Nightblood OP

[Skybreaker The Returned]

So Nightblood can cut through all three realms, does that mean that by using nightblood, someone could kill a spren, therefore stripping a radiant of their power?

[The Sovereign]

43 minutes ago, Skybreaker The Returned said:

So Nightblood can cut through all three realms, does that mean that by using nightblood, someone could kill a spren, therefore stripping a radiant of their power?

Yes, Nightblood can destroy a Spren.

 

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Questioner

I am curious about, if sprens are pieces of the god power, and investiture is the power of the god, then can Nightblood consume spren?

Brandon Sanderson

He could theoretically -- yeah, he could totally consume spren. There's not even any “theoretically” to that.

 

#nightblood

 

 

[RShara]

Nightblood can kill anything, pretty much, until you get to large Splinter/Shard levels of power.

14 minutes ago, The Sovereign said:

Yes, Nightblood can destroy a Spren.

 

 

If you hit the Copy button on Arcanum, it does all the formatting for you, so that your Paste looks nice and neat

[The Sovereign]

1 hour ago, RShara said:

Nightblood can kill anything, pretty much, until you get to large Splinter/Shard levels of power.

If you hit the Copy button on Arcanum, it does all the formatting for you, so that your Paste looks nice and neat

Not on my phone it doesn't .

[RShara]

Weird.  You should let Mestiv know.

[Weltall]

One thing to add to this is that while Nightblood can definitely kill a spren he probably could not do it when they're fully manifested in the Physical, or at least not without whacking them a couple of times first. Brandon has mentioned that while Nightblood remains phenominally dangerous on Roshar (perhaps more dangerous in some ways because it's easier for someone using him to get their hands on Investiture to feed him) it's also less dangerous in other ways because other people have Shardblades. The implication seems to be that to some extent they can block Nightblood.

[RShara]

2 hours ago, Weltall said:

One thing to add to this is that while Nightblood can definitely kill a spren he probably could not do it when they're fully manifested in the Physical, or at least not without whacking them a couple of times first. Brandon has mentioned that while Nightblood remains phenominally dangerous on Roshar (perhaps more dangerous in some ways because it's easier for someone using him to get their hands on Investiture to feed him) it's also less dangerous in other ways because other people have Shardblades. The implication seems to be that to some extent they can block Nightblood.

Yeah if they're in Blade form, it would take some hacks.  If they were in physical form but not a Blade like

Spoiler

The one spren Kaladin killed in Kholinar

Then NB could kill them that way.  Basically, if they are in a form that can be pierced, they can be eaten.

[anarchitect]

I was also wondering, isn't Nightblood very dangerous on Scadrial for the humans there because they are created by R&P and are direct manifestation of investiture? Couldn't Nighblood feed on humans or is he similarly limited as he is to higher spren?

[RShara]

NB can feed on anything.  Humans. Spren. Rocks. Tables. Aons.  Anything.  He might choke on a big Splinter, and would on a Shard, but he could still feed off them some first.

 

All humans in the cosmere have innate investiture, and is basically the spark of life.  NB will eat that and kill them.  We see this in several scenes where he is drawn.

Edited February 23, 2018 by RShara

[Leyrann]

Out of curiosity, does Nightblood break the law of conservation of Investiture, or does he emit Investiture passively or something, like a Black Hole also emits stuff?

[Calderis]

3 hours ago, Leyrann said:

Out of curiosity, does Nightblood break the law of conservation of Investiture, or does he emit Investiture passively or something, like a Black Hole also emits stuff?

The black smoke is the investiture he absorbs leaking back out. 

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Brandon Sanderson

Anyway, Nightblood is named for the smoke he leaks, and he originally had a different name when he was created. Vasher himself dubbed the sword Nightblood after he had used it to kill the woman he loved. The blackness that leaks out is actually corrupted and consumed Breaths, the ones that Nightblood leeches off anyone who draws him.

source

 

[Weltall]

5 hours ago, Leyrann said:

Out of curiosity, does Nightblood break the law of conservation of Investiture, or does he emit Investiture passively or something, like a Black Hole also emits stuff?

Brandon explicitly says no, but we don't have the exact details.

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Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Does Nightblood annihilate Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Investiture cannot be created or destroyed. It can only change forms. But, anything more than that is a RAFO.

source

 

[Skybreaker156]

Could a shardblade pierce through Nightblood's sheath?

 

[Weltall]

It's aluminum, meaning you get into the whole debate over whether or not that metal can block a Shardblade.

[RShara]

The metal can block the Shardblade, but then you still have a large, hard, sharp and pointy object trying to cut through it.

[theRoyalDingus]

This makes me wonder how hard a Shardblade is. Without it's Shardblady powers. As just a "large, hard, sharp and pointy object." Would it still be unbreakable? Does anyone know?

[Strifelover]

On 2/24/2018 at 10:19 PM, theRoyalDingus said:

This makes me wonder how hard a Shardblade is. Without it's Shardblady powers. As just a "large, hard, sharp and pointy object." Would it still be unbreakable? Does anyone know?

I don't think that a Shardblade exists without its Shardblade-y powers so it's kind of tough to say. It's not like this is an awakened sword that existed as a normal sword prior to being invested. Shardblades are made from investiture that in the Physical Realm turns into metal, similar to Lerasium or Atium but there's no frame of reference for what Shardblade metal would be like or if it exists elsewhere as not a Shardblade.

To try and answer your question though - someone asked if a Shardblade can cut aluminum. Brandon said in general no, aluminum blocks the magic of a Shardblade and so would stop it from just cutting right through. However, Shardblades are also just blades and so if it was really thin, like aluminum foil, it can still cut it just from weight alone.

[ShardplateJoe III]

My guess is that the aluminum would resist the magical cutting properties of a shardblade, but as has been mentioned above, you still have a very sharp, very large, and very indestructible sword being used to cut a relatively mundane material. Imagine standing with an iron shield, blocking a large, sharp, indestructible sword (without magical cutting properties, but still very sharp), being wielded by a man in shardplate, being swung with the force of a ton at your mundane, ordinary shield. Not only would your shield be destroyed, but you would be broken as well. And, if your shield is not destroyed in one hit, assuming your body isn't destroyed by the force of it that swing, one or two more blows would finish shearing right through that shield.

[Skybreaker The Returned]

So by that logic, could the half shard shields that they talk about in Oathbringer be made of Aluminum? That might explain why they are able to withstand a few hits from a Shardblade. Or are the half shards just trapped spren in fabrials that can change their shape like radiant spren can, but since they are in a fabrial and not actually bound to the physical realm or a person because there is no oath holding them in form?

[RShara]

11 minutes ago, Skybreaker The Returned said:

So by that logic, could the half shard shields that they talk about in Oathbringer be made of Aluminum? That might explain why they are able to withstand a few hits from a Shardblade. Or are the half shards just trapped spren in fabrials that can change their shape like radiant spren can, but since they are in a fabrial and not actually bound to the physical realm or a person because there is no oath holding them in form?

The half-shards are regular metal shields with Augmenter fabrials affixed to them to make them a lot stronger than they would normally be.  Since they're in essence, invested, at that point, they can resist the Shardblade blow for a little bit.

[Weltall]

The 'Halfshards' are explained in Oathbringer.

Spoiler

Taravangian tells Dalinar that the spren that power these particular fabrials are ones that would under other circumstances form a Nahel Bond. It's suspected (but not proved) that these would be the ones that bond with Stonewards given the thematic connection.

In any case, they're basically fabrials that resist on the basis of 'Investiture interferes with Investiture'.

[RShara]

11 minutes ago, Weltall said:

The 'Halfshards' are explained in Oathbringer.

  Hide contents

Taravangian tells Dalinar that the spren that power these particular fabrials are ones that would under other circumstances form a Nahel Bond. It's suspected (but not proved) that these would be the ones that bond with Stonewards given the thematic connection.

In any case, they're basically fabrials that resist on the basis of 'Investiture interferes with Investiture'.

 

Spoiler

I don't think they're a Radiant spren, myself.  For one, how did they manage to lure so many of them to trap in a gemstone?  Jah Keved doesn't have any particular knowledge of spren that we've been told.  And there are at least several dozen of the shields, which seems like  it'd be a significant number of sapient spren.

 

[The One Who Connects]

1 hour ago, Skybreaker The Returned said:

could the half shard shields that they talk about in Oathbringer be made of Aluminum?

Half-Shards are made using a type of Fabrial(in this case, an Augmenter Fabrial). This automatically bars them from being Aluminum, because you can't infuse Aluminum, so the Fabrial wouldn't do anything.

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Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]
If you had aluminum, could someone using Gravitation or Adhesion, could they throw that? Or would they be unable to infuse it with Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
Yes, they would be unable to.

[Weltall]

@RShara Well, I'm basing it on an interpretation of a line in the text and I admit that it's open to interpretation, but I think it's a fair assumption.

Spoiler

""That gemstone," Taravangian said, "imprisons the kind of spren that gives things substance, the kind that holds the world together.  We have entrapped in that shield something that, at another time, might have blessed a Knight Radiant."

Setting aside the question of whether you take anything Taravangian says at face value, the most obvious interpretation of that statement is that the spren that powers the augmenter fabrial is one that would otherwise form a Nahel Bond with (probably) a proto-Stoneward. The other possible interpretation is that it's a lesser spren that would form shardplate for a Radiant, but that requires that the assumption of 'Shardplate=Physical manifestation of lesser associated spren' be correct (it probably is, I admit) and that Taravangian knows enough about how shardplate works to be aware of this. And if it's a 'shardplate spren' then in making that statement Taravangian has just revealed to Dalinar that he knows how shardplate works, which would be rather suspicious given that nobody in present-day Roshar is supposed to know that. It's considerably less eyebrow-raising if he's talking about a Radiantspren, since it's now public knowledge that Radiants are formed by humans bonding with spren.

It also raises the question of why Taravangian thinks this is worth mentioning at all. If it's not a Radiantspren then imprisoning it isn't such a big thing as there seem to be huge numbers of the 'lesser' spren relative to the types that form Nahel Bonds. One windspren for example isn't a big deal, compared to imprisoning an honorspren.

 

[RShara]

29 minutes ago, Weltall said:

@RShara Well, I'm basing it on an interpretation of a line in the text and I admit that it's open to interpretation, but I think it's a fair assumption.

  Hide contents

""That gemstone," Taravangian said, "imprisons the kind of spren that gives things substance, the kind that holds the world together.  We have entrapped in that shield something that, at another time, might have blessed a Knight Radiant."

Setting aside the question of whether you take anything Taravangian says at face value, the most obvious interpretation of that statement is that the spren that powers the augmenter fabrial is one that would otherwise form a Nahel Bond with (probably) a proto-Stoneward. The other possible interpretation is that it's a lesser spren that would form shardplate for a Radiant, but that requires that the assumption of 'Shardplate=Physical manifestation of lesser associated spren' be correct (it probably is, I admit) and that Taravangian knows enough about how shardplate works to be aware of this. And if it's a 'shardplate spren' then in making that statement Taravangian has just revealed to Dalinar that he knows how shardplate works, which would be rather suspicious given that nobody in present-day Roshar is supposed to know that. It's considerably less eyebrow-raising if he's talking about a Radiantspren, since it's now public knowledge that Radiants are formed by humans bonding with spren.

It also raises the question of why Taravangian thinks this is worth mentioning at all. If it's not a Radiantspren then imprisoning it isn't such a big thing as there seem to be huge numbers of the 'lesser' spren relative to the types that form Nahel Bonds. One windspren for example isn't a big deal, compared to imprisoning an honorspren.

 

Yeah, I knew what you were referring to, and it's definitely a possible interpretation. I just don't agree with that particular one.  But let's not derail the thread