Creating Scadrian Half-Shards/Shardblades

[cometaryorbit]

So we know Nightblood is an attempt to replicate a Shardblade from another magic system (Awakening). I wonder if the same could be done with the Metallic Arts?

It seems that a sufficiently invested metalmind could block a Shardblade, at least for a bit:

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Questioner

How many smacks would it take from a Shardblade to break, say, a metalmind.

Brandon Sanderson

A metalmind? Depends on how much it's invested.

Shadows of Self Portland signing (Oct. 10, 2015)

 

So the Metallic Arts could at least produce something functional as a half-shard shield.

But what about the other-Realm destructive function of a Shardblade? Nightblood is a Shardblade, but its turn-to-smoke effect isn't identical to the deadening-limbs/burn-out-eyes effect of Rosharan Blades.

The Bands aren't enough:

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Questioner

You've said that Shardblades can be made in other magic systems. So if it's not like a Shardblade from Roshar, what makes it a Shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson

The "Shard" refers to the heavy Investiture of a Shard of Adonalsium. Most of what you’ll see will see are the Roshar ones, but it is technically possible to make them out of the other magic systems. It's going to be a heavily invested magical weapon, is kind of how I would define it.

Questioner

So are the Bands [of Mourning] one?

Brandon Sanderson

I would not call them one, but they are close. They're not Invested enough.

Calamity Austin signing (Feb. 25, 2016)

But the Bands are only a spearhead. A Nightblood-sized sword blade made like the Bands, 100% full of investiture, should be able to hold more than a spearhead, and if the Bands are "close", it would be enough to qualify. That would block a Shardblade, but would it actually give the other-Realm destructive function of a Shardblade, or would it just qualify since it is "a heavily invested magical weapon"?

Edited December 28, 2021 by cometaryorbit
remove possible WoR spoiler

[Proletariat]

It seems like a waste of a metalmind to use it for half shards or shard plate, tbh. You invest your personal energy into something and then it gets chopped away in a few hits. Seems like if you have a metal rich planet like Scadrial then you should just use aluminium as an anti-shardblade measure.

As far as using Scadrian investiture I think we kind of have one of those with Nightblood. He's clearly aligned with Ruin - he riots people, projects into their minds, is end-negative toward investiture, and even leaks that black mist. But I don't think users of Ruin or Preservation's investiture could create a weapon like that unaided.

[Kingsdaughter613]

19 hours ago, Proletariat said:

It seems like a waste of a metalmind to use it for half shards or shard plate, tbh. You invest your personal energy into something and then it gets chopped away in a few hits. Seems like if you have a metal rich planet like Scadrial then you should just use aluminium as an anti-shardblade measure.

As far as using Scadrian investiture I think we kind of have one of those with Nightblood. He's clearly aligned with Ruin - he riots people, projects into their minds, is end-negative toward investiture, and even leaks that black mist. But I don't think users of Ruin or Preservation's investiture could create a weapon like that unaided.

Weight. And Nutrition. I could see those being used (except for Bendalloy being expensive).

[NameIess]

The problem with making a metalmind into a shard is that they can't hold enough investiture. The bands are most likely completely full metalminds, meaning they are invested to the maximum amount that normal matter can hold. making the bands bigger wouldn't increase their magical density, merely their magical volume. Increasing the size of the bands would be similar to putting a few thousand infused gemstones together and expecting them to magically turn into a shardblade.

[Trusk'our]

On 12/28/2021 at 1:46 AM, cometaryorbit said:

But the Bands are only a spearhead. A Nightblood-sized sword blade made like the Bands, 100% full of investiture, should be able to hold more than a spearhead, and if the Bands are "close", it would be enough to qualify. That would block a Shardblade, but would it actually give the other-Realm destructive function of a Shardblade, or would it just qualify since it is "a heavily invested magical weapon"?

I think that a sufficiently sized metalmind that was filled with enough of a Feruchemical charge would block a shardblade, but I doubt that it would gain the other effects of a shardblade, such as it's nigh indestructibility, or it's supernatural sharpness. Those abilities seem specific to the godmetal(s) used to create shardblades and Honorblades. Even Nightblood, when satiated, has sharpness compairible to a normal sword 

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Questioner (paraphrased)

is nightblood [missed it] when satiated

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

less dangerous when satiated. More like a regular sword, but still really dangerous for normal humans. At grand scale, much less dangerous?

 

[cometaryorbit]

On 12/28/2021 at 7:59 PM, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Weight. And Nutrition. I could see those being used (except for Bendalloy being expensive).

Yeah, I was thinking iron for weight, it's easy to store.

 

On 1/1/2022 at 1:55 PM, Trusk'our said:

I think that a sufficiently sized metalmind that was filled with enough of a Feruchemical charge would block a shardblade, but I doubt that it would gain the other effects of a shardblade, such as it's nigh indestructibility, or it's supernatural sharpness. Those abilities seem specific to the godmetal(s) used to create shardblades and Honorblades. Even Nightblood, when satiated, has sharpness compairible to a normal sword 

 

Nightblood is a Shardblade, though, and made of steel. Azure/Vivenna's Shardblade is also probably not made of a Rosharan godmetal.

I agree a non-Rosharan Shardblade probably won't have the exact same cutting effect as a spren Shardblade or an Honorblade. Nightblood's is different, at least. But is that destruction effect mostly because his Command has "destroy" in it, or largely a function of being insanely Invested? The Metallic Arts don't have the "degrees of freedom" Awakening Commands do.

OTOH, there might be a way to get a soul-wound effect out of Hemalurgy, without the precise placement needed for actual power-granting Hemalurgy. The dagger used to kill Jezrien works on the same cosmere mechanics as Hemalurgy...

[+Bzhydack]

What about Nicrosil? Its hemalurgic property is to steal Investiture. The blade alone should be relatively easy to make, because metalind, even melted into something else and alloyed with other metal still contains its charge (someone here already came up with idea of "Ferring Armor" - take bunch of Ironminds, alloyed them int steel, and we get steel-strong armor with also anti-magical properties) but we can have this effect simply by using Aluminum. But if we would be able to make composite ferring-steel and nicrosil blade and somehow get Nicrosil to steal enemy's Investiture in contact (probably with blood)...

[cometaryorbit]

Maybe nicrosil would work like that, not sure. Using it as a spike to *steal* in a transferable way should still require precise placement - but maybe using hemalurgy purely destructively is less demanding?

[Trusk'our]

On 1/3/2022 at 1:36 AM, cometaryorbit said:

Nightblood is a Shardblade, though, and made of steel. Azure/Vivenna's Shardblade is also probably not made of a Rosharan godmetal.

I agree a non-Rosharan Shardblade probably won't have the exact same cutting effect as a spren Shardblade or an Honorblade. Nightblood's is different, at least. But is that destruction effect mostly because his Command has "destroy" in it, or largely a function of being insanely Invested? The Metallic Arts don't have the "degrees of freedom" Awakening Commands do.

Nightblood is a shardblade, but in a similar way to how Rosharan Lightweaving and Yolish Lightweaving are the same; they have the same name and share many similar principles, but they use different sources of investiture, and are at least somewhat different in how they function.

I'm also pretty sure that Nightblood does not actually have a supernaturally sharp edge, but you'd never be able to tell because it vaporizes and consumes everything it touches that isn't aluminum. Which would explain why it's not super dangerous compared to a normal sword when satiated; it can't absorb more investiture, so it can't obliterate you. Probably.

[cometaryorbit]

Yeah. Nightblood destroys on all three Realms, but it's more 'turn stuff to black smoke' than super cutting.

Just saying the super cutting effect is apparently not necessary to qualify as a Shardblade.

(More oddly, Azure's Blade cuts stone neatly, doesn't vaporize it. So there may be a way to get something more like a Rosharan Blade's effect with Awakening.)

 

[Trusk'our]

59 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Just saying the super cutting effect is apparently not necessary to qualify as a Shardblade.

True, as it would seem.

1 hour ago, cometaryorbit said:

(More oddly, Azure's Blade cuts stone neatly, doesn't vaporize it. So there may be a way to get something more like a Rosharan Blade's effect with Awakening.)

Azure's blade is proof that this is possible. Makes me wonder though; what make the two swords different? A different command? Perhaps they were created using different hacks of magic systems (assuming that you need a hack to make them, which very likely is the case)?

[Kingsdaughter613]

10 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

True, as it would seem.

Azure's blade is proof that this is possible. Makes me wonder though; what make the two swords different? A different command? Perhaps they were created using different hacks of magic systems (assuming that you need a hack to make them, which very likely is the case)?

More refined version of the original experiment?

[Trusk'our]

58 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

More refined version of the original experiment?

As far as I can tell, Azure's blade doesn't actively try to devour her soul, so I'd say it's construction is a step in the right direction from Nightblood.

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

I really don't know enough about how shardblades work to get too far into it.  But if you had a person who was capable of compounding even a cheaper metal and then craft their "blade" from it with the way compounding works wouldn't that open up an avenue to eventually generate enough investiture in the metalmind weapon to get close?   

If you can compound 10x what you burn wouldn't a compounder of a more than accessible metal be able to channel so much investiture to make a pseudo shardblade?  

With access to medallion tech pretty much any metalborn could become a compounder and infinitely fill a weapon shaped metal mind.  Compound enough and carry around shavings of jam packed metal mind to compound back into your blade.   

How much investiture can a single metal mind hold?   A ring that is "full" should be able to be swallowed and used to make 10 rings just as full with compounding.  But how much can it hold?   I assume you would need to fill a metal mind to the point where it dang near is leaking investiture before it comes close to a shardblade.  Then again metalminds hold onto investiture a lot better than other vessels.  We just haven't seen the limits to how much you can fill them or what happens when they get full.  

[Trusk'our]

47 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I really don't know enough about how shardblades work to get too far into it.  But if you had a person who was capable of compounding even a cheaper metal and then craft their "blade" from it with the way compounding works wouldn't that open up an avenue to eventually generate enough investiture in the metalmind weapon to get close?   

If you can compound 10x what you burn wouldn't a compounder of a more than accessible metal be able to channel so much investiture to make a pseudo shardblade?  

With access to medallion tech pretty much any metalborn could become a compounder and infinitely fill a weapon shaped metal mind.  Compound enough and carry around shavings of jam packed metal mind to compound back into your blade.   

How much investiture can a single metal mind hold?   A ring that is "full" should be able to be swallowed and used to make 10 rings just as full with compounding.  But how much can it hold?   I assume you would need to fill a metal mind to the point where it dang near is leaking investiture before it comes close to a shardblade.  Then again metalminds hold onto investiture a lot better than other vessels.  We just haven't seen the limits to how much you can fill them or what happens when they get full.  

The Bands of Mourning themselves weren't invested enough to be shardblade-level invested, and they were cram packed with investiture.

Quote

Questioner

You've said that Shardblades can be made in other magic systems. So if it's not like a Shardblade from Roshar, what makes it a Shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson

The "Shard" refers to the heavy Investiture of a Shard of Adonalsium. Most of what you’ll see will see are the Roshar ones, but it is technically possible to make them out of the other magic systems. It's going to be a heavily invested magical weapon, is kind of how I would define it.

Questioner

So are the Bands [of Mourning] one?

Brandon Sanderson

I would not call them one, but they are close. They're not Invested enough.

My guess is that you cannot actually invest a normal piece of metal with enough investiture to make it a shardblade, at least not on the level of a Rosharan shardblade, which is made of a godmetal, and as such it is pure, condensed investiture.

Nightblood has more investiture than a Rosharan shardblade, but it's constantly leaking that investiture since it's holding more than it can actually can keep.

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lucagreene18

If Szeth were to have drawn Nightblood immediately after he had consumed Rayse, would he still have drained Szeth's Stormlight? As it said he seemed like he had eaten as much as he could.

Brandon Sanderson

At that point, Nightblood had entered into essentially a food coma... Well, no, the food coma one came when he was drawing from the perpendicularity. I don't think he was in food coma mode at that point. I think that he could still have drawn more at that point, I'd have to go look at exactly what I wrote, if I'd put him into food coma mode or not. It is possible.

This is one of the things I wanted to answer with the book. A lot of people have been theorizing, could Nightblood eat an entire Shard? And indeed, Nightblood could not eat an entire Shard. That is not within his capability. In fact, one of the reasons that he leaks Investiture is: he's too stuffed full of it. There is more Investiture in the sword Nightblood than it can actually hold, it's supersaturated. And it leaks Investiture (that it's done some weird things to). But it is constantly hungry for more and constantly leaks it, but it definitely can get full for a time, and it could not eat an entire Shard.

I did see questions about that from people floating around, and it's something I'd been meaning to get to eventually. Nightblood is definitely relevant to things that are happening in the Cosmere, but it is not as simple as grabbing the sword, sticking it into a Shard, and defeating the Shard, unfortunately. Though, as you see in this book, there are reasons for a Shard to still be afraid of Nightblood. It didn't destroy Odium, but Rayse still really had a bad time.

Plus, simply holding a lot of investiture inside a sword-shaped piece of metal probably won't make it a true shardblade. The investiture needs to be "programmed" to do what a shardblade does.

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

10 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

The Bands of Mourning themselves weren't invested enough to be shardblade-level invested, and they were cram packed with investiture.

My guess is that you cannot actually invest a normal piece of metal with enough investiture to make it a shardblade, at least not on the level of a Rosharan shardblade, which is made of a godmetal, and as such it is pure, condensed investiture.

Nightblood has more investiture than a Rosharan shardblade, but it's constantly leaking that investiture since it's holding more than it can actually can keep.

Plus, simply holding a lot of investiture inside a sword-shaped piece of metal probably won't make it a true shardblade. The investiture needs to be "programmed" to do what a shardblade does.

All well heard.  Shardblades are sweet and it would be awesome to be able to make one through the metallic arts but we ought to let roshar keep their cool swords.   Scadrial tech seems to be on the up and up even in the magical sphere.  Any number of nicrosil ferrings or mistings with access to a nicrosil medallion with the opposite power to give them the ability to compound it could potentially be bands of mourning factories.   Not that we would likely ever see any that jammed packed... but the bands are, in my opinion, hands down the most broken weapon in the cosmere.  

A magical sword is dope and on screen it is one of the more fun things to see and read about.  However, that moment when time stands still and the world absolutely lights up from every metallic atom in bodies or in the mountains around you as the power from the bands gets tapped is just too epic.  We know how busted compounded speed and health are.  Even just having a crammed pack steel medallion and gold medallion on a few soldiers is terrifying.  

[Trusk'our]

1 hour ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

but the bands are, in my opinion, hands down the most broken weapon in the cosmere.  

Absolutely. The Bands may not be the most invested, but to pretty much any being that isn't a shard, they are the most dangerous.

Yes, I'm ranking them above Nightblood, because it doesn't give you superpowers, it just let's you one-shot anything...assuming that you can even hit it in the first place. 

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

I would imagine the bands also offer more than enough one hit kill potential.  Thousands of lbs tapped and a fist flying at the speed of sound should make short work of anything in front of it.  Add in the chance to instantly heal any bones breaking under the stress as well.  If plate is able to be broken by a hammer swing then surely bands powered A-pewter flare combined with steel speed and a boatload of iron weight could pull off an Elijah Mikaelson and reach right through shardplate to pull out the heart of whoever was unfortunate enough to be behind whatever armor it may be. 

This thought isnt saying plate isn't busted or that a shardblade isn't busted. Just the potential power that the metallic arts hold and the fact that aside from the coolness factor of a shardblade making them through metalminds isn't just extremely difficult but the power possibilities medallions open up are above even a mystical sword. (Again opinion piece)  

[Trusk'our]

11 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I would imagine the bands also offer more than enough one hit kill potential.  Thousands of lbs tapped and a fist flying at the speed of sound should make short work of anything in front of it.  Add in the chance to instantly heal any bones breaking under the stress as well.  If plate is able to be broken by a hammer swing then surely bands powered A-pewter flare combined with steel speed and a boatload of iron weight could pull off an Elijah Mikaelson and reach right through shardplate to pull out the heart of whoever was unfortunate enough to be behind whatever armor it may be. 

The Bands certainly are very, very powerful  

[cometaryorbit]

I guess part of the question is whether massively Invested metal will have some Realmatic effect in itself separate from what that Investiture is doing.

Being pierced by Invested metal can apparently do Hemalurgy-*ish* things even if it's not actual Hemalurgy.

So would being stabbed by a 100% full ironmind sword do some Realmatic damage beyond the Physical wound?

Metalmind full-ness is kind of weird in itself when god metals get involved. If a god metal is 100% Invested, what about a metalmind of that metal? Were TLR's atiumminds more than 100%? And does the slight alloying/impurity of Era 1 Atium matter here?

[The Silverlight Scholar]

Dumb idea about making a super sharp sword (or any other cutting tool) based on a lot of assumptions and possibly faulty memory.

If I remember correctly, the Southern Scadrian flying ships had a way for the ship to store its own weight to help it fly. I also think that the way Cosmere healing works is by using that investiture to cause the Physical to match the Spiritual, which is why Wayne is able to heal things like missing fingers that normaly don't regrow.

What would happen if you were able to connect a similar device to what the Southern Scadrians were using for their ships to a sword, except for identity?

If my theory is correct, then you would temporarily make the sword less convinced it was a sword, but you would also get a metalmind filled with belief that it is a sword (sharp, strong, able to cut easily, ect...) If you were then able to use similar technology to cause the sword to have a stronger Identity, and then is a similar technology for Feruchemical Gold to cause that strengthend identity to manifest Physically, it might have the effect of creating a sword that is super naturally strong and sharp. Not totally sure if this process would count as a Shardblade. Fairly certain that it would also require a constant input of investiture to maintain. It is also quite likely that this process, if it even works at all, would not be worth the hassle to mass produce. 

The above posts also quite excellently explain that the Bands of Mourning would likely be easier to reproduce a quite possibly far more dangerous. Even of all you did was create a device to compound steel, gold, and mabey pewter, that would likely be far more dangerous in nearly any situation than a simple sword that cuts really well.

What do you guys think? Please feel free to rip this to shreds.