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So: Are Honorblades a type of Fabrial? First a quote: http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1052 So. What we know. The Heralds were given Honorblades. These blades allow them to do special things (surges & absorb stormlight). Later, Spren bonded with Humans, and are able to emulate Honorblades. When one of these Spren "dies" it has the physical form of an ShardBlade (mimicking an honorblade). There are other quotes saying that the Heralds can only do surgebinding with the HonorBlade but have other "gifts" as well. Speculation (Honorblades & old-style Fabrials): 1) Honor created (or had someone create, or created with the help of Cultivation) 10 Super-Fabrials, the Honorblades, gave these to the Heralds, along with some additional investment to the Heralds themselves. 2) The creation of (old-style) Fabrials has something to do with Spren. Changing a spren to, or forging a spren with an object (metal?). I cannot speculate here. We have two types of examples in the Cosmere. Investiture can have a solid form (metal) - so possibly, a spren + solid investiture could be shaped into a sword. We also have an example of a normal sword imbued with "breath" that creates a "type of Shardblade". 3) Other Fabrials were created in a similar way (regrowth, soulcasting, etc). basically, small scale, single surge human copies of the Honorblades (not sure if the shape is important for old-style fabrials). 4) Holding an Honorblade gives a user an imperfect bond with the Spren within the Honorblade. The holder can absorb stormlight to power the surges, but is not efficient. The stormlight holding ability is not part of the lesser man-made old-style fabrials, which require inset stones as a powersource, (or power from someone with a spren-bond, that is, the surgebinder is the power source, rather than a gem). That is, the man-made fabrials do not provide a bond with the holder, which allows holding stormlight -- though something odd is happening to those folks who use a Soulcaster too often. 5) The weak bond to the Honorblade spren may or may not allow small changes to the Honorblade's appearance over time. 6) Spren gain consciousness over time. I believe that is stated in the books. I assume the Honorblade is created with a pre-conscious/unthinking/primordial radiant spren Speculation (Shardblades & new-style Fabrials) 1) Mature Spren of the same type used for the Honorblades bonded with normal Humans, and learned they could mimic the Honorblades (that is, are able to manifest in the physical world as a blade, and provide surgebinding - this may imply that the Honorblades are simply bound Spren, not swords imbued with spren). 2) Because the bond is strong, the physical manifestation is more malleable (can be sword, spear, knife, etc), and Stormlight use is more efficient (unlike the weaker version of the bond with an Honorblade). The "Dead" spren manifest as a sword, because that is how they see themselves (mimicking the Honorblades). However, they can also change slightly over time, depending on their wielder. The "dead"-spren bond must be even weaker than that with Honorblades, since the wielder cannot hold stormlight. 3) I am categorizing New-style Fabrials with the Knights Radiant, because, instead of the spren manifesting as the Fabrial, a spren is captured in a gem, and the fabrial is a separate component (like the KR), making use of the spren's innate investiture. Now. using all this speculation, I can infer that Shardplate is an Old-style Fabrial (made up of spren, the same way old Fabrials were made) and requires either a Radiant, or gems to provide power. Further, that the original KRs (or a specific subset of them) knew how to (were able to) make old style Fabrials, since the KRs have plate, and access to old-style fabrials (in the visions). Other posts that touch on this topic: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/7647-spren-splinters-old-style-fabrials http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/6819-the-origin-of-shardplate/

So I have been thinking about the possibilities of fabrials. we know that fabrials can be made that emulate all ten surges, so i was thinking about some of the possibel devices that could be made..... #1 - melty sword. a sword that has a fabrial in the hilt which strengthens the blade (against temperature and impact) while another fabrial makes it SUPERHOT. (with a device to stop the handle from heating up.) melt through your enemies armor/bodies/horses. 'nuff said. #2 - reverse shield. A shield which changes the gravity of any objects that hit it's outer surface, throwing them away. these could be good for non-shardbearers to equalize things.... Any other ideas? I got more, but I wanted to see what you guys came up with.

So recently I finished my re reading of SA, and somewhere into WoK I got into a discussion with some friends about shardplate, and it got me thinking. At this point probably stop reading if you haven't finished Words of Radiance. I'd like to see what people think about shardplate, since it seems it doesn't get as much attention as the other various shards. I had been thinking about the workings of plate, it started with realizing that if shardplate was really made out of metal, it should dent, except it doesn't, it shatters. When I brought this up to my freinds they seemed to think treating plate like a fabrial was silly since doing that in the past turned out to be false (i.e shardblades being spren). They believed that construction of plate was in some way related to the Nahel Bond, as shardblades are. Despite this, I'm pretty sure they are just fabrials. We know the gemstone in a shardblade isn't actually related to its function, but shardplate requires them AND a steady supply of stormlight. If the gemstones aren't infused then the armor is anything but light. And, probably most importantly, everything shardplate does can be related to the surges. Shardplate is metal, yet it shatters instead of deforming, I imagine that is is related to the surge of either tenstion or cohesion, but I can't say for certain since we don't yet know much about those surges. Progression or transformation would allow the plate to regrow from a single piece. The misting of the visor due to illumination. Obviously there's some pretty advanced fabrial science that is beyond our current understanding but as we've seen, the ancients had some pretty wicked knowledge in that department. This brings me to my second topic. History. Recent and not so recent. The vision where dalinar meets Nohadon seems to imply that Bond granted surgebinding was present long before the founding of the Knights Radiant. This is important because I believe shardplate was the hallmark of the Knights and came into existence around the same time. In fact I think this time was one of the few where it's construction was possible given the level of technology at the time. That they managed to construct something as sophisticated as the oathgates makes me think they could manage shardplate. As for recent history, both Kaladin and Renarin seemed to have no problem touching shardplate, which doesn't help the assertion that shardplate is of the spren. Something both my friends were eager to prove. tl;dr: Shardplate is just a very advanced fabrial that was made at the same period as the founding of the KR and the construction of Urithiru.

So, We know that fabrials can be created that...... - increase strength - create heat/cold - simulate all ten surges - link objects And alot of other stuff. So- What if you could create a suit of Fabrial-armor (kinda like shardplate) that would not only make you stronger and protect you and stuff, but also shoot heat rays, or othe rstuff? or was HUGE? Titanfall is coming to Roshar.

I was looking through some quotes and came across this. Besides the above quote there are a few other things about shardplate that I think are important in figuring out what they are. 1. They require stormlight to function. A lot of other posters seem to think that Shardplate comes from either a further level of declaring an Ideal or via some secondary bonded spren. This is based on that we know that Blades originate from bonded spren. But we also know that the gem placed in a bonded Shardblade can go dull and the Blade will still work perfectly fine. Shardplate on the other hand becomes completely nonfunctional once the Stormlight in its gems runs out. 2. The Gems in Shardplate crack from normal use. In WoK when Elhokar's Plate failed they were unsure if the cracked gems were just a normal but coincidental event or purposely planned, so we know that gems failing and cracking in Shardplate is a fairly normal occurance. 3. The only other time we see gems cracking from normal use (that I can remember) is in Soulcasters (maybe also happens in other fabrials). 4. While Shardplate we see is mostly used against other Shardwielders to protect against a Shardblade, the original intent was to fight Voidbringers. Okay, now onto the basic theory: Shardplate is an advance Fabrial that combines a Soulcaster (which would produce Aluminum, and allow the suit to rebuild itself) with other fabrials like an Augmenter (these might fall un der the Tension category of Surges, for increased strength) and one that deals with Cohesion (allowing the metal to constrict and lossen so it fits people of various sizes and let segments meet without joints). The soulcaster builds the armor out of Aluminum as it resistant to attacks of a magic nature. We see this when Adolin is struck by the lightning created by the Parshendi and that it is completely nullified. The KR built advanced fabrials that allowed them to replicate powers of other orders. I think Shardplate was their Masterpiece in that it combined the powers of many orders.

Has anyone else noticed that every fabrial we've seen so far that has been sufficiently described was fixed in a metal setting of some sort? What I mean is that we've never seen a fabrial explicitly described as being without metal. It almost seems like metal was a requirement in fabrial creation, and not just for aesthetic purposes. In fact, in WoR, Shallan only realized that the lamps in the Stormseat Oathgate room were fabrials when she noticed the metallic latticework around each gemstone: But if metals are important in fabrial creation, what exactly is their purpose? Shouldn't a fabrial's power come directly from the spren and the Stormlight inside the gemstone? In a pre-WoR thread of mine, I theorized that metals were conduits/transmitters of Investiture, and were the reason why fabrials can actually change their environment. That might still be the case, but right now I'm not 100% convinced about it because that theory was based on metals having intrinsic Transportation Surge properties, which I now doubt. I have a new theory that doesn't require metals to transmit Investiture, but is still compatible with that idea. It first came to me when I noticed a problem with the Soulcaster fabrials. We know that these fabrials are special because all of them were made long ago, before the Recreance, when the Knights Radiant were still around. These Soulcasters, considered sacred by the ardents, have not yet been replicated in modern times. In other words, every single Soulcaster fabrial on Roshar are practically irreplaceable artifacts. The big problem with that is that gemstones crack when too much Stormlight is forced out of them. Or as Navani would say, they "succumb easily to the multiplied strain of simultaneous infusion drain and physical stress". And when that happens, you'll have to replace the broken gemstone. So if people saw me using a Soulcaster and one of its gemstones suddenly cracks, I'd probably look rather foolish to them, won't I? They'd think I had just destroyed something immensely precious, won't they? Well, apparently not. Jasnah didn't even pretend to be upset when the the smokestone in her (fake) fabrial cracked. It's as if she fully expected Shallan to believe the smokestone could simply be replaced. As for Shallan, she had serious problems with what Jasnah did, including using a holy artifact to commit murder, but not including irreplaceably breaking said artifact. I therefore conclude that while the gemstone component of a fabrial is obviously important (it holds the Stormlight that powers the fabrial), it can definitely be replaced, even that of a Soulcaster fabrial. But how could that be? Won't you need to trap the same kind of spren in another identically-cut gemstone to replicate the cracked gemstone's power (which in the case of Soulcasters, nobody has ever done successfully)? I don't think so. We know from one of Navani's illustrations that when a gemstone that has a spren trapped inside is infused with Stormlight, it creates a specific Stormlight pattern. Now, here is my theory: I think a fabrial's Stormlight pattern is somehow imprinted on the fabrial's metal setting. This allows for the gemstone to be replaced when needed without having to attract another spren in the replacement gemstone. That probably means replacement gemstones need not even contain any spren as long as the Stormlight pattern has already been imprinted in the metal. That also means the most important thing you could do to keep a fabrial working is to not mess with the metal framework because it might disturb the pattern imprinted on it. So you should, like, try not to accidentally damage it with a sword while attempting to stab your abusive father. Or something. What do you guys think? Edit: I believe this "imprinting" of a Stormlight pattern onto metal is made possible by the Cohesion Surge, but that probably deserves its own separate thread.

According to Dalinar's visions, Shardplates and Shardblades work differently in the "modern" era of Roshar than in the time of the Knights Radiant. Also there are a lot less shards in the world than there should be. Chapter 52 "Highway to the sun" page 730 Where did all the other blades go and why did the plate behave so differently? What if the plates and blades are made like fabrials,and are copies of the knights' equipment. Yes in that same chapter I quoted, people are picking up the Knights' blades and plate and fighting over them, but it doesn't show them using them. What happened to the missing equipment? What if it deteriorated without the Knights and their spren powering it? They could have copied the blades and plate. They copied surgebinder powers. Chapter 72 "Veristitalian" page 979 They didn't have those fabrials in the time of the Radiants. Chapter 62 "Right for Wrong" page 861 So the soulcasting fabrials must have been made later. They are close to making shards now. Maybe they made these copy shards in the past. If the shards are copies, then that could explain why they didn't feel right to Syl or Kaladin. It might also explain why windrunners in the past had shard plate, but Szeth could not use plate with his surgebinding powers. So what do you think?

In the interest of finding mundane weapons capable of adequately damaging shardplate I thought I might do some calculations. From what we know so far there are two weapons capable of cracking shardplate with one blow and possibly destroying shattering shardplate in subsequent blow. Namely a Warhammer and a massive rock-sling. In Chapter 65 of The Way of Kings we see some Parshendi slinging head-size rocks at Dalinar, which slightly crack Dalinar's shardplate. In order to do these calculations I'm going to have to make quite a few assumptions: okay, now for some calculations: So now we've got a baseline. I'm going to assume that 1580 or so Joules is close to the minimum amount of energy required to crack shardplate. Long story short, here is a table of some other weapons with their approximate Ek calculated: As you can see, the two heaviest warhammers, the (3300lb draw-weight) siege-crossbow and the 5500 lb draw-weight ballista all have an effective Ek exceeding or near to 1587 Joules. The shardbearer's warhammer shown is probably capable of shattering shardplate in a single blow (if it's a direct hit, and not say, a glancing blow). The bows and crosbows have their draw weight indicated (the weight, in pounds, required to draw the bowstring/crossbowstring back). The 3300 lb draw weight siege-crossbow treads the line between a ballista and a crossbow, being that it is barely portable (up to 25 kg). There are probably quite a few other heavy weapons capable of adequately damaging shardplate, which I can't think of at the moment. If you can think of any, please point them out. It's also interesting to consider the possibilities of fabrial enhancements in improving these weapons anti-shardplate capabilities. What sort of enhancements do you think they could be given? EDIT: Added a ballista in the table.

For the longest time I've only had the audiobook of The Way of Kings, so for my birthday I decided to get a signed copy. Since I heard that you could ask a question when you got it personalized I asked: "Is the Rear Endsheat about Cultivation's or Odium's magic system? Does it involve Fabrials, Gemhearts, or Voidbringers?" This was my response: For the record I don't think the current theory about it being Odium's system for Voidbringers is correct. I think that it is Cultivation's magic system, involving the use of gemhearts from certain greatshells to create the fabrials that replicate the various surges. Unfortunately, when I tried to make my question fit within the character limit on the personalization, I left the question a little to open ended. I'm trying to decided if this tells us anything new, so I'm posting it here for help. There is also a mark on the top of the book near the Interludes between Part 3 and 4, but I don't think that means anything. If Peter or Brandon reads this, I would like to say Thank You. I know asking for this right near the release of WoR couldn't have made things easier, so I really appreciate you taking the time to do this for me.

Navani, our beloved scientist and mother of the King, has two journal entries including pictures and notations in the Alethi script, which i recently learned to read. After translating the entries, and then learning that the translations are already online, it came to my attention that Navani has a device known as an emotion bracelet. This bracelet allows you to detect the emotions of those around you, though it also detects your own and those of people in far off rooms, but seems to focus entirely on one person. How it works is it focuses on one person (seemingly of it's own accord, though possibly it focuses on the closest person feeling strong emotions) and different gemstones light up, corresponding with different emotions that person is feeling. Now, with emotional spren, this doesn't seem so useful an object, but consider, we have only seen a person attract one kind of emotional spren at a time, as well as the fact that less powerful emotions will not attract spren. Using this, since nobody knows of the existence of this fabrial that we know of except for her, Navani has put herself into an extremely powerful position. Remember how Navani has a reputation for being able to know all of the rumors in a location hours after she arrives? Perhaps she is using this device as a sort of mind-reader so to speak, using the emotions displayed+context clues to determine what is happening and what a person is thinking. I believe she is using this to help the king, since he is so inexperienced. My opinion of Navani has grown much at this discovery.