Kadrok

This is mainly a question for next time, but has anyone straight out asked him how to get Lerasium to grant Feruchemy, or how one would gain Feruchemy other than through Hemalurgy or Genetics? And if so... why not?

Yep, I agree.

Does Hoid really have the right to interfere in other people's problems? Perhaps he could render aid at their request, but that would require understanding on their part. He is a storyteller though, maybe he's working up to the point where people will understand enough to request aid at some later point. Or maybe fostering understanding in the people is the ideal way to solve the most problems. Sometimes people need to solve their own problems to grow... I mean, what could he really have done to make the Scadrial situation better? I think Scadrial turned out as well as it could have: Ruin is no longer trying to destroy the planet, Preservation is no longer brainless... from where they were, it did not seem at all like there was much chance of that happening, but it did and I call it a win. In short, just because he has amazing powers, doesn't mean he's a magic bullet for everyone's problem. Real change comes slowly and requires a much more personal investment than sending a few barrages of magic missiles at a problem. Just because Hoid allows evil to continue doesn't mean he is evil himself.

Has anyone brought this up in this thread yet? Sorry if this is old news, but this is the first time I've seen it...

But seriously... how on Earth did that happen?! From what I could see I was responding directly... with my post directly under the question!

There goes my theory. I was so sure, it made so much sense! Oh well, at least we've narrowed it down.

Case (and thread) closed... The "you-were-wrong" spren dance around Kadrok in the form of Kookaburras, guffawing mockingly.

I don't know who nega-voted it, but have an upvote... that's very interesting and will impact on a lot of our thinking. EDIT: Something has just occurred to me. While Rashek was playing around with the Well, the general pattern was that he kept creating problems, but as he became more skilful he created smaller and smaller problems. What does this say about his self-rewrite? Did he screw himself up in some way, or is the well more easily used (in an intuitive understanding kind of sense, rather than a power kind of sense) to rewrite one's sDNA (which there is some hint of, given that condensed Well when burned has this effect) than it is to, say... move the planet around?

Translation: The Dragon is immortal but he can be killed. (So technically not immortal, but he won't die of old age). The Dragon is also male. "wetlandernw" (who asked the question I suppose) will attempt to ask for more detail at some later point.

You're thinking of Duralumin (connection to others). While storing it, you kind of become less noticeable and feel disconnected from you. When you tap it you reinforce or alter your personality... you can use it, for example, to wipe your personality to a clean slate, and Brandon has said that proper manipulation of Feru-Aluminum can let you access other people's metalminds. I don't think the other Feruchemy/Allomancy we know of is simple. Why does Feru-Copper store differently to others in that you don't regain the memories after you've finished storing (but your muscles/weight/health/whatever returns to what it was before?). How does Allo-Gold really work... which is to say, how on Scadrial does a shadow of another possible version of yourself have memories of things you couldn't possibly know if it doesn't exist in an alternate universe? And if it does exist in an alternate universe, that raises a whole bunch of complex (and certainly not simple) questions. How is storing connection to others (Duralumin) simple? Please don't read this aggressively, but I am seeing a very complex system with many unanswered questions beyond what we know of the basic mechanics.

Things get even more crazy when you drive an Atium-spike through an universal theft-point. If we go with intent it makes sense, but if we go with the spike taking all the abilities, and the others atrophying away once the spike is installed... an Atium-spike through the heart may as well take your entire soul! On that basis, I'm leaning towards intent being the key. (Even if we dismiss the heart as a universal theft-point we are still left with multiple examples of different things being taken from the heart I understand, and so the same problem with "which does an Atium spike take" comes up)

For me the greater tragedy is that they died without offspring... what a waste of Allomantic potential (which I really wanted preserved)! I was also bugged by the deaths of all the Feruchemists, even though I didn't really know any of them, for much the same reason. I find the gradual degradation of the Metallic Arts in humans annoying (I'd be tempted by the Shard Preservation). By AoL we could have had a population full of Full-Compounders (assuming we overcame the genetic interference Allomancy introduces to Feruchemy), but oh no... everyone had to die. I realise I've already had this rant before on another thread, but if I were Rashek I would have been breeding Feruchemy into the population, not breeding it out! Granted, I also wouldn't have claimed to be a god, and would have been more forthcoming with knowledge about Ruin (I mean, would it have killed Rashek to have said "There's a supernatural entity that can alter copperminds and text that will escape if you give up the power at the well! Only text etched in metal can be trusted! Ask the Kandra about Ruin." instead of "What have you done? You don't know what I do for humanity! I was your god even though you couldn't see it!" or whatever it was he said*) *I mean, the guy was preparing for the possibility of Ruin escaping, did he not consider that a big metal plate in the Ascension Chamber marked: "Giving up the power is a trap. Ignore the prophecies and writings, the well is the Prison of Ruin, who has the power to alter coppermind memories, and all text not etched in metal. If you are reading this, I am probably dead. Do what is best for the world with the power, only don't give it up... oh, and don't try moving the planet around... I tried that one and was rubbish at it... nearly killed everyone... actually, come to think of it, if you have star charts from before my ascension handy why not try to move it according to that... I was going to do that myself, as well as fix a few other things, but I'm dead so what can you do? Anyway, all the best with being the Protector of Humanity, whoever this is. -Rashek" would be a good idea?

I like this idea. And given that Hoid has Feruchemy, what is to stop him (if he has a Nightblood-like sword) from simply fueling it with blank investiture from a Nicrosilmind? We already know you can use Nicrosil charges to fuel other Feruchemical powers, and we also know you can pour the investiture from a Nicrosilmind into other people's metalminds to annihilate their charges. I suspect that if you did that with an object like Nightblood, it would eat the charges rather than be killed. Hoid could pour the Nicrosil investiture into the sword while it is drawn to stop it from taking breath...

Which may contribute towards the ongoing debate as to where the missing 4 Lerasium beads are (for those who believe 16 beads were created, rather than that the well generates them over time). It is possible that previous Protectors became Mistborn for their lifetimes, though that raises some interesting questions about the origins of Allomancy, and there are bound to be WoB contradicting the notion that there were Lerasium Mistborn before Rashek's time. Perhaps the hypothetical Lerasium-Protectors feared what would happen if Allomancy spread, and remained celibate so as not to pass on their powers...

There's something else odd about Hemalurgy... is the heart really a universal theft-point? Let's assume it is for the sake of argument. So you drive a Steel spike through a Mistborn's heart into the eye-socket of a Hemalurgist (or whatever you think the correct placement of the Allo-Steel spike is in a Steel Inquisitor). Wicked. So it looks like the "eye-socket" "tells" the spike which power to take from the "heart". But then, suppose you don't do it directly. Suppose you pull a Marsh with the wandering around carrying a filled spike after driving it through a Mistborn's heart (In the Marsh example it was a Bronze spike through a Smoker, but let's roll with this). During the time of the wandering, after the theft-spiking but before the bestowal-spiking, what does that spike carry? If the heart is a universal theft-point, then without the bestowal-point to guide the power it could potentially be all four physical Allomantic abilities. Does it read your intent, knowing you're after Allo-Steel? Does the spike contain the investiture for all four physical Allomantic abilities until such time as the spike is bestowed, at which point the other investitures "die", leaving only Allo-Steel? Even worse, some have suggested that the heart is an universal bestowal point. Now, Zane had a heart-spike bestowing enhanced Allo-Steel which he presumably stole from a Coinshot. But what if it was from another Mistborn? A Steel spike through a universal theft-point of someone with all four powers to steal, into a universal bestowal-point... what happens? Discuss Footnote And yes, I just coined "theft-point" and "bestowal-point" but feel free to use your own terminology, or to chastise me with the observation that others have coined those terms before me (which is possible).

*Mind-Blown* I had never seen that thread before... my gosh, he's right! The Lord Ruler is Santa!

I've been around on and off since 10th edition... the first Ravnica cycled out and I was sad I mostly missed it, and then the new Ravnica came along and... didn't really excite me in the end. I play pretty casually because the sets cycle far too quickly, though I do tend to lock my decks to a couple of adjacent sets. You see, sometimes it takes me a year to get a deck working right. Classic example is my Zendikar-Scars Blue-Black artifact deck. I saw Golem Foundry and wanted to make a deck abusing it with proliferate... each of its incarnations failed in their own special ways until I arrived at its current working form... and I LOVE it! So much SYNERGY!!! My other favourite deck (Just Innistrad sets) plays with the Mystic Retrieval-Runic Repitition-Arcane Melee interaction.... it gets messy but awesome. So yeah... I prefer complicated decks. IKEA GUN!

Yep. Rashek is a Protector. The only question is, is he the first or were there others? If there were earlier ones, perhaps they didn't survive the whole cycle due to not being Feruchemists or figuring out Compounding. Or (even cooler) maybe they did, but didn't protect the world openly, becoming a Gandalf figure or some such. I wonder how long it took for Ruin to corrupt the prophecies.

Honestly, I thought it was general knowledge that only Scadrians could use Hemalurgy, but I'm not sure why. I guess it makes sense to me that only someone with the "seeds of the metallic arts" could use any of the metallic arts. The Catquisitor parallel is interesting though. I wonder if Hemalurgy requires the intent of someone with the "seeds of the metallic arts". "Ah!" you say, "But what of that guy who stabbed Spook?" to which I will respond that the application of Hemalurgic intent could have easily come from Ruin, rather than anyone physically there...

I wondering if the Well can be used to affect your body at all since you're in God mode. Which raises an interesting question: if Rashek couldn't use the power to affect himself, does that mean he was genetically unaltered... as in... not adapted to surviving breathing in the ash, and eating rubbish food? Given he was a gold compounder, I hardly think that would be much of a problem, but it does make things interesting.

I noticed that the Hemalurgy page doesn't list "Between the Shoulder blades" as a possible bind point for Feru-Gold. The following WoB quote suggests this, however: The part I've highlighted implies that the linchpin spike can be the healing spike which, based on my understanding of Hemalurgy, implies that "Between the Shoulder blades" is a possible bind point for Feru-Gold. Does anyone want to amend this in the wiki (provided no one sees a flaw in my logic of course)?

He does call the one he's carrying the element, which suggests one, though he may have used one while he was there, or at some time in the past... like when he founded the Worldbringers and attuned himself to Feruchemy (Clarification: We don't have confirmation on that last bit. Just don't want to confuse anyone)

Really? I'd like to see that confirmation because I was under the impression that the well was only used twice... there's some serious awesome to be had from my MAG group if we have confirmation that there were other Welldrinkers. There's this: But "way before Alendi's time" could easily be... 1024 years or so. That comes down to the purpose of the well. The Lord Ruler, ironically, had one go with the well and was fulfilling the purpose of the Well. Basically the mists were there to snap mistings so that someone would snap with Bronze, find the well, take the power and use it to fix any problems with the world and Ruin's prison. The "apparently many times before" refers to the possibility of previous Slivers, though we don't know if there was more than one cycle before Rashek became Protector and did it badly. If Vin had left him alone I imagine he would have taken the power again and made the world even better as he had more experience with the power, and would have been able to create far smaller problems while solving the problems created previously, perhaps even correcting the mists to bring them back in line with what Preservation originally set up. In my opinion what happened in the books (Harmony) was the ideal solution, but there are other possible set ups that wouldn't have been terrible... if someone became Protector, and fixed the mists, and taught people about Ruin and Preservation rather than covering it up (as Rashek did) then it would be a very different world. Everyone would write on metal, and Copperminds wouldn't be considered reliable... the Protector could be chosen by the people to take the power every cycle, and each Protector could write their experiences out on Steel plates stored in the Well Chamber in order that each Protector could benefit from the experience of those before them. Things would be kept pretty much in balance, with the Protector using the power each cycle to fix whatever damage Ruin causes in the interim... yep, that would be pretty cool. (Suffice it to say that I would have run things differently in Rashek's shoes... I would conquer the world but I would probably be breeding Allomancy and Feruchemy into the population rather than breeding Feruchemy out, and letting Allomancy dwindle. The higher the percentage of Allomancers-Feruchemists there are in the population, the less dangerous such individuals are to the populace... "and when everyone is super... no one will be!" to quote Syndrome. With the increase in these arts, I'd be able to increase production of food (Pewter/Brute farming) and bring about other benefits to society. I'd institute education for all, and particularly higher learning, probably utilising the Worldbringers to bring about a kind of global enlightenment. Everyone will know that we're sitting on a contained Ruin, and about his ability to alter Copperminds and non-etched text, and that he needs to be managed every 1024 years, and if I'm not alive at the next cycle there will be a very strict selection process for the next Protector.)

We've had no indication he actively used the well to increase his power, and I got the impression from the OP that she thought the power of the well made him Mistborn. My argument against this is that both Vin and Rashek took the power of the well, both became Slivers. If something was going to happen automatically, I'd have imagined it would have happened then. Also note that Sazed observes that Rashek was equal in power to the original 9 Allomancers.

Honestly I see this as further evidence they formed. They form in clay, much like Atium forms at the center of a geode. Scattered around the chamber's nooks and crannies? Ingested by my MAG team? I have no answer to this question yet.