Crem=mist

[Oversleep]

9 hours ago, Jondesu said:

(we saw how big of a deal it was to Szeth, and he was "allowed" to do it because of his nature as Truthless)

...not really. I'll allow Szeth to explain it himself:

Quote

“I am not absolved,” Szeth said, still wary. “It is a common mistake stone-walkers make."

 

[Jondesu]

3 hours ago, Oversleep said:

...not really. I'll allow Szeth to explain it himself:

 

Yeah, I know, he still knew he was cursed for it, he just also didn't have a choice. Allowed may have been the wrong word.

[ZenBossanova]

Every Shard so far, has had an aspect of weather or climate associated with them. Mists, flowers, geography, etc. It would be odd for Cultivation to not be expressed as crem, especially considering how much she does to help Roshar be a vibrant planet, in spite of its storms. 

[Spoolofwhool]

15 minutes ago, ZenBossanova said:

Every Shard so far, has had an aspect of weather or climate associated with them. Mists, flowers, geography, etc. It would be odd for Cultivation to not be expressed as crem, especially considering how much she does to help Roshar be a vibrant planet, in spite of its storms. 

Except that crem existed before Cultivation arrived, meaning that it cannot be her manifestation.

[Jondesu]

58 minutes ago, ZenBossanova said:

Every Shard so far, has had an aspect of weather or climate associated with them. Mists, flowers, geography, etc. It would be odd for Cultivation to not be expressed as crem, especially considering how much she does to help Roshar be a vibrant planet, in spite of its storms. 

 

42 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Except that crem existed before Cultivation arrived, meaning that it cannot be her manifestation.

Some of this is spoiler territory since we're in the Stormlight forum, so here's my thoughts on a few of those (spoilers for Mistborn, Warbreaker, and Elantris):

Spoiler

Mistborn: The mists (both Preservation's and Ruin's) were definitely manifestations of their actual power, in Preservation's case at least, directly comparable to the Lerasium.  That was a fairly unique case, I suspect, since they both created the planet and exerted a lot of direct control over those particular manifestations.

Warbreaker: The Tears of Edgli are probably not specifically Invested, per se, so while they may exist or at least be as vibrant as they are because of Edgli/Endowment's Shardpool as some suspect, there's nothing apparently magical about them.  Instead, that's simply a Shard or Vessel affecting something that already existed (flowers) and turning them into something that represents them or their Shard's Intent, perhaps both.

Elantris: There's very good evidence that the connection to the geography of a place only really came into being after Devotion and Dominion were splintered, although the city of Elantris may have existed before then, so it's tough to be sure which parts of that were related.  I don't think we can say for certain that the Shards had any impact on geography being a significant factor in Sel's magic, though.

Basically, while there's a bit of a theme there, I don't think it's one of a natural property of Shards to manifest as something related to weather, climate, or geography, but there is a trend of them choosing to use a natural phenomenon as a way to influence the world.  Cultivation choosing to change the crem and use it to affect the world is very likely, almost confirmed, but it's obviously not "of" Cultivation in the sense that she didn't create it.  She likely had a lot to do with the extra growth it grants to plants that get it from the highstorms, though.

[ZenBossanova]

Invested is not quite right and certainly crem and those other examples were all around long before the Shattering. But there is a pattern here still. 

Perhaps we should say that there seems to be a characteristic of the world that has unusual prominence for each shard. 

In the surgebinding chart in the Ars Arcanum, there are focuses for each surge. Perhaps we should call Crem a Focus for Cultivation.