So why exactly is Nightblood so stupendously overpowered?

[IndigoAjah]

Nightblood, Honorblades and real Shardblades all have different strengths - Nightblood is more overtly powerful but it doesn't allow surges to be used, and as far as we know can't change form like Syl. They are just different

[dyring]

The populationmodel is incorrect

 

Humanity originated on Yolen, so at 1000 AD humans had likely been around for many times longer on earth then people on Nalthis when warbreaker happened. Besides, we dont know the size of the landmasses, how much is good to live on etc. Population on earth exploded when farming began. We got no idea when that happened on Nalthis

 

 

Also, have we heard if people elsewhere on Nalthis have Breaths? It may be local like the Reod.  

[natc]

Well the Reod was the chasm forming and the subsequent aftereffects. The Shaod is the actual mechanism.

But IIRC humans elsewhere lack a breath that can be donated or taken from themselves.

[ARARITA]

Nightblood is equivalent to a super Shardblade - but with nasty negative effects

 

it was supposedly made with 1000 breaths and a 2 word command : destroy evil

it was made by Shashara and Vasher

I'm not sure if all of that is true - we are told that - but there could be a little miss direction

 

In Warbreaker we are told that Shashara made the blade - in WoB we are told Vasher was imitating a Shardblade

we know very little about Shashara - and we don't know all we think we do about Vasher

Vasher says he was a good person but isn't any longer - though we are lead to believe he is redeeming himself

 

we do not however know what Nightblood is made from - what kind of object or type of metal

perhaps it was a special object or perhaps it is a special metal

another thing we know is that it's big and heavy - different than most normal blades

is that a transformation from the making or was it prior to ?

I think the question : was it made from a special object or a special metal ? is the key here

 

and of course I believe it is a dead Shardblade from Roshar resurrected on Nalthis  

yay Zombieblade

 

..but it's probably just made of silver

..but SOMETHING happened to make it have nasty negative effects

[dyring]

Did we ever get a clear answer on if nightblood would kill all of its wielders when they run out of fuel(breaths/stormlight or wichever), or if that was just cause it would eat Vashers divine breath when there wasent anything else left that it would kill him, and that others would just end up a bring a drab if using it to long?

[Oversleep]

Did we ever get a clear answer on if nightblood would kill all of its wielders when they run out of fuel(breaths/stormlight or wichever), or if that was just cause it would eat Vashers divine breath when there wasent anything else left that it would kill him, and that others would just end up a bring a drab if using it to long?

Is the risk of Vasher dying from wielding Nightblood unsheathed too long because Nightblood would consume his divine Breath or does that also extend to those who are not Returned?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, and yes, it does apply to others.

source

It was an easy WoB to find, just checking coppermind was enough.

[Yata]

Did we ever get a clear answer on if nightblood would kill all of its wielders when they run out of fuel(breaths/stormlight or wichever), or if that was just cause it would eat Vashers divine breath when there wasent anything else left that it would kill him, and that others would just end up a bring a drab if using it to long?

Without any "other Investiture" Nightblood will feed of the Investiture that made the wielder's soul... Of course this kills the wielder

[aeromancer]

Nightblood gets his powers because he is not a stick

 

I remember hearing WoB that Nightblood's design was based of a Shardblade (or perhaps an Honorblade?). If that is true, than Nightblood is more than merely sentient awakened object (SAO), he is a SAO specifically designed for combat. I would equate it to a hammer. Try taking a hammer of steel, and use it to destroy stuff. It works. Now, make the hammer out of plutonium, and fire unstable nuclei at it using a particle collider.

 

I would think something along those lines explains Nightblood's unrivaled powers of Thermodynamic violation. (Energy cannot be destroyed or created.)

[dyring]

Drabs live without. Or mostly without, wich put it in doubt for me;)

 

(been not that active here for some time, didnt even consider searching on coppermind, I was reading through threads looking for it, oh well  ):/

[18th Shard]

Technically, drabs live without their Breath, not the whole soul.

[Bugsy]

One interesting thing about this is that we know Vasher is somehow suppressing his divine breath, as stated in the prologue of WB. This leads me to believe that he was likely storing it in Nightblood.

[Landis963]

One interesting thing about this is that we know Vasher is somehow suppressing his divine breath, as stated in the prologue of WB. This leads me to believe that he was likely storing it in Nightblood.

If he was storing it in Nightblood, it would have been consumed as soon as he drew Nightblood in the climax. He transformed during the denouement, which means it wasn't, which means he didn't. Besides, there are loads of tricks that Sanderson withheld from Vivenna's viewpoint and therefore our own, including the ability to keep control of lots of Breaths on the fly.

[Yata]

One interesting thing about this is that we know Vasher is somehow suppressing his divine breath, as stated in the prologue of WB. This leads me to believe that he was likely storing it in Nightblood.

Also Denth may suppress his Divine Breath (and probably Astrael did the same)... Without counting that without Divine Breath Vasher would die in the second itself he try to store somewhere.

[Unhinged]

One interesting thing about this is that we know Vasher is somehow suppressing his divine breath, as stated in the prologue of WB. This leads me to believe that he was likely storing it in Nightblood.

 

I think that part of the reason Vasher doesn't look like other returned is because Returned look exactly like they think they should Vasher's been convincing himself that he should look like a homeless tramp so he does. However that wouldn't explain why he's not at the 5th Heightening like other returned even if he looks different. Of course he might have convinced himself that he shouldn't get those extra abilities which sounds hard but then again he's had 300 years to prefect his technique. 

[Nokomis]

Also, Vasher and Shashara wouldn't have chosen a regular sword for such an important test, who know what they used in forging Nightblood, after all they invented incredible things in that time.

Would certainly be an interesting source material for this blade.

Edited April 14, 2016 by Nokomis

[Bugsy]

Has it been proposed that Nightblood could possibly be forged by Edglium (Endowments's godmetal)? It would explain why it's able to contain so much investiture.

[Samaldin]

I don´t think Endowment has a godmetal but the tears of Edgli are the physical form of her power (seems to me the manifestations of a shards power are tied to the magic system, so there are only godmetals for the shard with ties to the metalic arts).

But maybe nightblood was created from an offworld metal, since Vasher and the rest tried to copy a shardblade. Maybe the managed to steal part of a shardplate (since that is the metal which comes most closely to a shardblade without being one and they wanted to make a new one not reforge one) , it crumbled to dust when the original plate repaired itself and they reforged a blade out of that dust.

[A Windspren]

Maybe it is made of aluminum, which could help explain the corrupted Investiture? I'm not overly supportive of the aluminum-negates-Investiture theory, but this seems like it could support it.

[Yata]

Alluminium is Investiture-resistant I really doubt you may awaken it. And if you can...it took much more than 1000 Breath to perform a similar Awakening.

 

PS: To me many people read in the wrong way "corrupted Investiture".... probably is just Investiture with some mess in its Intent (or Mandate if you like this word better)

[Oversleep]

Wasn't there something that it's because of the clash of Intents? Breaths can only be Endowed. Nightblood consumes Investiture forcibly. Then, when he, the Awakened object, steals Breaths in the process of consuming it, there is just error and Breaths just got corrupted since they were not given away?

I swear I've seen a WoB on this...

[Yata]

I don't know if there is a WoB, but i don't think, because I spread the "intent clashing" theory for months and nobody never give me WoB as pro or contros

Edited April 17, 2016 by Yata

[shadowwisp]

I don't know if there is a WoB, but i don't think, because I spread the "intent clashing" theory for months and nobody never give me WoB as pro or contros

 

I actually have a theory on that. I suspect that when Nightblood drains Investiture, it temporarily gains new abilities based on the source. Stab a Windrunner with Nightblood and the wielder would temporally get Windrunner Surges. Stab a Brute burning pewter, get allomantic strength. By "endowing/gifting" the user, it still maintains that Endowment Intent (in a twisted sort of way since you are stealing it). Something like this would be End-Neutral just like the Endowment magic system. Also explains how Nale expects Szeth to take on multiple Honorblades and win. We don't see this in Warbreaker because Nightblood is only used on investiture poor enemies and even then it can't give the ability of Awakening to Vasher who already has it. 

On a side note. On the issue of Nightblood "only" having 2000 Breaths. Didn't Vasher say that one of the core rules of Awakening is that the number of breaths is not representative of the strength? You can't say a regular cloak with 100 Breaths is stronger than a cloak shaped like a human body with 50 Breaths. And technically speaking, you don't need 2000 Breaths to create Nightblood, you need at least 22,000 Breaths (or maybe 42,000 Breaths if both Vasher and Shashara worked together) to reach the Nineth Heightening just to awaken steel. I wouldn't be surprised if your Breath efficiency level goes up with each Heightening as well.

 

IIRC Visualization of Commands are the most vital part of Awakening and I'm sure Shashara had some incredibly complex visualization of her Command to increase the efficiency rate as well. From what I can tell, Shashara seems to be a master at efficiency. She was the one who figured out how to create 1 Breath Lifeless after all and since she wanted to mass produce invested metal, efficiency was probably a core goal. 

I am also very curious to find what/how much color was used to power the awakening of Nightblood. I doubt a simple red cloth was used  . Better color, less Breaths? Seems to be the case with Tenth Heightening users with Perfect Invocation, the ability to drain color more efficiently leaving it white instead of grey.

 

Edited April 17, 2016 by shadowwisp

[Bugsy]

 Better color, less Breaths? Seems to be the case with Tenth Heightening users with Perfect Invocation, the ability to drain color more efficiently leaving it white instead of grey.

 

I wasn't aware of this... Logically, white is composed of all colors, so wouldn't it be black?

[Jondesu]

I wasn't aware of this... Logically, white is composed of all colors, so wouldn't it be black?

That's how it works in light, but when dealing with pigments and dyes, white is the absence of color.

jW

[Landis963]

That's how it works in light, but when dealing with pigments and dyes, white is the absence of color.

jW

 

Although the Tenth Heightening color aura does give a nod to this, by prisming white things into a rainbow of colors.