Possible 5th heightening interaction

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

I know that the returned can't get drunk but they do still drink sometimes.  

My question is this.  

Do people of 5th heightening levels of investiture need to eat or drink to stay alive or do they do it for the social aspects?  They can't get sick or drunk... can they get dehydrated?  

I am sure most can see where this is going.  

Would being the 5th heightening allow someone aetherbound or a sandmaster to work more than a normal being?  If so how much more?  

If there is no danger of becoming dehydrated then is 5th heightening better than bendalloy compounding for things that are driven on hydration?  

[Treamayne]

17 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

can they get dehydrated? 

Probably. The Heightening is described as resistance to poisons, bacteria, etc. I doubt it would do anything to protect against starvation or dehydration. 

From the Ars Arcanum:

Spoiler

Agelessness:

At the fifth Heightening, an Awakener’s resistance to aging and disease reaches its maximum strength. These persons are immune to most toxins, including the effects of alcohol, and most physical ailments. (Such as headaches, diseases, and organ failure.) The person no longer ages, and becomes functionally immortal.

 

Edited May 3, 2023 by Treamayne
Source

[Trusk'our he/him]

15 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I know that the returned can't get drunk but they do still drink sometimes.  

My question is this.  

Do people of 5th heightening levels of investiture need to eat or drink to stay alive or do they do it for the social aspects?  They can't get sick or drunk... can they get dehydrated?  

I am sure most can see where this is going.  

Would being the 5th heightening allow someone aetherbound or a sandmaster to work more than a normal being?  If so how much more?  

If there is no danger of becoming dehydrated then is 5th heightening better than bendalloy compounding for things that are driven on hydration?  

Now, that would be pretty powerful. And unfortunately, simply for that reason, I don't think that it would work. At least, I don't think that it would be better than Bendalloy Compounding.

It could be that the 5th Heightening allows someone to subsist entirely on their Breath rather than on food and drink, but even if that is the case I don't think that a 5th Heightening Awakener would be immune to dehydration when using Aethers or Sandmastery; they'd get a stream of Investiture from their Breaths that would keep them from being dehydrated, but if they used that water to fuel their other Invested Arts they'd have an upper limit to the amount of water they could use from their Breaths at any given time. So Heightenings may be useful in those situations, but even if it does work you wouldn't be able to use an unlimited amount of water.

 

Edited May 3, 2023 by Trusk'our

[alder24]

14 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I know that the returned can't get drunk but they do still drink sometimes.  

My question is this.  

Do people of 5th heightening levels of investiture need to eat or drink to stay alive or do they do it for the social aspects?  They can't get sick or drunk... can they get dehydrated?  

I am sure most can see where this is going.  

Would being the 5th heightening allow someone aetherbound or a sandmaster to work more than a normal being?  If so how much more?  

If there is no danger of becoming dehydrated then is 5th heightening better than bendalloy compounding for things that are driven on hydration?  

Possible. But I don't think so. Returned are Cognitive Shadows, they died. That's why they don't need to eat or drink, because they're dead man walking. Like Kelsier, like Heralds, like Fused. They're closer to spren than to humans. Not because of 5th heightening.

Aetherbound with Breaths doesn't need water, he can use his Breaths to fuel his Aethers. But that's so wasteful, only doable in emergencies, when they have to choose between death or losing their Breaths. The same for a Sandmaster. Breaths would be a far better fuel than water, like TLM showed us, but they will still run out, and are hard to get (not as hard as Dor, but in large quantities it's quite expensive).

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

How long do you think a single breath would last for it?  A single breath feeds divine breath for a week.  Would a returned just drain their divine breath at a rate equal to what a single normal breath would normally last them?  

 

1 breath =  a week of water would still be pretty strong.  Not saying that is how it would work as this is all 100% speculation of course. 

 

[Trusk'our he/him]

3 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

How long do you think a single breath would last for it?  A single breath feeds divine breath for a week.  Would a returned just drain their divine breath at a rate equal to what a single normal breath would normally last them?  

 

1 breath =  a week of water would still be pretty strong.  Not saying that is how it would work as this is all 100% speculation of course. 

 

Well, a single Breath does actually seem to contain a decent amount of Investiture. You could probably fill most Gemhearts with a single Breath, and the average Nalthian has more Investiture than the average Scadrien- most of which have somewhere between 20-30% the necessary Investiture to become an Allomancer.

As a side note, this should also mean that the amount of Investiture you'd find in an Allomantic power would be only a few Breaths strong max in most cases (it may be more like one-Breath to one Allomancer's power, actually).

Quote

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/171/#e8138

Questioner

How many Breaths would it take to infuse a gemstone?

Brandon Sanderson

Gemstones would be not that hard to infuse with Breaths. Like, you can get one glowing pretty well with one Breath... Depends on the size of the gemstone, obviously.

Quote

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/100/#e3458

KingSloth

Doesn't all 'extra' investiture require a cracked soul? How are Nalthians born with extra breath, if so?

Brandon Sanderson

No. The Scadrians have extra investiture too, on a lesser scale.

Quote

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/270/#e7797

Brandon Sanderson

The Sliding Scale of Allomantic Potential

Noblemen, despite what Spook says in this chapter, are not immune to the mistsickness. The rumor Spook is referencing does have merit, however. You see, since the mists are Snapping people and awakening the Allomantic potential within them, it will affect far fewer noblemen than skaa. Why? Because a lot of the noblemen have already Snapped. They were beaten as children to bring out the powers.

However, that won't stop all of them from being affected by the mistsickness, because the mistsickness is also awakening Allomantic potential that would otherwise be too subtle to be brought out. Pretend there's a sliding scale of Allomantic potential. 100% means you're an Allomancer—in this series, only two people have hit 100%—Vin and Elend. Buried within a lot of people, however, is enough of a touch of Preservation's power to hit, say, 50% on the relative scale of Allomantic power. These people, when beaten and made to pass through something traumatic, awaken to their Allomantic abilities.

There are a lot of people out there, however, with something more like 20% to 30%. These are the people the mists are Snapping—since the mists are, themselves, partially the power of Preservation, they can touch people and increase their Allomantic potential slightly and then bring it to the forefront.

 

Edited May 4, 2023 by Trusk'our

[alder24]

14 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

How long do you think a single breath would last for it?  A single breath feeds divine breath for a week.  Would a returned just drain their divine breath at a rate equal to what a single normal breath would normally last them?  

1 breath =  a week of water would still be pretty strong.  Not saying that is how it would work as this is all 100% speculation of course. 

No, Returned would consume his Divine Breath on the 8th day. Fully. 

How much a single Breath is worth in investiture is another question. It's not about days in water or stuff like that. We don't know how much a single Breath is worth, Breath is a gaseous form of investiture like Mists or Stormlight, I personally think it holds more investiture than a normal Stormlight storing unit. Well, and the WoBs above confirmed that. 

And because Scadrial is a low investiture world and metalminds hold small amounts of investiture, a single Breath would be able to provide quite a lot of water.

[Trusk'our he/him]

1 minute ago, alder24 said:

How much a single Breath is worth in investiture is another question. It's not about days in water or stuff like that. We don't know how much a single Breath is worth, Breath is a gaseous form of investiture like Mists or Stormlight, I personally think it holds more investiture than a normal Stormlight storing unit. Well, and the WoBs above confirmed that. 

And because Scadrial is a low investiture world and metalminds hold small amounts of investiture, a single Breath would be able to provide quite a lot of water.

Yup, Breaths actually contain quite a bit of Investiture, comparatively speaking.

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

No, Returned would consume his Divine Breath on the 8th day. Fully. 

How much a single Breath is worth in investiture is another question. It's not about days in water or stuff like that. We don't know how much a single Breath is worth, Breath is a gaseous form of investiture like Mists or Stormlight, I personally think it holds more investiture than a normal Stormlight storing unit. Well, and the WoBs above confirmed that. 

And because Scadrial is a low investiture world and metalminds hold small amounts of investiture, a single Breath would be able to provide quite a lot of water.

 

1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

Yup, Breaths actually contain quite a bit of Investiture, comparatively speaking.

Now I need to branch out and ask another question regarding the mixing of Nalthis and the Aetherbound abilities.  

It appears that Twinsoul was capable of choosing to make parts of his map different shades of red.  All the way to nearly translucent.  

Can an Aetherbound awakener use breath to reduce risk of dying via dehydration... as well as use their aethers as a color source for awakening? 

Spoiler

We know that other Aethers produce black entities... and with black being the best color for awakening... 

I am pretty sure this would be a net loss of investiture to make the hack possible. I don't believe there is such thing as perpetual investiture.  This would, however, allow someone with certain aetherbound abilities to not need to hide any color with them.  

Imagine if Vasher had been Aetherbound to an aether that allows for creating something colored as well as having a few breaths. 

This would make certain colorless prisons pointless but it seems like a fun interaction. 

[Trusk'our he/him]

19 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

 

Now I need to branch out and ask another question regarding the mixing of Nalthis and the Aetherbound abilities.  

It appears that Twinsoul was capable of choosing to make parts of his map different shades of red.  All the way to nearly translucent.  

Can an Aetherbound awakener use breath to reduce risk of dying via dehydration... as well as use their aethers as a color source for awakening? 

  Hide contents

We know that other Aethers produce black entities... and with black being the best color for awakening... 

I am pretty sure this would be a net loss of investiture to make the hack possible. I don't believe there is such thing as perpetual investiture.  This would, however, allow someone with certain aetherbound abilities to not need to hide any color with them.  

Imagine if Vasher had been Aetherbound to an aether that allows for creating something colored as well as having a few breaths. 

This would make certain colorless prisons pointless but it seems like a fun interaction. 

I think that this might work, assuming that the Aether isn't counted as a living being. 

Another idea might be to ask whether you could Awaken Aether structures to permanently maintain them on worlds that don't have the Invested fields to hold them together. That might be interesting to see.

[alder24]

21 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Can an Aetherbound awakener use breath to reduce risk of dying via dehydration... as well as use their aethers as a color source for awakening? 

Use Breaths as use them to fuel his Aethers? Yes, but those Breaths would be lost. As if use heightenings effects? No, we've already established that they don't provide food/water for you.

For using Aethers as color source - maybe? It's mostly a physical thing, fueled by Investiture. Draining color out of roselite would be similar to draining color out of Rosharan gems - it would make it very hard for gems to hold investiture. In case of Aethers it might make it unable to feed on investiture, and therefore the Aether would break after draining (like TwinSoul removing his touch from Aethers he grows).

Spoiler

Questioner

What would happen if somebody used the color from a Stormlight-infused gem to create a BioChromatic entity?

Brandon Sanderson

So I just had this question actually and what we came up with was that would leave behind something that is like a cloudy quartz and is going to make it work not as well for holding Stormlight. That's our answer right now, I'm going to talk to my scientists and see what they think because draining the color from something doesn't just leave it white, or clear, it kind of ruins it, it's gray-ish, it's dun. It clouds. So I think it would ruin things for Stormlight.

Bands of Mourning release party (Jan. 25, 2016)

 

28 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I am pretty sure this would be a net loss of investiture to make the hack possible. I don't believe there is such thing as perpetual investiture.  This would, however, allow someone with certain aetherbound abilities to not need to hide any color with them.  

If you use Breaths to create Aethers to drain color to do Awakening, then you're wasting sooooo muuuuuuch Breaths that it's crazy. Take a few handkerchiefs with you instead.

29 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Imagine if Vasher had been Aetherbound to an aether that allows for creating something colored as well as having a few breaths. 

This would make certain colorless prisons pointless but it seems like a fun interaction. 

Well, that's one useful case. In most cases use water for Aethers and don't waste Breaths on it. 

6 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

I think that this might work, assuming that the Aether isn't counted as a living being. 

That's a very good point. This might be the case.

6 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Another idea might be to ask whether you could Awaken Aether structures to permanently maintain them on worlds that don't have the Invested fields to hold them together. That might be interesting to see.

If they were a living thing you could certainly Awaken this, and it would be easy. Cool and great idea! I love it.

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

23 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Use Breaths as use them to fuel his Aethers? Yes, but those Breaths would be lost. As if use heightenings effects? No, we've already established that they don't provide food/water for you.

For using Aethers as color source - maybe? It's mostly a physical thing, fueled by Investiture. Draining color out of roselite would be similar to draining color out of Rosharan gems - it would make it very hard for gems to hold investiture. In case of Aethers it might make it unable to feed on investiture, and therefore the Aether would break after draining (like TwinSoul removing his touch from Aethers he grows).

  Reveal hidden contents

Questioner

What would happen if somebody used the color from a Stormlight-infused gem to create a BioChromatic entity?

Brandon Sanderson

So I just had this question actually and what we came up with was that would leave behind something that is like a cloudy quartz and is going to make it work not as well for holding Stormlight. That's our answer right now, I'm going to talk to my scientists and see what they think because draining the color from something doesn't just leave it white, or clear, it kind of ruins it, it's gray-ish, it's dun. It clouds. So I think it would ruin things for Stormlight.

Bands of Mourning release party (Jan. 25, 2016)

 

If you use Breaths to create Aethers to drain color to do Awakening, then you're wasting sooooo muuuuuuch Breaths that it's crazy. Take a few handkerchiefs with you instead.

Well, that's one useful case. In most cases use water for Aethers and don't waste Breaths on it. 

That's a very good point. This might be the case.

If they were a living thing you could certainly Awaken this, and it would be easy. Cool and great idea! I love it.

Do you get to choose what you use for your aetherbinding?  Or does it simply feed off of what is there?  I imagine it is a pseudo hack to use dor for it as well? 

Either way.  The interaction I envision is simply using breath to pad yourself so that you don't die from dehydration... still use water as much as you can but lean on the breath to save yourself from running dry before danger level is low enough to drop the aether.  

As for color... if color + breath is needed to awaken you can use breath to do what it needs and use a bit of hydration to create the color you would need to awaken a thing.  

I don't think that the color of the roseite makes a difference in its effectiveness however this interaction is a big deal.  We know you can drain color from gems but color doesn't seem to matter for roseite as much as it does for gems... at least from what I have read so far.  

 

Gearing up for battle could be using hydration to create your suit of roseite armor... then awakening your clothing underneath for strength benefits draining the color directly from the roseite and then going forward allowing your hydration to be used first and if the fight continues tapping into your breaths afterwords.  

I think a single breath can likely power aether far longer than a days worth of water drinking.  Not only that but I don't think there would be a counting ticker. Some breaths are more than others.  I think your breaths would just become less and less invested until it goes to zero. I think the interaction would be more like a debit card taking what it needs from the lump sum until its over than an ATM withdrawal taking it out 20$ at a time even if you only need to spend 1.  

[alder24]

13 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Do you get to choose what you use for your aetherbinding?  Or does it simply feed off of what is there?  I imagine it is a pseudo hack to use dor for it as well? 

TwinSoul got to choose.

14 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Either way.  The interaction I envision is simply using breath to pad yourself so that you don't die from dehydration... still use water as much as you can but lean on the breath to save yourself from running dry before danger level is low enough to drop the aether.  

As I said before, Breaths won't save you from dehydration. Breaths don't provide you immunity to hunger and thirst, being a Cognitive Shadow does. You also can't use Breaths on yourself to "heal" dehydration - that's not how Endowment magic works. It won't work the way you propose.

16 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

As for color... if color + breath is needed to awaken you can use breath to do what it needs and use a bit of hydration to create the color you would need to awaken a thing.  

Yes, unless you're already severely dehydrated. That's the only smart way to keep Aetherbound in prison.

17 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I don't think that the color of the roseite makes a difference in its effectiveness however this interaction is a big deal.  We know you can drain color from gems but color doesn't seem to matter for roseite as much as it does for gems... at least from what I have read so far.  

It's pink. TwinSoul makes it more or less pink. It needs to be pink, it's in its name roselite. Color is a very important thing in Cosmere, and Awakener is changing something in an object's soul that drains it out of color. Draining roselite Aethere from color would very likely disconnect it from both Aetherbound and Prime Aether.

23 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I think a single breath can likely power aether far longer than a days worth of water drinking.  Not only that but I don't think there would be a counting ticker. Some breaths are more than others.  I think your breaths would just become less and less invested until it goes to zero. I think the interaction would be more like a debit card taking what it needs from the lump sum until its over than an ATM withdrawal taking it out 20$ at a time even if you only need to spend 1.  

Aetherbound drinks far more water than a normal person. I don't think a single Breath could replace days worth of Aetherbound drinking. It would do a lot, but maybe not that much. And it depends on what you're making with Aethers. Building a city model - yeah, that can last for days on a single Breath. Making a suit of Aether armor - that's far more thirsty boy, a Breath could power it for minutes/hour at most. But until we have units and numbers on investiture, that's just speculation.

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

TwinSoul got to choose.

As I said before, Breaths won't save you from dehydration. Breaths don't provide you immunity to hunger and thirst, being a Cognitive Shadow does. You also can't use Breaths on yourself to "heal" dehydration - that's not how Endowment magic works. It won't work the way you propose.

Yes, unless you're already severely dehydrated. That's the only smart way to keep Aetherbound in prison.

It's pink. TwinSoul makes it more or less pink. It needs to be pink, it's in its name roselite. Color is a very important thing in Cosmere, and Awakener is changing something in an object's soul that drains it out of color. Draining roselite Aethere from color would very likely disconnect it from both Aetherbound and Prime Aether.

Aetherbound drinks far more water than a normal person. I don't think a single Breath could replace days worth of Aetherbound drinking. It would do a lot, but maybe not that much. And it depends on what you're making with Aethers. Building a city model - yeah, that can last for days on a single Breath. Making a suit of Aether armor - that's far more thirsty boy, a Breath could power it for minutes/hour at most. But until we have units and numbers on investiture, that's just speculation.

Obviously I haven't made it all the way through to the suit of armor.  Just read that it can happen.  If it is drawing on water to aid in movement at all that is where I think the 2 systems would compliment one another.  Perhaps you could use the awakened clothing to help maneuverability more than powering it on water alone. 

The awakened items are net neutral and you always get your breaths back.  If you can use awakened anything to help drive your aethers to conserve water then it is a win win.  

As for color.  He is shown to be able to make some aspects of the aether darker than others and can choose that.  I am okay with it always being red.  I'm just saying it appears that he could draw more color out of it.  I don't know if darker roseite costs more water to produce than nearly clear roseite.  If it does then that is weaker. 

Spoiler

If you could drain midnight essence of its color and it is black then you would need less of that essence than roseite due to black being better for awakening than any other color.  A relatively small midnight essence creation could probably provide all of the color needed to fuel even powerful awakenings.  

 

All that said I know it would not be the most efficient ways of doing things... but how efficient is it to rely on purified dor either?  Obviously there are limits.  This is just a speculative combination that I think synergizes well both directions.  Being able to create the color needed to awaken things is a small thing but in terms of someone who wants to rely on the commodities of the world as little as possible... having a couple thousand breaths and the ability to be aetherbound could be used to compliment eachother for a good while.  

 

In other thought processes.  Would F gold healing the effects of dehydration be a substitution for bendalloy?  Or would it be like healing suffocation and burn through those stores way faster until you rehydrate? 

[alder24]

25 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Obviously I haven't made it all the way through to the suit of armor.  Just read that it can happen.  If it is drawing on water to aid in movement at all that is where I think the 2 systems would compliment one another.  Perhaps you could use the awakened clothing to help maneuverability more than powering it on water alone. 

The awakened items are net neutral and you always get your breaths back.  If you can use awakened anything to help drive your aethers to conserve water then it is a win win.  

Aetherbound has to be always connected to Aethers he's growing, otherwise they will die (or provide investiture on which Aethers can feed). That's what mainly drains the water. Is movement draining the water too? I have no idea.

28 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

In other thought processes.  Would F gold healing the effects of dehydration be a substitution for bendalloy?  Or would it be like healing suffocation and burn through those stores way faster until you rehydrate? 

To some degree - it would heal the damage done to your cells by dehydration, but as you run out of health you're still dehydrated and you will die. And if in the meantime Aether was constantly draining your water, then you have almost no water left in your body after you empty your goldmind, and you'll die instantly.

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Aetherbound has to be always connected to Aethers he's growing, otherwise they will die (or provide investiture on which Aethers can feed). That's what mainly drains the water. Is movement draining the water too? I have no idea.

To some degree - it would heal the damage done to your cells by dehydration, but as you run out of health you're still dehydrated and you will die. And if in the meantime Aether was constantly draining your water, then you have almost no water left in your body after you empty your goldmind, and you'll die instantly.

So it is a constant stream of investiture to maintain any aether.  

It isn't an "add water until you are holding a roseite knife and then use it for free until you don't need it".  It is constant water feeding from the time you create the knife until you let it go?  

Spoiler

It will be interesting to see how the midnight essence works with it.  If it is a constant feeding thing so long as you are mentally connected to it.  

I do also wonder how dense that can be.  A part of me is pictures thick ooze that can flow around anything like a liquid.  Another part of me pictures the ability to make it be dense enough to physically strike something else or block... or be used as a horse even.  

 

[alder24]

9 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

So it is a constant stream of investiture to maintain any aether.  

Or water, yes.

9 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

It isn't an "add water until you are holding a roseite knife and then use it for free until you don't need it".  It is constant water feeding from the time you create the knife until you let it go?  

I'm not sure if you're required to constantly feed it with water/investiture after it's shaped as you wanted, but you either need to maintain the physical contact with it, or provide outside source of investiture - so it suggests heavily that you need to constantly feed it with water/investiture to maintain its form.

11 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

 

  Hide contents

It will be interesting to see how the midnight essence works with it.  If it is a constant feeding thing so long as you are mentally connected to it.  

I do also wonder how dense that can be.  A part of me is pictures thick ooze that can flow around anything like a liquid.  Another part of me pictures the ability to make it be dense enough to physically strike something else or block... or be used as a horse even.  

 

TotES spoilers:

Spoiler

The same goes with Midnight Essence, you need to constantly feed it with water for it to be maintained. Or investiture.

Couldn't it open a book and turn pages? That might be dense enough to strike.