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Any worries that Sixth's skill set isn't used to survival without Sak and might be at a disadvantage because Sixth was used to using Sak as a crutch almost??

Spiking out a divine breath is now one of my favorite things. Minus of course the gruesome methods used to do so...

Nice, I like the creativity. This is why I thought this would be a fun topic. I don't think it would necessarily be hard to make a character who could survive, but seeing the different combinations people come up with and where their mind goes is the fun part. Alternative Build: Codename - the Hermit Body: Denth Skill Set: Kaladin Power Set: Lift (Progression/Shardblade) Item: Unkeyed Metalmind with F-Bendalloy, F-Steel, F-Duralumin The Plan: Be known as the friendly old Hermit at the edge of the woods who locals bring pies and pot roasts to every week because they know if they bring him food every week and are nice to him he will heal them back from almost certain death if something goes catastrophically wrong. #insurance. F-Bendalloy to store all the food brought by the locals, then tap it as needed to power Lift's powers. F-duralumin to tap connection and build the trust relationship with the locals quickly and forge those connections strong. F-Steel because it's a good trump card if something goes wrong and I think I'll have a lot of time to meditate and store speed waiting around all day for people to bring me food. Kaladin skills for both excellent fighting prowess and surgeon knowledge to better my role as the local healer.

The Situation: Fun little thought exercise. Let's say you have to go to the forests of hell, and you need to survive there indefinitely. No living in forts, you have to survive, out in the forest, alone. I don't care why you're going, that's up to you. Luckily, you get to build yourself a Cosmere-themed super-self to help you survive, composed of a body, a skill-set, a power-set, and an item. For convenience sake suppose that if you have a way to make an income you can buy or trade for reasonable amounts of whatever investiture you need to fuel your powers and whatnot. (i.e. vials of metals, spheres of stormlight, breaths, etc.) The Build: Your build will be composed of 4 parts, the body, skill set, power set, and item. They all must come from within the Cosmere. A further explanation of each will follow below. Body - The physical body of a specific character, grants you physical attributes (i.e. strength, speed, agility, balance, endurance, etc) and 5 physical senses (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste). Your body does not grant you any powers. Must be humanoid (no dragons or Sleepless for example). Skill Set - The knowledge, skills, wisdom and trained ability of a specific person. Power Set - The magical powers of a specific character. You automatically get the same skill (in using the powers specifically) as the character you choose. Item - An object that is magically or mechanically useful in some way. Limitations: No Shards or Slivers No Fullborns No Steel Inquisitors If you choose a Knight Radiant power set you need to uphold the oaths. If you choose a Knight Radiant power set you only get access to one of the surges so you have to choose. If you choose a Knight Radiant power set you have to choose between shardplate and a shardblade, you can't have both. No Dragons No Hoid No Nightblood, No Bans of Mourning No Lerasium Beads No Peacegiver's Treasure Spren cannot count as an item. My example build: Going to go this way since I think it's different than what most people would say and shows my love of Warbreaker. Body: Denth Skill Set: Vasher Power Set: Jasnah Kholin (Shardblade)(Transformation) Item: A steel bracer containing Vivenna's ~ 600 breaths from Warbreaker Plan: Become a bounty hunter for money. Once I make a bit of money buy some stormlight. Use soulcasting to produce a few of my own "Kalad's Phantoms", using corpses from the local fort towns and soulcasting the stone around the skeletons. Soulcast myself silver weapons and silver weapons for my lifeless bodyguards. Awaken my cloak to alert me if shades are nearby and protect me. Awakened cloaks and lifeless don't have to sleep, so I can. Peak life sense should also help avoid shades. Follow the Simple Rules. My powers would be uniquely suited to subduing, or even killing (if necessary) bounties without drawing blood. Sneak in and awaken their clothes, nets, ropes, etc to bind them and have my lifeless carry them back to town where I can turn them in for the rewards. Buy food and supplies and more breaths and stormlight...cycle continues. Side Note: I'd also like to look into whether you could soulcast say a vine into chains and then Awaken the chain more easily because it was once living....just because that would be cool and fighting with an Awakened steel chain would be dope.

That's really interesting, I hadn't thought about the application of Connection combined with Transformation. I definitely said Transformation would be one of....if not the best surge in real-life application. There's just so much practicality to soulcasting.

Explained that way it does make sense, I could see that.

That's interesting, I guess I'm just interested to learn more about it all. How do spikes grant this? Typically when you use a spike you're stealing a piece off someone's spirit web that allows them to access a certain power (i.e. steel pushing from a steel misting). I had assumed that the spikes in Inquisitors' eyes were charged by killing steel mistings and the amplified strength of their steel sight was a product of having two spikes. If Inquisitor steel sight is not granted by allomantic powers stolen from steel mistings where does it come from? It can't be another being with that kind of sight because as far as we know Inquisitors are the only being who demonstrate that ability on Scadrial (apart from the lesser steel sense provided by A-steel). So maybe you understand my confusion. If steel sight isn't granted by allomantic powers contained in the spike, where is the ability coming from? If it is granted by allomantic powers, why does it work for Kelsier when no other spikes granted any allomantic powers to him? Unless maybe the being Kelsier spiked to create his spike had some unique properties? Or the spike itself has something different going on with it?

Threnody fascinates me, but you're right we haven't seen much in the little glimpses we've got. I really liked Shadows for Silence though. So you'd rather live on pre-Catacendre Scadrial than Roshar?

It is if I don't lie to myself

Ayyy... a fellow Warbreaker lover! Welcome to the Shard. What is your least favorite Cosmere planet?

Just interesting to me the spikes cannot impart any allomantic powers, but they can impart steel sight. Maybe I'm missing some obvious distinction between the two.

Yeah, I know that applies to Kelsier...but I wasn't sure if it was the same for him as it would be for a normal person since he is under some weird circumstances. With the spike pinning his soul/cognitive aspect to an unknown body that isn't his original body, and if I recall he can't use allomancy anymore since he died. I was kind of always confused how he couldn't use allomancy, but could use steel sight.

The more I think about it, I think Lightweaver is the best choice in real life if you're adept with your abilities...providing the oaths work with you as a person. Soulcasting is great for obvious reasons...and of the abilities one can have both are on the easier side of the spectrum as far as being able to be concealed.

I'd have to look back at the times its mentioned in the original trilogy but I think seeing through an eyepatch should be easy as I believe they're able to see through walls and the like. I suspect they could also train themselves to basically ignore the Eyepatch and simply focus on the feedback from th he world beyond it. I think my question is could you get the best of both worlds through one supercharged spike through one eye while leaving the other normal? How would those two types of vision overlay?

Awesome, I'm here for it! Give me the maths! Now I'll just have to cry even more about how hard it is to get investiture on Nalthis.

Painter is clearly a very flawed individual, and I honestly didn't like him at first either, but I think there is a lot to process here. He was clearly depressed about what he did to his friends and how he had failed the only real friends he had ever made. Shame and depression make it very easy to avoid the people you have hurt instead of facing down what you did to them. Yes, that's absolutely weakness, but the point of the story is his growth to address the weakness. Nikaro is a caring person, he's a brave person, he clearly cares about people in general. He's very talented, and despite kind of being socially awkward, he seems to be a likeable person when he isn't in the depths of depression. I think the main reason Yumi grows to love him though is that they shared this experience of her learning that she could be a person, she could be happy, she could do things for herself, she didn't have to literally always and every time put someone else first. Spend that much time with someone and you're going to grow a bond with them and sometimes that bond can lead to something more. I mean, it does go along with the ideas and themes of the story. The nightmares were just investiture that could shape themselves into whatever they wanted, essentially light weavings of a sort. She was massively invested, her cognitive/spiritual aspect being able to create a physical manifestation of herself doesn't seem out of place knowing what we know about investiture and realmatic theory.

My preference is the blue lines that we mostly associate with steelpushing/ironpulling, as Brandon mentioned in one of those WoBs. These are metaphysical lines of connection that can't be perceived by most, but for the audience they would be an artistic representation of the ability and the item(s)/person(s) being affected.

Hi, I'm new...ish. I like Brandon Sanderson....and chickens, magical and non-magical alike....though I'd prefer magical.

They do give me delicious and nutritious eggs though, so its' not nothing. Gotta be grateful for what we have

I wouldn't say that Midnight Spores inherently have more intelligence than other spores, they just have the ability for the user to imprint commands upon them through intent. I wouldn't call that intelligence per se, any intelligence given to Midnight Spores seems to come from the person they have bonded with. That said I don't think we've seen anything or heard anything about what would happen to midnight essence created by random rainfall with no intelligent life nearby to potentially bond.

"WHY WON'T YOU SHOW ME THE FUTURE?!" As an owner of 17 chickens I resonate with this...not one of them gives me magical powers

How much does that much Zinc cost? Can you cast in pure Zinc?

Give me some Southern Scadrian hot choc for those cold nights.

Wasing the wanting of saying welcome! Would you rather be able to have a unsealed duraluminmind in real life that let you understand foreign languages, or a Feruchemical medallion that let you store and tap heat at will?

That's my secret, I'm always angry. ....wait did I say angry? I meant hungry....so yeah, basically same thing.