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I know that awakening mostly is used to animate organic objects and corpses, but we can see from Nightblood's existence and Hoid's memories being stored in breath that more is obviously possible. So, what could awakening be used for? Ideas on how it could interact with other magic systems would also be good to know.

Alright. So I was just listening to Warbreaker, at the part where (spoiler alert) Vivenna decides she wants to use awakening after all, so Denth explains how it works to her. He says the breath you use to awaken stuff is "part of you" so what you're imagining at the time you awaken something (in other words, your intent,) is involved in what the awakened object does. I had the realization that something you awaken will have a Connection with you, which is why only you can recover the breath from an object you awakened. (And just now I realized that the intent is relevant too.) Although this leads to more questions. Awakening requires a number of breaths, which must be collected from different people, since nobody starts with more than one. Shouldn't those then be Connected to their original owners, or do that Connection transfer to the person receiving the breath? How far does this intent go? Does it change the intent of the investiture itself? Let's say you awaken an object with a command to destroy things. Would that mean Ruin could absorb that investiture with no change to its intent? Mixing magics here, does this mean a feruchemist storing their identity would be able to reclaim breaths from an object they did not awaken?

We know from WoB that a Lifeless can tap metalminds and can be hemalurgicly spiked if they have enough investiture. The Parshman in Stormlight completely obeyed their owners because they lacked any Connection or Identity. Sounds kind of like what Lifeless do. So if you gave a hemalurgicly charged duralumin spike to a Lifeless, would it still be a Lifeless?

I was contemplating the applications of awakening when I thought "hey, what if you awaken a koloss? Not one of the baggy little ones, like, one of the BIG ones." Thoughts anyone? ( P.S. Would their hemalurgic spikes still work, and if so, how much extra investiture would it take to overcome the resistance?)

So last year I had some thoughts on Azure's blade, and like with my Thaidakar theory this one also deserves an Update post-Row, only the update will be a correction, not just an extension. Prepare for some rambling: The theory: Azure's Blade was awakened using Valor's investiture. 1. The Nightblood book will feature Vasher and Vivenna visiting Valor's shardworld during their travels. 2. Either Vasher or Vivenna who learnt from him (Or Ysteel) will there awaken a new blade and use Valor's investiture to do it. See my old theory on my thoughts on the mechanics of this, but this prediction/theory is less about Investiture mechanics and more about, uh, themes and story. So, why do I think Azure's Blade is Valor-fueled: - We've seen the major shardworlds and magic systems already. I don't have the relevant WoB on hand, but I remember that that's the status. The only "major" magic system planned to maybe be introduced still would be Aethers, we've seen the other big ones already. We've had Valor namedropped in RoW, so I doubt it will be a shard that gets its own Novel to show off the world. What better place than the Established-characters-go-worldhopping-novel to introduce us to those kinds of worlds? - Azure's whole story in Oathbringer is so Heroic. The way her men talk about her, the way she defends this seemingly hopeless situation on a planet she isn't from and doesn't even really seem to plan to stay on. You could argue "yeah, duh, it's a fantasy novel, there's always Heroism there" and you'd be right, but I think this isn't just a coincidence. - I think the key to understanding why Azure's blade is so different from Nightblood is that it was created with another shards investiture in it. I'm a big fan of grouping shards not into "good" and "bad". In this case, I think the distinction we need to be looking for is "involved" and "distant/apathetic", if that makes sense. What I mean by that is that Endowment, for example, gives you your breath and the rest is up to you, which is in line with her role/intent. On the other hand, the Knight's Radiant have a lot of checks and balances included in their magic system + their oaths, which line up with Honor. I believe we see a hint of Valor's character in Azure's blade: Does that remind anyone else of Mjölnir? The weapon investigating the wielder, pssibly checking to see if you are "worthy". - We don't see the signature black smoke or any of the symptoms both Vasher and Szeth displayed when Nightblood fed on their Investiture when Azure used her blade. The black smoke seems to be because is Nightblood is filled over-the-brim with Investiture, but the other symptoms are It eating Investiture. Azure's blade didn't display that. I think this is due to two factors: 1. a different command, more refined and well-crafted than Nightblood's. 2. some kind of inherent difference, that leaves less to the Blade itself. The Blade's sentience seems to be more rudimentary than Nightbloods, whose sentience might stem in part from the character of the Investiture it was awakened with: Endowment. Nightblood is already the result of using one magic system to create an hommage to another, Awakening to imitate a Shardblade. Whose to say we can't go one degree further, Awakening with Valor's investiture to imitate a Shardblade. The combination of a more refined command plus the nature of Valor's investiture result in a blade a lot less volatile. We've seen Azure preparing to Awaken in Oathbringer. Nonetheless, the Vivenna we see in Oathbringer is a lot more confident and valorant (pun intended) than the Vivenna at the end of Warbreaker. I doubt we'll get a whole novel dedicated to Valors world, so I think we might expect to see it feature in Nightblood (book), with Vivenna learning some more things there and maybe gaining access to the resident magic system too, which might have a lot to do with/result in her motivation to a ) find Vasher and b ) help in Kholinar. What do you think? Crackpot theory or reasonable expectation?

I may have stumbled into the beginnings of something much bigger than I anticipated. It was an easy enough matter to get started; I posed a set of statements and a question to myself. "It's becoming increasingly clear that color and metal are important fundamentals of the Cosmere because of Fabrials, Awakening, and the Metallic Arts. Color is important because it's a property of specific wavelengths of light, particular "tones" of light. So how is Metal going to relate to that?" From there, I hit upon a couple possibilities. But I think the one most worth going into detail about connects Investiture to my favorite weird physics, that's right everyone, quantum mechanics. It's my current hypothesis that metallic atoms have the proper frequency of quantum wavefunction to "filter" different frequencies of Investiture. This results in the strange supernatural "theming" of the metals across the metallic arts and even extending into the cages of Fabrials, where color and tone have already been proven abundantly needed. Picture "background investiture" as white noise. Now picture, say... Tin atoms in a pure, undisturbed lattice. Now recall that according to quantum mechanics, all particles also behave like waves (this has even been observed with molecules made of tens of carbon atoms still producing an interference pattern (even when released 1 at a time) in the famous double-slit experiment). The frequency of Tin's quantum wavefunction will interfere constructively with some frequencies of background investiture, and destructively interfere with others, filtering the output of the investiture into a new set of frequencies that don't look like background noise, the frequencies become a stream of investiture that "enhances senses", or something thereabouts. Now picture using a specific Shard's Investiture as the "background investiture". Tin will filter out everything of that shard that doesn't relate to senses, causing the amplification. Stormlight becomes a booster of the spren's sensitivity, making them output less for the same subjective feeling, while Tineyes get to see through the Mists because the frequencies overlap due to the Investiture originating with Preservation. And of course, with alloys, what's important is the "holes" in the atomic lattice (and indeed, metallic atoms' ability to arrange in a regular structure is key in general). It lets other frequencies of investiture leak through, which correspond to different effects. Tin's senses becomes Pewter's physical enhancement. The one thing I'm not certain on is where in Allomancy the push/pull difference originates from precisely. Is it just a rule that Bronze seeking hears pure metal tones as "pulling" while alloyed tones become "pushing"? Or is it a fundemental, even a Singer would hear tin as pulling, while pewter pushes? I'd love to hear feedback on all of this in general. I'm super curious to know if my "quantum wavefunctions filter Investiture frequencies" hypothesis makes any sense.

I haven't read Warbreaker, but I'm interested in some functions of awakening. I know that you can't awaken living things, do plants count as "alive" or does "alive" mean sentient in this case?

So there’s all this talk about how dangerous mistborn are, and how dangerous radiants are, but not many people have considered Awakeners. For one, awakeners use invested weapons, so it’ll be tough to soulcast or push/pull. The cloth or other items will be tough to cut through with coins, especially when you can fortify it. Shardblades are tough to stop, but invested vs invested are very good at resisting each other. Awakened stuff is also pretty darn strong, so pewter won’t make a huge difference here. And the strength of awakened objects might even be able to break some Shardplate. so that cancels iron, steel, pewter, shardblades, soulcasting, and maybe even Shardplate right there. now, the radiant’s trump card, regeneration, is tough. BUT awakeners also have resilient tools. The lifeless. One breath lifeless allows you to make an army pretty darn easy. If we are talking one v. one, awakeners will have superiority in numbers. If we are talking about many vs many, every death can be used as another soldier. That would cause a lot of emotional turmoil. If we’re talking about mistborn, lifeless koloss would be annoying to deal with. so that combats large numbers and the regenerative properties of radiants (sort of). now the trump card of mistborn is their atium. But to an awakener with enough breath, that’s no problem. Just do Vasher’s hundred breath trick, catching them off guard and killing them without problem. 100 breaths to kill a mistborn is likely worth it. Heck, that truck might even kill a radiant! So there goes a mistborn’s trump card. Now for the awakener’s trump card. Anti-investiture. Heightenings don’t usually grant much to awakeners in battle. But with the knowledge of anti-investiture, it means everything. Third hiieghtening grants perfect pitch. That allows you to know how to play the opposite tone of any type of investiture. That allows you to be an anti-investiture generator. One blast of that stuff can kill a radiant spren and, since scadrians are of preservation, that means that they too are susceptible to non-existence. so that DEFINITELY defeats Shardplate and regeneration. Now Nicrosil and chromium is hard. It can’t affect the awakener because the breaths are not really kinetic investiture, since they are attatched to the spiderweb, not the person. But it can affect the awakened material (not lifeless though). That renders awakened cloth a tad useless, so long as there is nicrosil or chromium. Though, while that is being done, an anti-investiture blast can finish things off. Abrasion is hard to use against invested stuff, so that’s out. Gravitation is annoying to put up with, but holding anti-investure stops them from air drop kicking you. soothing and rioting can really hurt, especially with duralumin. But an aluminum hat can cancel that easily. Bondsmiths can by tough to deal with if you are dealing with multiple people, but every awakener is an anti-investiture, perpendicularity closing machine. I think, overall, that covered everything that could be thrown at an awakener. Conclusion, awakeners are OP.

Found this in "Shadows of Self" I thought it was deserveing of attention.

So, here’s a random thought I had. Warbreaker spoilers ahead!

I think this might be my first post, so yay! Just finished the published books and I have been going through the wikis and the 17th Shard forums. I'm really curious about Vasher, because it is mentioned that he hasn't done the thing he was Awakened for. So this thread is mostly speculation. But what does everyone think he was Awakened for? I think it might have something to do with the events taking place on Roshar, which is why is currently there, but I'm not sure. Considering everything that he's done (creating Nightblood, starting and ending the Manywar, Worldhopping, etc.) I assume it is something connected to the larger cosmere. Thoughts?

Zahel and Kaladin (betwixt the sheets ): It wasn’t quite the full magic system vs. magic system combat that we’re craving. But it was so cool to finally see, and such a beautiful promise of things to come. But any thoughts on how Zahel seemed quite comfortable Awakening without verbal commands?

TL;DR: ALL of Investiture in the cosmere seems to be, like Stormlight or Voidlight, composed of unique vibrations or pulses. And so, like Stormlight and Voidlight - can it all somehow be combined and/or inverted? I had something of a revelation today, while writing gay fic of all things, and I thought I would share and try to get other peoples' thoughts. Because I might have noticed a connection, but I'm definitely not smart enough to figure out what it means, lol. So, one of Navani's biggest breakthroughs in understanding the various forms of Light on Roshar was realising that Stormlight, Voidlight, Lifelight etc are not just light, not liquid, but sound. Vibration. This allowed her to combine the lights with Raboniel, and it also allowed her to discover its opposite. A large breakthrough for understanding Investiture on Roshar. Except that this is not the only kind of Investiture in the Cosmere we've seen that has vibration as a core part of its nature. Allomancy. Allomancy gives off allomantic pulses to seekers who are burning bronze. Allomancy gives off DISTINCT allomantic pulses, as we saw in the scene where Marsh shows Vin how to use it in The Final Empire. Each metal, when burned, gives off a distinct and unique vibration. Something that can be used to determine a pulling/pushing metal, to determine which specific metal is being burned, and even if it's being flared. The power at the Well of Ascension also pulsed, and so did the 'mist spirit'. Allomancy, as Investiture, also has a unique vibration attached to each source. In Warbreaker, Breaths require sound to activate - they require a carefully, clearly spoken Commands in order to Awaken. They also grant a holder perfect pitch. The Iridescent Tones form a core part of the Nalthis belief system. While not as explicit as in Mistborn, Investiture here also has a clear vibrational component. In Elantris, seons pulse when they speak, and their aons glow. Raoden explains and understands accessing the Dor via drawing different shapes (aons) through which the power can access the physical realm from where it is trapped in the cognitive realm. However, he notes that his books on the topic describe the process via 'pulse length and frequency', which he doesn't understand, but, in the context of all Investiture having a unique vibration to it, makes sense to me. Do I have any idea what this means in real-terms for the cosmere going forwards, and the potential applications of this knowledge in terms of combining, inverting, or altering different forms of Investiture, but this is why I'm posting it here for you smart people to engage with and give me the answers.

OK, So I literally just finished reading and skimmed the first page of the Dawnshard spoiler board to make sure nobody had already posted this exact theory. If I missed it, sorry about that. Okay, major dawnshard spoilers: Anyway, that’s not really a thought out theory, just something I randomly thought of as I finished the book, and had to write down before I forgot it.

so in this scenario lets assume you have up to the ninth heignting and are aware of night blood or shard blades and you want to make a viable piece of armor simaler to them in capability any form of armor is allowed and organic and inorganic materials will be allowed what creative way and command would you give this piece of armor for a desired out come for me it would be a wicker shield in the shape of a person given the command to protect me so lets hear your idea wiith me pictuirng shard plate or or a half shard to create an inteligent shield that can withstand such weapons like a shardblade other creative uses of awakening are also allowed

The question I have is basically this: Say you awaken a mannequin, or a bit of cloth cut into the shape of a human, and someone cuts through it with a shardblade. What happens? Are the breaths destroyed? Is the "soul" of the awakened object created through the breaths severed? Does the blade go through the object without cutting physically, like a shardblade does with a human or animal, or does it cut the physical object in half? I couldn't find a WOB about this.

Suppose you were attacked by one of Kalad's Phantoms. If you were an allomancer capable of burning atium, would it have atium shadows?

Bit of a weird idea, but one that I realized after playing Paper Mario: Origami King; Olly and Olivia could just be Awakened paper folded into the shapes of people to make it less expensive to Awaken them. I mean, Origami Toad literally calls the technique he used to make Olly the "Fold of Life", which takes dedication, precision, and (I believe) "putting a bit of your soul into it". At the very least he does say that Olly and Olivia really have souls, so it's fairly analogous to Awakening in that regard, if he somehow had Breaths to put into them. Paper is also a potentially useful substance to Awaken, given that it's organic in origin. Folding it into an Origami person would also reduce the cost, given that it's a life-like shape, and would give the paper some level of rigidity and stability rather than being, you know, a flat sheet of paper. Also given how Olly goes rogue, it's safe to say his awakening command might not have been visualized properly... What really intrigues me is the extra powers he manifests... Like the "thing" bosses all being under his command, those could also be Awakened... Except that a lot of them are made of metal or plastic, which... Well we know how tough it is to Awaken metal, but plastic is weird because it's made of oil which is made of living things. Does that make it too far removed from being organic to easily awaken? In terms of Olly's other powers, folding things into Folded Soldiers could be like if Nightblood was somehow able to use his own stolen Breaths to Awaken Lifelesses (Lifelessi?). Makes me wonder, then, if Olly would be considered a type IV Entity despite being organic... Hm. Is that what a type V would be? A sentient organic object instead of a sentient inorganic one, like Nightblood? Well, regardless, Olly's other powers seem to be too all over the place to really fit as powers in a hard magic system like Awakening, or even hijacking other Shards' systems for himself... Right? Jeez, this post just keeps getting longer. At first I had just planned to basically point out "hey couldn't something like Olly exist in the cosmere because of Awakening?" But here we go, an entire mini-theory, basically just to challenge myself to do it. So we know that Nightblood (almost spelled it Knightblood, good job me) does in fact have some of Ruin's investiture (for some special reason that isn't normal to Awakening steel) via WoB. If Olly was planned to be made, let's assume that something similar happens when he's Awakened, and he somehow gets a chunk of a different shard's Investiture... Well, I can think of a couple candidates given his behaviour in Paper Mario (since Nightblood's command, Destroy Evil, seems very much aligned with Ruin's intent of destroying). Odium could be one, given how he gets so unnaturally upset with the Origami Toad for writing on his paper (especially when that writing turns out to be a heartfelt wish for him to be a good king and not the "scribble" that Olly claims it to be). Another candidate would be Ambition, since, well, he is VERY ambitious throughout the game, his ultimate goal to be turning the Mushroom Kingdom into a kingdom of Origami. Would that make him Evil like THE Evil on Threnody, made of Ambition's splinters from the battle with Odium? Possibly. That might explain his maniacal nature, at least in part. Perhaps he would only need Odium's Investiture in order to manipulate things the way he does (and, side note, Olly does share Odium's colors: white and gold, and purple (for Voidlight)). Nightblood's alleged inability to learn and change (according to Vasher, which may not be fully reliable) may also explain why Olly ends up so stuck in his ways even when Olivia tries to talk him out of it after chapter 2. But speaking of Olivia, how does she fit into this theory? Olly folds her based on the Origami Toad's designs, and uses the Fold of Life on her himself. As established earlier, this would be roughly equivalent to if Nightblood could spend his acquired Breath to awaken a type IV on his own. What's interesting about this is that Olly would be spending a HUGE chunk of his own Breaths to do this, though as neither of them are metal, that could make this more feasible. After all, without needing the 9th Heightening, you could spend far fewer Breaths on either of them. Perhaps the Origami Toad just did the equivalent of giving Olly an excess amount of Breath, which left Olly with a surplus he could Awaken with. If so, that could explain the apparent power difference between Olly and Olivia; the latter of which seems to be inferior to Olly at almost all points, except for the obligatory "power of friendship" moment at the end of the final boss. However, that same final boss fight really shows how powerful Olly is by comparison; he does stuff that borders on straight-up reality warping, which would take huge amounts of Investiture to pull off, especially considering that he's an Awakened object, not a mortal person. He claims that part of the power he exhibits is due to the sheer amount of Origami around at the time, which, fair enough, that could be a mechanic of whatever magic the Fold of Life is truly from in that game. However, this almost sounds like he's on the cusp of forming a Perpendicularity just from sheer origami presence alone. Well, the paper he's using is very brightly colored, perhaps it's dyed with the Tears of Edgli? Is that stuff confirmed to be Invested? If so, that would add to the Investiture around at the time, perhaps acting vaguely like a metalmind or infused gemstones and giving him an extremely large reservoir of power to work with. Speaking of infused gemstones, some of Olly's powers do seem similar in concept to some of the Surges. Point one, he floats/flies everywhere, i.e. Gravitation. And while it's not transforming from one material to another, he does reshape into the four Vellumentals (which could be considered "transforming between essences") and into two extra forms for the final boss. Perhaps some of his powers are similar to Tension or Adhesion? He does stick a lot of stuff together to make his Origami Castle... Okay, I've been rambling enough. If I think of more stuff I'll either edit it in, or put it into another reply in this thread...

We know that an animal can trigger Shades. So what can? Can a Lifeless trigger them? Can an Awakened object trigger them? Could a robotic device trigger them?

People on Roshar view things differently. I imagine that this causes intangible phenomena (like fire, wind, and rain) to have enough Cognitive self-awareness that Breath could stick to them with a Command. Obviously this would take a lot of Breaths, but might be possible. The ramifications terrify me, but in a awesomely cool sort of terror! Could this be possible? What could be done to make it more feasible?

What would giving Breath to spren result in? Breath is supposed to be more in the Physical than the Spiritual due to the nature of Endowment / to facilitate their transfer. Would the adaptability of Breath to different sDNA cause it to become more Cognitive in nature? Or would it make it easier for the spren to push into the Physical Realm and retain their coherence there? I assume that the rules of Awakening should still remain the same for them and they would still gain Heightenings if they acquire more Breaths, but would doing so change what kind of spren they are if they have more of Endowment's Investiture or would Endowment's nature mean her Investiture wouldn't change the inherent nature of the spren? If the spren was a Nahel Bond capable spren, would this count as Corruption assuming their nature does change? Would they still grant the same Surges? Could they grant the benefits of the Heightenings to their Bondmate? Seeing as the Nahel Bond is a melding of the Spiritwebs, to some degree, would transferring Breaths be easier between Bondmates or could a Bondmate use one another's Breath at the Fifth Ideal?

If you had the Breaths to make a Sentient Inanimate BioChromatic being, what object and command would you choose? Mine: I may eventually add some if I think of some, but what would you do?

After taking the official quiz and cementing myself as a Lightshaper, it made me start thinking about the potential cosmere-wide uses of Soulcasting. Naturally, the Rosharan practice of Soulcasting deceased humans into stone reminded me of Kalad's Phantoms, and I started contemplating the potential enhancements that fine Soulcasting could impart to a Lifeless. By "fine", I mean, like, soulcasting JUST the skin into Steel, for example. Cut into it at the joints so that the awakened bones and muscles can still bend, but turn the skin into steel so that the Lifeless has a durable outer shell (sort of like Singer carapace, actually...). And speaking of awakened muscles, how about Soulcasting those into Wood? Presumably a flexible kind, but one that's still durable or is difficult to rot. Speaking of rotting, let's also Soulcast the blood directly into Ichor-Alcohol. Hmm... Maybe we can do something hacky if we Soulcast the nervous system and the brain into Copper. If we presume our corpse was someone capable of storing their Memories in an Unsealed Coppermind (perhaps via a Medallion prior to death), it could influence the personality of the Lifeless if we stored those Memories inside the copper mind (...ha) prior to Awakening the body. Of course, this would massively increase the Breath requirements if we wanted to Awaken the copper, since it's metal... This might not be worth the Investment. So, scrap that last idea, unless you REALLY wanna make a pseudo-returned in a hacky manner. Hmm... Anything else? Perhaps if we could take it to Sel, we could have an Elantrian carve a series of Aons into the steel to enhance it further. But then it would be fairly restricted to Sel, so maybe not. Darn. Hmm... what else?