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Title says it all. We know that Hoid has a cryptic (Design). In the end of RoW, Travodium takes Hoid's Breath away to take his memories. However, we don't here about Hoid's spren. Could Design have remebered the interaction Hoid and Odium had?

If spren are from Honor being Splintered then how were Voidspren made? Did he Splinter himself?

Zahel mentions something interesting regarding Cognitive Shadows: Going back to this scene after the book, I see that it ties in nicely with the idea of Heralds being like spren. So who is “she” here? Is it Ba-Ado-Mishram (BAM)? I’m wondering because Kalak mentions something similar in his last epigraph, and we know BAM affects the memories and thinking of spren and natives of Roshar (singers): If it is BAM, how does Zahel know so much?

I’m rereading SA and am at the end of WoR. Syl tells Kaladin after they fight Szeth to go after the honorblade that Szeth drops, that it must not be lost. Why is the honorblade so important? Wouldn’t a spren consider them more dangerous because they grant Surgebinding without the Nahel bond? What do y’all think?

I've seen a few people ask the question in other threads but I haven't really seen anyone give a theory about it. This story is clearly meant to be taking place in the later stages of the Cosmere, well after SA, so why is Ulaam the one who shows up to record Hoid's embarrassing poems instead of Design? Because if anyone was going to be there just making fun of Hoid I would've expected it to be her. Is she just hanging out somewhere else on the planet or maybe in the cognitive realm? Are they still bonded? Did he just get so sick of her interrupting/spoiling his stories that he decided to find a way to undo the Nahel bond? He didn't seem to use any of his Radiant powers at all, and I didn't notice any Cryptic-like designs on his clothes or anything either. Thoughts? Did anyone see a clue that I missed?

This is the closest I can come to solving the 'shardplate spren' query. Any correction or insight is appreciated. Sl. No. Order of Knight Radiant Radiant spren Shardplate spren 1 Bondsmith Stormfather/Nightwatcher/Sibling Gloryspren 2 Windrunner Honorspren Windspren 3 Lighweaver Cryptics Creationspren 4 Elsecaller Inkspren Logicspren 5 Edgedancer Cultivationspren Lifespren 6 Truthwatcher Mistspren ? 7 Dustbringer Ashspren Firespren 8 Willshaper Lightspren rockspren(?) 9 Skybreaker Highspren ? 10 Stoneward Peakspren Painspren

Spoilers for RoW Also, sorry for the late replies, my phone has been wacky until recently

I'm putting this under Cosmere discussion, even though it only really pertains to stuff in the Stormlight Archive. First of all, thanks to @Ranryu for reminding me about the weird things spren do, which led to this theory. Brandon has said that all the planets in the Cosmere could one day develop faster than light (FTL) travel, though Scadrial is expected to achieve it first of all. This is really interesting to me. We can see how Scadrial, most likely with some applications of speed bubbles, access to the spiritual realm, and the handy technology of Ettmetal, could achieve this pretty soon. But what always interested me was the other planets. How could worlds like Roshar or Nalthis achieve FTL? Their magic systems don't really have anything that could be used in that way, and it seems incredibly far off. (Sel technically already has it (Aon Tia), they just need to work out some kinks and figure out how to use it offworld. Can't be widely applied at this point.) Now focusing on Roshar. I think, with many of the technological developments that are coming around as we read, it's safe to assume that Rosharan FTL will be fabrial based. And what do you need to power fabrials? Spren. In an interlude in Words of Radiance (I think it's WoR, anyway) we see a pair of ardents conduct some experiments on some flamespren. They find that once you define a specific value for a measurement of the spren, the spren has to stay that value in that specific measurement. This coincides exactly with our current understanding of quantum mechanics: particles exist in a fluid state, in multiple locations or states of being at once, until they're observed. After observation, they're stuck in the position or state they were observed in. I think it's safe to assume that other spren share this attribute, but right now, only flamespren are confirmed to have these strange quantum properties. And, unless I'm remembering wrong, flamespren are the most commonly used spren when creating conjoining fabrials. Conjoined fabrials are very handy, as we see with the Fourth Bridge in Rhythm of War. Using some clever tricks involving Aluminum, a latticework of conjoined fabrials are effectively able to create an airship. This kind of fabrial is probably the future of Rosharan transportation. Now here comes the long shot. My theory is that if a fabrial were to be created that somehow exploited the quantum properties of spren, they would be able to use that "multiple locations at once" function to effectively transport a vehicle using the fabrial to another location faster than the speed of light. I have no idea how you'd do that. You'd probably have to use some kind of trick to amplify very small scale effects to an incredibly large scale, and Aluminum to isolate variables and make sure your spaceship actually appears where you want it to be. It's a long way off, if it's even possible. But Brandon is hinting at something with those flamespren, and it seems likely that it's something along these lines. What do you think? Am I grasping at straws, or am I onto something? Tell me below!

Assuming that a singer worldhopped to another planet and was able to bring a non-Radiant, form-granting spren with them (let's say the spren is captured in a gemstone to make thing simpler), and they wanted to change their form by bonding that spren, how do you figure they'd go about that? From what we've seen, it seems like it has to be done using one of the storms as a catalyst, but what are the important pieces there? Is it simply necessary that the singer have access to a lot of raw investiture floating around to fuel the change? If so, could a singer draw on the Mists to change form? Is it the fact that a Highstorm (and potentially the Everstorm as well) pulls the three realms closer together that makes it possible for singers to form or break their bonds with lesser spren? If so, could a singer change forms by standing close enough to another perpendicularity? I checked if there were any WoB specifically talking about the mechanics of how singers change forms, but wasn't able to find much.

While thinking a lot about Spren lately, it’s got me wondering if there’s not some applicable truths to the real world about Spren (and cognitive shadows) being shaped/influenced by the perception of others. I have heard a quote or two that go something like “people will often live up or down to what your expectations are of them”. The idea being that if we raise our expectations of others then we will likely interact differently with them, which in turn motivates them to live up to that expectation. Or it could go the other way. This seems pretty similar to the way that expectations, perception, etc. help to influence and shape how Spren and Cognitive Shadows behave, think, and likely feel. In a larger sense, if more and more people hold the same beliefs or expectations about someone, does that have a similar effect as it would with Spren? If this is a real thing, is it also proportional and affected by quantity? Let me know what you think or if you have other interesting thoughts on the universe

Hypothetical situation, some guy becomes a sliver, bonds with a Spren then dies and becomes a Cognitive Shadow. So what happens to the Nahel Bond? Will it break or continue after death?

I remember that once you give up the power of a Shard, you become a Sliver and your soul is expanded. So would this mean you could handle more Bonds, or maybe attract more Spren to you? I read a few WOB's and one of them said that it was technically possible for multiple Spren to Bond with a human, though they wouldn't like it. Perhaps because the average soul can only properly support a single Nahel Bond and it would be difficult for two Bonds to advance to any meaningful degree, thus leaving the Spren unable to gain more sapience. And perhaps a Sliver could properly support more Bonds, thus preventing their spiritweb from getting clogged up by the number of deep spiritual Bonds. And yeah I know that it's also because of potentially conflicting Oaths but not all of them are going to conflict, I'd think that one could easily uphold the Oaths of both a Windrunner and a Willshaper with minimal difficulty.

So what exactly were most Spren doing before and during the Final Desolation? They already knew it was coming due to the Everstorm and a few Spren did go out to Bond with humans, but what exactly were the majority of living Spren doing in Shadesmar? Just sitting around waiting for Odium to kill them? Because I'm pretty sure Odium would have absolutely killed all Spen after he was done with Roshar and humans. Did the Spren in Shadesmar really make zero preparations?

First post, long time lurker. I'm copying a theory i sent to my brother and I haven't proofread this. Ok bear with me here I think Bah Ado Mishram’s imprisonment is the cause of the deadeye spren. There’s an epigraph where kalek pleads for her release because he claims her capture affected not just roshar but all Spren. He was present for her capture, as well as the recreance and the false desolation. There’s more. After maya’s “we chose” testimony, adolin asks her if they knew the spren would die, she says, verbatim “pain yes, death no, maybe” how would the spren know there would be pain from a broken Nahel bond, but didn’t know they would die? Unless they had seen it happen before the inprisonment. Perhaps they saw some evidence that spren were dying from broken bonds in the time between that and the recreance, but not enough to make a decisive conclusion. They knew it would hurt though because it always hurts when a bond is broken. Lastly, and this is just assumptions. All the deadeye spren that are meeting at lasting integrity are going to be fixed. The next book is going to involve the release of Bah ado mishram. Then there will be thousands upon thousands of radiant spren to bond. Winning the war. And adolin will be one of them when maya is fixed. He said the first ideal to her, and they formed a bond but she didn’t change yet.

So I’m unsure if this is a theory or an observation, but let’s talk about spren, and how they travel through the physical realm. Obviously we see syl fly around and stick things together, using the surges her bond grants. wyndle seems to use progression (super fast) to talk and move around. Ua’pam is able to merge with the stones similar to the deepest ones who share the ability so I guess it’s just connecting the vary close dots, but I think this shows that the spren (who we know have small bits of physical substance) have to interact with the world within the bounds of their surges. And perhaps the body essences have something to do with it as gyls hides in Renarins body. what’s yalls thoughts, anything I missed or anything you would like to point out? edit: I forgot why I originally wanted to post this. anyways BONDSMITHS. Who are the three bondsmiths? Stormfather, sibling, and…… that’s right the nightwatcher, who has what ability? The old magic. Think about that for a moment, we have been asking what a bondsmith can do? We have been seeing hints of it sense the beginning. And that’s only casually, imagine what bondsmiths can do when properly used.

So, I noticed this WoB on silver: And I think you can understand why I find it interesting. Silver can damage and kill shades, but I didn't think that extended to all spren/cognitive entities. Apparently it does, or at least can. I'm guessing that silver doesn't have the exact same effect on spren as it does on shades, as something so immediately obvious would doubtless have been discovered by either the Radiants or the Fused during the desolations. So there has to be something more than just stabbing the spren. As to what that something more could be, I don't really know. The simplest explanation is that you'd need to use silver to cut a spren apart, while keeping it from absorbing Stormlight to heal itself. Perhaps silver is toxic to spren, and you could impale them with a ton of it. Or perhaps the method used involves investiture somehow. Whatever the case, I would be glad to hear other sharders thoughts on this WoB, and silver's place in the Cosmere.

Nightblood can cut through Fused, Thunderclasts, and Spren. 2 questions. Yes, I know that Nightblood hurts like crazy when you draw it. But If Szeth drew it some more, he could’ve annihilated the Fused forever. However, can Nightblood destroy an Unmade or the Nightwatcher, Stormfather and Sibling?

So, back in the recreance, all the knights radiant broke their oaths, and the spren of those knights became "dead" shardblades that roshar fought over for centuries. But not all radiants have shardblades. From everything we've seen, you have to be at least of the third ideal. So what about all those spren bonded to first and second ideal radiants? They couldn't have gotten off scott-free and survived because then the spren would know more about the recreance and why it happened which, as we saw in ROW, they don't. Did they become deadeyes too, that don't have an associated shardblade? Did they somehow become blades? Did things just work differently back then for some reason and all knights got shardblades?

So I was wondering about the formation of new types of spren as well as the existing types. I believe it is Hesina in a Kaladin flashback who says that everything has a spren, so I’m curious about a couple things: do new spren form when new ideas are formed. Say for example musicspren exist but then someone invents jazz on roshar, do jazzspren form? With Navanis new fabrials and airship is their an airship spren now and a spren for each of her fabrials. If Tashikk has a revolution could we see the existence of democracyspren or communismspren. Finally, do you think spren have spren. Mainly does the sprenspren exist, the spren of spren, and then obviously there creates a loop where we could see the existence of anticipationsprenspren and so forth with each spren having a spren and continuing. I’m curious to hear peoples thoughts on this I’ve wondered ever since reading WoK but this is my first ever 17thShard post.

Can a radiant knight be promoted to shard? And if so: what would happen to the spren?

Something that's cropped up every so often in the Stormlight Archives is that Singers have a much harder time bonding higher spren than humans. In WoR, Syl flat out says that Parshendi can't become surgebinders. Before RoW, I didn't really have any ideas as to why this was. But during RoW we got a clue that helped me come up with my first theory, and I recently came up with another. The first theory is suggested by Rhabonial. During her conversation with Venli on the way to Uritheru, she mentions how humans are much more externally focused, while singers are internally focused. This might be part of why Singers line up better with Odium's power while humans can bond with Honor's more easily. Emotions are more of an internal concept, while Honor is more external. These matchups may explain why both races can synch up with each Shard's power, but each race favors one or the other. But I think there might be a better explanation. I think that the Singers might have sturdier souls than humans do, thanks to their stronger connection to the Spiritual realm. In a WoB, Sanderson confirmed that the ability to hear the Rhythms is basically a connection to the Spiritual realm. And while Navani proved it's possible to humans to perceive the tones, and likely rhythms, Singers have a much stronger connection. I think it's likely that this stronger connection results in a stronger spirit web and soul than a humans would normally be. Less easily damaged and cracked. And since spren bond with humans by filling in the cracks of their spirit webs with power, it makes sense that they have a harder time bonding with a race that don't have as many cracks in their souls. Of course, we know of three singers who have bonded higher spren; Eshonai, Venli and Rain. But two of them swore the first ideal after taking a Regal form, and Rlain bonded a spren touched by Jah-Anat, likely making it easier for him to form a bond. All three had Odium's power in the mix. Of course, singers bond lesser spren to take different forms, such as war form, work form, and so on. But since those are more basic spren, like gravity spren or pain spren, it makes sense that they'd be able to bond them more easily. Part of why I like this idea is that it means that the Singers having stronger souls actually prevents them from gaining the same kind of bond that humans can as easily. It puts part of the first radiant ideal, Strength before Weakness, into new perspective. Thoughts?

What other possible spren might there be? I thought of "annoyment spren", which I don't think has shown up at all yet, maybe shows up when someone is being annoying, or feeling annoyance. Or maybe other, more abstract ideas, like the idea of "honor" which is an entirely human concept. "Beauty spren", perhaps?