Tamriel Wolfsbaine Posted April 20, 2022 Report Share Posted April 20, 2022 If a leecher were to leech nightblood he would die. I want to expand on that thought and am curious where the bounds of leeching are set. How much does intent in the moment effect a leechers direction of what gets leeched. If a Returned were to get leeched I imagine it could be devastating to them. What if a Returned acquired A-Chromium though? Would they be able to safely leech others without leeching away their own divine breath? Kind of the same boat but what would happen if they ended up being able to burn aluminum? Would that destroy the divine breath? If a leecher was stuck in a puddle of stormlight and they burnt their metal, would it destroy the puddle by default or would they need to specifically focus on leeching from that space? The cube of harmonium seems ultra dangerous to cognitive shadows if it is charged with A-chromium or am I missing something about the nature of leeching? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quantus Posted April 20, 2022 Report Share Posted April 20, 2022 Short list of known effects: Chromium acts just like aluminum inside the body, causing any Allomancers touched by a Leecher to lose their metal reserves.[1] When burning away a person's metals, it feels like pulling power from the metal and returning it to an external source.[2] This power is similar to Nightblood and larkin.[3] When burning away a person's metals, non-Invested metals go before the Invested ones.[4] Only Allomantically relevant metals can be burned away.[5] The ability to burn the metal can be drained while leaving the metal.[2] A Leecher can also drain other forms of Investiture. They would be fairly effective at draining a person's Breath or Stormlight.[6] They could also Leech a Feruchemist who was tapping their metalmind.[7] They would be able to Leech from a Lifeless.[8] A Leecher could prevent a Shardbearer from summoning their blade,[9] and can prevent a weapon using Investiture from working.[2] If a Leecher touched Nightblood, they would die.[10] Metallic arts in opposition tip toward the stronger effect, and that appears to hold true instances where the form of Investiture doesnt give some specific situational advantage. Leeching feels like pulling power away and returning it to an external source, which implies to me that it gets channeled through the person like any other allomancy, leaving them open to Savantism dangers when used with Flairing, Duralumin, etc. All that to say they seem capable of the same general type of things as a Larkin and the Investiture-feeding part of Nightblood (but not his destroying in 3 realms side). Larkin will drain a fabrial but will not destroy the Spren, and since a Leecher only prevents a Shardbearer from summoning a blade rather than anything more permanent, I think a Leecher could not destroy a Spren/seon/cognitive shadow, though they might be able to destroy a spren's physical realm body (like a shardblade, Plate, or manifested fabrial). Leeching does not destroy Connections that we've seen. Given those two things I dont think they'd be able to actually destroy a Returned outright, but they could probably deplete the Returned's reserves and short-cut them to the end of the week feeding, which without a ready source (like a storm or maybe Mist) would amount to the same thing with extra steps. For a nicely Vague confirmation of the existence of limits: Quote coltonx9 Are there types of Investiture that the larkin can't consume? Brandon Sanderson Yes, I would say that there are, but it's going to depend on the state they're in. Pure Investiture, a larkin is always going to probably be able to grab, but lots of people can get pure Investiture. Kinetic Investiture they're are gonna have a good chance at being able to grab, but they can't get everything. Idaho Falls signing (Dec. 29, 2018) 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duxredux Posted April 20, 2022 Report Share Posted April 20, 2022 (edited) 18 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said: If a Returned were to get leeched I imagine it could be devastating to them. What if a Returned acquired A-Chromium though? Would they be able to safely leech others without leeching away their own divine breath? Kind of the same boat but what would happen if they ended up being able to burn aluminum? Would that destroy the divine breath? My guess is that someone using A-Chromium won't burn away any of their personal Investiture. We've seen Leechers using the Harmonium cube despite also being Coinshots and Bloodmakers in the case of Edwarn and Telsin Ladrian, so I don't think a Returned would have any trouble using A-Chromium. Quote If a leecher was stuck in a puddle of stormlight and they burnt their metal, would it destroy the puddle by default or would they need to specifically focus on leeching from that space? I think it depends on relative power levels of Investiture and what is the "default" of burning Chromium, which we've never someone train with. I'd guess it would just generally drain Investiture around you, and would have an overall general effect that wouldn't be as powerful as if you were concentrating on Leeching something specifically. For example, just burning Brass would create a bubble of generally soothed emotions around you, but you could focus your power on a specific person or emotion. Alternately, I imagine it like how Raoden wasn't able to heal the injured Roial because he could only use general healing Aons without specifying a target. We know that Leeching can work extremely quickly, but it might be a matter of strength of Investiture being leeched and the strength of the Leecher if they aren't specifically focusing on a target. Quote The cube of harmonium seems ultra dangerous to cognitive shadows if it is charged with A-chromium or am I missing something about the nature of leeching? This comes back to the overall strength of the Leecher and possibly the quality/quantity/state of the target Investiture. Brandon might have a chart of comparative Investiture strengths laying around, but until Khriss figures it out we probably won't see anything like it. We do know that there are limits to normally burned Chromium, for example it doesn't destroy the innate Investiture in people, objects, or souls, which is what Nightblood can do if someone draws him without another source of Investiture. Do keep in mind that even with Nightblood, Investiture can't be destroyed. A Leecher Savant might be able to do unusual things, but we won't know until we see them. Depending on how the Cognitive Shadow was made, I could see A-Chromium dispelling them briefly before they recoalesced, like how Kaladin stabbed a spren with the Sylblade which they later confirmed didn't destroy the spren as it later reformed, or how Kelsier in Secret History could get damaged by Ruin but over time his Cognitive self regained cohesion. Kelsier sustained by Preservation and a corrupted emotion spren likely have very different levels of Investiture, so even though Kelsier could survive Ruin mangling him, I'm not sure if an emotion spren could handle a Shard's attack. Chromium could conceivably have given either Kelsier the Shade or a spren a very bad day, but I don't think it would kill them. Edited April 20, 2022 by Duxredux clarity 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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