Search the Community

I've noticed there's some correlation between the Shroud, nightmares, and Midnight essence. They're that inky black that doesn't quite reflect light, they have that smoky residue, and they're really weird. Could the Shroud be made out of Midnight Essence, or are they both made out of the same thing? The Shroud and the nightmares are basically made out of souls without the soul part. Soul waste. Midnight aether from Tress might have something to do with spiritual stuff (Also Aether of Night probably can't be counted here but I want to note that night aether is described with the same black smoke stuff)

So ... does it seem to anyone else that the Shades of Threnody, the Nightmares of Torio, and the creatures of the Midnight Essence are connected? Nightmares and Shades are both the Cognitive Shadows of people who died on that world, and remain to prey on the living. They both have visual similarities to the Midnight Essence, which strangely can be created by the Unmade Re-Shephir and (in Tress and the non-canon Aether of Night draft) by a black Aether.

Unified Theory of The Nature of Nightmares on Creation, Behavior, and Destruction Introduction This theory seeks to describe a cosmerically sound explanation for everything currently know about Nightmares. Some of what is mentioned here may have been mentioned by other users, but this is my take. It uses a base assumption that Nightmares are cognitive shadows. Creation There a couple of ways that cognitive shadows (or similar beings like spren) can be created. The most likely is a direct infusion of investiture at death. While it is possible that free investiture became sentient, I don't think that is what happened here. 1700 years ago, Virtuosity splintered near painter's planet. If we assume that this splintering was similar to Ambition's, chunks of corrupted Virtuosity would have fallen to the nearest planet during the battle with Odium. These pieces of investiture, a mix of mostly Virtuosity but some Odium, fell on Painter's planet, leading to the accounts taught in school about the nightmares originally coming from the sky. One account said "I watched it rain the blood of a dying god". Frequently the shards are referred to as gods, so this matches. When this highly corrupted investiture made contact with humans, it changed some of them, investiture is known to do. "I crawled through tar that took the faces of the people I had loved. It took them. And their blood became black ink." Now, this investiture tar did not take everyone, as not everyone had enough cracks in their spirit web to hold the investiture. "He doesn’t know why he was spared." This tar became the shroud, similar in nature to the mists or a highstorm in that it is the "gaseous" form of investiture. At the same time the hions were created (by some process unrelated to this theory*) which pushed back against the shroud making pockets of shroud free areas. In these areas uninvested humans survived, but those taken by the tar were so warped that they now relied on the investiture in the shroud and retreated to its depths. In the shroud, these people died and created the cognitive shadows known as Nightmares. Behavior The traumatic and corrupted nature of their conversion to Cognitive Shadows, wiped the Nightmare's minds. Now they resided mainly in the Shroud when in the physical realm, tied there as it is their source of investiture. Occasionally, they will be attracted to nightmares of those in Hion protected cities, as artistic representations of their last moments living. Remember that their investiture is of Virtuosity so artistic appreciation is inherent. Feeding on that artistry allows them to have a stronger connection to the physical realm, the same way Syl says that spren feed off humans, giving the sapience and form. Potentially, it is even ripping off parts of the victim's spirit-web like Hemalurgy, tacking on a connection to the physical. The more they do this, the more stable they become, becoming fully stable after the 13th feeding, as 13 is important to Virtuosity. When they are not stable, they are constantly leaking investiture until they no longer have enough to prevent being pulled into the Beyond, similar to how the Returned must consume a breath once a week. Returning to the shroud then refills their investiture, preventing death. Once stable, they then must continue to feed to prevent destabilizing, causing them to ransack cities. Destruction To kill a cognitive shadow, you must destroy their connection to all three realms. Painting does those in a couple of different ways. It works of some of the same principle as spren being locked into the physical attributes that they are perceived as. Painters fundamentally alter what the Nightmare is in a way that is opposite of their spirit. This is similar to how a Knight Radiant harms the spirit web of their bonded spren, creating deadeyes. This damage to the spirit-web breaks any cognitive and spiritual connection. Once trapped in that form, the rate at which they loose investiture is greatly accelerated, breaking the physical connection and killing the Nightmare. Killing a fully stable Nightmare likely includes additional steps. Conclusion I would love to hear other's thoughts, any gaps I missed, or inaccuracies in how the cosmere works. I will edit if I made a mistake. Notes: * This maybe caused by Virtuosity's splinters being on two planets after the shadowing and the connection between them created a current of investiture between the two, aka the hion.