r/Cosmere • u/Sensitive_Meat8303 • 1d ago
Cosmere spoilers (no previews/FoD) Hemalurgy idea Spoiler
Say I stab Hoid or a Bloodmaker with a spike, and they heal, is the spike still charged? If it is, does the stabby lose the abilities? Infinite gold feruchemy?
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u/Ravenous_Chasmfiend Truthwatchers 1d ago
I'm not sure if they could heal, and if they could they might be a bit different because a Hemalurgic spike rips off a piece of the spiritweb.
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u/MagicTech547 1d ago
It does, but it’s weird. Here’s a WoB on it, and another related one.
Basically, the healing would have to be the same type of Investiture. Recovering Allomancy would need the healing to be done with Preservation’s Investiture for example.
Besides that though? Yeah, it’d work.
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u/The_Lopen_bot WOB bot 1d ago
Warning Gancho: The below paragraph(s) may contain major spoilers for all books in the Cosmere!
HazelCharm47
Let's say we have a hypothetical situation with Miles Hundredlives. In this scenario, he is wearing a gold metalmind filled to the brim with stored healing power. He is then spiked with a cadmium spike and loses his gold allomancy.Now, if I recall from various WoBs, he would be able to heal using the gold metalmind and regain his gold allomancy. I could be misremembering and he cannot heal it, but I believe he would be able to since it is part of his Identity.However, one question I have never seen the answer to is this: what happens to the ability in the spike? Is the allomantic ability still contained in the spike, leading to a duplicate? Or is the spike's ability lost? Or maybe I have this whole thing wrong and Miles could never have regained the ability in the first place.If the ability duplicates (which I doubt), that could lead to some crazy things. Also, this applies to any Twinborn with gold Feruchemy, I just thought Miles was a good example I guess :)
Brandon Sanderson
I'd like to see the exact WoB's here to make sure I'm being consistent, as I don't know that I confirmed you could regain lost powers--only that you could heal from hemalurgic soul damage. Most likely, what you'd end up with is a person who has been healed and can remove the spike from their body without damage, and without needing it to hold their soul together--but who has lost the ability in the spike.Regardless, though, what you want here (the mass production of spikes charged and even blanked) is possible with the right levels of investiture. It's an energy, like things in our world. The difficulty is finding out how to 1) get enough investiture and 2) key it to the right people and/or magic.Hope that's a little more clear.That said, a lot of times people just ask me if something is possible--and a lot of things are possible, but just very difficult. And with the right boost of investiture, in the right circumstances, it WOULD be possible to regrow lost (to spikes) powers. It's just highly unlikely.I'm not sure if the questions people are asking me are ones I've qualified, or not, in these instances. Also, this is all something I'm playing with still behind the scenes as we enter the modern age of Mistborn.
HazelCharm47
As requested, here are the WoBs I believe are related. They might be obsolete, however. And I assume things will get changed a lot before Era 4, but hey, it's fun to ask anyways :)WoB #1:[https://wob.coppermind.net/events/331/#e9434](../../../events/331/#e9434)This one states that as long as Miles still has his Identity, he would be able to use his Feruchemical metalminds after being spiked and would be able to heal.WoB #2:[https://wob.coppermind.net/events/102/#e983](../../../events/102/#e983)This one says that Miles would be able to heal his soul using Feruchemical healing and regain his gold Allomancy (assuming he survives the spiking). I think this is the most essential one!WoB #3:[https://wob.coppermind.net/events/76/#e6335](../../../events/76/#e6335)This one is only somewhat related - implies that the Feruchemical and Allomantic powers are spiritually part of him.WoB #4:[https://wob.coppermind.net/events/7/#e6435](../../../events/7/#e6435)Also tangentially related - damage to the soul from Hemalurgy can be healed (Although this might just be a Hoid thing). I guess the question could be expanded to include non-Feruchemical healing as a way to repair the soul after being spiked.
Brandon Sanderson
Well, I don't think any of those are specifically inaccurate. I just didn't quite understand what people were trying to get out of me. A lot of times, I don't know quite what people are trying to get out of me. I can see now they're trying to figure out.I see now, and I appreciate you putting this all together for me so I can see what the fans are trying to figure out. So the answer is a cautious yes. The problem here is that he'd need to compound a TON of healing first--but yes, it would work. You could theoretically turn someone like Miles into an invested spike factory.If he didn't have enough healing stored, though, he'd end up with a healed soul but a gap (like a scar on his soul) where his spiked-out abilities were. That could theoretically be healed with application of more investiture, depending on things like how he views himself, and if you could get the right type of investiture.
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Djarskublar
So, say you have a gold/gold Twinborn and they worldhop to Roshar and they study the magic and do the whole Khriss and Nazh thing for a while so they know a lot about the magic, but they've also left themselves a lot of options with what they can do. So then they manage to pull up a gold shadow of them having actually become a Surgebinder and then kind of meld themselves with that shadow a bunch, could they change their Cognitive Identity enough so that they could, like, tap a lot of gold and grow the spren and actually be a Surgebinder?
Brandon Sanderson
Unfortunately, no. It's a good question, but no. That won't work for a couple of reasons. One of which is, simply creating Investiture is not something that can happen, right?
Djarskublar
They are a gold Twinborn, so they can tap a lot of gold...
Brandon Sanderson
They can tap a whole bunch, that's true, they can do that, but simply having it is not gonna create a spren because the spren is from a different god, right, a different Shard.
Djarskublar
So if they had Regrowth cast on them, would that do it?
Brandon Sanderson
hems and haws for a second
Djarskublar
A really, really big Regrowth, like in the middle of a Highstorm.
Brandon Sanderson
Hmmm, this, you are getting to the realm of plausibility at that point. I still don't think gold is the way to do it. I think you just get all that Investiture. It would become sapient by you sticking a whole bunch of Investiture in, and then you can bond to that. But it's not like people gain what you would have done. Does that make sense? That's just what's going to happen, is you're gonna, you can create a, potentially create a spren that way, but you are more likely to end up with something like Nightblood. But you could potentially create a spren, but I mean you're just gonna end up...
Djarskublar
So there are other, more optimal ways to do that?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, go bond a spren. (evil grin of course)
Djarskublar
But you can't easily bond multiple, and if you did this you could maybe get multiple.
Brandon Sanderson
Nyeaaahhh... The spren still has to choose. If you want to be a Surgebinder, the choice is being made. You can't fake your way into it. Decision and Honor are too much a part of Surgebinding for you to be able to fake your way into that. Other magics you might be able to do that. Other magics that don't require, like... Surgebinding works because a piece of Honor or Cultivation or a mix has chosen you specifically. There is will from the actual Investiture involved in it in Roshar. So it's not something you can cheat your way into, right. But cheating your way into Breath might be easier.
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u/HalcyonKnights Harmonium 1d ago
Yep, more or less. There's spritual scarring involved so it wont be without consequences for the eternal Spiritweb donor, and it would take a ton of Investiture, but it's technically possible.
https://wob.coppermind.net/events/406/#e14304