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Shardplate is a Radiant’s Spiritweb Introduction There’s been a lot of speculation about what Shardplate actually is made up of. I had posted parts of this in another thread, but I decided to take those parts and expand them out here. As noted in the thread title, I believe that Shardplate is actually composed of the Radiant’s spirtweb, made manifest in the Physical Realm. Logic We already know that a Shardblade is actually a spren in the Physical realm. When the Recreance happened, the spren “died” and were left as the Shardblades that are currently used in most of Roshar. These Shardblades act a bit different than the spren version we see Kaladin wield (they can’t change shape, need ten heartbeats to be summoned, etc). Shardplate acted differently in the times before the Recreance. They glowed with Stormlight and Radiants were able to manipulate the Plate at will, adding and removing their helmet in the blink of an eye, for instance. The Plate changed shape similar to how a live Shardblade could change shape. This changed during the Recreance as the Plate no longer could appear or disappear at will and no longer glowed with glyphs. In essence, the Plate died in much the same way that Shardblades died. So why do I think that the Plate was/is the spiritweb? First, take a look at how the Radiants acted directly after disposing of their Plate. The Radiant that Dalinar caught up with simply ignored him, not speaking to him. This is very similar to how a Lifeless acts. Vivenna notes that Clod had an “emotionless face”. The Lifeless have a bit of their spiritweb left[1]. The Radiants giving up their Shardplate would likely be in the exact same situation. The Shardplate has certain points on it that, in modern times, contain gemstones to power it with Stormlight. I believe that these points are the exact same points that would be the Hemalurgic points in the spiritweb. They are focal points for Investiture. Szeth noted that Shardplate would have interfered with his lashings[2], but we see a Windrunner in Dalinar’s vision that could clearly lash. Why? Because the Windrunner had his soul as his plate. Shardplate for Szeth would be another person’s spiritweb and would not work for him. When the Plate is cracked, the cracks show up as a web. This is circumstantial evidence, but I believe it serves to back up everything else. There is a reason it’s called a “spiritweb” after all. Additionally, Plate can be regrown from using Stormlight. This is very similar to what we see with Kaladin, healing his Shardblade severed limb with Stormlight, essentially reconnecting the Spiritual with the Physical. The breastplate, as well, mirrors this. A strike to the chest (or spine) with a Shardblade is a killing blow. Shardplate ceases to function when the breastplate is destroyed[3]. Each Radiant’s soul was unique. This would manifest itself in the different shapes and patterns of the Shardplate. The sets of Plate were unique enough that Dalinar could recognize Adolin’s set in the vision of the battle where the Dustbringer fought[4]. Finally, every order of the Radiants had access to Shardplate, even if they did not use it[5]. This, quite simply, is because each Radiant had a soul (spiritweb). I think this makes for a very nice situation where the a Radiant would fight using aspects of all three Realms. Physical with his body. Cognitive with his spren Shardblade. Spiritual with his spiritweb Shardplate. References Edit: Fixed typos

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.

The theory is rather simple, Shardplate is made of stormlight, made by the Radiants who use it but only available after a certain oath. I have a few pieces of evidence that support this theory, the first and in my opinion strongest, is that you can regrow shard plate using Stormlight, you can grow an entire set of plate from one piece of armour: This quote also shows that there can be only one complete set of each set of Shardplate. This supports the idea that each Radiant made their own plate, and that it is individual supports this again, it would probably also be able to reform into different kinds of armour depending on the radiant's wishes. The second piece of evidence that supports this is from Dalinar's visions, he sees a Knight's helm just appear, or at least notices that it wasn't there and then it was, It is possible that the Knight just breathed it in converting it back to Stormlight before approaching, and then breathing it back out forming it back into a helm. With those two things established on with the theory, after a Radiant swears a certain oath, he or she is then told by their spren to breath in an exorbitant amount of stormlight, this will eventually burst out of them guided by their spren and will be formed into the plate. The plate would then remain that way permanently, the Knight would not be able to or ever want to hold that much stormlight ever again (in my imagination it is not a pleasant experience). I say above that the Knight breathed in her, helm banishing it, yes that would be possible as it is not that much Stormlight, but the whole suit is a completely different beast. In the chapter 69 quote it says it takes days to regrow even a gauntlet, that seems awfully in efficient, well of course it is, it isn't the way it was designed to happen. Shardplate on a Radiant would regenerate from the stormlight that leaks from the Radiant's body. In modern Roshar shard plate is powered by Gems like a fabrial, these gems were not there whit the Radiant's Shardplate, they were added as a substitute and are horribly inefficient. I say this as this was done to Shardblades also the gem was added so that a normal human could bond the blade. We see Kaladin fuel Shardplate from his body in the duel, but it sucked all his stormlight this happened as it was not his specific set and followed the same rules as a gem fueling the plate. This theory is a lot longer than I expected but if you read it all then thank you please reply and discuss feel free to tear it to shreds, I will be around to discuss.

There's been a lot of shardplate theories flying around, so I thought I might get in on the action. I think that Shardplate might be it's own class of magical creature/living being. I've got a few points to back it up: Shardplate can't be cut by a shardblade. This one is flimsy at best, but I think it's a good starting point. Shardblades cut through any material, unless that material is living. I know this could also be a product of the investiture in the plate, but if I had to hazard a guess, I would say that shardplate that has been completely drained of stormlight could still withstand one hit from a shardblade before exploding, instead of just being sliced clean through. I'm not sure exactly what would be required to 'kill' shardplate to get rid of this property, but it's not a terribly far stretch to say that part of its resistance to shardblades is due to its own innate life investiture. Shardplate feeds on Stormlight and investiture. So far, we have only seen one inanimate object that could feed on Stormlight, and that would be Nightblood, who we could also classify as a living thing, due to its awakening. Other than that, we've only seen living things feeding on stormlight. The gemstones may contain it, but it doesn't feed on it, whereas the living things do-larkin, Ryshadium, surgebinders/other magic users. The fact that it can use the stormlight by itself I think is a big point in my theories' favor. Shardplate satisfies almost all the characteristics of living things Shardplate is composed of its own cells-the tiny interlocking plates Shardplate has its own rudimentary levels of organization that lead to a whole. Different pieces of armor organize together to make the different extremities and things for the user. This isn't the same as cell-tissue-organ-organ system-organism, but it's not too far off. Shardplate uses energy-stormlight. Shardplate responds to the environment. This can be shown when the shardplate adapts to its user to fit. Shardplate grows. Using stormlight, you can regrow pieces of the plate, with or without a feeder piece, which speeds the process (stem cell parallel?) Reproduction. This is the one that's iffy. We don't know if shardplate reproduces, but we also don't know where it comes from. This is a possibility, albeit a small one, that the shardplate needs to reproduce somehow to get more plate. Shardplate adapts to its environment. We saw this when Adolin was struck by Stormform lightening. After the initial attack, his visor darkens along the path of the lightening to stop it from blinding him, and it hums when struck by the lightening, adapting to the attack relatively quickly after it started. 4. Shardplate uses Stormlight to grow. The Parshendi use Stormlight to grow food. Water from highstorms yields healthier plants than other water. That's all I've got for now. Thoughts?

I was wondering if maybe Shardplate is solid Stormlight? My thinking goes as follows: Magic presents itself in three forms: gas, liquid, and solid. The gaseous forms of magic all look like raw power to me, like Stormlight or Breaths. Then there is liquid, which is weird and I suppose has something to do with Shardpools. And then there is a solid form of magic, which I think could be made into Shardplate. Why? Well, when the Radiants broke their oaths they broke their bond with their spren leaving dead shardblades. So, breaking their bond would also sever their Shardplate's access to Stormlight. In a weird parallel, I see this like what happened to Elantris after it lost access to the Dor. The city was still there but it lost something, it didn't glow. In the same way Shardplate doesn't glow currently, but it did in one of Dalinar's visions. Also, Shardplate has to be equipped with gems containing Stormlight to be usable. So, after this train of thought I'm wondering what you all think? Could Shardplate be made of solid Stormlight?

So there have been some interesting theories on how shardplate might be made by radiants, and sorry if someone already said this but what if forging shardplate is one of the bondmith's things? At first I assumed bondsmiths helped others form bonds with the spren, but based on how many people seem to be attracting spren, there seems to be no need. Thus the order named "bondsmiths". The mechanic as to how they do this I have no idea on, but their order's name has me thinking... Thoughts? Possible Debunk? WoB? Let me know!

We know the following: 1. Plate and Blade currently use gems for energy 2. Blades didn't always use gems, the were in fact add to the blade after the fall to allow the summoning and dismithing of the blade by there owners. 3. In the WoK prolouge Sizth refuses to use plate because the gems that power interfear with his lashings. 4. In chapter 19 of WoK, Starfall, we see knights using lashing with apparent ease. 5. In chapter 57 of WoR, To Kill the Wind, page 686 on my Nook, Kaladin realize that a shardplate helm was able to feed on his stromlight to work. 6. Finally we know form Dalinar's Visions that there was once a lot more shards foalting around then are in use on modern Roshar. From all this I theorize that gems have nothing to do with the making of shardplate.

Theory: The reason Shardblades cannot cut through Shardplate is that just the amount of investiture in the plate stops them. I think that Shardplate is more than just a tool to stop Shardblades. We know that it grants phenomenal strength and speed to wearers even when they don't know what to do with it. As well, we see many of its other magical properties in the form of its transparent helmet and its auto re-sizing to fit the wearer. Now, all of this requires constant Stormlight infusion, which means that Sharplate needs to be powered at all times so as not to lock up. I think it is the investiture more than the plate that gives it its resistance to Shardblades Think of Nightblood. He is definitely going to need to be able to fight against Shardblades, but he is only a regular sword with an incredible amount of breaths. I think this investiture alone will protect him. If my theory is correct I wonder if a person sufficiently invested (a full KR with as much Stormlight as he could hold, maybe the Lord Ruler or the God King) would be immune or at least resistant to a Shardblade's cut. What do you all think? Some related topics which would be helpful to this discussion are: -How does a Shardblade fair against cutting a fabriel? -Why does a Shardblade slow when entering a body? -Has a Shardblade ever cut a gemheart?

I posted this idea on tor.com on sunday but I prefer a focused forum discussion to the sprawling comment sections over there so I wanted to post this idea here and hopefully get some reaction. I think Shardplate and Shardblades are in some way fundamentally different. I have seen that many people who speculate on the nature of Shardplate suggest or even assume that Syl is directly responsible for the shardplate. I don't think so. the plate and blades left behind by the Radiants behave completely differently in several fundamental ways. Also Kaladin doesn't hear screaming from touching plate. Some have suggested that the plate might be formed from a second spren bond but I dislike this suggestion, bringing a third person into a close personal relationship between two people is hard (and would be harder to write believably, not that Brandon wouldn't be able to do it). It also doesn't address the lack of screaming. My hypothesis is that the answer lies in the connection of the bond forming spren to a different kind of spren, f.ex. honorspren - windspren. It is a connection that has constantly been reinforced with Syl and I think it was mentioned in general for bond forming spren (I don't remember where and might be completely wrong on this). It seems like too much for just a casual connection, windrunner - windspren (wind being caused by pressure differences in the atmosphere). When Kaladin performs the greatest displays of his power (flying) he is surrounded by huge numbers of windspren (greater than any we have seen or heard of before). I think that is where the plate comes from. It would explain the lack of screaming, the screaming being caused by the betrayal which the windspren are incapable of comprehending thus making the plate merely distasteful. Also, cryptics - creationspren? We see Shallan being surrounded by creationspren in similarly huge numbers when she draws Pattern in her cabin on the ship (Chapter 3). It is obvious that to use lightweaving to anything approaching it's full potential requires a great deal of creativity. The link is far more tenuous than with pressure and wind but unless we see lightspren the It's as good a connection as I can think of. We have seen no indication of any other possible connections with cryptics (that I can remember at least) and I don't see why honorspren should be special in this regard. I hope I am not reposting. If I am, sorry.

We've seen that a modern day Surgebinder who tries to use Shardplate just has their Stormlight sucked away, but we've also seen that the historic Knights Radiant had no such problem. They could also summon and dismiss their Plate to at least a partial extent. So obviously they were capable of doing things with Plate that a modern Shardbearer simply cannot, just as they can't do the things with a Shardblade that Kaladin and Shallan have learnt to do. My theory is that one of those functions of Shardplate was to serve as a reservoir for Stormlight. The KR have an elegance and ease to their powers that the modern day characters still lack, and one of the clumsiest things remaining is the need to store Stormlight in gems. A Surgebinder needs to carry around gems or hold their breath to maintain their supply of Stormlight, but if a KR could truly summon their Plate like their Blades then they might be able to access their reservoir of Stormlight at a moment's notice. It'd also save on unnecessary glowing. I think the reason that modern Shardplate sucks up Stormlight might be that it's not properly bound to the Surgebinder, so the Plate is trying to siphon it off for its true owner, kind of like how people can summon Shardblades by putting a gem on the Blade and tricking it into thinking they have a proper Nahel bond. Of course as a theory this is probably completely wrong. And good night.

I'm wondering if shardplate is made from crem. I have a couple of reasons. Crem comes from highstorms so it might have a deeper connection to the stormfather or spren. Also plot wise it would give another reason why Brandon came up with crem in the first place besides being used in pottery, buildings, general nuisance and covering up an ancient city. We know you can shape it and it can become hard so with some investure crem could become shardplates. I'm just imaging Lopen saying shardplate is made from wothless crem and then going out and covering his whole body with it to try to get become a shardbearer.

I've been thinking about this recently, do you think there is a way to summon and store Shardplate similar to Shardblades?

To be a Knight Radiant and gain a Shardblade, you need to bond a spren. To gain a Shardplate, does that mean you need to bond another spren again, or your single spren will just expand to include a Shardplate? Seems to me that a Shardblade and a Shardplate is independent from each other. Say for example the modern Shardbearers who are using the Blades and Plates discarded by the Lost Radiants: It's not necessary that you're a Full Shardbearer. Some has only the Blade others only the Plate. I've read in the thread, Words of Brandon (compiled) that multiple spren bonding is possible. If a Knights Radiant bond different sprens, for example an honorspren and a cryptic, does that mean he's both a Windrunner and a Lightweaver or he'll just have to choose one order? If it's the latter option, I think a lot of politics will come at play. The orders will convince the Surgebinder to join their order... Any thoughts on this?

According to Hoid in the Ars Arcanum: "I am more and more convinced that the creation of these devices [fabrials] requires forced enslavement of transformative cognitive entities, known as “spren” to the local communities." Now we know that touching Shardplate does not cause the Nahel bonded to hear screaming, so they aren't dead spren. We also know that the ancients, at least the Radiants, had fabrials of some kind. The Oathgates operate like fabrials and Nale used the KR Regrowth fabrial on Szeth. Shardplate has gemstones in it that must be "fed" stormlight to repair it. They seem to operate the same way. But would spren, particularly honorspren, be ok with imprisoning their compatriots? Do you guys think there is a major difference between the "fabrials" of old and the modern fabrials? Something to ponder.

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?

Okay so this is going to sound stupid but in the 4 thousand years that these people have had shardplate the only thing/sport they seem to use it in is duelling.... Shardplate Tennis people or rugby or grid iron...... Shardplate figure skating lol

I have seen many theories of where Shardplate and Shardblades are. We know that there once were many, many sets of Plate and Blades, right? Well, what if most of them were destroyed? Certainly, there are many sets of Shardplate and Shardblades in Urithiru, of course. And the Shin almost certainly have plenty of sets of their own. However, chances are there were still dozens, perhaps hundreds of sets of Plate and Blades left unaccounted for. My theory here then is that most of the sets have been destroyed. If there were many mini-wars during the Recreance in which normal people took Shardplate and Shardblades and fought each other for it all, one would assume that many, many sets would have been utterly ruined. In addition, we cannot assume that it was common knowledge that inserting gems into newly-given Shardplate would make it "regenerate" the broken portions of it. I am assuming that this was knowledge receive much later on - at least after a fair number of sets of Shardplate were smashed to bits and then scattered. And then these broken, shattered, scattered pieces of Shardplate, over the course of four thousand five hundred years, got buried in the sands of time and... sand. Y. Ness. Stuff. Apologies if this has been suggested before. I (1) didn't know what to search, and (2) didn't find anything when I tried to search... Now... tear me down and point me to the light! Hahaha.

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.

So, I've been thinking a lot about the different Surges and Altering Fabrials recently while developing my general theory on fabrials, when I realized something: Shardplate and Shardblades are deeply connected with the Division Surge. Shardplate is a Division Diminisher, while a Shardblade is a Division Augmenter. Except they don't strictly require gemstone fabrials. Sure, Shardplate can be powered by infused gemstones, but those gemstones aren't fabrials, and they won't even be necessary once a Stormlight-wielding Surgebinder wears it. Similarly, we've recently seen that the gemstones in some Shardblades can be removed without destroying the Blade; they are not necessary. The gems are probably just bonding fabrials added by modern Shardbearers to "improve" their bond with the Shardblade. Yet, somehow, these magical armor and weapon combo act like fabrials. Sharplate resists being damaged (damage=division) and will eventually reform even when it does get damaged. In the same manner, Shardblade does almost nothing but divide things, even souls, and even itself (whenever it disintegrates into mist upon dismissal). So, it appears that living beings and fabrial gemstones are not the only things on Roshar that can access Surges. What's so special about the Plate and the Blade that they can do this? If only we have a clue... like, if there was a Essence that's associated with metallic weapons and armor that might suggest an explanation for it. Oh wait, we do have one: the Essence of Foil, the Essence of Kalak's Order, the Order that can access the Transportation Surge and an unknown Surge. (They are also connected to the Dustbringers who, interestingly enough, can access the Division Surge, but that's just an aside.) I highlighted the Transportation Surge because I believe it is central to learning about why some Foil-based objects can access Surges. I theorize that just as gemstones are used to store Stormlight and add Intent to it, metals can be used to transport this Intent-laden Stormlight. Metals are Stormlight conduits and transmitters. This is why all fabrials we've seen so far are attached to jewelry or machines that are metallic. It's not just to make them look cool or pretty. Those fabrials simply won't work without metal. And this is why Shardplate and Shardblade can use the Division Surge. I believe that the members of the Kak Order were capable of molding Stormlight into complex "Surge spells" (possibly using their unknown Surge) that they could then program directly into metallic objects (using the Transportation Surge) without the need for gemstones. So, they simply infused each Plate and Blade with Stormlight with "Surge spells" that target the Division Surge. Perhaps they had help from Dustbringers (who can, I believe, share their Stormlight with other people) for that task. That's my theory! Now, two questions: Wouldn't you bet that the Oathgates were made of metal? What would you think if the spell-making-related Surge required the Surgebinder to say their spells out loud (similar to Awakening), or perhaps required to draw markings on the metal using Stormlight-filled fingernails (similar to AonDor)? Edit: Reworded some things for clarity.

In light of this thread (which I stumbled across quite accidentally), a way that Shardplate could work has occurred to me. Here is the relevant Q&A: We know that you can "regrow" lost parts of a set of Plate by feeding it Stormlight. This means that Plate almost certainly already has Stormligh locked away inside of it. Since we know that, the phrase "locked away" is interesting. That implies that the Stormlight can be released. We know that Shardplate derives its power from Stormlight in gems embedded in it, but what if that power is only accessed indirectly? By that, I mean that the gems could simply be feeding into the Plate's reserves as they diminish, maintaining operational power levels while the Plate itself did all the work. Like a wasteful laptop design that always draws power through the battery even when plugged into AC. (I take the above as fairly obvious, while the below is speculation. You have been warned): I would posit that Shardplate is capable of acting as a perfect or near-perfect "battery" of Stormlight, and that the current use of Plate leaves its "Stormlight levels" at only the absolute minimum amount of Stormlight necessary to retain its integrity, with large amounts of storage yet to be used. Presumably, this is a design feature so that Plate can repair itself while not being used, but not then go on to suck the life out of it's environment. It could also be the case that Plate stores Stormlight less and less efficiently the more it has, leveling off at the "default" state we see in WoK. The reason modern Plate needs infused gems embedded in it, then, is because Plate's "power armor" attributes draw upon those Stormlight reserve. It was necessary, then, for non-surgebinders to "hack" Plate and attach gemstones to it so that it could use power. Presumably, Plate refuses to use power that it absolutely needs to maintain its integrity. It also seems that Plate can only siphon a relatively small amount of Stormlight out of infused gems at any one time. So as Dalinar's Plate became more and more damaged, its movements grew weaker and weaker (IIRC) as more of the Plate's "gem bandwidth" was redirected to maintaining integrity. Back in the days of the KR, then, Plate did not have any gemstones embedded in it (thus getting around Szeth's problem). So surgebinders would simply put reserves of raw Stormlight into their Plate--"supercharging" it and producing the glowyness, glyphs, and disappearing helmets of Dalinar's vision--and then both Surgebinders and the Plate itself would draw upon that spare Stormlight as needed. On the matter of Dalinar glowing, Szeth disliking Plate, and Elokhar's gems being cracked: Dalinar's Plate glowing could be a case of him unconsciously drawing upon the gemstones on his person or in his Plate and then re-infusing them into the Plate directly, either at a much higher rate than or, at the very least, in addition to the normal flow of Stormlight from the gems. Elokhar, if he is drawing on his armor's gems instead of being sabotaged, could be doing the exact same thing, perhaps continually emptying his Plates gems every time he uses it, putting them under undue strain and leading to the excess cracking (pg 758). Szeth. I hate that guy. He could be wrong, the gem-hack that modern plate uses could be what interferes with his Lashings, instead of the Plate itself, or I could be wrong. Assuming the second option, Dalinar isn't exactly Lashing things left and right, so it could be that Szeth would be perfectly capable of re-infusing stormlight into a set of Plate, he just prefers being able to use his Lashings. I know I'm posting a lot of thread lately, but I don't recall this particular postulation (though my track record lately isn't a very good indicator of the quality of my memory) and I wanted to get it out there. TL;DR: Plate is natively infused with Stormlight, which infusion can only be effectively increased and utilized by a surgebinder, and the current "gem powered" system of Plate is a hack so that non-surgebinders can use it.

I like Gloom's theory that the shardblades of today are different than the shardblades before the recreance, and that event is what created our third type of blade (honorblade, radiant shardblade, modern shardblade). Stealing his quote, this is from the recreance: This also helps explain why Syl seems to hate a weapon that probably used to belong to a Knight Radiant. Shardblades seem to be "off" in modern Roshar, however no one seems to question shardplate. Looking back at Dalinar's flashbacks, modern shardplate seems to be less capable than the radiant's shardplate. The radiant's plate was covered in glowing glyphs and the helms at least seemed to disappear and reappear whenever the radiant wanted. During the chasmfiend fight it seems that Dalinar's plate may have glowed a bit. Szeth thinks he can't use his lashings while wearing plate because he thinks it will interfere with the gemstones in the plate. In Dalinar's vision, one of the radiants "falls upward" back to the town. It seems like he is lashing himself in order to fly. I think there was a theory that only people in plate felt the "Thrill" but I think that was debunked as not being only limited to plate. Looking over the Recreance vision again, the swords were glowing and faded, but there is no mention of armor glow or any change. Kaladin didn't just reject a blade, but also the plate. However, he only thinks about the blade. So, is anything up with shardplate? If something is wrong with shardblades, and it was caused by the Recreance, would it have also affected the plate? Maybe the Recreance only corrupted (or allowed a certain odius presence to corrupt) shardblades. We don't seem to have any indication that shardplate is bad in any way, no recreations or revulsion to it. But, if it doesn't elicit the same reactions as the shardblades, can we assume that whatever causes Syl and Kaladin to hate the blade did not happen to the plate (IE, if Syl and Kaladin hate blades, but not plate, can we assume the Recreance didn't cause the issue with shardblades?) I thought that maybe shardplate was just not working because no one in modern Roshar seems to be able to make it glow or disappear, so its corruption just wasn't seen. However, when Kaladin kills the shardbearer, Amaram states that the shardbearer is dead: It looks like shardplate is bonded to its wearer in some form, and when the wearer dies, it just falls off. So, it seems that shardplate is still working, at least in some minimal form. We also have Dalinar, who seems to almost glow when protecting Elhokar from the chasmfiend, so the shardplate seems like it might still be connected to the ideals of honor, and it might still work if worn by a KR. Where does that leave my ideas when it comes to shardplate? Confused! The quote from the Recreance makes it seem like something really bad happened there, but it doesn't seem to have done anything to shardplate, and I like the idea that it is the cause of modern shardblades being disturbing to Syl. I also like the idea that shardplate and shardblades are related to the oaths of the KR, but modern shardplate seems to be just waiting for honorable people to pick it up and put it on, while the shardblades are being rejected by our two main honorable characters. It would make more sense if both plate and blade were corrupted, or if both plate and blade could be made to work properly by an honorable person. Am I missing something that might imply plate is also bad in some way? Could the difference between the two mean something important?

Or, I'd guess the Stone Shamans have some suits, even if they don't actually use them. My search fu is not strong, so I'm not really sure if this is something that's come up before. If so, will someone please share a link? Thanks. Anyway, in some of the recent threads a few of you have mentioned Szeth not using plate because it was problematc with his lashings. This prompted me to go back and read the prologue and prelude again to see exactly what he says about it. There were a couple of things that jumped out at me. Side note: even though I've read this a couple of times, I always thought the plate interfered with Szeth's lashings, not the other way around. But back to the point. So, there are three things here that Szeth knows: He couldn't lash and wear shardplate at the same time. How to take off the shardplate easily. He knew that all he had to do was tap. He knew where to tap. That shardplate was powered by gems. Or more specifically, where some of those gems would be. That's why he removed the breasplate, to get more stormlight. While #3 (powered by gems) may be more generally known, I have a hard time believing Szeth could know #1 and #2 without having previous experience with shardplate. Perhaps he gained that knowledge as a Truthless slave working and fighting for stonewalkers, but would they have given him shardplate to experiment with. If not, how would he know his lashings interfere with the gems? We know Szeth was trained in a fighting style known as kammar. Presumably, that was in Shinovar before he became Truthless. I speculate that it was during that time that he had exposure to shardplate. Which means the Shin have at least one set of shardplate. How did they get it? If they only have one set, then there are many plausible scenarios for obtaining plate. But what if they have more? This is where my speculation gets a little wild... Maybe the stone shamans have an ability to detect invested objects that have no connection to any people. They could retrieve any blades or plate that have been lost in circumstances where nobody was there to take them up. After thousands of years, they may have a stockpile.

Pitching my first theory (of the crazy kind) here on 17thshard; let’s see how this goes. (Disclaimer 1: I’ve been through the forums and I don’t think this theory has been pitched before; I haven’t seen anything like this since the Seattle signing post, where I first saw the term Bondsmith) (Disclaimer 2: As we all know there is very little information on the 10 orders of Knights Radiant, the creation of Shardblade & Plate; and to be even more specific, all we know about Bondsmiths are the name, and the presumption that that is the name of Kalak’s Order. But hey, that’s why this is a loony theory! ) I propose that Shardblades (and therefore most likely, Shardplate) are created/generated/called-into-being initially by BondSmiths. Brandon has given to us (or confirmed) the names for 8 of the 10 orders, and given/confirmed the location of 7 of the 8. Bondsmith has to fit the position of either Kalak’s (builder/resolute), Ishar (pious/guiding) or Palah (learned/giving) order, and the predominant belief on this forum (which I share) is that Bondsmiths are in Kalak’s order, which… makes the most sense, given the options. So working off the assumption that Bondsmiths are in between Elsecallers and Stonewards, a few supporting points to this loony theory: 1) Transportation Surge. Shardblades are theorized to rest in the Spiritual realm until they are summoned. Summoning clearly involves some aspect of transportation from the Spiritual realm to the Physical realm (I have another loony theory where I propose that Elsecallers can summon things –and possibly beings/creatures- from or through Shadesmar/Cognitive realm that I may write up soon), and there needs to be some way in which the blades have some kind of connection (or bond, if you will) established between the 2 realms that allows them to travel back and forth when called and released. There needs to be another bond between the wielder of the blade and the blade itself (still need to read that book and series, someday). There also needs to be the disruption of the target-of-the-blade’s soul (maybe severs the connection of a being’s soul (spiritual) with their body (physical) or some other effect; I’m still working on this). All of this requires some type of interaction between the spiritual and the cognitive realms that Transportation may provide. It’s possible that Bondsmiths are able to invest the Blades with these types of attributes. 2) Surface Tension-like Surge. Shardplate has been shown to adjust adapt to the size of the person that wears it. It also fits seamlessly on the wearer, but allows a freedom of motion and agility to the wearer that normal, stiff armor doesn’t allow. It’s possible that the Bondsmith’s control over the Surface Tension-like force that Brandon described (allowing for things that are flexible to become rigid on command) plays a role in making Shardplate flexible for the wearer while still maintaining its structure and solidity. It’s also possible that when proper Knights Radiant are wearing the Plate, they are able to retract the helm and visor at will, as we saw in Dalinar’s flashback with the Knights in Starfall (although this has even less basis in what we know then the rest of my theory; just pure speculation on my part). Perhaps Bondsmiths are able to invest the Plate with these types of attributes. 3) Name of the Order. They are called Bondsmiths. The implication that they make tools, weapons or armor is kind of inherent in the name. Also that they forge some type of bond between things. Kelek has the attributes of Resolute and Builder. Who knows, he could have even shown the first Bondsmiths how to create the Shardblade and Shardplate. And to go even loonier with this theory, Kelek’s body focus are the nails, which by extension is the hands. One summons the Shardblades and they land in the summoner’s hands. Again, this is highly likely to be coincidental, but you never know, right? 4) Knights Radiant composition. If we accept that the Knights Radiant is a complete fighting force, it would make sense that there are different divisions and specialties among the Radiants. Some of the folks here have theorized that the Windrunners and Stonewards would be like shock troops, and that Palah’s order could be like medics, and that other orders would provide some type of direct combat or support role. Every army also needs specialists who focus on weapons and armament. It would be logical that a Knights Radiant Order would specialize in the creation and maintenance of the army’s primary offensive and defensive equipment. And possibly be able to cater those weapons to a specific fighting style or strength of each individual. Maybe that's why each Shardblade appears to be different; they are designed especially to the strengths and specifications of the weilder. So there we are; my first theory on 17thShard. Is it fairly unsubstantiated, with wild speculation and very little hard evidence? Sure. But is it possible? (And more importantly, did you have fun reading it?) I look forward to any feedback. I don’t know every theory that has been submitted and debunked out there, so it’s possible that a lot of this could be off, and I'd be happy to hear what does/doesn't work in this theory. But wouldn't it be cool if this was one more piece to the puzzle?

Ok, so I was thinking about invested objects we have seen in the Cosmere to try and find some commonalities in order to gain some insight into the construction and nature of Shardblades and Shardplate. The big headline invested objects we know of are: Nightblood Metalminds Hemalurgic Spikes Fabrials (modern) Making Invested ObjectsFirstly, we know how Nighblood, Metalminds, Spikes and Fabrials are made: Nightblood was a regular sword invested with a huge number of breaths (1000?) and given a Command. The breaths provide the investiture and the Command is the focus of Nalthian magic. Metalminds - The Feruchemist 'saves' an attribute into the appropriate metal for use later. The investiture comes from the Feruchemist and the focus is the metal. Hemalurgic Spikes – the appropriate metal is stabbed into (or through?) an individual with the appropriate power, in the correct location and therefore gets charged with the power. This can them be grafted onto the recipient by stabbing them with the spike (again on the correct location). The Investiture comes from the donor and the metal is again the focus. Fabrials (modern) – A spren is trapped in a gem that is cut in a certain way and mounted in a framework. The cut and type of gem determines the species spren that is trapped and the framework determines the final application of power available. In this case the Spren seems to be providing the investiture and focus seems to be the gemstone. (I am far less certain about this as the metal framework seem to have an impact on the application of the final fabrial). In all the cases above, the common theme is that they all began life as mundane objects, even if specific materials or shapes were required. This may seem obvious but I think it is worth noting. Invested Objects in ActionWhen we look at the various types of invested objects in use, there are also some general commonalities. Nightblood – Acts as a self aware sword and consumes breath from the wielder. In this case, I believe the Breath is acting as a power source for Nightblood’s abilities. Fabrials (modern) – Have a single function as defines by the makeup. IT is not explicitly stated I the book but I have always assumed that the gemstones in the fabrial must be infused for them to work. This would be consistent with our knowledge of how magic works on Roshar. Therefore the Stormlight is acting as a power source for the fabrial’s abilities. Metalminds – Returns stored attributes for use. No real power source here, I think, due to the end neutral nature of Feruchemy. You can only use what you store so there is no need for a power source. Spikes – Imbue recipient with power though spiking. Again no power source required since it is end negative. The maximum you could graft to the recipient is the total of what you stole from the donor. This is more shaky ground but I believe each end positive result requires an active power source to make the objects function as required. Shardblades and ShardplateSo now I come to the theory aspect of my post. First, I believe that both Plate and Blade are end positive as we do not see any diminishing qualities in either of these. Neither do thay seem to have a trade off of power with the holder / wearer. So looking at the above discussions I have come to the following conclusions. Plate / Blade started life as regular swords / armor and were invested afterwards making / forging. (Given the ornate nature of many blades, they may have been carved in wood and then soulcast into metal before being invested). Given this is it logical that different weapons could be invested in the same manner. So swords were merely a convention with the KR rather than a necessity of construction. By the same logic a ShardShield (along similar lines to Plate) would also be possible. Blades draw power / stormlight from somewhere*. Plate is clearly powered by stormlight in the form of gemstones (if it was powered differently in the past, I believe it still required a power source). I am not going to theorise about how this investiture occurs. Maybe one of the Surges / Orders we have not yet seen allows the constriction of the Blade / Plate. Maybe only a full KR is able to make them. Maybe a spren needs to sacrifice itself to make them. Maybe the Heralds made them. Maybe a wizard did it! The big question to answer this is: What is the focus of magic on Roshar? Either way I think the above are fairly logical conclusions Why do you guys think? (* I suppose a possible work around to this could be that the investiture of the blades makes it special abilities properties of the blade rather than abilities. However given that the Plate does not behave this way, I think it unlikely)