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Living shardplate and arrows


Wayniac

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While we did have the Half Shard fabrial bows from Vedenar, Kaladin did wonder whether bows & arrows were possible to form...

Edit: err, does Half Shard only refer to the shields? If someone could refresh me on this

Edited by Honorless
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1 hour ago, Honorless said:

While we did have the Half Shard fabrial bows from Vedenar, Kaladin did wonder whether bows & arrows were possible to form...

Edit: err, does Half Shard only refer to the shields? If someone could refresh me on this

Half-Shards are the fabrial shields, Grandbows are the fabrial bows. :)

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55 minutes ago, Truthwatcher_17.5 said:

Hhhm, what about the spren turning into a "shardarrow" and then shooting it out of a grandbow or even just a longbow

You could but you could only shoot one arrow at a time.  Also even with broadheaded arrows you are still limited in the amount of damage you are doing.

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1 hour ago, Ookla the Prolific said:

You could but you could only shoot one arrow at a time.  Also even with broadheaded arrows you are still limited in the amount of damage you are doing.

It's true you'd only have one arrow, but that arrow would have the same properties as a Shardblade so it would just blast through ranks of soldiers going through armor and flesh like nothing.

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Hmm... An interesting idea.

I'm inclined to think the radiant spren could form into either a bow or an arrow, but thus far, we've seen no solid evidence that they can form into two, discontinuous shapes. Also, since they only seem able to form metallic objects, I don't know whether the bow would be able to actually be drawn. 

However, we know that the spren can form relatively small objects (i.e. shardforks) which could hypothetically be shot. I see nothing that would stop radiants from simply shooting a Shard Arrow at an enemy, then resummoning and reshooting it after the damage is done. Given this possibility, there seems to be little need for forming a shard-bow rather than using a normal bow. The main advantage of shard-weapons (their ability to cut through anything) would be underutilized in a Shardbow.  (On the other hand, such a bow would not wear out, but this would only be a minor concern.) 

If you were also able to make arrows using lesser spren, then I suppose you would gain a slight advantage in being able to fire more arrows without having to wait for your Radiant spren to return (though you would have to able to reload and shoot awfully fast for that to make a difference). However, given that plate appears to not be summonable like shardblades, I'm inclined to think this would be a very bad idea. Sure, you could send armor piercing projectiles at your enemies, but those uninjured could then pick up and use those weapons. I think this would be poor strategy, since you would be handing them some of the only weapons that could pierce your own armor.

In addition, if such arrows existed, they would be very powerful weapons, capable of potentially harming shard-bearers. They would also likely be difficult to destroy. Wouldn't we expect at least some to persist to the modern day? 

Personally, I speculate that shardplate is forged or made in some way, possibly out of lesser spren, and that this ability is granted by the fourth oath (for most orders).

Thus, I'm inclined to agree with your speculation that such arrows could be made. I'm just not sure if the Radiants would want to use them. 

 

Slight Tangent: Out of curiosity, does anyone think that the following Words of Radiance epigraph could be referring to making shardplate?

 

Quote

The considerable abilities of the Skybreakers for making such amounted to an almost divine skill, for which no specific Surge or spren grants capacity, but however the order came to such an aptitude, the fact of it was real and acknowledged even by their rivals.

Some have suggested that this "making" is referring to "making judgments that separate the innocent from the guilty;" however, I'm disinclined to think "their rivals" (particularly Windrunners and Dustbringers) would agree that their judgments were good. In addition, the following Word of Brandon says they do not have such an ability. 

 

Quote

 

Slowswift

Similar to how Lightweavers have, kind of really good memories. Do the Skybreakers have any special abilities for telling guilty and innocent people apart?

Brandon Sanderson

No. Good question.

Oathbringer release party (Nov. 13, 2017)

 

 
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2 hours ago, Fractalfire said:

I'm inclined to think the radiant spren could form into either a bow or an arrow, but thus far, we've seen no solid evidence that they can form into two, discontinuous shapes.

They cannot.

2 hours ago, Fractalfire said:

appears to not be summonable like shardblades

It is for radiants.

I do not think that shardplate can cut like shardblades.  Otherwise radiant plate would have a bunch of spikes on it so that you could just walk through the enemy.  A single shard arrow could do a considerable amount of damage but it would have a slow reload time and gut or chest wounds might not be lethal.

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Well, given how Shardblades are absurdly lightweight for their size, a normal sized arrow would be like shooting a feather. However, the shape-shifting nature of a shardblade means you could manifest unique and unusual arrowhead shapes, like a wide, crescent shape that's designed to cut a wide distance as it flies.

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2 minutes ago, Halyo_Alex said:

Well, given how Shardblades are absurdly lightweight for their size, a normal sized arrow would be like shooting a feather. However, the shape-shifting nature of a shardblade means you could manifest unique and unusual arrowhead shapes, like a wide, crescent shape that's designed to cut a wide distance as it flies.

Good luck making a decent shot with that.  Shardblades might be lightweight but they still have mass.

Edited by Ookla the Prolific
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1 minute ago, Ookla the Prolific said:

They cannot.

It is for radiants.

I do not think that shardplate can cut like shardblades.  Otherwise radiant plate would have a bunch of spikes on it so that you could just walk through the enemy.  A single shard arrow could do a considerable amount of damage but it would have a slow reload time and gut or chest wounds might not be lethal.

Could you please provide quotes or Wob for the shardplate statement? Any sources you've seen that I haven't would be nice to know about. 

I checked to see whether we had any confirmation that shardplate could be summoned before posting and found nothing solid in either coppermind or arcanum. The best I saw was that ancient shardbearers could instantaneously retract their visors, but that isn't proof that the armor can be summoned. The fact that dead shardblades can be summoned, but not (as far as we know) plate, seems to imply that there may have been differences.

 

I see you are correct about the spren being unable to form two discontinuous objects. I should have double-checked before posting.

 

Quote

 

Questioner

On the nature of shardblades, to an extent, can a live blade be split without harming it's source, so to speak?

Brandon Sanderson

Can a live blade split? What do you mean, split?

Questioner

Make itself into two weapons.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, can a blade be forged into two weapons. A shardblade.

Questioner

Does it absolutely need a connection, or can it become two?

Brandon Sanderson

So, shardblades becoming two shardblades would require slicing in half a soul, which would not be very fun for the spren. Okay?

Questioner

So it's possible. *laughter*

Brandon Sanderson

So it's technically possible to take hydrogen and to turn it into plutonium with our current technology. It would cost more money than, like, the budget of NASA to do it for, y'know, one atom. So there are things that are possible, but-- Yes it is possible. This is not something that would be easy or very useful to do.

Arcanum Unbounded San Francisco signing (Nov. 30, 2016)

 

 
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23 minutes ago, Fractalfire said:

I checked to see whether we had any confirmation that shardplate could be summoned before posting and found nothing solid in either coppermind or arcanum. The best I saw was that ancient shardbearers could instantaneously retract their visors, but that isn't proof that the armor can be summoned. The fact that dead shardblades can be summoned, but not (as far as we know) plate, seems to imply that there may have been differences.

and in the visions the Windrunner tells Dalinar "you have not summoned your armor yet" in OB.

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5 hours ago, Ookla the Prolific said:

A single shard arrow could do a considerable amount of damage but it would have a slow reload time and gut or chest wounds might not be lethal.

Hm hadn't considered that it might not be lethal.

5 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

Well, given how Shardblades are absurdly lightweight for their size, a normal sized arrow would be like shooting a feather. However, the shape-shifting nature of a shardblade means you could manifest unique and unusual arrowhead shapes, like a wide, crescent shape that's designed to cut a wide distance as it flies.

This might work for a short range.

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2 hours ago, Truthwatcher_17.5 said:

 brought up. Why not a shard javelin, boomerang, heck even a frisbee. It would be light enough you could throw it as far as you want.

All of these seem like much better options.  A well thrown shard-boomerang has some amazing possibilities.  Also you could Captain America with a frisbee and have your shield go right through them!

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On 12/22/2019 at 10:30 AM, Fractalfire said:

In addition, if such arrows existed, they would be very powerful weapons, capable of potentially harming shard-bearers. They would also likely be difficult to destroy. Wouldn't we expect at least some to persist to the modern day? 

There's a WoB that says that when living shardblades die they default to a sword shape because they are based on honorblades. Maybe all the armor-spren defaulted to shardplate when they died.

 

And I think the "nearly divine skill" of the Skybreakers was a joking way of saying they argued a lot with the other orders. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 12/23/2019 at 3:32 PM, Knight of Potatallia said:

There's a WoB that says that when living shardblades die they default to a sword shape because they are based on honorblades. Maybe all the armor-spren defaulted to shardplate when they died.

 

And I think the "nearly divine skill" of the Skybreakers was a joking way of saying they argued a lot with the other orders. 

That definitely makes sense. 

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On 12/23/2019 at 3:32 PM, Knight of Potatallia said:

And I think the "nearly divine skill" of the Skybreakers was a joking way of saying they argued a lot with the other orders. 

It was.  The rest of the line makes it clear when they say that no spren or surge grants them that ability.

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