Questioner
If a Shardblade was put through Wayne's eye, would he able to use his ability to heal the wound?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, he should be able to heal that.
Found 642 entries in 0.136 seconds.
If a Shardblade was put through Wayne's eye, would he able to use his ability to heal the wound?
Yes, he should be able to heal that.
If someone on Scadrial were to get a tattoo, could they use the metal in the tattoo for the Metallic Arts?
Theoretically, yeah, that should work.
Then we also talked about, theorized about unkeyed metalminds - that is Identity-less ones that anybody can that has the power can tap.
Yeah.
We also were wondering is it like, we compared it to cryptography and encryption, stuff like that. Is it just that like, your Identity is sort of this unique encryption key.
And you need a key to you getting it. That's a valid line of theorizing. It is not exactly but it's close enough to be a good model.
And would an unkeyed metalmind theoretically be capable of storing a little more than a keyed one.
Oh, because of yeah.
Because it has to... Is it inherent to the Investiture or is it like an extra bit?
I'll RAFO that, mostly because I haven't considered that yet.
We have a Nicroburst Twinborn, who burns his old stored metal. What happens?
RAFO.
Could Feruchemical nicrosil be used to store other Invested abilities, such as a Returned Breath or the abilities of the Knights Radiant?
Yes, that's possible.
If we spike a Soulbearer with some Metallic ability, what happens to the Hemalurgical charge of the spike if the ability is stored completely in nicrosil at the time?
RAFO
Does the rate of Feruchemical storage of an attribute affect the total amount stored in a metalmind?
It was not intended to be.
Is it is even possible for a full Feruchemist Mistborn to be naturally born, or will the genes for the two interfere with one another too much?
It is possible, but highly unlikely.
Could a Brass twinborn compound to effectively be a human flamethrower? Also can a compounder store faster?
RAFO!
Can a coppermind be Awakened?
This is possible.
With the memories already in it?
This is going to be harder because those memories are going to be keyed to someone else, who, by nature, would not be the individual that it was made into. You would have to key those memories to who the metalmind was becoming. There would be an extra step in there; It wouldn't just naturally be that way. We're talking wild, wild, these are possible, but far out, stuff. Possible, but there is an extra step in there.
Could a double-nicrosil Twinborn compound Breath or Stormlight?
Uh, you’re getting a RAFO card on that. You're getting SUCH a RAFO card on that!
How can everyone tap nicrosil without being a nicrosil Ferring? Is that a Read And Find Out?
That's kind of a Read And Find Out.
I assume the next book, probably?
We'll dig into that.
If Miles stored a very tiny bit of health into a gold bead and then burned it, what would happen? Would he see goldshadows for a time and then obtain Compounded health when reaching the charged part of the bead? Would the bead be evenly charged and deliver only health, no gold shadows, but at a very low rate since only little health was loaded in it? Would the bead be evenly charged and deliver only health, but at a standard rate the user would always get when compounding?
He'd hack the system to deliver health for a short time instead of doing what it was supposed to do, but only until the small portion of gold Invested with his Investiture ran out.
If a metalmind is melted down and changes shape, does it still retain its power?
Yes, only by mixing it with other metals would the power be completely lost. Also if any pieces of the metalmind are lost, then some of the power will be lost (as it would be in the missing pieces).
Let's say we have a Twinborn aluminium/nicrosil and he tapped a lot of nicrosil, so much he started to emit mist and then burned aluminum. Would he destroy his own Investiture?
No.
1) What is the name for a Tineye/Archivist Twinborn?
2) How would copper compounding work for a double copper Twinborn? Would you relive the memories stored in the burned copperminds extra vividly?
1) I'm not ready to open the floodgates for giving names to each twinborn combination yet. So RAFO.
2) Another RAFO here. I'll delve into these ideas when/if I do this combination in a book series.
About Miles from Alloy of Law and his regenerative powers. If he was bisected down the middle and the halves were separated immediately before the healing process could begin, would the two halves each regrow into a whole Miles?
I heard this sort of situation arose with Hoid in Dragonsteel. He had his head cut off.
Good question. In all of the Cosmere's Shard-based magics, the greater portion of a bisected body regrows the lesser portion. If it were done EXACTLY halfway, the soul wold jump to one or the other randomly and that would regrow.
Amusingly, this first came up in 1999, six years before I got published. (I see someone else already mentioned the situation where I had to consider it.)
I'm just curious about Steelrunners. I have to ask, assuming they have physical limitations?
They do. We can't go Speed Force on this sort of thing. Wind resistance is still a thing, and stuff like that.
Bodily, their bodies--
Yeah. So, most magic in the cosmere will strengthen your body to let you use the magic to an extent, but-- Yeah, there's some pretty strong limitations.
If you had a steel/steel Twinborn racing a pewter/steel, would you say that the pure steel, or the pewter burning to enhance their body-- in a short race?
Who would win? Probably pewter then, at that point. I would have to have Peter-- I wouldn't do it myself, make Peter run the math, and see what he comes up with. Those are the sort of things I go to him with.
Could you Invest... Could you use a nicrosil metalmind to Invest the sort of Investiture enough that you could open a Perpendicularity up to the Cognitive Realm?
So, I'll just say it this way. Enough concentrated Investiture in one point is going to pierce the Realms, no matter what form it takes.
...So, it doesn't have to be a nicrosil metalmind.
No.
Okay... But it could be?
Yes. That is theoretically possible.
If one Feruchemist Keeper, a full Feruchemist, spiked another Feruchemist and got one Hemalurgic imbue from that person, would the first one now have enough of the second Keeper's Identity to use all of their metalminds? Or would it just be--
Ooh, that's a good one. I'm gonna say "yes," but it's a hesitant yes, because it's actually a question I haven't worked out yet. So you can have that as a yes, unless I hit it in the books and am looking at the notes and decide that it wouldn't work. I think that it would.
Could a bloodmaker heal a Shardblade wound?
Could a...whatmaker? Oh, could a bloodmaker heal a Shardblade wound? Um, yes, yes they could. So, what...so, yes, this is possible. (Long pause) Is it possible? I haven't actually thought about it. I have to work through the mechanics of the magics. Jury's out. Jury's out. I've gotta go and look at the actual mechanics, so I'm gonna "jury's out" on that one. That's a read and find out as, you would think I'd figured that one out, because I'm planning for the conflicts but I haven't, like... So what's happening with the healing on Roshar is that they are using Stormlight to bridge the severed soul and glue it back together, right. So, the magic of bloodmaking is different to an extent, in that it is prompting healing directly from the body, right... I'm gonna go with yes, until I look at it but, jury's out.
When we have an unkeyed metalmind and then we also store a keyed charge in it, which one would get tapped first?
I'll RAFO that.
Could someone Feruchemically storing connection in an Aonic nation become an Elantrian?
It's a little tougher than that, but it would be a start. And for some people, it would be enough.
Is it tougher because of some inherent difficultly with the selection process of Elantrians? Or because of something to do with using connection?
I'm getting a few too many 17th Shard style questions on the thread. I'm going to start curtailing them, as waking up to an hour' or two's worth of detailed cosmere questions each day is going to seriously impact my ability to actually write. So I'm going to liberally apply RAFO from here out.
So RAFO. :)
Someone asked how much Sazed "cheated" when it came to the Metalborn distribution.
That was met by more mysterious smiles and even a bit of chuckling.
If you were a Twinborn with both steel, would you be able to move faster than people could use atium to see what you were going to do?
So you couldn't move faster than their atium, but you could move potentially faster than their mind's ability to process what they're seeing. You might be able to-- but the atium does lend a certain ability of natural reaction, but you are still limited by your muscles, and things like that. So I think you could probably beat atium that way. That would be a valid way.
RAFO on bronze/copper twinborns because I want to leave myself room to create things.
Irich had that degenerative disease. If the Set still had Miles available, could he have cured Irich's disease by giving him Compounded health with a primer cube?
This requires more steps than it would appear, but this is the sort of thing people will trying very hard to figure out in coming novels.
Could an Augur Compound Health out of a goldmind if its proper owner messed with Identity in the right way?
This is possible
Can you burn or Feruchemically fill molten metal? Assuming, you know, that was something you wanted to do.
Yes, you should be able to but that would be very nasty.
Would it affect the Investiture?
Yeah, it would affect the Investiture.
Would it be possible for someone to store Stormlight in a nicrosil metalmind?
I will RAFO that for now, but you're thinking the way I want you to be thinking.
Can aluminum be used to destroy a Feruchemist's metalmind if the person burning aluminum were to cut his hand and place it on the metalmind?
He said that cutting the hand would probably not be enough, but that I was on the right track.
Does aluminum actually store Identity or is it more like a sink so you just dump it in and it poofs away.
I'll RAFO that for now. Sorry, I want to get into that eventually.
How would Nightblood work when drawn on Scadrial?
So, you would have to be actively burning a metal or tapping a metalmind, or Nightblood would eat you very quickly.
Would an Archivist who was sufficiently practiced be able to store memories at different strengths? (Keep a vague recollection of the memory as well as a stored copy which would degrade faster)
I don't think this is outside of reason for one to do, if they wanted to. I'm not sure if they would want to, but it's plausible.
So... CS question here, I'm seeing identity as essentially a 'encryption' on the metalmind - the spike has the decryption key to existing metalminds, but when you encrypt a new one you use your personal encryption key with the spike's hardware, so you still have compounding access to the metalminds even after removing the spike.
Is it possible for there to be a 'key collision' with Identity? Two people just randomly end up making compatible metalminds, because the pieces of their Identities that the magic looks like happen to be the same.
This would be about as likely as two unrelated people ending up with the exact same genetic sequence.
But, so far as I understand, that WOULD be possible.
So identical twins could share metalminds ?
:) RAFO.
If a Feruchemist using an aluminum metalmind stored their Identity to zero, then filled a coppermind with all of their knowledge, would another Feruchemist with an identity set to zero be able to access the first Feruchemist's coppermind?
I'm not going to tell you a definite yes or no, this is something that needs to be saved for future books, but you are thinking along the correct lines about how Identity works regarding Feruchemists.
Why is there such an imbalance between the amount of atium and the amount of lerasium in the world? Also, why are atium and lerasium very imbalanced in Allomantic power (Lerasium is far more useful than atium, really)?
There isn't. Leras is just spread out further. He is in the mists, in the Well, and in the lerasium. Ruin's power however is condensed strictly in atium.
Do Feruchemical metalminds experience physical change such as wear and tear, due to just being used as Feruchemical metalminds
Never thought of it.
Do you want to make up canon?
Sure...
Half-canon?
Let's say half-canon. Wear and tear being used as metalminds, not counting clasping them on and things like that. Simply tapping or taking out? I would say no, but I would really have to think about that. Are we losing any particles to the transfer, the change? I don't think you are, but I don't know. I'd have to really dig into the physics of that. I had not even considered of that. There are ramifications of things-- So I'm going to say no, half-canon.
Feruchemists that can store Investiture, would they be able to then use that to power Allomancy with say Stormlight?
RAFO.
Allomantic pewter strength can be stored in a metalmind, but it's probably easier to just Compound.
As far as the Lord Ruler goes, how did he use the Twinborn thing? Feruchemy and Allomancy?
What he had to figure out how to do is: Allomancy is powered by Spiritual power directly from the Shard of Adonalsium. Whereas Feruchemy is powered by your own Investiture and effort being transferred into the thing. What he needed to do was figure out a way to power Feruchemy with Allomantic power, right? You could have done the same thing by fueling it with the Dor, or with Stormlight, or another external. But he only had access to three magics. So what he had to do was figure out that.
So what he's doing is, he's basically taking metals, (since he's a Feruchemist and an allomancers), and he is burning metals that he has Invested himself, but then using... basically, switching it so he gets a burst of Allomantic power that is charged with a Feruchemical attribute. So it's powering Feruchemy with Allomancy by burning the metal that he himself has Invested.
So he was essentially putting stuff into the metal?
Basically, priming the pump. He puts it in with Feruchemy. Then he burns it with Allomancy. But that fuels Feruchemy with Allomancy, which allows him to draw on the powers of the Shards, rather than himself. So it's not really a perpetual motion machine, because he's drawing the power from someone else. But it's external, which allows him to break the rules of Feruchemy.
The big question I have is: that works in the book, because you can dig into the technicalities of the book. But that's not gonna work in the movie, right? That explanation right there, that's so many levels over the heads of the audience. So I have to figure out a way to not break the cosmere magic, but make it simpler to understand in the movie. Which is the big headache in writing the screenplay. That's probably the biggest challenge in the screenplay is to figure out how to make that all work.
Who names the planets? You've said once that "Scadrial" was the name of the planet as Ruin and Preservation knew it, but where'd they get that name? Do the Shardholders all get together and vote on it or something?
He said thay already had their names and that the all the planets existed before the shardholders got there.
You said that Preservation created the Terris Prophecies. Why couldn't Ruin see into the future and counter Preservation's plan? Is it because Ruin's intent has him focusing more on the present than the future, while Preservation (wanting to preserve forever) looks more into the future for that goal.
Looking into the future was not something Ruin was good at doing. That ability is confined to certain shards, and not others.
Why can Vin fuel Elend's atium-burning, even though Atium is Ruin's Body and Vin is using Preservation? Or did I misread that and he was just burning atium and had run out of everything else?
Yes, as has been pointed out:
A powerful peace swelled in Elend. His Allomancy flared bright, though he knew the metals inside of him should have burned away. Only atium remained, and the strange power did not—could not—give him this metal. But it didn’t matter. For a moment, he was embraced by something greater. He looked up, toward the sun. (From the text.)
As a note here, the powers granted by all of the metals—even the two divine ones—are not themselves of either Shard. They are simply tools. And so, it's possible that one COULD have found a way to reproduce an ability like atium's while using Preservation's power, but it wouldn't be as natural or as easy as using Preservation to fuel Allomancy.
The means of getting powers—Ruin stealing, Preservation gifting—are related to the Shards, but not the powers themselves.
Did Kelsier really hear Preservation's voice telling him to Survive when he was in the pits of Hathsin? Or was it Ruin pretending to be Preservation?
If it was Preservation, does that mean Kelsier died in the pits? Or were there special circumstances that allowed Kelsier to hear Preservation's voice without dying?
Special things often happen in the cosmere when someone is very close to death, or undergoing intense pain (either physical or emotional.) Barriers between the realms weaken.
I can confirm that the Kelsier who left the pits was not a Cognitive Shadow.
Could he have become a Shadow using the pits if he died immediately after snapping?
Possibly.
So what's up with the regeneration issue? With Shards? Because they only have so much power they can access at a certain time, but yet they still have more energy. So how does that work? Is it just they have so much power they can use at any given time?
What are you talking about? Like which shards?
Ruin and Preservation. Since we know the most about them.
Ruin and Preservation were a specific instance, because almost all their energy was thrown into resisting each other. Keep that in mind. Even after Preservation was only a shadow, basically all of it was "Let's keep Ruin from destroying the world." So they were polar opposites. Set in balance. But slightly unbalanced in a couple of ways, that eventually, that slight imbalance... They are a special case, because of that.
So then why are they hesitant to directly fuel Allomancy?
Why are they hesitant to? What do you mean by directly fuel Allomancy?
You mention in the Hero of Ages Q&A that they can directly fuel Allomancy, like Vin does with Elend, but it requires expending their energy in a way they are hesitant to do.
Because it imbalances them more. Does that make sense? Like, if you are putting your energy here, rather than fighting the other force, you give them an edge somewhere else by trying to gain an edge here. And you have to make sure that's really worth it. Imagine a chess game. Is it worth sacrificing my pawn here to expose myself over here?
The other lake in Alendi's bumps?
A manifestation of Ruin's gathered consciousness, much like the dark mists in book two. The lake was still around in Vin's era, but had been moved under ground. (Note that the Well is a very similar manifestation. You've also seen one other manifestation like this....)
Such as...this?
The "lake" was barely ten feet deep—more like a pool. Its water was a crystalline blue, and Raoden could see no inlets or outlets.
If that's what you're hinting at...I never thought of the connection before! I just kept thinking of Aether of Night, and never thought of this pool at all.
Both are accurate, but the first is what I meant, as most people here don't have access to Aether.
I'm also thinking that the Dor in Elantris is another Shard of Adonalsium. Certainly in the Elantris world, where the Dor came from is rather ambiguous, which I expected it would be. Of course, if other Shards of Adonalsium do exist, the Dor could have come from that source.
I will RAFO from here on the other Shards of Adonalsium, as it would be better for me not to give spoilers. Please feel free to speculate. Readers have met four shards other than Ruin and Preservation.
Have we met these four by name, or just by influence? I can't think of a name that would go with the one that the Elantris lake is a manifestation of.
Hoid could be one? I know nothing his purpose other than that he shows up in lots of different books, sometimes begging and sometimes telling stories. Since most of these series happen on different planets (though two of them may happen on the same planet as each other), I'm assuming he has mad planet-hopping skills.
...Nightblood...
Ookla, I'm going to be tight lipped on this, as I don't want to give things away for future books. But I'll tell you this:
You've interacted with two directly. One is a tough call. You've never met the Shard itself, but you've seen its power. The other one you have not met directly, but have seen its influence.
I thought Nightblood was explained sufficiently for my tastes in Warbreaker, so I doubt that it is a Shard, but I've been plenty wrong before. Also, I don't know if Hoid could even be a Shard. Certainly he has mean planet-hopping skills, but I don't know what purpose a celestial storyteller would have in this universe. He doesn't really have the same kind of power as Ruin or Preservation did, so normally I would rule him out right off the bat. But it is possible that these Shards come in many shapes, not just in the near-deific quantity Ruin or Preservation had. I think it's a bit of a stretch to say Hoid is a Shard... but, then again, I don't have any ideas for what those four other Shards are.
Maybe Hoid is just a traveler trying to find remnants of Adonalsium and stories about them. He doesn't need to be a shard, I suppose.
This is slightly a tangent, but here is a relevant chunk from the Warbreaker Annotations. As this won't be posted for months, I'll put it here as a sneak preview.
This whole scene came about because I wanted an interesting way to delve into the history. Siri needed to hear it, and I felt that many readers would want to know it. However, that threatened to put me into the realm of the dreaded info dump.
And so I brought in the big guns. This cameo is so obvious (or, at least, someday it will be) that I almost didn’t use the name Hoid for the character, as I felt it would be too obvious. The first draft had him using one of his other favorite pseudonyms. However, in the end, I decided that too many people would be confused (or, at least, even more confused) if I didn’t use the same name. So here it is. And if you have no idea what I’m talking about. . .well, let’s just say that there’s a lot more to this random appearance than you might think.
Brandon, I believe in one of Sazed's epigraphs, he actually called it "Adonasium" rather than what you are referring to here, which is "Adonalsium". I'm thinking that's just a typo, right?
I don't suppose you could tell us which book series of yours will tell us more about Adonalsium, would you? You know, just so us theorizers on the forum know when to properly theorize about these things...
Well, I guess this means that the proofreaders did not add the "L" when I marked the error on the manuscript.(sigh). Yes, the correct spelling is Adonalsium. I will try to get this fixed for the paperback, but I've been trying to get that blasted steel/iron error in the back of book one fixed for two years now. . .
If it helps, Sazed would probably under-pronounce the "L" as that letter, like in Tindwyl's name, is said very softly in Terris.
As for your other question, you will have to wait and see. Now, you could search my old books for clues, but I would caution against this. While there are hints in these, they are not yet canon. Just as I changed how things were presented in the Mistborn books during editing, I would have fixed a lot in these books during revision. Beyond that, reading them would give big spoilers for books yet to be released. White Sand, Dragonsteel, and Way of Kings in particular are going to be published some day for almost certain. (Though in very different forms). Aether of Nightshould be safe, as should Final Empire prime and Mistborn prime, though of those three, only Aether is worth reading, and then only barely. (It is still pretty bad).
How does compounding work in Mistborn?
I can explain this better in person because I know things that the characters in the book don’t. So, they haven’t worked a lot of this out. All the magic systems in my work are linked because the books all take place in the same universe. In Elantris, magic works by drawing symbols in the air. What actually happens is that when they draw a symbol, energy passes through it from another place (which is my get-out for the laws of thermodynamics) and the effect of that energy is moderated by the symbol. In one case it may become light, in another it may become fire. In Mistborn, the metals have a similar effect. The magic is not coming from the metal (even if some characters think it is). It is being drawn from the same place and moderated by the metal.
In the case of Feruchemy, no energy is being drawn from this other place. So, you spend a week sick and store up the ability to heal. It’s a balanced system, basically obeying the laws of thermodynamics. So, while it’s not real, it’s still rational.
In compounding, when you have the power of both Allomancy and Feruchemy, you draw power from the other place through the metal and it recognizes the power that is already stored—"Oh, this is healing, I know how to do that”—and so you get the power of Feruchemy but boosted by energy from the other place. This is how the Lord Ruler achieved immortality.
Before the Ascension, why did the mists appear just as the well was gaining power? Did they come out at other times?
This one is trickier. From what I got out of it, it's because the mists are a manifestation of Preservation, and physical manifestations of Preservation (including Allomancers) are intended to do two things - stop Ruin, and protect the Well of Ascension. Which are kind of the same thing. So, when the Well was dormant, the mists didn't really have much to do. The Deepness form of the mists is a result of the conscious part of Preservation freaking out and trying to produce a way to protect the well, mostly by producing more Allomancers. That's why the mists do all the funky things in the Well of Ascension and Hero of Ages - they're trying to produce more Allomancers to combat Ruin.
Chapter Seventy
The Reason for the Mistsickness
So, it finally comes out. I wonder at this numbers plot, as I think many readers will glaze over it and ignore it. I think others will read into it and figure out what it means very quickly, then feel that the reveal here isn't much of a revelation. Hopefully I'll get a majority in the middle who read the clues, don't know what they mean, but are happily surprised when it comes together. That's a difficult line to walk sometimes.
What is going on here is that the mists are awakening the Allomantic potential inside of people. It's very rough on a person for that to come out, and can cause death. Preservation set this all up before he gave his consciousness to imprison Ruin, so it's not a perfect system. It's like a machine left behind by its creator. The catalyst is the return of the power to the Well of Ascension. As soon as that power becomes full, it sets the mists to begin Snapping those who have the potential for Allomancy buried within them.
Many of these people won't be very strong Allomancers. Their abilities were buried too deeply to have come out without the mists' intervention. Others will have a more typical level of power; they might have Snapped earlier, had they gone through enough anguish to bring the power out.
My idea on this is that Allomantic potential is a little like a supersaturated solution. You can suspend a great deal of something like sugar in a liquid when it is hot, then cool it down and the sugar remains suspended. Drop one bit of sugar in there as a catalyst, however, and the rest will fall out as a precipitate.
Allomancy is the same. It's in there, but it takes a reaction—in this case, physical anguish—to trigger it and bring it out. That's because the Allomantic power comes from the extra bit of Preservation inside of humans, that same extra bit that gives us free will. This bit is trapped between the opposing forces of Preservation and Ruin, and to come out and allow it the power to access metals and draw forth energy, it needs to fight its way through the piece of Ruin that is also there inside.
As has been established, Ruin's control over creatures—and, indeed, an Allomancer's control over them—grows weaker when that creature is going through some extreme emotions. (Like the koloss blood frenzy.) This has to do with the relationship between the Cognitive Realm, the Physical Realm, and the Spiritual Realm—of which I don't have time to speak right now.
Suffice it to say that there are people who have Snapped because of intense joy or other emotions. It just doesn't happen as frequently and is more difficult to control.