Corax

Hi, just de-lurking to mention something that occurred to me. Apologies if someone has already discussed this. So... Is it just me, or do the remains of "domes" really seem like the remnants of enormous speed bubbles subjected to years and years of crem? Okay, going back to lurking now.

I like to imagine once souls hit the Beyond, they can reincarnate. That way I can mentally unkill anyone whose death I want to be in denial about. (Warbreaker spoiler) I am certain this isn't what Brandon has in mind, but it's fun for me nonetheless.

A small thing; it's the Dysian Aimians (the Sleepless) that are composed of Cremlings. Siah Aimians are different, like Axies. ETA: as for orange blood, the above linked article has this to say:

I'm not expressing myself well, but I guess it doesn't matter. I'm sorry for disagreeing. I didn't mean to irk anyone. I apologize.

I think it would be entirely doable, depending on how you mount the blade. But I feel like I'm going around in circles here. (PS: I hope I don't come off as argumentative, I'm just musing on this line of thought and I don't mean to antagonize anyone.)

@Calderis I agree that you would need a very special tool to cut them.

On a quick whim I twittered a tweet at The Great and Mighty Peter: Here's a link to the tweet.

Not necessarily. It just means that he was a guy in posession of an Honorblade.

Pretty sure I'd sunburn either way, but at least Darkside would be easier on the eyes. And the biology would make for amazing study. (I'm a big zoology enthusiast). At least Dayside culture in the graphic novel is waaaaay better than in the prose. If I never see another "treat women like crem because GRITTY REALISM" again it'll be too soon. (Realized the colloquialism might be odd for non-native English-speakers. It means I abhor that trope and never ever want to read more of it.)

That's a good observation, I think. Spren are named by humans, and we are super prone to conflating correlation with causation. That being said, musicspren seem fairly well known to our viewpoint characters, music being a traditional feminine talent in Vorin culture. And simply being viewed as musicspren, written about as musicspren... I think that would influence their intent (for lack of a better word). At least to a small extent. Spren are weird. Cool. But weird.

See, I imagine the blade as being stationary in this particular instance, and the gem as the object you're moving. Chips still have to be well-cut to hold stormlight. I'm also thinking of this exchange: MS-07B-3 So what you're telling me is that not only my first edition Words of Radiance, but also my first edition Way of Kings are Dragonsteel guaranteed to be worth at least a sapphire broam in ten years time. Peter Ahlstrom I wouldn’t go so far as that! Looks like 2-carat cut sapphires are going for about $2000. They printed tens of thousands of copies of Way of Kings. They’re not that rare. MS-07B-3 Ah, so is that the Canon size of the gem in a broam? Peter Ahlstrom Yes. 2 carats. RShara Oh, I've been curious about this for a long time. One of my hobbies is working with gemstones, so knowing the sizes (and cuts, because of how light is affected by the cut) of the gemstones in spheres and Soulcasters would be wonderful! PeterAhlstrom I'm not sure about the cuts, but broams are 2 carats and the other sizes are proportional to their value. RShara Thank you, that helps a lot! would be happy to offer input on cuts, should that ever be wanted Peter Ahlstrom The canonization of the cuts is being worked on, just not by me. Argent This is great to know, thanks! One last clarification though: is this proportionality linear? In other words: * Since there are 4 marks per broam, does that make marks 0.5 carats each? * Since there are 5 chips per mark, does that make chips 0.1 carats each? Or is there some wonky formula with diminishing returns? Peter Ahlstrom Yeah, that's it. Phantine Just to clarify, as a jeweler I think those numbers might be a bit on the small side. A 2 carat sapphire (assuming a standard well proportioned round cut) is going to be about 8 millimeters in diameter. A 1 ct sapphire is going to be around 5 mm ish. A 0.1 carat sapphire would be really tiny. Like, about 1 mm in diameter ish? Depends heavily on how shallow the cut is. It just seems way too tiny (and imagine the poor high-precision lapidarists working on making pennies - diamonds require specialized cutting equipment because they're WAY harder than anything else) Peter Ahlstrom Those sizes are pretty much right. source

For what it's worth, I imagine them as being mostly like honeycreepers or birds of paradise. Some are showy and some are less so, but they like remote tropical islands.

Yup. Honestly that's where my biggest doubt lies. It's easy to hide a Shardblade, except for when you're actually using it. That being said, a bulky super tool would still be superior to no super tool. And the more I think about it, the more I suspect Shardblades (say, fixed onto a table like you might a saw or laser-cutter) are the secret to how chip-sized gems are cut in spite of their otherwise prohibitively small size.

Brandon has actually answered this, and it's to do with the fact that the spren based what they were doing on the Honorblades. Magically enforced thematics, if you will. I agree with @ReaderAt2046 that it's implied that there should be far more Blades in existence than modern Rosharans are aware of.

If it's modern Dalinar, I think Raodin would admire what he is trying to build, and I think Dalinar would admire Raodin's determined optimism and nobility. Past-Dalinar, though, would have seen Raodin as weak and Raodin would have seen Past-Dalinar as unpredictable and dangerous. Siri and Marasi

My take on it is that it's potentially an example of why surgebinding can be so dangerous. Whether it was Heralds or Radiants, though, I can't quite guess.

I'm not saying it's the only option. It's a top-of-my head musing. The point is that the shards are extremely useful tools that could be put, as Dalinar notes, to many uses. If I were, say, a tenner in Alethkar, and I had a Shardblade in my possession, I would not want to use it for war. They're priceless, you don't sell them. I would be a terrible fighter and moreover at least half of all Alethi would never be considered worthy/capable Shardbearers simply because of their sex. So yes. I would keep the thing that is essentially impossible to sell and use it in some other way if I could.

Yes. I imagine plenty of these completely hypothetical people are about the level of business owners and tenners. Just because you could engage in social climbing with your super handy, priceless business tool doesn't mean you want to. I wouldn't want to, if it were me. Most people aren't warriors and don't want to be. Even in Alethkar.

Of course he's just wondering, that's obvious. But often Brandon's characters wonder about things that are meaningful as foreshadowing. It is possible that this is something that just crosses his mind and means nothing. Or it just demonstrates how he is growing as a person and beginning to think of more than war and conquest. It's also possible that it hints at things to come. My personal guess, if it is foreshadowing, is that perhaps there are far more shardblades around that are being used for mundane purposes like stonemasonry, precision gem-cutting, etc. I'd imagine that the common people who have them and use them like that would keep it under wraps. Maybe go so far as to employ those darkeye drops. Not everyone's dream is to be a lighteyed warrior. I bet more people would be interested in keeping shards a secret part of a successful business. (And yes this is baseless speculation... But my point is that there are things that could be implied by a simple passing thought.)

Probably should spoiler-hide the non-Mistborn instances, @Bigmikey357

I'm not sure I agree with you @Calderis but it's certainly an interesting way to look at it. I definitely like the idea of Ryshadium being sapient enough to attract spren! I sort of hope you're right.

Thank you, @Calderis, that is interesting. Especially since I would have expected Siah Aimians and maybe even Natan people of having blood that was bluish, if anything. But, isn't the main difference between Theoryland and Arcanum that Dragonsteel peeps have gone through and cleaned up some answers? It seems possible that the theoryland answer may have been accidentally inaccurate. Either way, thanks for the reference!

Greatshells and skyeels have a symbiosis with a different kind of spren, referred to colloquially as luckspren. As for Ryshadium, they likely came with the first humans to Roshar, whenever that was. They don't seem to be very well-known on a Cosmere-wide scale, because Wit remarks that they were a surprise to him; something he didn't expect. ETA: Oathbringer spoiler

I'll add that there are several WoBs about this on the Arcanum. So many that I can't choose which to copy over, hence the link.

They are described, and the Coppermind says this: Musicspren “Musicspren zipped through the air around [the drummers], the tiny spirits taking the form of spinning translucent ribbons.”— The Way of Kings: Prologue They, like the greatshells and the skyeels, have a symbiotic relationship with spren.