PorridgeBrick

Sorry, I'm definitely not buying the size of the Trolloss here. That's only a four foot gain. That's nothing, when humans gain nearly one and a half times their height, which would be another 19 feet for a trolloss, and the trolloss have many more spikes than them. Each spike means more power, more height, more growth. 20 feet at least.

I think you're underestimating the size of a trolloss– someone above did the scaling and came up with something 20-22 feet tall. But still, it's a mouse compared to a chasmfiend.

Edit: Ninja'd.

I think the main difference in strength relates to how quickly you can store - a weak Ferring would only be able to fill a metalmind at such and such speed, while a strong one could fill it much faster.

 

So a ridiculously strong Feruchemist could store almost all the way to absolute zero of their trait? That would be pretty cool, actually. I can imagine TLR floating in the sky with his near-zero mass, or freezing everything at a touch with near-zero temperature (while tapping lots of health to stay alive). Storing all his youth for instant suicide, or storing 100% of his memories so he doesn't remember how to tap them again .

I'm not quite clear on how nicrosil freuchemy would really work but yet I'm most intrigued by the prospect of a double nicrosil compounder...

 

But what do you do with all that Investiture? In the MAG, Nicrosil Investiture is used to fuel other magics– Allomancy, other Feruchemical metals, etc. Without any other magic systems, all a Nicrosil Compounder has to fuel is Allomantic nicrosil, which shouldn't really have any need for extra power– it's pretty much an on-off metal. You might get some effects from just passively holding that Investiture, but you can't actually use it.

There's also the question of what strength in feruchemy even means. Feruchemy automatically has perfect storage, and it automatically can be tapped to any degree you want. Where's the room for individual variation there? (The question applies to how Hemalurgic Decay works with feruchemy, too.)

Your fungicides and shardforks and featherspears and various painful pointy things are useless against the Bricks of Porridge! Cut us, and we reform! Try to poison us, and we will happily eat it all with no harmful effects! Stab us, and we devour you! And yes, it's we now– I have summoned my entire family of PorridgeBricks, from all their unexpected hiding spots inside bricks, the Spanish Inquisition, and Voidmobiles! Watch your backs, your feets, your fronts, your everythings, because there's always a PorridgeBrick lurking precisely where it is most unexpected!

Tonight, my friends, we feast on feathers and fanfics! And kiwifruits, can't forget the kiwifruits. Mmmm. Tasty.

 

And where did you get this awesomeness? Did you dastardly devils dare to steal from Lift?

Hmm. That is a useful ability. Explodiness does not harm us, as we can simply reform. But the enemy.... Mwahaha! You have handed us the best possible weapon! Do not underestimate the PorridgeBrick empire! (Yes, empire. We grow fast.)

Farming--> wheat-->porridge

 

BOOM

I just soulcast the bricks, and presto!

new porridge bricks.

You cant beat the sole Featherfarmer at his job

 

I'm confused here. You're being threatened by a clan of malevolent masses of porridge, and so... make more masses of porridge? That is not how you defeat PorridgeBricks. We will gladly welcome our new brethren that you have created.

Your fungicides and shardforks and featherspears and various painful pointy things are useless against the Bricks of Porridge! Cut us, and we reform! Try to poison us, and we will happily eat it all with no harmful effects! Stab us, and we devour you! And yes, it's we now– I have summoned my entire family of PorridgeBricks, from all their unexpected hiding spots inside bricks, the Spanish Inquisition, and Voidmobiles! Watch your backs, your feets, your fronts, your everythings, because there's always a PorridgeBrick lurking precisely where it is most unexpected!

Tonight, my friends, we feast on feathers and fanfics! And kiwifruits, can't forget the kiwifruits. Mmmm. Tasty.

Easier to just shoot them with the coin, really. Any punches would have to come directly from your center of mass, as that's how Allomantic pushes works.

Wait... Is Shroom gaining followers off of Feather's thread?

For exactly as long as he has a steady supply of kiwifruits, yes.

Calling a noble Kiwi a, descendent of convicts, Australian is the most heinous insult imaginable. For that Feather you have earned my eternal pity for such a foolish error. Calling on all one other Kiwi ( pretty sure there is another Kiwi somewhere on this site ) we must defend our brother/sister from this pitiful room of feathers she calls a cult.

Mmm. Kiwis. Kiwifruits are good. Therefore, Kiwis are good. Must be on side of good.

Fellow something-or-others, I will join you in your brave rebellion against the be-feathered hordes! I will defend our poor Eumycotic friend from the evil attacks of vaguely defined evil persons! I will eat lots of kiwifruits!

...

Wait, you do pay people in kiwifruits right? If you don't, do. I require kiwifruits.

Actually, Tarachin is a game that requires a huge field, with people who literally have the strength of gods throwing the balls. Something tells me that's not it. However, it's almost definitely from Nalthis.

Normal people play it too, on a much smaller scale. They just adapted it for Returned strength in the case of Lightsong's game.

Really? I always thought he was using the missing honorblade... I mean, we've had a POV right before mentioning how the blade has gone missing and how it allowed Progression.... Do we know for a fact it was fabrial?

Yes, we do. Nalan says it's a fabrial, and we see him tucking something tiny into his pocket. Honorblades don't need to be stored in pockets, and are most likely much larger than what could fit in one.

Well, Suse is a Returned, so it seems to work the same as normal.

The Shaod, though, is directly related to how Aon Dor works, that though doesn't exclude it from fitting the pattern to some extent. Shaod comes at night, usually to people that show devotion to a particular area in their life. Like Galladeon to his farm, Raoden to his people, or Karata to her daughter and husband (and even Adien to his numbers/figures). All of these people showed an intent that is arguably in-line to the local way to attract the Shaod, and have the genetics to do it too (they all of have some Aonic blood). They also possess the third requirement, that is, they show remarkable devotion to something...and so become Elantrians (as long as certain symbols work).

Oh, sorry, I should have specified what I was replying to there. I was contesting TheBlackReaper's claim that the Shaod is an entity created by Devotion there. I certainly agree that the Shaod candidates for Snapping, since it, regardless of its origins, is still an example of foreign Investiture being received by a magic user.

Interesting thoughts on Snapping aligning with Shardic Intent. It sounds very plausible, even without full evidence.

BRANDON SANDERSON (PARAPHRASED)

The Shaod is an effect of Elantris.

From the WoR back cover:

It is the nature of the magic. A broken soul has cracks into which something else can be fit. Surgebindings, the powers of creation themselves. They can brace a broken soul; but they can also widen its fissures.

And another WoB on the subject:

KCHAN

How does Snapping work after Sazed changed it? If you don't want to reveal it all right now, are there any hints you can give us?

BRANDON SANDERSON

He couldn't get rid of this entirely. I don't want to spoil things, but Snapping was built into Allomancy primarily because of larger-scale magical issues. This is getting deep into the issue, but it has to do with a person's spiritual makeup and a 'wounded' spirit being easier to fill with something else, kind of like a cut would let something into the bloodstream. Sazed made this threshold on Scadrial much easier to obtain.

Third WoB because I'm crazy like that.

Q: What other magic systems in the Cosmere have that same kind of, "If you use it a lot it gets better?"

A: It is a little bit more like wedging open cracks in the soul by letting the Investiture come in, and it can open the cracks more.

Q: Are there other magic systems like that?

A: Yes.

Q: Will we see those any time soon?

A: Maybe...RAFO.

Anyways, it seems fairly conclusive that accepting foreign Investiture requires stress on the soul so it can "fit into the cracks". With Hemalurgy, this happens forcefully, with the Spike ripping open a hole in the soul to fit the Spiritweb fragment in (as an aside, this is likely how the flaw works– due to Hemalurgic decay, the Investiture isn't enough to fill the hole completely, so there's still a chink left where the foreign Investiture of a Soother/Rioter can get in and reak havoc). Feruchemy doesn't use much or any foreign Investiture, so Snapping is either extremely minor or nonexistent. Awakeners, I think, are Snapped from birth– their souls are already fragmented, ready to detach or fit in more. Dakhor pretty clearly has a lot of trauma involved. Forgers never actually take in Investiture, as the symbols are the actual conduits, so no Snapping is needed there. And Elantrians probably Snap, since the Shaod concentrates so much power into them (though pre-Elantris, with much weaker, unfocused power, the Snapping would be so minimal as to be unnoticeable).

It's possible that it's just something that can happen when you stress the Surges oddly, breaking down barriers. I wouldn't be surprised if seeing into the cognitive occasionally is an effect of bonding with a Cognitive being that's used you as leverage to enter the Physical; when you pull yourself up, you push what you hold down. I think, as a consequence, all Surgebinders are a little in the Cognitive, and might glimpse it occasionally, even if they can't use it for anything useful.

I'm not sure about the anything useful bit– if all it requires is Surge use, then it could probably be trained to get it consistently. There's probably something useful you can do by mentally entering the Cognitive, even without bodily being there: at the very least, communicating with spren to some extent.

We only know eight of the 'core shardworlds', as far as I'm aware. It's entirely possible Sixth could take place on one of the remaining two core shardworlds, in the same way that TES took place on Sel.

 

But he brainstormed the magic system for it during the Writing Excuses episode too. All the core Shardworlds must have established magic systems by this point. It only worked for TES because Sel's magic is regionally restricted, something he's not exactly going to repeat again.

Yes, this is very likely. And that higher connection with Shadesmar also shows in how they can see spren travelling to a spot even before they would appear to a human. It probably is how they can bond spren, as well.

Also, remember that we almost have no information on the planet of Sixth of the Dusk. For all we know, there might be a Shard there. On Threnody, on the other hand (the planet of Silence), we have confirmation that there are no Shards.

 

There are almost certainly none, however, seeing as it's all something he brainstormed pretty recently in a Writing Excuses episode, and I doubt there are any Shards left unplanned by that point. And he's also said there are only ten core Shardworlds, which again Sixth of the Dusk would not be part of.

OH YES! Where is Feather? I expected her to be here right after me.

FeatherWriter is a huge Renarin fan. She writes a bunch of fanfiction or something and is shipping ShaNarin

Not anymore after WoR, actually. She's shipping Kalarin and Kadolin now.

All we have of it is the sample chapter. There's also a Writing Excuses episode where it's actually brainstormed iirc, which is where the aquatic parasites info comes from.

There's actually precedent for worlds without shards having complex magic systems based on internal parasites. Sixth of the Dusk has the same sort of thing, with birds ingesting aquatic parasites and gaining powers varying from an anti-mind-reading cloud (which, now that I think about it, is very much like copperclouds, and may be identical Realmatically) to visions of possible future deaths, depending on one's actions (which, even more interestingly, is rather like Electrum. I might have to think about this more). It's also pretty likely that the rest of the fauna's strange powers come from the same parasitic sources, and from that the possibility that humans themselves may have interactions with the parasites. If so, then that's pretty much the exact same as the Silence Divine: contract parasite -> magic powers.