[OB] On the Varieties of True Spren

[WeiryWriter]

So with Oathbringer we get quite a bit of information about the varieties of Radiant spren, or as the Stormfather refers to them, “true spren”. Here is my attempt to organize it all:

 

Honorspren (Windrunners)

• Cognitive Form: Blue-tinted. Human-looking.
• Physical Form: Blue-tinted. Can shapeshift into pretty much anything but main form is a tiny human, though they can grow to normal human-size.

Highspren (Skybreakers)

• Cognitive Form: Unknown
• Physical Form: Warped tear in the sky, through which a black sky with stars can be seen.

Ashspren (Dustbringers)

• Cognitive Form: Human with ash-white skin that dissolves when it moves revealing bone underneath.
• Physical Form: Unknown

Cultivationspren (Edgedancers)

• Cognitive Form: Humanoid form made of vines with a face made of crystal.
• Physical Form: Vines that have bits of crystal jutting out from them.

Mistspren (Truthwatchers)

• Cognitive Form: Humanoid form made of mist/fog with faces like porcelain masks.
• Physical Form: Looks like light reflected from a mirror. Plants made of light start to grow out of them if they remain in the same spot for a while.

Cryptics/Liespren (Lightweavers)

• Cognitive Form: Humanoid shape with robes and a symbol for a head.
• Physical Form: Two-dimensional (usually) version of their head symbol.

Inkspren (Elsecallers)

• Cognitive Form: Human with ink-black, but iridescent, skin.
• Physical Form: Miniature version of their Cognitive Form.

Lightspren/Reachers (Willshapers)

• Cognitive Form: Human with metallic/brass colored skin.
• Physical Form: Comet-shaped

Unknown (Stonewards)

• Cognitive Form: Humanoid with stone-like skin with cracks that shine with a molten light from within.
• Physical Form: Unknown.

Stormfather, Nightwatcher, and the Sibling (Bondsmiths)

• Cognitive Form: Unknown & Unknown & Unknown
• Physical Form: Giant face in the Highstorm & Freaky eldritch smoke monster & Unknown

 

The two contentious points are probably my placement of Mistspren and Lightspren. I placed Lightspren where I did because it is said that they love to travel and go new places, which reminds me of the way Willshapers are described in the epigraphs of Words of Radiance:

Quote

And now, if there was an uncut gem among the Radiance, it was the Willshapers; for though enterprising, they were erratic, and Invia wrote of them, 'capricious, frustrating, unreliable,' as taking it for granted that others would agree; this may have been an intolerant view, as often Invia expressed, for this order was said to be most varied, inconsistent in temperament save for a general love of adventure, novelty, or oddity

Lightspren also have a strong association with metal. Not only do they appear to be made of metal but they also seem to communicate through metal plates installed in the ship. This would fit with Willshapers being associated with the Essence of Foil, i.e. metal.

I connected the Physical and Cognitive forms of the lightspren because I believe Timbre is the daughter that the ship captain references as having run away.

I had originally pegged the mistspren as being the Cognitive Form of the highspren (since they are made of mist and fog and the highspren/Skybreakers are associated with the Essence of Vapor) but when they were revealed to be a distinct species I assigned them to the only other order that didn't have a known Cognitive Form.

This leaves us with very few gaps. Excluding the Bondsmith spren, the only information we are missing is: the cognitive form of the highspren, the physical forms of the ashspren and Stoneward spren, and the name of the Stoneward spren.

[IntentAwesome]

Interesting thoughts on the mistspren. I had not associated them with Truthwatcher spren. I had wondered if they were actually not fully formed Honorspren, by the more simplistic way they often behaved. But that could be from not speaking Alethi. 

What do you think their association with the Honorspren is? 

[WeiryWriter]

10 hours ago, IntentAwesome said:

Interesting thoughts on the mistspren. I had not associated them with Truthwatcher spren. I had wondered if they were actually not fully formed Honorspren, by the more simplistic way they often behaved. But that could be from not speaking Alethi. 

What do you think their association with the Honorspren is? 

I didn't see anything to suggest them being not fully formed Honorspren, they seem pretty visually distinct.

[Patrick Star]

One concern I have is Ym's spren.  He uses regrowth, so he was a proto-Edgedancer or Truthwatcher, but his spren doesn't really fit into your categories from what I can tell.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[Leyrann]

43 minutes ago, Patrick Star said:

One concern I have is Ym's spren.  He uses regrowth, so he was a proto-Edgedancer or Truthwatcher, but his spren doesn't really fit into your categories from what I can tell.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

He was going to be a Truthwatcher.

Did @WeiryWriter account for Glys being corrupted?

Edit: Lol I meant to include a link to WoB here but forgot to actually do so after looking up the WoB. Not gonna bother looking it up again unless someone asks me to.

Edited November 14, 2017 by Leyrann

[WeiryWriter]

Ym's spren would be a mistspren, as he was a proto-Truthwatcher. It matches the description of the Physical Ream form in my post.

I did not include Glys in this, but his Physical Realm form is vaguely reminiscent of normal mistspren, only red and with shards of glass growing instead of plants.

[rdog2213]

Did anyone else think it odd that Venli's spren (Timbre) was initially found near Eshonai's body? I think that either Eshonai was close to swearing her oaths as a KR before the whole stormform debacle or, moving into wild speculation territory, that spren was some remnant of Eshonai like her Cognitive Shadow or soul. Either one makes sense to me since Eshonai fits the underlying values of the Willshapers (general love of adventure, novelty, or oddity) perfectly whereas Venli doesn't fit them quite as much. I guess the whole searching for voidspren thing could fall under that but it seems more Eshonai's thing than Venli.

While reading, I was pretty certain it was the latter and we'd get a big reveal that Timbre = Eshonai but it does make more sense for Timbre to be the missing lightspren mentioned by the captain so perhaps the former is more likely. Kind of a similar situation to what Wit did in the epilogue with Elhokar's presumed spren.

Edited November 14, 2017 by rdog2213

[WeiryWriter]

2 hours ago, rdog2213 said:

Did anyone else think it odd that Venli's spren (Timbre) was initially found near Eshonai's body? I think that either Eshonai was close to swearing her oaths as a KR before the whole stormform debacle or, moving into wild speculation territory, that spren was some remnant of Eshonai like her Cognitive Shadow or soul. Either one makes sense to me since Eshonai fits the underlying values of the Willshapers (general love of adventure, novelty, or oddity) perfectly whereas Venli doesn't fit them quite as much. I guess the whole searching for voidspren thing could fall under that but it seems more Eshonai's thing than Venli.

While reading, I was pretty certain it was the latter and we'd get a big reveal that Timbre = Eshonai but it does make more sense for Timbre to be the missing lightspren mentioned by the captain so perhaps the former is more likely. Kind of a similar situation to what Wit did in the epilogue with Elhokar's presumed spren.

Since we do see Timbre hanging around Eshonai during WoR I am sceptical of her being Eshonai's Cognitive shadow.

[rdog2213]

Hmm... I totally missed a spren hanging around Eshonai in WoR and that would definitely eliminate the Timbre=Eshonai theory. Guess I need to reread those interludes...

[Windrunner]

I'm curious if the Stoneward spren might be named keenspren? Wyndle made a garden for some of them, and there has been no indication that there are conscious spren aside from our nine types and then the larger spren like the Stormfather. It'd be odd to me if there were fully self-aware spren that are not associated with an order of Radiants.

[Pagerunner]

I'm having a hard time reconciling CR mistspren/ PR Truthwatcher spren, and CR lightsprean / PR comet spren. The five kinds of spren we have seen in both Physical and Cognitive Realms have been extremely similar across Realms - in the case of Syl and Ivory, pretty much just a smaller version. I don't think that those ones match.

The comet spren... there's something very odd about it. It speaks to Rhythms, even before Venli has bonded it. None of the other spren do that.

If I were in a crazy mood, I'd say that mistspren sound like something that came over from Scadrial. But it would take quite a series of events to get Scadrian splinters serving Rosharan honorspren.

[mistlepro]

I don't think we've got listener POVs to even tell if they've seen any other surgebinding spren so far.

IIRC we have reason to believe surgebinding spren used to bind listeners all the time before humans arrived It would make sense if all the spren could actually speak to Rhythms.

Edited November 16, 2017 by mistlepro
Clarification

[FirstSelector]

I agree, full stop.  I was in the process of collecting my own thoughts and doing a literature search, only to discover that not only did you use the same quotes, you gave the Dustbringer spren the same name I did.

I also agree with Windrunner's point that the only sentient spren are involved with Radiants.

[Argent]

On 11/13/2017 at 11:04 PM, WeiryWriter said:

• Physical Form: Miniature version of their Cognitive Form.

Small correction, Ivory can change his size in the Physical Realm. We've seen him human-sized a couple of times.

On 11/15/2017 at 4:14 PM, Pagerunner said:

The comet spren... there's something very odd about it. It speaks to Rhythms, even before Venli has bonded it. None of the other spren do that.

I've been thinking about this, and I think that spren just speak whatever language the person they bond with speaks, but Timbre is still too weak of mind in the Physical Realm, so... it? communicates more simply. It's not a perfectly satisfactory explanation of what's going on, but I think it's a true one.

[FirstSelector]

That seems pretty reasonable, Argent.  It matches how Pattern was reduced to simple words and humming with Shallan in the early days after their renewed bond.

Alternatively, the listener-spren Nahel bond might be piggybacking on built-in stuff for listeners, so perhaps they are Connected differently.

[ScavellTane]

Mayalaran = Stoneward spren.

[Pagerunner]

1 hour ago, ScavellTane said:

Mayalaran = Stoneward spren.

We've known for a couple years now that Maya was an Edgedancer's spren.

[Fifth of Daybreak]

12 hours ago, Argent said:

Small correction, Ivory can change his size in the Physical Realm. We've seen him human-sized a couple of times.

I've been thinking about this, and I think that spren just speak whatever language the person they bond with speaks, but Timbre is still too weak of mind in the Physical Realm, so... it? communicates more simply. It's not a perfectly satisfactory explanation of what's going on, but I think it's a true one.

This definitely makes the most sense to me. We know that Connection allows you to translate into other people's languages, and what is a bond between a spren and their radiant other than increased Connection? When Kaladin strays from his oaths, Syl is obviously still able to form thoughts and concepts but has difficulty communicating them, which to me is reminiscent of a person having a stroke and experiencing expressive aphasia. Pattern seems to show the same sort of communication deficit when Shallan is having her problems with Veil and Radiant. The further down the rabbit hole that Shallan goes, the less verbalized patterns warnings get and the more he is reduced to just humming to bring her back to herself. I think this is fairly good evidence that the connection between the spren and the radiant is breaking down and is disrupting their connection and therefore their ability to use their radiant's language

[yulerule]

On 11/15/2017 at 5:14 PM, Pagerunner said:

I'm having a hard time reconciling CR mistspren/ PR Truthwatcher spren, and CR lightsprean / PR comet spren. The five kinds of spren we have seen in both Physical and Cognitive Realms have been extremely similar across Realms - in the case of Syl and Ivory, pretty much just a smaller version. I don't think that those ones match.

 

I agree with this. At first I also thought that the comet spren was Willshaper, but if the Reachers are willshaper spren, there's no commonality in looks, which exists to a high degree in all other confirmed CR-->PR looks.

[WeiryWriter]

On 11/14/2017 at 8:04 PM, Windrunner said:

I'm curious if the Stoneward spren might be named keenspren? Wyndle made a garden for some of them, and there has been no indication that there are conscious spren aside from our nine types and then the larger spren like the Stormfather. It'd be odd to me if there were fully self-aware spren that are not associated with an order of Radiants.

I know we've talked about this elsewhere but I just want to get this in this thread. Logically I find this highly probable. I'm also resistant to the idea that there are varieties of true spren that do not participate in the Nahel bond.

On 11/15/2017 at 5:14 PM, Pagerunner said:

I'm having a hard time reconciling CR mistspren/ PR Truthwatcher spren, and CR lightsprean / PR comet spren. The five kinds of spren we have seen in both Physical and Cognitive Realms have been extremely similar across Realms - in the case of Syl and Ivory, pretty much just a smaller version. I don't think that those ones match.

The comet spren... there's something very odd about it. It speaks to Rhythms, even before Venli has bonded it. None of the other spren do that.

If I were in a crazy mood, I'd say that mistspren sound like something that came over from Scadrial. But it would take quite a series of events to get Scadrian splinters serving Rosharan honorspren.

I do agree that the mismatch between Physical and Cognitive forms is odd but at the very least I'm confident in the lightspren/comet spren connection. Timbre has to be the daughter of Captain Ico, who he has said has run off chasing dreams.

As for Timbre only speaking the rhythms, I concur with a lot of the discussion about it in this thread. She and Venli are still very early in their bond so its possible she just hasn't progressed enough. Alternatively the singer/spren Nahel bond might just simply be different.

Yeah I highly doubt the mistspren have any meaningful connection to Scadrial.

17 hours ago, FirstSelector said:

I agree, full stop.  I was in the process of collecting my own thoughts and doing a literature search, only to discover that not only did you use the same quotes, you gave the Dustbringer spren the same name I did.

I also agree with Windrunner's point that the only sentient spren are involved with Radiants.

Hehe I guess great minds think alike?

[soyperson]

So, re: Lightspren/Reachers and their possible connection to Timbre. The Lightspren on Ico's ship used vibrations through the copper lines to communicate, right? That could have some connection to Timbre's ability to attune to the Rhythms, if she really is a Lightspren. (The theory of Timbre being Ico's runaway daughter also fits quite nicely, excellent point.)

[Subvisual Haze]

On 11/13/2017 at 11:04 PM, WeiryWriter said:

Unknown (Stonewards)

• Cognitive Form: Humanoid with stone-like skin with cracks that shine with a molten light from within.
• Physical Form: Unknown.

So, funny thing about the Rockspren (just guessing on the name there).  While we haven't seen a True Spren form of one manifesting in the physical realm, we did have this physical description of the stone ardent soulcaster during Gavilar's funeral (immediately before he transformed Gavilar's corpse into stone):

Quote

The Soulcaster might have been male, might have been female.  Hard to say, with that hood up over their face.  The skin beneath was colored like granite, cracked and chipped, and seemed to glow from with.

...

"The only part of you that is true," the Soulcaster whispered, tapping a stone that had replaced one of the king's eyes.

This physical description is a stark match for the cognitive form of the stoneward spren.  We knew that the physical bodies of soulcasters become strange and more elemental with prolonged use (their eyes become gemlike in WOR, and the Soulcaster in the interlude trying to explore Amia seems to be becoming smoke), but is there something more happening here?  Does prolonged use of a single essence of a soulcaster transform a human into a True Spren?

[echaozh]

On 11/15/2017 at 9:04 AM, Windrunner said:

I'm curious if the Stoneward spren might be named keenspren? Wyndle made a garden for some of them, and there has been no indication that there are conscious spren aside from our nine types and then the larger spren like the Stormfather. It'd be odd to me if there were fully self-aware spren that are not associated with an order of Radiants.

I think the Keenspren are more likely the spren for Truthwatchers. First, they like gardens, and TW spren tend to have plants growing from their light in the PR. Secondly, Watchers do have to be keen, right?

[echaozh]

11 hours ago, Subvisual Haze said:

So, funny thing about the Rockspren (just guessing on the name there).  While we haven't seen a True Spren form of one manifesting in the physical realm, we did have this physical description of the stone ardent soulcaster during Gavilar's funeral (immediately before he transformed Gavilar's corpse into stone):

This physical description is a stark match for the cognitive form of the stoneward spren.  We knew that the physical bodies of soulcasters become strange and more elemental with prolonged use (their eyes become gemlike in WOR, and the Soulcaster in the interlude trying to explore Amia seems to be becoming smoke), but is there something more happening here?  Does prolonged use of a single essence of a soulcaster transform a human into a True Spren?

I think the a soulcaster who continuously soulcasts things into one specific element will slowly become that element, since the command to transform into that element has been heard and subconsciously followed by her own soul. They're not turning into spren.

[mostgratuitous]

On 11/30/2017 at 9:57 AM, Ookla the Melodious said:

So, re: Lightspren/Reachers and their possible connection to Timbre. The Lightspren on Ico's ship used vibrations through the copper lines to communicate, right? That could have some connection to Timbre's ability to attune to the Rhythms, if she really is a Lightspren. (The theory of Timbre being Ico's runaway daughter also fits quite nicely, excellent point.)

I'm convinced that she is Ico's daughter. She mentions to Eshonai in Part V that her (Timbre's) grandfather was killed by a broken bond. Ico's father is in the hold. It fits.