation is now the opposite of valor. Although x could be seen as a form of change, so I do think that fits. 

Still, great theory overall.

On 9/19/2023 at 10:30 PM, JustQuestin2004 said:

I was thinking about that combination. I've seen the not-technically-canon-but-whatever MAG Twinborn combinations with A-Gold and F-Aluminum being called a Vessel. So what I was thinking is, either through Savantism or Resonance probably both, you could allow a Gold Shadow to possess you by storing all of your Identity away.

I actually really like this idea and think it could be possible. I'm just not sure if a gold shadow would "possess" an identity-less person. (In fact, storing identity while burning gold would probably do weird things to your gold shadow or probably just make it vanish/fade)

A while back, I made a similar theory to achieve similar results with a slightly different method. You can read it here if you like (although this thread is a much better exploration of the ideas, there's really no reason to). https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/139216-soul-stamping-via-the-metallic-arts/#comment-1540086

I'll just summarize the important bits.

To start, I was assuming that when you burn gold, you have access to your gold shadow's identity (this is because when you see a gold shadow, you have access to their thoughts and point of view, so for all intents and purposes, you are your gold shadow, in my opinion.)

Then, while burning gold, you store your gold shadow's identity in an aluminum mind. Then, when you need that identity's skills (like with the door example from earlier), you tap that identity, and it temporarily overwrites your identity like a soul stamp. (Although now, after reading this thread, I agree you'd probably have to store your original identity to make this work).

So, in short, I agree, but I think that you might have to do weird identity things via feruchemy and that gold allomancy wouldn't achieve the desired outcome even if you stored your identity while burning gold. 

I think the biggest question for this theoretical soulstamping, is there any way to change what gold shadow you see? I'm in the camp that you always see the one gold shadow that's most opposed to your current life because that's what we see in the books. The only way to change this gold shadow is through significant life decisions. This severely limits the usefulness of this ability as you're essentially limited to one essence mark. But could there be methods to get around this limitation? 

20 minutes ago, Argenti said:

They caused the pressure build-up by not having any desolations, but this managed to hold Odium off for a while instead of just desolation after desolation. I think they did the best they could.

Yeah, exactly. I don't mean to say it was a mistake or anything. It was a very complicated situation, and we don't know all of the details yet. I just meant to say they were the cause of the build-up.