Regrowth?

[Kaurne]

In one of Dalinar's flashbacks, we see him take the position of an ordinary man when monsters attack during a storm. He is saved by two Knights Radiant. One of them using a power on him called a 'Regrowth' in order to help him recover from his wounds.

Now, as far as I can remember, Brandon referred to surges by saying they were what we would call natural forces. This is supported by how Kaladin and Szeth can manipulate gravity, and how Soulcasting (confirmed as a form of Surgebinding) could be considered control over matter (which is a bit of stretch saying it is a natural force, but that's the best idea I can come up with).

The thing is, can healing really be considered a natural force? The closest I can come is the suggestion life itself is a natural force for the purposes of defining 'surges', but that still seems a much greater stretch than Soulcasting being matter.

However, we do know that 'Cultivation' is another shard on Roshar. Now, I personally made a link between the terms 'Regrowth' and 'Cultivation'. Regrowth is usually a term used for plants, as is Cultivation - they are rarely applied to animals. Could it be possible the Knights Radiant had some power granted from Cultivation, as well as from Honor?

Edited December 13, 2011 by Kaurne

[kari-no-sugata]

If you sped up natural healing by a factor of 10,000-100,000 it would still be natural but would enable healing that's so fast you can see it happen. So the force could be "time".

[Kaurne]

If you sped up natural healing by a factor of 10,000-100,000 it would still be natural but would enable healing that's so fast you can see it happen. So the force could be "time".

Interesting - thus a 'regrowth' is just their way of labeling on possible use of their time powers? Seems odd they would have a specific name for such a use, but I'll allow it.

The one issue I have with that is the source of the energy. Stormlight is presumably what would fuel it if it was Surgebinding. But healing a wound would require an energy input into the body - we get it through food to heal wounds naturally. Your explanation implies that the energy from the Stormlight goes into both speeding up time and providing the energy for the healing to occur, which would be kind of strange - not to mention not really fitting with their 'time' powers.

Though if that was occurring, it would explain why they have a specific name for it.

On a related note, anyone have any idea about the Dustbringers, and why certain areas 'smoldered' after they did their job? The 'bringers' implies that they are a type of Voidbringer, and the way that Kalak says 'they did their job well' sounds more like talking of an enemy than an ally. Still, we can't get rid of the possibility this is another Order of the Knights Radiant, and they control another surge. So what surge would this be? Heat?

[Quantum Toast]

Interesting - thus a 'regrowth' is just their way of labeling on possible use of their time powers? Seems odd they would have a specific name for such a use, but I'll allow it.

The one issue I have with that is the source of the energy. Stormlight is presumably what would fuel it if it was Surgebinding. But healing a wound would require an energy input into the body - we get it through food to heal wounds naturally. Your explanation implies that the energy from the Stormlight goes into both speeding up time and providing the energy for the healing to occur, which would be kind of strange - not to mention not really fitting with their 'time' powers.

It could be sort of "rewinding" the wound so it hadn't happened anymore. That'd be pure time-manipulation, at least, though it seems like it'd be much more powerful that way.

[dj26792]

Is this the quote you mean:

It will be new. There are going to be a lot of different types of magic in the world (I see there's a question below asking about that, so I'll answer more there.) But there will be two main magic systems for the first book. The first will deal with the manipulation of fundamental forces. (Gravity, Strong/weak atomic forces, Electromagnetic force, that sort of thing.) The second will be a transformation based magic system, whereby people can transform objects into one of the world's ten elements.

So that is clearly referring to windrunning and doesnt necessarily say anything about the rest of the magic system, I see no problem with regrowth being a surge.

[discipleofhoid]

Is this the quote you mean:

So that is clearly referring to windrunning and doesnt necessarily say anything about the rest of the magic system, I see no problem with regrowth being a surge.

Things have changed since this quote. In this quote Brandon spoke of soulcasting and surgebinding as two different magic systems. Soulcasting is now a subset of surgebinding (the transformation surge). That said if one of the surges is transformation I see no reason one of the fundamental forces of their planet couldn't be healing or something like it.

[ReaderAt2046]

Two possible explanations for how the power works:

1. Regrowth accelerates natural healing in the same way as gold Feruchemy.

2. Regrowth is actually a specialized form of Soulcasting (turning air into flesh and bone.)

[CrazyRioter]

I'm not sure you could soulcast stuff into living tissue.

[name_here]

One of the Essences is Blood, which is most definitely alive, so probably. Soulcasting an entire creature would probably be too complex, though.

[Arcanist Lupus]

I'm not sure you could soulcast stuff into living tissue.

I suspect it would fall under the category of "theoretically possible, but practically impossible", with the exception of the living essences (Blood, Pulp, Sinew, etc)

[Windrunner]

There's also the possibility that Regrowth is done with a fabrial. Here's the quote emphasis mine.

The Way of Kings Hardcover, pg 303

Dalinar lurched, turning to see a woman in delicate Shardplate kneeling behind him, holding something bright. It was a topaz entwined with a heliodor, both set into a fine metal framework, each stone as big as a man's hand. The woman had tan eyes that almost seemed to glow in the night and she wore no helm. Her hair was pulled back into a bun. She raised a hand and touched his forehead.

Ice washed across him. Suddenly the pain was gone.

This confirms almost for certain that Stormlight was used, based on the icy feeling that is associated with it. This doesn't mean for sure but I'm convinced at least that Stowmlight is from Honor, meaning this is Surgebinding.

But I can't decide about the topaz, heliodor thing. Is it a fabrial or just a glorified carrying case for the Radiant's Stormlight? Topaz's focus is bone, and Heliodor's is flesh, making it ideal for healing. The fact that she can use it makes me want to put the woman in the 9th Order which might be the Stonewards.

[Wispsy]

Holding stormlight accelerates healing anyway

The fact that he felt icy might have been just some kinda injection of focused stormlight, thru those gems to boost its healing or some random thing like that

[Windrunner]

Holding stormlight accelerates healing anyway

The fact that he felt icy might have been just some kinda injection of focused stormlight, thru those gems to boost its healing or some random thing like that

How does this differ from it being a fabrial? The quote says that the topaz and heliodor thing was bright. Since they were fighting at night, Dalinar probably wouldn't have noticed that they were shiny, I think this means that they were infused. Fabrials use Stormlight as a power source for some unusual magical affect that is determined by the type and cut of the gems. So if she is using Stormlight through the gems I think that that makes the item a fabrial. The only other possibility I can think of is, like I said above the gems are basically the equivalent of a Stormlight purse where she keeps it until she needs to Infuse something.

[hoser]

Interesting focus for a thread. I've been speculating about it also.

I think Regrowth is different from healing, soulcasting, stormlight effects and stormlight-accelerated healing.

Why?

We know that Kaladin is becoming a windrunner with the special abilities of pressure and gravity (I can support this if needed) like the blue knight in the midnight essence vision. He also infuses stormlight and it heals him. We see the Stonewards in two visions and they also seem to infuse stormlight. So, at least two orders (and maybe all orders) infuse stormlight and it heals an order for whom healing is definitely a special ability. Szeth also knows the stormlight will heal him. From the prelude:

Szeth stumbled to his feet, vision swimming. Blood streamed from the side of his face, and Stormlight rose from his skin, blinding his left eye. The Light. It would heal him, if it could.

I claim that infusing inherently provides a limited healing ability.

The Radiants are obviously familiar with this, but they call what they do for Dalinar and the woman in the vision Regrowth. That implies that they consider it something different and I think Brandon wants to draw our attention to that. The word regrowth has a somewhat different meaning than healing, and I think that Brandon is deliberately trying to hint at a distinction by using that word, the capitalization is also a difference in the usage. Now consider the other use of Regrowth:

The woman reached out and touched Taffa. The flesh on her side regrew in an eyeblink; the torn muscle remained where it was, but other flesh just grew where chunks had been torn out. The skin knitted up over it without flaw.

This seems different: a distinct act of short duration where the healing that Kaladin and Szeth do is a more gradual and partial process; no glowing is described whereas the infused healing is accompanied by glowing stormlight use; the idea of chunks of missing flesh seems to draw an emphasis that exceeds the healing descriptions elsewhere.

Soulcasting converts one thing to another instantly and atomically. The missing flesh is seen to grow with incredible speed where there was nothing. There is no conversion of anything else and the woman is not touching each void and converting air to flesh. She is just touching Taffa in one place and all the voids are filled from the areas around the voids (my interpretation!). As others have pointed out, flesh is much more complex than the ten essences. It would take a distinct and instant soulcasting of interwoven fat, muscle, skin, blood vessels and other kinds of flesh that I don't understand to create a flawless repair. The Knights knew soulcasting as two orders could do it, why would they call it regrowth in one specialized application? Clearly some of the things that Jasnah and Shallan do would never be called Regrowth. If it was just a particular skilled application of soulcasting, I doubt it would be called Regrowth by the Knights. I can't see how this is Soulcasting.

So what is it? I think it's something else entirely. It could be one of the two special abilities of the Stonewards powered by the fabrial which acts as a stormlight battery as Wispsy has suggested. It could be something done with the fabrial that the woman utilizes. It could be a Radiant ability of two non-Stoneward orders copied by the fabrial that the Stoneward Knight uses. I can't find anything suggestive in the text. I personally favor the last theory, but have no solid supporting evidence. The distinct name, the capitalization and Brandon wanting to introduce early hints about the Radiant abilities all point toward it for me.

What am I missing? What have I got wrong? Please let us all know.

[treblkickd]

What am I missing? What have I got wrong? Please let us all know.

It sounds to me like you've summarized things correctly here. I would also add that the use of this term, "Regrowth", is reminiscent of the way that Windrunners (via Szeth's PoV) refer to "Lashings", and in that way it also sounds like another kind of surge-based power that might naturally be associated with one of the Knights Radiant orders.

[Kaurne]

I just remembered that according to the legends of the Knights Radiant, they were also able to fly and teleport. The second one, is I believe, backed up by some stories of how a historical figure (Nohadon?) traveled a huge distance in a tiny amount of time.

So let's link this in with what we know about the Knights. There were 10 orders, each of whom controlled two surges. Assuming that a surge can be used by multiple orders, then we have a minimum of 5 different surges to control, and the maximum of 20.

However, the power of flight sounds like another manipulation of Gravity - something Windrunners already do. Thus, we can presume that the Windrunners were one of the gravity orders, and this unnamed flying order (Skywalkers? Skywatchers? Skyrulers?) is another. Thus, at least some of the surges are repeated.

Here, I'm going to use my argument from neatness again - namely, that Brandons magic systems always fit together neatly - if they don't appear to, that's because we don't understand them properly. Thus, a theory in which the parts are neat, have equal numbers etc is inherently more credible than a theory where the numbers do not match up or where things are not neat, with all other evidence being equal.

If Some surges are used twice, it seems neater to have all of them used twice rather than some used once and some twice. Note that here I am not taking into account a surge could be used three times, because that just makes things bloody complicated. Thus, we would be looking at 5 surges between the 10 Knights Radiant.

So far, gravity and pressure appear to be the ones confirmed - at least, those are the two that the Coppermind says Windrunners hold. Gravity is backed up by the talk of flying.

Beyond this, we have guesswork. Teleportation (assuming it actually is a power) would probably have space, or motion, as it's surge. Soulcasting, which is confirmed as a form of Surgebinding, probably has either transformation or matter as its Surge. Finally, we have Regrowth, which may well be a form of time-surge or it may be a kind of life or healing surge

In the first two, I'm now more inclined to go with motion and transformation, simply because they sound like forces rather than building blocks of the universe. Then again, if the regrowth is a time-surge, then it makes more sense for the teleportation to be a space surge, because of link between space and time.

So we either have space, time and matter/transformation (though the latter seems a bit of a poor fit). Or we have motion, life/healing (the first sounds better) and matter/transformation (in which case the former seems a bit of a poor fit) in addition to gravity and pressure. That means in the first book, there are enough hints to give all 5 surges and thus the surge combinations of all 10 orders

This assumes we have only 5 surges, though. Any more and everything goes up in the air, since as far as I know there are no more hints in tWoK on other surges, so there are some surges we have no idea about.

This is all guesswork and really big leaps of logic from offhand details in the story, so feel free to tear it to shreds. But I personally like the idea of having all 5 surges handed to us in the first novel, just hidden.

[ReaderAt2046]

There are ten Surges. Each is used twice, and each order has two.

I think Regrowth is Stormlight healing with two alterations:

1. It can be infused into someone else.

2. It's way faster. (Similar to the difference between Pewter Allomancy and Gold Feruchemy)

[CrazyRioter]

teleportation is Travel, and Soulcasting is Transformation, according to Brandon.

And there are ten Surges. Each Surge is shared by two orders.

[Kaurne]

Okay, didn't know that. That leaves us with:

-Gravity

-Pressure

-Travel

-Tansformation

-Whatever regrowth is

Could The Skywatchers hold both gravity and travel?

[name_here]

During the radiant flashbacks, the Windrunners were apparently the guys in blue armor who flew, while the amber armored lady teleported.

Kaladin demonstrated the capacity to fall from a great height without injury, and you could probably get reasonable flight by chaining Basic Lashings, so the Windrunners probably flew by doing that.

[Arcanist Lupus]

During the radiant flashbacks, the Windrunners were apparently the guys in blue armor who flew, while the amber armored lady teleported.

Kaladin demonstrated the capacity to fall from a great height without injury, and you could probably get reasonable flight by chaining Basic Lashings, so the Windrunners probably flew by doing that.

Also, remember Kaladin's "ride the storm" dream. That could be flying as well.

[discipleofhoid]

During the radiant flashbacks, the Windrunners were apparently the guys in blue armor who flew, while the amber armored lady teleported.

Kaladin demonstrated the capacity to fall from a great height without injury, and you could probably get reasonable flight by chaining Basic Lashings, so the Windrunners probably flew by doing that.

In one of the interludes Szeth lashed an item to the sky/some other planet. Do this to yourself instead and you have flight.

[hoser]

Hi Kaurne,

This is your thread, as I see it, so I want to follow your lead. If you want to suss out all the abilities, rather than just Regrowth, I'd love to follow along.

I think it starts with the Nahel bond that certain spren can create with certain sentient beings. According to the Nohadon vision, Honorspren are discriminating about the actions of the people they are attracted to. Based on his work, the KR evolved (presumably within his lifetime, as he writes of traveling to Urithiru). The symbolhead spren (seen by Elhokar in the mirror, Shallan in her artwork and recognized by Jasnah) may also be able to create a Nahel bond. The spren may have a relation with stormlight (none in Shinovar).

The Nahel bond may allow spren to take on human attributes and vice versa. Fabrials work by combining stormlight with a trapped spren. The Nahel bond may work by combining stormlight with a bound spren. According to this theory, surgebinding is creatures using spren abilities. The things spren and fabrials can do will help us understand what surgebinders can do.

But Kaladin can also infuse stormlight and heal, even though his abilities are Pressure and Gravity. It seems to me that Infusing and Healing must be inherent in the bond or the stormlight itself. I think that Regrowth is a different ability, but ReaderAt2046's suggestion above, as I interpret it, seems possible, in which case it might not be a specific ability.

It seems like there could be an order that has both gravity and travel, but with ten orders there are obviously not orders for every pair of abilities (45 possible pairs?). The flying could just be referring to the two orders that have gravity as an ability (including Windrunners). The travel could be referring to only two orders that have travel as an ability.

Other surges may include detection (the Knights detect Midnight Essences in Natanatan from Alethela and presumably monitor the entire continent) and communication (they could travel to communicate, but that seems cumbersome). Look at the spanreeds, which seem to communicate instantaneously over great distances. Communication could be an ability that binds to two orders of KR. Of course the KR could just use fabrials for these abilities.

In chapter 59, it is suggested that KR could:

make stone melt by looking at it. And move great distances in a single heartbeat. And command the sunlight.

Hope this helps.

[discipleofhoid]

Here is a clarification of the KR orders and how powers relate to them. From a 17th shard interview with Brandon - in the brandonothology.

There were 10 orders of Knights Radiant. Each order was based on a combination of two of the "smaller" magic systems in this world, so to speak. You combine two of them together and they each had something kind of "their own". So if you look at the map in the front of the magic system and you mark circles that include one large circle and two of the smaller circles in between, you can find the 10 orders right on there. The mini circles are the powers and the big circles represent the orders and the essences and things like that. So one big circle, two little circles equals an order of Knights Radiant.

So each order has two powers and there are 10 powers total. Each order shares one power with the order to the one side of it and its other power with the order on the other side of it.

So I would agree with you that the thing that are not just plain side effects of stormlight would be two order only things.

Edited December 12, 2011 by discipleofhoid

[Zhevir]

We know that every order had 2 shared abilities and something special for them self. What if that unique thing is just an way of combining the to abilities in a special way. Like while windrunners shared gravity with one order and pressure with another the windrunners are the only one that are able to use the lashings.