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Well, here I am again. Really hope this isn't annoying for any of you. So, I was looking around to see if anyone asked if an Allomacer can push or pull a Shardblade, and of course, I could not find a thread, and the Coppermind doesn't mention it as far as I'm aware. So I was about to assume that they can't be pulled or pushed similarly to metalminds. They have a hard time pushing or pulling something that's invested, and surly the blades count, being god metals of Honor, Cultivation, or a mixture of both. Then, I remembered that Atium is a god metal and there are plenty of examples of them being pulled or pushed. So it doesn't seem like being a god metal immediately disqualifies from being able to be pulled or pushed. So would Allomancers be able to push on Shardblades? And a little bonus question I thought while typing this, are god metals considered invested? Because the reason metalminds are hard to push is because of the investiture stored in them, and Atium does not appear to be resistant to pulls or pushes. So are god metals not technically invested? EDIT: Okay, so the answer for the above questions by Brandon Sanderson himself is no, it's very difficult to push or pull god metals and they are basically pure Investure (read threads below). HOWEVER, this brought up a different question/theory about the nature of Atium, which is a God metal that can be pushed and pulled with relative ease, which contradicts what Bradon Sanderson said about Godmetals. My first reaction was that it was made fairly early on and Brandon Sanderson didn't have certain things figured out, so we should ignore Atium/ consider it an outlier when figuring out the properties of god metals. But then I remembered that Atium was Brandon Sanderson's way of introducing Fortune to the Cosmere, and that in the Feruchemy table, Investure and Fortune are considered separate, so rather than being pure Investure, is Atium pure Fortune and that's why it's properties don't follow with other god metals? (Another note, if it is Fortune, it may have been a purposeful play by Preservation to limit Ruin's foresight, which may be a big factor in his plan, as Ruin's foresight has been accepted as not as good as other Shards like Cultivation, Preservation, and maybe Endowment.)

So when I first read the books I pictured shardblades as these thin and long crystalline blades that elegantly cut through everything. As for shardplate I always pictured it as this bulky interlocking medieval armor, but instead glowing with constant stormlight. how did you guys picture them when you first read the books?

Now that aluminium is being used as a defence against Shardblades, I'm wondering how sharp living Blades can get. Given that Shardblades don't really have to worry about structural integrity in the same way as normal blades, they should be able to get pretty sharp. In the modern world, we already have atomically sharp blades that would cut through almost anything like butter if not for their edges dulling too quickly. If a Shardblade could get to that sharpness, it would be basically unaffected by aluminium, at least in regards to cutting power. But would that be possible? Are there WOB's on the limits of sprenblade shapeshifting?

I finished rereading Warbreaker last week, and it struck me this evening: named Shardblades have very Returned-style names. Maybe it's just a coincidence--maybe you can't read too much into it; after all, Brandon has confirmed that there has been hundreds if not thousands of years of cultural trade between Roshar and Nalthis; this could just be cultural happenstance in the same way that shash is a shared linguistic trait between the two worlds. But here are some names of the Returned: Lightsong, Blushweaver, Allmother, Peacegiver, Strifelover, and of course, Warbreaker. Here are some names of (named) Shardblades: Firestorm, Sunraiser, Oathbringer. I don't count Mayalaran because that's her spren name, in the same way that Sylphrena is the name of Kaladin's spren; not sure what to make of spren names. But really--where do Shardblade names come from? They seem to have a similar naming tradition as the Returned: two-part words, often involving a verb. Sunraiser and Oathbringer both fit that bill. Is there a connection? Or is it happenstance?

So I'm a blacksmith [helps with pocket change while in grad school] in my spare time, and I've been thinking about the dimensions of shardblades and what they might weigh. I promise to keep the math low key here. Let's start by establishing the dimensions of a hypothetical shardblade. For this exercise, I'll use a shardblade with a 70 inch [American] blade, 2.5 inches wide for most of its length, with a 12 inch handle. I'll convert this to metric for later calculations, but not just yet. Based on the geometries of historic weapons, just the blade and tang [yes I know shardblades are solid, but I'm breaking this down the way I would if I were figuring out how much of each material I would need if I were actually building something like this] would add up to about ~18 cubic inches. This figure accounts for the bevels from the spine of the blade to the edges (double edged design), and for a taper along the blade from 1/4 inch [at the spine] near the handle to 1/8 inch [at the spine] at the tip. For figuring out the handle, pommel and guard, to account for sharblades being solid, I'll subtract the 2.8 cubic inches that make up the tang from the blade total. If the crossguard takes up 1/2 inch of the handle space, and extends 5 inches to either side from the center of the blade, assuming a square cross-section for simplicity you have 2.5 cubic inches there. Now, let's assume a maximum diameter (and this is squiffly, because handles have tapers in two directions, and other design peculiarities dependent on design, and I'm trying to keep the math simple here) of 1 inch for the handle. Factor in the shape of the handle, [no, I'm not going to show that math] and you have ~10 cubic inches. Add a pommel, call that another 2 cubic inches. So, the blade is 15.2 cubic inches, + 2.5 inches for the guard, + 10 inches cubed for the handle, + 2 inches for the pommel, gives you a grand total of: 29.7 cubic inches of material in your shardblade. For my non American metric lovers, that equals 486.7 cubic centimeters. Now, as said in the books, this blade could never be made out of steel, not and be usable. Steel has an average density [depending on alloy] of 7.86 grams per cubic centimeter, so if it was made out of steel, this blade would weigh 38.25 kilograms, or a whopping 84 pounds!!! For comparison, a standard broadsword shouldn't weigh more than 4 pounds. Okay, so what are the other options? Titanium has a density of 4.51 grams per cubic centimeter. A titanium shardblade would weigh almost 22 kilograms, or about 48 pounds. That's better, but still not exactly usable. If it were made of pure aluminum, at 2.6 grams per cubic centimeter, it would weigh in at 12 kilograms, or 26 pounds. That is much, much better-- still not great, you would have to be really, absurdly buff to swing it more than a few times, and mind, once you get it moving it sure as all get-out isn't going to stop, but still, we are at least getting into the realm of possibility now. Thankfully, aluminum is not the lightest metal around. Unfortunately, most of the alternatives tend to be a little unsafe, whether that means flammable, explosive in contact with water, or just plain toxic or radioactive. Your best bet for getting something about close to the right weight, as seen in the books, would be potassium or lithium. Potassium is 0.89 grams per cubic centimeter, lithium 0.53. So a potassium shardblade would be 4.3 kilos, or 9.4 pounds, while a lithium shardblade would weigh in at 2.58 kilos, or 5.7 pounds. So, lithium has the closest weight to what is described in the books. So, yeah, if you can find that much lithium, you could make a usable shardblade. Except it would bend, wouldn't take an edge, would dent left and right, and oh yeah. Don't get it wet, or your priceless shardblade will disappear in a flash that will leave you with permanent retinal damage.

EVERYONE knows that shardblades can’t cut living flesh but burn the eyes out. (An awesome visualization of severing the soul) but if you hacked at a dead body ( be it human or great shell) will it slice? There are references to dead bodies piling up around shardbarrers pinning them down, but once they are dead can’t you just... idk. Dice your way out? What is the consensus on this?

I'm new here so sorry if this has been discussed before. So the definition of a shardblade is "A highly invested weapon". Taking that and running with it, wouldn't it be possible to make a shardblade with Hemalurgy? It's kind of morbid to think about how many people you would have to kill, and it would still lose its investiture. I would think also that since Hemalurgic spikes change what they do based on what metal they are made of the blades would have different properties. Pewter would do more physical damage than the others, while aluminum might ground out the investiture in something instead of killing it. What are y'all's thoughts on this theory?

So. I've been wondering about ways to create Shardblades using different magic systems. So far, there's the original, the Honorblades, which were made by Honor, and grant Surgebinding to the user. There's Sprenblades, which are bonded sentient Splinters which manifest in the PR and grant surgebinding. There's dead Shardblades, which are the Blades of dead spren whose Radiants betrayed their oaths. They have the same abilities of other Shardblades, but do not grant Surgebinding. There's Awakened Blades, such as Nightblood and presumably Azure's Blade. Since there are so few examples, the only common information shared by these weapons is the requirement of Ninth Heightening, and 1000 spare Breaths to Invest the weapon with. These are the known types of Shardblades, but there may be other ways to make one. Possibly AonDor could be used on a regular sword to give it strength, sharpness, and the summoning ability, however, this might only work in Elantris, and the Blade would always exist in the PR. Another method could be pulling a Seon or Skaze into the PR fully. So Aon Blades, Seon Blades, and Skaze Blades might be possible. Scandrian Blades would be different from other blades in that they would not be supernaturally sharp or strong, but they would grant powers and/or be made of Ettmetal, so an Allomancer's Blade would have a strip of Ettmetal in the sword, or an Ettmetal hilt. This could be used with Unkeyed Feruchemy to make the Blade itself a "medallion", and therefore give the user Allomancy or Feruchemy. I'd imagine the most common Blades would be Ettmetal, with unkeyed metalminds for A-steel and A-pewter. A-pewter would let the user swing the Blade with increased power, and possibly be put into the Ettmetal to make the Blade stronger. A-steel would push an opponent's armor and weapons away in a fight if put into the Ettmetal. These abilities might mimic an ordinary Shardblade's ability to cut through almost anything. A simpler option is that the entire Blade is just a metalmind, no Ettmetal involved.

So we have seen shardblade on two worlds thus far . Roshar and Nalthis. Has anyone considered it may be possible on every world in the Cosmere , and Others just haven’t figured out how ? I think Sel would probably be a good candidate . Possibly Skadrial as well , i just think the magic system on Skadrial is so broken there is little you can’t do if you only knew they right metals . Sel has Seons which are really close to spren . And they have a dark version we haven’t seen yet . Seems you can create some interesting things on Sel , if you can make Seons then shardblades should be possible. Can anyone think of another world they could make shardblades.

OK like the title says, shards weapons can't split become bows and arrows, buuut... What if Willshapers could could have a ShardCrossbow and using cohesion he makes SUPER dense bolts out of rock or even iron if he has it. One shot. There goes your misappropriated shardplate/carapace you mean ol' voidbinder!

So, when a radiant manifests its spren into a weapon it can be any weapon they want. I know during the reckoning that the knights gave up their spren in blade form, but wouldn't there be at least a few other weapons lying around from other knights who abandoned their oaths?

So shardblades and Honorblades are essentially investiture manifesting as a solid in the physical realm. So assuming that they are both of honor then what is the difference between the actual metal of honorblades and shardblades. Is it the fact that the sprens investiture had a different intent.

Shardblades are dead spren, so can you awaken them? You awaken things that were once alive, so I think it would be possible. Vivenna says that she isn't a radiant, but her "shardblade" might be an awakened spren, though it's more likely an awakened piece of metal like Nightblood.

So we know at the recreance through the vision that Dalinar see's that the Knight radiants leave their blades and plate at the fields in front of feverstone keep. But we know that there aren't hundreds upon hundreds of blades and plate in roshar so what happened to them all?!?! So what happened to them, were they recovered by the shin or taken offworld? and if they were taken offworld than why haven't we seen them in other worlds? Either this is a massive mistake or suddenly we're gonna be shocked by hundreds of shardweilding shin riders in the immediate future? Any thoughts or theories on where they might be?

In the prologue to The Way of Kings it is said that Szeth's stormlight can't restore a limb "killed" by a Shardblade. However in Words of Radiance and Oathbringer we see several bridgemen doing just that. So why the inconsistency? Is it just that Honorblade stormlight healing works differently, but why shoud that be so?

Anyone know how the ShardGuards even exist? Early Radiants didn't need them.

So quite simply, my question is would a gold compounder be able to survive having their central nervous system severed by a shardblade? We know that gold healing is fundamentally the same as all healing in the cosmere, and so if stormlight can heal a shardblade wound then so can gold feruchemy. But we also know that gold compounders can heal from basically any wound as long as they have access to their metalminds. So would they be able to heal from a normally mortal wound from a shardblade? Or is that a special exception?

Looking back on it, the fact that it's possible to summon dead Shardblades is rather strange. Multiple details as to how this happens are ingrained in the books, but it's still slightly perplexing. Shardblades, at least before Radiants started showing up again, are dead spren. I suppose that since they're Splinters, they can't really die in the conventional sense of the word, but they can still die; i.e. stop being sentient or functioning, as seen with Adolin's Shardblade in the Cognitive Realm. So that means that a Shardblade is basically a corpse. So why would attatching a gem to a Shardblade restore some of its power? It's revealed that the 10 seconds needed to summon a Shardblade is the amount of time necessary to bring the Spren back from the dead and into the Physical Realm. We also learn, from Dalinar's visions, that Shardblades were only able to be dissmissed and summoned once gemstones were attatched to them. We also know that fabrials work by trapping spren inside of gemstones. So the immediate response would be that the gemstone traps the original Radiant spren inside the stone. But...that spren is dead. And besides, fabrials need Stormlight to function, and there's no mention of Stormlight being needed for Shardblades. Otherwise you'd need to wait between highstorms to summon it again. Shardplates need Stormlight, with gems needing to be replaced when they're broken or lose their Stormlight. Granted, we don't know exactly what Shardplate is, yet, but it seems odd that Shardplate needs Stormlight but Shardblades don't. Unless Shardblades do need Stormlight, but just use it up really slowly, so that we don't notice. But that also seems farfetched, as we know that quite a lot of Stormlight is necessary for something to transfer between the realms, like a dead spren in the Cognitive Realm transporting to the Physical Realm. Hopefully we'll get an explanation of this in one of the later books, but until then, does anyone have any theories on why this works?

Shardblades are sprens that "died" after their... wielders?... companions broke their oath. Now, biochromatic breath can awaken anything which had been alive bot no longer is (ignore for now the steel awakening). I get that "sprens never really die", as Syl said, but would that state allow an awakener to invest them with breath? I think that they may not come "back" to life (I love this universe complexity, but technicalities are getting annoying), but maybe they would answer to some specific commands? Like the radiant's spren shapeshifting? (Kinda like "adopt the form of a pole axe" and then it changes). Thoughts?

Ok, so, we know that Nightblood has the ability to cut through anything, like a shardblade. We also know that Nightblood has been Awoken. Could it be possible to awaken a Shardblade? Like, not a an actively bonded blade, a dead one or an Honorblade.

So here we go. Most people on the 17th Shard know that nicrosil can store investure, including investure from other worlds like breath, surges, and stormlight. We also know that spren are basically just sentient investure. Shardblades are living or dead spren, and Shardplate is some sort of investure/investure related phenomena connected to the ten Surges, stormlight, and/or spren. All of this means that Shardblades and Shardplate are just a form of investure, as evidenced by Radiant summoning/dismissing blades and plate in and out of midair. That most likely means that blades and plate can be stored in a metal mind. We also know that someone was looking for talking metal in Era 2 Scadrial. I think that they are planning on using that metal/scadrian equivalent to spren to make Scadrian Shards. The Set are interested in hemalurgy, not to make a mistborn, but to make a nicrosil compounder. We know that the eight "new" metals are rarer compared to the eight basic metals like Iron, Steel, Pewter, and Tin Etc. This goes for both Allomancy and Feruchemy, but especially for Feruchemy. They are trying to find the right combination so that they can make medallions or power something like south scadrian technology. Wax's Uncle and Sister are merely the result of the experiments to figure out hemalurgy so that they do not waste a good ferring. Nicrosil Ferring worth>Steel Misting worth. Given that most splinters assume the form of a sword when pushed into the physical realm enough, it is likely that an artificially created splinter would manifest as a Blade/Plate that could be stored in a metalmind and called on when needed. It would give the Set an huge advantage over a high powered Twinborn like Wax, any Mistborn that decide to come out of the woodwork or a person armed with Allomancer killing rifle rounds. The Blade/Plate would not be effected by most allomacy/feruchemy and most likely give a boost to any abilities inherent to the user. The user could also store the armor in the metalmind and tap it to summon the shards when they needed them. The Bands of Mourning may have been Kelsier's early attempt at making such a weapon. I suspect that it would required a hack we have not seen yet to shape the investure into a blade/plate, which would most likely be similar to the hack that allows Allomantic Bronze to be used on non-Scadrain investures.

So we have this WoB: Sir Jerric Could a Seon or a Skaze turn into some sort of Shardblade on their home planet? Brandon Sanderson That is theoretically possible. They work under the same fundamentals but they would need to have something to pull them more into the physical realm. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/221/#e6197 I was wondering if anybody had any thoughts on how one could conceivably pull a seon\skaze further into the physical realm to get them to be a shardblade?

So we know that a normal shardblade will not appear as such in shadesmar, as it will instead appear as the spren which becomes the blade in the physical realm. We also see that Vivvennas shardblade does appear in the cognitive realm because it is not a spren. So then what about honorblades? As far as I'm aware, the honorblades aren't spren, but instead some other magical stuff™. So I ask, would an honorblade be usable in the cognitive realm?

Can I just say how much I love that I have the same name as Adolin's sword? (Well I mean my name's Maia, (pronounced Maya), but it's close) I can officially say that my name is unique enough to make it into a Cosmere book. Not many people can!