Swimmingly

I think they do have quantifiable amounts of power, given that Feruchemical nicrosil can store a thing called "Investiture"

Just cause their Shardpool's a certain colour doesn't mean that it'll leak into every aspect of their magic and power.

Pretty scary for an allomancer - they can just wipe out your metals with a touch. Doubly scary if they're using them Feruchemically - Investiture and Luck could be anything from annoying to terrifying, depending on how Brandon plays it. Triply scary if they're using them hemalurgically somehow - we have no idea. Quadruply scary if the "final metal" is just a reference to the mechanical metallic arts they're using, as they almost certainly are, which have effects we can't really predict at all.

Oh, I see. Here's a bad analogy to explain the way I'm seeing it now. There is a lake; this lake is a Shard's usable power, and it sits on the inside of a sphere, pooled in the bottom. You go down to the lake with a bucket, get some water, and soak someone unsuspecting / turn them into a crystal statue (this is special water). The water will then seep into the soil; given enough time, it will soak down the bottom of the sphere and rejoin the lake. With a big enough bucket, you could be considered to have taken a significant fraction of the lake - but when you throw it, it will still rejoin the larger lake eventually. Is that about right?

I think that this is more of an analogy, probably informed by Brandon's own experiences as a writer. Though the "snipping free a bud of their soul" is quite ominous, if not outright unnerving. Foreshadowing much?

INTERVIEW: May, 2010 Ancient 17th Shard Question and Answer (Paraphrased) CHAOS How long is the lifespan of an Inquisitor? BRANDON SANDERSON It depends on the powers they're given. Some burn up quickly, and others are extended. In general though they do tend to have slightly longer lives. Since Marsh has the missing bag of atiums he's going to be around for a while. Here it is; I guess the "some burn up quickly" was the only one to make an impression when I read it the first time.

Oh. I though that they had shorter lifespans, not longer?

They're very versatile colours. It fits boldness and assurance, but also opulence and wealth.

Thanks Aether. I can never remember that people don't take assurance when stating things as equivalent to citation and proof.

Hemalurgy does not have a standard effect on lifespan for the same reason that surgery does not have a standard risk on lifespan: There are many, many different ways it can effect you. The Steel Inquisitors are more or less a magical analogy to cyborg supersoldiers. They have these awesome powers now, but they're still partly human - and the addition of the powers might hurt them or it might help them. In their case, probably because they don't have any spikes bearing human attributes, the stress of extra bits tacked onto their spiritwebs wears out their bodies. With Kandra, they have been transformed with pure Shardic power into beings lacking human attributes; moreover, they can form and reform organs at will. With the human attribute spikes, their bodies react as they were designed to; they use the extra Shardic Investiture to become ageless.

We have WoB that becoming a Lerasium Savant is basically the same thing as Ascension - tearing your spiritweb wide open with the power of a shard. In other words, eat enough of Preservation's body, and you become a Shard or something close - beef that turns you into a bull.

Considering how Nightblood uses Breath, this analogy might be pretty close to the mark.

Or possibly at the people killing him with blood loss, because the knowledge they're looking for is a sacred part of Shin culture maybe - or his knowledge of it was what convinced his crew to call him "bad luck"

Sorry. I thought you meant the "requires Shardic Intervention" bit.

Why would you only give people that can naturally heal people devices to heal people with? It's like assuming that only doctors should be trained in first aid - the entire point is to let more people, not less, use it.

Maybe someone with a knack for intuiting proportions for metals, or understanding naturally the logic of Realmatics.

On the steel, pewter, duralumin thing, this a different; they draw the Investiture from Preservation directly, while Stormlight seems to be Investiture itself rather than a gate to it.

On the steel, pewter, duralumin thing, this a different; they draw the Investiture from Preservation directly, while Stormlight seems to be Investiture itself rather than a gate to it.

Use a Shardblade.

Any child can make a painting. However, the results will not necessarily be pretty. I assume it's the same with Hemalurgic creation; you can teach yourself with a LOT of trial and error - but it's patiently much easier to be told.

Myself, I think that Brandon likes superpower-like magic systems. Almost all superheros have these three things: - Glowy powers Because the more light it produces, the more powerful it is - Accelerated healing Even if not supernatural, heroes just heal from or ignore injuries after very little time, so they don't spend all their screentime hooked up to an IV with a cast on their everything. - Unrealistic aging The oldest indicator that something is more than human? Immortality, or something close.

So there are gay people, I just don't recognise them.

If your idea of entertainment is...unsettling, the first could be pretty freaky as well.

Brandon's not written a gay character before; I don't know how that relates to his religion, but if he can write a sympathetic, heroic atheist, then maybe he'll try for other nonstandard characters as well.

Oh, I see.