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So as I understand it, the way awakening works is that you use breath to fill an object with investiture and give it extremely limited sentience (as investiture does), and then that object will act out whatever command you made it to do. But the investiture is the key here of course. The object is just the physical medium that gives Breath the ability to act on the world. So is that medium actually necessary? I don't think it is. We've seen that investiture can manifest in the physical realm as metals- shardblades and shardplates and ancient fabrials, atium, lerasium. So why not breath as well? I propose that you can command the breath directly to "manifest as metal", and it would do so in the form of Edglium, endowment's godmetal. Furthermore, I propose that this is how Azure's sword was made. "Manifest as metal and be as my blade". We know that originally, nightblood was an attempt to recreate a rosharan shardblade using Breath. This was done by taking a normal steel sword and loading it chock full of breath, and giving it a command. "Destroy Evil". But this isn't how shardblades are made. They're made by getting a spren to manifest in the physical realm as metal. And so, if you're trying to recreate one using Breath, then I would probably try getting breath to manifest as metal. If Azure's sword is a second attempt at this same experiment (which certainly isn't confirmed, but we at least know that the sword is "somewhat related" to nightblood). So what do you all think? Can you command breath directly, and manifest it as metal? What else interesting could you do with that? And what do you think of my theory on Azure's sword

I listened to Warbreaker again recently, and there's a fair chance that other people have already realized this and I'm just slow. We've known for a while that Nightblood is a hacked version of Shardblades, but it occurred to me that those aren't the only things Vasher and some of the other Five Scholars saw on Roshar. He also saw Plate and presumably the dueling stances, and this ends up making his own fighting style of Nightblood with Awakened clothing make a lot more sense. Considering his centuries of fighting with basically magical power armor and Nightblood, it also makes a lot more sense why he's a master at teaching new people how to use Shards. We see wisdom from the lessons he gives to Kaladin and Renarin in the few battles we see Vasher fighting. His first lesson to Kaladin and Bridge Four is to not get distracted by the Blade, and we've seen what he accomplishes when people just stare at Nightblood. Yes, Nightblood is doing more than just looking flashy or dangerous, but there's a lot to the intimidation factor that Vasher probably uses to his advantage. He has Renarin diving headfirst into the ground using Plate, and we've seen him trusting his life to an Awakened rope strengthening his leg when falling out of a building. Vasher's Awakened clothing combat style probably wasn't solely inspired by Roshar and Plate, but it obviously was influenced by it. The one that probably should have been obvious to me is that Kalad's Phantoms are a hacked version of Shardplate. Of course Vasher wouldn't have stopped at copying just a Shardblade if he saw Plate. He just made an army of his versions rather than just a handful. It may also put Vasher killing Shashara into a different perspective, since Nightblood or other Shardblades are probably one of the handful of things that would consistently be able to deal with the phantoms. It also makes sense how those two inventions, Nightblood and Awakened statues, came out relatively close together. Really though, I've known for a while that Warbreaker was meant as a prequel to SA, and that SA was written before Warbreaker, but it still astounds me how good Brandon is at what he does. Are there any other Rosharan elements that people can spot in Vasher's actions?

Could you somehow unkey breaths? So if you put 50 breaths into an object could they somehow become unkeyed so that any person could pick them up? Edit: I just realized we've seen something like this in Rhythm of War. Taravodium steals or at least destroys some of Hoid's Breath. Thinking of this reminded me of when we saw Vasher tell a girl the Command to give away part of a Breath (Warbreaker). So since we know it is possible, the only question would be how? What could this Command be?

I am not sure if this has been asked before... It just popped into my mind and made me curious. Would the awakening command have a effect on the dead-eyes? Or would nothing happen?

There are limitations on how much one can edit about themselves via Awakening due to Endowment's Intent. However, you can fuel a magic system with another Shard's power. So, if you were to use Odium's Investiture to fuel Self-Awakening, you likely could change a lot more about yourself since Odium's Intent seems to be the opposite of Endowment's Intent; Odium is about caring about one's own self while Endowment is about giving to others. We even see this with the Fused as they cannot seem to do as much as Radiants when it comes to something that doesn't involve themselves.

So, as far as I understand it's the case that organic substances can be Awakened, and then Breath can be retrieved from them later (except in the case of Lifeless, possibly because they gain an Identity). Inorganic substances are far harder to Awaken (seventh Heightening, very high cost etc), and Breath can't be retrieved from them in the example we've seen (also possibly because Nightblood has its own Identity). Where does amber fall on this scale? I don't imagine it would be very useful for everyday Awakening (not exactly very flexible), but for academic/hypothetical purposes, where do your thoughts fall when it comes to the organic versus inorganic nature of amber for the purposes of Awakening? Because on the one hand it's closer in appearance to, say, a precious stone than cloth or straw, but it's actually composed of solidified resin.

Okay I've been thinking about this today but Brandon said that a different metal used to make night blood would have effectively changed how night blood is... So what if you made a sword from bone and invested it with the same number of breaths? Technically the breaths would stick better because bone was once a living thing would that mean they impart more power into the weapon?

When you awaken a type two invested entity (clothes, rope, or the like), it doesn’t have enough of a mind or Identity of their own to count as a “living” thing. However, Lifeless seem to have some awareness of what’s going on, as per WoB, and they also can understand more complex commands than a type two entity can. Because of this, I believe that they develop an Identity of their own, which prevents the breaths used to awaken them from being retrieved.

An Awakener can override a Command given to an Awakened object or a Lifeless. Could something like that be done for spren?

I don’t immediately think of combat applications when I think of Awakening. The system doesn’t seem to have been made with that in mind. However, certain creative individuals could come up with some powerful ways to use it, I would think. Here are some of my ideas, along with some that we’ve already seen be used. 1. Awakened clothing – gives added strength and protections. 2. Awakened ropes and pieces of cloth – can grab, restrain, and/or suffocate your opponents. 3. Awakened corpses – these can fight for you as extra allies, and they can receive more complicated commands than your standard Awakened object. 4. Awakened human-like objects, such as sets of clothing or manikins (specifically not corpses; these aren’t Lifeless) – they can fight for you as if you had allies, then you can retrieve the Breaths after the fight. 5. Large Awakened ropes, cloths, or other items – can be used as catapults, or to grab and constrict/hurl enemies. 6. Bootleg Shardplate (gotta love that name ) – by awakening your clothes (like in idea 1) while wearing regular plate armor, you get all the advantages of plate armor plus a great deal of strength for crushing blows and added mobility because you can now carry the added weight much more easily. 7. Awakened ropes/cloths (now with blades!) – by attaching blades to the end of these, you can make automatic stabbing and slashing constructs. 8. Awakened poisoned needle – similar to idea 7, but much smaller and easier to conceal; can be hidden up your sleeve (literally) to be used in a pinch if someone gets in close and grapples you. 9. Awakened mistcloak – really cool looking, plus, because of its many appendages, it could grab multiple enemies or deflect several attacks directed at you simultaneously. Would be extra effective in bootleg Shardplate, as your added weight would make you a better anchor than your enemies (reminds me a little of steel or iron Allomancy, ironically). 10. Self-Awakening – honestly not sure how this could be useful for combat, but I felt I should mention it Anyway, just in case it reminds someone who is more creative than me of its existence, so that they can apply it somehow. I’m not sure I can come up with anything else. Ideas, anyone?

When you use Greater Awakening, you are able to Awaken an inanimate object of non-biological origin. Its personality is greatly influenced by the command given to it. Would the personality of the inanimate object before it was Awakened also contribute to its personality? For instance, if you Awakened a sword that you had carried with you for years, that had saved your life many times, that you had gained a great affection towards, would that sword, if Awakened, have a different personality than some random sword you pulled off of the armory rack and Awakened? Is why Adolin’s shardblade, Maya, is starting to heal a little bit, because he views her as a sentient being, rather than a dead object?

Which is better for detecting investiture? A Seeker burning bronze, or an Awakener holding Breaths?

When you Awaken an object, you can only work with the intrinsic properties of that item . So if you were to Awaken an Unsealed Metalmind, could you give it the ability to use those powers in new ways?

Hemalurgic spikes cannot directly steal breaths from a donor since they are too much within the physical realm, and not enough in the spiritual realm, where pretty much all of their ability to manipulate resides. However, all you need to do to get the breaths of a person is for them to willingly grant them to you. So, if you were to grant them spikes instead of trying to make a spike from them, and then you used emotional allomancy or some other method of mind controlling them, you should be able to force them to give you their breaths. Does this seem plausible?

I am mostly posting here to see thoughts on this, as I have been bothered by this for a while. I have been trying to find some sort of order in the levels of Heightening, or at least find an approximate formula to see if it follows any noticeable formula or such. Well checking the next numbers in the sequence after 10th using this https://alteredqualia.com/visualization/hn/sequence/, I have gotten 11th: 306,950 12th: 18,453,000 13th: 8,249,650 Showing that while this method works for 11th and 12th, it does not work at 13th and undergoes a massive drop. Which does not work with how Breaths and Heightening function. So we have to go another way. Well, knowing that the 8th has very, very little experimental data, and the data on it is likely wrong, we can look into it and say 8th: 7750 9th: 18750 10th: 56600 This, while not exact with the graph, does actually fit together with it all quite nicely. This also works with how the other levels are far more studied, so the approximations in the list are likely far more accurate. Though I know Heightening is basically just a made-up scale by people to give an estimation of when certain powers reach their peak, and does not actually exist, and furthermore, the values on the table are approximations. I just like doing math for fun. Additionally, just some math I did based on various factors, Susebron has at least 50,000 Breaths, in addition, he is given two to three Breaths a week from every God King over the course of 327 Years, likely numbering at 71,606 at the time of his ascension, and 75,428 by his marriage to Sisirinah. The formula would be 50000+78y, with y being the number of years. This assumes an average increase of 1.5 Breaths a day. Which is the average of gaining 1 or 2 breaths, as he uses one per week, thus to given two to three, means to increase by one or two.

If you had a lot of extra breaths to spend, could you awaken a feruchemist’s corpse with the command to fill a certain type of metalmind, and thereby replicate the powers of Feruchemy via Awakening? If this theory proved accurate, and you awakened a full Feruchemist’s corpse, could you selectively grant them the ability only to store certain attributes, so as to require fewer bio-chromatic breaths when awakening them?

Could you use Forgery on a Lifeless to change what command they had been given? Could you use Forgery on a Lifeless to change the moment in their past where they died, thereby making a fake copy of the individual as if they were alive?

I used to think that Awakening could do just about anything without needing other magic systems for hacks if used with the right command and with enough skill (i.e. using breaths to enhance body or mind by investing them with a command, editing your own spiritweb, copying other invested arts' abilities, or creating powerful invested objects like Nightblood by simply investing enough breath into their creation). However, this quote changes things... Apparently, you can only work with the intrinsic properties of something that you awaken, which greatly limits your abilities. Not only that, but since Awakening follows Endowment's Intent of giving things away, you are somewhat limited in how much you can modify yourself (I know there's a quote somewhere, but I couldn't find it). I'm actually pretty glad about this, as it helps balance a magic system that once felt like it would outshine the others. Nightblood, however, is a special case, since it quite clearly has some magical abilities that normal swords don't have. My theory on this is that a hack between Hemalurgy and Awakening was used in order to make it work, as if you were to awaken something that already had magical properties, you should be able to manipulate them further with Awakening. I feel that my assumption that a Hemalurgic charge being involved with Nightblood's creation is supported by this quote here. Not only that, but Nightblood is black, and the color black is associated with Ruin's investiture. Although, I suppose that Nightblood could have simply absorbed investiture from a Hemalurgic spike after killing a Hemalurgist at some point, or that some other weird investiture mechanic is going on that we simply don't know much about yet.

First, awaken a body to create a Lifeless. Second, Feruchemically store the memories, Identity, and a good portion of health in an unsealed metalmind. Third, have the newly awakened Lifeless tap the metalmind, giving it a foundation for it's new Identity, as well as granting it the ability to physically shape itself into what it's Identity now is. Does this sound doable?

You can outsource some of your memories to your breaths if you hold any. Similarly, you can store your extra memories inside a coppermind via Feruchemy. However, breaths are pretty hard to remover from you, while your copperminds can be physically removed without too much effort. Plus, based on what we see with Hoid in RoW, it would seem that you still have your memories while they're held by breaths, while with copperminds you actually forget what is stored in them until you tap them again. So, are breaths better than copperminds?

In Mistborn Secret History, Preservation mentions to Kelsier that both allomancers and feruchemists will last longer than a normal person, as they are more invested than a regular human. This is a bit confusing to me, because Brandon has said before that allomancers aren't particularly invested when they aren't currently burning a metal. So does this mean that an allomancer only stays a bit longer in the cognitive realm after dying if they were burning a metal when they died? Or is it the potential to become invested, the Connection to Preservation, that makes them last longer? As to another question I had in regards to becoming a cognitive shadow, do the bio-chromatic breaths that an awakener holds transfer with them to the cognitive realm when they die, and stay with them until they either find a way to come back as cognitive shadow or move to the Beyond? Or since they are primarily in the physical realm, they simply disperse? If an awakener were to come back as a returned, do they retain their breaths?

So, if you were to awaken a kandra's body, would it still be able to shape shift, or would it be locked into it's current form?

In Warbreaker, I'm pretty sure that it was said that it cost enough money to feed a small family for a year to purchase a Breath, but that doesn't seem very specific. How much in real life American dollars would on Bio Chromatic breath cost?

I was having a conversation in which I asked someone what their command would be if they were an awakened weapon, when I had a thought. Could you awaken metal with a command such as "Be Bob"? Obviously, the intent behind such a command would be almost impossible to pull off. After all, what and who is Bob? You would have to know absolutely everything about Bob, which would be almost impossible. However, if you were to use the command "Be me", I think it would be possible. So, what do you think? Is there some mad scientist on Nalthis with a collection of awakened tools that hold an exact imprint of his personality?

I know that awakening mostly is used to animate organic objects and corpses, but we can see from Nightblood's existence and Hoid's memories being stored in breath that more is obviously possible. So, what could awakening be used for? Ideas on how it could interact with other magic systems would also be good to know.