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In RoW, Rlain teaches the humans that it is possible to use Stormlight and a specific Rhythm to make Lifespren encourage the growth of plants. But could more be done? What if you had a bunch of Flamespren and a large ruby filled with Stormlight, then used a specific Rhythm to encourage them to start fires? Maybe not the most directly dangerous weapon, but it would be pretty interesting and could cause chaos amongst your enemies.

We know that the burning a metal will produce Allomantic pulses which can be sensed by a bronze misting. We also know that the listeners attune Rhythms. So, is there a correlation between the two, and could a seeker sense the Rhythms of Roshar?

I recently made another thread on how one might be able to use specific Rhythms of Invested powers to program the Investiture and make that power usable for things like Feruchemy (although TLM shows Unkeyed Dor, which works just fine for any Invested power, so this strategy of programming isn't all that useful). However, I now wonder if it would be possible to take a Hemalurgic spike powered by non-Metalborn and use a combination of Rhythms emitted by Invested powers and Intent to program the spike to have the power you want. My thinking of how someone would go about creating Hemalurgic power spikes from non-Metalborn currently looks something like this. 1. Use Hemalurgy to take an Invested charge from a person. A. Make sure to either give the donor access to F-aluminum (via Hemalurgy or Unsealed Metalmind) to blank their Identity while you harvest their Innate Investiture (so that it can be combined with other donor's Investiture; Identity contamination is a real thorn in the side if not handled properly) or give the donor access to F-gold (with lots of stores saved ahead of time) to replace lost Spiritweb fragments. Identity-blanked Spiritweb fragments may also be more susceptible to being programmed (as a Feruchemist blanking Identity is susceptible to "all kinds of things"), so even if you provide them with F-gold you may also want to give them F-aluminum anyway. B. Also, make sure the spike is made of the right kind of metal to properly channel the Investiture (i.e., if you plan to program it with A-pewter, use a steel spike for physical Allomancy), otherwise you'll end up with the same kind of situation if you alloyed an Invested Metalmind into another type of metal (Investiture is there, but can't be accessed). 2. After sufficiently charging the spike, use Navani's method of changing an Investiture's Tone but instead learn and use the Rhythm (the pulse that A-bronze can sense) of the Invested power you want the spike to have. A. Might have to be a very skilled Seeker to achieve the necessary insight. It might also help to travel to Roshar and Hemalurgically take Connection from a Singer, but that may not be strictly necessary. 3. Now that the spike has been charged and exposed (with Intent) to the Rhythm of the power you desire, it should change its function to grant the power you want.

We know that Rhythms, Tones of Shards, and Invested powers are all related to one another. So, I got wondering; could you take some Unkeyed Investiture, such as the Mists, some Stormlight, or something similar, and then use a Rhythm of an Invested power to program the Investiture to work for that specific power? Say you take some Stormlight, then give it the Rhythm that Feruchemical gold has; could you give that Investiture to a Bloodmaker to let them heal? Perhaps you could use this to fuel Feruchemy or another magic system, similar to Compounding. Another idea is if you could create anti-Rhythms (not Tones, but Rhythms) for specific Invested powers to disrupt any use of those powers nearby.

When Navani learned the Rhythms, what exactly let her do that? Was it that she was able to create the right Connection by training with Rabonial? Could a non-Rosharan learn the Rhythms?

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?

The ettmetal primer cube buzzes when charged with Allomancy. Do we know what frequency it buzzes at or if it changes based on the metal being burned? It occured to me that it probably buzzes to the same pulse pattern that Seekers detect, or at least to pattern or frequency unique to each metal. If it does, then you have a mechanical method of detecting what allomancy the ettmetal is currently burning. Any engineers or programmers see a way to use something like this that has 16 buzzing states specifically tied to the metal being burned? Thoughts?

In RoW we see Rlain teach humans a Rhythm that encourages lifespren to use stormlight and help plans grow faster. Is this Rhythm the Rhythm of Progression? And if so does this mean that each surge can be accessed with enough Light and the appropriate Rhythm?

Is there a way to amplify the Rhythms? Could a loud, but precise speaker be used with Intent to create an anti-rhythm? Would someone holding more innate investiture be able to hum a rhythm more strongly than someone with less innate investiture? Could a sword with the ability to resonate a rhythm be instilled with the ability to create an anti-rhythm, causing extra pain to something it was designed to be the opposite of? What if you awakened that sword? Would that amplify it’s ability to create an anti-rhythm, if you used a specific command telling it to do that? If two people are humming a rhythm, one using the positive tone, the other the anti-version, would they cancel each other out through destructive interference? Could it be in the future of the Stormlight Archive that the humans and singers on the battlefield both hum anti-rhythms to try and incapacitate the others' surgebinders, whilst humming their own rhythm to nullify the enemy's anti-rhythm?

All right. I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking of it, and I haven't checked if there was another topic about it. If so - I'm sorry. So, who else really wants to hear the pure tones of Roshar and the Rhythms of the different Lights? In addition, of course, to normal singer rhythms.

Hi All, Doing a re-read of Oathbringer and came across a curious quote, which I had a look for but I don't think has been brought up before. I know there are many theories about the Unmade, and I think this might give us another bit of info that can be worked in to theories. In a Dalinar look-back chapter Brandon seems to make it very obvious that when under the influence of Nergaoul, and amidst completely loosing himself within battle against Kalanor's forces, he attuned to one of the rhythms of Roshar. Someone might know more than me, but as far as I am aware, I can't re-call any human in the books attuning to a rhythm, and acknowledging it, if even in an unknowing/unconscious way. We have comments from Rlain about how Rock and others in Bridge Four seem to almost hear a rhythm a times - but this is seemingly unconscious on their part, and nearly nearly not the same as a viewpoint character directly referencing it. Here is the quote: I think there are a few things we can assume from this: 1. Like I said, Dalinar has heard and attuned to a rhythm of Roshar 2. Giving he is directly under Nergaoul's influence, we can probably assume that this ability to attune to a rhythm has a link to Nergaoul's characteristics, abilities, and identity. This gives us a potentially interesting tidbit about Nergaoul, and maybe the rest of the unmade, firstly it perhaps indicates a direct Connection (and I use this in a big C way purposefully) between them and Roshar. Secondly, they are able to connect humans with Roshar while under their influence. As mentioned above, I am not sure exactly how useful or insightful this is - cleverer people than me might be able to see some relevance to this within the theories. But I hadn't seen this mentioned before, so thought I would point it out. Have at it people! Let me know what you think.

There are now 8 works in the Rhythms of Desire Collection! All these fics feature singers, listeners, and/or Fused in situations that range from romantic to explicit. Please be kind to yourself and everyone around you - beware the ratings and the tags! The Rhythm of the Lost - Rated Teen, 1100 words Dul and Mazish gain sapience and take Mateform together. The Rhythm of Tension - Rated Mature, 3000 words Several months into their relationship, Renarin and Rlain visit the Listeners together. Renarin is looking forward to getting to know Rlain's childhood friends a little better. Five Rhythms - Rated Mature, 6500 words A series of five interrelated vignettes, exploring Renarin and Rlain's relationship through Rlain's forms - Scholarform, Mateform - and through rhythms - Anticipation, Mourning, Victory. Felled By You, Held By You - Rated Mature, 6000 words (new!) During their research, the tension and curiosity between Navani and Raboniel grows until neither of them can (or want to) deny it. If We Have Each Other - Rated Mature, 15,000 words A couple weeks into Mateform, Rlain and Renarin struggle with the conflict between Rlain's desire for touch and Renarin's aversion to it. Research - Rated Mature, 2000 words Raboniel and Navani discover the Rhythm of War, which leads to an entirely different avenue of research. Sexy Sociology - Rated Mature, 9200 words Set in a future Roshar AU, Rlain is an exchange student in Kharbranth, where Renarin is a classmate in Dr. Sja Anat's Sociology class. Pegged for Destruction - Rated Explicit, 2200 words Lezian the Pursuer is on the hunt for his latest target. Leshwi has taken an interest in the same target and will not allow Lezian to complete his horrible goal.

RoW 76: HoA 76:

Hi everyone. I tried searching here on the Shard if this has been discussed before and I didn't find anything... Anyway, there's a WoB that states that compounded duralumin can "break into" a kandra (and presumably a koloss or even an inquisitor), similar to how a powerful enough soother or rioter could. Are there any theories on how that works? I guess the compounder would tap enough connection that they and the kandra "become one" (maybe in a similar way some theorize swearing the Fifth Ideal would make Radiant and their spren one?). But maybe there's some better explanation for it, which is why I'd like to here your thoughts. Another question I have, thanks to a post in the F-Duralumin Club, is whether a connector would be able to hear the rhythms on Roshar if they tapped connection. Do you think this would be possible? The WoB about a duralumin compounder "breaking into" a kandra is this one: The post in the F-Duralumin Club is this: https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/94492-feruchemical-duralumin-club/?do=findComment&comment=1214321

So here's my idea. Remember how Navani could faintly feel the rhythms only when she was touching a large amount of Stormlight? Thus proving the rhythms really do come from it? Well, in Mistborn, burning Bronze let a Mistborn hear the Rhythms of other allomancers, therefore giving them the ability to tell which metal they were using. Coincidence? Correlation? Thoughts?

We all know of the rhythms on roshar, the singers and larkins hear them, and can use them to manipulate their own emotion. But what about the rhythms elsewhere, like on Scadrial: 1.if a seeker were to burn bronze on roshar they would sense the rhythms, but if a singer can hear rhythms even if they were born off world. So it seems like the rhythms pervade the cosmere but have a special connection to roshar. Additionally it seems like bronze sensing and rhythm hearing may be connected as bronze can hear rhythms, as bronze can hear rhythms and bronze pulses would be “familiar” to a singer. 2. Rhythms and Soothing appear to act very similarly. Both can manipulate emotions and both (as you can see in the latter case with help with enhanced Seeking) rely on pulsing to do so. And with copper disallowing the user to be affected by Soothing, that would all mental allomantic abilities related to the rhythms in some way. 3. Inquisitor “Throbbing” responds to emotions, could the throbbing be in time with the rhythms? Kar said he felt “the pain of joy”. Regardless, seems there are more to rhythms than meets the eyes

What gave me this idea was Hoid's telling of the Wandersail in Way of Kings, specifically this paragraph: The Rhythm of the Lost has been described on numerous occasions as soft and slow, but with sharp, staccato notes. Of course, (Secret History spoilers) There isn't much evidence for it, but there isn't much evidence against it, either. So, can Hoid hear the Rhythms via some Hoid thing, or only through bronze, or am I just crazy?

For three books we've seen Odium as the foreign element that needs to be taken care of. Either defeated, or destroyed, or maybe he'll win this one and be free to go gallivanting off across the Cosmere on a new murder spree. Even Odium himself (or at least Odium 1.0) just wanted to get off Braize and go. But RoW keeps emphasizing that Odium has been assimilated into Roshar. There are three pure tones. Timbre tells Venli that voidlight is no more intrinsically evil as a power source than stormlight. The titular Rhythm of War is created by harmonizing Odium's rhythm with Honor's. Over and over, we get shown that just as humans are now children of Roshar, Odium is a Rosharan god. I don't know what the Stormlight endgame is going to be, but I no longer think winning entails getting rid of Odium. I think it will end with, Odium, whether Taravangian or some other Vessel, finding some less apocalyptic expression of his power and being recognized as a valid Shard of Roshar.

So I'm rereading OB and I'm coming across Szeth and his whisperers. Then Dalinar is only aware of his once he knows he should, after the memories come back. And the Singers are hearing their rhythms now that they are allowed the connection. How related are these 2? Is it a Rosharan thing? I know the rhythms "permeate" the cosmere and can be heard anywhere by listeners. What about Szeth? If he left roshar would the voices subside, or is his connection to the Spiritual real going to stick regardless of where he is? Are there any other instances where people are gaining this connection without extreme death dealing? If not, is this then of Odium? Or another shard of equal anti-hero ness?

Can Dullform sense the rhythms or not? I've seen a lot of comparisons between them and Slaveform where people seem to think they can't. I know on my first read-through of the books, I thought they couldn't and Coppermind also says they can't. Re-reading WoR though, I'm getting mixed signals. I-4: Last Legion: then I-11: New Rythms I put this in the Oathbringer spoiler board because of the prologue. It seems to indicate that the Parshendi assumed the Parshmen were stuck in dullform, but still expected them to have rhythems It seems to me that dullform CAN speak to the rhythms, but generally doesn't. This leads me to another question: Can other forms ignore the rhythms? I assume not or they wouldn't have assumed dullform to escape their gods.

This is a theoretical model I've thought up to help visualize what's happened to the listeners. This is all theoretical and highly metaphorical, but I think it helps explain things. The way Parshendi attune the rhythms has always reminded me of radio. They change rhythms the way a car radio changes stations. What if we assume that the underlying mechanism is analogous? A radio uses a metallic antenna, which receives incoming electromagnetic waves. We know the Listeners are closer to the cognitive realm, and they seem to hear the rhythms in their minds, so let's assume the rhythms are “cognitive waves,” emitted by an unknown source somewhere in Shadesmar. So the listeners receive these waves using cognitive antennae. Imagine every listener has an antenna sticking straight up from the top of their head. But it's an invisible mental antenna, a protrusion of the mind, existing only on the cognitive plane. Now imagine a shardbearer riding across Shadesmar, holding a shardblade out horizontally. He would slice off the antenna of every listener he passes. And since shardblades slice the soul, these antennae will never grow back. The victims will be permanently unable to receive the rhythms, which apparently also prevents them bonding spren and changing forms. And since this change is on the sDNA level, it becomes hereditary. Now imagine a shardblade the size of Roshar, sweeping across the entire continent and antennectomizing the entire listener race. This seems to roughly describe what someone (Melishi?) did all those years ago. The Parshendi, Eshonai's ancestors, escaped this fate by (the equivalent of) chopping off their own antennae with a butcher knife. They chose dullform, a faulty form with a stumpy, barely functional cognitive antenna. It leaves them almost as crippled as the rest of their species, but the damage is (cognitively speaking) only skin deep. Their cognitive antennae are too short for the megablade to slice, so their spiritwebs are undamaged. They retain the innate ability grow an antenna, attune the rhythms, and change forms. It just took them a while to figure out how. The Everstorm has now invested the Parshmen of the world with stormlight (or voidlight), allowing them to regrow their cognitive antennae the same way Lopen is regrowing his arm. Their souls and minds are whole again. Stormform, and presumably other voidforms, hear 'new rhythms,' unknown before their transformation. This implies that these voidforms have a different kind of antenna, which receives different wavelengths. The new rhythms and the old rhythms might be emanating from two different sources, perhaps one Cultivation-related and the other Odium-related. My guess: the sources are perpendicularities. Listeners are attuned to one of them just like Vin was attuned to the Well of Ascension. (Burning bronze approximates the function of a cognitive antenna.) Thoughts?

Eshonai is talking about these new rhythms that came when she assumed Stormform, which seems to be the result of a bond with Odium/Unmade/voidspren. Does this quote sound familiar to anything else in the cosmere? We know Odium was on Sel at one point and the Skaze seem to behave in an evil, influential way in their advisement of the Fjordell Empire, similar to these "new" rhythms Eshonai experiences on Roshar. Coincidence?

Ok, I admit, the title is not serious. But my theory is. I am proposing that artifabricians may be using the Rhythms to trap spren in gemstones. To arrive to this hypothesis, I must first state what took me to the conclusion that traping spren in gemstones is a more complex procedure than finding the right gem type and cut. The indication lies in the Ars Arcanun: "The methods of their creation are carefully guarded by the artifabrian community" If one could discover such methods by simply bashing spren with different gemstones based on the ones found in fabrials, there wouldn't be much point in guarding such secrets. However, the listeners discovered how to store spren for later transformation after hearing from humans that it as possible to trap them in gemstones. Why would listeners have such an easier time than humans at learning this method? The answer may lie in what their kind always did since they can remember. To go out during the Highstorm and sing to the right Rhythm may attract an spren that bonds, merges with a listener. Maybe singing does not only attract the spren, but brings the listener close enough to the cognitive realm that they can interact properly. Maybe the single, unified Rhythm they feel when standing before the Rider of Storms is a natural force that transcends the listeners, its vibration permeating the Cognitive Realm and being filtered into the physical by sensitive minds. If a humans somehow learned and memorized a Rhythm, they could bring themselves closer to the cognitive realm by humming to it, perhaps making it easier to attract spren and trap them. As for why I think the Rhythms may not simply attract spren, but make them easier to interact with, I leave this bit of information from a book Shallan read after stealing Jasnah's fake soulcaster: "It claimed that humming, of all things, could make Soulcasting more effective." While I have no idea how artifabricians learned to mimic Listeners and believe the origin of this knowledge was forgotten many desolations ago, I hope to see this theory confirmed or denied now that Rlain is in Urithiru.